[font size=1" color="#FF0000]LAST EDITED ON Feb-19-01 AT 08:18AM (GMT)[p]>You know what, I was seriously
>thinking over that question in
>my spare time and here's
>what I came to. A
>gauss rifle should have a
>long and thick cylindric barrel
>(wire coil + a screen
>for EMP protection), the barrel
>should really look like a
>gun silencer (it should be
>longer, though). The shot should
>be almost soundless (as there're
>no gunpowder fumes). At that
>a gauss machinegun is possible
>by using several capacitors and
>make one charge while another
>is being uncharged (the capacitors
>can be also placed on
>a turning disc - in
>that case sliding contacts are
>used).
But to propell your projectile at a worthy speed you would risk degration of your rails. Also, the projectile would more than likely move faster than the speed of sound, so it would indeed make a sound, but the target wouldn't notice it until he had a hole in his head.
The rails would definitely need to be very long however. At least the length of a sniper rifle (e.g. a Barrett) to get good speed.
The capacitor bank would need to be large to accomodate the high charge burst needed to propell the projectile at a good speed, which brings up another issue: where do you get capacitors in good enough shape to operate the gauss rifle after, what, 150 years? I remember some capacitors we had in our classroom were worthless and that was only after a few years. Capacitors in a gauss rifle would be very expensive and precision-engineered for size, weight, and most importantly, discharge.
But if those Chinese in San Francisco were the ones refitting the weapons, I wouldn't be surprised if they could build new capacitors for gauss rifles.
-Xotor-
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Seriously, I have no idea. But if plasma rifles and laser tech is more complicated than railguns, maybe somebody found alternative energy source, the one that can be easily replicated.