Energy based Sniper Rifles?

[phavoc]

We can currently detect Artillery rounds in the air, and get counter-fire on thier point of origin before they land. And have had that capability for a number of years. But, nobody trusts the system to get it right, so a human is in the loop to prevent blue on blue engagements. Good idea, the computer sure doesnt care.

So a similar system to get a sniper is not unlikely. And a human in the loop still, so you dont take out your own counter sniper team.

There are those of course that will argue that AIs will be able to do it. Well, maybe. And likely, maybe not. Just as Laser pistols are not very likely to ever happen. But hey, its a game that has Laser pisdtols, so why no good AIs as well.

Yes. Firefinder radar today picks up the shell as it clears the horizon and can backtrack its location within a few seconds. The system does and can generate auto fire orders and route them to the nearest counter-battery unit (in the US that is typically a MLRS SPLL which can receive a fire mission on the fly and find the nearest firing point to drop a few rockets on some unfortunate (or soon to be unfortunate) people and then get back on the road within 60 seconds of firing).

For bullets I do believe there is an audio system that can be set up to use the sound of the bullet to backtrack where it came from. And while you could use radar as well, in an urban environment it would have to be tuned to get rid of all the background things it will pick up. But if you wanted to there would be no reason why you could not have a few miniguns in key places tied back to an automated system to take out a sniper after he fired.

Course, you could also have a remote-controlled sniper position that you'd happily let them blow to bits if it means you get your target.

ain't tech grand?

 

[BP]

Unless one goes lower tech... i.e. munitions smelling canine (or Vargr! ).

"A little chili pepper on assassination day
keeps the doggie or Vargr away ..." 8)

:lol: Assassin limericks - love it!

Yep - there's always a counter measure...

Of course, there are no guarantees either way (i.e. pepper may need to block 360 degrees - and the very reaction of the canines might throw the show).

Electronic detectors would be immune to such - but should have some other weakness (perhaps not with masking, given particulate detection - but perhaps something chemically compromising specific detector tech...).

 

[BP]

...But, nobody trusts the system to get it right, ...

• 
  AI Not So Intelligent
  by senior field correspondent Noz E. Juan
  
  Yesterday's public demonstration of the revolutionary Sniper Unmanned Countering System ended in tragedy when the system, designed to detect the held breath snipers use to steady for the money shot in conjunction with a temporally following close proximity trigger contact closure and neutralize the sniper and his weapon with a rapid laser response, erroneously took out three bystanders who were taking pictures of the event.
  
  In a press conference following the demonstration, the official spokesperson for Give It Back Industries, designers of SUCS, declared the test a success, pointing out that it only proved how effective the system could be for other purposes - such as enforcing no picture taking rules at private events.
  
  The official spokesman for Give It Back Industries was fired earlier this morning...

 

[Liam Devlin]

There are scores of slug throwers in the central supply book but few laser weapons. A player asked me if there was a sniper version of a laser rifle.

In Agent (page 97) they have invisobeam lasers which have a -4 DM for being spotted since the beam is completely invisible, even through light smoke, fog, mist, etc... I suppose that would be the laser equivalent of a sniper rifle by adding a scope.
Other than that I don't know of any reason (besides extra damage and range) to add a specialty laser rifle like they do with slug throwers.
Has anyone ever invented a laser sniper rifle before?

The Gauss Sniper Rifle is very nice by the way!

There is a simple answer to your questions, where do I begin?

:arrow: More Slugthrowers than Laser weapons in Traveller. This goes back to the LBB era, and some healthy common sense. For all the High technology worlds there are, there are far more under TL9, and thus the availability & means to get ammunition, parts, & accessories for them. The more complex a weapon, the higher the cost and the availability of spare parts diminishes.

:arrow: Understanding the nature of being a Sniper & the 1-shot, 1 Kill principle, the Sniper's tools are selected for the job at hand: In Atmosphere worlds, the slugthrower is usually the choice of experts, and Gauss is the King of the heap on the technology scale for those. If the target was expected to be in an environment where slug throwing weapons cannot operate, then an energy weapon, and say, not an accelerator rifle with gyrojet mini rockets would be the weapon/tool of choice.

