[1e] Core vs Central Supply Catalog

[Condottiere]

Logistically, it's easier just to hand out bags of pellets.

I think what would happen is that if the armourer can't fix the problem within five minutes, the gun would be discarded.

The obvious changes would be automation, the Gatling, lever action, the Henry, and rifling.

And that started mid nineteenth century.

 

[dragoner]

Logistically, it's easier just to hand out bags of pellets.

Which belays the point that militaries spend more on ammo procurement than the weapons themselves.

I think what would happen is that if the armourer can't fix the problem within five minutes, the gun would be discarded.

Versus today's reality of soldiers being issued rusty rifles from the armory.

The obvious changes would be automation, the Gatling, lever action, the Henry, and rifling.

Manufacturing changes during this time as well, ACW Springfield muskets are as deadly a weapon as a modern rifle, ease of use is way lower though.

And that started mid nineteenth century.

The Age of Rifles, that was a cool game. Battle changed in the 19th Century as it did again in the 20th.

 

[steve98052]

. . . MWM, posits in T5 the availability of "disposable" Gauss Rifles in the future, save even more on your armorer costs by just pitching the rifle after a certain number of rounds have been fired through it, and then print more rifles as needed.
. . .

I don't have T5, but this is an interesting observation. It sounds like Marc Miller thought through some consequences of Baumol's cost disease; in this case, the way the cost of a skilled repair technician would greatly exceed the cost of heavily automated manufacturing.

In the case of a disposable Gauss rifle, it seems like it should be possible to build a weapon that could fire hundreds of rounds every day for years -- and for marksmanship training that's a good idea -- but that to minimize cost and weight, regular issue weapons might be built with less reinforcement against material fatigue, and maybe a rounds fired counter that advises replacement when the recommended service life has passed, and refuses to function when the weapon decides that it's no longer safe to use. (The latter feature would have an "I'll take my chances" override for soldiers awaiting resupply under a siege, of course)

A disposable weapon near the end of its service life might be a good gimmick to offer characters who like the idea of a powerful weapon, but aren't going to like the consequences of using it in a game where combat is deadly. I can imagine an unscrupulous back alley weapons dealer obscuring the rounds fired indicator, and tripping the override on an expired weapon right before showing eager player character buyers that it works. Then next time they fire it after some sort of rough treatment (dropping it, nearby grenade blast, etc.), the entire acceleration channel crumples into a twisty mess of advanced materials.

 

[Condottiere]

In another game where firearms are treated with more granularity, I tend to spend some time working out various scenarios on what brings the best cost benefit.

I always try to figure out which handgun qualifies as a disposable Saturday Nigh Special, to make tracing it back to my character, if possible, impossible.

The thing about disposable weapons, is that the concept is usually built around short engagements; planned obsolescence never works out well over the long term, with the exception of the Great Patriotic War, where one model after another was churned out by each military industrial base; except the Japanese, which had a really longer cycle, ironic considering their postwar consumer industry.

If you have a disposable gun in an active conflict with a near peer competitor, you're going to be really confident in your Just In Time logistics system.

During the Great Patriotic War, we were really pushing the technological envelope, so while Gloster Gladiator was sufficient against perceived threats at the start of the war, it really doesn't compare to the Gloster Meteor.

However, in Traveller, we don't have technological sublevels, so you pretty much get what you see, which would drive Madison Avenue crazy, only being able to rely on sentiment to sell products.

It\s situational.

In a counter insurgency, you might prefer to have a bazooka, rather than a disposable man portable missile launcher, despite the fact that in theory your logistical situation might be secure enough to risk more dispoability.

 

[dragoner]

. . . MWM, posits in T5 the availability of "disposable" Gauss Rifles in the future, save even more on your armorer costs by just pitching the rifle after a certain number of rounds have been fired through it, and then print more rifles as needed.
. . .

I don't have T5, but this is an interesting observation. It sounds like Marc Miller thought through some consequences of Baumol's cost disease; in this case, the way the cost of a skilled repair technician would greatly exceed the cost of heavily automated manufacturing.

