The Navy’s Long Range Electromagnetic Railgun is NOT a Proof For a Flat Earth

The Navy’s long range electromagnetic railgun shoots parabolically at Mach 7 and can hit targets 100 miles away. Some Flat Earther’s erroneously suggest that 6,666 feet (8 inches x 100 miles x 100 miles divided by 12 inches) of missing Earth curvature is unaccounted for in this long range flight, where the railgun’s projectile is supposed to be magically curving around The Earth, with no explanation for this magic but the imaginary force of Gravity.

Incorrect Claim:

However, a rail gun shoots its projectile parabolically (not in a straight line), at objects at around 4600 mph, or 1.28 miles per second, for several reasons, just as ballistics shot from Navy vessel have done for many years. It would take approximately 78 seconds for a railgun’s projectile to travel straight 100 miles (i.e., horizontally).

Electromagnetic Railgun

Beyond Line of Sight (BLOS) Data

Note, at 100 miles, railguns are not merely shooting at “line of sight”, but rather, they shooting with “Beyond Line of Sight” (BLOS) data. Long rang railguns and advanced missile systems can operate “beyond line of sight” by utilizing data links and other technologies to receive target updates from other sources, allowing them to strike targets even when they are not directly visible to the launcher.

Railgun

Nevertheless, because of such variables as atmospheric density, where there is a coefficient of friction which requires projectile aerodynamic properties, projectile velocity, and projectile mass to overcome such density, a parabolic trajectory must be calculated with the railgun. It cannot simply shoot in a straight line and hit a target 100 miles away.

Density Cylinder

A “density cylinder with different oils” refers to a graduated cylinder where multiple types of oil, each with a different density, are carefully poured in, resulting in distinct layers with the densest oil settling at the bottom and the least dense oil floating on top. This is a common science demonstration to illustrate the concept of density and how liquids separate based on their mass per unit volume.

Parabolic Ballistic Trajectory

In other words, as the projectile is moving horizontally, it is also falling downward so that the trajectory must be parabolically calculated. For 78 seconds, the projectile should fall around 100,000 feet. Whether The Earth is said to have curvature or not is irrelevant. An upward parabolic trajectory must still be calculated in order to overcome the aforementioned variables of atmospheric density and object density.

Mobile Railgun

The barrel of the railgun weapon has an adjustable pivot to aim upwards to fire the projectile in an arc. That’s why it “calculates the trajectory”, because trajectory is a parabolic concept. If it fired in a straight line, then there would be no need to calculate an angle of trajectory because it would be a direct vector of momentum, which it is not at 100 miles.

U.S. Military's Most Powerful Cannon - Electromagnetic Railgun - Shoots 100 miles - Mach 7: