In the 2009 Hollywood blockbuster Transformers: Age of Extinction, the USS Arleigh Burke class destroyer USS Kidd (DDG-100) used its electromagnetic guns to bombard the Tyrannosaurus Rex, who was digging for the Sun Destroyer at the top of the pyramid, in an impressive scene.
Nowadays, this "big killer" that only exists in science fiction movies has become a reality. China recently released the "electromagnetic fire extinguishing device" developed by the Second Research Institute of China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation, which is actually a civilian version of an electromagnetic cannon.
Artillery is known as the "God of War". There is a saying in the field of history that the birth of artillery destroyed the castles of European feudal aristocrats, accelerating the disintegration of the European feudal system and the development of capitalism.
However, after hundreds of years of baptism, although artillery is still old and strong, even the US Army, which has been spoiled by air support for a long time, has recently begun to increase its artillery in order to counter China. However, the development of traditional artillery technology has already stagnated.
In fact, in the 1970s, major military powers around the world began exploring the next generation of artillery technology, such as precision guided shells developed from ammunition, which improved hit accuracy in exchange for improved strike efficiency. The M982 Excalibur precision guided shell equipped with the Global Positioning System (GPS) by the US Army is a representative of this technology; Starting from the propellant of artillery, the range and power of artillery can be improved by increasing the initial velocity and kinetic energy of the muzzle. For example, the electric thermal chemical gun, which was once a prominent technology, uses electrical energy to excite the propellant and launch projectiles.
However, whether it is traditional propellants or propellants for electric thermal chemical guns, they essentially use chemical energy to launch projectiles. Currently, the field of chemical energy propellants has long been in a bottleneck, and a new system of electromagnetic guns has emerged as a result.
Electromagnetic guns directly abandon traditional propellants or propellants, discard chemical energy that has reached a bottleneck, and use magnetic force generated by electrical energy to launch projectiles, thereby achieving high kinetic energy and high initial velocity at the muzzle to improve strike efficiency.
Electromagnetic guns are divided into two major technological routes, one is the coil gun publicly displayed by China, and the other is the electromagnetic railgun shown in Transformers 2.
A coil gun consists of one or more coils arranged along the barrel, which open or close at precise times to accelerate the projectile along the barrel through magnetic force. The larger the caliber, the gun; the smaller the caliber, the gun.
The prototype of the electromagnetic coil gun was invented as early as the 19th century. In the 1930s, American Virgil Rigsby developed a fixed coil gun, hoping to use it like a machine gun, but it never attracted the military's interest.
It is precisely because electromagnetic coil guns have been around for a long time that the technical threshold for entry-level electromagnetic coil guns is not high. The United States has already achieved success in this field, such as the electromagnetic fire extinguishing device demonstrated by China and the coil mortar from the United States.
Of course, the low threshold for entry-level technology only means that its lower limit is low, but it does not mean that its upper limit is also low. Whether it is China's electromagnetic fire extinguishing bomb device or the United States' coil mortar muzzle velocity, they are relatively low, even in traditional artillery. The purpose of developing electromagnetic artillery in various countries is to improve muzzle velocity and even reach hypersonic speed, in order to break through the performance bottleneck of traditional artillery. The electromagnetic coil artillery currently displayed by China and the United States is more about showing off muscles.
Compared to electromagnetic coil guns, the technical threshold for electromagnetic railguns is much higher. Taking the United States as an example, its electromagnetic railgun project has a muzzle velocity target of 6 Mach, which is 6 times the speed of sound and exceeds 2000 meters per second. Compared to coil mortars, the muzzle velocity of coil mortars is significantly higher below the speed of sound, and the technical difficulty increases exponentially.
Also because of the high technical difficulty, when Türkiye released the electromagnetic gun test video in 2018, the outside world believed that it was a coil gun rather than a rail gun, and only China and the United States had made achievements in this field.
Electromagnetic railguns use the Lorentz force generated by electric current to accelerate projectiles and move them along parallel rails: the projectile is sandwiched between two rails, and the electric current flows from the rail through the projectile to the other rail, generating a strong magnetic field in the process. The magnetic field interacts with the electric current to accelerate the projectile.
The concept of electromagnetic railgun was first proposed by French scientists in the early 20th century, who created small working models. During World War II, German military experts proposed the first theoretically feasible railgun, but it was never built.
In the 1980s, the US Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory located at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland began theoretical and engineering research on railguns, which was included in a long-term research plan. Subsequently, the US Navy and Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency joined in.
Since 2005, the US Navy has tested at least two different types of electromagnetic guns, one from BAE Systems in the UK and the other from General Atomic Energy in the US.
The US Navy once planned to equip the Zumwalt class destroyer with electromagnetic railguns, but it was unsuccessful. Interestingly, two research budgets related to electromagnetic guns in the US Navy's 2022 fiscal year budget were zero, stating that "all electromagnetic gun technologies will be upgraded to maximize their technological sustainability and promote their potential future uses.
Simply put, the current technological difficulty is too great to handle, and we can wait until the technology advances in the future. This means that the US Navy has suspended the electromagnetic gun project.
China's electromagnetic railgun was first exposed on a landing ship equipped with a test turret, indicating that China is testing the electromagnetic railgun on a landing ship platform.
According to Jane's Defense Weekly, China successfully completed preliminary tests of its electromagnetic gun in 2018. In 2018, an engineer from a Chinese National Defense Research Institute also revealed to China's Science and Technology Daily that they were developing a system that would combine a magnetic railgun with a missile complex.
Overall, the Chinese electromagnetic railgun is still highly confidential, and the progress of research and development is unknown. However, judging from the fact that China's third aircraft carrier is equipped with an electromagnetic catapult system, the only two countries in the world that have mastered electromagnetic catapult technology, China and the United States, are also the top tier in the global electromagnetic railgun research field. The electromagnetic catapult is essentially a low-level electromagnetic railgun.
In addition, from the perspective of electromagnetic catapults being mounted on ships in China and the United States, both countries have already mastered the technology required for electromagnetic guns to be mounted on ships, such as the comprehensive power system of ships. Only when the electromagnetic guns are mature can they be mounted on ships for practical installation.
Compared to the military applications of electromagnetic guns, the reason why China and the United States are vigorously researching them is also due to their application in the aerospace field, such as using electromagnetic guns to directly launch satellites into space orbit, launching supplies for space stations, and so on. Compared to current rocket launches, their convenience has doubled.
Of course, the resulting instantaneous power demand, protection issues under high load conditions, and engineering and technical problems of electromagnetic guns themselves will also increase exponentially.
Source: Guoke Huanyu