USA announced last January the start of the program Golden Dome to create a national air and missile defense system. The project, which will have an estimated cost of 175 billion dollars, has aroused logical interest in defense companies that are already making proposals for their participation. The last one that has been known is that of General Atomicsand its now resurrected railgun technology.
The California-based company showed illustrations of the cannon during the annual defense conference AUSA (Association of the United States Army) held in the middle of the month in Washington DC, according to Naval News.
Mike Ruckerhead of weapons programs at General Atomics Electromagnetic Systemsconfirmed to the media that the company has proposed its system, dormant for years, for the anti-missile initiative.
What is an electromagnetic cannon
Electromagnetic cannons use the magnetic force to accelerate projectiles to hypersonic speeds. This eliminates the need for propellant charges and reduces the cost per shot compared to traditional missile interceptors. They can be rail or coil. In the first case, two parallel conducting rails and a high-intensity electric current are used to accelerate a projectile by electromagnetic force. In the second, electromagnetic coils are used instead of rails. General Atomics belongs to the first category.
‘The idea of muzzle velocity and remote interdiction capabilityespecially from our perspective, as terminal defense for air and missile threats, makes it ideal‘, explained Rucker, who mentioned the use of tungsten shot as a destructive element of the warhead.
The company’s graphic indicates that its multi-function railgun can fire projectiles at speeds of up to Mach 6 (7,410 km/h). Three variants are mentioned, with energy capacities ranging from 3 to 32 megajoulesand the system is advertised as capable of intercepting both cruise missiles as ballistic.
A resurrected technology
The concept returns to the present four years after the US Navy and Army They will cancel their railgun programs. The reasons alleged in 2021 were the excessive costs, doubts about its operational viability and the technical challenges to be resolved.
General Atomics, however, continued research and development on its own and now claims to have solved key engineering problems, such as barrel wear and electrical integration.
‘The system works. It was stopped because it was not viable in an operational environment, mainly due to reliability issues. But the technical challenges have already been overcome. Now it’s about integrating it and making it usable by soldiers and sailors,’ Rucker said.
Rucker noted that the railgun could serve as a complementary terminal defense option to kinetic and directed energy interceptors. Golden Dome search integrate radars, kinetic interceptors, laser weapons and electromagnetic cannons into a unified network to protect the continental United States and its bases in the Pacific against hypersonic missiles, cruise missiles and advanced drones.
Rucker, who had previously led the Navy’s railgun project, said General Atomics’ work has aroused the interest of foreign governments. He declined to identify them, although he noted that the U.S. is cooperating with several interested countries.
Although the United States abandoned the idea, other countries continued with their developments. Japan and China have already introduced experimental ship-mounted railguns, while France, Germany and Japan They are jointly exploring similar technologies.