This is something I crossed the first time I read the EP core manual.
The firearms classification, falls under
(light, medium and heavy) pistol.
Submachinegun
Assault rifle
Sniper rifle
Machine gun.
I propose to cut this by.
Pistol
Automatic pistol
Assault rifle
Combat rifle
And then you might ask... whyyyy?
Well, first the submachinegun category shouldn't be really there. Why? Because it doesn't have any role that an assault rifle can't cover.
The submachine gun idea was born't after the 1ww because inside the trenches people had problems using weapons with half the size of a person, from a start they used firing lines to solve this but to form a firing line is trully hard and requires a lot of discipline so in the end the combat in close quarters became hand-to-hand(or wathever you had in your hand to attack except what was supposed to be your main weapon... the rifle).
So the submachine gun was bornt as an assault weapon, it used a different caliber from the common rifle, it was MUCH much more sorter and lighter but you shouldn't use it to hit something beyond 200 meters.
With the pass of time and the cold war the submachine HAD his position in the world, the world still used as main weapons combat rifles with automatic capability and submachine gun for urban combat. But, when we hit today you realise of one thing.
How many new submachine guns do you see? Not trully many... thats because today assault rifles are made of plastic which makes them much more lighter and theyr overall length is trully shorter to the point that if we classified weapons under their lenght the assault rifle would be a submachine gun.
And the caliber is becoming more and more standarized under the NATO standard.
Thats because today wars are usually delivered in short range, beyond that you have a squadmate with a combat rifle for medium and "maybe" long engagement.
So my point is, that the submachine gun is about to dissapear because you can have the advantages of the submachine gun with the caliber and power of the assault rilfe(and if we talk about bullpups there is simply no discussion).
So, second, why only two categories of pistols? Well, it should only be one because the pistol is a defensive weapon you're not going to really assault anything with a pistol, but still you should make a distinction between firepower but not on the power of the shot... because its stated that in EP all weapons have the same type of ammo the only difference is how modified is that ammo.
So you should have a pistol with high muzzle speed and less rate of fire to extend the effective range of the gun, and for purely defensive purposes. It has mostly a legal role, because in the PC people aren't trully forbbiden to have a gun you only need a reason to own one(if you're a martian isolated worker exploring dangerous zones you might need one).
But, an automatic pistol has an higher magazine and a higher rate of fire. Its role would be less defensive and more offensive because its still a pistol but it occupy the role of delivering a lot of firepower in the less possible time and run, perfect for operatives and guerrilla tactics that depends on surprise and compact weapons that you can easily hide(a role that the assault rifle its more inefficient to offer).
Third, the combat rifle occupies the sniper rifle capabilities why?
Because in EP combat distances are very close between each other(maybe a moon its a exception to this), you're not really going to use a sniper rifle but you might still need to deploy a high range weapon. So the combat rifle will occupy that role as high range, high precisition weapon with the capabilities of the assault rifle, this shouldn't be a problem... early snipers used combat rifles adapted to hit target at high distances and by doing this the sniper can still adapt to his squadmates if the distances gets shorter(which is the most probable thing if the engagement last more than 2 minutes).
And before you ask, no the barret is not a sniper rifle. You hear that right, no the barret its an anti-matter rifle which is an ADAPTATION from the anti-tank rifles of the second world war, so it would fall under the category of seeker rifles for its firepower and his size... its more like high precisition anti-personal artillery against high protected target or where you really really need to hit something beyond the combat or precistion rifle.
And five, why not machine guns? Thats because a machine gun has a role of delivering high psicological impact on the enemy or offer more firepower for short bursts.
And how do you do that?, with high capacity magazines(or belt fed weapons) and a heavier barrel. But today, you can transform your G36C to a MG36 in the field or your STG77 to a HBAR... all because the designs are modular and easily exchangeable, so in the end your assault rifle can be equiped on the field with a high capacity magazine and a heavier barrell and you have occupied the rol of the machine gun with your assault rifle with a cheaper kit and versatile kit.
Now, whay about the minigun? A multibarrel weapon falls out of the machine gun as itself, you will need to belt-fed id to deal with its rate of fire(or keep the RoF low but then why use it instead of the assault rifle?)and to bring it to an engagement so such high powered weapons are more fitted for vehiculed monted weapons not infantry weapons, and more for support.
