Taken from Essential Guide to Weapons & Technology Their energy-particle beams easily defeated the armor of the day, which had been designed to protect the wearer against the high-velocity projectiles, not energy beams.
Despite numerous limitations, the first Beam Tubes changed the balance of power on those legendary battlefields. Over twenty thousand years ago during the days of barbarian warlords such as Xim the Despot and long before the rise of the Old Republic, projectile guns and magnetic accelerators ruled the battlefield. Pretty straightforward really, they displaced heatbeams and plasma cannons, being easier and safer to use. The ancestors of handheld blasters were beam tubes, which gradually displaced heatbeams and plasma cannons(both which used lasers to heat plasma) because they were safer to carry and wield and required less maintenance. But make no mistake, the Beam-Tube and Pulse-Wave weapons were still plenty powerful, just not as powerful as the Blaster but more powerful than Slugthrowers, so lets get into it!
So another blog surrounding Star Wars tech, this however going over the precursors to the modern Blaster that everyone uses(or just about everyone) in the SW Galaxy.
Star Wars: Beam-Tubes & Pulse-Wave Blasters(Legends)
