Does the CSC make Gauss Rifles over powered?

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Ok, last one before I go to work.

A TL 11 laser rifle does, on average, 3.5x5 +3 = 20.5 dam.

A gauss rifle does 3.5x4=14 dam.

So what is the problem?

The gauss rifle will, if the firer has any sense, be firing bursts, +4 dam bringing the tot to 18. So far so good.

If you use the AP rules from CSC the gauss rifle gains an extra +4 dam against any armoured target (and that is before you start using APDSFS-DU needles). Gauss rifle dam is now 22, better than a laser rifle.

OK, so a laser rifle is still a bit better against an unarmoured target, but how often do you shoot at those? The laser rifle is also a lot more expensive and can have its effect reduced by reflect and some smokes.

Does the csc over-egg slug rifles in general and gauss rifles in particular?

Egil

 

[iainjcoleman]

I don't think there's a problem. The laser rifle is TL 11, while the gauss rifle is TL 12. It seems reasonable for the higher TL weapon to outclass the lower TL weapon.

For military purposes (i.e. against armoured troops in an environment that may include smoke, anti-laser aerosols and the like), I would expect projectile weapons to predominate at pretty much all TLs. Lasers would have advantages for certain applications, such as zero-G combat and perhaps sniping.

The main role for the laser pistol would be as a murder weapon for criminals: silent, and no incriminating ballistics evidence.

 

[simonh]

Gauss Rifles are TL12, while the Advanced Laser Rifle is TL11. All things being equal, I'd expect the best TL 12 weapon to be superior to the best TL 11 weapon.

Gauss weapons have always been good in Traveller and going back to the LBB era are the standard infantry weapon up to around TL 12 or 13 IIRC. Lasers are a specialised weapon with more limited applications, at least in older editions of the game.

The more advanced laser weapons in CSC look pretty cool though. It makes sense to me that the gauss rifle, as the ultimate version of the slug thrower, takes the crown for a few TLs. The new-kid-on-the-block laser comes in as a limited use weapon, and takes a few tech levels to really come into it's own.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Treebore]

Personally I think getting hit with a extremely high velocity object should always hurt more than getting burned.

 

[Da Boss]

Not a military expert but not sure damge done by weapons always increases as TL increase?

I thought that damage inflicted by muskets, Victorian, WWI WWII rifles and pistols of higher calibre is probably more than later guns of lower calibre.

However modern firearms have advantages in terms of magazine capacity and ROF, weight? Not sure about reliability

just a thought........

 

[Captain Jonah]

True enough across a period.

modern 5.56 constantly causes problems becasue it is acurate, low recoil, allows auto fire and plenty of ammo carrried and fails to put down even unarmoured targets. An old one shot every few minutes 0.75" smoth bore musket if it hit generaly didn't have any problems with the target going down.

The point is that 5.56 is being looked at for replacement in an numer of places becasue it doesn't do the job and tech isn't up to the job of 5.56 explosive rounds (yet). However improvements in chemistry (faster rounds), kinetics (less recoil), materials (AP or frangible rounds) will improve the humble 5.56 by default.

With gauss and improving tech once you get to the acuracy, portability and ammo that you are happy with then you can play with increasing the damage. In something the size of the OTU over hundreds of years simple research into related fields would produce a tech 12/13/14/15 laser rifle. They may not be in mass production but at tech level 15 inprovements in laser focusing, materials tech, energy storage, heat disipation etc would allow for a much more powerfull laser rifle if someone wanted to take all the developements and use them to improve the old laser rifle.

One of the problems I have with starship weaposn and weapons and many items is that they seem to be built at a tech level and the presumption is that no one will ever improve them.

Basic scientific advances in related fields will improve every weapon and item in traveller even if no one does any specific work to build a tech 13 or 15 laser rifle. With sales to the Imperial armed forces of millions of units why would no one develop a tech 15 laser rifle. Its small change to a megacorp research budget and lots of naughts on the invoice

 

[simonh]

The point is that 5.56 is being looked at for replacement in an numer of places becasue it doesn't do the job and tech isn't up to the job of 5.56 explosive rounds (yet). However improvements in chemistry (faster rounds), kinetics (less recoil), materials (AP or frangible rounds) will improve the humble 5.56 by default.

I've not heard of any major military deciding to move away from 5.56 any time soon. If anything the trend seems to be towards lighter, carbine type assault rifles as the standard infantry weapon. e.g. the IDF selecting the Micro Tavor as the future standard Israeli infantry weapon. And the M4 carbine replacing the M16 as the standard US army longarm (or possibly the winner of the Individual Carbine competition).

