Railguns

Part of Japan’s new arsenal in the face of threats from China, North Korea, and Russia

Japan’s Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) achieved the first documented sea-based railgun successful test (Picture source: ALTA)

Japan has conducted the first successful fire test of a shipboard railgun.

This was coordinated under the authority of the Japanese Ministry of Defense, with the Japanese Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) and the Japanese Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics Agency (ATLA), working together to make it happen.

ATLA announced the achievement on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.

What is a railgun?

It is a gun that uses rails — two parallel metal tracks. At one end they connect to a power supply. This is called the breech. Like a battery, there is a negative and a positive terminal. When a conductive element is placed between the two rails, it closes the circuit.

Source: https://science.howstuffworks.com/rail-gun1.htm

Electrons flow from the negative terminal, through the negative rail, across the element, and through the positive rail back to the power supply.

The current creates a magnetic field. Since the current flows in a circuit, the net magnetic field between the rails, in conjunction with the…