More an Issue for tanks, once they go nukepower-drive.

the big problem with gauss weapons isn't the weapon part it's the power cells to make it work. until we have some very serious improvements in batteries gauss weapons are going to remain the gun nuts wet dream.

Read somewhere that a gauss weapon would be very heavy. The power required, the row of magnets... That said, even AFV can't even hold its weight.

Its not so much batteries as it is a way of getting a rapid pulse of electricity. A lot of advances have been made in the area of ultra capacitors in recent times so maybe we might see a Gauss cannon in the generation after next.

Sorry at unable to provide a link but i am rather sure that the energy required to fire off a Gauss slug is tremendous.....

i wouldn't bet on that bejean. i saw a nova years ago where they were showing a rail gun some of the students at MIT i think it was built. fired a rather modest 4mm projectile into an impressively thick steel plate (3 or 4" thick). the rail gun itself wouldn't have been any larger than a 120mm cannon in length and most of it was open air so i doubt it was very heavy. took quite a lot of power to run the beast though. the pellet didn't perforate the steel plate but it blew a crater most of the way through it. i really hate to think what the scaled up tank or god forbid ship mounted version would do.

Actually, I think the Navy is looking at rail guns as a potential "future" weapons system. Some of the new designs are apparently being built with the idea of generating "a lot" of additional power. Ships I think would be the logical first step in use. They have the space and energy capabilities. I'm sure the Navy would also love the increased safety. Think of it, larger ammunition capacity with no explosive risk if the magazine is hit. Heres something I found with a quick search: http://www.battelle.org/navy/railguns.pdf

Thanks, Joe. I see that the author won a prize, though I can't seem to get the actual .pdf to open.

I was able to open the PDF using Adobe acrobat reader 6. Maybe give that a try?

As above mentioned? Is mass driver powered by magnets too? Yeap, more safety without use of gunpowder/charges.