The slogan "Velocitas Eradico", taken by the American Navy for their research on electromagnetic rail guns, is quite consistent with the ultimate goal. Loosely translated from Latin, this expression means "Speed kills." Electromagnetic technologies are successfully developing in the maritime field, opening up prospects for offensive weapons and the operation of aircraft carriers.
A report written by Ronald O'Rurk in October 2016 for the Congressional Research Service, entitled Lasers, Rail Guns, and Hypersonic Projectiles: Background and Challenges for the US Congress, states: from anti-ship cruise missiles (ASM) and anti-ship ballistic missiles (ABMs), some observers are concerned about the survivability of surface ships in possible combat clashes with opponents such as China, which are armed with modern anti-ship missiles and anti-ballistic missiles. The world's first and only medium-range FGM DF-21D (Dufeen-21) developed by the Chinese Academy of Mechanics and Electronics China Changfeng was actively discussed in the world's navies; this rocket was shown in Beijing in September 2015 at the end of World War II parade. Meanwhile, the report notes that the Russian fleet continues to deploy the 3M-54 Caliber family of anti-ship and ground cruise missiles with satellite inertial / radar guidance developed by the Novator design bureau.
While some countries, such as China and Russia, continue to equip their ships with powerful weapons, the US Navy, along with other Western navies, is increasingly concerned about the survivability of its surface warships. And the reduction in personnel is forcing the fleets of the whole world to increasingly turn to promising technologies. For example, according to the website globalsecurity.org, the number of active members of the US military is expected to decline by 200,000 by the end of 2017, to 1.28 million. In this context, in the defense sphere, electromagnetic technologies are developing rapidly as a promising solution to complex problems, which are largely related to the arming of potential adversaries and the reduction of personnel. Compared to current traditional systems, these technologies, from aircraft carrier catapults to rail guns (railguns), will be more economically efficient and reduce the number of personnel.
Electricity and magnetism
Electromagnetic energy is a combination of electric and magnetic fields. According to the definition published on the website of the World Health Organization: “Electric fields are created by the difference in voltage, the higher the voltage, the stronger the resulting field will be. Magnetic fields arise when charged particles move: the stronger the current, the stronger the magnetic field."
EMALS (Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System), a promising launch system for carrier-based aircraft, is being developed by General Dynamics to replace steam catapults, which have a number of significant disadvantages, including their large mass, size and the need to store a large volume of water on the ship, which cannot be taken overboard due to aggressive chemical properties of sea water. The new system consists of two parallel rails, made up of many elements with induction coils, installed inside the flight deck of the aircraft carrier, as well as a carriage, which is mounted on the front wheel of the aircraft. Megan Elke, General Atomics (GA), explained: “Sequential excitation of the guide elements creates a magnetic wave that travels along the guide rails and forces the carriage and thus the aircraft along the entire length of the guide rails at the speed required for a successful take-off from deck. This process requires several megawatts of electricity."
The principle of operation of the electromagnetic mass accelerator, aka railgun, aka rail gun, is similar to the principle of operation of the EMALS electromagnetic catapult. The generated several megawatts of energy are channeled along two guide rails (just like the two guide rails of the EMALS system) to create a magnetic field. As explained by John Finkenaur, head of new technologies at Raytheon: “After the system has accumulated a certain amount of energy, the capacitors (store the generated electrical charge) send an electrical impulse along two rails (one of them is negatively charged and the other is positive), creating an electromagnetic field . Under the influence of this field, the projectile begins to move in a barrel with two long rails at a very high speed. Open sources claim that speeds can reach 7 Mach numbers (about 8600 km / h). The projectile weighs approximately 11 kg and does not have a combat charge. The body of the projectile, filled with tungsten striking elements, is enclosed in an aluminum alloy casing, which is discarded after the projectile leaves the barrel. The high speed of the meeting of the projectile with the target, in combination with the striking elements, causes significant destruction without any explosives.
Magnetic attraction
Steam catapults, which are to be replaced by the EMALS system, have been on aircraft carriers in many countries since the 50s. For a long time, they were considered the most efficient technology, which is capable, for example, of accelerating an aircraft weighing 27,300 kg to a speed of 240 km / h from a deck length of 300 meters. To do this job, the catapult needs approximately 615 kg of steam for each entry plus hydraulic equipment, water to stop the catapult, as well as pumps, electric motors and control systems. In other words, the traditional steam catapult, although it does its job perfectly, is a very large and heavy equipment that requires significant maintenance. In addition, sudden shock impacts during takeoff have been shown to shorten the lifespan of aircraft carrier-based aircraft. Steam catapults also have restrictions on the types of aircraft they can launch; the situation is especially complicated by the fact that the mass of aircraft is constantly increasing and it may soon happen that the modernization of carrier-based aircraft becomes impossible. For example, according to the data provided by the fleet, Boeing's F / A-18E / F Super Hornet carrier-based fighter has a maximum take-off weight of 30 tons, while the previous Douglas A-4F Skyhawk fighter, which was finally decommissioned in the mid-1980s, had a takeoff weight of 11, 2 tons.