In the case of a disposable Gauss rifle, it seems like it should be possible to build a weapon that could fire hundreds of rounds every day for years -- and for marksmanship training that's a good idea -- but that to minimize cost and weight, regular issue weapons might be built with less reinforcement against material fatigue, and maybe a rounds fired counter that advises replacement when the recommended service life has passed, and refuses to function when the weapon decides that it's no longer safe to use. (The latter feature would have an "I'll take my chances" override for soldiers awaiting resupply under a siege, of course)

A disposable weapon near the end of its service life might be a good gimmick to offer characters who like the idea of a powerful weapon, but aren't going to like the consequences of using it in a game where combat is deadly. I can imagine an unscrupulous back alley weapons dealer obscuring the rounds fired indicator, and tripping the override on an expired weapon right before showing eager player character buyers that it works. Then next time they fire it after some sort of rough treatment (dropping it, nearby grenade blast, etc.), the entire acceleration channel crumples into a twisty mess of advanced materials.

It definitely dovetails with a lot of military theory, reducing the logistical footprint is always a major concern. Regular weapons wear out, have a barrel life and all that, this just takes it one step further, after 25 or even 100,000 rounds fired, a little red dot appears on the HUD indicating time to replace the weapon, then if the player rolls a natural 2, it's a catastrophic malfunction. Plus it might be a reason why characters get weapons on mustering out, as it is pointless for them to turn them over to the armory.

Weapons could be viewed as consumables, and the supply units just have printers, gauss weapons and ammunition could be cheap to print, then all you have to do for logistics is to have the right slugs of raw materials. Might also be a good way of keeping your weapons out of enemy hands. Either way it is a neat idea.

Another idea is the disposable vs custom, elite troops have all their armor and weapons custom fit, and that would be another way to tell the difference, and also it might be more difficult to use or wear bespoke armor or weapons, while the user it was made for gets a bonus or extra AV.

 

[Condottiere]

I'd still say it's situational.

Onboard ship weapons, which are stored away would tend to be dispoable. Personal weapons are expected to be more robust and reliable.

Personal weapons would tend to get more personalized and smartified, a reason the soldier would take more care of the weapon and have it calibrated to his idiosyncrasies, and if the weapon requires a certified bio-metric identification to function.

 

[dragoner]

What is your definition of "personal"? Usually it is a question of ownership. I don't see much of a reason for things being disposable or not in that case. However, if by personal, such as having a gun fetish like Janye or #3 does, then yeah, plus a high degree of customization.

 

[steve98052]

How durable does a weapon need to be? Here's an upper limit that assumes a soldier with a lot of free time for training, plus one really long siege.

It's easy to fire an entire magazine in one minute; at full auto it's gone in about two seconds. But assume a minute to allow for a look at the target. An hour at the range is 2400 rounds. An hour a week for a four year term is 480k rounds. Wow.

In a siege, the constraint is how much ammunition supplied in advance, not how much the besieged can fire. If each soldier gets 100 kg of boxed rounds (and presumably an automatic magazine loader), that's 25k rounds. A tonne each and it's 250k rounds.

It's clear that if Gauss rifles are built to be disposable, either soldiers are limited in range hours, weapons are replaced fairly often, or they're good for a whole lot of rounds.

 

[Condottiere]

How much contact does the bullet have with the gauss barrel?

I'm not saying that there won't be firearms with planned obsolescence, more likely on budgetary reasons, but most professional soldiers will prefer rifles that work indefinitely.

It is situational, if the disposable gun is lighter, and not much actual exchanges of gunfire are expected.

The Sten Gun is clearly meant to be disposable; a Kalashnikov feels disposable.

 

[Condottiere]

Now, I'm not too sure how long this pistol is supposed to last, but note the aluminium skeletal frame, meant to save weight and stay within prevailing firearm regulations.

 

[dragoner]

It's clear that if Gauss rifles are built to be disposable, either soldiers are limited in range hours, weapons are replaced fairly often, or they're good for a whole lot of rounds.

Most likely I'd say the last two, probably good for a grip of rounds and easily replaced; all probably part of a networked system.

