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Godawful improvised weaponry from hell...

S

signless

SOC-12
Okay, I'm thinkin' if an undergrad from a domestic polytechnic can come up with some of this stuff...imagine what an ex-marine with a fairly high-level Jack of All Trades can whip up outta the ship's galley, a few yards of PVC tubing, and a can of shaving cream...

Check out http://www.glubco.com/weaponry/

I'm seeing homebrewed one-shot anti-personell mini-meson guns...and other homicidal mayhem. Belly up to the bar, boys!
 
The great-grandfather of all improvised weaponry, of course, is the Molotov Cocktail. I´m not sure, though if it is legal (and within the limits of forum rules) for me to describe how to build one.
 
hmmmm ... I wonder if one could hot-wire a grav module to create a single high-G burst before it burned itself out?

Picture a glow-ball; a sphere containing a grav module, power source, lighting and photocell controls. Something like this might be used as garden or patio lighting for the ultra-rich.

Our hypothetical Space-MacGuyver snags one, disassembles it and sets it up in a corridor. When a shadow passes over the photocell, it burns out the grav module which shoots down the hall like a hyper-velocity brick. Flames are optional. :D

Given the storage capacity of some Traveller power sources, shorting one out would create an improvised explosive.
 
Cool idea.
Sounds like it could be a good sabotage device foe a starship. No explosives to show up on the scanners. Suddenly one of the AG mods comes flying up through the deck and Kaboom.
 
Originally posted by Chaos:
The great-grandfather of all improvised weaponry, of course, is the Molotov Cocktail. I´m not sure, though if it is legal (and within the limits of forum rules) for me to describe how to build one.
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Marc Miller wrote about these in an article entitled "The Miller Milk Bottle" that was published in Dragon Magazine #51 back in 1981.
 
I had a PC kill an NPC with a fire extinguisher once. No, really...

The set-up had the PCs standing overnight 'cold iron' watches aboard a damaged subsidized freighter while it waited for repairs. Nearly everything was shutdown and shore power was feeding the gravitic nets, lights, life support, etc. Local port regulations required a 'rover' and bridge watch be aboard at all times and, because the subbie's crew had been transferred off, the positions were being filled from the local hiring hall. Enter the PCs.

The trouble came from two factors; the world was a vacuum world and a local group wanted to recover a package left aboard the subbie by one of the crewmen.

First, a couple of locals approached the watchstanding PCs during the day and tried to arrange access to the freighter. The PCs said no, reported the offer to the port, and recieved the usual bland assurances.

Next, the PCs on watch foiled and/or scared off an attempt by a local to sneak aboard and search for the package. Again they reported this to the port, recieved the same bored responses, and took matters into their own hands. The next night they brought their entire party aboard!

A group of locals came aboard that night with the intention of rounding up the watchstanders, locking them in a cupboard somewhere, and searching for the package. The wheels fell off when one of their number tried to collar one of the PCs on 'rover' duty.

The ship had atmosphere in it. The PC was wearing a vacc suit with his helmet slung. The local NPC was fully suited and had a snub pistol. When they saw each other, the NPC fired and missed. The PC immediately ducked into a stateroom. The NPC followed and the PC brained him with the only handy leavy object around; a fire extinguisher.

No GM intervention played a part. The PC rolled for and got a pinpoint hit on the NPC's helmet faceplate. The NPC was knocked down and the PC continued to whale on his helmet with the canister. After a few blows, I had to rule that the faceplate was cracked whereupon the PC jammed the nozzle against it and 'fired' the extinguisher.

From a planning viewpoint, the entire session went 'down hill' from there!



Have fun,
Bill
 
Originally posted by Bill Cameron:
I had a PC kill an NPC with a fire extinguisher once. No, really...
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Same thing happened in a MT game I ran.
PCs were sneaking around the starport offices up to no good, when they hear a security guard making his rounds.

One of the PCs grabs a fire extinguisher and waits around the corner...

guard appears, player states that he'll hit him over the head and then rolls an 11 to hit.

With the exceptional success rule in MT that made it the equivalent of an 8D hit...
toast.gif
 
I'm wondering about the utility of using a starship's high-powered targeting radar as an improvised planet-bound defensive weapon. After all, I remember hanging MRE packages from the radar mast of a Hawk missile battery once...after just a few seconds, those puppies were nice and piping hot. I wonder what they'd do to a few score K'kree...?
 