Those don't seem to me to be based on improvements to the basic 5.56. It's been tried before with duplex rounds and such, but the rugged brute force reliability of a standard FMJ is hard to beat.

Simon Hibbs

Edit: Those Indan para commandos in the wikipedia article look rock with the science fiction Tavors, but I think I'd have to go for the M4 given a choice.

 

[Captain Jonah]

The point is that 5.56 is being looked at for replacement in an numer of places becasue it doesn't do the job and tech isn't up to the job of 5.56 explosive rounds (yet). However improvements in chemistry (faster rounds), kinetics (less recoil), materials (AP or frangible rounds) will improve the humble 5.56 by default.

I've not heard of any major military deciding to move away from 5.56 any time soon. If anything the trend seems to be towards lighter, carbine type assault rifles as the standard infantry weapon. e.g. the IDF selecting the Micro Tavor as the future standard Israeli infantry weapon. And the M4 carbine replacing the M16 as the standard US army longarm (or possibly the winner of the Individual Carbine competition).

It looks to me like the 5.56 is here to stay.

Simon Hibbs

The people with lots of them and a huge logistics effort to support them are probably going to be using them till the next breakthrough in tech brings in something completely new. That said there is a large and well funded spec ops type market with new weapons and non 5.56 types.

But then look at the xm25. or the .50 calibre assualt rifle or other such new weapons with improved lethality. While the probable enemies are unarmoured 5.56 is too entrenched to be moved for now. Up against an enemy with even light body armour you will see a stampede to higher calibres and increased lethality. All it takes is a breakthrough in say synthetic spider silk to the point where bullet resistant jump suits become cheaply available. You get bruised and hurt but suddenly 5.56 has no put down at all.

There doesn't seem to be anything in the pipeline that would significantly improve 5.56, you never know something amazing could crop up, but I suspect that armour is swinging up at present. Also while western armies are fighting basicly undertrained and poorly equiped third world types the limitations if the 5.56 can be overlooked.

Just after first world armies start fighting each other and everyone is shooting 5.56 against enemies in kevlar or better then you will see a rapid shift in weapons firepower and lethality.

 

[rust]

I've not heard of any major military deciding to move away from 5.56 any time soon.

Some major militaries are still discussing where to go from the 5.56, some
minor militaries, like for example the army of Jordan, are already moving,
in this case planning to introduce the 6.8 mm Remington SPC as the new
standard ammunition in 2011.

 

[locarno24]

Personally I think getting hit with a extremely high velocity object should always hurt more than getting burned.

It should indeed. The human body is mostly water, which has some ten times the heat capacity of steel - making a laser a fairly rubbish antipersonnel weapon compared to a fast-moving chunk of sharp stuff.

That said, the laser does have a secondary effect - blinding their victims. "Modern" traveller body armour incorporates eye protection for free, if I recall, but any suits without it result in lasers being far more effective than their simple damage stat suggests.

Some major militaries are still discussing where to go from the 5.56, some minor militaries, like for example the army of Jordan, are already moving, in this case planning to introduce the 6.8 mm Remington SPC as the new standard ammunition in 2011.

Standard rifle calibre has been an ongoing debate for several years, especially since the special forces community, who have more freedom in these things, has quite often voted with its feet and wallets for intermediate calibre (i.e. between 5.56 and 7.62, usually 6.8 as described above).

One of the problems I have with starship weaposn and weapons and many items is that they seem to be built at a tech level and the presumption is that no one will ever improve them.

Yes and no.
The starship weapons do improve - High Guard contains tech level upgrades for weapons that work very well; go up a couple of tech levels and suddenly your laser hits harder and takes up only 90% of the volume.

There's no comparable table for infantry weapons, save the range of different models in the CSC.

 

[simonh]

I just read up on the 6.8 and it does look interesting and could mitigate some of my concerns over moving to carbines such as the M4 as standard infantry weapons.

But is basically just an iteration on the small calibre assault rifle design. It looks like it has a little more stopping power than 5.56 and better terminal ballistics as say 300m, but nothing revolutionary. In fact, probably not enough to warrant a change in the game stats at the level of detail Traveller deals with.

Simon Hibbs

 

[Captain Jonah]

One of the problems I have with starship weaposn and weapons and many items is that they seem to be built at a tech level and the presumption is that no one will ever improve them.

Yes and no.
The starship weapons do improve - High Guard contains tech level upgrades for weapons that work very well; go up a couple of tech levels and suddenly your laser hits harder and takes up only 90% of the volume.

Old bug of mine. They do not improve so much as get fine tuned. A laser at tech 7 gets improved till tech 10. Does no one in the entire OTU ever invent or design anything that could improve lasers over the next 5 tech levels and hundreds of years. All technology developement feeds off itself. Imporvements in one field lead naturaly to improvements in another, a better way to make plastic leads to better plastic which leads to better everything made of plastic.

