From:	Cysgod ac dwr melys <MHILLIARD@******.BITNET>
Subject:	Re: Railgun
Date:	Thu, 30 Sep 1993 21:06:42 -0500

> concept of railgun is that it....s like the gauss cannon in battle tech.

No, it *IS* the Gauss Cannon in Battletech. They're just two words for the
same thing. The weapon is named (for those who don't know) for Dr. Erwin
Gauss, a 15th century mathmatician who experimented with magnetics.

>Ok my idea of a rail gun - take one ferous metal rod - ammo.
>now you have a tube. at one end is a magnet wrapped in wire. at the other
>is an opening.

I'm assuming you're muzzle-loading it (no mention of a breech). How heavy
is the ammo? If it takes two trolls and a dragon to load the damn thing,
it's not gonna have much of a ROF. And iron is pretty heavy...
Also, a plain old hardware-store steel rod is gonna tear the hell out o'
the bore.

>all the way along the shaft are circular magnets wrapped in wire
>also. You charge Mag 1 metal moves forword. then you successively charge the
>other magnets (like a people mover but quicker) and it moves forward more.

Uh, my conception of fizzhics is pretty fuzzy, so thwap me if I'm wrong,
but:
Won't the ammo lose kinetic energy between magnets? I think the magnets
would have to be pretty close together for each one to smoothly "grab" onto
the ammo.

>All you need is LOTS of power. But hey - this is shadowrun - they have fussion
>(not fission) plants. theres lots of power about.

And that's about as much power as you need.

=]
Phelan