Will China Develop A Deadly Railgun Before America?

China's Electromagnetic Railgun

National Interest: Will China Develop a Deadly Railgun Before America (And Should Anyone Care)?

It could give the Chinese a technological edge, but repeatedly throughout history, it has been shown that being first doesn't mean best. It is always easier to "acquire" the technology and copy it, and then there are issues of whether such a weapon is worth the investment. Could the money be spent on other R&D or even hardware efforts?

Last month the United States Navy scaled back its efforts to develop and electromagnetic railgun (EMRG), a weapon that wouldn't be out of place in a futuristic science fiction movie or video game. To date the U.S. Navy has spent some $500 in RYD efforts. The Navy's EMRG project was first conceived in 2003.

Across the Pacific, Chinese efforts to develop a ship-mounted EMRG is still moving forward, and last year it was reported that such a weapon could be "capable of striking a target 124 miles away of speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second."

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WNU Editor: I cannot help but feel that history is repeating itself. It was only a few years ago that the U.S. scaled back on developing hypersonic weapons, and now they are in a rush to catch-up to Russia and China.

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