For more than a decade the Navy has labored to develop a workable rail gun, a futuristic weapon that fires projectiles at up to seven times the speed of sound using electricity. It failed. 

The Washington Post quotes Matthew Caris, a defense analyst at Avascent Group, a consulting firm saying “The railgun is, for the moment, dead.”

All told, the Navy spent about $500 million on research and development, according to Bryan Clark, an analyst at the Hudson Institute. Now, the Navy has cut funding for railgun research from its latest budget proposal. The Defense Department is turning its attention to hypersonic missiles to keep up with China and Russia.

A railgun is a kinetic energy weapon that uses electricity instead of gunpowder, or jet or rocket engines, to accelerate a projectile at six or seven times the speed of sound.  The problems with the rail gun, however, are that the range is limited to about 100 miles, and the gun’s lack of durability. The barrel on the railgun prototype had to be replaced after about a dozen or two dozen shots were fired. Hypersonic missiles, in comparison, have a range of up to 1,700 miles. 

The Navy’s Zumwalt Class destroyers may be the first ships to deploy hypersonic weapons, with a target date of 2025.

The U.S. Navy’s hypersonic weapon, called the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon, is a so-called “boost-glide” weapon. After being lofted – the “boost” – to altitude by a 34.5-inch diameter rocket, its warhead then maneuvers unpowered – the “glide” – to its target at speeds exceeding five times the speed of sound.

The CPS weapon is also being scheduled for deployment on Virginia Class submarines in 2028.