The railgun works by sending electric current along parallel rails. It creates an electromagnetic force so powerful it can fire a metal projectile at tremendous speed.

The US Navy are testing a railgun that could be in operation by the year 2020. Instead of gunpowder the weapon uses electricity to fire a projectile, accelerating it along parallel rails. The test unit is an 8 megajoule device but the Navy hopes that the final model will generate 64 megajoules and have a 200 to 250 nautical mile range. This is an enormous increase over current Navy guns which generate about 9 megajoules of energy and have a range of about 15 nautical miles.

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