Japan develops new weapon technologies such as railguns
The Japanese MoD’s import of expensive American weapons such as Aegis Ashore, F-35As, MV-22B Ospreys and AAV7s is squeezing the budget for procurement and R&D of domestic equipment. This was apparent at the Acquisition, Technology & Logistics Agency (ATLA) Defense Technology Symposium held in Tokyo on 13-14 November. Nevertheless, there were interesting developments.
One is research on electromagnetic railguns, although Japan is late to the game compared to China, for example. The Ground Systems Research Center’s (GSRC) first experimental railgun had a 2m-long barrel that launches 16mm-calibre projectiles at a 2,700m/s muzzle velocity. The GSRC has expanded its calibre
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