Earlier this month, General Atomics—the same folks who produce the Predator and Reaper drones, as well as the Navy's less than ready for prime time Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), among many other defense products—announced that it had been awarded a contract to further develop and test their railgun for U.S. Army applications. The contract will run for three years and will result in a number of prototypes that will be evaluated and integrated into existing Army vehicles and fighting doctrine.
Notice that the system is modular and can be carried on the beds of trucks.
Rail guns were a feature of future warfare that I took a stab at describing for the Army Mad Scientist contest.
Note too that the smallest version could be a direct fire weapon, I imagine.
The same modularity would make it deployable on an Army vessel--like The AFRICOM Queen modularized auxiliary cruiser I wrote about--capable of providing rail gun missile defense and firepower support for troops near the coast.
I'm glad somebody is pushing forward on this. As long as one service develops it, all services will benefit in the end. The modularized auxiliary concept would work for the Navy, too.
Also, the Army directed microwave weapon is housed in a short shipping container. Standard shipping containers are the basis of the building blocks I'd like to see for the modularized auxiliary cruiser.
