>_<*

Dude! It's the same reason an electric motor spins instead of shooting out the ends!

No, it's not the same reason. But I'm giving up trying to explain it.

I've e-mailed a physics gra student and asked her to inform us to the reality of the situation. She attends U of Colorado @ Boulder and is named Wendy. (Yes, I chose the first name on the list.)

Oy vey...

It's simple enough a child could figure this out.

The recoil of a railgun will be equal to the round for this simple set of reasons.

The magnetic field of each rail will push on the round, and as inertia states, the round would push back on these fields with an equal and opposite force. The magnetic fields are 'anchored' so to speak, to their producers (the rails) and the counter force from the round's intertial is transmitted from the field, into the rail, into the rest of the gun. As each little push is sent from the magnetic field into the round, a little counter push is sent back. Repeat a few hundred times in less than a second and those little pushes turn into a massive push.

Even though the fields are pushing the rails outward, these are irrellevent to the recoil experienced because these outward pushes do not effect the velocity of the round. The cause of the recoil is from the series of pushes created by the magnetic fields, and the counter force from the inertia of the round.

Lean on a wall, you push, and unless it falls over, it pushes back. Magnetic fields do the same thing.

SO, if you fired a round from a railgun... if you wanted it to have significant power in small size, you must accellerate the round quickly in a small space. The faster you accellerate that round, the easier the counter force overcomes the intertia of the weapon firing it, the more recoil it has. So if you had a ten mile long rail cannon, you could fire a slug at hypersonic velocity with no recoil because you accellerated it slow enough that the inertia of the launch mechanism was not overcome.

If you want a super powerful handheld railgun, you need to design it with a powerful muzzel brake system and recoil absorbing mechanism the same way a full sized howitzer is designed. Much like the way the Pookie in Fiss' story recoils back and over the shoulder of the person using it to fire those supersonic antimatter slugs.

Otherwise, the faster you want to fire the round, and the bigger the round, the more likely you're going to have yourself knocked on your ass.

You can buffer recoil, but you can't prevent it as long as you're throwing mass around. This is not arguable unless you want to get absolutely theoretical physics.

HAH! ATC is on your side Daemon, that proves I'm right!

If you want to have a low 'felt' recoil but high power weapon, you must do the following.

You must deliver as much push in one moment as you can to the round to launch it...
...and you must draw out the counter force of the inertia feeding back to the man firing the weapon over as long a period as possible.

In the case of a handgun, all but impossible.
With a rifle, difficult to remain mobile with.

With a bulky weapon's system that has to 'set up'... you can do it.
You have the shooter positioned below the weapon, holding the 'anchor point' and trigger. The weapon remains steady along the two axis he needs to worry about, elevation and direction. However the weapon can slide freely back and forth along the line of firing, but has some coiled springs or other such stuff like pistons or something to slow it down. When it fires, the mechanism is hurled backwards with the same force the round is launched forwards. The spings or pistons act as a buffer during this movement and slowely transfers the force from the active part of the weapon, down into the anchor point into the shooter. By drawing out the amount of force over a greater distance and time, the shooter is left with less 'felt' recoil and thus, fewer broken bones.

You can also help counter the inertia by increasing the weight of the weapon in relation to the round fired. As is the case with sniper rifles. The barrel would absorb more energy before it moves this way because it has more mass to move counter to the bullet being fired.

So any way you look at it... A railgun is just as limited as a regular gun. The mechanics of the launching mechanism are just different.

Actually, I think you're both on crack. I'm on my own side. I'd get killed in combat if either of you were my battlebuddy. Chances are you'd pull the pin and throw, and leave the grenade on the ground. The enemy would wonder why the pin landed in their bunker, and shortly thereafter why the people they were fighting blew up...

I am not going to turn this into a pissing match. If you aren't willing to follow a logical progression, then nothing anyone says makes a difference.

Oh, just so you know, that logical progression?

Wow. I got a lot more technical detail than I thought I would from all that. Now, I'm not going to pick sides here, so I'll put everything into a melting pot and come up with this.

The rail system uses 2 rails that push at a 45 degree inward angle. /\
Due to this, Neutons Law still exists (every action equal but opposite) but the angle causes direct backwards recoil to be reduced, but not eliminated.
It could theoretically be eliminated.
My ass could become a nuclear weapon theoretically.
But this is the way I've decided, so STOP ARGUING! Well, actually, go ahead, it's fun and educational to read.
The reason the bullets need to go about mach 10 or so is that they are supposed to armor piercing to the extreme. Mechs's and tanks still exist, Daemon, but these handguns are 2 of a kind. Only this one dude named Snakeyes has them, and only he can use them.
He has special targeting systems too, don't worry.

Now if Daemon and SC want something to argue about, argue about what the bullets are made of. Best material possible to avoid burning up, blowing up, working well in the railgun (magnetic and such) and anything else that you guys would think to be nifty.

P.S. I know Deuterium is an isotope, but for some reason the really strong metal we have is called that. Yell at RockmanX for the name.

Multiple layers of alternating aluminum and silicon ceramic. The silicon will protect from heat (not that there's much during flight) and the aluminum will react with the magnets. Not to mention that the silicon would be at least mildy peizioelectric and the whole thing would act as a natural capacitor, imparting a power surge in whatever it hit. Not to mention the rounds being relatively cheap.

Sounds good.
What about a targeting system?
X and I were thinking of something along the lines of a computer built into the gun and using contact points on the palm with nano-fibers connecting to the brain of the user to communicate with the gun. Basically, we got the human side down, but we need ideas on the targeting system the gun itself would use.

How about a similar system to that used in Gundam? Have a spotting laser on the gun, with the feed connected to the helmet.

