Ship's Locker: Out of the Closet

[Condottiere]

"Fat Mac" - SSK Industries' .950 JDJ Rifle

JD Jones’ .950 JDJ cartridge is a generally described as the largest sporting rifle cartridge ever produced, producing more energy than even the 4-bore cartridges that match it in bore diameter. Only three of these rifles were made, and the original loading was a 2600 grain (168g) cast bullet moving at 2200 fps (670m/s), for a whopping 28,000 foot-pounds of muzzle energy (38kJ). There are some antitank rifles that produce more, but nothing comparable in both energy and bore diameter in the sporting realm.

The rifle is built on a McMillan stock and action, and was originally produced on special order for a customer who wanted a really (really) big rifle that could use cast bullets. The cartridge cases were originally made from 20mm Vulcan cases trimmer down to a (mere) 70mm case length, with custom made lathe-turned cases replacing them when brass Vulcan cases became too difficult to source. The gun itself weighs a bit over 60 pounds, with nearly a third of that in the muzzle brake alone. This example is being sold with a whole bunch of ammunition components, which is a good thing since Jones/SSK stopped making the ammunition several years ago…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qg0RdhFnTd0

 

[Condottiere]

The MA37 Assault Rifle (Standard UNSC Rifle)

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

The MA37 Individual Combat Weapon System, formally known as the Individual Combat Weapon System, Caliber 7.62 mm, MA37,[3] is the standard-issue service rifle of the UNSC Army. It is produced by Misriah Armory and is known as the MA5 by the Naval services.

Main article: MA5 Series
The MA37 assault rifle is an air-cooled, gas-operated, magazine-fed, fully automatic bullpup rifle that fires 7.62×51mm ammunition and was first introduced in the year 2437.[3] It comes standard with a rail mounted ammunition indicator and magnetic compass for orientation unlike other MA5 series rifles, which have these features built in.

The MA37 features a grip with a notch for the finger, similar to A2 pistol grip on a 20th/21st century AR-15. The barrel features a flash hider on the end which appears to be designed to direct gas (which produces flash and noise) upward, rather than forward, which would help to reduce felt recoil and muzzle climb. The rifle features a cheek riser on the receiver. The MA37 also features an ambidextrous magazine release and an ambidextrous selector switch. The MA37 also features vents on the rifle's chassis near the barrel assembly, which facilitate air cooling of the barrel as the weapon fires.

Copies of the weapon were mass-produced at the Misriah Armory Rajtom Facility on Reach.[citation needed]


Manufacturer:

Misriah Armory

Type:

Bullpup assault rifle

Specifications
Length:

96.4 centimeters (38 inches)[1]

Weight:

3.5 kilograms (7.7 lb)[2]

Ammunition type:

M118 Full Metal Jacket Armor-Piercing

Feed system:

32 round box magazine (Mk.IV model)

Operation:

Short-stroke, gas-operated, rotating-bolt[2]

Rate of fire:

Approximately 550 RPM[citation needed]

Effective range:

150 meters[citation needed]

Waifu magnet.

 

[Condottiere]

.577 Caliber Bland-Pryse Stopping Revolver

There were probably less than a hundred of these Pryse-Patent break-action .577 revolvers made in total, and this one has managed to maintain an excellent nickel finish. Pushing approximately a 400 grain bullet at about 725 fps, these 5-shot revolvers were made as last-ditch “stopping” guns in case of attack by large animals, and most of them were taken to India during the Victorian period. This one was made in Belgium, and then retailed by Thomas Wilson in London.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XBX2dMTebs

 

[Condottiere]

Colt's Special Revolver for Airline Pilots

The 1970s were a period with epidemic levels of airline hijackings, and this revolver was designed by Colt at the request of Eastern Airlines to arm pilots. To address concerns about over-penetration of aircraft skin or windows (or of a potential target), a projectile made form plaster of Paris was designed. Colt started with MkIII and MkV Lawman snub-nosed revolvers, and replaced the cylinders with a new one made of Zytel, with six steel sleeves installed. Each sleeve held a sealed cartridge, with a plaster bullet inside a sabot (the plaster was brittle enough that engaging rifling would shatter it). The cylinder was disposable, meant to be discarded when empty. Only a small number were made, as Eastern Airlines ultimately decided to use Federal Sky Marshalls instead of arming its pilots, and that was the end of the project for Colt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zJP89orlbc

As I recall, the plastic cylinder was meant to be stored separately, and when required, slipped back on.

