Saulkar said:
Lense-Thirring said:
Back to your original point though, this plasma weapon. I think the best plan would have to be some kind of projectile that didn't contain plasma, but produced it upon impact. You would essentially be firing a complex device rather than just a simple explosive shell (Nukes are like this actually) which contain the means to produce a complex effect. The "Physics Package" of your shell would have to have some rapid means to generate energy, and either a means to convert that into usable electrical energy, or have it directly convert a solid mass to plasma.
Nukes do this, but their other effects overshadow it. You need something similarly energetic, but it needs to be on a small scale. Something like a very small matter-antimatter annihilation, with most of your shell being some kind of material that would rapidly absorb all of that energy and be converted to expanding (explosive) hot plasma. At the point of impact, you'd either get a flash (depending on how incredible the mass which flashes to plasma is at its job) or just a giant explosion of expanding plasma. A plasma fireball basically.
It wouldn't be efficient, but I think in Sci-Fi terms it's workable. In real life? Maybe there is some way to use a new supercapacitor to provide the initial "flash", and then use a huge mass of polystyrene foam to absorb the flash and convert to plasma.
I just had an idea! What if the bullet was a superconducting meta-material laminated on the surface of a tungsten projectile with a substance embedded in the lattice. Electro Induction is used to both melt the material in the lattice into a plasma while giving an electromagnetic charge to the meta-material to prevent all of the plasma from venting before it impacts?
Sure, as long as you're producing the plasma on impact, and not trying to contain in it bullets for a long time I don't see a problem with it. It's science fiction, so you get things like room temp superconductors I think. You could even make some sense of it too.
Now about, this is a shell meant to penetrate heavy armor. Instead of a giant RPG with chemical propellants and explosives, creating a jet of molten metal, you have this small bullet which uses exotic effects to create a cutting jet of plasma. If you're inside an armored vehicle, you'd literally be cooked. It would probably kill unshielded electronic too. All of the power would come from the effect of the shell on the target, so you wouldn't have outlandish recoil either.
