Technology feat gives Navy futuristic weapon

China has developed electromagnetic launch technologies that allow the People's Liberation Army to build a futuristic naval weapon described as game-changing - an electromagnetic railgun.

According to a news release from the PLA Naval University of Engineering in Wuhan, Hubei province, Rear Admiral Ma Weiming, the university's top researcher, has designed electromagnetic launch systems as part of "a key national defense program".

More than 100 Chinese experts in the field, including 40 academicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Chinese Academy of Engineering, were "ecstatic" at a briefing when they saw what Ma had achieved.