War has many things associated with it- politics, strategic alliances, demographics of various countries, conflicts over resources. But for most people, war is about creating a political statement with the help of arms and ammunition. Considering this, General Atomics is writing a new war statement with the help of its new and futuristic warfare- the Blitzer Electromagnetic Railgun. This new ammunition is soon going to make waves in the war arena.
The railgun is basically an artillery piece which utilises electromagnetic fields in place of the conventional chemical propellants to launch projectiles at hypersonic speeds. Because of using the electromagnetic field, this railgun can achieve far higher speeds and range as compared to the conventional ones.
Test firings were held at the U.S. Army’s annual Maneuver and Fires Integration Experiment (MFIX) and the Blitzer performed successfully in all eleven test firings. The test projectiles contained a Guidance Electronics Unit (GEU), which beamed back telemetry indicating, the shells managed to attain an acceleration of over 30,000 gravities and encouragingly, all the components survived the multi-Tesla magnetic field that powers the launcher.
Nick Bucci, vice president of Missile Defence and Space Systems at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems said: “We continue to perform risk reduction and technology maturation of projectile designs and components to culminate in an integrated demonstration of a manoeuvring railgun launched projectile.” The next step in this technology is to integrate the system into a mobile, truck based platform. You can get more information on this RAILgun in the following video.
As a technology lover you may like our daily important technology news series. It’s a playlist and you can retrieve the total day-wise videos. Please consider subscribing our YouTube channel:
Author: Technology and Beyond
