Years after the United States formally shelved its electromagnetic railgun program, there appears to be renewed interest in the technology, a weapon system no nation has yet mastered. This purported revival aligns with the bold new Trump-class battleships.
On December 22, 2025, at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, President Donald Trump announced the new “Trump-class” large surface combatants, dubbed “battleships,” and positioned them as future flagships of the US Navy.
The President unveiled multiple renderings of the battleship—the first of which will be known as USS Defiant—and divulged some key information about its ammunition.
He explicitly stated that” battleships would be armed with electromagnetic railguns as part of their armament, alongside hypersonic missiles, nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles, directed energy weapons, and conventional guns.
The US Navy already fields nuclear sea-launched cruise missiles, is advancing hypersonic weapons via the Conventional Prompt Strike program, and is integrating various laser systems onto warships.
In contrast, the electromagnetic railgun program was officially paused four years ago and has lain dormant since.
This may be the first time in years that a sitting President has talked about equipping a US Navy ship with electromagnetic rail guns. In fact, a mock-up of the first ship of the new class was seen with a 32-megajoule railgun mounted on its bow.
A railgun with that much power could shoot a projectile over 100 nautical miles, according to the Office of Naval Research.
Analysts surmised that the announcement may indicate an intent to revive the railgun project under the new administration.
The US President has been very keen to leave a rich legacy, particularly in the military domain, as evidenced by the many projects (including the F-47 sixth-generation fighter jet.
Nonetheless, military observers have expressed skepticism about the rail gun project based on past experience, predicting that it could divert funding from other, more significant programs.
Interestingly, the announcement regarding railguns comes two months after General Atomics pitched a multi-mission railgun system that could be specifically tailored for air and missile defense applications, integrated into the aspirational Golden Dome initiative, and used to defend Guam.
At the time, General Atomics showcased a graphic of the railgun, developed by General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS), at its booth at the Association of the United States Army’s annual convention in Washington, D.C.
When asked about the system, Mike Rucker, Head of GA-EMS Weapons, said the company has submitted a railgun proposal for the Golden Dome initiative. He expressed confidence in the system, saying he believes this novel technology has the potential to provide a cost-effective solution for intercepting ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones in the terminal phase.
The infographic published by GA-EMS stated that the multi-mission railgun system can fire projectiles at Mach 6. The graphic listed three variants of the railgun, with energy capacities ranging from three to 32 megajoules.
If Trump is serious about integrating this weapon onto the Trump-class battleship, it could be used to perform similar functions, making the neutralisation of incoming threats significantly cheaper.
It must be noted that the Railgun project was abandoned in 2021 owing to several technical difficulties and cost overruns, which frequently raises the question of putting money into a sci-fi-like concept once again, particularly at a time when the treasury is strained, and the Trump administration is largely focusing on putting money into programs that can be developed quickly.
Trying to inspire confidence, Mike Rucker said, “The system works. It stopped because it wasn’t, you know, fieldable in an operational environment. The reliability aspects of it, right? But in terms of the technical challenges, the technical challenges have been solved. It’s pulling it all together and making it so soldiers and sailors can operate it.”
That said, the most crucial information he revealed was that Washington was “cooperating” with these customers regarding their interest in the GA-ESM railgun products.
For now, the Pentagon has published no new information on its interest in pursuing the railgun project, but details might slowly emerge, especially since countries like Japan and China are advancing work on this state-of-the-art system.
Moreover, Michael Fabey, a naval analyst with Janes, was quoted saying that the Navy has continued research into the weapon system itself, including its projectile, even though it halted plans to equip ships with railguns in 2021.
The EurAsian Times has reached out to the US Navy for more details.
US Quest For Railgun Technology
In sci-fi, railguns are often depicted as high-tech, devastating weapons that fire projectiles at hypersonic speeds using electromagnetic forces, obliterating targets with sheer kinetic energy. They are sleek, powerful, and often a centerpiece of military might in those universes. And, in the real world, they are a little less glamorous but just as fascinating.
Railguns are unique systems that use electricity and magnetism, not gunpowder, to launch projectiles at hypersonic velocity.
A railgun consists of two parallel conductive rails connected to a power source, and in between the rails is an armature or conductive projectile. When a massive electric current is passed through the rails, it creates a magnetic field that exerts a force (called the Lorentz Force) that slingshots the projectile forward at hypersonic speeds (Mach 5 or more).
In other words, instead of employing gunpowder and explosives, a railgun uses an electromagnetic field to push a metal ball toward its target at hypersonic speed. Because of its incredibly high speed, the missile accumulates sufficient kinetic energy to kill any potential target. In fact, any metal ball without any explosives could be used as the projectile.
In 2012, the US Navy first proposed the idea of a “dream shell,” which would use SatNav signals to navigate at Mach 5 after being launched from electromagnetic rail guns. The Office of Naval Research was responsible for the project, and BAE Systems and General Atomics were the main contractors to the US Navy to develop the railgun.
The Navy carried out development work on electromagnetic rail guns for more than 10 years, and at one point considered mounting them on the new, covert Zumwalt-class destroyers under construction at Bath Iron Works in Maine.
The project cost the US about $500 million before it fell out of favour, when funding was deliberately reduced in the fiscal year 2021 budget request to $9.5 million, down from $15 million in FY2020 and roughly $28 million in FY 2019.
Military and naval warfare analyst Bryan Clark from the Hudson Institute stated that the US spent approximately US$500 million on the program over a decade. The biggest drawback was the system’s limited range – 110 miles (177 km) – clocked during testing. “A Navy vessel could not employ the gun without putting itself within range of a barrage of enemy missiles. And its usefulness for missile defense was also limited by range and rate of fire.”
The project sought to create a naval gun capable of delivering devastating kinetic-energy strikes at long ranges. However, it succumbed to insurmountable technical hurdles.
While the theory behind railgun technology is intriguing, there are still issues that have prevented any state from developing and deploying one, even after a century of research.
Typically, railguns require a great deal of electrical energy, which is provided by capacitors or pulsed power systems, as standard batteries can’t deliver the instantaneous power needed. This massive energy demand has been a hurdle, as a small railgun could consume the electrical power equivalent of 10,000 homes. It has proven extremely difficult to generate and store that much electricity.
Moreover, this system requires cooling, further limiting its use.
Another persistent issue engineers and scientists have faced over the years is barrel wear caused by excessive heat and friction. The parallel conductors were also often damaged by the strong electrical current and magnetic stress. The scientists needed to develop rails that could consistently handle that much force.
After the US abandoned the program, the funding was redirected towards hypersonic missiles, directed energy weapons (DEW), and electronic warfare (EW) systems.
However, US ally Japan and adversary China have continued efforts to develop a railgun, as you can read in a detailed EurAsian Times report.
In fact, Japan’s Acquisition Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) has already fired projectiles from a prototype electromagnetic railgun in testing earlier this year, making a major breakthrough in the development of an operational railgun.
The US, too, seems to be interested in this system once again. However, several of the challenges that led to its shelving persist, and integrating railguns adds billions to already expensive ships, making the whole project way more expensive and complex.
Not to forget, Trump wants the first of the Trump-class ships to be ready in over two and a half years. Integrating a railgun to the USS Defiant, the first ship of the class, may be wishful thinking at this point.
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