Boarding Carbine/Snub Carbine
- Thread starter Sir Brad
- Start date
Remind me to never assign you to a hostage situation.
Elizabethan rapiers ran 40-72" long, plus hilt. VERY impractical. You're probably talking townswords - 20-30" typically, and constructed and used similarly.
A shallow curve cutlas can thrust just fine, by the way, and the thrust isn't gravity assisted unless the wielder is on horseback. The shamsheer, a close cousin, thrusts fine (I've fenced with/against a rebated one), and has some moves which a rapier can't pull off.
A snub carbine? Why? The military snub autopistol (Book 4) carries a 20-round magazine and is as effective at short range. Neither weapon is a credible threat outside of short range. Your DM -6 at medium range means a base to-hit of 14; you'd need a skill-3 in the weapon just to have a 1 in 36 chance of scoring a hit. And you've said it's too small to be effective with a bayonet. So, what role does the snub carbine fill that a snub autopistol can't fill?
Basic problem with the snub, in any incarnation, is low initial velocity: per Book-4, 100 to 150 meters per second or about a third that of traditional pistols. It adds punch with a larger round, HEAP or HE for the kill plus other nonlethal alternatives, but a slower heavier round with a larger cross section means it's going to lose what energy it has pretty fast (thus the need for HE/HEAP to provide lethality). I'm not entirely sure a weapon of any sort based off the standard snub pistol would have a long range; given the low velocity of the round, I would rule as a DM that it tumbles after medium range, rendering it ineffective at long range. You could counter that by going smoothbore and using fin-stabilization, but the medium-to-long-range accuracy is still too low to make it a credible weapon outside of short range.
The full automatic version has some potential, but at TL-9 I'd be borrowing on Accelerator rifle technology, modifying the snub pistol round to include a gyrojet boosting charge to make it more effective at medium-to-long range.
Basic problem with the snub, in any incarnation, is low initial velocity: per Book-4, 100 to 150 meters per second or about a third that of traditional pistols. It adds punch with a larger round, HEAP or HE for the kill plus other nonlethal alternatives, but a slower heavier round with a larger cross section means it's going to lose what energy it has pretty fast (thus the need for HE/HEAP to provide lethality). I'm not entirely sure a weapon of any sort based off the standard snub pistol would have a long range; given the low velocity of the round, I would rule as a DM that it tumbles after medium range, rendering it ineffective at long range. You could counter that by going smoothbore and using fin-stabilization, but the medium-to-long-range accuracy is still too low to make it a credible weapon outside of short range.
The full automatic version has some potential, but at TL-9 I'd be borrowing on Accelerator rifle technology, modifying the snub pistol round to include a gyrojet boosting charge to make it more effective at medium-to-long range.
Otto Harkaman
SOC-12
Sorry if it seems we are hijacking the thread
I thought of the wrong battle, it was the battle of Alma
I thought of the wrong battle, it was the battle of Alma
Khan Trav
SOC-12
I never cease to be amazed at the good ideas and talent I see on this forum. I like all the thought that goes into every little detail of Traveller.
For me I settled on a common and simple weapon for the Imperium a while back. I have stated it elsewhere with little note in the past. Maybe you like it maybe not but here is my most common firearm seen IMTU.
Auto Pistol
Carbine
SMG
All of these weapons are chambered in a 10mm cartridge that is completely interchangeable. (I think in terms of the .40 S&W cartridge)
The magazine wells are also the same which means the auto pistol will accept a larger capacity SMG or carbine magazine and vice versa. This simplifies the logistical side of things because each service can utilize the same magazine and cartridge. These weapons are not intended to go up against combat armored troops but do fine in most other situations.
My imagined carbine is modeled after the Ruger PC-40 Carbine
The pistol is a 1911 style but holding 10 rounds
The SMG is a UZI type weapon
Either the SMG or the Carbine would be decent boarding weapons and the carbine can be fitted with a collapsable stock.
For me I settled on a common and simple weapon for the Imperium a while back. I have stated it elsewhere with little note in the past. Maybe you like it maybe not but here is my most common firearm seen IMTU.
Auto Pistol
Carbine
SMG
All of these weapons are chambered in a 10mm cartridge that is completely interchangeable. (I think in terms of the .40 S&W cartridge)
The magazine wells are also the same which means the auto pistol will accept a larger capacity SMG or carbine magazine and vice versa. This simplifies the logistical side of things because each service can utilize the same magazine and cartridge. These weapons are not intended to go up against combat armored troops but do fine in most other situations.
My imagined carbine is modeled after the Ruger PC-40 Carbine
The pistol is a 1911 style but holding 10 rounds
The SMG is a UZI type weapon
Either the SMG or the Carbine would be decent boarding weapons and the carbine can be fitted with a collapsable stock.