I've been reading A Miracle of Science, which is a marvelous webcomic that tries REALLY REALLY HARD to explain all their future tech with science. pages and pages just about things in the background of one frame. With the exception of the railgun pistol. maybe tonite i'll email them.

anyway, here's how i as a creative writer would solve the problem.

the pistol would need a stock that wrapped round the arm to the elbow. the barrel would go straight from the pistol back to the side of the elbow where the back would be open. like a teeny, tiny bazooka. (those fire rockets out a hollow tube and have virtually no recoil, so disbelief is easier to suspend)
now, see, if you really have to explain it, say that along with futuristic ceramics handling pressure and heat, most of the force of propulsion is transferred into a poof of hot air out the back. the clip could still be under the hand if you like, and the stock could be very small and elegant, or even fit under your sleeve (tho it'd burn/blow a hole in your shirt). it could still have a hell of a kick back, but it wouldnt be the back-and-up of the time when i was 14 and fired a heavy handgun at a range. (i'm a sickly-thin waif and always have been)

i think i'll email the AMOS guys and ask them their opinion, for the sake of fiction. as far as i know, the US military has railguns.. mounted on battleships.

Twyst, even if you angle the rails, the amount of recoil will STILL be equal to the amount of forward velocity you have to pack into your round in under half a second.

Like the other guys are suggesting, you need to buffer the shooter... that's the best you can do without making a freaking Graviton Rifle. (Copyright ME!) *Which would use a series of micro singularities inside a gravity shielded barrel to make the round "Fall" out of the rifle at supersonic velocity.*

Angling the rails would increase the recoil, as the force would not be transmited perpindicular to the rails.

Actually no... that would only happen if the rails on the very end had something pushing against THEM that wasn't connected to the weapon. Anything connected to the weapon and the rest of the rails phsycially would have the energy of that push transfered right back along to them, cancelling that force out. (Unless the weapon broke... and them you'd find yourself a VERY messy end.) If what you say was the case, then we'd have a propulsion system that functioned on pure magnetic fields in a static environment. (AKA, non-rocket type motors.) We don't, for exactly the above reason.

Make sense?

Screw it. Gun has recoil supression.
Happy?
You know, if Abel wanted to, he could a graviton rifle. Though it would work differently.
He'd prolly use a singularity to slingshot rounds.
If he wanted to make such a thing.
Considering he hates weapons, he prolly wouldn't.

*ahem* If I may...

The targeting system may be anything you can plausibly hang off the weapon - holographic display with continuously-computed impact point graphic overlay, laser designator, even post-and-notch. Since, at practical distances, the projectiles will show negligible drop, it hardly matters. (Of course, at longer ranges, a light projectile will scrub off velocity faster than a heavier one, due to drag acting on its lower momentum, but that's another discourse.)

On recoil, since the rails are yoked together by the frame of the gun, lateral forces applied to the rails are cancelled out. Lower recoil impulse from a railgun vs a gunpowder weapon firing a bullet of similar mass/velocity is because recoil impulse is from the accelerated projectile, as opposed to projectile + propellant gases. Perceived recoil is a matter of internal ballistics, and is a function of how long it takes the projectile to accelerate out of the weapon, with kickers (pun not intended) being weapon mass, stock design, etc. ATC is right in that perceived recoil is lessened by spreading the recoil impulse over as long a period as you can, transmitting it to the shooter over as broad a surface area as you can (which is why carbines firing .44s sting your shoulder less than revolvers firing .44s sting your hand). Twyst - how does the recoil suppressor work?

"graviton technology" amuses me because gravitons don't exist. they were a theory to explain gravity. sorta like how they figured heat must be some kind of particle that shot off of hot things.
unless i'm mistaken and talking out my ass again.

now positrons.. ouch.
"i'm gonna shoot you with this stream of sub-atomic anti-particles"
"what will that do?"
"attract to and annihilate with your own particles, exploding one-by-one into tiny bursts of pure kinetic and photonic energy, and random neutrons."
"oh."

of course then you have the problems of generation and storage, or if its dynamically generated does it shoot a stream of electrons out the other side? anyway that's OT.

Your randomly prattling off pseudo-scientific babble is starting to annoy me.

K, got 2 points.

1: I actually have no idea on what the recoil supression is. Considering how powerful and unique the 2 guns are (both are identical), I'd hope it would be something better than a spring system.

2: Heat CAN be tiny particles. But in most cases it's the excited energy in atoms and molecules. There is a specific heat particle, one that only is heat, and nothing else. Can't remember what it is though, or if, like Spike, I'm talking out of my ass.

"heat" is energy and is only transferred as heat through direct contact. Any energy can be transferred in some other form through a vaccum, but heat is a misnomer of sorts. Heat is typically a measure of a rate of energy transfer between two bodies in contact.

SC, his universe is fictional in nature and is, therefore, allowed to break laws of physics. Let him be psuedoscientific if he wants. When people start saying that's how the real world works, then you are free to step in. Notice how, in my first post, I encouraged him to use faeries? There's a reason for that and it's not because I'm mocking Tozetre. Because I'm not mocking Tozetre.

*points at the sign above the door, "Creative Works"*
*points at the original question, regarding a work of fiction*
the point of asking scientific opinions when doing Sci-Fi is to pile together all the existing theory and knowledge and take a single leap of scientific faith into the realm of fiction. that's why the info on real railguns is great, but it's also why you can solve the problem by saying it has microtoroid spring suspension along the barrel. the trick is making it close enough to true that we suspend belief. note my own story where i try to keep true to physics, but then take the step of "oh by the way, tachyons in something like a solar sail accelerate you past C"

Actually, I do propose bottled fairies as muzzle compensators. And brownian motion compensators. :P

inertial dampeners failing! modify the deflector shield!