Quote:
Originally Posted by HANS
It's in there because the author wanted it to be in there, it's that simple.
More to the point, I wanted it to be in there because it shows what customisation can do, and what that means in the game -- mounting a short suppressor to deal with excessive muzzle blast, grinding off anything that might prevent emergency egress from a vehicle, etc.
Finally, while historically only 20 were made for the 160th SOAR, nobody prevents you from ordering more from KAC -- they are a reasonably small outfit to cater to individual requests of that kind. Hell, using Armoury (Small Arms) or the help of a gunsmith, you could even apply the same process to some other weapon, be it of the AR-15 type or even a completely different weapon.
Availability has absolutely nothing to do with it. You will note that you could apply that "criticism" to several other weapons in the book, frex the MC-51, the Stinger, the SOG M79 -- but they have all earned their place in there, in my eyes.
Cheers
HANS
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Well, I for one welcome our new custom gunsmithing overlords. :-)
Googling got me pictures of M4KA1s, though whether these are real or not I do not know, but I couldn't find sources on weight, overall length and such things.
Knowing HANS's mad research skills and the detail of
GURPS Tactical Shooting, I was hoping that he'd had more luck than I had. Or that someone else knew, I suppose.
The stats in
TS include Weight, obviously, but the overall length is not a GURPS stat and thus not found there. As luck would have it, PCs in my campaign actually
do have a contact in Knight's Armament Corporation, as well one of them being a gunsmith. They will want to have similar modifications as the KAC M4A1 performed on a carbine from Knight's Armament Co. chambered in .300 Blackout. They might want a 6.5" barrel and perhaps simply the option of mounting a suppressor, leaving open the option of firing it in the really short configuration if deployed instantly, at the cost of more flash and noise.
I was wondering how much the custom shortening of the stock reduced the overall length, over and above the short barrel, and whether the weapon was subjected to any other gunsmithing that made the OAL shorter than a standard M4A1 if you simply mounted a 10" barrel on it.
My PCs tend to want to smuggle weapons inside other objects and knowing the OAL tends to be important when it comes to whether you can fit it inside a compartment on a motorcycle, for example, or in a laptop bag.