Sea tests of China’s indigenous electromagnetic railguns are under way, Chinese papers have revealed, quoting delegates of the People’s Liberation Army who are attending the annual parliamentary session in Beijing.
This has been further confirmed by a feature on the PLA-run news portal 81.cn about a female lead engineer who was the brains behind a repeating pulsating direct current power system that could charge the railgun.
Zhang Xiao, associate research fellow at the Wuhan-based PLA Naval University of Engineering, said the breakthrough was a hard-won result after hundreds of failures and more than 50,000 tests.
She also led a team that scaled the technical hurdles of installing shipborne electromagnetic launching systems, believed to be planned for use in future Chinese aircraft carriers.
The Global Times quoted commentators as saying that the United States used to maintain a lead in developing such state-of-the-art power systems, but the breakthrough could bring the PLA Navy into the same league as the US in railgun development and trials.
Railguns use electricity to generate 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, slinging the projectile downrange at hypervelocity.
China is also set to be the first country to mount a railgun on a warship. The PLA landing ship Haiyang Shan, carrying what appeared to be a shipborne railgun, was seen undergoing tests at a dock in Wuhan before its reported sea trail this year.
The test was a massive project, involving more than 200 staffers from 20 different units, according to the website.
The electromagnetic railgun is a key frontier of the next generation of weaponry that will replaces gunpowder with electricity and magnetism.
The power supply must be able to deliver large currents, sustained and controlled over a useful amount of time, with the key determinant being the energy it can deliver.
For instance, during an experiment by the US Navy in 2010, a power-supply system generated 33 megajoules to propel a projectile from a railgun.
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Did China just win the race to install a railgun on a warship?
It was pioneered by US navy another copy cat……….
Am sceptical about the claims. When was it tested, where was it tested and what were the results?
If you cared to read up more, you wouldn’t be making such stupid comment!
Dungkuy Malubay Burias Arayan By that 2 or 3 Hrs lot of ships must have seen the sea bed….
Tillerson or whatever his name is was out of touch with what’s happening in Africa. He went to Nigeria and congratulated a moron president who is trying to run for a second term and he is over 85 years old. A man that his kinsmen are sweeping through everywhere butchering and beheading fellow human beings and he just dosnt care being a fellow " fulani herdsman" and their patron. What kind of corruption fight when his govt and ministers are bloating with stolen money and all manner of financial scandals and his own kids doing jamborees. And Mr Tillerson went and congratulated him, was it for the killings of the separatist Biafra agitators. Thank God Mr Tillerson is out…good riddance to bad rubish!!!!!
Cw LiaNgz the Egyptians invented paper by the use of papyrus not the Chinese.
Good idea is too teach your kids how to read and speak Chinese. Their food is better anyway.
Only ignorant people would think that chinese are incapable of inventing. Repeating crossbow, gunpowder, paper and compass are invented by the chinese
Dungkuy Malubay Burias Arayan japanese built world largest yamato battleship is sunk without destroying any enemy warship, what crap u talking about? At least german bismarck sank hms hood before being destroyed
Dungkuy Malubay Burias Arayan maybe…. He he
But Still Made in China… W8, if the Japanese can make there Own, again That Giant Country will Bow to the Japanese Again and Again. They are Lucky that the Japanese can not built Military waipon after the 2nd world War, But know they are Back on Track… we will See.
Well they did invent gunpowder when most of the world were living in trees and caves????
What a crock of shit. The US did this 10 years ago. 135 miles to a 10 meter circle. But people will believe anything from the CPC and PRA
If they succeed, it will add to another success of a CHINESE PEOPLE HISTORY. AND ALSO CHINESE INVENTED THE GUN POWDER, AND NOW THAT THING. SCARY…. Though i am not fan of them… Ha ha
Metal Gear 4
On a landing ship?this is pointless news and wtf on a landing ship …what is that btw?
Are you kidding, you believe that fab? China should build a jet engine and test and stream it .
PRC….23 provinces (soon), 4 autonomous regions, 5 independent cities. One love !
What it means is the US is afraid of losing control over chipmaker so they can no longer dictate them to install/plant backdoor program to spy on the public.
Obviously, not in the "same" league as, but in a league of its own above the U.S.. China’s shipborne tests imply that its land tests are complete, While America is still troubled by its land tests.