Latest news with #JapaneseNavy
India.com
25-05-2025
- India.com
This country achieved success where US failed by building ‘high-power' railgun, country is..., not Russia, China, UK, France, Germany, India, Pakistan
(State-of-the-art railgun displayed at DSEI Japan defense exhibition. | GABRIEL DOMINGUEZ) New Delhi: Ever since the twin tragedies struck Japan on 6 and 9 August, 1945 in the form of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the island nation never went for the development of weapons and military systems on a large scale. Instead, it focused on experimenting and developing new and better technologies for the benefit of humanity. It worked quietly on building new, improved infrastructure which the world swears by. DSEI Japan 2025 With the rapid and strategic changes in the geopolitics and equation around the world, Japan is now out with 'DSEI Japan'. DSEI Japan is the only large-scale, fully integrated defence event to take place in Japan, providing unprecedented levels of access into the Japanese and wider Asia-Pacific market. It was held at Makuhari Messe, Chiba from 21-23 May 2025 and attracted 471 firms from 33 countries, including 169 from Japan alone. Japan's revolutionary railgun It is here that Tokyo exhibited its trailblazing railgun. The railgun weapon was considered unfeasible and impossible to achieve even by the mighty United States. But before delving into the USA-Japan story, let's tell you that at DSEI, Japan exhibited high-powered lasers, missiles, drones, trainer jets, and many other new defense platforms. This surely makes one wonder if the country has radically changed its defence policies with North Korea and China as its neighbours? Futuristic weapon The main attraction at the expo that created a lot of curiosity and interest is the 'futuristic railgun' that its makers believe can even shoot down hypersonic missiles. The railgun was test-fired by the Japanese Navy for the first time last year and Tokyo released a few images in April. DSEI was perhaps the first public display of the gun. In fact, railgun, though described as futuristic, was conceptualised during the 1920s, and many countries, including China, France, Germany, and India, have tried building one. The USA, arguably the most powerful military in the world, tried its luck at this weapon but abandoned its plans in 2021 after encountering multiple tech hurdles. But look here, Japan turned it upside down and Tokyo succeeded, where Washington failed. The Chinese connection We cannot leave behind China. While America halted its mission, China and Japan continued the work on railguns and in February last year, China claimed a breakthrough. Feng Junhong-led team and the National Key Laboratory of Electromagnetic Energy at the Naval University of Engineering published a paper in the Journal of the Naval University of Engineering in November. The team claimed that its research resulted in the metal shell fired from a railgun receiving stable signals from the BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) developed and operated by China. The BeiDou consistently adjusted its flight path, maintaining an error of less than 15 meters (49 feet) 'until it hits its target.' 'Achieving such high accuracy at such high speeds is not easy, as the shell can travel 2,500 meters (8,200 feet) per second,' the report added. Unique antenna created by Chinese engineers Chinese engineers created a unique antenna that can resist intense electromagnetic radiation and receive clear signals from the BeiDou constellation's military frequency band. As for Japan, it started working on the railgun project in 2016. It has till date invested US$300 million and a prototype of the weapon is already undergoing trials aboard a Maritime Self-Defense Force test vessel. Analysts privy to the project and those present at the exposition are unanimous in their conviction that Tokyo's public unveiling of the railgun at the 2025 DSEI Japan shows that the country is confident in its technology and product reliability. How railguns work Even though the concept is about 100 years old and the world's top military power failed to realise its dream, the basic science behind railguns is quite simple. Railguns are guns but unlike conventional guns they don't use gunpowder. They use electricity and magnetism to launch projectiles at hypersonic speed. Let's go back to our school Physics classes A railgun has two parallel metal rails connected to a power source which are placed close together, with a conductive projectile (often a metal ball) between them. When the railgun is activated, a massive electric current flows through one rail, across the projectile, and back through the other rail, creating a complete circuit. This huge current generates a powerful magnetic field around the rails. According to a principle called the Lorentz force, when electricity flows through a conductor (the projectile) in a magnetic field, it creates a force that pushes the projectile forward at hypersonic speed, often exceeding Mach 5 (6174 kmph). A railgun uses an electromagnetic field to thrust the projectile forward to its target at incredibly high speed, Mach 5 (6174 kmph) which provides it with enough kinetic energy to destroy any potential target. They can reach a monstrous speed of Mach 8.8 (10866.2 kmph). Usually, the projectile could be any metal ball without any explosives. Due to the mind-blowing volume of kinetic energy used for the push, it has been compared to a meteor hitting the Earth. Put simply, a railgun converts electromagnetic energy into kinetic energy and uses that kinetic energy to destroy a target which could be a fighter jet, missile, drone, or ship.
