I don't know how Chinese manages to develop and operationalise weapons so rapidly, even US struggling in developing rail guns and China is ready to equip ships with it...Daal mai kuch kaala hai...Lolz
Looks like China just installed a railgun on a warship, beating the U.S. Navy to the punch
- Thread starter Himanshu
- Start date
I still doubt it. East pendulum is just a blog with a lot of its content biased towards China.(my opinion)
China has a super weapon the world must beware of — an electromagnetic railgun
A recent US media report says China has conducted a successful test of its latest naval weapon — an electromagnetic railgun — and will be able to field it in warfare by 2025.
Between 2015 and 2017, the weapon was calibrated to strike at extended ranges, increasing its lethality. By December 2017, the weapon was successfully mounted on a warship and began at-sea testing, a feat no other nation has accomplished. The Chinese are expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.
The railgun uses electricity and magnetism instead of gunpowder for propulsion, resulting in speeds of three to six times the speed of sound (Mach 3-6), thus saving on propellant and maintenance costs.
The electromagnetic railgun is considered future of military combat, as it can fire projectiles at speeds of almost 7,500 km/h up to distances of 200 km with great accuracy.
Field testing
The Xi’an Electronic Engineering Research Institute (206th Research Institute) and the China Electronic Technology Group Corporation (27th Research Institute) pooled in their resources to begin a programme for concerted research into railguns somewhere in the late 1980s.
The field trials of a prototype railgun started only in 2011, when a small firing range was observed in central China with what appeared to be an electromagnetic railgun.
The firing range has now developed into a very sophisticated field range with a variety of targets placed at very close range.
The targets are concrete plates of different sizes stacked one behind the other, as well as concrete slabs of different thickness. In one of the images, 12 concrete plates along with two possible steel plates can be seen to have been penetrated successfully.
The thickest concrete slab observed at the range is almost 10 metres.
Ship selection
The ship selected for onboard sea trials is the Type 72 II (NATO reporting name Yuting), pennant number 936 Haiyangshan.
The ship was constructed by Zhonghua shipyard (now Hudong Zhonghua shipyard), launched in December 1995 and commissioned in May 1996.
The design of the ship is based on the Type 72 (NATO reporting name Yukan) large landing ship developed by the China National Shipbuilding Company (CNSC), which was approved in 1983 by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Equipment Department.
The ship was possibly selected since it has a very large floor area — almost 800 square metres — on the deck, a destroyer-shaped bow for higher speeds, and a large space below the deck which could be used for carrying additional batteries.
Sea trials
The satellite imagery showed this railgun being fitted on the ship in October 2017, and very hazy ground pictures of the first sea trials of this ship appeared in January 2018.
Since then, the ship has been observed on satellite imagery at Wuhan with the gun very often.
Experts believe this kind of gun will change the entire combat tactics of ship-to-ship combat firing, and obviously provide China with greater advantage in control of seas.
US experts liken a round of the railgun moving at hypersonic speeds to “an asteroid obliterating everything that comes in its path”.
New ground platforms
It is known that the electromagnetic railgun can be used on many different platforms.
Different sizes of guns have been observed in the last two years, indicating that tests and trials are being conducted on various scales for placing them on divergent platforms.
There are 14 armoured vehicles that have been identified at the firing range, possibly six tanks, five IFVs and three SP arty guns with different calibre guns.
This development indicates China is hastening to place railguns on ground platforms also.
Implications
With on-board guidance system and compatible radars, railguns can be used against aircraft and ballistic/cruise missiles effectively.
They will provide China a great strategic advantage in any future combat scenario.
What is known about the new Chinese Navy Railgun
One of the amateur videos on the sea encounter with the LST 936 Haiyangshan, floating test bench of the Chinese Railgun.
If the details of his test program are not made public - the opposite would be surprising - it is nevertheless known that the building and its valuable payload have been prepared not only for navigation tests but especially for sea fire. has several weapons testing centers in Bohai Bay, including one located on the Liaodong Peninsula.
And according to some American sources, the Chinese Naval Railgun would have already made its first shots in early 2019. In its article published on January 30 this year , the American television channel CNBC, citing sources with direct access to intelligence reports American, indicates that China had in fact tested its new electromagnetic gun earlier in the month.
Still according to the same CNBC sources, the Chinese Railgun would be able to hit a target over a distance of 200 km (124 miles) at a speed of 2,575 m / s (1.6 mile / s). However, it is unclear how this fairly accurate data could be retrieved by US intelligence - is it a mere supposition based on their own systems under development, or large-scale measurement tools have been deployed?
Be that as it may, the satellite images dated February 26, 2019 show that the 4,800-ton ship was then near Huludao, at a Chinese naval base.
Assuming that the evidence revealed by the American sources is correct, at least for the period when the first test was carried out namely "in the month of January and before the 30", one can try to find the place in which the Chinese Railgun made his first shots.
Using navigational alerts published by the Liaoning Marine Safety Administration, which manages all maritime affairs in Bohai Bay, a total of 8 military exercises, 3 of which are "real shots" Could be identified.
