Firing from all cylinders

Western navies want to defend their supremacy by developing new guns and missiles. New in the race is the railgun.

In the first half of the 20th century, the navy's most powerful unit was the battleship, a floating steel fortress armed with guns with a calibre of more than 300 millimetres that could attack targets at a distance. However, despite its destructive potential, shooting at the time was characterised by more misses than hits. In a battle more than 80 years ago, a battle cruiser armed with 28-centimetre guns had to fire around 200 times to land around ten hits on its opponents, despite its then state-of-the-art fire control system.