And what about the MG42 or the 12,7 antiaircraft machine gun? The MG42 in EP has a role that can be occupied by the modified assault rifle... why? Because you can only use it on full power if you belt-fed it and put it under a tripod, otherwise you are going to have something like the M60 or the M249 but only a bit overpowered for the 1500 rpm(which is argueably good to waste that quatintiy of ammo if you're on a squad).
And if you have a machine gun to deal against super flexbot, aircrafts or a fenrir it falls under other category for seekers, and where we put the anti-matter rifles and the multibarreled weapons which are after all heavy weapons for hard situations and not small arms for standard purposes.
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About small arms and eclipse phase.
Sun, 2014-08-24 09:09
#1
templariomaster
About small arms and eclipse phase.
Sun, 2014-08-24 16:54
#2
Smokeskin
templariomaster wrote:
I used an MG42 a lot in the army. It's nothing like an AR and I don't recognize your description of it. It can only be belt-fed. It works very well on a bipod, we only used the tripod when we needed to shoot more than 6-800 meter, indirect fire or for prepared nightfire positions (the tripod has angle measurements so you can sight it in during the day and then suppress attack routes at night even without night vision gear).
It has A TON more firepower and much longer range than an assault rifle. You can slap all the heavy barrels and extended magazines on your 5.56 assault rifle, it will still be a small caliber with bad ballistic coefficient - at range it won't have penetration or stopping power, it suffers a lot from wind drift - and the weapon is just too light to be a really stable firing platform for long range. You also need the weight and high rpm of the MG42 since this means that by the time the last round of your burst leaves the barrel, it won't have jumped much at all from the recoil. You can keep really tight burst groups with it and that means that at long range burst fire is actually useful.
It is also very easy and quick to swap barrels on, which AFAIK isn't the case for the heavy barreled ARs.
Sun, 2014-08-24 17:24
#3
templariomaster
Smokeskin wrote
[img]http://world.guns.ru/userfiles/_thumbs/Images/machine/mg33/mg3_01.jpg[/img]
The MG42 have magazines, wich contains a belt system but are still magazines.
If you used the MG42 you should know that if you operated it solo, you never used its true potential, the total crew to use an MG42 its 3, otherwise its capped to occupy a support role in the squad that can be achieved with other systems much more easily.
If you use a machine gun today, you will use it on the assault rifle range, and the problems you seems to put on are technicall not intrinsecall of the system. A quick change barrel, heavier front or more rpm can be achieved on the field with a few modifications if the system is modular, if we even go to the future the possibility is out of question and we can find some real examples today.
And of course, adapting an assault rifle in EP makes much more sense for versatility, because most of the combat is in confined stations, range isn't going to be a problem but size and weigh does and a lot and the caliber in EP doesn't seem to be a problem at all since its universal for every tipe of weapon
And if you go, to a moon where we talk above the 200 meters, then just bring combat rifles.
Sun, 2014-08-24 18:36
#4
Smokeskin
templariomaster wrote:
That's just a belt rolled up inside there though, isn't it? We had pouches on the side that we loaded the belts into, too. AFAIK the weapon is belt-fed only - without the rounds in belts the magazine spring would just push bullets through the breech and past the bolt.
In the infantry we had 2 men on it. It's great to have the helper assist with reloading, spotting shots, moving the bipod and such, that's for sure.
I spent most of my time in recon though, where it was manned by 1 man (we had 2 of them per 6-man squad). There was another soldier tasked with assisting as needed though - keeping the LMG firing is much more important than a single rifle.
I don't know any other weapon system available that can match it. Which system are you thinking of?
I don't know what you mean by it being a support weapon. It is your main weapon in infantry combat. Your tactics are centered around the LMGs.
I never heard of 3 men operating it. Maybe some armies do it that way. Aside from being a mule for extra ammo and the tripod, I don't see the point.
Of course there are situations where something like the MG42 isn't ideal. The Danish army is also replacing the MG42 with something lighter for the infantry. But it is not because it is a bad weapon, it is because it doesn't fit as well into current mission profiles. For fighting Russians in Europe, the MG42 was great. For foot patrols in the Afghan heat, with soldiers carrying much more weight, and engagement speed being more important than firepower, it is just too heavy.
Likewise, LMGs might not be common in EP. But saying they don't exist, or that ARs can fill their role, that's stretching it.
Sun, 2014-08-24 19:23
#5
Zarpaulus
Yeah, the SMG as written in
Yeah, the SMG as written in the core rulebook doesn't make much sense.
Especially considering that Light Pistols can shoot on Full Auto, along with every other "modern" gun in the book.