Umm, why a 10mm round? The autopistol 9mm (~.357) round is already interchangeable with the SMG 9mm, and you're free to overrule Book-1 and implement an Imperial Edict requiring standardized interchangeable clips if you wish. You're also free to create a carbine that chambers the 9mm (but I'd keep that 6mm available - useful as a survival rifle in those emergency kits, more bullets for the same weight). What advantage does the 10mm confer?
I keep trying to think of a way to make a recoilless pistol. There are ways to engineer a rather harmless countermass - if you make sure it starts behind you or can put yourself a few yards away from it. However, I can't imagine even the most innocuous item coming out the rear of a pistol at arm's length and not seriously unnerving the shooter, if not giving him eye damage. A rifle maybe, if it were shouldered so the parts spitting out countermass were safely behind you - useful in boarding so long as you're not the guy behind the guy shooting. Of course, you could require goggles and facemasks if they aren't already wearing vacc suits, combat environment suits or some similar protection. You could really clear corridors with a recoilless shotgun built around that principal.
On which subject: there's a trap gun that works by nesting the action in a sleeve with a heavy spring, not really recoilless but reducing recoil significantly by expending the energy over a slightly longer time.
I keep trying to think of a way to make a recoilless pistol. There are ways to engineer a rather harmless countermass - if you make sure it starts behind you or can put yourself a few yards away from it. However, I can't imagine even the most innocuous item coming out the rear of a pistol at arm's length and not seriously unnerving the shooter, if not giving him eye damage. A rifle maybe, if it were shouldered so the parts spitting out countermass were safely behind you - useful in boarding so long as you're not the guy behind the guy shooting. Of course, you could require goggles and facemasks if they aren't already wearing vacc suits, combat environment suits or some similar protection. You could really clear corridors with a recoilless shotgun built around that principal.
On which subject: there's a trap gun that works by nesting the action in a sleeve with a heavy spring, not really recoilless but reducing recoil significantly by expending the energy over a slightly longer time.
Khan Trav
SOC-12
Why 10mm? Fair question, why not I say. Remember this is IMTU, I am not saying CT got it wrong and we need to re-write the books. I do see a lot of metric system in the game that appears to be simply trying to convert English measurements into metric such as 18mm bore shotgun for a 12ga. I like to simplify it by utilizing 10mm for the auto-pistol, 20mm for the shotgun, 5mm in place of the 6mm and so on. There is no real need to do this but to me it seems logical. The Imperium has had a long time to create a more efficient logistical network and I think standardized magazines for low end slug throwing firearms would be a logical result.
In the long run it is probably irrelevant, I would say I have never had a player or a bad guy say hey! That round that just hit me didnt feel like a 9mm!!
So I guess my real argument is for logical standardization of ammo for logistical reasons. Impies from different units wont have to worry that they are about to try to bum ammo from a neighboring unit and find they have 6mm instead of 9 or 10 or whatever.
Oh, sorry mate we use carbines instead of the smg but we do have a ton of ammo, too bad you can not utilize it.
I am not willing to crash and burn for this pet theory but I havent had any issues with it in over ten years of gameplay using this house rule. Surely Im not the only one here that looked at the slug throwing firearms and found them out of date? Does anyone else have a modification that they use like this?
In the long run it is probably irrelevant, I would say I have never had a player or a bad guy say hey! That round that just hit me didnt feel like a 9mm!!
So I guess my real argument is for logical standardization of ammo for logistical reasons. Impies from different units wont have to worry that they are about to try to bum ammo from a neighboring unit and find they have 6mm instead of 9 or 10 or whatever.
Oh, sorry mate we use carbines instead of the smg but we do have a ton of ammo, too bad you can not utilize it.
I am not willing to crash and burn for this pet theory but I havent had any issues with it in over ten years of gameplay using this house rule. Surely Im not the only one here that looked at the slug throwing firearms and found them out of date? Does anyone else have a modification that they use like this?
The .50 or .75 or .<something huge> recoilless handgun is a standard SF trope, useful for keeping autonomous robots in line, but I don't recall any writer that has bothered to explain just how the recoillessness is achieved.
Hans
The Snub Gun is based on the Gryojet weapons experimented with in the 60's.
the 70's & 80's both DARPA and the British MOD experimented with progressive developments on the weapon in case the Sov's decided to go Extra-Atmospheric with armed conflict, the Ruskies also developed something smiler from their underwater rifles to discourage the "Decadent Capitalist West" from preventing the peaceful Soviet exploration of space.
