[quote=@Keyguyperson] Like you said, power supply is the problem. An infantry railgun would need to have a massive backpack to be of any use, and if you want it to be a super-death murder kill I-shoot-and-one-slug-goes-through-twelve-people, then you'd probably need a robot to carry the power with you (aside from the robot carrying the generator so that you are capable of reloading). And of course, if you go for the latter, you've basically got something closer to a turret that has to be set up. The main problem with railguns is that they have extremely limited "ammunition", and have to constantly be resupplied with new batteries. If you build a force around railguns that doesn't have a couple nuclear generators driving along with it, you lose your supply lines and all your weapons are worthless. So far, the smallest thing we can mount railguns on is the Zumwalt. Obviously, at this point, it's possible to mount them on tanks. The real question is whether or not that's even a slightly good idea. Artillery? Sure, longer range. Tanks? Well, the shell is probably going to go straight through the tank. Which actually isn't all that useful. Long range, explosive payloads are the best way to go with railguns. Unless you're on a ship. In which case throw railguns everywhere and rain a hailstorm of shells upon your enemy at six times the speed of found from a hundred kilometers away. [/quote]Explosives in general are way too sensitive for railgun acceleration. I mean 2.5-3 km/s? That's almost the velocity the actual chemical blows up at and you reach this in practically an instant. Actually, that's the whole point. The projectile would practically behave like an explosive thus penetrating the target AND doing widespread damage. A 3.4kg projectile accelerated to 2.5 km/s is almost like 3.4 kg of TNT. And yeah, batteries would be kind of the "ammo" for railguns and generally it'd be more complex than regular guns. Would it worth? It may in certain situations. The inert bullets are way lighter than cartridges so unless the batteries are too cumbersome (which it probably won't because over thousands of times more powerful weapons are mounted on tanks and thus it would scale down reasonably here, think of a 1-2 kilograms at the absolute worst) it actually saves a ton of weight or allow the soldier to carry much more ammo. The point is that railguns won't be retardedly more powerful than regular guns. They can be made more affordable in sense of logistics. The fact they accelerate the projectile through entire length makes their recoil lower than what firearms have at the same power (which allows you to field somewhat more powerful guns that can be handled the same). As for recharging, yeah, that's an issue. solar panels or other field alternatives may help when you are cut off from supplies but that's it. Guns also run out of ammo so this isn't anything new. Actually mechanised units may use the engine of their own vehicle like a generator to recharge their weapons. This combined with the more plentiful ammo would actually make railguns worthwhile in combat. As I said, the point isn't to make some awesome super gun that can take down anything in its way. That's Hollywood. You'd never be able to handle the recoil of such gun. Reality is something only 20-50% more powerful than conventional firearms and its real advantages come from more complex reasons.