Sun, 2014-08-24 20:28
#6
mellonbread
Zarpaulus wrote:Yeah, the SMG
Didn't the Sniper Rifle used to be capable of fully automatic fire, causing the same kind of problem when under RAW this made it superior to the Machine Gun in basically every way?
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Mon, 2014-08-25 00:36
#7
Smokeskin
Zarpaulus wrote:Yeah, the SMG
It has a longer barrel and it can be shouldered - reflected in its higher accuracy at most ranges and its longer range.
Mon, 2014-08-25 05:07
#8
templariomaster
Smokeskin wrote:Zarpaulus
[img]http://www.thespecialistsltd.com/files/HK-MP7A1.jpg[/img]
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Submachine_gun_vz61.j...
Yup, this also can be souldered and its used more like a pistol(for artillery crew or other support personel as a defense weapon)(unless you're an idiotic french special forces that uses the MP-7 to assault an insurgent position and get assblasted for it)(well the skorpion is for paratroopers... but still calling that a submachinegun is pushing things a bit)
The soviet systems, like the PKM which have the same role as the MG42 and have tripod mounting as versions for vehicules... just like the MG.
the main weapon of a squad is the assault rifle, not the LMG... unless we go back to the second world war and start this battle again about which small arms should be the main weapon for the squad.
In the spanish army the crew of a MG42 is formed by: The gunner, the munitioner and the helper. The gunner shoot, the munitioner provides ammo and the helper... helps the belt to go into the MG42.
That doesn't mean that in the spanish army they always do the same thing, this happens on defending a position not when the MG42 has to be used by one squadmate with only the bipod.
Thats because the MG42 has a great range, and if I remember well the center of Europe is mostly flat surface, so range and powers matters. In guerrilla warfare where all the combat is fast and short it becomes a weak point.
Thats my point in all of this, the machine gun as itself don't have a role in EP as a small arm that can't be occupied by a modified assault rifle. In a station, you don't need a machine gun that has to be deployed and can destroy the hull with a few burst... you need a versatile weapon for short range and enought accuracy to hit a target
Im not directly saying that you should eliminate machine guns, just that they don't have the same role. They should fall under the classification of seekers and grenades, as weapons that can deliver enough firepower to be anti-vehicule weapons, and as such they should have a support role but not as a small arms to deal with common human targets but huge flexbots or make useless a fenrir by attacking small weakpoints of its blindage.
Mon, 2014-08-25 09:57
#9
Jaberwo
Hamilton cylinders can be
Hamilton cylinders can be quite long. Shooting along the axis is certainly a valid use of an LMG. Or up to the other side. Same thing goes for snipers. And there's bound to be plenty of theatres down the gravity well of mars, luna, venus, titan, or any any cluster habitat that's larger than a few hundred meters. And most combatants being supersldiers and robots they can use weapons considered slightly unwieldy today with ease.
Mon, 2014-08-25 10:03
#10
Smokeskin
templariomaster wrote
You said that its role could be achieved much more easily by other systems - and in the context of replacing LMGs with assault rifles.
The PKM however is not an assault rifle, it is a belt-fed LMG and much more like the MG42 than an assault rifle.
Replacing one LMG with another LMG isn't really an argument for the lack of a need for LMGs.
Seriously, in infantry combat, the LMG is your main weapon. You attack with the LMGs, you defend with the LMGs, you focus all your fire on the enemy LMGs first. The riflemen just don't have anywhere near that level of firepower, and you mostly just expect them to keep up, watch their zones, pick out targets of opportunity, call out dangerous targets for the LMGs to engage, etc. Your riflemen are needed for building clearing and close assaults, but in actual firefights, it's the LMGs that do most of the work.
I have actually been a soldier. I went to sergeant's school. I've done live fire squad exercises and seen first hand how much more accurate fire an LMG can deliver.
It's not just the range, it's also the extreme amount of accurate fire it can deliver.
Guerilla warfare isn't just run and gun. Of course you have riflemen for when you need to move and only have time to shoot offhand. But whenever you pin the enemy down, or they pin you down, or for whatever reason the fight becomes a protracted firefight, that's when you fall back on your LMGs. Not bringing LMGs is putting yourself at a serious disadvantage.
In a small hab where it is all going to be room-to-room combat, sure. But O'Neill cylinders have large internal volumes and expanses. You have Mars, you have Titan. At 250+ meters the machine gun has an accuracy advantage in EP, and it has a better ammo capacity. It certainly has its role, also against human targets.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say the LMG should be classed as a seeker or grenade? Are you saying weapon skills should be classed based on their target, and not the weapon? So shooting a teargas seeker uses "security weapons" skill and a HEAP seeker uses "antiarmor weapons"?
