[OT] Re: Gauss Weapons

   X-ListName: Full Thrust Combat Game Mailing list
<FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk>
   X-Sender: jw4@rincewind.sar.bolton.ac.uk
   Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 10:34:08 +0100
   From: Jonathan White <Jw4@bolton.ac.uk>
   Reply-To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
   Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

   At 00:25 26/08/98 +0100, you wrote:
   >This may not be all that new but friends in low places tell me that
the
   >British Army has a working Gauss artillery piece.
   Hmm.. Is there any distinct advantage to a Gauss artillery piece
compared
   to a standard chemical or binary propellant one? 

Its all about muzzle velocity.	Bigger muzzle velocities mean more
payload
at the target.	The other possibly nice thing about a Gauss weapon
is the "gradual" acceleration means you can have more fragile
components.
Conceivably this may make it easier to put in fancy electronics.  On the
flip side, with a high enough muzzle velocity you might be able to just
skip a warhead.  At about 3 or so km/sec the kinetic energy of a
projectile
is equivalent to its mass in TNT.  If you can move stuff at 5 km/sec,
you just throw hunks of metal at targets and still get a good effect.
It maybe that Gauss weapons are not the best way to do this but its a
way to try.

cheers
brad