Some Sf weapon ideas...

[Guest Schwarzwald]

I'm working on some Sf weapons of an unusual nature.

 

basically I got the idea from the 'idiot guns' in the excellent (unfortunately d20) product called "1001 science fiction weapons' from plain brown wrapper games'. Every Sf gamer should have this, BTW.

 

 

 

It had some ideas for zero training, zero maintanence weapons that could be cheaply mass produced and given to untrained, uneducated, young or fanatical 'troops' to make them dangerous.

 

Anyway, I'm trying to redesign them a little and wondered if the ideas I'm getting would work. Please feel free to critique:

 

One of the guns is used to massacre lightly armored or unarmored masses and consists of 7 hexagonal barrels in a circular pattern. The gun is sealed and uses a dime a dozen microchip to control the firing sequence and one of those little 'shake it' generators to power it. it has barely an ounce of metal in the gun for the electronics, the rest id all plastic, ceramic, carbon material, etc.

 

The gun looks like a sealed pod with a rounded end and a couple grips. When the trigger is pulled (The trigger is a piezo electric one like in electric lighters) the chip detonates the 7 barrells in sequence: The center barelll fires to blow open the front of the gun, the other 6 fire in opposing pairs over the space of one second to keep recoil bearable.

 

Each of the 6 loaded barrells is hexagonal and has 4 hexagonal sheets of heavy, tempered lead crystal glass in it, spaced a distance apart. Each glass hex is scored with fracture lines so it shatters into 6 triangles. When the charge at the rear is fired the glass hexes shatter, and 24 heavy, sharp glass triangles fly out of the barrel. Over 1 second 144 of these triangles in total is sprayed out of the gun, which is then simply dropped.

 

Another gun works the same way but has slight differences. The barells are round and the 6 outer ones each contain 6 heavy steel ball bearings encased in a spherical 'sabot' made of something like compressed flash paper. When the gun is fired the center charge blows the front open, then the 6 outer barrells are set off one at a time over a second to minimize recoil.

 

As the propellent load fires, it propells the flash paper sabot down the short barell and ignites it. It is combusting as it goes down the tube, and completely vaporizes within 3-5 feet of the barell, releasing 6 steel ball bearings, easy about .5" diameter or so for a total of 36.

 

This weapon is meant for armored troops or light vehicles. and can penetrate light armor.

 

A third variant fires chain shot, pairs of small steel balls with a short length of chain with razor sharp edges between them.

 

They're meant to be the kind of weapons that might be supplied to unconventional fighting forces by governments and corporations manipulating them.

 

 

Do you think the hardware and technical details I'm working on are feasible? I'm trying to flesh out some ideas from that 1001 sf weapons book a little for players who insist on detailed anaylsis of captured weapons.

[The Monster]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Seems like a pretty complicated way to do something that's already been done for decades. You could accomplish the same thing with a crate of ordinary grenades and a crate of cheap shotguns, pistols and/or SMGs. You could even make the firearms cheap, like poor imitations of the "grease gun" of WW2, maybe even with sealed components so you can't accidentally pop the clip out (or reload it...).

 

To my mind, the primary use of the devices you describe would be for booby traps, not for firearms. A multi-shot, unbreakable, self-firing gun could cause major panic in a crowd or ambush.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Seems like a pretty complicated way to do something that's already been done for decades. You could accomplish the same thing with a crate of ordinary grenades and a crate of cheap shotguns, pistols and/or SMGs. You could even make the firearms cheap, like poor imitations of the "grease gun" of WW2, maybe even with sealed components so you can't accidentally pop the clip out (or reload it...).

 

To my mind, the primary use of the devices you describe would be for booby traps, not for firearms. A multi-shot, unbreakable, self-firing gun could cause major panic in a crowd or ambush.

 

 

 

You are quite right that they are technically complex to design, but a good tech base could mass produce them like candycanes and pass them out on a moment's notice.

 

See, the idea here is that these weapons can be used with, AT MOST, a day's training and practice. No reloading, no maintenence and damn little aiming involved. Just point, squeeze and hang on tight, the reoil's a mother...

 

 

So, with a little memetic motivation and agitation, any mob of dissatisfied rabble can be turned into an 'army' overnight by handing a few crates of these out, just the thing for destabilizing a region, overthrowing an uncooperative local government or whatever.

 

 

We're talking about weapons with a very long shelf life that can be dragged thru mud, sand, dirt, swamps, etc, and still function perfectly, once. Then they're dropped and the 'soldier' reaches back into his pack and pulls out another one.