On a starship, probably more on the lines of a ten millimetre snub revolver with caseless.

 

[Condottiere]

Colt M13 Aircrewman Revolver: So Light it was Unsafe

In 1951 and 1952, Colt supplied a small number of extremely lightweight revolvers to the US Air Force, designated the M13 Aircrewman. These guns were very similar to the commercial Colt Cobra; .38 special 6-shot guns with aluminum alloy frames and cylinders with a loaded weight of just 11 ounces. Only 1189 were made, and they were issued with a special low pressure loading of .38 Special ammunition. It was designated M41 and fired a 130 grain FMJ bullet at just 725 fps. This reduced pressure loading was safe in the aluminum cylinders of the guns, but nothing prevented a person from loading and firing standard .38 ammunition - which was definitely not safe. In 1959 the Air Force decided that the potential hazard from standard ammunition was not worth the slight weight reduction of the aluminum cylinder, and recalled the guns for destruction. Only a small number survived to get into the commercial market today, making the Colt Aircrewman a very scarce revolver indeed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGR_29YbLQs


Probably not an issue with non reusable cylinders.

 

[Condottiere]

The Cheapest Gun You Can Buy!!! and why it's not horrible...

https://youtu.be/F7291bGZEXY?t=117

Accurate enough; ten millimetre snub, high explosive, armour piercing.

 

[Condottiere]

A Whistle-Stop Tour of the Traveller RPG Universe

What is the Original Traveller Universe (OTU)?
Find out about its highlights and some peculiar features, and grasp its scale in relation to campaigns that you may undertake within it. Learn why it's a flexible place that can accomodate manifold styles of play and why the depth of resources for playing in its canon--mostly created by the fandom--are an amazing asset.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuG-Y6EFYTM


The other half of Traveller Universe: A modern take on the Third Imperium

When you first learn about the Original Traveller Universe, The Third Imperium sounds all kind of saucy. It puts on airs in your imagination, but soon the Metal Mullet becomes a business suit the more you learn.

But...I put it to you, the Third Imperium may be the harder-working, less glamorous of the pillars of OTU as a setting, but it is eminently metal, because it is what makes OTU an 'othernow' that is so like our own present. More overproduced Nerdwriteresque dialogue within on your tabletop hobby~

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qz6IGb1aDNY


History of the Traveller RPG Universe (OTU): part the first

In which we witness Earth's First Contact with the Ziru Sirka, the opening moves of the Interstellar Wars, and the first inklings of the Riddle of the Ancients.

My venerable (2012) PC that was my editing workstation has bricked and I am between computers at the moment. My schedule with parenting still makes it hard to do frequent uploads that I feel would be important to setting down roots on Patreon. In the meantime, if you want to support the channel, if you liked this video, it would be a great help if you could share this video around to all the places in the internet where Traveller is discussed so that more eyeballs can see it and we can improve the channel's impressions rate.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6ycC-TlBJM


Faster Than Light: an ode to Traveller's Jump drive & its long reach across the Third Imperium

How does Hyperdrive affect real-life? From Star Trek to Star Wars, almost every Sci-Fi (or Science Fantasy, depending on your semantic preference) universe that features interstellar travel also features some kind of FTL drive. Sometimes, the function of those FTL drives is an afterthought, but even then the plot is shaped by the idiosyncracies of how the authors seek to violate spacetime.

In the Original Traveller Universe, however, almost everything about history and interstellar commerce and economics cleaves close to the rules and advantages of the Jump drive. Seeing as we're gearing up for Starfinder here in CGA-land, here's an examination of a Hyper/Jump drive from ages past and how well thought out its effects on its world would be.

Disclaimer: most of my study of the OTU is based on the corpus of GURPS Traveller, whose guiding hand was Loren Wiseman, not Marc Miller (the 'godfather' of Traveller). Both men had a large hand in the setting's invention, however, and on this account of the J-Drive their reckoning of the Third Imperium is nearly identical.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQjh_8LFz5w


Traveller RPG 3rd Imperium Universe-Where to Start?-GURPS Traveller line review.

