U.S. Navy says sets record for futuristic gun

"Railguns are a big deal in science fiction," Tom Boucher, the test director, said by telephone from a naval laboratory in Dahlgren, Virginia, where the event took place.
"We have the largest (such gun) in the world firing the highest energy levels ever," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
The energy used in the event equaled 10.6 megajoules, up from a previous record of nine in a Texas test in 1992, Boucher said.
A megajoule, or MJ, is a measure of energy sufficient to power a 100-watt light bulb for about three hours.
The test on Thursday fired a 3.2-kilogram projectile less than 100 feet at the Naval Warfare Center-Dahlgren Division in Virginia but achieved the speed needed to propel it 200 miles, Boucher said.
This was done by accelerating it to 2,500 meters per second, or 5,600 miles per hour, the Office of Naval Research said in a background paper.
Late 2007, BAE delivered to the Navy an experimental 32-megajoule electromagnetic railgun, a step on the road to a 64-MJ system to be deployed on U.S. warships starting in 2020.
Future U.S. Navy ships are to ...