The People’s Liberation Army Navy has begun rough sea trials of its warship-mounted electromagnetic railgun installed on a Type 072II Yuting-class tank-landing ship, called the Haiyangshan.
The Haiyangshan is a tank-landing ship converted for a new futuristic electromagnetic railgun that is expected to enter China’s arsenal by 2025.
New videos taken and posted in Chinese social media shows the Haiyangshan with a railgun during continues sea trials. The test vessel with electromagnetic railgun mounted on its bow was spotted on the Yangtze River.
Popular Mechanics said that: “Unlike conventional guns that use chemical energy (gunpowder) to force a projectile out of a barrel and towards a target, railguns rely on electromagnetism. These weapons use electricity to generate very strong electromagnetic fields between two rails. A conductive metal device, called an armature, picks up a projectile and accelerates down the path between the rails, sending the projectile whizzing downrange.”
The new Chinese electromagnetic railgun is an ambitious project of creating cost-effective weapons that offer the might of a cannon with the range of a precision-guided missile for its newest warships.
Some source reported that the new weapon system capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second.
Sources familiar with the matter say the People’s Liberation Army Navy is expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.
PLA海軍レールガン試験艦「海洋山」 pic.twitter.com/tliLf44C11
— OedoSoldier (@OedoSoldier) 31 March 2019