Gauss Rifle
- Thread starter Baeron Gredlocke
- Start date
alex_greene
Guest
So it's feasible to build one as low as TL 7. Magnificent. 
vitalis6969
Mongoose
rust said:
Violent crime rate goes down when everyone is armed.
take away the guns and gun crime goes down but violent crime goes way up.
-V
Baeron Gredlocke
Mongoose
Charakan said:Thought we were meant to be discussing Traveller not gun control.
That's right. Look at the badass gauss rifle!
Nathan Brazil
Banded Mongoose
Ya the projectile bounced in one or two firings in the video. It probably needs to have some fins for stabilizing (unless the firer just had a bad aim). Maybe a more needle like projectile.
He does not have an ammo load system in place. He had to, what is it called, breach load it?
Still more stealth like. Probably freak out law enforcement for a few months. What about forensics, will they be able to determine what weapon shot it, maybe remaining unique magnetic signature imparted to the projectile from the coils.
Just asking. :wink:
He does not have an ammo load system in place. He had to, what is it called, breach load it?
Still more stealth like. Probably freak out law enforcement for a few months. What about forensics, will they be able to determine what weapon shot it, maybe remaining unique magnetic signature imparted to the projectile from the coils.
Just asking. :wink:
Treebore said:
You raise a valid point about the coils and capacitors but I haven't done any electronics since I left college over 20 years ago so can't be sure off the top of my head and don't have any text books here to give a try at working out whether it would work or not.
Lets not turn this into a debate on Gun Control and the US vs Euro way of doing things, I try not to judge another sensible countries standards by my own, if the majority of people in your country want to be armed then thats their choice, if the majority of people in my country don't then thats ours.
far-trader
Mongoose
DFW said:
As if
Nah, the laws I've seen are based on what defines a weapon so just because it was a gauss rifle you'd still be in trouble. Probably even more so.DFW said:
I'm sure that's true... not.
far-trader
Mongoose
vitalis6969 said:
No, it moves. To another city, state, income bracket, whatever. Or it actually becomes more violent as stickups stop happening with threats or threats with knives, and escalate into threats with guns or shoot first criminals.
far-trader
Mongoose
Treebore said:
One word. Somalia.
It's a neat political point, but like all such soundbites, entirely without merit.
Treebore said:
You don't need guns to have a polite society. Japan, Britain, New Zealand and Canada seem to get by fine without them and are generally rated among the more polite and peaceful countries in the world. Conversely, are you implying that if you are armed and someone is rude to you that you have the right to shoot them? That's nuts!
There are armed countries and unarmed countries. Polite ones and impolite ones. IMHO based on the stats I've seen there is little correlation between the two.
Here's a list of percentage civilian gun ownership - I can't see any trends placing peaceful countries at the top and dangerous countries at the bottom. USA has 18 times the civilian gun ownership per head than the UK. Japan isn't even on the list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_gun_ownership
Also for your consideration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate
Having said all that, Heinlein was probably thinking of something along the Swiss, Israeli or Finnish model with compulsory military service and later potential call up as a citizen soldier. This is not the right to bear arms, but the obligation to follow orders.
Golan2072
Cosmic Mongoose
Couldn't we just leave the real-world politics to another place and time and just DROOL over that DAMN COOL Gauss Rifle like it deserves?
EDIT: I'm not sure how much more time and effort it will take until this kind of weapons will be practical, especially when it has to compete with ordinary firearms. At the bottom line it does the same thing: damage the target by applying kinetic energy. To replace firearms, it must do so better than them in some way. And that would take quite a lot of R&D.
Its main advantage so far is that it is completely silent (apart from the impact itself, that is) and leaves no powder residue. If someone would make it much more compact, it could be an excellent assassin weapon... :twisted:
EDIT: I'm not sure how much more time and effort it will take until this kind of weapons will be practical, especially when it has to compete with ordinary firearms. At the bottom line it does the same thing: damage the target by applying kinetic energy. To replace firearms, it must do so better than them in some way. And that would take quite a lot of R&D.
Its main advantage so far is that it is completely silent (apart from the impact itself, that is) and leaves no powder residue. If someone would make it much more compact, it could be an excellent assassin weapon... :twisted:
Mongoose Pete
Mongoose
Its a good start, especially since it appears to be a home built project. However the demonstration range was maybe 3m and nothing was said about how many shots the battery could power. I think it'll take a TL or two to get the requisite energy density in the battery to produce a decent range and a large enough endurance to be useful. It might also take a further TL to handle the cooling requirements on the coil between shots.
Traveller versions use smaller calibre rounds which (depending on shape and mass) would require accelerations at perhaps near hypersonic velocities(*) to inflict damage equivalent to a propellant based weapon. Thus unless the needles have some sort of hi-tech noise suppressing aerodynamic profile, they will produce a discernible cracking signature. Sound volume will depend on velocity, profile and rate of fire of the dart/needle, but in general should be quieter than a firearm. However since the noise will be produced along its flight path, it might be difficult for sensor-less targets to locate the origin of the shot.
(*) Of course, depending on how fast the projectile is travelling it could have a serious thermal signature, possibly even igniting the air around itself and being visible as a flash line of fire in the case of support level or vehicle based gauss weapons.
In reality gauss weapons aren't really stealthy, but I'm fine with Traveller versions having high TL solutions to most of the problems.
That gauss gun was 'silent' since the ammo was travelling slowly - which would be perfect for something like a close range pistol, particularly an assassins weapon as Golan suggested. For battlefield weapons designed to overcome armour you'll need something with more omph.Golan2072 said:
Traveller versions use smaller calibre rounds which (depending on shape and mass) would require accelerations at perhaps near hypersonic velocities(*) to inflict damage equivalent to a propellant based weapon. Thus unless the needles have some sort of hi-tech noise suppressing aerodynamic profile, they will produce a discernible cracking signature. Sound volume will depend on velocity, profile and rate of fire of the dart/needle, but in general should be quieter than a firearm. However since the noise will be produced along its flight path, it might be difficult for sensor-less targets to locate the origin of the shot.
(*) Of course, depending on how fast the projectile is travelling it could have a serious thermal signature, possibly even igniting the air around itself and being visible as a flash line of fire in the case of support level or vehicle based gauss weapons.
In reality gauss weapons aren't really stealthy, but I'm fine with Traveller versions having high TL solutions to most of the problems.
Gauss weapons could be a little *too* hard to track. Normal automatic slug throwers usually use tracer rounds to let the user see where the bullets are going. I could see something having to be added, though ideally something that only the firer can see. Maybe computer prediction, or a wi-fi "tracer" round that can be imaged on the firer's faceplate.
