Re: It’s not 15 years
"Making a rail gun isn't really rocket science"
True, it's a large dose of engineering and material science. For an old battleship to run out of 16 rounds and propellent, something will have been reduced to a fine powdery substance downrange. A power supply for a rail gun is going to be substantial for even a slow rate of fire. The charges for a naval gun come in discreet bundles while a nuclear reactor tends to be a single item on a ship. If the reactor goes off line or anything in the electrical chain is Tango Uniform, that's it for the rail gun.
10 shots and a rail gun equipped ship may need to peal off and race towards a tender for heavy maintenance.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