Wiki on Gryojet weapons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet
the 70's & 80's both DARPA and the British MOD experimented with progressive developments on the weapon in case the Sov's decided to go Extra-Atmospheric with armed conflict, the Ruskies also developed something smiler from their underwater rifles to discourage the "Decadent Capitalist West" from preventing the peaceful Soviet exploration of space.
Wiki on Gryojet weapons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
You wouldn't want a gyro jet. The rounds accelerate rather slowly and are near useless at very close range.
What would work instead is a high-low pressure round. The US 40mm grenade launcher uses this for example. Your round might be on top of conventional looking cartridge that isn't open on top of the powder charge. Instead, small venturies are drilled in the top between the round and the cartridge holding the charge. These regulate the rate of expansion of the charge gasses such that the bullet accellerates along the barrel reaching its maximum velocity only at the muzzle. There is extra space in the firing chamber for gas expansion as well.
You might add to that some degree of recoil compensation in the stock and firing mechanism that dampens what recoil there is along with a muzzle compensator / brake that helps dampen it too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Low_System
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No, it isn't. The snub is a low-vel conventional with explosive rounds.
Snub Pistol: The snub pistol is a low velocity revolver designed for use on shipboard and in a zero-G environment. It fires 10 mm, 7 gram bullets at velocities of 100 to 150 meters per second. No magazine is used, six individual cartridges being inserted into the revolver separately. Reloading takes one combat round, two combat rounds if the firer is evading. Standard rounds include a tranquilizer round, gas round, high explosive round, and a high explosive shaped charge round to defeat personal armor. The snub pistol is a standard shipboard security weapon
generally loaded with five tranquilizers and one gas round.
More expensive pure combat versions of the snub pistol are available, generally in the automatic pistol configuration with extended magazines holding up to twenty rounds.
(CT Bk 4, p. 37, Bold mine)
generally loaded with five tranquilizers and one gas round.
More expensive pure combat versions of the snub pistol are available, generally in the automatic pistol configuration with extended magazines holding up to twenty rounds.
(CT Bk 4, p. 37, Bold mine)
I was under the impression the gyrojet was where they got the idea for the accelerator rifle. Same basic principal, same close-range weakness.
Which brings up a point: we have the gyrojet now (or rather, we had the gyrojet - I don't think they're manufactured anymore), and the snubbie's a handy close-in weapon. I'm greatly surprised that GDW didn't go that next step and merge snubbie and accelerator technology at TL-9 to make an accelerator pistol in the 10mm size that fired accel rounds tipped with snubbie "payloads"; the snubbie's HE/HEAP rounds would have handily overcome that close/short range weakness of accelerator weapons, and the accelerator's rocket boost would have overcome the snubbie's medium range weakness. Given the number of opponents wandering around in cloth armor at that point, I would argue that for the next logical step in slug-thrower evolution.
Can you imagine that puppy in an automatic SMG-type design? Now THAT would be an ideal boarding weapon.
Which brings up a point: we have the gyrojet now (or rather, we had the gyrojet - I don't think they're manufactured anymore), and the snubbie's a handy close-in weapon. I'm greatly surprised that GDW didn't go that next step and merge snubbie and accelerator technology at TL-9 to make an accelerator pistol in the 10mm size that fired accel rounds tipped with snubbie "payloads"; the snubbie's HE/HEAP rounds would have handily overcome that close/short range weakness of accelerator weapons, and the accelerator's rocket boost would have overcome the snubbie's medium range weakness. Given the number of opponents wandering around in cloth armor at that point, I would argue that for the next logical step in slug-thrower evolution.
Can you imagine that puppy in an automatic SMG-type design? Now THAT would be an ideal boarding weapon.
For the Accelerator, it is. But the Snub's not an accelerator pistol. It's a low-power conventional....
The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
That machine pistol back on page two is a Pirate favorite for a while now. So are weapons similar in build to the skorpion SMG, the mini Uzi, the Mac 10, the Tek-9, because of the overall desire for "small" with a lot of punch, or a lot of rounds. someting like the p90 is catching up populairty wise as well, due to the high cap magazine, even though it looks weird.
Still think stuff from any of the Ruger group of revolvers (super REdhawk, etc.) would be idea for taking out faceplates and vacc suits, with a braced shot.
Does anyone else use boarding shields (ballistic types) for boarding actions? Like storming an airlock with riot gear on?
Still think stuff from any of the Ruger group of revolvers (super REdhawk, etc.) would be idea for taking out faceplates and vacc suits, with a braced shot.
Does anyone else use boarding shields (ballistic types) for boarding actions? Like storming an airlock with riot gear on?
The Hinterworlds Rambler
SOC-14 5K
Cutlass!
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