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Japan Becomes 1st Country Ever To Fire Electromagnetic Railgun From An Offshore Vessel
(www.eurasiantimes.com)
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
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I could have sworn that the US navy has had experimental railguns on carriers for a while. I don't think they ever intended them as actual functional weapons, but I was pretty sure they had at least done some tests with them.
The U.S. Navy hasn't declassified their tests so there is no official record. Japan was the first to openly do it.
Uhh, I dunno how much declassification you're looking for but here's the US Navy's Youtube channel with a video of some test firings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OSce3nEY6xk
IIRC, the problem wasn't that it didn't work but that the barrels wore out too quickly to be useful. I suppose they could have put this on a Zumwault like originally intended but that would just be a PR stunt when the main problem was throwing the gun away after 10 shots.
I think there was an episode of Evangelion where they posed the same problem and solved by having multiple guns to switch to. I guess it's common knowledge of thermal dynamics? IDK