CCTV reveals new "fast, accurate and ruthless" artillery shells, no flash of fire and no roar

Recently, CCTV's "Military Zero Distance" program exposed for the first time the launch test site of China's electromagnetic gun. What is the principle of the electromagnetic gun without any fire or roar? What are its advantages over gunpowder guns?

The electromagnetic gun first came into people's attention in the movie "Transformers". The battles between the many weapons in service of the US military and robots in the movie made military fans excited, and the scene where a mysterious naval gun hit the robot from a long distance was the climax of the movie. This weapon is called the electromagnetic rail gun in the movie.

▲In 2008, the United States successfully tested the electromagnetic cannon (Photo source/Visual China)

Recently, CCTV's "Military Zero Distance" program exposed for the first time the launch test site of China's electromagnetic gun. In the picture, not only was there no fire or roar during the launch process, but even the shells used were new shells that did not use gunpowder and could be used for forest and fire fighting. What kind of gun is this electromagnetic gun with such a "strange" style?

▲The launch test site of China's electromagnetic gun was exposed in the program "Military Zero Distance" (Photo source: CCTV screenshot)

"Faster", "More Accurate" and "More Cruel"

Before exploring the power of electromagnetic guns, we need to first clarify one question: What is an electromagnetic gun?

Every student who has studied high school physics should remember that electric current can generate a magnetic field, and at the same time, the magnetic field will have a strong effect on the electric current, which is exactly the principle of the electromagnetic gun: the magnetic force generated by the coil after the power is turned on is used to launch the metal shell, thereby providing the required kinetic energy for the shell to hit the target. From the classification point of view, the current mainstream electromagnetic guns can be divided into three categories, namely coil guns, rail guns and electric thermal guns, among which rail guns are the most common type of electromagnetic guns.

▲Schematic diagram of the principle of rail-type electromagnetic gun (Source: bisbos)

Generally speaking, an electromagnetic railgun consists of three parts: a power source that provides energy, a pair of parallel long straight tracks, and a movable projectile. When the two tracks are connected to a power source, a strong current will start from the positive pole, flow through the projectile, and then flow back through the negative pole. In this process, the current passing through the track will generate a strong magnetic field between the two rail planes, which in turn generates a force on the projectile, namely the Lorentz force. Through the precise control of the computer, the projectile will be pushed out at a very high speed under the acceleration level by level.

Unlike gunpowder cannons, the prerequisite for electromagnetic railguns is that the shells must first be connected to the electrical rails to form a circuit, which requires the shells themselves to be conductors. Therefore, the shells used in electromagnetic railguns are mostly made of tungsten-aluminum alloy inside, and non-explosive materials as the outer shell.

If the focus of the electromagnetic gun is not the shells that can "explode", then what is its power? Take the electromagnetic railgun originally equipped on the Zumwalt-class destroyer of the United States as an example. Its shells weigh about 9 kilograms each, and the initial flight speed can reach 6 times the speed of sound, nearly 2,000 meters per second, and it can fire 12 rounds per minute.

▲Electromagnetic gun developed by the United States (Photo source/Visual China)

In my country, scientists have successfully achieved a muzzle firing test of 2,500 m/s. You know, the initial velocity of an ordinary artillery shell is usually only 800-1,000 m/s, and when the speed of the shell is greatly increased, its strike rate will also increase significantly. In addition to being "faster" and "more accurate", the electromagnetic gun is also "more ruthless" - with an initial muzzle kinetic energy of at least 30 million joules, even if the gun barrel is not loaded with gunpowder shells, but just a simple piece of iron, with the assistance of remote sensing satellites and high-speed computers, it can easily achieve "thick wall penetration in seconds" for concrete walls tens of meters away.

Electromagnetic guns cannot replace traditional artillery

In the 19th century, scientist Faraday discovered the Lorentz force by accident. Inspired by this discovery, some people invented generators, while others, such as Charles Wheatstone, came up with a bold idea: Can this principle be used to make a weapon?

In 1845, Wheatstone put his "brain hole" into practice, made a reluctance DC motor, and successfully threw a metal rod nearly 20 meters away. However, his success did not cause any waves until 1901, when Birkeland, a physics professor at the University of Oslo in Norway, formally proposed the concept of "electromagnetic launch" and obtained a patent for the "electric cannon".

▲A conceptual diagram of a coil gun published in a magazine in the last century (Source: Hacked Gadgets)

By the early 1970s, Australia was trying to gradually increase the initial velocity of a 3-gram plastic block to 6,000 meters per second... After continuous research, in the 1980s, American scientists finally succeeded in accelerating a 300-gram artillery shell to nearly 4,000 meters per second in the laboratory.

Many people believe that electromagnetic guns, which sound like the plot of science fiction, have only been able to come out of the laboratory in recent years. However, in fact, long before humans entered the 21st century, there were real objects during World War II: at the end of World War II, the desperate German army tried to use new weapons to save the defeat. In 1944, Dr. Asim Hansler and Chief Inspector of Bunzer of Germany tested a 10mm caliber coil gun, but the test was unsuccessful. The following year, Hansler's assistant O. Muk proposed the concept of "electrical thermal gun" based on his work. In the same year, Hansler successfully tested a 20mm diameter and 2m long rail gun in a railway tunnel, and finally accelerated a 10g aluminum cylinder to 1080m/s; after connecting the two tracks in series, the speed of the aluminum column reached 1210m/s.

▲Orbital launch principle

"Since the 1990s, countries around the world have begun to pay attention to electromagnetic guns. The main reason for this is that the development of traditional artillery has reached a physical limit, and the cost-effectiveness of its improvement space is not high, so everyone has begun to turn their attention to electromagnetic guns," said military expert Kui Zhou.

It turns out that traditional artillery needs higher gunpowder energy to increase its range, but during the firing process, the temperature generated can reach thousands of degrees Celsius, and the erosion effect on the artillery barrel can be imagined. In addition, its manufacturing process and cost are not considerable. Therefore, the development of new kinetic energy artillery has naturally become an option for countries hoping to break through the bottleneck of modern artillery.

China's electromagnetic gun achieves "overtaking on a curve"

Nowadays, electromagnetic launch technology has become an important field of research and development in all countries around the world, including China, the United States, Britain, and Australia. It is reported that in 2014, the US Navy stated that its marine electromagnetic gun test plan could achieve a high-speed light artillery shell of 7 times the speed of sound. As a rising star, my country has also achieved "overtaking on the curve" in the field of electromagnetic guns in recent years, and applied it to many fields such as forest fire fighting.

However, it is worth noting that although electromagnetic launch technology is very powerful in theory, it also faces many difficulties. The biggest problem is energy storage-how to provide hundreds of megajoules of electricity in an instant? In theory, in order to achieve a high initial velocity, either the electromagnetic track is increased or a large current is used to increase the electromagnetic force, and both methods are very difficult to operate in practice. Secondly, a huge current will flow through the shells during the launch process. When people pursue higher speeds and strike forces, how can the shell material break through its own limits? Furthermore, how to solve the heat dissipation problem caused by the huge power supply, and how to upgrade the cooling device and circuit design?

It can be said that in the process of making electromagnetic guns closer to reality, there are still many challenges that scientists need to solve.

(References: China Military Network, Military Zero Distance)

Written by reporter Wang Xueying, Photo and text editor Chen Yongjie

New Media Editor/Lv Bingxin

Image source/Visual China (except those with signature)

Produced by: Science Central Kitchen

Produced by: Beijing Science and Technology News | Science Plus Client

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