The Chinese landing ship is equipped with a weapon suspected to be an electromagnetic cannon on the front bow.
Chinese social networks in early January spread images of the country’s Type-072III class amphibious ship at sea testing with a large weapon cluster, sparking speculation that the country’s navy is about to put electromagnetic guns into operation.
Although China claims to be winning the race to equip this super cannon on warships, military experts say that even if the Chinese navy attaches electromagnetic guns to warships, it will be difficult for them to be effective.
Electromagnetic cannons do not use explosives but take advantage of the energy of electromagnetic rails to push the warhead at speeds of up to 7,200 km/h, nearly 6 times faster than sound and many times faster than conventional artillery shells.
However, a series of technological obstacles may prevent China’s electromagnetic guns from being effective and even becoming useless in future wars.
Although cheaper than missiles, electromagnetic artillery shells are still much more expensive than initially expected.
Electromagnetic cannons have a limited firing rate of 8 rounds per minute, making them difficult to deploy to deal with enemy missiles and aircraft.
Electromagnetic guns installed on the Type-072III landing ship in February 2018.
Maintaining and powering electromagnetic cannons is also very difficult, as it requires a large source of energy to fire.
`Electromagnetic artillery is not an effective solution to replace traditional missiles or artillery. It is not a useful military technology,` said Bryan Clark, an analyst at the US Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
China is not the first country to be interested in electromagnetic guns.
`We should spend money on missile and vertical launcher (VLS) projects instead of electromagnetic guns. This type of weapon faces a series of obstacles in the technological foundation. All electromagnetic guns have this problem
Olivia