Has China Just Equipped a Warship with an Prototype EM Railgun? Another Sign of the PLA Navy's Growing Technological Advantage Over Near Peer Rivals

Images of a large experimental weapon fitted onboard the hull of a Chinese Type 072III Class landing ship have led to widespread speculation by a number of analysts that the new platform is a prototype electromagnetic railgun. If true, this would make China the first country in the world to deploy such a platform from a warship for testing at sea. Railguns are considered key next generation weapons technologies, and are set to give any naval power which develops them a key advantage over near peer rivals. The weapons make use of electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles via a sliding armature by accelerating it along a pair of conductive rails - hence the weapon's name. The development of such platforms comes amid growing near peer competition potentially surpassing even that d the late Cold War to develop the latest naval weapons systems and thus gain an advantage over potential adversaries. The United States, China, Russia and to a lesser extent India as well have all invested heavily in developing railgun technology.

Much like the U.S. THAAD Missile System, railguns do not make use of explosive projectiles and instead rely solely the kinetic energy to destroy their targets. With railgun technology expected to fire projectiles at approximately Mach 6, the kinetic impact alone will be far more destructive than almost any strike with conventional munitions in use today. The speed of the railgun's projectiles will also make them an ideal platform to target enemy satellite systems. Potential advantages of the system also include enhanced ranges, greater muzzle velocities and a greater force on impact due to delivery of the payload at higher speeds - comparable to those of hypersonic missiles also currently under development in China.

Speculation as to the nature of the new weapon deployed by the Type 072 Class warship has been supported by a statement of a former naval officer who worked on the Chinese naval program. The officer's analysis stated: "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." While not China's largest or most modern warship, the Type 072's characteristics make it an ideal testbed for the new weapons system. The warship's 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 such a cutting edge and complex weapons system. New observation facilities were also reportedly installed on the warship's bridge for the weapons test.

For its part the United States appears to have stalled in developing its own railgun system. In 2014 plans were made to test an EM railgun at sea on 2017, but these plans were later scrapped. The Pentagon has been preoccupied with less ambitious "concurrent" development projects which have stalled the railgun's development, while reports have indicated significant difficulties in the development which have drawn the platform's eventual deployment into question. For China being the first to induct a railgun into active service would hardly be unusual given the country's recent history of successfully inducting game changing next generation weapons technologies and far surpassing the forecasts of Western analysts. China's newest battleship, the Type 055, which is set to enter service in 2018 has been designed specifically to allow it to easily integrate next generation weapons systems as they are developed - including hypersonic scramjet missiles and electromagnetic railguns. The U.S. next generation battleship expected to deploy the country's first railguns, the Zumwalt Class, has meanwhile been cancelled due to severe technical difficulties and design flaws. The testing of the railgun could well represent just one step in a trend towards China attaining technological qualitative superiority at sea over its primary rival.