Re: Linnax railguns?

On Sun, Jan 26, 2003 at 03:52:43AM -0600, Mark & Staci Drake wrote:

>In the first chapter the aliens (Ubenfrarr) land on the planet surface
and
>are trying to knock out the main planetary defense which is a linnax
>railgun........can anyone give me a description of what this weapon is
?  I
>have a rough idea,but want to make sure.
>Also what material is linnax? I have heard it used before at work but
do not
>know what it is.....

I haven't read the book, but it sounds like a corruption of "linear
accelerator" rather than a type of material. Since I'm not aware of any
shades of railgun which are _not_ linear accelerators, it seems a bit
superfluous, but perhaps technology has changed by then. Apart from
details of implementation, this is basically the same thing as a gauss
gun, magnetic accelerator, etc.; something which uses a series of
magnetic fields to accelerate a projectile, thus avoiding the
inconvenient speed limit imposed by gunpowder's combustion velocity.

Roger