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The EM pulse rifle is one of many related designs based on the idea of
accelerating a projectile to high-velocities using electromagnetic energy
Unlike a railgun, which requires high input-energy and is based on a
Lorentz-force rail-accelerator, the Pulse Rifle utilizes an inductive
acceleration on a non-magnetic projectile.

In short, the device discharges a capacitor-bank through a magnetic coil
situated directly behind a 1-inch diameter aluminum ring. The brief but
powerful magnetic pulse generates an inductive-current in the ring, which
then accelerates down the barrel at high speed. Information Unlimited is also
testing a more powerful version of this design that fires a conventional
projectile, but the ring has been used in this case because it has more
surface area (and hence is less dangerous) than a smaller projectile is.

The pulse-rifle prototype is powered by 4 AA batteries, and requires about 1
minute to charge between each shot. It fires at about the same velocity as a
BB-gun, and has a much greater efficiency than similar designs tested by the
military. This particular protoype is not considered a weapon due to the low
muzzle velocity and 1-minute charge-time.

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So now we've got a working BB-gun prototype of a PULSE RIFLE. And IBM (or was it Toshiba?) has a laptop design powered by a fuel cell this year.

At this rate, will we have a caseless, recoil-free 2KM/S muzzle velocity flechette gun in 10-15 years???
WITH A FIRING-STUD INSTEAD OF A TRIGGER (all you "Honor Harrington"-fans), like on the above example???

And the only sound it's likely to produce is the sound barrier being breached, and if you're on the receiving end you won't even hear that before you're dead, ripped apart diagonally from hip to elbow, like a cow between two giant cow-magnets, while some petty little officer called Harkness is stepping over your slumped corpse, moving this way and that towards the prison block, here and there slipping on your guts and lunch and perhaps also liver, happy like a treedog with a celery-bone in his mouth, or a Masadan after a particularily successful *massrape on female prisoners (Never Forget!).

*[sick]

Anyway, I'm worried...
 

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Posted by Fleet-Admiral Michael T. Colorge (Member # 144) on :
 
As if the NRA don't have enough toys to play with...
 

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
 
You don't hear the bang of a conventional projectile weapon before you're hit either, if that helps. And instead of being gibbed by bullets, you're now fried by high-amperage current. Cleaner way to go, I think.
 

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Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
 
Clean, yeah.
I remember there was a rifle developed 12 years ago already by a joint german/american team, it fired a high-powered wide-beam laser that could permanently burn out the retinas of about a hundred soldiers per shot, within about a hundred meters or so.
The device was discontinued because they discovered it violated human rights and ethics during wartime, and any other time for that matter.
 

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
 
Yes, but is receiving an electric shock nastier than being perforated by a hail of bullets? I mean, both are exceedingly unpleasant experiences to go through. How do you in good conscience weigh one method of killing against another and say "this is ethical and that isn't because dying this way is X percent more pleasant than dying that way"? It's really hazy, at least to me, what's humane and what isn't when the end result is the same: death.
 

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Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
 
I took that example because it was the closest I could think of regarding hi-tech inventions developed as a fifth generation weapon.

I'm not saying a potential pulse rifle or super-supersonic rail weapon would necessarily be inhumane or cruel, just that the development has gone much faster than I had expected.

Anyway, who's said anything about electrocuting?
This prototype accelerates an inch-wide aluminium ring, making it go ballistic, with further development concentrating on a solid slug in the future.
A taser it ain't, that's so 90's.
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
Cool.

I mean, not when you shoot people with it. That's bad. But, you know... Science!
 

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Posted by Manticore (Member # 1227) on :
 
Eh, wake me up when we get impeller wedges, hyperdrive, Warshawski Sails, and sidewalls.

Seriously that is cool, a viable EM weapon. Wow.
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
Almost looks like the lasers from "The Cage" at first glance.
 

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Posted by Capped in Mike (Member # 709) on :
 
more like the communicator from "The Cage"
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
more like the cage from "The Communicator"
 

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Posted by Balaam Xumucane (Member # 419) on :
 
Wait. So the ring accelerates all the way down the barrel? The barrel's about as long as Manticore's, erm, attention span. If it can accelerate to BB velocity in a thumbspan, what happens when you give it a meter?
 

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Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
 
And a solid power cable or car battery (like with Gatling guns) instead of four little AA batteries?

You see what I mean now?
 

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Posted by Futurama Guy (Member # 968) on :
 
How do you sleep at night?
 

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Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
 
Soundly, thank you. Why?
This is a forum, little cynic. We discuss things here. Hypothetically and not. This invention doesn't concern me directly, but development vs demand is a fickle thing and satisfying to discuss. What I say here, I say for the sake of conversation.
 

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Posted by Capped in Mike (Member # 709) on :
 
omg what if like they made it a really big gun and shot a guy in the face with it?
 

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Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
 
He'd die.
 

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Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
 
So you don't think that further development of incredibly lethal weapons is cool and were just making conversation?

I am sorely disapointed in you, Nim.

I want one of these soooo bad.
Car mounted and rapid fire.

Though, from a design POV, I wish they'd just design it to accelerate a penny to balistic speeds.
Think of the time, money and availability advantages in that alone.
 

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Posted by Nim the Fanciful (Member # 205) on :
 
Jason: "So you don't think that further development of incredibly lethal weapons is cool and were just making conversation?
I am sorely disapointed in you, Nim."

Read my post again. Stretch out with your feelings. Especially "satisfying to discuss" and "What I say here, I say for the sake of conversation".

Then check out my thread in Gen. Sci-Fi about the XM-8 future US battle rifle.

Shit, Harold, I expect more from you.

About ballistic speeds, has any gun managed to fire a shell out into space?
I seem to remember a fleeting comment on that in that "Doomsday Gun" movie with Frank Langella and Kevin Spacey.
Anyway, this technology would probably get priority on naval vessels or attack aircraft, bigger scale.
Which reminds me of those EMP-bombs the US dropped on Bagdhad in the last campaign. How large an area did they affect?
 

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Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
 
Well, what do you want to discuss? It's a different but not radically new way of accelerating a projectile to ludicrous speed, which means the technology will probably wind up in military applications where such speeds are a plus, which means a reciprocal of the technology will probably wind up in military applications where they aren't. That is the order of things.

And to shoot a shell into orbit you would need 1) a really really really high amount of energy and 2) a really really really long barrel so it could attain minimum escape velocity plus however much extra speed your shell would lose due to friction and gravity on the short trip spaceward. I don't think such Big Bertha guns exist anywhere but in the minds of crazed mechanical engineers. So far.
 

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Posted by Manticore (Member # 1227) on :
 
Saddam was trying to build one once, IIRC, though I saw it on Discovery Channel, so take it with as much salt as you like.
 

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Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Jason Abbadon:
[QBThough, from a design POV, I wish they'd just design it to accelerate a penny to balistic speeds.
Think of the time, money and availability advantages in that alone. [/QB]

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