Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

And I'm with Tom on this, because to my mind, microdrones can be almost as bad a weapon as nukes anyway.

edited 4th May '16 6:08:29 PM by MattII

Matt: We covered that not long ago and it was perfectly possible for there to be infantry especially if the drones are a munition like the LAM vs Drones like the predator. Both can and could exist on the field at the same time. It depends on how they are weaponized and both can be done in parallel.

Tom: There is a vast world of difference in civilians getting caught in the crossfire and nuking an inhabited city. Your rationalization that civilians will die in war doesn't hold much water when there are a number of alternatives that can avoid that. You are going from weapons with a potentially high degree of accuracy and likely lower civilian casualty rate to a weapon that is guaranteed to kill any where from tens of thousands to millions of civilians indescremnantly. It ignores the fact there are a multitude of other possibilities in weapons, tactics, soft counters, and strategy.

As De Marquis has described them they are more like guided munitions that we call LAM now. Which means they have launch platforms, limited ranges, need to be guided and directed, have logistic chains, and are not an infinite stream of weapons fire. That leaves you an array of alternate options that includes targeting key parts of any part of the chain required for them to operate successfully including the controllers, launchers, supply chains, and even targeting points of command. Then there is the warring EW front where such measures could degrade the efficacy of an opponents drones to the point you can possibly make decisive strikes or otherwise inflict notable damage on them rolling back their defensive screens.

It all boils down to who can fight the most efficiently and effectively with their weapons not who can twat the city full of civilians because reasons. Never mind the fact that nuking what you are fighting over has a tendency to mean you can't get it at a later date.

The ones that would be more like drones carrying a weapon aren't invincible either and will have limitations and exploiting them would be part and parcel of conventional use of such weapons. They would need at least something akin to landing area fixed or moble to refuel, repair, and rearm expended munitions.

edited 4th May '16 7:20:16 PM by TuefelHundenIV

edited 4th May '16 8:31:35 PM by MattII

You are aware that micro doesn't strictly mean microscopic and is interchangeable with mini or miniature and can be used to generically mean just really small? Again we already covered this exact same thing already. Think Micro like Micromachines.

edited 4th May '16 8:40:31 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Yeah, but go tell that to Imca and De Marquis

I am fairly certain that is the context they are using it in rather then microscopic. That tends to be mentioned along the lines of "nano machine weapons".

And I'm fairly sure they're talking about stuff the size of a baseball or smaller, things that it would be difficult to spot more than a few seconds before it's on you.

I'm trying to wrap my head around microdrones. How big are they? What are they armed with? Cause right now, I'm imagining a high tech version of RC plane or helicopter either dive-bombing soldier/other drones, or shooting tiny missiles at things.

A drone the size of a baseball isn't going to be very useful offensively. The recoil of a 9mm round is going to send it tumbling and any rocket you can mount on it would have less bang than a firecracker. Your best bet is to just rig the entire drone to explode when an enemy gets near.

Or rig it as a bomber. I just had a fun mental image of a quad rotor zipping in and dropping a grenade with a bolted on guidance package. Or a pound of C-4 coiled in perforated wire.

^ Quad rotors with Molotov Cocktails! A drink to go with the meal!

Tom: Crucial beverage delivery service.

Bel: That depends a lot on the weapon in question not just the caliber. Something aligned along the center of mass would be easier to handle and 9mm cartridges are not a high recoil round in the first place. Combine electrical ignition, caseless, and recoiless tech and you could possibly make a rather compact and comparatively light weapon with a simple feed mechanism no not superimposed like Metal Storm but something that feeds through the back. It wouldn't hold many shots for the space given but it is a possibility. There are also smaller high velocity rounds with low recoil like the 7.62mm Mauser or FN 5.7mm. Their recoil is pretty easily handled and they are effective rounds.

Rockets are a lot trickier. A rocket can be a kinetic projectile, incendiary, HEDP, HEAT, fragmenting. and a host of other warheads. In terms of compact design kinetic, incendiary and HEAT would be the most effective in small packages especially with future technology. It won't have the reach of a big rocket but you could still make them.

Now I do generally agree a drone swarm where the drones are like the LAM type weapons make a lot more sense and would be a lot easier to do.

edited 5th May '16 4:27:37 PM by TuefelHundenIV

@Tuefel

Keep in mind that minidrones would be about the size and weight of a baseball as a personal defense weapon. The recoil from even a 9mm round would be enough to lift it off the ground. Assuming the drone weighs a regulation 149 grams. Yes, a drone could be bigger but it's not much of a personal defense weapon unless it's pretty light weight and considering the limited endurance of such a drone you'll want as many as possible.

Honestly, I'd say practical combat drones would range from 1-30 kilos (2.2-66 pounds). Heavy enough to pack a punch, light enough to lift into a truck.

As for the loitering drones? Has got to be one of the most insidious weapons ever devised. I mean, just imagine dozens of these drones swarming at you from all directions.

