Weapon Purpose

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by vicky_molokh

Still, if the minority is significant enough to be, well, significant ('many'), surely that is a sign of something?

As noted earlier, it is a sign of the fact that during the Vietnam era, military carbines in assault rifle calibers were still in development and were both very rare and hard to obtain and often less reliable and harder to maintain than modern examples.

A shotgun is a fine weapon versus unarmoured opponents at very short range. It beats all pistols I'm aware of for that role and is at least equal to most SMGs.

It is, however, outclassed by a TL8 military carbine.

[Kromm]

A shotgun's main benefit as a weapon for a point man is the same as a full-automatic or burst-fire weapon's main benefit in that context: Better odds of a hit when fired from the hip/on the run, because if you chuck enough at your target, you'll hit with something. This is useful when an enemy pops up right there and it's shoot-or-be-shot time. Full-auto is always better for this (harder hits, better penetration, lighter ammo, etc.), but as others have said many times, a full-auto weapon is relatively complex next to a shotgun, making it less reliable in jungle and swamp. When and where reliable full-auto weapons, or any full-auto weapons, were unavailable, people carried shotguns. This is an issue of procurement and maintenance, and not reflected especially well in "combat stats."

The subsidiary issue, often overlooked, is that many people enter military life with significant civilian experience with shotguns. In RPG terms, they have a higher skill level with them. Hitting with a crummy gun is better than missing with an expensive one. In a unit that extends unusually broad leeway to its members to select their weapons and equip themselves, a certain percentage will go with the gun they find most comfortable. This is an issue of training and TO&E liberality, and not reflected well in "combat stats," either.

I've gone into this lots in GURPS discussions before: Many, even most of the reasons why a firearm sees service have little to do with anything that players could see rated in game stats. The deciding factors are usually a witch's brew of availability (manufacturing capacity, materials scarcity, embargos, treaties, etc.), fashion (cultural tradition, manliness, and even basic good looks), logistics (cost and weight of ammo, parts, tools, etc. at a specific place and time), theory (what some general or engineer thinks will work, or what seems to work in lab tests), and plain old mythology. Actual damage, range, etc. are often a distant eighth place or something. As far as I can tell, shotguns fall into this category.

[Anthony]

It may also be worth pointing out that real-world damage is way more random than RPG damage, and that very few people in the real world have shot enough other people to get a firm intuitive sense about which weapon actually has a higher chance of getting a successful stop (in fact, statistical evidence on stopping power of weapons in general is pretty bad). At close range, an unarmored target hit with either a 12 gauge shotgun or a rifle is probably going to go down, so the difference doesn't matter too much.

[Johnny Angel]

On shotguns: It's also worth mentioning that the shotgun is a very flexible tool. The wide variety of rounds which you can carry for a shotgun is a nice feature. In my experiences, the military has access to ammo which most people don't typically see.

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angel

On shotguns: It's also worth mentioning that the shotgun is a very flexible tool. The wide variety of rounds which you can carry for a shotgun is a nice feature. In my experiences, the military has access to ammo which most people don't typically see.

Mostly less-lethal stuff, which is a very good use for it, especially for police action. The frangible loads and such for breaching locks are great when you need to make entry right now. Much of the specialty non-less-lethal ammo that you see every now and then (Like the Frag-12 or Dragon's Breath) are rather more of a novelty, though...

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Shotgun slugs are basically deployed for door-breaching when you don't have the appropriate personnel to use a demo-kit, IME. When I was deployed the shotguns never left the armory, in fact.

Depends on the mission parameters, the platoons I had as my action arms always carried one combat shotgun for breaching purposes.

When going in for an arrest the procedure is to breach doors without knocking, just in case an IED is on the door, or doorbell, besides, you want to get people quickly, not give them a chance to run out the roof.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

When going in for an arrest the procedure is to breach doors without knocking, just in case an IED is on the door, or doorbell, besides, you want to get people quickly, not give them a chance to run out the roof.

We had a demo-kit per section.

[Ze'Manel Cunha]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

We had a demo-kit per section.

Yep, they also used those, they'd put the demo in place, use the shotgun, then set off the charges, one two.

Personally I think they were just shooting the shotgun for the fun of it, since the charges were what popped open the doors anyway, but Joes will have their fun.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Ze'Manel Cunha

Personally I think they were just shooting the shotgun for the fun of it, since the charges were what popped open the doors anyway, but Joes will have their fun.

Related to an important point: a shotgun has a large, impressive barrel opening (three times the size of a .223) and produces a loud noise and big flash when it fires (since shotgun pellets don't seal the barrel anywhere near as well as a bullet; poking around at reloading information, the actual powder charge is generally smaller than the charge in a .223). This gives it a significant aesthetic benefit.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Related to an important point: a shotgun has a large, impressive barrel opening (three times the size of a .223) and produces a loud noise and big flash when it fires (since shotgun pellets don't seal the barrel anywhere near as well as a bullet; poking around at reloading information, the actual powder charge is generally smaller than the charge in a .223). This gives it a significant aesthetic benefit.

Intimidation factor seems to be entirely cultural, though. Iraqis (for example) are more afraid of pistols than they are long arms and they basically ignore crew served weapons entirely. Americans I think are almost the opposite (at least I am, point an M2 at me and you've got my attention!).