The argument is conditional: railguns are not presented as an easy replacement for conventional naval guns. Their barrels wear rapidly, especially in the smaller naval calibres usually considered today. A navy already operating very large, long-barrel weapons would start from a different baseline for acceptable erosion and replacement. At roughly 12- to 16-inch scale, the railgun trade-off might look more competitive and could have sustained a different line of weapons research.
Notable Point · 32:02-33:17
Could sustained big-gun development make railguns practical?
Railguns may have found a more useful niche if navies had kept solving heavy-calibre barrel-wear problems instead of abandoning large guns.