Wouldn't the result be a radio or microwave laser? Good grief, I can see some devious uses for a powered up microwave oven as well.
 
How about using an oxygen bottle, microwave oven and the proximity sensor from a door to do something nasty. Person trips the proximity sensor, oven goes on, O2 goes boom.
 
A nice, low-tech way to make things difficult for attackers in ship-board action would be to leave a copious amount of marbles lying around on the floor... one careless step, and *ouch*.

Either that, or a generous application of floor wax - if possible, combined with manipulating the artificial gravition to create an incline...

For that matter, movies like "Kevin - Home Alone" (?) are full of simple but effective low-tech nastiness in defense against intruders.
 
Originally posted by Chaos:
A nice, low-tech way to make things difficult for attackers in ship-board action would be to leave a copious amount of marbles lying around on the floor... one careless step, and *ouch*
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Bucky balls! Carbon-60 molecules that form near-perfect spheres and would make sweet hi-tech "marbles"
 
"A nice, low-tech way to make things difficult for attackers in ship-board action would be to leave a copious amount of marbles lying around on the floor..."

Ah, Standard D&D Improvised Weapon #1...

The idea of using radar or comm lasers as weapons goes back a *long* time, but I'm not sure what the agreed damage is.

A PC in one of my groups once killed a pirate trying to board their ship by shooting him with a sandcaster...
 
CO2 Cartridges used in life jackets, pellet pistols and such make nice projectile weapons in a vaccum, zero-g stituation.

During play, a Mechanic in a Module Cutter with Supply module disabled a ship during combat.

Having O2, acetalyne, CO2 and a couple other loaded cylinders, knocked of the ends with the cylinder in the basicly correct direction. A few CO2 were tied together around an acetalyne tank and the CO2 were knocked open leaving the acetalyne closed.

Imagine the surprise of the ship hit in the engine section. Of course they saw some of the cylinders, evaded until they discovered they were only cylinders then ignored them. OOPs. Guess they should have not ignored them all.

Dave Chase
 
Originally posted by signless:
I'm wondering about the utility of using a starship's high-powered targeting radar as an improvised planet-bound defensive weapon. After all, I remember hanging MRE packages from the radar mast of a Hawk missile battery once...after just a few seconds, those puppies were nice and piping hot. I wonder what they'd do to a few score K'kree...?
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Hmmm, I had to find it first before I posted, but the June 13th issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology has an article about using high-power microwave weapons to kill shoulder-fired antiaircraft weapons. The article is about a static system being built by Raytheon called 'Vigilant Eagle'. Nifty stuff!
 
Originally posted by Parmasson:
How about using an oxygen bottle, microwave oven...
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One of the relatively few times I got to play in a Traveller game (always stuck as GM it seems), we came across an informant we'd been searching for 'done in' with the help of a microwave oven.

The Bad Guys had knocked him out, stuff his head in the oven, disbaled the door latch shut-off, and set the thing for an hour or so.

It was meant to be seen as a warning.

It was.


Have fun,
Bill

P.S. At Charleston Naval Shipyard in '81, a sailor was killed aloft on one ship by an energized radar on another.
 
Originally posted by DaveChase:
Having O2, acetalyne, CO2 and a couple other loaded cylinders, knocked of the ends with the cylinder in the basicly correct direction. A few CO2 were tied together around an acetalyne tank and the CO2 were knocked open leaving the acetalyne closed.
Click to expand...
Neat idea!

Trouble is that the bottles' 'necks' rarely break off cleanly so you don't get a nice straight thrust vector. Believe I've seen some shoot off just like you suggest. They usually fly about a bit, then 'settle down' to slithering and spinning on the floor like Curly Howard on LSD. Lot's of damage too. Ever see a hole punched through a brick and steel retaining wall?

Still a great idea from a player. As a GM I would have allowed it to play out just as you said it did. This is a game after all!


Have fun,
Bill
 
I remember hanging MRE packages from the radar mast of a Hawk missile battery once... after just a few seconds, those puppies were nice and piping hot. I wonder what they'd do to a few score K'kree...?
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Um... I've heard stories from a friend who was an ET in the Navy talking about watching pigeons getting fried after landing in front of a radar dish. I hope there wasn't rad damage to your hand when you put the MRE on there.

toast.gif


Dameon
 
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