A Scenario for a Future European Shipboard Railgun

TL;DR

This paper explores a conceptual design for a future European shipboard railgun capable of delivering high-velocity projectiles with range and energy comparable to current artillery, using simulations to assess feasibility and technological limits.

Contribution

It presents a preliminary design and simulation-based analysis of a shipboard railgun system tailored for European naval applications, highlighting its potential advantages over traditional artillery.

Findings

Railgun can deliver comparable kinetic energy to current artillery.

Simulations show feasible projectile trajectories and heating limits.

Design parameters provide a basis for future weaponization discussions.

Abstract

Railguns can convert large quantities of electrical energy into kinetic energy of the projectile. This was demon- strated by the 33 MJ muzzle energy shot performed in 2010 in the framework of the Office of Naval Research (ONR) electromag- netic railgun program. Since then, railguns are a prime candidate for future long range artillery systems. In this scenario, a heavy projectile (several kilograms) is accelerated to approx. 2.5 km/s muzzle velocity. While the primary interest for such a hypersonic projectile is the bombardment of targets being hundreds of kilometers away, they can also be used to counter airplane attacks or in other direct fire scenarios. In these cases, the large initial velocity significantly reduces the time to impact the target. In this study we investigate a scenario, where a future shipboard railgun installation delivers the same kinetic energy to a target as the explosive round of a contemporary European ship artillery system. At the same time the railgun outperforms the current artillery systems in range. For this scenario a first draft for the parameters of a railgun system were derived. For the flight-path of the projectile, trajectories for different launch angles were simulated and the aero-thermodynamic heating was estimated using engineering-tools developed within the German Aerospace Center (DLR). This enables the assessment of the feasibility of the different strike scenarios, as well as the identification of the limits of the technology. It is envisioned that this baseline design can be used as a helpful starting point for discussions of a possible electrical weaponization of future European warships.