No Gimballed Rail-Gun?

[Kryoten]

Recoil would overwhelm the gimbaling mechanism; that's my explanation.

Frontier probably wants to balance them as well. Railguns are phenomenally potent if you can reliably put shots where you want them, and letting gimbals do all the work for you would make them the go to weapon.

I'm digging the anti-recoil explanation, it really explains it in-universe and out.

 

[StayFrosty]

Possibly because the whole point is to have to aim and fire at the precise moment to hit your target?

If they were gimballed, there would be no more need for a timer.

 

[Morbad]

I get it but, what I don't think most realise is that a gimbaled railgun would be a lot less accurate than a fixed one, provided the cmdr actually aims.

it would be useless at range, but I think it would be more accurate for close-up subsystem targeting, at least for those who haven't put considerable time and effort into mastering that delay. I find the delay especially tricky on a Viper if I only mount C2 railguns because they have virtually no audio cue then. Only way I can do decent with them is if I mount a C1 and C2, so I can hear the C1 (closer to the cockpit), and have split second to adjustment my aim before the C2 (which has a half second longer delay) goes off.

The ability to fire considerably off bore is also a significant edge in maneuvering battles. Of course, chaff negates these advantages.

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Fairy Muff! :-D

Best shot I could find of the recoil of a large railgun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygH...re=player_detailpage&x-yt-ts=1421782837#t=115
That's a lot of kick for firing a projectile only about 1/30,000th the weight of the weapon.
...
Here is a homemade railgun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cV10QEGGk
That's about a one gram projectile.