Scottish Sun
23-04-2025
- Scottish Sun
Terrifying new giant railgun unveiled by Japanese Navy as futuristic hypersonic weapon uses magnets to fire at 5,600mph
Click to share on X/Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) THE Japanese Navy has unveiled a terrifying new giant railgun that uses magnets to fire at 5,600mph. The futuristic hypersonic weapon was spotted on board the JS Asuka warship, as Japan accelerates its defences amid mounting tensions in the region. 2 The Japanese Navy has unveiled a terrifying new giant railgun Credit: Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force 2 Leaked images from 2018 show a Chinese warship complete with a railgun prototype Credit: X/XINFENGCAO The railgun was pictured by Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) undergoing some advanced testing. JMSDF confirmed that the commander of its Self Defense Fleet Vice Admiral Omachi Katsushi had visited the warship 'to observe the latest status of the railgun'. The mega-weapon weighs a hefty eight tonnes and has a barrel length of 20ft. Using electromagnets, it unleashes 40mm steel projectiles weighing 320g at targets such as ships, missiles, and aircraft - at 6.5 times the speed of sound. Railguns could revolutionise the way wars are fought as they have the potential to wipe out incoming hypersonic ballistic missiles A railgun is a type of weapon that uses powerful electromagnets to accelerate projectiles to very high speeds. Conventional weapons typically use explosives or propellant to launch ammunition, but electromagnetic forces make it possible for a railgun to achieve a much higher "muzzle velocity". While a normal gun might manage a projectile speed of around 4,000mph, a railgun could blast out projectiles faster than 5,600mph. This also means you don't need to transport explosive propellants or warheads - making a railgun-toting warship much safer than traditional vessels. The unveiling of the new weapon system comes as threats have increased in the region - from China, Russia and North Korea. Moment world's first railgun to be fired at SEA shoots steel round at unstoppable 6,000mph…6.5 times the speed of sound And the railgun 'supports the development of Japan's future combat readiness and national defence posture,' according to JMSDF. Research into the new weapon system started in 2016 and it carried out its first onboard firing test in October 2023. Incredible footage from the firing test showed the 44mm-calibre weapon shoot a number of rounds into the ocean from a ship But Japan is not the only country developing a railgun - China has been working on its own version for years in secret. In 2018, leaked images showed Chinese warship Haiyang Shan - a landing craft, equipped with a prototype electromagnetic railgun. The images were leaked online by an analyst called Dafeng Cao, who observes China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Cao sourced a number of images of a PLAN Type 072III-class warship from China's social media site Weibo, apparently showing a railgun on board. The US has been unsuccessful in its attempts to build a railgun system thus far. Several contractors attempted to build a system for US ships for years, including BAE Systems, which created a prototype. The gun was mooted to shoot projectiles at speeds of more than Mach 7 over a range of 100 miles. But the project was eventually scrapped after ten years in 2021 due to budget issues and a lack of interest. The project cost a whopping $500million.
