What's a VRF Gauss rifle?

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Greetings,
I just bought the Chiron ship book, and I must say, I like the ship!

However, I ran into some trouble when reading about its weapons... The text says it is armed with two dual VRF gauss rifle turrets, and I can't find anything called that in the main rulebook or the Chiron book...?

 

[dragoner]

Book 1, page 103:

VRF Gauss Rifle Standing for Very Rapid Fire, the gauss rifle is a
shoulder-slung gauss weapon that uses an attached power backpack
to accelerate hundreds of metal darts per second at targets several
over a hundred metres away. Generally only carried by soldiers in
battle dress, the VRF gauss rifle is a heavy rig that must be set on a
stationary pintle-mount if it is to be fired by any character outside
of powered armour.

 

[alex_greene]

Stats for the VRF can be found in the Vehicle Guide, Supplements 5-6:-

VRF Gauss Gun ... TL 12 ... Cr. 200,000 ... Ammo 5d6 AP ... Auto 12 ... 4 Spaces ... Range Distant ... Cr. 20,000 / Space

First appearance in Book 1: Mercenary:-

VRF Gauss Rifle Standing for Very Rapid Fire, the gauss rifle is a shoulder-slung gauss weapon that uses an attached power backpack to accelerate hundreds of metal darts per second at targets several over a hundred metres away. Generally only carried by soldiers in battle dress, the VRF gauss rifle is a heavy rig that must be set on a stationary pintle-mount if it is to be fired by any character outside of powered armour.

Or you could get Jesse Ventura to carry it around.

VRF Gauss Rifle ... TL 14 ... Ranged (rifle) ... 5d6 ... Auto 10 ... Recoil 2 ... Mass 40 ... Mag 1000 ... Availability 10+ ... Cr. 50,000

And again, in Supplement 4:-

Gauss Gun, Very Rapid Fire (VRF) (TL 10): A support weapon using gauss technology to achieve extremely high rates of fire, the VRF gauss gun is often used as an antipersonnel weapon aboard advanced armoured vehicles. A tripod-mounted infantry version is available. Ammunition expenditure is prodigious and requires a large hopper co-located with the gun to ensure an adequate supply.

Ammunition is the same 5.5mm needles as used in the heavy gauss rifl e but these are fi red in bursts of 200.

Gauss Rifle, Very Rapid Fire (TL 14): An attempt at a cross between a squad support weapon and a very rapid fi re (VRF) assault weapon, the VRF gauss rifl e is used by some battle dress equipped troops. It can be mounted on a pintle on a vehicle or fired from a fixed position but its very heavy powerpack and ammunition make it impractical for non-augmented troops. 200 rounds are fired in a single attack. This weapon uses 5.5mm gauss needles.

Weapon ... TL ... Range ... Skill ... Ammo ... Mag ... Auto ... Recoil ... Cost (Cr.) ... Mass ... Cost/Round
VRF Gauss Gun ... TL 10 ... Rifle ... Heavy Weapons (Autocannon) ... 5d6 AP ... 4000 ... 12 ... 2 ... 200,000 ... 2000 ... 8,000
VRF Gauss Rifle ... TL 14 ... Rifle Gun Combat (Slug Rifle) ... 5d6 AP ... 1000 ... 10 ... 2 ... 50,000 ... 40 ... 2,000

 

[fthlagen]

Nearest contemporary equivalent would be a recoilless rifle with a beehive round full of flechettes although VRF guass can be aimed more precisely and has a higher range and RoF.

Also, being a gauss mechanism, it is a cold weapon (no friction or powder) so it doesn't show up on IR and doesn't carry much of a visual signature unless humidity is high (usually jungles where Gauss not really suitable as cover degrades velocity of such light slugs quickly)

[ninja edit - next bit no longer represents the views of user fthlagen - meh!]

[damage = half mass multiplied by velocity squared. At close range, gauss rounds go through a person because they're streamlined, small and moving fast. Frangible ammunition cannot be used because the launch force from the gun is too high. This means the VRF gauss gun is not a gun for all seasons.

In direct fire mode, it's usefull against wave attacks by unarmoured peasants in black pyjamas.

In indirect fire mode, it's usefull for keeping permiters that have modest or zero vegetation cover clear - enemies can go to ground and hide in some long grass but the schtick of the VRF gauss is that everyone in front of it gets a piece of the magic even if none of the rounds are likely to kill at range.

It does have a strong psychological effect on targets. Because it's effectively an area-effect weapon, anyone in front of it knows they're going to be hit, possibly blinded, lose a tooth, possibly be given a wound that requires forceps, sutures and infection. So a VRF guass gun pointing down one of your arcs should keep it clear of trouble once the enemy knows it's there.]

 

[Old timer]

Ok, that is not at all like the weapon described in the CSC or as described by alex green above. The rounds for the tech level 10 VRF do 5d6 armour piercing, more than capable of punching through combat armour, hardly a tooth remover or blinding people weapon, it is a troop killer. Much more like a modern general purpose machine gun, just with a higher rate of fire and little or no recoil.
If that how VRF works in your traveller universe, cool, but it is not how it works as written in any mongoose traveller supplement.

 

[fthlagen]

Move along - nothing to see here.

Interesting, and I don't disagree with your observation on the huge damage. Perhaps it's the weight of fire that would cause it. At 100m with a burst of 1 or 2 seconds into say 4-7 inches, I'd say you'd be toast. At combat range (400-800m), there aren't going to be many rounds within a man-sized group.

I will concede that zero recoil (if that's correct) is a big factor on accuracy but unless teh rounds are rifled, they'll scatter into an eliptical footprint, particularly if there's deflection by crosswind as they're so light.)

By way of perspective:

AK47 bullet - 8g - knocks a man down.
M16 bullet - 4g - doesn't knock a man down.
Flechette for small arms - 2.5g - not a man-stopper either, unless target is hosed with the good news.

So the ammo in the VFR gauss as outlined by the damage must be pretty substantial.

[edit - Quickly adds: for 5mm to be armour piercing - that's going to be one high-tech bullet. Tough enough to punch through metal or kevlar and yet clever enough to slow down and yaw in the body without coming out the back.]

 

[fthlagen]

Old timer - In hindsight, your assessment of the stats is correct.

I forgot to take the range into account. If the ammunition causes 5d6 damage AP at rifle range then the slugs that the gun is firing are big (long and heavy).

And the rules quoted do say it's a pintle mount when not attached to battle dress.

 

[alex_greene]

It's inconvenient how every VRF option is different between books. I'd recommend that they all be standardised between them, so each reference will have the same damage, ranges, ROF, mass, costs etc. no matter which book it appears in.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Thanks alot guys!

So, basically it's a futuristic high-tech gatling cannon, not so much used to clear the LZ as to *create* an LZ?

I like it! And it's mountable on Battledress? Sweet...

If I'm gonna go poke at small details I guess each shot is more than one bullet, or that the fluff text and statline just don't disagree, since while auto 12 is a lot, it isn't 200 rounds per trigger-pull

AP, that's from one of the expansion books too, right? The only AP I know of is from Dredd, where the special AP rounds fired from the Lawgiver ignore a whooping 12 points of armor! And I think I've read about semi-AP (3 pts?) and some kind of super AP ignoring twice the attack dice (so 5 in this case) or maybe that was a made-up house-rule.... ? ah well, sweet gun either way.

 

[dragoner]

The AP rules you are thinking of are in the central supply catalog (CSC).