 

[dragoner]

Now, I'm not too sure how long this pistol is supposed to last, but note the aluminium skeletal frame, meant to save weight and stay within prevailing firearm regulations.

I doubt it's functional, AR's have a big recoil cylinder in the stock, you can hear it where you fire one.

 

[Condottiere]

It's on top, one reason you have a partial shroud protecting it.

 

[dragoner]

Shroud is for heat, the old style with snap rings you would have to dig them out because they would melt into the hand guards, AR actually ports gas back, that why you have pipe cleaners in the kit in the stock. If it has a recoil system on top and isn't a 22 LR or Airsoft, looks like a poor setup, then again, whatever. Going to gun shows one sees a lot of weird stuff too.

 

[h1ro]

It's an OlyArms OA98. It dates back to the AWB, apparently the cut outs were an attempt to get around the AWB. If it weighed less than 50oz it was considered a semi auto pistol and exempt from the ban. You can see what looks like a charging handle. I found the owners manual on OA's website but I'm not paying $6 to read it! It will probably detail the operating system, I'm guessing it's piston design of some kind, as Dragoner pointed out, there's no receiver extension to house the buffer that a DI AR uses.

 

[Condottiere]

Like I said, I don't know how long that gun was supposed to last.

A titanium frame probably wouldn't be justified.

It really does come down to logistics, and let's say government procurement policies.

There's a lot that's memorable about Forty Kay, but Imperial Guardsmen throwing their las(er)guns on campfires in order that the heat recharges the internal batteries has to be one of them.

This is an Empire with entire clusters of planets devoted to regional military industrial complexes, but their products tend to be rugged.

 

[dragoner]

Small arms are not now, nor likely to be the main casualty causers; it has been HE since WW1, still is now. One of my friends, his daughter was killed in Iraq by IED consisting of three daisy chained 155mm shells, and being AF, she did have some training with an AR, except she was a Cable and Antenna Systems Apprentice, which they made them rotate doing security. What we buried could have fit in a baggie, that's the face of war, I judge by reality first, it is enough, and not look for a rule for everything in the book.

However cool disposable Gauss Rifles are, smart money still gives battle a wide berth, in the game I'm running now, only one character has a GR, which she hasn't even fired, and the others have Lt ACR's, a Laser Rifle, and a Shotgun. Plus the Doc with a Snub Pistol and grenade in his medkit. Lt ACR's with drum mags have been fired the most, and not that much. So even if they did run across disposable GR's in plastic wrap, it would be years before they would have to worry about them being shot out.

 

[steve98052]

How much contact does the bullet have with the gauss barrel?

It seems like the idea of a Gauss rifle is that the bullet should never touch the barrel. The weapon is carrying enough energy in the form of a traveling and twisting magnetic field to accelerate four grams of iron and alloys to 1500 m/s and about 25k rotations per second* over the course of less than a meter of barrel. (That's about 1.25 million m/s^2 acceleration, plus the spin, if I made my math roll.) It seems like barrel contact could cause catastrophic failure.

There would be parts with physical contact, if the mechanism that delivers rounds from the magazine to the beginning of the magnetic acceleration channel. There would also be material fatigue in the acceleration channel -- presumably quite a lot, given that it's applying 4500 J of longitudinal energy to each bullet, plus the rotational energy. The rest of the weapon's structure has to smooth out the recoil, unless we assume that it's a TL12 weapon partly because it has some kind of gravitic recoil reduction.

That fatigue might wear the weapon as rapidly as frictional wear on ordinary slug throwers.

* I get that from the Greenhill Formula, assuming that the bullet is a bit longer than a 4 cm iron cylinder.

 

[dragoner]

My guess it would be the electrics that wear out, ohms law at all the connections, that sort of thing. The 4 gram, 4mm flechette is amazingly similar to a 55gr, 5.56mm bullet (M193 Ball) though.

 

[Condottiere]

Electric coils wearing out is fine with me; how do they fair under an electro magnetic pulse?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBpsiuTdS9o

You'll know when the gauss weapons are active.