With the power to fire a 40-pound metal slug up to 5,600 miles an hour, hitting a target with 32 times the force of a "1-ton car being thrust as 100mph," railguns are now part of the real world ladies and gentlemen.
Previously, railguns were huge lab models that filled an entire room and never seemed as if they were ever going to be used on the field. The navy changed all of that when it announced that it has successfully tested one built by private weapons firm BAE. Similar to throwing a huge rock through a window (i.e. the hull of a ship), railguns use kinetic energy, so much that to test it non-aerodynamic rounds are being used during testing to avoid damaging surrounding civilian land. The weapon is so advanced that the Navy cannot generate enough power to fire its initial goal of 10 rounds a minute, thankfully putting this weapon off of the battlefield for a while.
[Source: Gizmodo]