EurekAlert! Science News:

Since its establishment approximately two years ago, the Naval Postgraduate School’s Railgun Laboratory – the largest of any academic institution – has empowered students and faculty with the facilities to conduct advanced, applied research in hypervelocity projectile (HVP) technology. But advanced technologies aren’t the only result … In fact, the lab has quickly become a critical asset in equipping alumni to be enduring technological leaders in the HVP space, ready to make an immediate impact in the fleet after graduation.

Two of these alumni leaders are Dr. Ben McGlasson, NPS’ Electric Weapons Advisor and Railgun Laboratory lead, and Lt. Paul Cross, the Naval Strike Missile Lead Military Engineer at Naval Surface Warfare Center Dahlgren Division (NSWCDD).

McGlasson, who just completed his PhD in Applied Physics at NPS furthering railgun research – a technology that uses Gun Launched Guided Projectiles for anti-air and surface missions – also helped commission the NPS Railgun Lab in 2018. He used the lab’s initial research results to establish credibility for its simulations positioning the Railgun Lab today to successfully explore the challenges associated with electric weapons.

“The railgun research that we do here is not only for student projects or learning purposes,” said McGlasson. “We’re executing experiments sponsored by the Office of Naval Research, collaborating with a variety of research labs and universities. The discoveries that we make [at the Railgun Lab] would improve any kind of gun-based defense, which is a new approach to doing shipboard missile defense using guns instead of missiles to defend against missiles. Using guns to defend against those kind of threats helps preserve our own missiles for a higher-end threat. This would be in addition to the surface strike mission, in which the railguns being tested at Dahlgren and White Sands can reach over 100 nautical miles”…

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