 

So, it's a very high tech weapon that can be mass produced an an industrial scale and then handed out to the most untrained forces and used with effect in a guerilla or terrorist style war.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Not to mention, since they are one shots... once they are used up... you can send in YOUR troops and take over.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Not to mention' date=' since they are one shots... once they are used up... you can send in YOUR troops and take over.[/quote']

 

Fair point.

 

Also, since you KNOW how much wallop these guns pack, you can be sure to send in your troops with decent body armor to survive them.

[Nyrath]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

But if these can be made cheaply enough due to the economies of scale, they would be a nifty low-cost way to covertly support your favorite insurgency in another nation. Regularly air-drop in a few crates of these into the insurgent's hands, and you'll give the local government no end of headaches.

[Old Man]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

I don't get it. Schwarzwald has invented the shotgun, only larger. So, yeah, shotguns can be cheaply mass produced and airdropped to insurgents.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

I don't get it. Schwarzwald has invented the shotgun' date=' only larger. So, yeah, shotguns can be cheaply mass produced and airdropped to insurgents.[/quote']

 

Ooooookay, let me try again. (Where's the smiley beating it's head against a wall?)

 

 

 

These guns are fairly advanced in construction but simple in operation. They are made of composites and synthetics, and many have little metal in them asides from the projectiles in some cases. They are all manufactured with one load of ammo, then hermetically sealed at the factory, likely within an inert gas filled room with zero humidity.

 

They can be left on shelves for decades and used at once with only a little shaking to get the generator to charge the capacitor. The dime a dozen chip fires the charges electrically and the trigger is piezo electric, behind a thick, flexible sealed membrane.

 

They could be covered in mud and still fire, they could be pulled out of sand and still fire, they could sit in a swamp for a decade and fired at once. They require zero cleaning or maintance, no reloading, etc. A 14 year old could use one with 5 minutes of instruction, and the gun may have pictographic instructions on it for illiterate users.

 

I'm really just converting them to gurps from d20, and adding soem tech detail the original product I got them from didn't have room for. I almost made some cone attack weapons and might do that with a few variants.

 

They also, BTW, dump a lotta shot in one second, that's why you have a cheap chip in them, to fire the charges in sequence, with the first one blowing apart the sealed front of the gun.

 

As I said, they are a SF twist on the old 'liberator pistol' idea from ww2. I was just adding some tech details for the players to find.

 

I was thinking of a campaign set in a SF universe where a government "of the people" is trying to establish itself after a long period of corporate dominion. The government is beginning to reassert itself after a long period of essentially being the rubber stamp of a corporate oligarchy which lead to a very violent revolution.

 

Now the government is trying to pick up the pieces and get things running again, but the corporations are trying to bone it up every way they can out of spite and a desire to see the new government fail.

 

The PCs may be 'troubleshooters", government agents sent to try and solve problems. One of their first missions might be to a planet being wracked by civil war, and the factions are all being supplied with weapons like these from a single corporation that wants the new government to fail so people will welcome corporate control again.

[Old Man]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

I like the chain shot idea, but instead of chains use very thin wire or monowire.

 

John Ringo's bouncing betties are great one-shots too.

 

Basically a horizontal, two dimensional, force field generated a few feet above the ground. Only activated for a second - long enough to sever limbs and such.

 

Jai Alai/Pelota baskets would make for easy to use grenade throwers.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

I like the chain shot idea, but instead of chains use very thin wire or monowire.

 

John Ringo's bouncing betties are great one-shots too.

 

Basically a horizontal, two dimensional, force field generated a few feet above the ground. Only activated for a second - long enough to sever limbs and such.

 

Jai Alai/Pelota baskets would make for easy to use grenade throwers.

 

heh heh, thanks for the idea on jai alai scoops as grenade tossers, but I'll stick with the idea from 1001 science fiction weapons and have the baddies issued some one shot, disposable grenade pistols that look like big, plastic toy guns but lob a built in grenade with considerable range and even some accuracy before being tossed.

[Kaeto]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

The Liberator was intended to be used only long enough to shoot an enemy trooper so you could take his weapon.

[Nyrath]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

John Ringo's bouncing betties are great one-shots too.

 

Basically a horizontal, two dimensional, force field generated a few feet above the ground. Only activated for a second - long enough to sever limbs and such.

Emphasis on the "such". It was also a psychological weapon.

 

The original Bouncing Betty was invented in World War II using conventional explosives. When you step on the mine, the first explosive charge lofts the second explosive charge to about groin level. Also know as "castration mines."