Mon, 2014-08-25 10:43
#11
templariomaster
Quote:
I thought you were talking about a similar system for the MG42.
I already gave some examples to systems that can take the LMG role, like the MG36 or the STG77 HBAR.
Well I can't really say anything about being in the army, most of the things I know is from documents and fullfilling curiosity. But what I know, is that the idea that the LMG is the core of the squad is not the only school of thinking in the world, maybe you were trained in the tactics around the LMGs and not about the riflemen bein the center and the machine gunner playing a suppor role.
Guerrilla warfare is about fast, powerfull and strategic strikes taking advantage of you knowledge of the people and the land, under such work... I wouldn't really use an LMG because you need more training, the assault rifle can occupy that role for a short time and in close quarter and... the LMG eats ammo like a fattie eats nuggets in McDonalds.
You don't wanna be pin down because you had to run with tons of kilograms of ammo do you?
And if the problem is firepower, you should prefer the use of explosives under a guerrilla...
Do you really want to shoot from side to side from an O'neil cilinder? Or better... its possible? The 0'neill cilinder might have blindage from the inside(if an explosion occurs you don't want the fragments to end in the other side of the 0'neill cilinder) or even if the other side dont have blindage, your bullets rotate with you so you shouldn't expect to reach the other side easilyand even so...
why would you want to do that? If you can attack the other side of the radius, that means that the enemy can attack you directly with the same coin or even with a more powerfull one because you gived away your position, your entire squad have to run.
If you even hit your objective the rest will hide inside cover or move inside the O`neill Cylinder, since this is a completly urban zone, soldiers will have a lot of covers and ways to ambush,.
In Mars and other moons, as I already stated, is some of the few places were an LMG might be usefull but then... the moons might be completly frozen so you will fight in corridors anyway(I don't remember the name of that moon now... dammit), in Titan the important locations are cities not lands and In Mars we have insurgency not a real combat and most of the field combat doesn't really have to happen on an infantry level... and in that case the vehicules will clean the place, the infantry will get close and clean it and then they will stablish defenses.
So, is rational to design a weapon system that will only work in very specific zones under specific situations?
And now this parts bring me to...
The use of such heavy weapons should be governed under the gunnery skill, as we use throwing weapons for grenades. Thats because you don't use the same training for weapons that are focussed for close quarters that those weapons that are designed to fight in flat surfaces or render vehicules with its firepower, and maybe infantry combat.
Mon, 2014-08-25 10:45
#12
LatwPIAT
The M82 is actually more of a
The M82 is actually more of a heavy machine gun adapted to fit some strange mixture of anti-tank rifle and sniper rifle. It was developed after US snipers in Vietnam discovered that an M2 Browning with a scope attached made for a fairly decent sniping weapon.
When it comes to sniper rifles, it's important to keep in mind that while early sniper rifles were indeed adapted from standard infantry rifles, those standard infantry rifles were very different from the ones in use today, [i]especially[/i] when modern standardization is taken into account. The G98s, Lee-Enfields, 1903 Springfields and Mosin-Nagants used as sniper rifles during WWII, for example, were based on long WWI (or earlier) bolt-action rifles made for long-range fire (the sights on a Mosin-Nagant go out to at least 2000 meters, for example). The modern infantry "assault rifle" is a much shorter weapon, often capable of fully automatic fire, and designed for engagements at probably no further than 500 meters or so. In addition, the needs of modern military action have pushed for smaller, lighter rounds to be used in assault rifles (e.g. the 5.56x45 mm NATO round). These rounds are less suited for sharpshooting purposes because they have reduced effective range compared to heavier rounds like the 7.62x51 mm NATO round. On top of this, the mechanisms that allow for fully automatic fire result in reduced accuracy. This is a very slight concern in assault rifles, but becomes very important for sniper rifles where accuracy and precision are the main purpose of the weapon. All versions of the M14 used as sniper rifles, for example, are semi-automatic rather than fully automatic. It's therefore very unlikely that you'll be able to use an assault rifle interchangeably as a sniper rifle, because the desired qualities and design considerations of an assault rifle are unlike or even mutually exclusive to those of a sniper rifle. Making a weapon that is capable as both will be difficult, expensive, and probably not worth the effort compared to specialization. As for need, sniper rifles are used for both long-distance fire and high-precision short-distance fire (for police action). The latter is on the range of "city blocks", wherein EP's many cities and O'Neil cylinders would call for such a need, while the former could be useful on Mercury, Mars, Luna, Callisto, Ganymede, Titan, Rhea, Triton, and pretty much anywhere were the curvature is not so sharp that a few kilometers is over the horizon.
