[Michael Thayne]

Appendix: High-Tech vs. Ultra-Tech comparisons

At various points in writing my posts on this thread, I've mentioned the possibility of using certain TL9 weapons to stand-in for real-world weapons used by the United States. At other points, I've covertly consulted Ultra-Tech to get a general sense of what's reasonable. It seems worth summarizing the places canonical TL9 weapons are—and aren't—in line with what's available from High-Tech. I'm ignoring electronics—this is about comparing implied assumptions about materials, propellants, and warheads.

The basic TL9 service rifle in Ultra-Tech is the Assault Carbine. It has few direct analogs in in High-Tech, but you'd get something very similar if you took an M14 and shortened the barrel a bit (per the gunsmithing rules in Tactical Shooting). The big difference is the TL9 version weighs about 30% less and 2.5 times the shots in a similar-weight magazine, thanks to using caseless ammo.

The TL9 40mm underbarrel grenade launcher is an impressive improvement over its TL8 predecessor—it's a five-shot semiautomatic. The 40mm HE grenade is a slight improvement over the TL8 equivalent (8d vs. 6d+2). Unfortunately there's no TL9 HEDP grenade to compare to.

The "chaingun" is a bit lighter than the KPZ DShK-38, and also has Acc +1, but the lightening is less impressive only lightened by 30%. Damage is a little under-powered for the caliber, range is higher but close enough to be a difference of rounding.

Getting a bit heavier, there's the 64mm and 100mm missile launchers. These are fairly dramatic improvements, speed and range-wise, over their predecessors, by about a factor of 3. Damage for shaped charges is similar. The 160mm Strike Missile launcher from Pyramid #3/37 is heavier and more powerful than the 152mm BGM-71D TOW 2, and again has >2x improved range.

The howitzers in the same Pyramid article also have a huge range advantage over close analogs in High-Tech. It's unclear how they compare to the best real-world artillery, in part because I'm not sure GURPS has always been internally consistent about what range even means. I think I've heard claims that it's a theoretical maximum for firing at a 45 degree angle, but many ranges are unchanged from 3e, and Vehicles 3e says weapon range is based on "a moderately flat trajectory". The cannon ranges from 1 Pyramid article probably should not be used if the specific situation makes that seem wildly unfair, but I'm not sure what's actually "right".