The Third Imperium is big, and the places where it's richest in flavor and verve can be opaque to the outsider. I don't have the keys to the kingdom for you--but I can suggest a starting point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2X0zWpn3jaM[/b]

 

[Condottiere]

Why Traveller Leads the pack of Sci-Fi RPGs? (The CGA sizes up...)

Why should you play Traveller, or play in a Traveller universe, when there are so many bigger, high-impact Sci-Fi worlds out there? I think, I may have the answer....

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


Junk has to fit.


The Starships of Traveller -- 'Iconics' a Breed Apart

Liner Note:
I struggled more than a little to find a happy place with detail in this video, I was really tempted (and filmed for) a "Jane's player Character ships of the Imperium" style encyclopedic look, but after tuesday's video and its inciting threads (mostly Reddit), I decided to rework the footage I had in the can into a tighter bit about fundamentals and focus, to really hit for a second time on the 'Traveller is Sci-Fi zoomed down to the characters' thesis again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKfU7S1wr30


A Traveller Renaissance?

A comment in my Whistle-Stop Tour of the OTU put the question in my mind:

"Traveller is poised for a comeback."

This led me to consider things like 'in what form,' 'how,' and 'who will flock to Traveller?' I have some of my own ideas about these things, which are particularly attuned to the challenges of introducing not only a new game, and a new genre to tabletop, but also the trouble with low genre literacy as Science/Space Fantasy has become something people are far more familiar with than the genre conventions of proper Sci-Fi that I feel are so important to what makes Traveller what it is.

Of course, it's all just a matter of opinion...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vybGM6mXGrU

 

[Condottiere]

Kotovsky86 - Space Traveller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mCMdek7Glc


Mood music.

 

[Condottiere]

Apache Knuckleduster Revolver

The "Apache" was a combination knife, brass knuckle, and revolver made by several companies in Belgium and France, which became associated with a group of street thugs in Paris around the turn of the century.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FIi8Wge9pI

Ezra's lightsaber was the personal, prototype lightsaber of Ezra Bridger, a Padawan and rebel who lived in the years prior to the Battle of Yavin. Bridger spent several weeks building his lightsaber after receiving a kyber crystal in the Jedi Temple on Lothal. The weapon, which was built out of spare parts donated by fellow members of the Ghost's crew, was a lightsaber-blaster hybrid. When in lightsaber mode, the weapon had an adjustable blade and could be used in combat. Blaster mode was set to stun and was built as a result of Bridger's lack of skill in deflecting blaster fire with his blade.

 

[Condottiere]

A Guide To Designing Low-Cost Ventilators for COVID-19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vLPefHYWpY

Medical fast drug application, probably a requirement to ensure the patient continues to inhale while healing.

 

[Condottiere]

Experimental Bullpup Over/Under Shotgun with a Secret

This is a prototype or one-off over/under sporting shotgun, made in a bullpup configuration. It is basically two long slabs of wood clamshell around a pair of barrels, with the action at the very end in the stock. The breech rotates up to open, activated by a lever on the surface of the buttplate. That’s certainly strange enough to be interesting, but there’s more…the barrels are actually gently curved inside the furniture. And they have to be, in order to line up with both the stock and the sight rib. Crazy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiVA7a2eIVg

https://youtu.be/MbcMwPdoEd0?t=601

That's a helluvalot of force to entrust to that breech.

As regards to the zip shotgun, it costs a couple of credits, and sort of a last resort; arguably, the foundation of making them recoilless.

 

[Condottiere]

Neostead 2000 Dual-Tube Pump Shotgun

Developed in the mid 1990s by South African designer Tony Neophytou, the Neostead 2000 is a pump action shotgun with a substantial cult following. It was the first truly high-capacity shotgun put into production, with two magazine tubes over a single barrel (a concept which was independently implemented by KelTec in their later KSG shotgun). This configuration gave it a capacity of 12+1, and a selector switch allowed the shooter to control whether only one tube was fed from or if both would be used alternating back and forth. Thus the tubes could be loaded with different types of ammunition to have readily available at the flip of a switch. It was produced only in 12ga, with a 3" chamber.

The Neostead has a bullpup type layout, with the action and ejection port behind the grip and trigger. This allows a full-length barrel in a short overall package, and it is for this reason that the pump mechanism is designed to cycle opposite of traditional shotguns (forward to open and back to close). By having the shooter pulling their hand rearwards to close the action, the potential danger of the hand slipping in front of the muzzle while firing (something that has happened on the KSG) can be avoided.

