The revolutionary new weapon can fire shells at several times the speed of sound. It is feared China could have the new weapons ready for 2025. The US is also working on developing its own electromagnetic railguns.
Images posted on social media last week appear to show the Haiyan Shan, a Chinese naval vessel armed with a railgun, heading out to sea.
The Chinese military confirmed it was working on the new weapons back in March 2018.
Unlike conventional powder guns, the railgun doesn’t require any chemical fuel to fire.
Zhang Xiao, a researcher at China’s Naval University of Engineering, claimed they had found a way of refilling the guns energy reserves between firing shots.
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He explained: “The repeating power supply system is the power source of an electromagnetic railgun”.
Since the mid-2000s the US has spent hundreds of millions on developing its own electromagnetic railguns, but its programme is currently believed to be lagging behind China’s.
In recent years the Pentagon has deprioritised the programme, and moved resources to other areas.
Deputy Secretary of Defence Robert Work told Congress in 2017: “We though railguns were something we were really going to go after.
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“But it turns out that powder guns firing the same hypervelocity projectiles gets you almost as much as you would get out, and it’s something we can do much faster.”
However, in 2017 Dr Thomas Beutner, from the US Office of Naval Research, described the weapons as “the future of maritime superiority”.
A US intelligence report leaked last year suggests China could have the weapon active on warships as soon as 2025.
An additional $20million in funding for the US Army’s railgun programme is provided by the 2019 National Defense Authorisation Act.