Particle beams exist, but mobility and weapon range remain problems

Would particle-beam weapons work?

Particle beams can affect electronics and tissue, but the examples here do not demonstrate a mobile weapon with useful operational range.

The response points to American Cold War particle-beam work under the Strategic Defense Initiative, with a tentative recollection of a model in an American museum. Microelectronic systems are described as particularly vulnerable to ions, although high-voltage equipment may be less sensitive. Medical accelerators and proton beams provide an example of real equipment that can direct particles at living tissue. Those devices establish that controlled beams exist, while their range and lack of mobility limit the comparison with a combat weapon. The exchange offers no measured weapon performance or definite answer about an operational system.