forearm-mounted guns ... cool? effective?

[redwalker]

Suppose a fictional character had a Heckler & Koch MP5 strapped to his forearm. The muzzle extends just beyond his fist, he fires it by a wire looped around his finger.

Now, I doubt this would be used in real life. But as fiction, would it be cool?

In your Traveller universe, would it be effective?

I'm torn.

On the one hand, I suspect it's an ineffective trade-off. One gains complications, possibly loses accuracy, and the only major benefit is that the gun is very quick to draw. Possibly there might be ways to reduce recoil, but there are better ways to reduce recoil.

On the other hand, it's a cool idea that I would pay the price of a movie ticket to see acted out.

One could have variations. One could have a very sturdy frame strapped to the forearm, controlled by a handgrip -- very low recoil, but one's hand is occupied. One could design a grip that swung out of the way, or even reduce firing control to a wire looped around the finger, but that would make the whole apparatus less steady.

Further, the straps holding the gun to the forearm could present ergonomic problems; if they got slippery from sweat, the accidents could be disastrous.

 

[Icosahedron]

IMHO the whole thing would be an unworkable PITA. Repeating handguns have been available for a couple of hundred years - if fastening one to your forearm was a good idea, they'd all be built that way by now.

The loop around your finger would create false firing, the moveable grip would be harder to draw than a holstered weapon, you can't transfer it to the other hand when you've been 'winged', etc, etc...

No, give me a standard weapon any day.

 

[Gadrin]

GURPS offers a wrist needler and I've seen wrist and forearm ________ (you name it) in other game systems.

I suppose it depends on if you're going for the Boba Fett approach or not.

Sounds like a good idea on a battlesuit/battledress. I think the Streethawk battlesuit in GURPS Robots offered a gauss-razorgun built-in. Snipping off monowire fragments and zipping them at opponents as a gauss gun.

I kinda liked that weapon/setup. Nothing preventing you from making a reconfigurable gauntlet type getup.

 

[far-trader]

Among other things I think reloading would be a contortionist's nightmare.

And if it jammed then what? Take of the whole rig to manually unjam it then remount the rig before shooting again?

Sounds like a neat trick for a concealed weapon, but not for combat.

 

[redwalker]

Among other things I think reloading would be a contortionist's nightmare.

And if it jammed then what? Take of the whole rig to manually unjam it then remount the rig before shooting again?

Sounds like a neat trick for a concealed weapon, but not for combat.

I don't know whether reloading would be difficult. I'd be more concerned about mishaps with the trigger.

Your point about the concealed weapon brings up a memory: I saw a spy movie in which a spy had a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun up his sleeve. It had a thread around one trigger that would pull the trigger if he moved his arm too far away from his torso.

Somebody demanded that the spy put his hands up and surrender, and as his hands went up, the shotgun went off, crippling the opponent. Then the spy removed the gun from its wrist brace with his other hand and pulled the other trigger normally, administering a coup de grace.

That was fiction.

I'm not confident such a dangerous tactic would be worth the risk in real life. I could see some horrible possibilities for blowing one's own wrist off due to a misaligned weapon.

 

[redwalker]

GURPS offers a wrist needler and I've seen wrist and forearm ________ (you name it) in other game systems.

I suppose it depends on if you're going for the Boba Fett approach or not.

Sounds like a good idea on a battlesuit/battledress. I think the Streethawk battlesuit in GURPS Robots offered a gauss-razorgun built-in. Snipping off monowire fragments and zipping them at opponents as a gauss gun.

I kinda liked that weapon/setup. Nothing preventing you from making a reconfigurable gauntlet type getup.

I think either the book or the movie version of "Johnny Mnemonic" had a back-of-the-hand-mounted mini-crossbow. That could be neat, and it would certainly be less dangerous to the user than an MP5 or a shotgun.

If you have battledress, of course, options become more extensive. One could have a steadicam-style gun brace that flipped the gun out when desired and flipped it away when it was not.

Edit:
The steadicam was, of course, a major design influence on one of the fictional guns of Aliens:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M56_Smart_Gun

 

[veltyen]

Isn't this already done with some of the more exotic SMG designs.

Grip and trigger forward, barrel along top of arm, stock and bullpup mechanism resting in the crook of the elbow?

I am sure someone has set up a firearm that way at some stage.

