Sampling of weapons?
- Thread starter Daddicus
- Start date
http://farfuture.net/FFE-Links.html has a file with 1001 GunMaker guns and another with 1001 ArmorMaker armors.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
So, an Experimental Shotgun would weigh 17.6 pounds and cost 1200 Credits. No Tech Level given. Aside from the weight being on par with some of the Spanish muskets with a 1 inch bore, the Shotgun really shows up when most of your sporting small arms began to be rifled, and were no longer smoothbore weapons. Rifling does not handle loads of small shot well, as the rifling tends to spin the shot out into a circle.
Hmm, a Very Heavy Revolver heavier than the Shotgun. Hopefully, it is equipped with a shoulder stock.
I am not sure about a revolver for one-hand firing that weighs more than a M-1 rifle. As for the Shotgun, I would hate to try and shoot trap with that.
Let us see, a carbine is supposed to be a lighter version of the rifle for troops that do not need a rifle for defense, but this one weighs 13.2 pounds, or heavier than an M-14. The M-1 carbine in WW2 weighed 5.5 pounds. As for the Battle Rifle, that is close to the weight of a Browning Automatic Rifle without bipod.
The prices are a tad strange too, if you assume that this would be the cost at the appropriate Tech Level. The M1911 .45 Colt Automatic Pistol, a weapon still widely used with a few modifications, cost $14.75 in 1918, and the 1903 Springfield Rifle ran $19.50 in 1918. The air-cooled Lewis light machine gun cost $731.56 cents if purchased from France, without the 5% commission to the French government.
I would recommend taking existing weapons and trying to fit them into the GunMaker format if possible, and ignore the experimental and early affects.
The -2 in XS-2 indicates TL 2 if I remember correctly.
So this is close to a medieval hand canon in concept (or a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court).
What could you make with a modern set of plans and a Medieval Forge.
Unless T5 changed the TLs, this is a Very Heavy Gun of TL 4 (Civil War Era).
Would that be an early black powder Express Rifle or Elephant Gun where I read the largest 8 and 10 bore weapons were not rifled even for slugs because the velocity coated them with lead too fast to be effective?
I am not familiar with the T5 damage, but is Frag-7 a 7D6 weapon in Classic Traveller terms? If so, that is about 11,000 joules of energy in that bullet.
I don't want to shoot skeet with it either!
But if I am being charged by T-Rex ... :coffeesip:
While working on my GunMaker iOS app I posted corrections to the list found in the Core Rules:
http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=36142
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Sixteen kilograms equates to 35.27 pounds. Not even Samuel Baker carried a weapon that heavy, as his 1 inch rifle, appropriately named "Baby", weighed 20 pounds and was fired from a rest. Somewhere on another thread I posted the ballistics of those big-bore blackpowder elephant guns.
As for T-Rex hunting, I would recommend looking up L. Sprague de Camp's A Gun For Dinosaur. Personally, for those I would prefer either a .50 caliber machine gun or a 20mm Solothurn anti-tank rifle. One of the Japanese 20mm anti-tank rifles would work as well.
I was not assuming a Higher Tech level person trying to make these, but what someone at the actual Tech Level making them would do. I.E., what an gunmaker working in say 1850 or 1900 would be turning out.
I suspect that someone whose background is Tech Level 11 or higher might not have the foggiest idea as to how to make blackpowder, as for a forge, no clue whatsoever. Could you describe how to make a horseshoe fit on a horse's hoof? Could the average urban dweller today?
I agree as far as that goes, however, when the starships start landing in the field next to the medieval village and the local blacksmith shares a few drinks in the pub with the Starship Engineer and gets to talking metallurgy and weapons, then gets to shoot a TL 5 shotgun. The TL 2 blacksmith may get an idea or two that the average TL 2 blacksmith wouldn't.
YMMV.
OK, then a Flintlock Wall Gun or a Punt Gun.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Per T5.09, page 502, Tech Level 2 is circa 1500, Age of Sail, and Tech Level 5 is circa 1930. That would make the shotgun probably either a pump or a semi-automatic, using paper and brass shells with internal primer and smokeless powder. The blacksmith will know that the Man from the Stars let him fire a weapon that banged his shoulder pretty hard, emitted very little smoke. was very light compared to local blackpowder weapons, if such weapons exist, and spat brass things out of the side. Unless he sees a magazine being loaded, he is not going to have any idea of what things brass things do, except that every time the shotgun fires, one of these is spat out. He may correlate moving a pump or slide with the brass things, but probably not if it is a semi-auto. He may or may not figure out that it fires a charge of small shot, unless shown the shot.
One problem that might also crop up is the blacksmith never really having seen a firearm before, or know about black powder. The Tech Level may not be exactly uniform on a planet. In 1500, large areas of Terra knew nothing about metal working or black powder. Blacksmiths were around long before gunpowder. Consider all of the technological jumps he is going to have to make, starting with making a reasonably accurate tube of wrought iron.
I confess my ignorance, what does this mean?
Boy, are you a glass half empty sort.
