While we’re talking about futuristic weapons, how about some rail gun porn? Hat tip to powerlabs.org.
This is a 15 Kilojoule shot at target. You can see the plasma arc coming out of the gun. On their site, they say a lot of the energy got wasted because of the metal vaporization. Sad.[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=tV7aB8_0R74[/youtube]
8.3KJ shot with aluminium/teflon projectile. Apparently sending the projectile supersonic.
Looking at the second video, I’m really skeptical of the supersonic claim. A reasonably weighted slug should have enough energy to shatter that target. I’m pretty sure that even my Glock 19 would cause more damage to that target, and that’s firing a projectile that’s just barely supersonic, and probably a bit lighter than what this fires.