Japan says it successfully test fired its medium-caliber maritime electromagnetic railgun<\/a>\u00a0via an offshore platform. According to its Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA), this was the first time any country had accomplished such a goal. The test would be an important step forward for the technology, with Japan aiming to utilize it both at sea and on land.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n ATLA, which is part of Japan’s Ministry of Defense, teamed up with the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) for the test. Hard details about what this involved precisely, and when it took place, remain limited.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Video footage of the railgun in action during the testing released by ATLA shows it firing projectiles from various angles.<\/p>\n Existing specifications for ATLA\u2019s medium-sized electromagnetic railgun prototype \u2014\u00a0first seen in May<\/a>\u00a0of this year \u2014 highlight that the weapon is able to fire 40mm\u00a0steel<\/a>\u00a0projectiles weighing 320g (or 0.7lb). At their most basic level, as\u00a0The War Zone\u00a0<\/em>has indicated previously<\/a>, railguns rely on electromagnets rather than chemical propellants to fire projectiles at very high velocities, even into the hypersonic realm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n ATLA\u2019s railgun can fire rounds at a velocity of around 2,230m\/s (Mach 6.5), as\u00a0Shepard\u00a0<\/em>reports<\/a>, and uses five megajoules (MJ), or 5 million joules (J) of charge energy. ATLA intends for it to eventually run on 20 MJ of charge energy.<\/p>\n At present, we don’t know for sure which vessels Japan might ultimately mount future railguns to, if they actually turn into an operational reality. However, the country has previously pointed to the possibility of mounting them on at least some JMSDF destroyers. Back in 2015, for example, when the JMSDF\u2019s first 27DD or 27DDG ships emerged \u2014 subvariants of the\u00a0Atago<\/em>\u00a0class<\/a>\u00a0guided-missile destroyers \u2014 Japan Marine United (JMU) suggested the\u00a0vessels could be equipped<\/a>\u00a0with an electromagnetic railgun due to the improved power-generating capabilities of these ships.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n An artist\u2019s conception of a railgun installed on a 27DDG ship, seen below, shows the weapon engaging a range of air- and sea-based targets.<\/p>\n As well as being mounted on destroyers, it’s possible the weapons could also find their way onto Japan’s in-development multi-purpose missile defense vessels. Japan has invested heavily in the procurement of ballistic missile defense, or BMD, warships, in recent years, for use against a growing range of air- and sea-based threats, which you can read more about\u00a0in these past<\/a>\u00a0War Zone\u00a0<\/em>pieces<\/a>.<\/p>\n The speeds at which projectiles can be fired from railguns would likely make them an attractive option for targeting a wide range of aerial threats at sea, including incoming hypersonic cruise, and possibly even hypersonic ballistic, missiles. It has\u00a0also been reported<\/a> that ATLA intends to mount a number of railguns atop land-based trucks to similarly target hypersonic missiles.<\/p>\n The mid-caliber size of this railgun concept would potentially limit these capabilities to highly localized point defense of ships and high-value land targets. Other railgun concepts, like that of the U.S. Navy, which is now defunct after much hype, are based on much larger caliber designs that, while far more capable, require more complex systems and far more power and cooling than something like what Japan is testing. Still, even at 40mm, there are still major hurdles to overcome to realize a operational naval railgun system of any kind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The road to test-firing a working example of the weapon has been a long time coming for ATLA. In 1990 the agency’s Ground Systems Research Centre (GSRC) began working on a basic, smaller 16mm railgun. Then, around 2016, efforts\u00a0to develop an example<\/a>\u00a0designed to perform anti-air and anti-ship capabilities were initiated. Video footage of a proof-of-concept example\u00a0was released by ATLA in 2018<\/a>, which showcased a small-caliber developmental railgun along with related support and test equipment, which can be seen below.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.fie.undef.edu.ar\/ceptm\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Screenshot-2023-10-17-at-5.27.28-PM.webp\")
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