The Sun
23-04-2025
- The Sun
Terrifying new giant railgun unveiled by Japanese Navy as futuristic hypersonic weapon uses magnets to fire at 5,600mph
THE Japanese Navy has unveiled a terrifying new giant railgun that uses magnets to fire at 5,600mph. The futuristic hypersonic weapon was spotted on board the JS Asuka warship, as Japan accelerates its defences amid mounting tensions in the region. 2 The railgun was pictured by Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) undergoing some advanced testing. JMSDF confirmed that the commander of its Self Defense Fleet Vice Admiral Omachi Katsushi had visited the warship 'to observe the latest status of the railgun'. The mega-weapon weighs a hefty eight tonnes and has a barrel length of 20ft. Using electromagnets, it unleashes 40mm steel projectiles weighing 320g at targets such as ships, missiles, and aircraft - at 6.5 times the speed of sound. Railguns could revolutionise the way wars are fought as they have the potential to wipe out incoming hypersonic ballistic missiles A railgun is a type of weapon that uses powerful electromagnets to accelerate projectiles to very high speeds. Conventional weapons typically use explosives or propellant to launch ammunition, but electromagnetic forces make it possible for a railgun to achieve a much higher "muzzle velocity". While a normal gun might manage a projectile speed of around 4,000mph, a railgun could blast out projectiles faster than 5,600mph. This also means you don't need to transport explosive propellants or warheads - making a railgun-toting warship much safer than traditional vessels. The unveiling of the new weapon system comes as threats have increased in the region - from China, Russia and North Korea. Moment world's first railgun to be fired at SEA shoots steel round at unstoppable 6,000mph…6.5 times the speed of sound And the railgun 'supports the development of Japan's future combat readiness and national defence posture,' according to JMSDF. Research into the new weapon system started in 2016 and it carried out its first onboard firing test in October 2023. Incredible footage from the firing test showed the 44mm-calibre weapon shoot a number of rounds into the ocean from a ship But Japan is not the only country developing a railgun - China has been working on its own version for years in secret. In 2018, leaked images showed Chinese warship Haiyang Shan - a landing craft, equipped with a prototype electromagnetic railgun. The images were leaked online by an analyst called Dafeng Cao, who observes China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Cao sourced a number of images of a PLAN Type 072III-class warship from China's social media site Weibo, apparently showing a railgun on board. The US has been unsuccessful in its attempts to build a railgun system thus far. Several contractors attempted to build a system for US ships for years, including BAE Systems, which created a prototype. The gun was mooted to shoot projectiles at speeds of more than Mach 7 over a range of 100 miles. But the project was eventually scrapped after ten years in 2021 due to budget issues and a lack of interest. The project cost a whopping $500million.
The Irish Sun
23-04-2025
- The Irish Sun
Terrifying new giant railgun unveiled by Japanese Navy as futuristic hypersonic weapon uses magnets to fire at 5,600mph
THE Japanese Navy has unveiled a terrifying new giant railgun that uses magnets to fire at 5,600mph. The futuristic hypersonic weapon was spotted on board the JS Asuka warship , as Japan accelerates its defences amid mounting tensions in the region. 2 The Japanese Navy has unveiled a terrifying new giant railgun Credit: Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force 2 Leaked images from 2018 show a Chinese warship complete with a railgun prototype Credit: X/XINFENGCAO The railgun was pictured by Japan's Maritime Self Defense Force (JMSDF) undergoing some advanced testing. JMSDF confirmed that the commander of its Self Defense Fleet Vice Admiral Omachi Katsushi had visited the warship 'to observe the latest status of the railgun'. The mega-weapon weighs a hefty eight tonnes and has a barrel length of 20ft. Using electromagnets, it unleashes 40mm steel projectiles weighing 320g at targets such as ships, missiles, and aircraft - at 6.5 times the speed of sound. read more on japan Railguns could revolutionise the way wars are fought as they have the potential to wipe out incoming hypersonic ballistic missiles A railgun is a type of weapon that uses powerful electromagnets to accelerate projectiles to very high speeds. Conventional weapons typically use explosives or propellant to launch ammunition, but electromagnetic forces make it possible for a railgun to achieve a much higher "muzzle velocity". While a normal gun might manage a projectile speed of around 4,000mph, a railgun could blast out projectiles faster than 5,600mph. Most read in The Sun This also means you don't need to transport explosive propellants or warheads - making a railgun-toting warship much safer than traditional vessels. The unveiling of the new weapon system comes as threats have increased in the region - from China, Russia and North Korea. Moment world's first railgun to be fired at SEA shoots steel round at unstoppable 6,000mph…6.5 times the speed of sound And the railgun 'supports the development of Japan's future combat readiness and national defence posture,' according to JMSDF. Research into the new weapon system started in 2016 and it carried out its first onboard firing test in October 2023. Incredible footage from the firing test showed the 44mm-calibre weapon shoot a number of rounds into the ocean from a ship But Japan is not the only country developing a railgun - China has been working on its own version for years in secret. In 2018, leaked images showed The images were leaked online by an analyst called Dafeng Cao, who observes China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN). Cao sourced a number of images of a PLAN Type 072III-class warship from China's social media site Weibo, apparently showing a railgun on board. The US has been unsuccessful in its attempts to build a railgun system thus far. Several contractors attempted to build a system for US ships for years, including BAE Systems, which created a prototype. The gun was mooted to shoot projectiles at speeds of more than Mach 7 over a range of 100 miles. But the project was eventually scrapped after ten years in 2021 due to budget issues and a lack of interest. The project cost a whopping $500million.
