Looks like the PLA Navy has surpassed the United States Navy in at least one aspect. They now possess and operational and field-able Railgun. United States intelligence confirms this fact.
United States will likely catch up, sooner or later. But it clearly demonstrates that China is inevitably pulling even with the United States in overall technological prowess.
Meh…I’m not really worried
so much for Trump rebuilding the military.
Chinese railguns are not the reason American locomotives shudder and shake…
It is not so much something to be “worried” about.
In fact, it has really lessen the chance for conflict between the United States and China. Neither side can really best the other at this point.
Not defending Trump.
But this rests almost entirely upon the ineptitude of the civilian leadership of the United States Navy.
Lets leave all Presidents out of this, as partisan finger pointing is silly and irrelevant in this situation. This is not a partisan matter.
I remember reading a article a couple of decades ago about the US working on rail gun technologies. I will bet that we have one but have chosen not to deploy it.
Nukes did that
And China has seen what a nuclear powered nation can do with little consequences in Ukraine and Crimea …
Not completely, there was still a chance of a low level Pacific conflict.
That is now effectively ended.
Right and if we went into Mexico and took over who would do what?
Same deal…
Nah…I dont buy that…too much risk
That that glitters is not gold.
I’d be skeptical about anything purported by the Chinese military.
Even if we accept that as true, the railgun STILL forces a change in how we field and deploy our naval assets in the western Pacific.
United States Intelligence sources confirm Chinese claims.
Well yeah…that goes without saying
What kind of conflict scenarios?
1: Railgun ammunition is dirt cheap, or will be in the long term.
2: You fire them in an arc not a straight line. Current range is over 100 miles but you can expect that to get higher.
3: You can’t shoot down or viably intercept a railgun round because it’s traveling far too fast. The fireball you mentioned appears in part because of the tremendous velocities involved, anything nearby that’s combustible (dust, or even air) will light up.
4: Because it travels so fast it could probably be used to intercept missiles, again with very cheap ammunition.
5: That ammunition, as a result of being so simple, can be very compact and also safe to store. Logistically you wouldn’t have to resupply as often if using railgun rounds as opposed to missile strikes.
Long-term there’s lots of advantages. Especially when it comes to cost.
They’re mostly dumb rounds, as anything more complex is unlikely to survive the forces involved. Think they’re aiming to get cluster bombs loaded into them though eventually.
Think of it as artillery with a very, very high upper limit on range and a shell that travels at mach 7+. The guidance would be in the aiming 
.
Like I said, range atm is a bit over 100 miles but you can expect that to keep rising.
They won’t make guided missiles completely obsolete by any means, but they have a number of advantages.
They will be a good way to bring down collateral damage as well, given the lack of a conventional explosion radius.
But all of this still looks a ways off yet, lots of engineering hurdles to overcome.
