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Navy Testing Super Fast Gun in 2016 By Lt Cmdr Martin Holguin April 11, 2014
The Navy is currently arranging trials of a super fast gun at sea. The weapon is set to be tested in 2016 and fires a 23-‐pound, low-‐cost projectile at seven times the speed of sound. The Navy is excited about this new “space age” technology that uses electromagnetic energy, as it will definitely be a convincing deterrent to the nations enemies.
The new electromagnetic rail gun has already gone through many rounds of testing on land and will start sea trials in 2016. To conduct the sea trials the new weapon will be put on a high-‐speed vessel called the USNS Millinocket. The chief of Naval Research, Rear Admiral Matthew Klunder is in charge of communicating details of the process and progress of the new weapon with industry and military leaders at the Sea-‐Air-‐Space Exposition. He says of the technology, “It’s now reality and it’s not science fiction. It’s actually real. You can look at it. It’s firing…It will help us in air defense, it will help us in cruise missile defense, it will help us in ballistic missile defense…We’re also talking about a gun that’s going to shoot a projectile that’s about one one-‐hundredth of the cost of an existing missile system today.” The price difference is a huge advantage to the technology. A railgun projectile costs about $25,000 as compared to up to $1.5 million for a missile. This will save the military money as well as help keep U.S. forces out of combat, which saves both money and precious lives. Klunder also notes that the new technology helps to keep potential threats at bay, that it “will give our adversaries a huge moment of pause to go: ‘Do I even want to engage a naval ship? You could throw anything at us, frankly, and the fact that we now can shoot a number of these rounds at a very affordable cost, it’s my opinion that they don’t win.” Some have expressed concerns that if we tighten the budget for defense that is given to our armed forces we could lose our technological edge over other world superpowers like China and Russia. New technology like this electromagnetic rail gun helps to keep the U.S. above its rivals because of its cost effectiveness and how many rounds it can fire as compared to missiles. This new gun uses the electromagnetic energy to push a projectile between two conductive rails. It uses the powerful electric pulse to create a magnetic field that limits recoil. This weapon is able to travel over 100 miles, at a speed greater than Mach 7. It is an impressive
and important weapon for the Navy to have in their fleet. Sea trials for the weapon begin in 2016 and the Navy plans to integrate them onto warships by 2018. Lt Cmdr Martin Holguin has served in the United States Navy since 1999 aboard five U.S. warships in positions ranging from division officer to commanding officer. He also served with the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group as a Director Fellow. Martin is currently a prospective EMBA candidate at the University of Notre Dame, where he will graduate from in May. For fun and for fitness, Martin enjoys ocean swimming as well as distance running along the coast.