CNN
01-04-2025
- General
- CNN
80 years after World War II, Okinawa's battle sites still giving up bones and bombs
The 'bone digger' slides into a thin crevice on a hill in the Okinawan jungle. He's a slight man, nimbly fitting his frame through the cave entrance, carefully avoiding the sharp limestone roof while navigating the crumbling stone and dirt on the cave floor. He crouches as the lamp on his forehead shines on the dirt at his feet and scratches the soil with a gardening tool, looking to turn up the remains of people who hid in caves like this one during the World War II Battle of Okinawa. This is the life's work of the bone digger, Takamatsu Gushiken. He spends much of his free time in caves like this in Okinawa, Japan's southernmost prefecture, trying to bring closure to one of the most fierce and deadly battles of the Pacific war. I ask him why he does this work. He pauses and shrugs. 'They are human, and I am human too,' he says softly, looking down, his voice breaking with emotion. Gushiken shows me what he's found at this site so far — portions of a skull from the area of the ear, smaller bones, maybe from a foot, he says, and even smaller ones, possibly from a child or infant. He's found a bullet, too, and theorizes what might have happened at this spot eight decades ago: A mother and child hid as the battle raged outside. As US troops were trying to clear caves of hidden Japanese defenders, the two civilians, like so many on Okinawa, were caught in the crossfire. They would be among the estimated 240,000 people killed or missing in the Battle of Okinawa, from the landing of the US invasion force on April 1, 1945, to the Americans' declaration of victory on June 22. That number includes as many as 100,000 civilians, 110,000 Japanese troops and Okinawa conscripts, and more than 12,000 American and allied troops, according to the National World War II Museum in Louisiana. Those lives were lost in a hellscape of overwhelming American firepower. US forces used 1.1 million 105 milimeter howitzer rounds on the island, expended more than a half million mortar rounds, and fired more than 16 million machine gun rounds and 9 million rifle bullets, according to the museum. Eighty years later, the scars remain, allowing visitors to get up close and touch history. On the offshore island of Ie Shima, the shell of a pawn shop still stands. It's the only structure that survived the fighting on that 23-square-kilometer island that was home to an important airstrip during the war. In the former Japanese Navy underground headquarters in Tomigusuku, shrapnel-scarred walls are evidence of a mass suicide. A memorial outside reads, 'Vice Admiral Minoru Ota and his 4,000 men … committed suicide in this underground headquarters on June 18, 1945.' Outside an unmarked cave near the Sefa Utaki Sacred Site in Nanjo, an unexploded grenade rests near the entrance, just off a busy road. Inside, pickaxe scars from the cave's construction are still smooth as it opens to a dugout machine gun emplacement. Walk up a path from the Okinawa Peace Park on the island's southern shore and stand next to the cave entrance where the commander of the Japanese garrison on Okinawa, Gen. Mitsuru Ushijima, took his own life on June 22, 1945, as US troops closed in from below. And in the rock near a jungle cave, Gushiken the bone hunter points out where rifle and machine gun rounds have left their mark. Drop a pin on the map app on your phone at any of these places, make the drive to the Okinawa Prefectural Archives and you can see exactly what that piece of land would have looked like during the battle or its aftermath. Archivists have matched up surveillance and reconnaissance photos from the US military with the current landscape. Perhaps nothing can illustrate that hellscape better. Kazuhiko Nakamoto is the driving force behind the archives' collection, attempting to document the story of the war years and after. He tells the story of how his mother, a 6-year-old in 1945, survived the battle separated from her parents and in the care of her grandmother, who moved about the southern part of the island looking for safe spots as the battle raged. 'It was like a miracle that she survived,' he says, adding that his family was one of the lucky ones on Okinawa. Nakamoto and fellow archivists Akira Yoshimine and Eriko Nishiyama relate how Okinawans were victims of a war not of their making. When the government in Tokyo garrisoned the island, many thought the Japanese troops were there to protect them, not enlist them in the fighting that was to come. But militarism was pushed even in elementary schools, they say, pointing to a textbook that taught students how to count using pictures of warplanes and tanks. No place on Okinawa brings that tragedy home more than the Himeyuri Peace Museum, which tells the story of the Himeyuri Student Corps, teenage girls pressed into service of the Japanese military during the battle. The girls from the Okinawa Shihan Women's School and the Okinawa Daiichi Women's High School helped nurse and attend to injured Japanese soldiers in caves like the one at the site of the museum that honors them, a hole in the rock known during the war as the Ihara Third Surgical Cave, part of the Okinawa Army Hospital. 