My blacksmith living next to the Starport with 1500 technology enjoys a successful trade in matchlock arquebus with about 25% of the local Army being equipped with one. So when he becomes friends with the Engineer and they get to talking, he already has a good foundation to build on and is fascinated by the pictures on the HandComp of how a flint lock works. He tries out the pump action shotgun, and my INT A Master Blacksmith immediately sees how he can incorporate improvements in the design of his stock and is fascinated with the idea of creating paper cartridges. He lacks the tooling to make a working percussion cap weapon, or a real bullet, but any number of modern improvements might still be incorporated ... Even as he struggles with some experimental TL 3 prototypes.
YMMV does equal 'Your Mileage May Vary' and, from your view of the blacksmith and my view, clearly it did.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Boy, are you a glass half empty sort.
My blacksmith living next to the Starport with 1500 technology enjoys a successful trade in matchlock arquebus with about 25% of the local Army being equipped with one. So when he becomes friends with the Engineer and they get to talking, he already has a good foundation to build on and is fascinated by the pictures on the HandComp of how a flint lock works. He tries out the pump action shotgun, and my INT A Master Blacksmith immediately sees how he can incorporate improvements in the design of his stock and is fascinated with the idea of creating paper cartridges. He lacks the tooling to make a working percussion cap weapon, or a real bullet, but any number of modern improvements might still be incorporated ... Even as he struggles with some experimental TL 3 prototypes.
You are not describing a blacksmith with your comment, you are describing an armorer or gunsmith or arsenal operator, which is a totally different type of skills, as your individual is making matchlock muskets.
To be fair, most don't make the distinctions, and many gunsmiths of the 19th C were blacksmiths and farriers as well. MANY blacksmiths also do blade work - for utility blades and axes, at least, and most also could make their own tools, regardless of smithing specialty. Plus, many of the tools made are bladed.
I have a personal fascination with the early settlements beyond the Appalachians in the American Colonial period. I was aware that these TL 3 "Frontier" metalworkers routinely imported locks cast in cities of the East Coast or England and manufactured the rest of the Rifle locally.
I assumed (I know, dangerous) that a TL 2 metalworker would be capable of a similar feat of skill if there was a market and a need. Like a TL 2 village near a Starport.
During a lengthy interview with a worker at Colonial Williamsburg, they mentioned that the candlestick maker was capable of casting a lock, but British imports were often cheaper, so economics, not technology limited local manufacture. They also mentioned that the master smith made things like the barrel and the apprentice would file and sand the stock. The issue became one of economy rather than skill. It was a slow process that yielded an expensive piece. A large settlement, like London, could afford to specialize and vastly increase production efficiency and reduce unit costs.
However, a local smith west of the Appalachians in the 1700's could build or repair a Flintlock musket or rifle. I posit that a TL 2 settlement could do the same with a matchlock.
Perhaps the Traveller TL system is too compressed on the low end for some people's taste. But it is the rule system of T5.09 and consistent with previous versions with the rules.
EXCEPT
TNE in at least one supplement used the word "mature" ex. "Mature TL 3" with game specific mechanics by use of that declaration. IIRC this was for bow, crossbows and muskets in TNE "World Builder's Handbook". TL for UWPs and other uses remained unchanged. So it is not as if hair splitting never existed.
AND
T5.09 allows for Decimal TL (page 498)
So for Your Traveller Universe (YTU), perhaps it may be more palatable to use the Decimal Value TL to hair split the Integer Value TL and go up or down "rows". So a "Standard" TL 5 item is "Experimental" at TL 3.3 not at TL 2 (page 502).
EXCEPT
TNE in at least one supplement used the word "mature" ex. "Mature TL 3" with game specific mechanics by use of that declaration. IIRC this was for bow, crossbows and muskets in TNE "World Builder's Handbook". TL for UWPs and other uses remained unchanged. So it is not as if hair splitting never existed.
AND
T5.09 allows for Decimal TL (page 498)
So for Your Traveller Universe (YTU), perhaps it may be more palatable to use the Decimal Value TL to hair split the Integer Value TL and go up or down "rows". So a "Standard" TL 5 item is "Experimental" at TL 3.3 not at TL 2 (page 502).
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
It definitely is too compressed on the Low End, and a bit strange for the Middle, i.e. present Technology.
Example, during the Late Stone Age, you had villages built on lakes using log supports, and towns with populations of several thousand in the Middle East. The earliest fortification at Jericho dates from around 7000 BC. You also had canal building in Egypt and Mesopotamia, along with major construction projects, large scale agriculture, and domesticated animals. There were small kingdoms in Mesopotamia and Egypt was in the process of consolidation. When you look at the Tech Table in T5.09, Kingdoms do not appear until the Middle Ages, with the same for Cities, with the Wheel not appearing until the Iron Age, along with Beasts of Burden and Writing. I will not even get into things like weapons and ships.
I totally ignore the whole idea of experimental and early development, as aside from some of the very bizarre results you get, it totally disagrees with how technology develops. If you go with the Three Tech Levels is experimental, then you could have an experimental aircraft carrier at Tech Level Two, or 1500 AD, or a "Queen Elizabeth"-class battleship. As for Galleys being fully developed in the Middle Ages, that would definitely be news to the Greeks at Salamis, or the Egyptians in combat with the Sea People circa 1200 BC.
I have been putting together my own Tech Level table. Now that my daughter's wedding is over, I will be able to work on it some more.
