Picture this: A massive destroyer receives the location coordinates of an enemy headquarters more than 200 miles away. Instead of launching a million-dollar Tomahawk cruise missile, it points a gun barrel in the direction of the target, diverts electric power from the ship’s engine to the gun turret, and launches a 3-foot-long, 40-pound projectile up a set of superconducting rails.
When the technology to make railguns that actually work is refined, the companies that produce them will sell their ideas to all who can afford them. It won't be long before they will be installed in places like the Straights of Hormuz where they will control all access into and out of the Persian Gulf, etc. We'll have ten or twenty years to enjoy this fascinating gadget, but then the tables will be turned. It's worth thinking about. Maybe putting money into radio and TV stations that can beam western ideas at the minds of our enemies instead of railgun projectiles is the better way to go. Just a thought.
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