They can be baseball sized but not necessarily baseball weight. For example an M 67 Frag grenade is a bit smaller then a baseball but it weighs just over twice as much because of what it's internal bits consist of. It would depend a lot on how much all the basic internal bits plus any exterior shell, weapons and ammo load, fuel/battery, and other components all weigh. 9mm won't be kicking around a whole lot especially against forward momentum and if you do things like I suggested and put along a center line that makes recoil a lot easier to handle. Using further tech like recoilless weapon tech you can put the port in a place that would help mitigate any sort of counter motion.

Yeah the LAM type weapons are kinda crazy. They do double duty as both a weapon and observation platform. Of course DARPA is interested in the possibility of these being networked into a swarm. The Navy and Airforce have been testing drone swarms. I recall the Air Force was interested in munition swarm concept that would be dispensed over a battle field and would possibly actively look for targets. I think they were half jokingly referred to as the "Killer Frisbees".

But again, you're under weight restrictions as much as space restrictions so long as you intend to use drones as personal weapons.

Recoiless weapons suffer in muzzle velocity and if a 9mm round looses more speed you might as well use a sling shot.But again, this is dependent on the actual weight of the drone, not the size. So the question is how big do we make drones?

Recoilless velocity loss is highly variable on not just design but also how much of the charge you vent. Some weapons vent more then others.

How big it will be is really up to the technology as is what the weight restrictions might be. I don't think we can really do Mini/Micro drones now as personal weapons. But we can do the small ones with SMG's, Pistols, and even shotguns. You already know about the compact munition drones like Switch Blade and Battlehawk. Bother are Manpackable weapons with light weight mortar like launchers and a CLU unit of some sort.

edited 5th May '16 8:28:21 PM by TuefelHundenIV

If size is that big of a problem, I'd consider making the drone more of a recon asset than a direct weapon. Put an IR camera on it, chuck it up into the air, see if it picks up any body heat nearby. Maybe some high-res conventional cameras to look around in case they're heat-masked too.

Recon capable drones have been made absolutely tiny at this point. There are several that are easily pocket sized and smaller. The British have one i would consider "micro" called "Black Wasp". Apparently what the various militaries consider mini and micro are usually a bit bigger then baseball sized.

I had a curious thought writing down an early draft of an FPS weapons sandbox. High power, low(er) velocity submachinegun or carbine rounds like the 9x39mm used in the AS Val, does anyone think they would have use in the future?

I'm thinking they might be usable at least for a submachine carbine or a specialist DMR. But given what I know about 9x39mm it wouldn't be a weapon you could spray willy-nilly all over and expect to be on target all the time.

Of course it's likely such weapons will feature integrated sound suppressors like the Val and Vintorez do in reality.

A few of the weapon platforms that use it can fire in full auto but I imagine they do that in short bursts. How far into the future you talking? The round was meant to fill gap between AR and Pistol rounds while being sub-sonic. It is meant to be highly effective against light body armor or unarmored targets in general. Some of the rounds would work against soft skinned and possibly of the more the more lightly protected vehicles. The newer Ash 12.7mm round fills the same niche even the same effective ranges. All of the weapons except for one that fires the 9x39mm Round have an average effective range of 300m. A compact sniper rifle that fires it supposedly is good out to 400m. There is only one weapon right now that I know of that fires the 12.7mm round though.

The first improvement would be more velocity improving how hard it hits, maybe some ammo redesign to match the higher velocity ballistics, for future flavor either CTA or caseless cartridges.

edited 6th May '16 3:58:23 PM by TuefelHundenIV

The setting uses an Alternate Calendar date of Galactic Century 195 (GC 195) so it's definitely set in The Future.

Among the foes you might find in interstellar affairs are targets of variable durability and capability. The most frequent and common of which aren't much different than modern day soldiers in terms of squishiness.

One of the weapons in my current unfinished draft sandbox is known as the SMG (or maybe SMC for submachine carbine) for a pickup prompt. It would hit hard at close range, lose accuracy really rapidly and generally plays like a jackhammer type of automatic weapon^Define "Jackhammer" in this case refers to automatic weapons in gameplay that have higher damage relative to other automatics and higher fire rate relative to those that have closer damage specs but they have low accuracy and/or controllability. The bullets or the gun squirrel around difficult-like kinda like a jackhammer in the hands of the unskilled. and comes with a sound suppressor if I didn't allow weapon customization. (And it might come with a non-removable one if I did.) You can run it Guns Akimbo for double the damage rate at a loss of not being able to use Aimed Fire.^Gameplay Aimed Fire in this game would work in part like Battleduty but has elements of Halo 5's Smart Scope. Chiefly accuracy is improved and you can use the weapon's scope if applicable. But you still retain a reticule from your HUD overlapping the point of aim on the sight. It would fire either ammo like the 9x39mm or a magnum type AP pistol cartridge in the fluff.

edited 6th May '16 6:28:58 PM by MajorTom

You have a lot of options for that kind of weapon. Several of the PDW type weapons would also fill a similar role and includes things like the "Honey Badger" firing .300 Black Out. Several PDW's are basically just really compact Bullpup AR type designs a few use new cartridges as well.

Kind of stupid question, buuuuuut, how come the B-52 has more range than the C-5 Galaxy, or any cargo plane, really?

Empty or loaded?

B-52s carry a lot of fuel.

edited 6th May '16 9:52:30 PM by AngelusNox