Similarly, the qualities of a good machine gun are not always those of a good assault rifle. Machine guns, such as the MG3 and the FN MAG tend to again use heavier rounds such as the 7.62x51 mm NATO because of the need for penetrating, destructive, intimidating, long-range fire (the suppressive probability of a firearm scales with the logarithm of the energy of the bullet). The machine gun will also require a higher rate of fire (the suppressive probability of a firearm scales with rate of fire), which demands a heavier, more stable firing platform (disregarding, for the moment, that EP guns have recoil-reducing [i]space magic[/i] in them), which is difficult to combine with the desire for a lightweight, easy-to-maneuver assault rifle. The different needs of different weapons make them difficult to combine; a light, short-barrel, bullpup, magazine-fed assault-rifle firing lightweight ammo is a very different thing from a heavy, long-barrel, belt-fed machine gun with easily swapable barrels firing heavy bullets, and trying to combine the two into one weapon would require making major sacrifices to capability.
As for submachine guns, while armies tend to not field them as line infantry weapons, submachine guns still see use by both police and special forces, as well as vehicle crews. Submachine guns are lighter, have reduced recoil (again, technically not an issue because of EP space magic), reduced sound signature, reduced muzzle flash, and tend to be smaller than assault rifles. Sure, bullpup assault rifles can be made pretty small, but SMGs tend to be very small. SMGs also lend themselves well to being silenced, because their low sound signature and tendency to use subsonic ammunition is far greater than that of assault rifles. SMGs still see use among groups that don't require the full power, range, and penetration of assault rifles (e.g. police), but need the other qualities, such as small, lightweight weapons with low recoil and a high rate of fire (e.g. special forces, vehicle crews). As for modern submachine guns, I can point to examples such as the QCW-05, the CBJ-MS, and the MSMC.
While I agree that the weapons divisions in EP are at times arbitrary, unnecessarily restrictive, or otherwise not ideal, I feel that your proposed solutions are far too minimalist, equally arbitrary, and don't reflect the realities that create demands for modern weapons.
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Mon, 2014-08-25 11:20
#13
ORCACommander
I must say how dislike the
I must say how dislike the weapon table. Since ep gear is fleeting they kept it very generic and tightly progressive and this unfortunately leads to redundancy which what the SMG is even though it was meant to be included for ship interiors and tightly corridor habs and archeologies. I think the solution would be to use different damage dice for each class. But while i think the spycraft 2.0 books have an extreme amount of redundant gear I am tempted to use it for face lifts on the ep weaponry tables
Mon, 2014-08-25 12:23
#14
Smokeskin
templariomaster wrote:
Those weapons can't fill the role of an LMG. They lack the weight for stable firing, they're not belt-fed, you can't swap barrels, they fire from closed bolts (less cooling and they will cook off rounds when overheating).
Where do they do it differently? The LMG has several times the firepower of an assault rifle. We went with the rule of thumb that 1 LMG gunner equalled 5 riflemen. Why would you base your tactics around an inferior weapon?
You want to make powerful strikes? You need LMGs for that.
Assault rifles can't fill the LMG role, even shortly.
In close quartes, yes, ARs are better. Whenever you have to fire offhand, ARs are better. You need both riflemen and LMG gunners to be effective in a wide variety of situations.
The LMG eats ammo fast mainly because it kills fast. That's not a bad thing, it's a good thing.
It's a tradeoff, yes. But if you don't have LMGs and ammo for them, in a lot of scenarios you can't fight effectively. That makes it worth it to lug that weight around.
Yes I want to engage the enemy whenever I can. You can easily shoot that far, but hitting might be an issue. If the wind conditions are nice and predictable, then shooting shouldn't be a problem.
That's generally the nature of combat. Ideally you'll attack from cover or at least concealment while the enemy has neither.
I'm not denying that there are scenarios where LMGs are not well suited. I'm arguing that there is a role for LMGs, certainly now and also in the EP setting and under its rules.
Yes it is. There are many weapons designed for somewhat narrow applications, and combat squads tend to carry a variety of weapons that each work very well under certain circumstances but none of them are the best in all situations.