(That could be said of almost any configuration though)

 

[chshrkt]

I think either the book or the movie version of "Johnny Mnemonic" had a back-of-the-hand-mounted mini-crossbow. That could be neat, and it would certainly be less dangerous to the user than an MP5 or a shotgun.

There was also one of these in The Road Warrior, used by one of the main badguys, the one with feathers on his outfit.

 

[BlackBat242]

A friend created this forearm-mounted selective-fire carbine (with bayonet) for K'Kree:

Note the elbow cup, over-arm clamp (middle of the weapon), and pistol-grip with trigger.

 

[far-trader]

Ah, properly designed sure, much more believable. But the idea I got from the original post was a more ad-hoc idea. I was picturing, I don't know what exactly. An off the shelf gun with duct tape and baling wire :smirk:

Nice pic and design BlackBat, thanks for sharing

 

[Fritz_Brown]

...the one with feathers on his outfit.

Well, that pretty much tells me all I need to know....

 

[spank]

Forearm gun

I can see where it would be apealing to "bickle up", but why use a slug thrower, and why mount it to the forearm? Use a laser, then you could mount it any where on the bdoy, maybe even disperse it over several parts, then "hose" the light thru some fiberoptics to the "muzzle", wherever that might be.



another possiblity, a laptop gun, or personal computer gun, a TL 15 computer, bulked up to look like a TL 12 computer and add space for a gun inside. It might even fold out like a fmg-9.

 

[far-trader]

...another possiblity, a laptop gun, or personal computer gun, a TL 15 computer, bulked up to look like a TL 12 computer and add space for a gun inside. It might even fold out like a fmg-9.

For what it's worth that's one of the definitions of the classic "body pistol" from Traveller. A small concealed, difficult to detect, often disguised as something else, handgun.

 

[BillDowns]

Also for what it's worth, that is similar to a standard side-arm on everyone from the Deathworld, a series of novels by Harry Harrison (1960 and later). The weapon was a high-tech alternative, using advanced sensors totell when the wearer's hand posied as if to shoot, and the pistol would be placed just right.

Interesting series of stories somewhat pre-dating the Stainless Steel Rat.

 

[aramis]

A buddy of mine rigged up a wrist mounted 0.22LR. The rig was set up so that the jennings .22 would fire when the wrist was bent downwards. The problem was that the trigger took too much pull for the wrist flex to work.

He was able to make it work by mounting under the wrist, and using an upward pull in the palm.

It resulted in mild burns on the wrist in either location.

 

[sid6.7]

well in traveller and Gm'ing you can make anything happen...

but in general anything other than a pistol cartridge would be unworkable
unless part of some kind of combat armor gadgetry.


I.E

try firing a rifle in calibers(308, 223, 3030, 30-06) one handed and you'll understand what i mean.

 

[aramis]

well in traveller and Gm'ing you can make anything happen...

but in general anything other than a pistol cartridge would be unworkable
unless part of some kind of combat armor gadgetry.


I.E

try firing a rifle in calibers(308, 223, 3030, 30-06) one handed and you'll understand what i mean.

Having fired 223 from an M16 as if it were a pistol, it was little issue. The Johnson 30-06 was heavy, but doable. The 12ga was too much.

 

[redwalker]

A friend created this forearm-mounted selective-fire carbine (with bayonet) for K'Kree:

Note the elbow cup, over-arm clamp (middle of the weapon), and pistol-grip with trigger.

That is really cool-looking. I have got to work that into a game somehow.

 

[chart42]

What my friend BlackBat242 neglects to mention is that we had a hard time figuring out how to accurately aim this weapon. What we ended up with was a fitting multi-spectrum camera/sight in the lower fore-end feeding a helmet or eyepiece heads up display so that the operator could always see exactly where the weapon was pointing. Works great for a military grade weapon in a sci-fi setting, but I would have preferred a lower tech solution, at least as a backup.

 

[far-trader]

What my friend BlackBat242 neglects to mention is that we had a hard time figuring out how to accurately aim this weapon....

...I would have preferred a lower tech solution, at least as a backup.

Don't see why it would be any different than learning to shoot from the hip. It's a trick skill, just takes time and practice to train the muscle memory. As long as the rig is consistent over time.

I'd use the snapshot penalties from the rules of the same name (DM-2) but allow a special skill to represent it and negate the penalty. Each level of skill offsetting 1 negative DM. So skill level 2 in Shoot From the Hip would allow full weapon skill to apply.