Production of the Neostead did not happen until the early 2000s, and only 200 of the guns were made. The problem was ultimately the excessive complexity of the design. Short-stroking the pump could result in two shells both trying to feed onto the lifter, which would require field stripping the gun to resolve. The internal complexity also made the gun quite expensive - too expensive to be commercially successful. Most of the guns remain in South Africa today, where they are sought after as collectible items.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIU8axpaYi0&list=PL9e3UCcU00TQWIIFZ72YBM55FZPWLXknf&index=32

Do not muzzle your gun with your hand - got it.

 

[Condottiere]

Martians! How Aliens Invaded Earth | Monstrum

You might think that the stories of Martians began with little green men, but you’d be wrong. The history of humans speculating about extraterrestrial life on the red planet begins in the 19th century with one astronomer’s mistranslation of a single word.

In this episode, Dr. Zarka looks at how science and imagination began a cultural phenomenon that continues on today. From the invading, high-tech aliens of ‘War of the Worlds’ to post-world war escapism literature and even real-life scientific exploration today, the stories of Martians have changed throughout time. Find out how we’ve gone from viewing Mars as a pre-existing utopia populated by alien races to actually seeing the planet as a potential new home for earthlings.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-epEUnqnP0

While Doctor Zarkov explains Earthlings to the Mongonians.

 

[Condottiere]

How to cook food in a tank!

För besättningen i en stridsvagn är det väldigt viktigt att vara pigg och få i sig ordentligt med mat. Därför behöver själva matlagningen vara enkel och gå snabbt, eftersom de oftast är på språng. Följ med museichefen Stefan, som tidigare varit kompanichef för en Centurion, i en film om ”Hur man lagar mat i en stridsvagn”

For the tank crew food is something really important and since they are on the alert most of the time cooking needs to be simple.
Join the Swedish Chef and a former Swedish Tank Company commander in this film “How to cook food in a tank”


Now we know why the Swedish chef was incomprehensible, Henson was beeping him.

Cook water, not sausage.

My Precious!

Apparently, in the Great Patriotic War, a Sherman tanker found that the American infantrymen really liked sticking close to tanks in winter, for the warmth, until they keeled over from carbon monoxide poisoning.

 

[Condottiere]

New Air Force Survival Rifle - GAU-5A ASDW

The US Air Force has developed and deployed a new survival rifle for aircrews. The GAU-5A is based on a standard M4 carbine but has a Cry Havoc quick detach barrel system, Midwest Industries rail and a folding FAB Defense AR15 pistol grip. The GAU5A follows on the heels of the AR7 and M6 rifles previously used decades ago by aircrews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HY8QhMQ8CKM

Probably under the pilot's seat, where the life vest would be, or more likely, the escape capsule.

Or, this is where that grav shute comes in.

 

[Condottiere]

Sentinel Steam Waggon

The Sentinel S4 Steam Waggon at the Sandstone Heritage Trust.

When you don't want to bother with laying down track.

 

[Condottiere]

The Brain-Eating Amoebas of Kerosene Creek

Kerosene Creek is a natural hot spring near Rotorua, on the North Island of New Zealand. And there have been official warnings for years: don't put your head under water. It turns out that "brain-eating amoebas", naegleria fowleri, are a real, if rare, thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQ7uq04fEjs


Now, available in Disneyland.

 

[Condottiere]

Dungeons and Dragons: Dice you have never seen before

The D100, D60, D50, D30, D24, D16, D14, D12, D10's, D8, D6, D5, D4, D3, the D-Total, the Glow in the Dark D100 and the Metal Mood Dice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0rLxnHlLfI

The result is in plain sight, but which one qualifies and what it means remains uncertain.

Though the mood dice might indicate which way the dungeon master is leaning to.

 

[Condottiere]

How Humans Caused Our Own Allergies - Cheddar Explains

Sniffling. Sneezing. Runny eyes. Springtime brings a rush of seasonal allergies that plague us - but historically, allergies were mild - if they existed at all. In fact, allergies became a force to be reckoned with only in the 1970s. Cheddar explains how we’re to blame for our own allergies.
Further Reading:

1: Atlas Obscura
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles...

2: Nature
https://www.nature.com/articles/35037000

3: Encyclopedia Brittanica
https://www.britannica.com/science/Du...

...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh758qVQPqg