According to Elke: "Airplanes today are getting heavier, faster and more functional, they need an efficient launch system with more efficiency and more flexibility in order to have the different launch speeds needed to take off from the deck of each aircraft type." According to General Atomics, compared to steam catapults, the EMALS system will be 30 percent more efficient, requiring less volume and maintenance than its predecessors, which will simplify its installation on different ships with different catapult configurations. For example, the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers have four steam catapults, while the only French aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle, has only two catapults. In addition, different EMALS accelerations, adjusted to the take-off weight of each type of manned or unmanned aircraft, will contribute to the increased service life of the aircraft hulls. “With less installation space, better efficiency and flexibility, and reduced maintenance and headcounts, EMALS significantly increases capabilities and lowers costs, which will further support the development of the fleet,” Elke added.
According to Alexander Chang of Avascent consulting company, railguns also have a number of advantages. "And the main thing, of course, is that they can fire projectiles at a high speed of the order of Mach seven without using any explosives." Since the energy source of the railgun is the general power supply system of the entire ship, the risks associated with the transportation of explosives or propellants are excluded. The high initial speeds of the railgun, roughly twice the initial speeds of traditional ship's cannons, result in shorter hit times and allow the ship to respond almost simultaneously to multiple threats. This is due to the fact that with each new projectile there is no need to charge combat or propellant charges. Elke noted that “by means of warheads and propellants, the supply is simplified, the cost per shot and the logistical burden are reduced, while the relatively small dimensions of the railgun allow an increase in the magazine's capacity … It also has a much longer range compared to other weapons (for example, with surface-to-air missiles used to protect surface ships)”. The report to Congress notes that so far, two prototype rail guns built by Raytheon and General Atomics for the US Navy “can fire projectiles at energy levels between 20 and 32 megajoules, which is enough for a projectile to travel 92-185 km ". If we compare, then according to open sources, the 76-mm ship gun from the OTO Melara / Leonardo has an initial speed of the order of Mach 2.6 (3294 km / h), reaching a maximum range of 40 km. Finkenaur stated that "the railgun can be used for fire support of surface ships when it is necessary to send a projectile hundreds of nautical miles, or it can be used for close-range shelling and missile defense."
Challenges Ahead
The technology used in the EMALS system is already at the stage of implementation in production. The US Navy, which selected this General Atomics-designed catapult to take off from new Ford-class aircraft carriers, conducted its first stress tests in November 2016. On the first ship of this class, Gerald R. Ford, ballast weights simulating a typical aircraft were ejected into the sea (video below). Used 15 shell carts of various weights. The first launches ended unsuccessfully, but the following were recognized as successful. For example, a bogie weighing about 6800 kg was accelerated to a speed of almost 260 km / h, and a smaller bogie weighing 3600 kg was accelerated to 333 km / h. According to Elke, the system is also being manufactured and installed on the John F. Kennedy aircraft carrier, which is scheduled to be transferred to the fleet in 2020. GA has also been selected as the sole EMALS contractor for the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which is due to begin construction in 2018. Elke noted that "we also see the interest of other states in our electromagnetic take-off and landing systems, as they want to have new technologies and carrier-based aircraft in their fleets." However, it is worth noting that while EMALS technology is ready for production, the system itself cannot be installed on the vast majority of aircraft carriers in service due to the amount of energy required to operate it.
In addition to the above, the rail gun has a number of serious disadvantages. According to Finkenauer, "one of the problems of using electromagnetic technology in the defense sector is maintaining the barrel in working order and reducing barrel wear after each projectile launch." Indeed, the speed with which the projectile leaves the barrel causes such wear and tear that in the initial tests the barrel had to be completely rebuilt after each shot. "Pulse power brings with it the problem of releasing a tremendous amount of energy and coordinating how the pulse power modules work together for a single shot." All these modules must release the accumulated electricity at the right moment in order to create the necessary magnetic field strength and push the projectile out of the barrel. Finally, the amount of energy required to accelerate the projectile to such speeds entails the problem of packing the necessary components of the gun into sufficiently small physical dimensions so that it can be installed on surface ships of different classes. For these reasons, according to Finkenaur, small rail guns may well enter service in the next five years, while a railgun with a full power of 32 megajoules is likely to be installed on a ship in the next 10 years.