I just read up on the 6.8 and it does look interesting and could mitigate some of my concerns over moving to carbines such as the M4 as standard infantry weapons.

But is basically just an iteration on the small calibre assault rifle design. It looks like it has a little more stopping power than 5.56 and better terminal ballistics as say 300m, but nothing revolutionary. In fact, probably not enough to warrant a change in the game stats at the level of detail Traveller deals with.

So would that be an extra +1 or +2 damage, Thats a minor change but still reflects an improvement. WIth the larger sub calibre does the 6.8 have 3 AP instread of 1 or 2 from a 5.56 roundwith AP rounds? Small changes over time become big changes. A weapon doing 3D against 3D+3 or 3D+3 against 4D doesn't seem that big a change. Still it is a noticale increase in lethality.

In game terms if your army has an average damage of 10.5 and your main enemies have 6 armour then you need to hit 5 times to kill an average enemy soldier. If your average damage is 13.5 you only need to hit 3 times. That little plus 3 in games terms has a huge impact.

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

The more advanced laser weapons in CSC look pretty cool though. It makes sense to me that the gauss rifle, as the ultimate version of the slug thrower, takes the crown for a few TLs. The new-kid-on-the-block laser comes in as a limited use weapon, and takes a few tech levels to really come into it's own.

Simon Hibbs

The trouble is the various laser weapons in CSC do not deliver much more damage than the Advanced laser rifle, some deliver less, and while some have the advantage of autofire, bizarrely only the "magazine" versions can do this, not the good old fashioned plug in power packs. They seem to be ill thought out.

Remember that even a TL 16 plasma rifle only delivers 6x3.5=21, so against an unarmoured target is only 0.5 better than the TL11 laser rifle, and worse than the TL12 gauss rifle against armoured targets.

I am quite happy with the gauss rifle as the pinnacle of slug thrower tech, just not sure about it as the pinnacle of all rifles, they pretty much rule out any reason for laser rifles at all.

Egil

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

With gauss and improving tech once you get to the acuracy, portability and ammo that you are happy with then you can play with increasing the damage. In something the size of the OTU over hundreds of years simple research into related fields would produce a tech 12/13/14/15 laser rifle. They may not be in mass production but at tech level 15 inprovements in laser focusing, materials tech, energy storage, heat disipation etc would allow for a much more powerfull laser rifle if someone wanted to take all the developements and use them to improve the old laser rifle.

One of the problems I have with starship weaposn and weapons and many items is that they seem to be built at a tech level and the presumption is that no one will ever improve them.

Basic scientific advances in related fields will improve every weapon and item in traveller even if no one does any specific work to build a tech 13 or 15 laser rifle. With sales to the Imperial armed forces of millions of units why would no one develop a tech 15 laser rifle. Its small change to a megacorp research budget and lots of naughts on the invoice

Unless the assumption is that a certain kind of tech reaches a plateau beyond which it is not technically possible to develop it.

Egil

 

[simonh]

In game terms if your army has an average damage of 10.5 and your main enemies have 6 armour then you need to hit 5 times to kill an average enemy soldier. If your average damage is 13.5 you only need to hit 3 times. That little plus 3 in games terms has a huge impact.

Quite. +3 damage (for a weapon normally doing ~10 points of damage) is about 30% more damage. More against armoured targets. So it's not little, it is huge. I don't doubt the 6.8 cartridge makes anything like that much of a difference.

Maybe +1. Still worth having thought. Every little helps.

Simon

 

[Egil Skallagrimsson]

Personally I think getting hit with a extremely high velocity object should always hurt more than getting burned.

It should indeed. The human body is mostly water, which has some ten times the heat capacity of steel - making a laser a fairly rubbish antipersonnel weapon compared to a fast-moving chunk of sharp stuff.

Perhaps lasers should be an AP or Super AP weapon, they dump a huge amount of energy directly onto a very small space, allowing them to partially defeat some armours?

Egil

 

[apoc527]

At TL14, x-ray versions of the advanced laser weapons become available that have the Super-AP quality. At least, they do IMTU.

 

[apoc527]

At TL14, x-ray versions of the advanced laser weapons become available that have the Super-AP quality. At least, they do IMTU.

 

[apoc527]

At TL14, x-ray versions of the advanced laser weapons become available that have the Super-AP quality. At least, they do IMTU.

 

[DFW]

At TL14, x-ray versions of the advanced laser weapons become available that have the Super-AP quality. At least, they do IMTU.

We (@TL 7) already have FEL's. Why wait so ong?