Quote:
Originally Posted by RyanW
Fixing the problems with guns in vacuum mostly come down to creating vacuum tolerant lubricants.
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Oh no. The big problem isn't surfaces and lubricanrts for them it's waste heat.
Modern listings seldom specify if a machine gun is water-cooled or air-cooled any more due to the scarcity of water-cooled guns. But "no air" means "no cooling". If you start hauling water to cool your guns this is a serious multiplier on ammo weight.
There's also a secondary issue with the muzzle gasses. In air these mix with the atmosphere quickly but no atmosphere means the gasses go downrange until they hit something. Your gun is already going to be a big hot spot on IR but even if you can stealth that there's nothing to do about those muzzle gasses. From an overhead view they're going to point straight back towards your gun.