 

Big tough he-man soldiers who wouldn't think twice about braving a conventional land mine field would not go anywhere near a field of Bouncing Betties.

 

Nasty...

[Old Man]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

hmm...

Roman Candles with bigger badder loads.

 

You can hold them, stick them in the ground, mount them on your car, tape a bunch of them together...

 

Hey, how do you do that anyway?

A weapon that has maybe 4 shots and once it is activated fires one of those shots every 3 seconds or so.

[Old Man]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

These guns are fairly advanced in construction but simple in operation. They are made of composites and synthetics, and many have little metal in them asides from the projectiles in some cases. They are all manufactured with one load of ammo, then hermetically sealed at the factory, likely within an inert gas filled room with zero humidity.

 

They can be left on shelves for decades and used at once with only a little shaking to get the generator to charge the capacitor. The dime a dozen chip fires the charges electrically and the trigger is piezo electric, behind a thick, flexible sealed membrane.

 

They could be covered in mud and still fire, they could be pulled out of sand and still fire, they could sit in a swamp for a decade and fired at once. They require zero cleaning or maintance, no reloading, etc. A 14 year old could use one with 5 minutes of instruction, and the gun may have pictographic instructions on it for illiterate users.

 

So, it's a shotgun in plastic wrap?

 

I'm not trying to be a smartass, but seriously, what you have there is nothing more than a one-shot shotgun. You could build one in real life with a metal tube, a spring, a pin, and a shotgun shell. An eight-year-old could use one with thirty seconds of instruction. It hardly needs to be aimed because you make it in sawed-off length. Then you could duct tape six of them together for the multibarreled version and shrinkwrap it all. The piezoelectrics and chips and generator are nice but hardly necessary, and it could be argued that they add unnecessary complexity and cost.

 

You can even buy chain shot shotgun shells in 12-gauge in real life (as well as other more diabolical loads). Here's a link:

 

http://www.hi-vel.com/Catalog__17/Specialized_Shotshell_Ammuniti/specialized_shotshell_ammuniti.html

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Yes, old man, you could build something like that, but would it last for years on a shelf and still work? Would it really be able to go thru virtually any conditions and still work? Would it really be completely watertight and durable?

 

The weapon's effects could be duplicated easily, but in game terms it needs to be something that can be handed out by governments or businesses in a hurry, so they have to be mass produced and stored for long periods of time until they're needed.

 

it's not worth arguing over, but the thing is I'm going for game flavor, not just effect.

[Old Man]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Yes' date=' old man, you could build something like that, but would it last for years on a shelf and still work? Would it really be able to go thru virtually any conditions and still work? Would it really be completely watertight and durable?[/quote']

 

Yes, yes, and yes, especially if you're presuming an advanced manufacturing base that's capable of cheaply producing piezoelecrics and induction generators. The only component of a sealed shotgun with a questionable shelf life is the primer.

 

The weapon's effects could be duplicated easily, but in game terms it needs to be something that can be handed out by governments or businesses in a hurry, so they have to be mass produced and stored for long periods of time until they're needed.

 

Metal tubes are like that.

 

it's not worth arguing over, but the thing is I'm going for game flavor, not just effect.

 

Ah. Well if game flavor is the key, then by all means abandon the shotgun idea.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Yes, yes, and yes, especially if you're presuming an advanced manufacturing base that's capable of cheaply producing piezoelecrics and induction generators. The only component of a sealed shotgun with a questionable shelf life is the primer.

 

 

 

Metal tubes are like that.

 

 

 

Ah. Well if game flavor is the key, then by all means abandon the shotgun idea.

 

Well, if NOTHING else, when weapons like this start turning up in large numbers in the hands of insurgents, rebels, street thugs, etc, you know they're being supplied from outsie. Exactly where you don't know as the weapons are too generic to trace, but they indicate outside supply.

[Old Man]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Flavorwise I'd go a bit further to make it more different from a shotgun. You already are including piezos and inductive generators, so the whole thing might as well work electromagnetically instead of having explosives. Frex, it could run off a big one-shot capacitor that magnetically drives the projectiles. That concept now screams 'needle gun', using extremely-narrow-and-high-velocity flechettes for armor penetration...

[The Monster]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

One trick to control their use (so that malcontents don't just break into the warehouse and steal a few thousand for their Revolution-of-the-Month club), woul dbe to manufacture and store two components: weapon and ammo. Or, more precisely, launcher and ammo. Severa lkinds of ammop could be made, from solid shot to explosives to shaped charges to poison, and so on. This also has the possibility of much hilarity as the airdrops of ammo do not meet the needs of either the partisans or the secret masters...

