Supergun: U.S. Navy Unveils Deadly New Weapon Just In Time For Memorial Day [Video]

The U.S. Navy has a powerful, almost unstoppable new weapon in its arsenal — a deadly new supergun. The Navy’s new supergun is capable of firing a 25-pound “bullet” through a stack of seven seemingly indestructible steel sheets with enough force to leave a 5-inch hole. It doesn’t require explosives. It doesn’t need gunpowder. It gets its incredible force from electromagnetic rails, and as the Wall Street Journal reports, those rails allow the Navy’s supergun to fire with such awesome velocity that its projectiles have been referred to as “battlefield meteorites.”

The goal of the U.S. Navy’s impressive new supergun weapon? Ultimately, designers and supporters of the new military technology say that it will help the U.S. stay ahead of Russian and Chinese military developments. The supergun also has the potential to eventually completely overhaul and transform U.S. military strategy.

Check out the U.S. Navy supergun’s power in the video below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxiOh3fwRXE

The Navy’s new supergun is superior to traditional guns in one key way. In a conventional firearm, the bullet starts losing acceleration almost immediately after the gunpowder’s ignition. With the U.S. Navy’s supergun, the electromagnetic railgun projectile actually gets faster while it travels through the 32-foot-long barrel. Ultimately, the supergun projectile or bullet exits the next-generation weapon’s muzzle at over a mile per second, or 4,500 miles per hour.

According to U.S. Navy Admiral Mat Winter, this new supergun is literally a game-changer for the U.S. Navy.

“This is going to change the way we fight.”

Make no mistakes about it, the new supergun is a weapon of offense, not defense. It can be used to destroy tanks, level terrorist camps, and blow holes in enemy vessels. The U.S. Navy’s new supergun has even piqued the interest of top Pentagon officers, who hope that the technology could be incorporated into a less-expensive U.S. missile-defense system. In a nutshell, the military’s top researchers and commanders would like to see the Navy’s new supergun used to shoot missiles out of the sky, and possibly within the next ten years.

The U.S. Navy’s supergun helps to address the primary future challenge facing the U.S. military. Military leaders need to maintain their global presence in the face of diminishing numbers of Naval vessels and troops. The ever-increasing costs of maintaining America’s military might, coupled with tighter budgets, have made it more difficult than ever for the U.S. to strategically maintain forces across the globe in an effort to “deter aggression.”

“I can’t conceive of a future where we would replicate Cold War forces in Europe. But I could conceive of a set of railguns that would be inexpensive but would have enormous deterrent value. They would have value against airplanes, missiles, tanks, almost anything.”

Watch: U.S. Navy’s New Supergun, Dispensing Freedom! https://t.co/kbLoVy9ANq pic.twitter.com/OsxdcjeR8O

— SOFREP (@sofrepofficial) May 28, 2016

The U.S. Navy demonstrated the power of the new supergun at a test bunker in Dahlgren, showing off their new weapon to the media. According to Engineer Tom Boucher, the supergun is recharged from the electrical power grid.

The U.S. Navy’s new supergun requires a massive amount of electricity to generate the force required to accomplish its utter devastation of enemy targets. All in all, the supergun requires a 25 megawatt power plant to function. That’s enough juice to electrically power almost 19,000 homes.

“This is a thing of beauty going off.”

Not everyone agrees that the gun is a “thing of beauty,” and social media reactions have been mixed.

Killing the innocent people caught up in "the battlefield". It's still a weapon used to kill people. Is there a practical use for it?

— Ryan Kelly (@TheOnlyRKelly) May 27, 2016

While the Navy’s new supergun has advanced to the successful testing stage, it’s not yet battle ready. Creators say that the massive gun is still has “many technical barriers” to overcome before it makes it to the front lines. Additionally, politicians are facing a slew of geopolitical concerns about the powerful new offensive weapon.

Not surprisingly, military rivals such as Russia and China are none too pleased with the new supergun. They see the Navy’s new weapon and others like it as direct threats with the potential of disrupting the world’s balance of power. The U.S. Navy’s new supergun effectively negates enemy missile arsenals, particularly if it can be used as a missile defense system.

According to reports, the new supergun technology has made it an irresistible target for Chinese and Russian hackers.

Defense officials say that Chinese hackers recently tried to get through the Pentagon’s firewalls as well as those of military defense contractors in order to steal the secrets of the Navy’s new supergun. Pentagon officials have refused to comment further on the potential security breach.

Since the supergun’s development began over ten years ago, the U.S. Navy has spent more than half a billion dollars on the weapon’s fledgling technology. Now that it’s in the final testing stages, the Pentagon’s Strategic Capabilities office kicking down another 800 million in investment dollars. The money, the largest share for any current project, will be used to further increase the supergun’s defensive capabilities and also to modify existing guns to fire the next-generation electromagnetic railgun projectiles.

What do you think? Does the new supergun bode well for America’s future, or does the Navy’s new supergun have the potential to do more harm than good by angering foes of the U.S.?

[Photo by @MarketWatch/Twitter]