Navy Exploring More Uses for Futuristic Rail Gun Technology

An aggressive effort to make the U.S. Navy more lethal and efficient will include experiments with new uses for missiles and application of new rail gun technology to smaller weapons systems, the service's director of surface warfare said Tuesday.

Amid a rapidly changing global environment in which Navy technology was fast being outpaced, Read Adm. Peter Fanta said the service was adopting a philosophy of increased lethality and "three ways to kill everything."

"I realize that might not be the nicest way to talk about things, but folks, our job is to kill people and break their toys," he told an audience at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium near Washington, D.C. "There's nothing else in the world that matters."

Among projects in the works for the Navy is the development of new gun rounds, including the possibility of a smaller version of the electromagnetic projectile launching technology used by the rail gun weapon now in development. The rail gun, which can hurl a projectile at well over 5,000 miles per hour, is being evaluated for possible mounting on a Zumwalt-class destroyer by the mid-2020s.