Ultra Tech warheads for older guns

[weby]

Warheads, yes, anything using a explosive or similar filler should be possible to use with older weapons. Ammunition, no, anything giving more upmpf because it uses better propellants would likely cause bad things to happen.

We have examples of new improved types of rounds being fired from older weapons. Couple of examples:
-You can fully well fire a TL 8 he grenade from a TL 7 40mm grenade launcher. As the propellant is about equal in effect and just the actual HE and fuse are better.
-You can well fire new .45 ammo(as long as it is not high pressure) with fancy things like frangible rounds from original 1911 pattern .45 government pistols. Again the specs of the actual thing are different in only the actual bullet.

So as long as the old weapon caliber is commonly in use, then newer legal types of ammunition types are likely to be available for it.

[ULFGARD]

Thank you, all. I think both of my main thoughts on this have been explored. It was specifically the HEMP rounds I was looking for.

The setting is specifically TL 11, so small nanofacs are fairly commonplace. Which means that, within legality restraints, anyone could easily build a 1911 pattern from public domain blueprints (still paying a material cost, which I've set at 25% of full price), but a TL 9 weapon would cost more. My thought is that the cheaper pattern would be a decent alternative. It wouldn't be especially effective against armor, though, without the warheads.

In particular, I was thinking about HEMP rounds, which are very effective against most armor.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

Thank you, all. I think both of my main thoughts on this have been explored. It was specifically the HEMP rounds I was looking for.

Unless it uses electronic fusing (SEFOP does, but HEMP might not), probably.

Originally Posted by ULFGARD

The setting is specifically TL 11, so small nanofacs are fairly commonplace. Which means that, within legality restraints, anyone could easily build a 1911 pattern from public domain blueprints (still paying a material cost, which I've set at 25% of full price), but a TL 9 weapon would cost more.

Material cost should not be a flat 25%; blueprint costs should be a nonissue for anything lower tech than the factory (I assure you, there's nothing from TL 7 that's still patent protected, and there's nothing distinctive enough about gun designs to make copyright protection relevant).

[Black Leviathan]

It would be very weird for a low tech gun to be able to fire high tech rounds. Guns aren't just pipes for bullets, they're engineered very exactingly for their load. TL 10 military ammo in a TL 7 Gun is the equivalent of firing a Grenade Launcher grenade with a crossbow, not impossible, but iffy and difficult.

Three tech levels worth of innovating manufacturers would have to give the cow away for free if they made their technology interchangeable with existing weapons or ammo. There's a lot of motivation to change guns as you innovate them. High tech guns would likely fire with a different ignition system, could have ignition locks based on who was holding the weapon or who it was pointed at or could have an entirely different delivery system for the ammunition. As propellant changes so would caliber and bullet density, the ammunition could be 1/10 the diameter of what older weapons used and be ten times as dense. It could be possible to utilize that same technology in older weapons but it might mean expensive modifications to the guns and oddball, antiquing of the ammunition that makes it prohibitively expensive.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

As propellant changes so would caliber and bullet density, the ammunition could be 1/10 the diameter of what older weapons used and be ten times as dense.

What are you proposing to use that's ten times as dense as lead? Lead has a density of 11.3, and the densest material whose density we know for sure is Osmium at 22.6.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

It would be very weird for a low tech gun to be able to fire high tech rounds. Guns aren't just pipes for bullets...

Actually, that's more or less what they're for. The main problem with firing UT warheads from older guns will actually prevent firing UT warheads from most UT guns as well: you mostly have to decide when you design a gun whether it's going to fire solid ammunition or warheads, and it's going to perform poorly with the type it's not designed for. About the only ammo types that are sensibly interchangeable with ordinary bullets are APHC, APEP, APHEX, and HP (a shotgun should be okay with anything, but shotguns aren't very good at firing solid projectiles, a shotgun firing slug is unimpressive compared to a similar size rifle).

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

Three tech levels worth of innovating manufacturers would have to give the cow away for free if they made their technology interchangeable with existing weapons or ammo.

Only if it's the same manufacturer for both. Cartridge design and warhead design are actually fairly separable processes.

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by Black Leviathan

It would be very weird for a low tech gun to be able to fire high tech rounds. Guns aren't just pipes for bullets, they're engineered very exactingly for their load. TL 10 military ammo in a TL 7 Gun is the equivalent of firing a Grenade Launcher grenade with a crossbow, not impossible, but iffy and difficult.

No it isn't. You're being disingenuous. It's more like firing a TL8 carbon-fiber shaft from a low-TL crossbow, which would work just fine. Try firing a TL8 grenade launcher round from a TL8 crossbow. That wouldn't work either. So that's all a sort of a specious argument based upon presuming different classes of weapons.

Projectiles made for similar chemically-propelled high-velocity rifled weapons will be similar no matter what the TL, really. Similar enough that modern TL8 ammunition is made for TL5 weaponry. (Saboted copper projectiles for muzzle-loading hunting season.) It's really not that much of a stretch. Granted, UT makes some broad generalizations about warheads. There really is no official way to differentiate a low-velocity smoothbore 25mm tangler round vs a high-velocity rifled 25mm autocannon round, at least as far as the warhead is concerned. So one must quite reasonably just assume that different versions exist, in which case one will almost certainly be appropriate for what the OP is trying to do.

Originally Posted by johndallman

What are you proposing to use that's ten times as dense as lead? Lead has a density of 11.3, and the densest material whose density we know for sure is Osmium at 22.6.

Neutronium warheads. Duh. :)

But, yeah, his argument is weak. He's talking about reducing caliber when the warheads are explicitly differentiated by caliber.