I think an interesting application would be placing a rail gun at the lower deck of the ship. This way, it could (in theory) help a ship pierce the hull of another ship (old school parallel cannon cross-fire). But challenges are many, e.g. weight balancing, space constraints, etc. I don't think it could be a possibility until cannons are small and power efficient enough.
Wouldn't they need to come within LoS for that? With AShMs having an average range of 100km, that seems highly unlikely.
AShMs can damage ships, I'm talking about fracturing their hulls. Although line-of-sight, the velocity of a railgun can do just that.
The 'shell' of a railgun still follows a slight curved ballistic trajectory rather than a straight line, over a significant range. So the same shot can be taken regardless of the placement of the railgun.
What's the estimated range of the Chinese rail gun?
No idea, should be in the ballpark of the US counterpart. Around 200km maybe.
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A railgun is a device that uses electromagnetic force to launch high velocity projectiles, by means of a sliding armature that is accelerated along a pair of conductive rails.
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