The Navy’s Giant Electromagnetic Railgun Looks Terrifyingly Powerful

The Navy’s Giant Electromagnetic Railgun Looks Terrifyingly Powerful

The year was 1132 and Chen Gui used a device called the fire lance in order to defend De’an from attacking forces of the Jurchen Jin, and this is the oldest documented use of a device that we all commonly refer to as a cannon.
Granted they have come a long way from those ancient Chinese battles, but the basic principle of using gun powder to create an explosion which launches a projectile towards the enemy has remained the same for all these years.
Lately however, the US Navy has spent huge quantities of their research and development budget in order to change this basic principle which has been established for all the artillery pieces.
Their project is called an Electromagnetic Railgun, and instead of gunpowder, it uses, well you guessed it, magnets, to propel a projectile at insane speeds (Mach 6 or about 4,500mph) out of the business end of their weapon.
We have been hearing about this upcoming weapon for years now, but it seems the Navy always has some tweaking to do, and the biggest drawback is still the fact that this weapon requires the same amount of electricity as 19,000 homes.
This time, we bring you an amazing video of this very powerful weapon in action, enjoy.