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Railgun

Battleships have largely been phased out by aircraft carrier in modern times, given their longer range, similiar costs, increased capabilities, and complexness of task achievements. While most battleships could be retrofitted to meet modern standards, most attack ships are submarines or other small, stealthy craft, and thus battleships do not warrant serious usage. However, with with the advent of railguns, this is changing somewhat. Railguns that are capable of over the horizin shots, delivering far more powerful attacks, and capable of close range bombardment are becoming ideal for cheap attacks; additionally, the lightweight of the projectiles (a few kilograms, compared to thousands for regular artillery shells) allows for sustained bombardment, even with their great power. These weapons may even be capable of being assisted in some launches, and thus could make it into orbit, where they would be able to travel much further in space.

The current railgun in use by the navy is the 32 megajoule weapon system. This weapon system has a range of over 100 nautical miles, allowing it to target ships and systems relatively far inland. This prototype is quickly advancing, allowing greatly increased range and power by such craft. However, the current railgun system in use by the Dreadnought has approximately 64 megajoules of power. Substantially more powerful cooling and friction resistant materials are required for this system to operate; while double the range would otherwise appear insignificant, this allows for vertical range into the sub-orbital zone; whilst sub-orbital, the projection flies relatively unimpeded, without much gravity or air resistance, and thus can travel many hundreds of miles with the slightest acceleration. When calculated correctly, with a myriad of different sensors, aircraft, and satellites, specific targets can be targeted, thus providing single target acquisition, instead of simply area bombardment. This increased range would allow for hundreds of miles of reach, thus reaching much farther inland.