Chinese PLA Deploys EM Railgun Armed Warship for Sea Trails; New Technology Could Facilitate Pacific Naval Dominance

In February 2018 China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) reportedly became the first country in the world to mount an electromagnetic railgun on a warship, with images emerging of the experimental weapons system mounted on a Type 072III Class landing ship. Reports began to emerge near the end of December of that year that the PLA had send a railgun equipped warship out for sea trials from the Yangtze River onboard a vessel called Haiyangshan - which carried such a weapon on its bow. The location of the ship is unknown, but images emerged of the platform in what appeared to be open ocean in the pacific. While the Type 072III is not China's largest or most modern warship, its large deck is large enough to accommodate power generation equipment necessary for the new weapon. The size of the warship's deck and hangar also allows it to accommodate a wide variety of supporting facilities needed to test the railgun, and observation facilities have also reportedly been installed on the warship's bridge for weapons testing. The age of the effective obsolete warship means it can be spared for testing and potentially even risk minor damage, where other more modern vessels are needed for frontline service.

Type 072III Class Landing Ship

According to a report by CNBC in June 2018, citing classified intelligence, China’s railgun would be “ready for war” by 2025. The source elaborated: “China's (railgun) is capable of striking a target 124 miles away at speeds of up to 1.6 miles per second, according to the report. For perspective, a shot fired from Washington, D.C., could reach Philadelphia in under 90 seconds.” Rounds for the railgun reportedly cost between $25,000 and $50,000 each - making it a considerably cheaper option than tactical hypersonic missiles travelling at similar speeds and allowing it to potentially be developed to lay down rapid salvoes of fire. An unnamed former naval officer who worked on the Chinese railgun program stated regarding the platform’s development: "everybody knowns that an EM Railgun is under development, it's said that it was jointly developed by the Beijing Institute of Technology and a certain institute from the China Aerospace Science and Industry Cooperation.... It's reasonable as per schedule the prototype is doing aboard test."

Image Allegedly Showing Type 072III Class Assault Ship Armed with EM Railgun at Sea

While naval guns currently in service make use of chemical energy (gunpowder) to force a projectile out of a barrel at speed,, railguns use electromagnetism. This allows projectiles to be fired at considerable higher speeds and longer ranges, but places a considerable demand on warships for power generation. The railgun functions by creating a very strong electromagnetic fields between two rails, with a conductive metal device called an armature picking up a projectile and accelerating it down the path between the rails. These projectiles do not carry explosives, but rely on the sheer force of their kinetic energy to obliterate enemy targets. A single strike from a railgun is thought to be enough to disable any known surface warship currently in service - with projectiles traveling at a fraction of their speed such as the Mach 3 Brahmos cruise missile already fast enough to tear warships in half.

Electromagnetic Railgun - concept art

Weather China retains a lead over the United States in railgun technology remains uncertain, and while the U.S. Navy is not known to have tested such a weapon at sea the military has invested heavily in developing such a weapons system at a facility in Virginia. The stated goal of this American weapons program has been to produce a railgun with a long barrel life using 32 megajoules of energy and with a rate of fire of ten shots per minute. These added requirements have made development considerably more difficult, as firing projectiles at such high speeds has caused significant damage to the railguns themselves making a high rate of fire extremely difficult to achieve. The U.S. Navy is reportedly considering repurposing its Zumwalt Class destroyers as dedicated ship hunters deploying, following the program’s failure to yield a viable multirole destroyer. Given their considerable power generation capabilities, the high end radar evading warships could well be ideal platforms to deploy such a weapon. The PLA Navy for its part could deploy railguns from its new Type 055 and Type 052D Class destroyers - though it also remains a considerable possibility that China could invest in developing a new warship class altogether to deploy a large number of these weapons. The considerable advantage a railgun equipped warship would have over a congenitally armed alternative has led both powers to strongly prioritise developing such a weapon.