It is as Mssr Rowe has said, a standard book weapon with sighting optics to improve accuracy at longer engagement ranges. That being said, in urban built up areas, target engagement ranges fall shorter than say, the great outdoors. If range is shorter than say 400meters, the laser carbine is shorter, and easier to conceal than its full barrel length cousin the laser rifle.

example: Megatraveller's "Arrival Vengeance adventure module has the players at Warinir/ Daibei foiling a SolSec agent from assassination Duke Craig Horvath, Faction Leader of the Federation of Daibei. The agent has a laser carbine built into a Holocamera, and was posing as a media cameraman at a political speech indoors at the Imperial University of Warinir, in the Theatre.

:arrow: Why invisobeams at TL12? The Game has had the visual space-opera effect for decades now (rightly or wrongly technologically). This is a simple retro fix by MgT.

YMMV, of course...

 

[BFalcon]

Unless one goes lower tech... i.e. munitions smelling canine (or Vargr! ).

"A little chili pepper on assassination day keeps the doggie or Vargr away ..." 8)

More precisely a little capsaicin, which is the substance which makes
chili pepper "hot" and is the main ingredient of pepper spray. Pure
capsaicin is about 3,000 times as "hot" as chili pepper, and any dog
which inhales even a minimal amount of it is "out of business" for a
while.

Yes, but can you think of anyone better to send after the assassin than the Vargr he did it to? I can't... :twisted:

Of course, you may have problems extracting the information... like who sent him...

 

[Ishmael]

it seems to me that the 'wall plug' efficiency of the laser weapon needs to be considered. Industrial lasers today are between 5%-15% which means a big bunch of thermal emissions from the power supply and cooler.

Lasers don't cut like a light-sabre. They ablate. I'd imagine that a hit would cause a surface explosion on the target equivalent to the beam energy.

 

[DFW]

Lasers don't cut like a light-sabre. They ablate. I'd imagine that a hit would cause a surface explosion on the target equivalent to the beam energy.

So? Target dead. Doesn't give away the sniper position.

 

[far-trader]

Wicked random thought re: energy based sniper rifles:

We're all hooked on the lasers at the moment, what about a meson sniper rifle? What TL for man portable meson weapons? And what issues would such face? I'm sure others have wondered, pretty sure I have myself and worked something out, though I can't recall just what.

 

[rust]

We're all hooked on the lasers at the moment, what about a meson sniper rifle? What TL for man portable meson weapons?

Since this would require a man portable particle accelerator with a suffi-
cient man portable power source, I think it could be done at TL 45 or so.

 

[DFW]

Wicked random thought re: energy based sniper rifles:

We're all hooked on the lasers at the moment, what about a meson sniper rifle? What TL for man portable meson weapons?

Given the power requirements I'd say it would require portable anti-matter power. Say, minimum TL 18?

 

[Ishmael]

So? Target dead. Doesn't give away the sniper position.

high thermal signature of the power supply at sniper's location even after the shot
atmosphere bloom straight back to sniper's location
<shruck>

Personally, I don't think there would be laser sniper rifles as much as there'd be laser designators of relatively low power to guide the actual sniper munitions in....the spotter, so to speak.

 

[DFW]

high thermal signature of the power supply at sniper's location even after the shot
atmosphere bloom straight back to sniper's location
<shruck>

Current (much more powerful) laser weapons don't cause this "bloom" so, I don't see it.

 

[BP]

... what about a meson sniper rifle? What TL for man portable meson weapons? And what issues would such face? I'm sure others have wondered, pretty sure I have myself and worked something out, though I can't recall just what.

Hehe.. yep, way back in the '80's I had an 'AMR-Pack' (AM backpack reactor) which just begged for a more exotic weapon and the 'Personal Meson Rifle' seemed the perfect fit.

DFW's minimal TL 18 sounds about right for MgT based on CSC.

