Solomani Confederation (Military)

[Condottiere]

I got the heat formula wrong.

It's two dice plus three automatic, which would be five.

Seven trigger pulls is thirty five, minus fourteen, is twenty one.

So the consecutive subsequent eighth pull on the second twin magazine is potentially malfunctional.

You could carry a second Smack Five.

 

[Condottiere]

Why Are Sci-Fi Guns So Weird?

Spacedock delves into science fiction firearms.

 

[Condottiere]

Can't seem to locate the rifle grenade launcher shoot through cost or weight in the Field Catalogue.

That really wasn't important in the Clash Nine, since four dice is a pretty good door knocker by itself, and you wanted to keep it simple.

However, a two dice ultralite assault rifle would need an equalizer, and the need became rather more urgent, and apparently, similarly fruitless.

 

[Condottiere]

I've always played accelerator rifle and snub pistols having no effective recoil.

Trying to to understand the new mechanics here, the receiver soaks up recoil, hence the extra two points for snub and four for rocketry.

With three dice minus three, the handgun receiver easily compensates for the snub round, with a point to spare; the light handgun round at two dice also gets compensated for fully with the default handgun receiver. Or, for that matter, a heavy rifle four dice with a longarm receiver and it's six points.

Though with the heavy rifle, that's still a pretty hefty kick.

Anyway, light handgun, in theory, would have no recoil, and could be used in the same manner as a snub pistol.

Default damage for light handgun would be two to twelve, average seven, with snub, zero to fifteen, average seven and a half.

Enhanced wounding is six to sixteen, average eleven, and I'm not sure how a half dice works in this case, unless its three times six, minus three, plus six, so six to twenty one, average thirteen and a half.

Now I view heat and recoil rounding up dice, so consistency would mean that you'd do the same thing with effect.

Thirteen and a half isn't too far off from sixteen, meaning a human would have to roll for knockdown.

 

[Condottiere]

NOT YOUR GRANDAD'S 10/22 - FLETCHER 11/22

Ultralite assault rifle.

 

[Condottiere]

It was probably a mistake not to list all weapon traits in the Field Catalogue, because I kept trying to figure out, that like a lot of connected capabilities or penalties, such as low penetration, whether zero recoil qualifies a weapon to have Zero Gravity trait.

Or even if negative recoil would have an effect, since it wasn't listed.

 

[Condottiere]

If you rocketize shotgun shells, in theory that should eliminate bulk and very bulky traits.

Probably not that practical for underbarrel variants, since targets would most likely be under ten metres.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry

It seems pretty obvious that you need protected Mobile Infantry in order to advance, even if the armour protecting the personnel carrier seems of dubious value, in modern times.

It explains why the Empire uses landspeeder variants for transportation, besides the obvious advantage of avoiding ground obstacles, rising above a certain height just makes it a missile magnet.

Gravitational motors is just all or nothing, so you can't get a cheaper variant that hugs the ground.

With a Carryall it wouldn't matter, since you wouldn't transport a vehicle direct into a combat zone, though picking one up just ahead of a sandworm does seem viable, since they don't have weapon systems besides close combat teeth.

You probably could use docking clamps on ground vehicles, so one type of Carryalls would be spacecraft used within the atmosphere.

 

[Condottiere]

Confederation Authorized Volunteer Armed Long Range Yeomanry

It seems that towed artillery is still viable, if the other side doesn't have effective and/or extensive counter battery assets.

The Traveller prediction was scattering in the countryside remote controlled containers with launchers, that once activated, become expendable.

The compromise most Western nations took was shoot and scoot, hence the large numbers of mobile howitzers. Towed artillery tended to be used by rapid reaction and light infantry forces.

It seems that once the front becomes bogged down or a stalemate, every available artillery piece is dragged out and used.

CAVALRY squadrons would have howitzers mounted on heavy trucks assigned to them.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Towed artillery is just about obsolete for peer to peer warfare. Self propelled guns are the only option, but they don't need to be heavily armoured, just very mobile. Guided munitions fired from self propelled guns are as accurate as HIMARS and the like.

My near term prediction is for more anti-drone systems, including drone hunter seekers - drones that hunt other drones. autonomously - the armies of the world may balk at the moment from AI drones, but if they are tasked with just killing other robots...

I also read recently of a plan to fit air dropped missile packs to transport aircraft, the missile pack is basically a bundle of cheap cruise missiles or glide bombs...

 

[Condottiere]

1. I think the largest concentration of towed artillery is north of the Thirty Eighth Parallel, which has had decades to dig in, and a very large proportion aimed at Seoul.

2. In theory, peer and near peer would make it obsolete, but it's come down to specific circumstances and choice, or lack thereof, availability and logistics.

3. I think drone warfare is an encompassing military branch that's evolving at this very moment, subject to established industrial base, eventually.

4. Electronic warfare might play a larger part in screwing with their performance, if not shutting them down.

5. I guess someone read Weber; I think forty or fifty years ago they were thinking of using jumbo jets as missile truck, but a number of considerations derailed the project, including the fact that the Soviets would probably shoot down every Seven Forty Seven they saw.

6. This is very obviously aimed at the far side of the Pacific, and kicked out the back of a military transport, at a considerable stand off range, and probably meant to take out defensive layers, one by one.

