The Navy Wants to Kill the Railgun: Here’s Why We Can’t Let it
The Importance of the Railgun to the Future of Warfare
The following is an essay I wrote in 2021 regarding the U.S. Navy’s decision to effectively stop development of the railgun, a weapon that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles.
The Navy Wants to Kill the Railgun: Here’s Why We Can’t Let it
The U.S. Navy has decided to end their $500 million, decade-and a half, much vaunted railgun project amid numerous technical and administrative difficulties. When the project began, railguns were hailed as a technological game-changer capable of hurling projectiles at Mach 7 at distances over 100 miles; the Navy has for years been testing this technology in the hopes of one day mounting it on a warship and thus allowing for a massive leap forward in long-range projectile warfare. Despite a number of successful trials and public demonstrations, the project appears destined for the R&D graveyard, as the Navy in its 2022 budget request asked for $10 million to kill the project entirely. However, we should not let the Navy usher this technology quietly into extinction; railgun technology is too important across a number of domains for development to cease.
The Navy’s primary interest in this technology was as a long-range precision fire weapon that promised more range, cheaper projectiles, and delivery at never-before seen speeds. However, while this is popularly known as the main application, railgun technology has potential across numerous domains of warfare. For example, the Army has for years expressed a desire to develop railgun technology for use on land. It promised a more efficient and cost-effective artillery system that could operate at greater distances, function in all types of weather, and deliver more precision fire at a greater rate than existing systems. Railguns also have potential as a land-to-air defense system that could be utilized in a manner similar to the Israeli Iron Dome (link) to take down incoming rocket, mortar, or artillery fire.
Contractors like General Atomics have been R&Ding this technology on their own dime in the hopes of escaping the military’s labyrinthine development process and presenting a fully-fledged system for acquisition. Other, smaller companies have embarked on their own railgun projects, like the GR-1 “Anvil” from Arcflash, the world’s first handheld Gauss gun (a conceptual cousin of the railgun that utilizes coils instead of rails to launch a projectile).
While a combat-ready handheld railgun may seem far-fetched at the present moment, a quick search of ‘railgun’ on YouTube will immediately show ordinary people giving demonstrations of commercially available Gauss guns like the GR-1 “Anvil” launching small metal rods or discs at distances over 50 meters that penetrate ballistic gel and obliterate watermelons. These videos are often humorous and may seem silly to the casual observer but represent a viable proof-of-concept for railguns as personal weapons systems.
Even if it may never be feasible to mount a railgun on a warship or equip a soldier with his own personal railgun, continued development is still a worthwhile project in that it has the demonstrated potential to advance our work on hyper-velocity projectile warfare. Part of the U.S. Navy’s rationale for killing the railgun project was to shift focus towards the advancement of hyper-veloctiy projectiles that can be shot out of conventional naval guns, projectiles that were developed for the railgun.
Unfortunately, it appears as if the U.S. military does not share the visions of these individuals and companies and is willing to cede the lead on the development of this technology. The U.S. is not the only country developing railgun technology; India and China have successfully tested railguns, with plans to deploy them operationally in as little as a decade. As recently as 2018 China was able to reportedly mount a railgun on a warship, something that the U.S. Navy has currently been unable to do. If the U.S. is willing to let countries such as China develop railgun technology as our own projects languish in R&D hell, we risk letting our adversaries gain a critical tactical advantage while also missing out on the future development of other potential applications of this technology.
Luckily, it appears that Congress also agrees that the continued development of railgun technology is important; when the U.S. Navy asked for $10 million to kill the project, Congress gave them the money (plus an extra $20 million) with an additional request: the Navy must explain to Congress why their $500 million dollar boondoggle has failed and what would need to happen for this project to actually succeed. Congress needs to maintain the political will to force advancement in this field lest we cede any potential developments in railgun technology to our adversaries and risk missing out on this game-changing technology. We must also begin to engage more with the private sector working on this technology; companies like Arcflash that are selling essentially novelty Gauss guns are using these proof-of-concept devices to generate revenue and further their own work on developing a prototype for a combat-ready personal railgun weapons system.
We are at a critical juncture in U.S. military history as our rivals desperately work to gain technological military advantages over us; China in particular has demonstrated time and again that they are willing to devote the massive amounts of funding and effort towards eclipsing the U.S. in fields like AI, quantum communications, and hypersonic missiles. Properly developed railgun technology could afford the U.S. unprecedented tactical advantages across numerous combat domains, and it would be an enormous mistake to let this potential slip away.