The Future of Small Arms

[patrick]

Just something I was idly thinking about today…

 

300 years ago state of the art in small arms was black powder rifled muzzleloaders. What will be the state of the art 300 years from now?

 

Gauss weapon, lasers, microwave weapons? Or will chemical slug throwers still the only game in town? Even if other technologies exist, will firing bullets still be the most economical way of doing harm?

[austenandrews]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I'm inclined to think nanoengineered materials and machines will open up some more efficient/economical/practical options. I'm also inclined to think that high-velocity projectiles (not necessarily solid) will remain the primary method of delivering energy to a target (though momentum may not necessarily be the primary carrier of energy).

[OddHat]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Our AI masters won't let us out of our brain-boxes to play with guns.

[Steve]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

One thing that might change about firearms is the action used could shift to an electric charge instead of the current firing pin model. Firing rates could increase as a result, since it would just be pulses of electricity igniting the primers.

[ghost-angel]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Whichever weapons fit the formula of cheap and abundant best. Resources will play the biggest role in future weapons I think.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I dont see good old fashioned chemical slug throwers going away completely, you will probably see advanced tech such as Electro Thermal Chemical and Binary propellant weapons, but there easy to maintain, dont require a high techbase to manufacture, and are easy to train to use

 

you will probably see gauss guns and mass drivers become common though

 

IMTU gauss guns are more common than laser and plasma weapons

another thing about slugthrowers is they can get past energy sensors, where a laser or plasma gun wont

[OddHat]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

On a less jokey note, I'd expect third world insurgencies, settlers, etc to be using chemical slug throwers only slightly more advanced than those in current use, things that they can build and maintain. Advanced countries might not use human soldiers at all; "armies" may just be non-humanoid robots with sonic, chemical and energy weapons.

[Edsel]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

The reliable and cheap chemical fire arms of today are going to be a tough act to beat. Until there is some major breakthrough in weapons technology I think that you will continue to see minor refinements and modifications to the basic slug thrower design for a long time to come.

 

Technological advances in sights are probably going to be one of the bigger developments. Compact rugged sights with computing power to increase the shooters accuracy and gimmicks like signature guns are probably the next big things.

[tkdguy]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Gatling coil guns. Available as rifles or pistols.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

It's odd that this thread has cropped up, considering I was just watching a History Channel show about the developments of ammunition technology, including the Metalstorm system of electronically firing caseless ammuntion. Here are a few trends I can see being developed.

 

1) Dally Guns (from Logan's Run) -- selective fire weaponry that mixes and matches the ammunition to the need. Non-lethal rounds, lethal loads, explosive rounds, etc. mixed and matched in the same weapon, selectively available. (The Metalstorm people are already working on that one.)

 

2) Smart Guns -- that is, firearms which are keyed to a specific person and won't work for anyone else. Current technology incorporates a ID chip in the gun and a ring the firer wears, but it is still experimental. If everyone is required to have an implanted ID chip, though, your gun could truly be your one and only. (Which would make your life hell if someone hacked your gun!)

 

3) Smart Ammo -- which means self-guiding multi-purpose rounds. With the manditory ID chip thing, a bullet could really have your name on it. On the flip side, it could also prevent someone from accidentally shooting a friendly if the gun's computer chip figures out that the flight of bullet will endanger them.

 

4) Advanced Non-Lethal Ammo -- maybe with a boost of nanotech, the tangler gun could become reality. However, I think it more likely that advanced material will produce completely non-lethal rounds that can still incapacitate.

 

5) Environmentally friendly materials -- advances in biodegradable plastics will make the gun and its ammunition earth friendly, though may complicate potential murder investigations.

 

6) Home micro-manufacturing -- with the advances in materials, and the continued expansion of information on the Internet, people will be able to design and build weapons in their own homes, using advanced plastics. Ammo might be another story, though.

 

7) Caseless ammunition -- soon the day will come where ammunition won't need a casing nor primer to be fired. Ammo will be sold in disposable bioplastic magazines and all weapons will fire either by laser ignition or by electronic control.

 

8) Advanced ballistics electronics -- computers in the weapons will log each shot, recording the sight picture of each with a micro camera for future reference in court cases. Also, the computer will make minute changes to barrel angle and deflection to compensate for conditions (downloaded from dedicated weather monitoring sites on the internet) to improve aim.

 

Just a few ideas.

 

Matt "Guns-guns-guns!" Frisbee

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Spring Loaded Needler Projectiles relatively silent, acurate, and cheap.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I think the future of small arms lies in...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

stone knives and clubs made of the femurs of your enemies.

[Publius]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I agree with most of the posters here, but I wonder how the more modern weapons technology would be made practicable in low-tech situations. While binary propellants and caseless ammo are in the technological capacity of the here-and-now, they are not used in a huge amount of the firearms which are mass produced on the scale of armies.

