From East Pendulum
Translated by google... go to the link directly for pics...
After more than a year of work and dock tests at the Wuchang Shipyard, the old landing ship 936 Haiyangshan, transformed into a floating test rig for the Chinese Navy's new Railgun, descended from the Blue River for to reach the coasts by the end of 2018. Since then, seafarers between Bohai Bay in the north and Shanghai in the south cross its path quite regularly, to the point that several amateur videos circulated on Chinese social networks showing these meetings rather unexpected.
If the details of his test program are not made public - the opposite would be - we know nevertheless that the building and its valuable payload have prepared not only for navigation tests but especially for seafire. several weapons testing centers in Bohai Bay, including one in the Liaodong Peninsula.
See the image on Twitter And according to some American sources, the Chinese Naval Railgun would have already made its first shots in early 2019. In its article published on January 30 this year, the American television channel CNBC, citing sources with a direct access to US intelligence reports, indicates that China has tested its new electromagnetic gun earlier in the month.
Still according to the same CNBC sources, the Chinese Railgun is capable of hitting a target over a distance of 200 km (124 miles) at a speed of 2,575 m / s (1.6 mile / s). It is not clear, however, how this fairly accurate data could be retrieved by US intelligence, is it a mere assumption based on their own systems under development, or measurement methods have been deployed?
The satellite images dated February 26, 2019 show that the 4,800-ton ship was then near Huludao, in a Chinese naval base.
Assuming that the elements revealed by the US sources are accurate, at least for the period when the first test was performed "in the month of January and before the 30", we can still try to find the place in which the Chinese Railgun made its first shots.
Using navigational alerts published by the Liaoning Marine Safety Administration, which manages all maritime affairs in Bohai Bay, a total of 8 military exercises, 3 of which are "real shots" Could be identified.
It is difficult to know, however, which of these officially announced exercises correspond to the shots of the Railgun in question. For a first shot at sea, it seems unlikely that the system will deploy all its power for maximum range. It is therefore possible that the system first performed short shots at varying powers, before extending the range and increasing the rate.
Of course, this is just a guess. The Chinese Navy could enforce a number of pre-defined procedures to run these tests, such as the GJB-592 to assess hit efficiency, the GJB-4739 on precision testing, the GJB-254 on qualifying tests. design ... etc.
It should be noted that the 3 "live fire" exercises as mentioned in the corresponding notifications all took place around Haimao Dao (海 猫 岛), an island located near Lüshunkou and which is a historical field of fire of the Chinese Navy. These exercises, from the 9th to the 12th, then the 17th to the 22nd and the 21st to the 24th of January, share exactly the same zone of forbiddance of square form, namely a perimeter of 43.9 km and an area of 120 km² around the island.
If the Chinese Railgun actually fired 200 km in range, which would correspond to the description of the US intelligence, then the test could have been held on January 14 since the maritime area closed for "military operation" that day is exactly a rectangle 220 km long and 25.5 km wide. But a shot from this distance still presents significant risks, whether from the sea to the mainland or from the continent to the sea (see the diagram below), not to mention the curvature of the Earth that makes this type of very long distance shots can not be measured.
At the level of the characteristics of this Railgun, the only exploitable elements in rejecting any presumption of the local media come from a letter of nomination of China Association for Science and Technology, which proposes the 45 scientists and researchers candidacy to the 12th Guanghua Engineering Science and Technology Award (光华 工程 科技 奖), a national award from the Chinese Academy of Engineering.
Among this list, which already has several well-known names, including one of the main designers of the IRBM and the Chinese AShBM DF-26, is the name of LI Xiang (李翔), a researcher in the Institute 713 of the Chinese naval group CSIC. According to the text, LI is named for his many contributions in the development of Chinese naval guns, including the new H / PJ-45 that now equips the Type 052D destroyers, but also for being the deputy chief designer a project for a "Naval Electro-Magnetic Cannon", in which he and his team "broke into key technologies in resistance to the thermal abrasion of the barrel and the loading of long-range shells", and carried out " continuous shooting tests with a muzzle velocity of 2500 m / s and a power of 32 MJ ".
"The development of the prototype for sea trials is over, the tests at sea will begin soon," said the document dated November 6, 2017, which unfortunately gives no details as to the mass of the projectile.
Apart from this letter of appointment, whose data appear consistent with the Chinese progress so far, a report by Central South University, specifically by its State Key Laboratory of High Performance Manufacturing Complex, also speaks of a new friction stir welding technology applied to the water-cooled rails of a Railgun, but its direct link with the gun currently under sea testing has not been proven yet.
To be continued.
Henri K.
