General Atomics demonstrated its Blitzer railgun at US Army’s MFIX 42704162

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General Atomics demonstrated its Blitzer railgun at US Army’s MFIX
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems demonstrated the Blitzer electromagnetic railgun system at the US Army’s Maneuver and Fires Integration Experiment (MFIX). MFIX is an annual event taking place at the Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill in Oklahoma.
     
General Atomics demonstrated its Blitzer railgun at US Army s MFIX
General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems' railgun transported at the US Army's Fires Center of Excellence in Oklahoma (Photo: General Atomics EMS)
     

The exercise is an opportunity for the Army to meet and inform industry partners on its requirements, validate or refine concepts, address capability gaps and assess solutions.

The company has developed and tested until now, two railguns. The internally funded Blitzer 3 MJ and the 32 MJ railgun for the Office of Naval Research. The Blitzer family of railguns is complemented by a 10 MJ designed for mobile and fixed land-based applications.

This kind of weapon systems offer the advantage of firing projectiles with up to two times the muzzle velocities seen by conventional guns, without the use of any propellant thanks to the electromagnetic launch system. The speed of a projectile can range between Mach 6 and 7. Therefore, they railguns can engage a target in shorter time, at greater distances, with higher lethality and lower costs.

The Blitzer railgun was fired 11 times against targets at ranges greater than those of previous times. All of them had been considered successful. The electromagnetic railgun system will undergo further testing until the end of the year at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah.

According to Nick Bucci, VP of Missile Defense and Space Systems at General Atomics – EMS, "This event marks another milestone for our railgun team. After the successful test firings of our guidance electronics units at Dugway Proving Ground in Utah one month ago, we disassembled the Blitzer railgun system and transported it to Ft. Sill where it was set-up and fired during the MFIX event. Our goal was met in showing how our advanced weapon system can be efficiently transported from site to site. Testing our system under real world conditions at different locales enables us to gather the critical data necessary to improve the system's efficiency to meet future customer mobility requirements."