Tau'ri weapon proposal: Particle accelerators

[Indum'kra]

Now apparantly in the Stargate universe they've used alien tech to create railguns, weapons which in real life are still on the drawing board. But what about particle accelerators? The SGC have sufficient power sources, the SGC has pfobably gained the knowledge from allies on particle physics for driving the ion engines on Earth ships, and finally it seems an efficent weapon; particles accelerated at near-light-speeds that carry so much energy they can cause their target to explod on contact.

[immhotep]

theyve already used a particle accelerator in 100 days and in redemption...dunno why they havent ourseude it as a viable weapon.

[Magneto]

I thought i remember reading somewhere that some battle ships today have rail guns onboard?

I would like to see the use of particle accelerators or some kind of beam weapon on ships but im not sure they're really all that powerful yet, i suspect what they have atm only can cause a bit of damage over a long period of time.

[Dutch_Razor]

Now apparantly in the Stargate universe they've used alien tech to create railguns, weapons which in real life are still on the drawing board.

That's what they want us to think. When the F-117 was first seen people thought it was a flying saucer, later turned out the USAF had been developing it for years...

[AscendedWarrior]

Haven't they built railguns yet? I thought the power consumption was to big for high speeds, so they need to figure out how to make projectiles go faster with lesser energy requirements.

[BigBadBob]

so, a railgun is a particle accelerator?

[AscendedWarrior]

Yes, kind of. In a railgun you use magnets to fire bullets, particle accelerator uses magnets to fire small particles at high speeds.

[immhotep]

so wouldnt a rail gun be more powerfull, perhap the rail gun is an extention to using the particle accelerators in earlier seasons...and not an asgard intervention like we assumed.

[AscendedWarrior]

I think it depends on what your shooting at and armor and so on. A railgun deals lots of kinetic damage, while a fast moving particle will go throght most material and heat it up, like when sokar tried to destroy earths gate.

[immhotep]

couldnt we do both? use an alternating system of particles and pellets and fire 1 pellet or 3 pellets then a particle to go straight through?

[Indum'kra]

so wouldnt a rail gun be more powerfull, perhap the rail gun is an extention to using the particle accelerators in earlier seasons...and not an asgard intervention like we assumed.

Railguns aren't all that useful versus larger ships with sheilds. But a particle accelerator, with enough energy behind it (and assumingly they would with naquadah generators) would e powerful enough to wear and tear at enemy sheilds and blow big, effective holes in it's hull. It's an alternative to the slow missiles.

I'd like the Writers touch on other theoretical weaponry, like mass drivers.

[immhotep]

perhaps they will, i mean they have stated they like exploring the contriversies of science and science fiction...mass driver?

[Indum'kra]

perhaps they will, i mean they have stated they like exploring the contriversies of science and science fiction...mass driver?

It's a gauss weapon like a railgun. It uses a large coil to create a magnetic field to drive along the progectile, which can either be very big or can even carry explosives. Smaller versions more like railguns are called coilguns, and I can see them being used on F-302's.

[NakedJehutyV2]

the US government keeps a lot of crap secret from us

[Exiled Master]

I read an article in Popular Science about the future of warfare. The concept was like this: A railgun is mounted on an all-electric destroyer. The railguns accelerate nonexplosive projectiles to mach 7. (You can find some of this in Navy magazine advertisements)