It is difficult to know, however, which of these officially announced exercises correspond to the shots of the Railgun in question. For a first tryout at sea, it seems unlikely that the system will deploy all its power for maximum range. It is therefore possible that the system first performed short shots at varying powers, before extending the range and increasing the rate.
Of course, this is just a working hypothesis. The Chinese Navy could and should apply a number of pre-defined procedures to run these tests, such as the GJB-592 to assess hit efficiency, the GJB-4739 on precision testing, the GJB-254 on testing. design qualification ... etc.
It should be noted that the 3 "live fire" exercises as mentioned in the respective notifications all took place around Haimao Dao (海 猫 岛), an island located near Lüshunkou and which is a historical field of fire of the Chinese Navy. These exercises, dated 9 to 12, then from 17 to 22 and from 21 to 24 January, share exactly the same zone of forbidden access, of square form, covering this island on a perimeter of 43, 9 km and an area of 120 km².
If the Chinese Railgun actually fired 200 km in range, as suggested by US intelligence, then the test could actually have taken place on January 14 as the maritime area closed for "military operation" that day is exactly a rectangle 220 km long and 25.5 km wide.
But a shot from this distance still presents significant risks, whether from the sea to the mainland or from the continent to the sea ( see diagram below ), not to mention the curvature of the Earth. makes this type of shots very long distance measurable.
Among this list, which already has several well-known names, including one of the main designers of the IRBM and the Chinese AShBM DF-26, is the name of LI Xiang (李翔), a researcher in the Institute 713 of the Chinese naval group CSIC.
According to the text, LI is named for his many contributions in the development of Chinese naval guns, including the new H / PJ-45 that now equips the Type 052D destroyers, but also for being the deputy chief designer a project for a "Naval Electro-Magnetic Cannon", in which he and his team "broke into key technologies in resistance to the thermal abrasion of the barrel and the loading of long-range shells", and carried out " continuous shooting tests with a muzzle velocity of 2500 m / s and a power of 32 MJ ".
"The development of the prototype for sea trials is over, the tests at sea will begin soon," said the document dated November 6, 2017, which unfortunately gives no details as to the mass of the projectile.
Apart from this letter of appointment, whose data seems to be consistent with the Chinese progress observed so far, a report by Central South University (中南 大学), and more specifically by its State Key Laboratory of High Performance Complex Manufacturing , also talks about a new friction stir welding technology that has been applied on the "water-cooled rails of a Railgun", but its direct link with the gun currently under sea testing could not be proven for the moment.
A recent US media report says China has conducted a successful test of its latest naval weapon — an electromagnetic railgun — and will be able to field it in warfare by 2025.
Between 2015 and 2017, the weapon was calibrated to strike at extended ranges, increasing its lethality. By December 2017, the weapon was successfully mounted on a warship and began at-sea testing, a feat no other nation has accomplished. The Chinese are expected to complete at-sea testing by 2023.
The railgun uses electricity and magnetism instead of gunpowder for propulsion, resulting in speeds of three to six times the speed of sound (Mach 3-6), thus saving on propellant and maintenance costs.
The electromagnetic railgun is considered future of military combat, as it can fire projectiles at speeds of almost 7,500 km/h up to distances of 200 km with great accuracy.
Field testing
The Xi’an Electronic Engineering Research Institute (206th Research Institute) and the China Electronic Technology Group Corporation (27th Research Institute) pooled in their resources to begin a programme for concerted research into railguns somewhere in the late 1980s.
The field trials of a prototype railgun started only in 2011, when a small firing range was observed in central China with what appeared to be an electromagnetic railgun.
The firing range has now developed into a very sophisticated field range with a variety of targets placed at very close range.
The targets are concrete plates of different sizes stacked one behind the other, as well as concrete slabs of different thickness. In one of the images, 12 concrete plates along with two possible steel plates can be seen to have been penetrated successfully.
The thickest concrete slab observed at the range is almost 10 metres.
Ship selection
The ship selected for onboard sea trials is the Type 72 II (NATO reporting name Yuting), pennant number 936 Haiyangshan.
The ship was constructed by Zhonghua shipyard (now Hudong Zhonghua shipyard), launched in December 1995 and commissioned in May 1996.
The design of the ship is based on the Type 72 (NATO reporting name Yukan) large landing ship developed by the China National Shipbuilding Company (CNSC), which was approved in 1983 by the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s Equipment Department.
The ship was possibly selected since it has a very large floor area — almost 800 square metres — on the deck, a destroyer-shaped bow for higher speeds, and a large space below the deck which could be used for carrying additional batteries.
Sea trials
The satellite imagery showed this railgun being fitted on the ship in October 2017, and very hazy ground pictures of the first sea trials of this ship appeared in January 2018.
Since then, the ship has been observed on satellite imagery at Wuhan with the gun very often.
Experts believe this kind of gun will change the entire combat tactics of ship-to-ship combat firing, and obviously provide China with greater advantage in control of seas.