Hyperactivity
According to Chang, "recently, the US Navy has begun to pay less attention to improving the technology of the rail gun and turned its attention to the capabilities of the HVP (Hyper Velocity Projectile) hypersonic projectile, which can easily fit existing traditional cannons." In a technical paper on HVP, published in September 2012 by the US Navy Research Office, it is described as “a versatile, low-drag, guided projectile capable of performing a variety of missions from a variety of weapon systems,” which, in addition to the rail cannon, includes standard American naval systems: 127-mm naval gun Mk. 45 and 155-mm advanced artillery mount Advanced Gun System developed by BAE Systems. According to BAE Systems, a "special ingredient" in the HVP's design is its ultra-low aerodynamic drag, eliminating the need for a rocket motor, which is widely used in conventional ammunition to extend its range.
According to a report from the CRS research service, when firing from the Mk.45 installation, this projectile can reach only half (which is Mach 3 or about 3704.4 km / h) of the speed that it could reach when firing from a rail gun, which, however, it is still twice the speed of a conventional projectile fired from an Mk. 45 gun. As stated in a press release from the US Navy, “HVP in combination with Mk.45 will provide the performance of various tasks, including fire support for surface ships, it will expand the capabilities of the fleet in the fight against air and surface threats. but also with emerging threats."
According to Chang, the decision of the Research Department of the Ministry of Defense to invest significant funds in the development of HVP is aimed at solving the problem of re-equipping ships for the installation of a rail gun on them. Thus, the US Navy will be able to use the HVP hypersonic projectile on its Ticonderoga-class cruisers and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, each carrying two Mk.45 guns. The rail gun is not yet technologically ready for installation on the new Zamvolt-class destroyers, the first of which was accepted into the US Navy in October 2016. But, at least at the end of development, the HVP projectile will be able to enter the ammunition load of their 155-mm artillery mounts such as the Advanced Gun System. According to the press release, the fleet conducted firing tests of an HVP projectile from an army howitzer in January. The US Navy has given no information on when the HVP may enter service with its warships.
Industrial developments
In 2013, BAE Systems received a $ 34.5 million contract from the Naval Research and Development Administration for the development of a rail gun for the second phase of the gun prototype construction program. In the first phase, engineers from the Navy's Surface Weapons Development Center successfully fired the Raytheon EM Railgun prototype, reaching an energy level of 33 megajoules. According to BAE Systems, in the second phase, the company intends to move from single shooting to burst shooting and develop an automatic loading system, as well as thermal control systems to cool the gun after each shot. In 2013 BAE Systems also received a contract from this department for the development and demonstration of the HVP.
General Atomics began developing railgun technology back in 1983 as part of President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative. The initiative was aimed at "developing a space-based missile defense program that could protect the country from a large-scale nuclear attack." The initiative lost its relevance after the end of the Cold War and was quickly abandoned, due in part to its exorbitant cost. There were more than enough technical problems then, and railguns were no exception. The first version of the rail gun required so much energy to run the gun that it could only be housed in a large hangar, and therefore, according to Elke, "over the past eight years, we have reduced the size of electronics and semiconductors and created super-large capacitors."
Today, General Atomics has already developed a 30 megajoule rail cannon and a 10 megajoule Blitzer universal rail cannon. Meanwhile, a capacitor that simplifies the process of storing energy for firing from relief trunks on ground vehicles was successfully demonstrated in July 2016 at an open range. Elke added in this regard: “We have also successfully demonstrated the transportability of the Blitzer cannon. The cannon was disassembled and transported from the Dagway test site to the Fort Sill test site and reassembled there for a series of successful firing tests during the 2016 army maneuvers.”
Raytheon is also actively developing rail gun technology and an innovative pulsed energy network. Finkenaur explained: “The network consists of many pulsed power containers 6.1 m long and 2.6 meters high, which house dozens of small blocks called pulsed power modules. The work of these modules is to accumulate the required energy for a few seconds and release it in an instant. If we take the required number of modules and connect them together, then they can provide the power required for the railgun operation.
Counterbalance to threats
In an April 2016 speech in Brussels, US Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work noted that “both Russia and China are improving the ability of their special operations forces to operate at sea, on land and in the air on a daily basis. They are becoming quite strong in cyberspace, electronic countermeasures and in space. " The threats posed by these developments forced the United States and NATO countries to develop the so-called common "Third Counterbalance Strategy" TOI (Third Offset Initiative). As the then Defense Minister Heigel stated in 2014, TOI's goal is to equalize or dominate the military capabilities of China and Russia, developed through the introduction of the latest technology. In this context, rail guns, and hypersonic projectiles in particular, represent key capabilities to counter or neutralize potential threats posed by the weapons of China and Russia, which were mentioned in the introductory part of the article.