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

Flavorwise I'd go a bit further to make it more different from a shotgun. You already are including piezos and inductive generators' date=' so the whole thing might as well work electromagnetically instead of having explosives. Frex, it could run off a big one-shot capacitor that magnetically drives the projectiles. That concept now screams 'needle gun', using extremely-narrow-and-high-velocity flechettes for armor penetration...[/quote']

 

 

 

Nah, the kind of voltages I was talking about were minimal, like what you'd get from a couple hearing/watch batteries. Just a vew volts thru a capacitor to make a spark to detonate the propellents, which are hermetically sealed and made to last for decades, or centuries.

 

The tech would be like those batteryless flashlights, just shake the gun for a few seconds, and the cap holds the charge for a couple hours. Add in the current from the trigger, which is like those piezo generators in modern lighters and that's all the current needed to run the microchip and fire the propellents.

 

These could be built TODAY, but we don't quite have the tech level to mass produce them reliably and cheaply.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

One trick to control their use (so that malcontents don't just break into the warehouse and steal a few thousand for their Revolution-of-the-Month club)' date=' woul dbe to manufacture and store two components: weapon and ammo. Or, more precisely, launcher and ammo. Severa lkinds of ammop could be made, from solid shot to explosives to shaped charges to poison, and so on. This also has the possibility of much hilarity as the airdrops of ammo do not meet the needs of either the partisans or the secret masters...[/quote']

 

 

 

You mean like the scene in "A bridge too far" where the RAF dropped maroon berets to the guys behind german lines in "Operation Market Garden"?

 

 

 

As to seperate ammo/weapon loads, that would detract from the weapon's main appeal: A completely untrained person, an iliterate, could use one without training, he could just see one used and get the idea. The guns might have pictorgraphic 'instruction' printed on them showing what type they are and how to use them in basic terms.

 

I did the stats for a basic, Mk1 idiot gun, the glass triangle sprayer, in gurps format if anyone wants them, say so.

[Basil]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

I like the basic idea, and think it's feasible sounding enough for roleplaying purposes.

 

The biggest problem I have with it is it sounds like overkill. Firing something like that at someone risks destroying the target's weapon. Remember, the purpose of such Liberator-style weapons is not just to kill (from ambush, almost always) an enemy soldier, but also to get his weapon into the hands of the attacker. That is, from the strategic/logistic POV, you want the enemy to lose troops and materiel, at the lowest logistical cost to yourself. If the one-shot weapon you're supplying to the irregulars destroys the enemy's weapon, you've got the wrong weapon.

 

I'd suggest reducing the weapon to a single barrel, and just assume/state that the hermetic seal is blown off with no significant loss of power.

[Guest Schwarzwald]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

I like the basic idea, and think it's feasible sounding enough for roleplaying purposes.

 

The biggest problem I have with it is it sounds like overkill. Firing something like that at someone risks destroying the target's weapon. Remember, the purpose of such Liberator-style weapons is not just to kill (from ambush, almost always) an enemy soldier, but also to get his weapon into the hands of the attacker. That is, from the strategic/logistic POV, you want the enemy to lose troops and materiel, at the lowest logistical cost to yourself. If the one-shot weapon your supplying to the irregulars destroys the enemy's weapon, you've got the wrong weapon.

 

I'd suggest reducing the weapon to a single barrel, and just assume/state that the hermetic seal is blown off with no significant loss of power.

Good thinking, but remember that the mk1 idiot gun fires glass triangles, which are unlikely to ruin a weapon as they turn it's wielder into chinese noodles.

 

(Now I wonder how long it'll be before some whiney, intolerant PC fascist will claim my use of the term 'chinese noodles' is "RACIST!!!" and "OFFENSIVE!!!" and demands I be banned for using it..... )

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

(Now I wonder how long it'll be before some whiney' date=' intoloerant PC fascist will claim my use of the term 'chinese noodles' is "RACIST!!!" and "OFFENSIVE!!!" and demands I be banned for using it..... )[/quote']

 

You racist!! I just happen to be from Noodlevania and we take a dim view of such hate speech!!

 

[Basil]

Re: Some Sf weapon ideas...

 

You racist!! I just happen to be from Noodlevania and we take a dim view of such hate speech!!

 

Do you also object to "use your noodle"?