[quote=@Durandal] But would a man-portable railgun system carried by two men with exoskeletons be viable against light vehicles? Without too much armor, a round fired from this should be able to punch through thin metal and maybe medium armored vehicles. But this coil mortar sounds interesting in concept. Perhaps I'll use that instead. [/quote]Hm, it'd be sorts of an engineering marvel. I mean it'd be seriously edged out to match tank railguns at armor-defeating role in spite of being smaller and operated by a much lighter unit. It'd also question why don't everyone starts adopting such system if it actually works against tanks. But let's get back to the technicalities. Because the barrel is 4 times shorter with the same acceleration the gun can only achieve half the velocity compared to tank railguns. Or to be exact, this is the force of the railgun. You can compensate by using lighter load and lighter rails. Reducing weight to 1/4th can balance out the speed/length scale here. You can then compensate the loss in weight by reducing the cross-section of the impact. Half the diameter, quadruple the theoretical penetration. Defeating armor is kind of a complex thing though so you can't just safely say this. Actually since the impact energy is halved the tank may absorb the impact still while the heavier slug will penetrate better. Okay, I won't bore you further with the details. Point is, it's possible but the chance of scoring a kill will be a gamble even with all these mods. Overcharging will be inevitable to give the weapon just a faint more edge. Also the recoil will require bracing/stabilizing to the ground to be properly handled. I say you would better focus on anti-tank warheads to kill tanks. Meanwhile your railgun can be used against hard targets and bunkers that aren't as well-rounded in protection as contemporary tanks.