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Originally Posted by mkultra
Remember that the current mounts being considered for these systems are naval gun mounts (fires shells the size of a small car) and gunship mounts (Puff the Magic Dragon can carry a modified howitzer), so the recoil is less of an issue than if we were talking about something like the rifle out of Eraser (which for the record has some of the worst movie physics ever). It will be sweet to see these things deployed in a few years (as soon as they get over the energy supply issues).
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When your talking about accelerating the small car to the speeds a rail gun works at, the recoil becomes a real problem even on a battleship. That is why the proposed projectiles are rather small and light compared to conventional rounds. The tungsten projectiles the military is looking at have roughly the shape and size of a model rocket, about two or three feet long, 3 or 4 inches in diameter with fins near the rear for stability. The rail gun relies on kinetic energy provided by velocity to cause damage, not mass. From the discovery channel program I saw on this subject, the rounds are actually travelling fast enough that when they strike the target, the kinetic energy released is so great that it melts the round as it penetrates. So this much smaller projectile transmits more kinetic energy(and damage) to the target than a standard round of a larger mass would.