Isn't that nearly exactly what you said?

[quote=@Willy Vereb]
That being said you'd have such weapons, just they won't maintain their "beam" for that long and would be overall weaker.[/quote]

I said that the tesla "rifles" would have shorter bursts, and Tesla's designs were for the accelerated particles to superheat anything they made contact with. 

And in terms of the towers, well I'm not using the same technology, I'm adapting the tesla coil into something that is attracted to any metal that comes within its range and sending huge amounts of voltage and current, effectively killing anything it struck.