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20 second flight time for a target at 20 miles. Targeting will be easy, relatively.

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Potentially stupid question. Why is there a cloud of smoke after it fires when it isn't burning propellent?

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Yes, for every action, there is an equal one opposite reaction.  Projectile pushes back against the rails.

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Why is there smoke?  Like from gunpowder??

Railguns don't use chemical propellant they use magnets so???

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Incredibly effective. The KE is astronomical. Years ago they were talking about guided munitions with a possible 200 mile range in bigger guns.

Naval bombardment of inland cities from international waters with cheap munitions. America!

Navy plans have called for installing the railgun on the Navy’s three DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyers, but it’s not clear when that will happen.
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This summer and into next year, work will focus on increasing the power with which projectiles are fired to the target of 32 megajoules, and increasing what’s known as the rep rate to 10 shots per minute, or one every six seconds, said Dr. Tom Beutner, head of Naval Air Warfare and Weapons for ONR.

At 32 megajoules, the gun will have a range of about 110 nautical miles, Beutner told reporters at ONR’s Science and Technology Expo in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

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The system still has crucial issues that need to be resolved. The system sustains significant wear-and-tear when it’s fired because of the power behind the projectile, leading to worries that the gun will break down too fast. Beutner said that parts of the system are being developed for longevity.
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“They’ve extended the launcher core life from tens of shots’ core life when program started to something that’s now been fired over 400 times and … we anticipate barrels will be able to do over 1,000 shots,” he said.
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The system requires massive amounts of it — so much that only the massive Zumwalt-class ships can independently sustain the demand. Beutner noted that the challenge applied to other weapons as well: when the Navy tested its new Laser Weapons System aboard the amphibious transport ship Ponce this month, testers took their own power sources with them to simplify the challenge.

...“The program is leveraging commercial electronics miniaturization and computational performance increases to develop a common guided projectile for use in current 5 inch guns and future high velocity gun systems.  The HVP effort will seek to increase range and accuracy of the 5-Inch Gun Weapon System in support of multiple mission areas,” Navy spokeswoman Lt. Lauren Chatmas told Scout Warrior.

Developed initially for an Electromagnetic Rail Gun next-generation weapon, The Hyper Velocity Projectile, or HVP, can travel at speeds up to 2,000 meters per second when fired from a Rail Gun, a speed which is about three times that of most existing weapons.....
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The rate of fire is 10-rounds per minute. Also, due to its ability to reach speeds of up to 5,600 miles per hour, the hypervelocity projectile is engineered as a kinetic energy warhead, meaning no explosives are necessary.

Development of the HVP projectile can take place apart from its use in an actual Rail Gun, as is the case with efforts to adapt it to Navy 5-inch guns.

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Now I really want to know what they are up to with the Shiva Star.  Back in the day it was a testbed for an orbital plasma cannon.  That kinda got spun off into the MARAUDER project with the Shiva Star not working at orbital distances, and eventually getting used in fusion research.

Marauder kinda went off the map in the mid 90's as a coaxial plasma railgun project after getting classified.  They wanted to use a railgun to throw 1-2mg of plasma and have it turn into a 1m toroid out of the barrel.  

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i737rM6FxqE

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i737rM6FxqE

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Steam/water vapor? Compressing that much air that fast has to produce some water vapor and with the speed it's traveling maybe steam?


You can see this on the rear wing of F1 cars the compression of the air from the aerodynamics causes water vapor.

Don't really know but seems plausible to me.

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In a vacuum where it retains muzzle velocity for its flight, maybe. Real world includes drag deceleration.

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I want to see a multi projectile launch. Like a railshotgun

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Not at all an icepick. Cool things happen with kinetic weapons and hypersonic speeds. Basically when the projectile energy exceeds the bond energy of the object it hits, it explodes. I believe Smarter Every Day had a video on the phenomenon.

Eta: Mind you I'm not talking about a nuclear explosion, breaking atomic bonds, or pyrotechnic conflagration.