The U.S. Navy is considering deploying its game-changing electromagnetic railgun (EM railgun) as the main gun armament on its operational Spearhead-class Expeditionary Fast Transport (EPF) ships, as well as its new class of guided missile destroyers and cruisers to enter service over the next two decades.

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A Spearhead-class EPF, the USNS Trenton (T-EPF-5), will be the first warship to test an EM railgun. Tests will begin late this summer off the coast of Florida and will assess ability of an EM railgun made by BAE Systems to perform naval surface fire support against static floating targets 25 to 50 nautical miles (46 to 93 km) away.

The railgun will fire GPS-guided hyper velocity projectiles (HVPs) each weighing 44 lbs. There are 20 planned firings off Florida.

The Navy expects to purchase 23 EPF vessels over 30 years but it's unknown how many will be armed with an EM railgun. EPFs are high-speed, shallow draft ships designed for the rapid transit and deployment of conventional or Special Forces plus equipment and supplies. They can transport up to 300 U.S. Army infantrymen or Marines.

There are six operational EPFs plus four more building. The ship's paltry main armament consists of four M2 .50 caliber machine guns. Railguns are specifically intended as shore bombardment weapons capable of accurately hitting over-the-horizon targets more than 160 kilometers distant.

The addition of railguns to the EPFs will allow this vessel to actively support the troops they land with sustained and accurate shellfire.

The first Navy warship to be armed with a railgun as its main gun armament, however, will be the USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002), a Zumwalt-class destroyer currently being built at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. The destroyer has an expected delivery date in 2018.

Plans call for an EM railgun to replace the 155 mm gun mounted ahead of the Lyndon B. Johnson's deck house. The Zumwalt-class and the Spearhead-class are currently among the only surface combatants that can generate the enormous electric power needed to continuously fire an EM railgun at land and naval targets.

The Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) is currently conducting an in-depth study on mounting a railgun on the U.S. Navy's future surface combatants such as the replacement for the Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers and the replacement for the Ticonderoga-class guided missile cruisers.

The goal of the U.S. Navy's EM railgun program is to have an operational 32 megajoule weapon capable of firing a guided round almost a hundred nautical miles by the mid 2020s.

TagsU.S. Navy, electromagnetic railgun, Railgun, USS Lyndon B. Johnson, USNS Trenton