far-trader
SOC-14 10K
Don't forget the ARL...
D'oh! I do often
No idea why but yeah it slips my mind a lot.
TL 10+ slug throwers
- Thread starter Renaissance Man
- Start date
D'oh! I do often
No idea why but yeah it slips my mind a lot.Scathsealgaire
SOC-8
Muzzel Flash can hurt!!
How about this, PPS - Plasma Propelled Slug.
You could get a really high velocity with expanding plasma. You just don't want friendlys standing too close to the muzzel.
How about this, PPS - Plasma Propelled Slug.
You could get a really high velocity with expanding plasma. You just don't want friendlys standing too close to the muzzel.
Sorry, and I don't mean to detract from the thread, but as I am not a military/weapons type of person, I just pictured your garden variety slug being launched via a plasma propelled something. Then did the Disney thing & imagined the look of terror on the poor slug flying through the air, a shrill scream warbling from it's blubbery lips, then the look of terror on whoever is getting shot at with slugs. Nothing worse than getting slugged...*
And now back to our regular scheduled program.
*sort of like the ray gun that can only shoot people named Ray - sometimes I can be a bit too literal. And now I'm going to have to do some research to find out how the weapon-type slug got its name.
edit: "[Perhaps from slug2 (from its shape).]" from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/slug
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I'd suspect it was from metallurgy, I remember something about slugs being like pigs or ingots. Lumps of semi-refined metal. Checking Websters it appears to agree with me, though it does have a reference to 1811 slang that is interesting.
Getting back to the other thoughts at hand, plasma expansion chambers are an interesting idea. On a similar vein is hydrogen traverse guns. Expansion wavefront of volatile gases is dependent on the mass involved in the gas. In other words to reach the maximum velocity possible you want the expansion gas to be hydrogen.
However hydrogen isn't the product of any nice simple chemical reaction. To use it as a propellant you need to have a interim chamber that holds the hydrogen, the explosion/compression chamber connected to that, and then the gun barrel. To fire the compression chamber activates which compresses the hydrogen, then another valve opens when the compression is optimal allowing hydrogen into the barrel behind the projectile.
The extra complexity strikes me as not being optimal for a small arm.
However it is Tech that appears at TL8 (for big sciency type applications), and might end up in vehicles at TL9, smaller field guns at TL10, and eventually to infantry support weapons after that. It really depends how important the slight edge in projectile velocity ends up being.
Renaissance Man
SOC-12
Excuse my ignorance... what's a cone bore?
A David Drave was ...
Nope, I remember now....
Mr. Gordon Dickson's classics the Dorsi (sp? it's been a while).
Cone rifles and spring rifles too, as for cone rifles they fired a projectile..IIRC that upon reflection reminds me of MetalStorm, that was a cone and stacked one upon the other in the bore of the rifle and were I think, again, it's been like 20 years, fired by electrical primers.
Check math someone...I am not always right, just mostly.
Nope, I remember now....
Mr. Gordon Dickson's classics the Dorsi (sp? it's been a while).
Cone rifles and spring rifles too, as for cone rifles they fired a projectile..IIRC that upon reflection reminds me of MetalStorm, that was a cone and stacked one upon the other in the bore of the rifle and were I think, again, it's been like 20 years, fired by electrical primers.
Check math someone...I am not always right, just mostly.
ThunderChilde
SOC-13
I think he's refering to a gerlich bore weapon. The German's used it in a 50mm cannon on the skdfz252, a AT gun or two and in infantry anti-tank rifle. It was a reducing bore weapon, it tappered down to the muzzle. It required Tungsten alloy barreles and the round was a self forging sintered iron and tungsten cored. It yielded freakishly high velocities with excellent armour peircing characteristics; and barrel heating issues.
When they lost Africa, they lost thier Tungsten supply and the weapons gradually went out of use as the ammunition was expended.
When they lost Africa, they lost thier Tungsten supply and the weapons gradually went out of use as the ammunition was expended.
; )
That's the one.
Drake did a piece, not involving HS, with cone bore small arms. Synthetic saphire barrels, helluva kick.
'Cone Bore' is a very interesting concept, but unless we are prepared to handwave away all Momentum and Inertia issues, the human being is and will remain the ultimate 'weak link'. At TL 3 it is already possible to build a 'firearm' too powerfull for a man to hold and control, so advanced Tech should not increase the basic damage of the weapon as much as it might allow that damage from a smaller weapon - (reducing weapon weight, increasing ammo carried, increasing range, etc.).
In other words, any Hypervelocity rifle should fire a much smaller bullet and inflict the same damage, but a hypervelocity 12 gauge will remove the arms of the shooter. The same applies to increasing the ROF. If the ROF increases, then the weight of each shot must decrease or the weapon will be uncontrollable as a hand-held weapon.
In other words, any Hypervelocity rifle should fire a much smaller bullet and inflict the same damage, but a hypervelocity 12 gauge will remove the arms of the shooter. The same applies to increasing the ROF. If the ROF increases, then the weight of each shot must decrease or the weapon will be uncontrollable as a hand-held weapon.
ThunderChilde
SOC-13
Meh, if you have an inertial sump in effect with cg tech, which can appaernetly become quite small, you can tame the beasty known as recoil. There are also a bag of tricks from muzzle brakes to recoil compensators around today that could help here too.
Have you ever fired a shotgun with an absorbothane buttpad? Very effective in reducing felt recoil. It's the same stuff the navy uses for silenting machine vibrations and uses to coat subs with to reduce sonar return signitures.
Not shure what it is they modify, but it can be tuned to absorb specific vibrational or impactive frequencies. It's precisely the same compound used for any of the three uses I meantioned above, but it is the same material. Kinda like the many different compounds of nylon.
Have you ever fired a shotgun with an absorbothane buttpad? Very effective in reducing felt recoil. It's the same stuff the navy uses for silenting machine vibrations and uses to coat subs with to reduce sonar return signitures.
Not shure what it is they modify, but it can be tuned to absorb specific vibrational or impactive frequencies. It's precisely the same compound used for any of the three uses I meantioned above, but it is the same material. Kinda like the many different compounds of nylon.
CG is the 'handwave away all momentum and inertia' I mentioned as the 'unless' in the previous post. IIRC, the 'really small' CG occurs at a high enough TL that it will not impact firearms - why bring a slug thrower to a FGMP fight?
The problem with broad application of CG and anti-recoil tech is the 'Personal 120mm gun' - CG supported and CG recoil compensated - about 2 meters long with the range modifiers for a rifle, but able to fire the same ammo as the 120mm tank gun.
Is that what you want in Traveller?
ThunderChilde
SOC-13
No, not at all where I was going. I was thinking along the lines of "substandard" cg module, lowers the weight a bit, absorbs some recoil, available a tl or two below efficient modules of that size. say knock about 10lbs/5 kilo's off of a .50cal/12.7mm heavy rifle, not standard issue, but squad level issue, like an lmg or gl. by the time they are efficient modules, the role is supplanted pgmp and fgmp.
