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takyon writes:

The Navy plans to fire 5-inch diameter non-explosive projectiles from deck-mounted railguns:

The Navy plans to fire a high-speed, long-range rail-gun Hypervelocity Projectile from its deck-mounted 5-inch guns to destroy enemy drones, ships, incoming missiles and even submarines, service officials said.

The effort is led by a special Future Naval Capability program.

Navy officials say 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, service developers told 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.

BAE Systems Hyper Velocity Projectile. 5-inch gun. Found at NBF.

Related: U.S. Military Increasing Development of Directed Energy Weapons
U.S. Navy's New Mach 6 Electro-Magnetic Railgun Almost Ready for Prime Time

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