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Stunning images and video released Tuesday (25 July) show the U.S. Navy's electromagnetic railgun being tested. At the recent Naval Future Force Science and Technology Expo, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) announced that the Navy???s electromagnetic railgun is out of the laboratory and ready for field demonstrations at the Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division???s new railgun Rep-Rate Test Site at Terminal Range in Virginia. Initial rep-rate fires (repetition rate of fires) of multi-shot salvos already have been successfully conducted at low muzzle energy. The next test sequence calls for safely increasing launch energy, firing rates and salvo size. Railgun rep-rate testing will be at 20 megajoules by the end of the summer and at 32 megajoules by next year. To put this in perspective, one megajoule is the equivalent of a one-ton vehicle moving at 160 miles per hour. ??sRailguns and other directed-energy weapons are the future of maritime superiority,??? said Dr. Thomas Beutner, head of ONR's Naval Air Warfare and Weapons Department. ??sThe U.S. Navy must be the first to field this leap-ahead technology and maintain the advantage over our adversaries.??? The revolutionary railgun relies on a massive electrical pulse, rather than gunpowder or other chemical propellants, to launch projectiles at distances over 100 nautical miles??"and at speeds that exceed Mach 6, or six times the speed of sound. That velocity allows projectiles to rely on kinetic energy for maximum effect, and reduces the amount of high explosives needed on ships. The railgun shoots the high-velocity projectile (HVP), a next-generation, low-drag, guided projectile that can be used in different gun systems. With its increased velocity, precision guidance and extended range, the railgun realizes the full range of the HVP???s scalable lethality. Together, both technologies will enable naval forces to address threats in the mission areas of surface fire support, anti-air and anti-surface