Weapons

Railguns: Everything You Always Wanted To Know

While the concept of “directed-energy weapons” originated on the pages of pulp novels in the late nineteenth century, another weapon technology that seems straight out of science fiction was first theorized by a French inventor during World War I.

The concept of the railgun, a technology that could utilize a large circuit to launch a projectile far further than one launched via the use of a chemical reaction, was developed by Andre Louis Octave Fauchon-Villeplee. He created a simple electric cannon, which caught the attention of the French military—who were seeking a weapon that could rival such long-range cannons as Germany’s so-called “Paris Gun.”

Under the direction of the Director of Inventions at the French Ministry of Armaments in 1918, Fauchon-Villeplee was charged with developing a thirty to fifty millimeter electricannon based on his simple design. While it might seem revolutionary today for the French military to be so forward-thinking, it should be remembered that at the start of the war its uniforms and tactics were little changed from that of a generation earlier.

But France also saw the need to modernize and underwent a number of wartime reforms. This included the use of the first infantry combat helmet, but France soon follow its British ally’s lead to develop tanks. Likewise, Germany developed zeppelins to bomb England and later developed some of the earliest heavy bombers. Therefore it is almost surprising that one of the countries didn’t somehow develop a successful railgun, but the simple fact is that the war ended before Fauchon-Villeplee’s experiments were able to progress very far.