 

One of the reasons is that a guy with minimal training and the proper equipment can hand-load more ammunition. The problem with the electro-thermals or the binary propellants or the caseless ammo is that you cannot. Maybe I have been reading too much World War Z, but when the Pocky-lips comes, I want to have something I can hand load (even though I do not presently have the ability to do so, I know it can be done, that the equipment exists for it w/ instructions and I will get both when the dead begin to rise).

 

On the other hand, this might be a situation rife for the "Dealership" syndrome with cars. One cannot be an effective backyard mechanic anymore, everything in the car is run on computers with high tech parts that are not rebuilt, but taken out and replaced (at enormous expense). The door modules on my car for example were randomly locking the doors of my vehicle. The repairs ultimately took several hundred dollars (nearly a third of the value of the car itself by the time it was finished because the failure of one system caused so much damage to another that it too had to be replaced). In the old says with a crank window the worst case scenario would have been getting a junk-salvage door and replacing it with my own (and that would have been really worst case). The upshot is that they are designing vehicles that you cannot fix anymore.

 

Now, would the arms manufacturers be able to introduce the same model? "Sure this baby can kill every m%$#@$^^%$r in the room, but you gotta come back to me for the ammo and repair" would not sit well with most military guys. I think it would have to be something that would really seriously be head and shoulders above the rest, gauss weapons ala "Eraser" for instance. Then you would have a secondary market for the civie weapons which are cased and old-school enough to be repaired and maintained by someone with minimal training and practically minimal equipment. I think Traveller 2300 did this mix the best that I have seen.

[Spence]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I believe that while the fancy tech items will be developed and even deployed, gauss, laser etc. In the end the old current firearm will remain a mainstay. With all the experiments, such as bombless EMP, the breakthroughs will come. If, and this is a major IF, they finally develop a reliable way to damp/stop electric impulses in a localized area then most of the high tech options will be toast, at least until countered. But a chemical fastburning propellant is pretty reliable. Plus it can be fixed/maintained in the field. And as Publius said you can reload without high tech training.

[Publius]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Another way to thnk about it then, or maybe to re-tool the question to some degree is: what would entice the military to depart from a tried-and-true model? How good does the tech have to be for personal weapons to succumb to the "Dealership Model". With some technology that isn;t going to be an issue. Obviously your bunker busters and the like are going to be cutting edge, but what is the tipping point for how much high tech will go into the standard military armament?

 

I think Starship Troopers myself, once you get things like Powered Armor you will see all of the high tech toys attached and utlized to full extent. If the Armor requires significant amounts of technology and high-tech know-how to field, why not use submunitions or electrothermal ignition or for that matter high tech laser and plasma weapons if they are available.

 

Until then, while war is a matter of grunts in the field, I would think that the back of any military planner's mind should be the idea of having to rough it or going low tech which would make them shy away from anything really outre. I could be wrong of course

[Steve]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Another thing for the future of small arms is the Gun Kata.

[Sundog]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that I don't believe directed energy weapons will EVER be as popular as slugthrowers - in atmosphere.

 

Atmospheric scattering will be a great bugaboo for lasers, particle beams, and plasma casters for the forseeable future. If you have the energy density technology to overcome that in a hand weapon, you have the capacity to project a nuclear detonation equivalent at your targets from a vehicle - hand weapons cease to be a valid concept.

 

I figure railgun and coilgun technology is maybe 15 years away from weaponization, at least as vehicular weapons. Electrothermal is maybe ten years after that - it would require some breakthroughs in materials technology to make a safe ECT firing chamber.

 

Incidentally, I also don't believe in caseless ammo for a chemgun. ECT requires a case; conventional rounds are cheaper and easier to build with cases (note that the "next generation" AR by H&K, the G11, which used caseless rounds, died due to lack of interest); and you can make a lot of fancy rounds with a case that you can't without one. Caseless ammo is a solution looking for a problem.

[Manic Typist]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Caseless rounds save space, allowing more ammo to be carried for equal weight.

 

Perhaps starship munitions will take this route? Either for arms on board, or the actual weaponry of the ship?

[pinecone]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I believe that caseless ammo will become popular when brass becomes expensive.....Though a chemical slugthrower with liguid propellant and "Dial a warhead" ammo might become attractive to the military in a world where multi mission is far more likely than good old " combat" in the traditional sense...

[patrick]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

The more I think about it, the more I think it comes down to economics... The cheapest way to kill or disable at the needed range, and it’s really hard to argue with bullets.

 

Plus you want to make a weapon "soldier proof", able to withstand horrible treatment and conditions in extreme environments. The AK-47 comes to mind. The simplest solutions are often the best. That said a firearm still needs to have a decent chance of penetrating any armor that might be worn in the field.

 

Caseless ammunition needs to just as rugged as the competition, and energy and gauss weapons need to be easily charged in the field (a difficult feat while on a long range patrol).

 

As boring as it may sound, I'm starting to think that advancements in small arms are going to be just refinements to present technology. Weapons made out of advance polymers, perhaps even bullets and casings made out of polymers designed to take the same or even more stresses that brass takes. Cleaner burning propellants and something like a spray on nanite cleaner/lubricant.

