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"Human beings hardly ever learn from the experience of others. They learn; when they do, which isn't often, on their own, the hard way."
- Robert Heinlein

Protolectric Gun  
  Fires twin beams of protons and electrons.  

You know you're in good hands with Campbell:

Two streams of nearly invisible fire reached out in lines as straight as a linear equation toward the two Patrol cruisers.

They just don't write them like that anymore.

"...their ships have a weapon we have not been able to duplicate — the protolectric gun,” replied the officer, turning smartly and walking away. Markham chuckled. The Lane Patrolman had retired in poor order.

The E. R. C. [Eugenics Research Colony] was a sore spot on the Lane Patrol’s otherwise spotless record. Thanks to a mechanism capable of projecting twin beams of highly dangerous electrons and protons from a “gun”, their ships had beaten off patrol cruisers time and again.

Technovelgy from Electronic Siege, by John W. Campbell.
Published by Wonder Stories in 1932
Additional resources -

Here's the effect that they have:

Two enormous brilliant pipes of blue-green fire leaped out and spattered against the ship. Instantly it was wreathed with an aura of shooting flame from the waste energy of the beams. The four-foot armour of the ship was glowing white-hot in a fraction of a second. In a second it was bellying out in gusts of flaming gas; in five seconds a great hole was gaping in the ship’s wall...

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Electronic Siege
  More Ideas and Technology by John W. Campbell
  Tech news articles related to Electronic Siege
  Tech news articles related to works by John W. Campbell

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