behind their associated high voltage rails 11 and by judicious design serve the dual function of mechanical support for the high voltage rails 11 and mechanical guides for the armature 50 and projectile this is shown in fig5 the guide rails 15 are used to support the weight of the armature 50 and the projectile and to guide the armature 50 and the projectile down the gun bore 18 during launch each high voltage rail 11 is used to supply current to and from the conducting plate 73 portion of the armature 50 the weight bearing rails 15 which are typically made of steel are designed for weight loading and wear resistance in this invention these two functions are separated and optimized by the different types of rails 11 15 to further minimize the potential for vibration each mechanical rail 15 can be integrated directly into the support beam 14 as shown in fig5 alternatively each mechanical rail 15 can be a separate entity attached to a support beam 14 instead of making direct contact one or more armature attachments 74 can ride on a fluid or gas layer between the attachment 74 and its respective guide rail 15 shown in fig6 is an example of a high voltage rail 11 with a convex curve on its front surface i e the surface facing armature 50 practitioners in the art today employ either flat or concave curvatures only flat high.