US Navy - John F. Williams / AP Photo
It’s enough to make you wonder how many video games Navy scientists are playing. This week, the Navy tested its latest innovation in killing technology, the electromagnetic railgun, and it seems straight out of the minds of sci-fi writers and teenagers. The gun, which consists of two rails, uses a huge pulse of electricity to propel a 20-pound slug of aluminum out of the barrel—every shot generates a small sonic boom. The slug can reach a range of 100 miles at such high speeds that its projectiles do not even require an explosive warhead. The railgun program manager said people "see these things in the video games, but this is real. This is what is very historical." The technology first became a focus for researchers in the 1980s under Ronald Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative. The Navy said that it hopes the railgun will be at sea by 2018 and fully deployed on ships in the early 2020s.