General Atomics (GA) have blasted their way into the headlines again with a video of the latest test firing of their Blitzer Railgun.

The Blitzer is being developed as a multi-role weapons system that can be mounted on a truck, ship or even an aircraft.  With talents including integrated air and missile defense, surface fire support and anti-surface warfare GA may be right, Blitzer is the weapon system for every occasion.

blitzer1_dvd from General Atomics on Vimeo.

GA already has a number of Blitzers in testing, scaling the system for different roles. A 3MJ (Megajoule) model for testing, 10MJ for trucks and the big daddy 32MJ canon for the US Navy. BAE and GA are currently racing to be the first to develop a 64MJ prototype, rumour has it that the 64MJ Blitzer may be able to blast the moon clear out of the sky.

The US Navy are on track to test fire a rail gun from the USNS Trenton later this year. This will be a test of the fully configured 32MJ rail gun. The hyper velocity rounds fired weigh 10kg’s and travel at Mach 7 (5000mph/8000kph) to hit a target out as far as 160km.

Combined with the GA’s new guided projectile technology you have a system that’s as flexible as a guided missile, as cheap as a bullet and can provide rapid fire like an artillery canon.

Reference: GA Electromagnetic Weapons Systems
Reference: Wikipedia Railgun
Reference: Wikipedia Zumwalt Class Destroyer