Magnetic shell provides unprecedented control of magnetic fields.

[catbarf]

[QUOTE=SpaceGhost;39113911]You can't state that kinetic weapons will be the best weapons to use, simply because plasma based weapons are still sci-fi, and lasers are in their infant state. We will probably be dead before any viable plasma based weapon is constructed.[/QUOTE]

Again, it's not because plasma or laser technology is currently very primitive. It's because [i]physically[/i] the processes that allow them to work are not efficient at performing the desired task, i.e. breaking things and killing people. Even if we hypothesize 100% efficiency, and pretend that an effective and reliable means of containment has been achieved (that can't just as easily be used by the target as a shield), there are very simple equations we can use to determine how much energy is required to accomplish a specific goal.

It's much easier to render a piece of technology or a human non-functional by tearing it apart rather than actual disintegration through thermal shock (aka boiling), which is what thermal energy weapons do. The amount of energy required to burn away enough material to kill someone is an order of magnitude higher than the amount of kinetic energy required to punch a hole and kill them that way. Against man-made technology it's even worse- the amount of energy needed to burn a hole in the side of a battle tank is astronomical, whereas a properly shaped chunk of metal going fast enough can go through and kill the entire crew.

Put simply, even if you have technology that can generate enough power to create a miniature sun and magnetically contain it as your weapon flings it across the battlefield with perfect efficiency, you would be better off hooking the same power source up to a coilgun and launching hypersonic slugs the size of Buicks.

This isn't the 1800s anymore. We may not know exactly what form a technology may take, but we do know the physical processes by which it would operate and from that we can draw some pretty clear conclusions.