In EP rules, the assault rifle only beats the LMG from 100 to 150 meters, and even then it has inferior magazine capacity. It's the assault rifle that has a specific zone, not the LMG. (In my opinion if we wanted realism the EP LMG should be more powerful but have offhand shooting penalty)
The EP weapon skills are a bit wonky, but imo it would be even stranger if the LMG got moved from Kinetic Weapons to Gunnery.
Mon, 2014-08-25 18:47
#15
Smokeskin
Quality post LatwPIAT.
Quality post LatwPIAT.
A few things I'd like to add:
The main use of these are for hard target interdiction. The bullet can damage equipment, armored vehicles, missiles and such, and it has the ballistic coefficient needed to work at extremely long ranges - it cuts through the wind without getting deflected too much and retains the velocity to penetrate.
Yeah, the fine tolerances of a precision rifle doesn't work well with the wiggle needed to reliable ram the bolt back and forth 15 times per second for full auto fire.
Most sniper rifles are of course also bolt-action. You don't want the bolt moving around while the bullet is still in the barrel.
Police and military sniper rifles are also very different. As you say, the police sniper wants to make an ultra precise shot at short range. They tend to have very thick, short barrels - this makes them very stiff so they vibrate very little. They also tend to be in the standard .308 calibre.
The longer range military sniper rifles go with longer barrels as this gives them the muzzle velocity needed to remain precise and lethal at long range. Many are chambered for magnum rounds for even more velocity, and heavier calibres like .338 lapua magnum with their long, sleek bullets that cut much better through the wind.
Of course, military snipers may have to carry their rifles on long walks, which makes them want lighter rifles for many missions.
An interesting aspect of sniping in EP is the different atmospheric conditions. When shooting you can measure and correct for everything almost perfectly, except for wind - it is constantly shifting and it is different along the bullet flight path, and you can't measure it everywhere even if it didn't change over the seconds of flight time. Wind is the main culprit reducing the effective range of a sniper. But of the atmosphere is very thin, or the air very calm or regular in a hab, it's not going to deflect the bullet as much, and snipers would be much more accurate.
SMGs also tend to have much larger bullets than rifles. Rifles rely on high velocity so their small bullets deform, fragment and tumble violently. SMGs use pistol ammo that is able to cause a large wound channel at low velocity. A low velocity assault rifle round wouldn't do much damage.
I can also imagine that the short range and penetration of SMGs would be an advantage if you don't want to harm civilians. Rifle ammo can shoot through brick wall and steel plate.
Wed, 2014-08-27 06:00
#16
ThatWhichNeverWas
Ignoring the OT for a moment...
There's something I don't understand. Why do people keep using present-day firearms issues and design constraints to criticise EP weaponry?
Arguing that the SMG is falling out of favour because they don't deal enough damage, for example, when the damage difference between an EP assault rifle and pistol is tiny – the advantage is more in the extended range and larger clip size.
Similarly, criticising the fact that they use “pistol” calibre rounds is odd, considering we don't know how large that actually is, nor do we know what they're made of beyond “metal”
Using the SMG again, I was under the impression that the EP SMG is a one-handed weapon, trading the increased size for improved range and the ability to perform 2 full-auto bursts before reloading instead of one like the other pistols.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Wed, 2014-08-27 06:35
#17
Smokeskin
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote:
With the increased range, I see it as being a two-handed weapon with a stock.
Wed, 2014-08-27 08:43
#18
ORCACommander
Transhumanity is unlikely to
Transhumanity is unlikely to depart from modern ammunition sizing conventions as by judging from the morph guide when it comes to anthromorphs we are not going to terribly far outside current human proportions, discounting wings.
So here is a very excellent chart for comparison of rifle and pistol rounds
http://www.gunslot.com/files/gunslot/images/75917.jpg
Wed, 2014-08-27 10:06
#19
thebluespectre
Stupid Idea
Plus you could attempt to dual wield the submachine guns in this game. I suppose a Remade with arms like legs and legs like trees could get away with it.
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Wed, 2014-08-27 10:28
#20
Smokeskin
Why would you need to be
Why would you need to be particularly strong to dualwield SMGs? They're not heavy, the recoil isn't that bad, and the fancy EP recoil compensators stops muzzle jump.
Thu, 2014-08-28 10:04
#21
ThatWhichNeverWas
Urg, I didn't want to have to research firearms...
I assume the increased range came from the bullpup design meaning that the barrel could effectively be longer, meaning more precision if not more accuracy.
Great, so rifle caliber is number 56, and pistol is number 50.