'Soon after the battle commenced, the Himeyuri students were mobilized,' the museum says. 'Real war proved to be different from anything they had imagined.' Surviving students tell of the horrors they experienced in videos shown at the museum. They talk of helping amputate the limbs of the injured, performing the operations without anesthesia. They tell of pulling maggots from wounds, of trying to comfort those delirious with 'brain fever,' of seeing their fellow students die under US gunfire at cave entrances or while running resupply errands. And they talk of a smell that permeated the surgical caves — a mixture of human waste, blood, sweat and the rot of flesh — and never left the unventilated passages. (At another site, Army Hospital Depot Number 20 at the Haebaru War Museum, staff have recreated that stench in a vial, and offer visitors a whiff at the end of the tour. Even in the open air, it's horrible.) The video testimonials are raw, vivid and hard to sit through for a visitor. After the videos, the portraits of the 227 Himeyuri who were killed or went missing on Okinawa hang on the walls of a large room. A note under each tells their fate, several noting the last time the girls were seen alive and that what happened to them is unknown. Those hit me the hardest and bring back thoughts of those bones Gushiken had found in the cave I was in only hours earlier. Could they belong to any of these young faces? It's likely we will never be able to know the answer to that question. Gushiken says of 1,400 sets of remains recovered from caves and battle sites, only six have ever been identified. He says he turns over everything he finds to authorities, but it's up to them to determine if DNA testing is possible. Many times there's just not enough bone material to get a DNA match, he says. If relics like pens or notebooks with names are found with bones, it can provide a lead, he says. But relics without such identifying information are left where they are found. Still, he'd like to see the government doing more. 'I hope the authorities will take a more proactive approach to identifying the bones, improve their technology, and returns as many bones as possible to their families,' he says. If there is an American equivalent of Gushiken on Okinawa, it just might be Steph Pawelski. A native of Pennsylvania, the US military spouse and US Department of Defense school teacher curates the Okinawa Battle Sites Facebook page. The rear of her Subaru station wagon is part war history library, part hiking and caving supply barn. Her knowledge of the island seems encyclopedic. On an early March day, I suggest meeting at the Hyatt hotel in urban Naha for lunch. Pawelski says we should arrive early and check out a cave in a park across from the hotel's parking lot. During an exploration of a hillside battle site with a team led by Gushiken, Pawelski surges ahead of the group to point out possible cave entrances the Japanese man was looking for. Pawelski says her interest in the battle sites is driven by her grandfathers, both of whom served on Okinawa. Using pictures her maternal grandfather took during his time in the Asian theater, she's trying to put herself in the exact spots her grandfather stood decades ago. 'I was able to see through Grandpop's eyes, walk in his footsteps, and feel his presence in a way I never expected. It was as if the past and present had converged, creating a snapshot of history in a way that words would never capture,' Pawelski says. Minutes before beginning that jungle trek with Gushiken, she's on a Facetime call to Florida with an Okinawa veteran, Neal McCallum, a Marine who came ashore on the island on April 1, 1945, and 49 days later got a hole in his leg from a Japanese bullet, a 'million-dollar wound' he calls it, because it got him a ticket off the island with his life intact. The now 98-year-old McCallum is coming back to Okinawa for the battle's 80th anniversary, and Pawelski is helping him be sure he sees what he wants, the places he says will bring him a final measure of 'closure.' McCallum says he got the bulk of that during his first post-war visit in 2000. 'If I had any dark corners in my mind, I think they were eliminated' then, he says. But his real change of heart over history happened during a visit to Osaka 19 years before that. 'I hated the Japanese intensely until 1981,' he says. During a few days in Japan's second-largest city, he came across some schoolchildren, eager to practice their English. 'They were saying little endearments to me… 'Hello, sir!' 'I love you,' or something along those lines. 'And I thought what a fool I am for … hating them,' McCallum says, adding that those who hate are 'not going to lead a good, healthy life.' He also says he hopes his visit helps remind the current generation of the sacrifices of the so-called 'greatest generation,' those who fought World War II, and the legacy of what the Marines accomplished on Okinawa. Back at the cave site, Gushiken says he hopes his work sends a message too. 'No more wars. There should be no more wars,' he says.