US experts liken a round of the railgun moving at hypersonic speeds to “an asteroid obliterating everything that comes in its path”.
New ground platforms
It is known that the electromagnetic railgun can be used on many different platforms.
Different sizes of guns have been observed in the last two years, indicating that tests and trials are being conducted on various scales for placing them on divergent platforms.
There are 14 armoured vehicles that have been identified at the firing range, possibly six tanks, five IFVs and three SP arty guns with different calibre guns.
This development indicates China is hastening to place railguns on ground platforms also.
Implications
With on-board guidance system and compatible radars, railguns can be used against aircraft and ballistic/cruise missiles effectively.
They will provide China a great strategic advantage in any future combat scenario.
What is known about the new Chinese Navy Railgun
One of the amateur videos on the sea encounter with the LST 936 Haiyangshan, floating test bench of the Chinese Railgun.
If the details of his test program are not made public - the opposite would be surprising - it is nevertheless known that the building and its valuable payload have been prepared not only for navigation tests but especially for sea fire. has several weapons testing centers in Bohai Bay, including one located on the Liaodong Peninsula.
And according to some American sources, the Chinese Naval Railgun would have already made its first shots in early 2019. In its article published on January 30 this year , the American television channel CNBC, citing sources with direct access to intelligence reports American, indicates that China had in fact tested its new electromagnetic gun earlier in the month.
Still according to the same CNBC sources, the Chinese Railgun would be able to hit a target over a distance of 200 km (124 miles) at a speed of 2,575 m / s (1.6 mile / s). However, it is unclear how this fairly accurate data could be retrieved by US intelligence - is it a mere supposition based on their own systems under development, or large-scale measurement tools have been deployed?
Be that as it may, the satellite images dated February 26, 2019 show that the 4,800-ton ship was then near Huludao, at a Chinese naval base.
Assuming that the evidence revealed by the American sources is correct, at least for the period when the first test was carried out namely "in the month of January and before the 30", one can try to find the place in which the Chinese Railgun made his first shots.
Using navigational alerts published by the Liaoning Marine Safety Administration, which manages all maritime affairs in Bohai Bay, a total of 8 military exercises, 3 of which are "real shots" Could be identified.
It is difficult to know, however, which of these officially announced exercises correspond to the shots of the Railgun in question. For a first tryout at sea, it seems unlikely that the system will deploy all its power for maximum range. It is therefore possible that the system first performed short shots at varying powers, before extending the range and increasing the rate.
Of course, this is just a working hypothesis. The Chinese Navy could and should apply a number of pre-defined procedures to run these tests, such as the GJB-592 to assess hit efficiency, the GJB-4739 on precision testing, the GJB-254 on testing. design qualification ... etc.
It should be noted that the 3 "live fire" exercises as mentioned in the respective notifications all took place around Haimao Dao (海 猫 岛), an island located near Lüshunkou and which is a historical field of fire of the Chinese Navy. These exercises, dated 9 to 12, then from 17 to 22 and from 21 to 24 January, share exactly the same zone of forbidden access, of square form, covering this island on a perimeter of 43, 9 km and an area of 120 km².
If the Chinese Railgun actually fired 200 km in range, as suggested by US intelligence, then the test could actually have taken place on January 14 as the maritime area closed for "military operation" that day is exactly a rectangle 220 km long and 25.5 km wide.
But a shot from this distance still presents significant risks, whether from the sea to the mainland or from the continent to the sea ( see diagram below ), not to mention the curvature of the Earth. makes this type of shots very long distance measurable.
Areas in which the Chinese Navy conducted military exercises in January 2019 (Image: East Pendulum)
The test area around Haimao Island (Image: East Pendulum)
The LST 936 Haiyangshan, carrying the Chinese Railgun on the bow, in the Huludao base on February 26, 2019 (Image: East Pendulum)
Among this list, which already has several well-known names, including one of the main designers of the IRBM and the Chinese AShBM DF-26, is the name of LI Xiang (李翔), a researcher in the Institute 713 of the Chinese naval group CSIC.
According to the text, LI is named for his many contributions in the development of Chinese naval guns, including the new H / PJ-45 that now equips the Type 052D destroyers, but also for being the deputy chief designer a project for a "Naval Electro-Magnetic Cannon", in which he and his team "broke into key technologies in resistance to the thermal abrasion of the barrel and the loading of long-range shells", and carried out " continuous shooting tests with a muzzle velocity of 2500 m / s and a power of 32 MJ ".
"The development of the prototype for sea trials is over, the tests at sea will begin soon," said the document dated November 6, 2017, which unfortunately gives no details as to the mass of the projectile.
Apart from this letter of appointment, whose data seems to be consistent with the Chinese progress observed so far, a report by Central South University (中南 大学), and more specifically by its State Key Laboratory of High Performance Complex Manufacturing , also talks about a new friction stir welding technology that has been applied on the "water-cooled rails of a Railgun", but its direct link with the gun currently under sea testing could not be proven for the moment.
