I don't disagree, at 100,000 feet all weapons are mass gets propelled by force, where I part ways with you is here: "A rail gun isn't much different" While I

I don't disagree, at 100,000 feet all weapons are mass gets propelled by force, where I part ways with you is here: "A rail gun isn't much different" While I completely agree that in concept rail gun isn't different, making one is extremely different. That is why I would have little trouble making a bow and arrow over the weekend that would serve as a respectable weapon[1], but I would not be able to create a similarly lethal rail gun[2]. Reducing the theory to practice is neither straight forward nor obvious. People have been trying to build them for 100 years after all and we're only now seeing some that come close to being competitive with other weapon systems. What I'm saying is that your "overhead in terms of gear to make it work" covers for a whole crapload of technology and engineering. What I hear when you dismiss this technology is a lack of appreciation for what is involved, it sounds to me like someone saying "Making an atom bomb is pretty simple right, simply hold a super-critical mass of fissile material really tightly until you've achieved the desired number of fission events. Right?" But you can't pick up two 4 lb pieces of plutonium and bang them together like a couple of rocks and expect to get a bomb event (although you will die). There is nothing "simple" about it, even if the concept is easy to express. [1] In part because we learned how to make bows in Boy Scouts and I spent a summer doing a survival course where I had the opportunity to build one for my final. [2] Even though I'm a classically trained EE, understand the theory, have experience in switching fairly high currents from my Battlebot experiences and a fairly complete EE lab at my disposal.