I made all my 'exotic' (i.e., outlandish) tech TL 19. My 'proton rifles' probably fit better at TL-19 in MgT. (Baryons requiring higher energy than Mesons... though Meson weapons would require more 'quality' control perhaps )

As for a meson sniper weapon - meson guns have extremely short ranges and a lot of energy is wasted and should be detectable leading back to the shooter - even the longest stable RW mesons have a mean decay lifetime allowing only around 2.5 meters or so in a vacuum and less in atmo...

 

[BFalcon]

Hehe.. yep, way back in the '80's I had an 'AMR-Pack' (AM backpack reactor) which just begged for a more exotic weapon and the 'Personal Meson Rifle' seemed the perfect fit.

DFW's minimal TL 18 sounds about right for MgT based on CSC.

I made all my 'exotic' (i.e., outlandish) tech TL 19. My 'proton rifles' probably fit better at TL-19 in MgT. (Baryons requiring higher energy than Mesons... though Meson weapons would require more 'quality' control perhaps )

As for a meson sniper weapon - meson guns have extremely short ranges and a lot of energy is wasted and should be detectable leading back to the shooter - even the longest stable RW mesons have a mean decay lifetime allowing only around 2.5 meters or so in a vacuum and less in atmo...

Perfect for those "I want you to know it was us..." assassinations - especially if they have a personal shield or teleporter (we're talking TL-19, after all).

 

[Ishmael]

Current (much more powerful) laser weapons don't cause this "bloom" so, I don't see it.

yes, they do.
The effects are minimized by careful choosing of frequency and pulse length, adaptive optics, etc., but blooming' still occurs. Even if not to the point of seriously defocusing the beam, it still gives a thermal trace right back to the firing unit by the heated air.
I just don't think a laser sniper rifle would be all that effective at lower tech levels. At higher tech levels, I don't think a sniper would be able to get close enough to get a clean shot off.

I still think a laser sniper set-up would be a spotter using a target designator beam to guide the actual munitions ( from a weapon located elsewhere, possibly operated by remote ) on target.

 

[DFW]

Careful choosing of frequency and pulse length, adaptive optics, etc., but blooming' still occurs. Even if not to the point of seriously defocusing the beam, it still gives a thermal trace right back to the firing unit by the heated air.

In the IR band of course. I'm talking visual band.

 

[locarno24]

One other observation - preferred sniper tech (ballistic or laser) should also depend on target type.

Any gun-esque weapon ultimately kills by energy transfer - slug throwers through kinetic energy and lasers through thermal transfer.

As a result, human beings are probably more vulnerable to rapidly-moving pieces of metal - being readily plastically deformable material containing lots of water (heat capacity ~ x10 that of steel) whilst principally metal objects (i.e. drones and light vehicles) are are probably a better subject for laser fire, being resilient to and tolerant of kinetic deformation.

Not to say that either type can't kill either target given enough power behind the shot, but there will be a best means of attack for any given target.

 

[BP]

Generally, any laser sufficient to cut structural material has no problems with soft tissue (i.e. humans), with the exception of frequency, power and application specifically optimized for a particular material and circumstance (unlikely in structural material - but exotic stuffs could have certain characteristics conducive to such).

If anything, that post has it backwards - as effect involves energy per unit area per unit of time this must incorporate conductivity (thermal and kinetic) and change of state characteristics (solid/liquid/gas/plasma...).

The real pros and cons in this case aren't so much about damage, as detectability and success over range.

Given sufficient power, Lasers have a distinct advantage in the later given they are not practically affected by gravity or wind over the same ranges...

A laser beam also, inherently, is not subject to jamming in the barrel, as such

Detectability is another matter - a laser may be optically invisible (and only visible when interfering with media), but it still may have unique smells (ionized gases) and possibly sounds (from weapon or even beam). Given the straight line from sniper to target, the snipers position (post shot) is also more definitive.

All in all, both being effective at a given range - the laser may simply be more accurate/reliable as a sniper weapon in untrained hands. Without wind and ballistics to account for anyone who can point and click could have success as a sniper...