Comments by "josh fritz" (@joshfritz5345) on "Forgotten Weapons"
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@TheKalkara131 Not really. Sure, people experiment with things, but it's very rare to have a hybrid propulsion system unless each stage serves a specific purpose. Rockets use multi-stage systems because each stage functions best at a specific altitude.
We already have chemical explosive based firearms, and they work great. MAG weaponry is likely to see some use as technology surrounding it improves. But combining the two is unlikely to be beneficial due to the fact that there is no real advantage to doing so, and there are several penalties.
First, the extra cost, complexity and maintenance required for a hybrid gun/ railgun means the system is going to be much more expensive and prone to breakages. If a gun works better for a task, just use a gun. If a MAG weapon works better, then use that. Another disadvantage is that both a gun and a MAG weapon have a base weight and size cost associated with them. A gun needs to weigh a certain amount because components such as the barrel, chamber, magazine, etc. can't really be skimped on. And MAGs require batteries and capacitor banks, which can't be made more compact without sacrificing performance. A basic gun or a railgun will weigh less and be simpler to operate than a hybrid.
The only exception that I can think of is to use a railgun as a launching mechanism for a missile, provided you could overcome the problem of the EMP surge frying the electronics on the missile. Sure, a rocket motor isn't really a "gun", but it has some advantages over other hybrid systems.
The railgun gives the missile extra range and altitude, and the missile and guidance systems allows the missile to be much more accurate, especially against moving targets than an unguided projectile. Sure, you could just use a larger missile with more fuel to achieve the same range as the railgun launched missile, and indeed, that may be the better solution, but similar concepts already exist of gun-launched smart projectiles, and missiles have already been miniaturized to a surprising degree, so firing one out of a gun, magnetic or not, should be doable. The closest real world equivalent are modern Russian tanks whose guns are capable of firing guided missiles in addition to standard types of shells, although this is still a single stage weapon as the gun is nothing more than a launch tube.
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