Are Gauss Guns railguns OR coilguns?

[FrackingBiscuit]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The latter is what GURPS calls electrothermal or electrothermal-chemical.

The weapon in the video in question is an electromagnetic rocket gun, a railgun with a projectile containing coolant/propellant. Heat from the railgun evaporates the propellant, which is ionized into a plasma. In contrast, an electrothermal-chemical gun uses a pulse of plasma to combust conventional propellant. They have some similar operating principles, but they're not the same thing, and GURPS is not referring to EM rocket guns when it talks about ETC.

Note also that pure electrothermal guns (as in, not electrothermal-chemical guns) are also a separate thing, which uses a plasma pulse and an inert propellant like plastic flakes or water rather than gunpowder.