 

The real exciting advancements on the battlefield will probably be in optics, sensors, and command and control technologies. Or like OddHat said armies will just be "non-humanoid robots with sonic, chemical and energy weapons." But what fun is that. Stupid robots taking all our fun

[shadowcat1313]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

look at our own history, when projects like the Avro Arrow were cancelled because guided missiles were going to completely replace manned bombers and fighters... idiots

[patrick]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Yeah, aint it great there's nothing like being there!

[Frenchman]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

I think the biggest change will be the continuing growth of the gap between military and civilian technology.

Ever since armies have been hurling rocks at eachother there has been this gap - up until Roman times or so, this was enforced by the fact that anyone who had weapons was part of the local military by default.

In the middle ages this was still largely true, but as soon as standing armies were developed, they started getting better equipment than was generally available - usually just because it was too expensive for most people to afford it.

Then came cannons - you had to be really wealthy to afford a cannon. Any group of smart peasants could get a catapult if they knew how to build one, but a cannon required specialized skill, equipment, and lots of money.

As firearmes became more advanced, they also became more ubiquitous, but large weapons were always the province of the military.

Then came the invention of assault rifles and hand-held machine guns. For some time, they were the province of the military (and still are in most law-abiding places). As weapons technology advances, the gains made by the military are achieved much faster than the trickle-down which civilians recieve.

Think about the gap between early machine guns and bolt-action rifles, assault rifles and hunting rifles, or the gap between the latest MetalStorm weapon and your brand-new .45 automatic.

Civilians (and guerrillas/resistance fighters/rebels) will continue to get the shaft because they can't afford the latest and greatest - and the gap will keep growing.

[Dale A. Ward]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

Then came the invention of assault rifles and hand-held machine guns. For some time' date=' they were the province of the military (and still are [b']in most law-abiding places[/b]).

 

 

I'm not going to derail this thread by getting into a huge debate on 2nd Amendment Rights, but I would like it noted for the record that I object to the implications of this statement.

 

Dale A. Ward

(law abiding citizen and gun-owner)

[austenandrews]

Re: The Future of Small Arms

 

The more I think about it, the more I think it comes down to economics... The cheapest way to kill or disable at the needed range, and it’s really hard to argue with bullets.

 

Plus you want to make a weapon "soldier proof", able to withstand horrible treatment and conditions in extreme environments. The AK-47 comes to mind. The simplest solutions are often the best. That said a firearm still needs to have a decent chance of penetrating any armor that might be worn in the field.

Of course economics doesn't always boil down to the least expensive ammunition. If I can see through a brick wall, for example, then one fifty-dollar bullet that will punch through is worth more than the equivalent cost of ordinary bullets. But that wall-piercing round is not practical or economical in many combat situations (and even less so for policework and personal defense) so the ability to switch between types of projectiles might wind up being the most economical solution as a general military weapon. Off the top of my head, I'd think something like a gauss rifle might fit that bill the best. Not only is it theoretically cleaner, quieter and more efficient than known chemical propellants, but it doesn't require a stout firing mechanism that can absorb and redirect an explosion. That would indicate to me an increased ability to vary in projectile size and shape. (Not, mind you, that it wouldn't have to be a rugged weapon. But imagine the ability to swap out loading/firing chambers as easily as reloading.)

 

Concerns about charging batteries to me is the equivalent of an 18th century man worrying about how an armored tank could possibly carry enough black powder for its cannon. We're talking about 300 years in the future. "Technology will out." I can easily envision gauss ammunition that, like today's bullets, carries its own power source. Imagine a soldier with several clips, each with a different type of ammunition (piercing, exploding, nonlethal, etc.). Each clip contains its own firing chamber. When he pops the clip into his rifle (or whatever it's called), the clip mechanically forces the weapon into the right geometry for that ammo. (This needn't be a complicated mechanism. Two axes and a narrow range of movement, all made of whatever light, rugged, probably nanoengineered material is common for the time. Everything locked down by a simple mechanical system no more complicated than today's automatic handguns.)

 

Now the weapon is correctly shaped for the given ammunition. Pull the trigger (whatever constitutes a trigger in three centuries) and the chemical/whatever power storage mechanism sends its charge/current into the rifle. The rails light up, the projectile shoots out and the next one pops in. Ultimately, the rifle itself may essentially just be an aiming system, as high or low-tech as the mission requires.

 

The whole process needn't be any more difficult than loading and firing today's firearms, and in fact may be easier and less likely to fail. Of course the odds are good that three centuries will produce a mechanism less analogous to modern firearms than what I just described. My point is, futuristic weapons can (and very likely will) be just as rugged and easy to maintain as plain ol' exploding bullets.

 

Now advance ammunition technology alongside it, with the ability to put gauss-firing power in a bullet-size projectile. There's no telling what kinds of weird effects we could see.