The Chinese have established to the ship unusual gun. It could be a railgun
Together with the weapon on the ship placed the three standard sea container.
Chinese large landing ship “Jianshang” type 072-III with a displacement of seven thousand tons have received an unusually large gun. According to Defense News, a new tool is supposedly the prototype of a railgun, the test which the sea may begin soon. If the new installation will actually be a railgun, China will become the first country to establish an instrument of this class on the ship and who brought it to sea for trials.
新しい写真、レールガンの全貌が明らかに pic.twitter.com/W8IHmRMDSg
— OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) February 1, 2018
Railgun is a weapon that uses electromagnetic acceleration of the projectile force. It a shell at the first stage of the shot is part of an electric circuit, moving between the two contact rails (hence the name gun). For the shot gun needs a short-term supply of high voltage and current, which could not provide simple connection to electrical network. China is developing its own railgun since the beginning of 2000-ies, and research in the area of electromagnetic weapons in General been conducted since the 1980s.
構造の予想図 pic.twitter.com/zgu8I2ZtJM
— OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) February 1, 2018
The first prototypes of the new weapons were created and tested in China, appeared in 2005. It was a small laboratory samples, are not suitable for scaling and production. In October last year, naval University of engineering Sciences of the people’s liberation army of China announced the development of technologies that can be used in the production of railgun. In particular, they talked about electromagnetic actuated shells. Other details about the new development was not specified.
Looks big piece mounted on a landing ship, not like any of the existing in China naval artillery systems. It is a tower with a gun, for which on deck “Giancana” there are three standard sea container. How notes portal by Navy Recognition, perhaps in the tower located the automatic loader guns. The containers may be placed energy system generators and the system of gun control. In addition, the superstructure of the landing ship also has a new element, which can be a radar fire control.
画質向上 pic.twitter.com/T60sT80YI2
— OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) February 2, 2018
It should be noted that usually to test a new ship weapons in China are used optovye ships of type 909/909A. All the Navy people’s liberation army of China has four such ships with a displacement of 4.5 thousand tons. Probably the necessity of placing new guns on the deck of the landing ship “Jianshang” due to the fact that his power plant could provide a possible railgun with enough energy, in contrast to the Type 909.
Earlier prototypes of military railguns introduced by American company General Atomics, and British BAE Systems. Railgun BAE Systems uses metal for firing kinetic projectiles with a mass of 16 kilograms. Muzzle energy of the gun is 32 megajoules. Prototype tools General Atomics has a muzzle energy of 33 megajoules. In July this year, the research Department of the Navy, in conjunction with BAE Systems has tested a railgun that is installed on the ground of “Dahlgren” in Virginia. During these tests the gun was first fired two shots in a row.
Currently developing railguns for the office of naval research the U.S. Navy is suspended; the military decide the fate of this project. It is possible that in the end, the decision on the termination of the project. The reason for the suspension of the project was the complexity of the weapon, its high energy requirement, low resource barrel of the railgun and the absence at the moment the fleet of ships, suitable for installation and testing of large-scale electromagnetic systems.