After 15 years and $500m, the US Navy decides it doesn't need shipboard railguns after all

[Klaralven]

After more than 15 years of R&D, and half a billion dollars of funding, the United States Navy has decided to give up on the prospect of mounting enormous railguns on its ships. For the moment, at least.

The project was intended to produce a mighty weapon which could fire projectiles at Mach 7 at targets over 100 miles (161km) away, using electromagnets rather than chemical reactions to propel them. But fresh from deliberately creating a 3.9-magnitude earthquake 100 miles (161km) off the coast of Florida to rattle the windows on its latest aircraft carrier, the Navy has decided it can no longer spare the money for continued research.

"Given fiscal constraints, combat system integration challenges and the prospective technology maturation of other weapon concepts, the Navy decided to pause research and development of the Electromagnetic Railgun [EMRG] at the end of 2021," it said.

Despite producing a weapon that undoubtedly worked to some extent, the programme had been plagued with technological and practical difficulties (see video below).

https://www.theregister.com/2021/07/07/us_navy_railguns/

[Thomas Hurt]

1. I think they need to turn this over to Space Force for their starships and sh*t.

[Hugh_Lebowski]

2. Our Space Force Starships already have them, how else do you think Photon Torpedoes are propelled?

Duh ...

[Hugin]

12. The MCRN Donnager had TWO of them...

Pew! Pew! Pew!

Icka icka icka zih-tang! BOOM!

It didn't help.

[UTUSN]

3. Well, bureaucracy is a beast

[marble falls]

4. That's nothing. Take a peek at the F-35 fighter plane cluster. Trillion dollar+ boondoggle.

Not content with F-35 debacle, the Navy is now working on ...
[Search domain taskandpurpose.com] https://taskandpurpose.com/news/navy-next-generation-air-dominance-f-35/
Not content with F-35 debacle, the Navy is now working on a brand new fighter jet. The Defense Department may not have finished working out all the kinks in the ultra-expensive and perpetually ...


Ronald Reagan made this baby.

[malaise]

9. MIC must be fed

That is all

[marble falls]

10. The US has the wherewithal to do immense difference for the good. All we do is make fewer ...

... and fewer people richer and richer.

[malaise]

11. Indeed

and they get greedier and greedier

[ansible]

5. Energy weapons simply don't make sense without a better power source

Assuming humanity doesn't wipe itself out soon, we're gonna be using primitive chemical-based projectile weapons for a very, very long time.

[GregariousGroundhog]

6. I'm okay with this

I'm okay if the Pentagon wants to spend a couple billion dollars a year on research and development. Some things will pan out and other things will not, that's the way things go.

[hunter]

7. Aircraft carriers themselves are rather useless these days...

... the twenty first century version of the Maginot Line.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maginot_Line

In any case we now live in a world with a single unified economy that's extremely brittle.

We've gone beyond MAD, Mutually Assured Destruction by atomic weapons, into a place where even minor disturbances can take down governments and kill millions of people.

There can be no "superpowers" in this environment.

[Klaralven]

8. After the next major war, there won't be a country with an intact economy to launch a Marshall Plan

Economies of the combatants will have to do a "cold restart" without help from the outside.

I don't think that the politicians realize the danger yet. It hasn't seemed to modify foreign policy thinking.

[DVRacer]

15. Carrier Battle Groups are one of the few things that make sense.

If you consider what they are truly capable of not just making war. From peace keeping to humanitarian missions our ability to to have an entire city with hospitals and air traffic control move in at a few days notice. The galley can produce 20,000 hot meals three times a day from the carrier alone include all ships in the battle group 50,000. The search and rescue function has shown itself after tsunamis and hurricanes with a runway for relief supplies after earthquakes. After Andrew a single carrier managed most all air traffic to south Florida for nearly two months.

[hunter]

18. It's difficult to imagine a more expensive means of delivering humanitarian aid.

Maybe a revival of the Space Shuttle? You could deliver 30,000 pounds of rice and beans to anyplace in the world that had a 7,500 foot runway and TACAN or DME support.

w

Wouldn't that be exciting!

5, 4, 3, 2, 1, Thunderbirds Are Go!

I'm fascinated by the technology of aircraft carriers and fighter aircraft, and I harbor no ill will to their crews, but they are no defense against the existential threats of the 21st century.

Technology developed for aircraft carriers, specifically nuclear power, and recently the conversion of oceanic carbon dioxide into fuels, are possibly the means by which we will quit fossil fuels entirely.

[PCIntern]

13. Call Israel and get some Space Lasers.

[Paladin]

14. I'm sure there are plenty of domestic police departments that would be interested.

Wish I was kidding, but of course I'm completely serious.

[Amishman]

16. I'm disappointed, I'd rather see money spent new tech R&D

That $500 million is the cost of five F35 jets. I'd rather it be spent on groundbreaking R&D than on adding a few more identical toys to the military's already overstuffed toy box.

[SYFROYH]

17. Its cool technology, but funding priorities happen