The U.S. Navy confirms it will continue developing electromagnetic railguns (EMRGs) for deployment aboard its warships in the future.
The affirmation in the Congressional Research Service report, "Navy Lasers, Railgun and Gun-Launched Guided Projectile: Background and Issues for Congress" is the first official document confirming the Navy continuing interest in developing this expensive and technologically demanding ship-based weapon.
The report also acknowledged progress is being made in developing solid state lasers (SSLs) and the gun-launched guided projectile (GLGP), otherwise known as the hypervelocity projectile (HVP).
It said all three new weapons can substantially improve the ability of Navy surface ships to defend themselves against enemy surface warships, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and the more lethal anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs).
The Office of Naval Research began developing the railgun in 2005. By 2012, a technology demonstrator railgun was firing HVPs at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division in Virginia.
In 2015, the Navy announced plans to test a railgun from the USNS Trenton, an expeditionary fast transport. By 2017, the Navy was talking about arming the USS Lyndon B. Johnson, a Zumwalt-class destroyer, with a railgun.
This destroyer was christened in April 2019. There is still the possibility it will be armed with an EMRG at a later date because of its superior electricity generation capability over previous destroyers and cruisers at 80 megawatts.
The Navy also seems intent on perfecting the railgun as the main armament of a new class of warship now under development. This new warship class, called the "large surface combatant," will eventually replace Ticonderoga-class cruisers. The Navy plans to buy the first of these warships in the late 2020s.
It hasn't released much details about this new warship because it still hasn't made up its mind as to what it really is. In August, Rear Adm. Paul Schlise, director of surface warfare, said the top-level requirements for the ship class will be forwarded to the chief of naval operations by the end of the year.
While the Navy's interest in the EMRG has waned somewhat, it's still committing annual funding for the project to perfect the weapon. Its fiscal 2021 budget submission requests $9.5 million for continued development of the railgun.
The funding allowed the Navy to continue development work on EMRG. It's unclear when production-model railguns will be installed on Navy warships.
A welcome offshoot of the EMRG development program was the discovery the GLGPs being developed for the EMRG could also be fired from traditional 5-inch guns on Navy cruisers and destroyers, and 155 mm artillery pieces operated by the Army and Marine Corps.
One huge advantage of the GLGP is that it can rapidly be deployed on Navy cruisers and destroyers and in Army and Marine Corps artillery units.