Even assuming that EP rounds use gunpower-equivalent, there's still a pretty huge range in what the caliber could be, and if you start considering them using metastable red oxygen or some such as a propellant the size of the round can go right down in comparison to the projectile; the actual projectile of a 50. cal is about the same size as a "normal" rifle round, resulting in a higher "effective" caliber.
Which is a good thing, when you consider that people are going to be armoured with nano-tube weave, sheets of solid diamond, or you may be shooting at a robot killing machine with circular saws for arms.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Thu, 2014-08-28 10:52
#22
Smokeskin
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote
Longer barrels tend to give you less precision, not more.
A stock in the shoulder and the ability to wield it with your elbows getting skeletal support on your torso, that's going to help a lot.
Yeah, a lot of factors play into choice of calibre, and many of them go opposite eachother. Weight, ammo capacity, recoil, cost, ballistic coefficient, range, needed penetration and stopping power at what range.
With better recoil management and more powerful powder, I think we'd see larger and especially longer, sleeker bullets flying faster.
A very big reason you see so many weapons in the same calibres are simply due to availibility and ammo cost. With fabbers, that's not likely to be an issue. If that leads to even more calibres, or fewer as people are free to select the optimal ones, I don't know. An extremely popular calibre like 7.62 nato/.308 winchester is largely there for historical reasons imo, something like the 7mm-08 beats it on seemingly all accounts except cost and availability.
Sun, 2014-08-31 15:12
#23
Chrontius
Suppression
I'm going to point out that cut-down carbines fire rounds that are small, and fast, and optimized for a long barrel. There will be lots of muzzle flash and noise. To suppress this, you'll need a big can.
Because of the volume of ... well, explosion coming out the business end, it'll overheat rapidly. Further, the supersonic crack is unsuppressable.
If you want a relatively silent weapon that won't cause damage to your hearing (sure, you can always just resleeve or spend some quality time in a healing vat. But after your first engagement inside a metal-walled hab hallway, good luck with those perception rolls - you'll bloody well need it!) then you need big, slow bullets like the .45 ACP, or the .300 Blackout, if you want something in a rifle pattern. (.50 Beowulf subsonics may also be of interest) It's these well-behaved/sneaky (depending on your prejudices) guns that seem to be the first to go.
Second, I disagree with the statement that the Barret .50 rifles aren't sniper rifles. At close range, they'll poke holes in the softer parts of a tank - I'll grant that. But at longer ranges, all that muzzle energy is necessary just to get a piece of lead on target at two kilometers. Remember - a military sniper's mission statement is the same as AT&T's - "Reach out and touch someone." Popular for in-hab fighting? Unlikely. For gatecrashing, the Martian surface, or suppressing Titan assets anywhere with a real horizon, I suspect the good old-fashioned M2 and its kin will, in some heavily modified form, provide the basis for a great many weapons platforms. Sure, better-funded operations with stronger supply lines might prefer chainguns, hybrid gauss-powder weapons, automatic seeker launchers, or fat racks of VLS missiles, but anywhere field-expedient repair, electronic warfare, or hostile conditions make the higher-tech stuff harder to service, I'm pretty sure we'll find big damn sniper rifles with deliberately obsolete optics.
Mon, 2014-09-01 14:50
#24
Smokeskin
You don't need a .50 for
You don't need a .50 for extreme range kills. The world record comfirmed kill belongs to .338 lapua magnum at 2,475 meters (and he shot both Talebans manning a machine gun, and then disabled their gun too). That's the most popular long range anti-personnel sniper round currently. The .50 isn't really used for anti-personnel missions, it has a lot of downsides that you don't want to deal with if you don't need to take out a hard target.
If we want to go heavier, the .408 cheytac beats the .50 on long range accuracy. Among other things that round remains stable through the transonic region - most bullets lose all accuracy when they drop through the sound barrier.
If we include wildcat rounds, the .408 necked down to .375 is the best available at the moment - faster, less recoil, higher ballistic coefficient.
Another thing to consider with the heavy sniper rifles is muzzle brake pull off. The column of air in front of the bullet will hit the muzzle brake and push on it while the bullet is still in the barrel. As you get larger calibre the effect becomes worse. Especially if you're not able to place yourself straight behind the rifle, it gets bad, and shooting under field conditions that might not always be possible.
Tue, 2014-09-02 04:49
#25
ThatWhichNeverWas
Huh.
Weird :D I did not expect that.
I think it's again worth asking whether these are still going to be issues.
Actually, I think the question is really how high tech EP firearms are.