7. Pretty sure the missile packs can be replaced by drones, kamikaze or otherwise.

8. In Traveller terms, glide bombs are cheap kits giving a stand off range at half altitude to dumb bombs.

9. I suspect the lack of propulsion makes them stealthy.

 

[Sigtrygg]

Here it is:

 

[Condottiere]

1. Doolittle Raid.

2. A decade ago the Americans had planned on lilypadding across the Pacific with four plane flights of Raptors with support personnel, on the assumption that the Chinese are going to have trouble pinpointing which islands they happen to be operating from.

3. I think that Raptors are now too rare and expensive for that, and probably will be replaced with Lightnings.

3. The concept works better with Hercules transports, with rough short field performance.

4. Seems obvious that the Ukraine doctrine is taking shape, in that to avoid direct military confrontations, allies will have compatible munitions and platforms that can easily be (re)supplied with modern munitions.

5. Reunification has been scheduled to be completed by Twenty Forty Nine, though whether the Communist Party will still be in power at that time, is somewhat questionable.

6. There is a window of opportunity that supposedly opened with the modernization of the Chinese military, and is dictated by the ambitions of one man who wants and needs to leave his mark on history and stabilize his power base, likely closes by Twenty Thirty Seven, but might become too risky due to evolving military technology and doctrine.

7. If the logistic bases supporting an invasion, followed by the staging areas, the airfields and hangars, and then amphibious shipping, is targetted by precision long range missiles, it might be over before it even started.

 

[Condottiere]

Minus one to accuracy seems acceptable for rocketry, though I suppose you can't place heavy anti materiel bullet using a rocket motor on a handgun receiver, even though there would be practically zero recoil of any sort, as six dice is soaked up by two points plus four for rocketry.

 

[Condottiere]

So the largest bullet you could use would be heavy rifle. rocketifty, and with a modified six points in handgun receiver, you could make it burst capable.

However, you could rocketify heavy rifle: heavy advanced combat rifle bullets, which would cut the cost by eighty percent.

Range is maintained at two hundred fifty base, regardless.

So, how does this work out for shotgun and handgun bullets?

 

[Condottiere]

Actually, outside of fortified positions, towed artillery would likely be outside the range of most enemy counter battery, if they are positioned opposite an enemy salient.

 

[Condottiere]

Shotgun pellets might not work with rocketry, since you probably need a ten metre barrel for it to be most effective.

Might apply with flechettes as well, if they separate before ten metres.

I don't see any technological level minimum, so you have to wonder if you can start at technological level five; with nine, advanced projectile weapon twenty five percent increased range, and despite a rather bright flame pointing directly back to the shooter, one point less physical signature.

Sixty two and a half, two hundred fifty, five hundred, one thousand metres.

Seventy eight and an eighth, three hundred twelve and a half, six hundred twenty five, twelve hundred fifty metres.

I can live with minus one inaccuracy; you could accurize the barrel.

Or with a very long barrel, with a scope,

97.65625, three hundred ninety and five eights, seven hundred eighty one and a quarter, fifteen hundred sixty two and a half metres. Short range is close enough to a hundred, for maximized iron sights, relaxed almost four hundred metres.

Sounds like a safari rifle.

How fast can a rhino cover four hundred metres?

 

[Condottiere]

Incredibly RARE! Shooting the MBA Gyrojet ROCKET Carbine

Seeing both a Gyrojet pistol AND a carbine being shot is like catching a glimpse of Bigfoot riding a unicorn.

The Gyrojet carbine and pistol were designed and sold in the early 1960's. Sean, who owns both guns contacted me last week and we were able to set up this amazing shoot. We were able to shoot 4 rounds, we recovered 3 of them. The rounds we shot were the early-production 4-port 13mm type. Later, they used just 2 ports to save production costs.

The reputation of these being inaccurate is very true.

All four rounds fired the first time - not bad for 50 year old ammo that had a reputation of being unreliable.

Even though these were shot only 30 feet, the rounds reached maximum-burn at around 3 or 4 yards and burned-out at around 6 yards (maximum velocity of around 1250 fps). The velocity at the muzzle was around 350 fps out of the carbine and 250 fps out of the pistol, which would HURT you since these 13mm rounds are around half an ounce each. So the rumor of you being able to put your finger in the barrel and stop the bullet is exaggerated.

Copyright Taofledermaus 2018

1. Caseless, for all intents and purposes.

2. Therefore, bullpuppize.

3. Assuming ten metres actually does reach optimum velocity, nine metres doesn't mean one dice damage, it probably scales with increasing returns.

4. If it wasn't for the likely cost of the ammunition, you could actually do this:

 

[Condottiere]

By my estimate, a four dice rocketized bullet would have three dice at nine metres, two dice at seven metres, and one dice at five metres.

For three dice, one dice at six metres, two dice a tad over eight metres.

For two dice, seven metres for one dice.

Going by minimal barrel, half a dice otherwise.

 

[Condottiere]

You could rocketize the advanced combat rifle, which would drop range to two hundred fifty metres, but keep all that neat electronics, and presumably, considerably lighten the rifle.

Almost perfect for CAVALRY recruits, if you give them some trigger discipline, since the bullets now cost double, and default magazine is almost halved to eighteen rounds.

Speaking of discipline, undoubtedly Imperium and Confederation armed forces aren't allowed personal electronics, and issued with secured ones for off base use, only activated when at a substantial distance from military and government facilities, and quarantined if back on base or in a government facility.

Military bodycams would probably be issued on the field, if they want to record their activities.

It's likely that CAVALRY Recruits and Volunteers will try to smuggle in their personal communicators.