We already know that they can alter their weight distribution to counteract recoil, but if they incorporate smart materials there are a lot of interesting possibilities, especially if they have a device AI.
On the simple side, they may be moderately self-aiming, using a trackingpoint-esque system and/or the ability to alter weight distribution, or even the direction of the barrel to compensate for "user error".
On the more advanced side, they may be able to alter it's internal proportions (size and shape of the chamber, length of the barrel) to alter the round's impact characteristics dependent on user requirements, or even physically reshape the round if it incorporates the appropriate nanotech.
Just to be clear, I'm still talking about the default weapons.
As a plus, that sort of technological integration would help explain the difference between the beam/kinetic skills. Actually, that would also give me another excuse to make SMGs one handed - larger size means more room for internal systems.
Soooo... crazy, or just crazy enough to work?
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Tue, 2014-09-02 07:26
#26
Smokeskin
ThatWhichNeverWas wrote
When the gunpowder explodes, the barrel acts like a tuning fork being hit - it vibrates. These vibrations are one of the prime reasons for inaccuracy (and at the high quality end, the prime reason). Barrel length increases vibration, barrel width reduces it.
You might have heard of how homeloading gets you better accuracy than any bought ammunition? This is not because factories can't produce the same quality, it is because homeloaders finetune their powder loads so the effect of the vibrations on accuracy on their particular rifle and bullet are minimized.
The advantage of long barrels is that you can pack more powder in the cartridge and have it burn before the bullet leaves the barrel, and you have more time for the expanding gas to accelerate the bullet. This gives you higher velocity, and higher velocity means the bullet has less flight time in which the atmospheric conditions can push the bullet around, and you can reach out further before the bullet drops to transonic speeds which ruins accuracy (that seems to have been solved with the .408 cheytac bullet though - it might not be an issue in EP). And of course hit the target with more power.
So in practice, tradeoffs have to be made. For long range shooting, you need longer barrels to get the needed velocity. If you look at police sniper rifles, they tend to have short, fat barrels because they require ultimate accuracy but fire at short range and can all but ignore atmospheric conditions.
I don't think it is possible to change the internals, the pressure is too high for nanomachinery to handle it. But smart weights counteracting recoil like the Kriss Vector SMG, absolutely. Smart bipods that conform to the ground and actively move the rifle, yes. Smart weights moving up and down the barrel to calibrate barrel harmonics (we have harmonic tuning systems available today too), yes. Gyros that power up when on target and down when off, and maybe even attached to actuators to assist even more.
Aside from just the smartlink, there's much that could be improved.
Tue, 2014-09-02 10:36
#27
ORCACommander
on a small side note when it
on a small side note when it comes to ammunition i see no reason why the law giver can't exist and have your firearm make special ammunition on the fly provided enough feed stock and certainly reduced capacity and rof
Thu, 2014-09-04 10:18
#28
ThatWhichNeverWas
At least I was partially right about barrel length.
Ahh. So active noise cancellation is called for; piezoelectric actuators along the barrel or a complete piezoelectric sheath to counteract the vibration. :P
I was thinking more of a Nanomachine/Smartmaterial “Plug” that would enter the chamber between each shot to reformat and repair the it.
That said, I'm pretty sure that Nanobots could be engineered to be tough enough to resist those forces, say by giving them an interlocking diamond shells. On the other hand, as long as they keep their form well enough to act as a chamber, they don't have to survive. In the latter case I imagine each round essentially getting a disposable smartmaterial “case” before it's chambered to alter the characteristics, with the used cases being broken down and recycled into new ones after the round has been fired.
In all cases time shouldn't be an issue, as the nanobots would be optimized for that task and environment.
One thing I love about the EP smartlink compared to the SR is it doesn't install much into the weapon, beyond the camera for visual use. Everything else, such as ammo selection and aim assistance is already built in.
Oh definitely. Simply use the combined weapon rules to give it a built in Fabber or Protean hive.
If you think about it, an ammunition-fabber is probably the most useful item anyone who uses firearms regularly can have.
—
In the past we've had to compensate for weaknesses, finding quick solutions that only benefit a few.
But what if we never need to feel weak or morally conflicted again?
Thu, 2014-09-25 22:44
#29
Chrontius
Dan Wesson
One solution to the barrel harmonics problem, used by Dan Wesson's revolvers, is to hold the barrel under tension, to ensure that the barrel's harmonics are repeatable. At which point, you just have to adjust the windage and elevation to take it into account, and ignore it.