[Supers] A More Scientific Golden Age

[Prince Charon]

I was not expecting this to be ready for posting today, but it appears to be:

Experimental Space Guns

As governments and military personnel have realized the need to shoot other people in low-pressure environments down to hard vacuum, and in lower gravities or microgravity, so they have had to consider what weapons they will shoot with, and what weapons others will shoot at them. Naturally, many mad scientists are only too happy to step forward with their ideas. Thus, all space stations have firing ranges of some description, and these ranges are frequently in need of repair from use. The new designs are broadly split between conventional weapons and powered weapons, with most space powers being of the opinion that they'll decide between the best of both categories once more development has been done:

*Conventional weapons: These are guns that use chemical propellant to shoot a projectile at high speed (and all use some form of the Guns skill). This includes some modified 'normal' guns (with muzzle-brakes & other recoil-limiters), as well as unguided gyrocs (gyroscopic rockets), in both cases using graphite for lubrication. The large downsides of conventional weapons, especially those with normal cased ammunition, include ammo mass & volume, as well as debris from shells and clips, which can be a hazard in orbit.

The current front-runner in the BIS's conventional pistol competition is the Webley-Crowe, a four-shot gyroc revolver based on the Webley Mk VI, but scaled up (not only for the larger .753 Sterling Short Rocket round, but for hands in bulky space-suit gloves). The competition for a gyroc longarm is currently between the Lee-Enfield rocket musket No. 1, based on Rifle No. 4 and scaled up for .753 Sterling Long Rocket, and simply using a 10-bore Parker-Hale bolt-action shotgun with .753 Long Rockets in sabots (and in both cases, an enlarged bolt-handle, trigger, and trigger-guard). The USA and USSR have each decided that they will not use conventional longarms in space (conventional pistols are still being considered, as are conventional heavy weapons), once manufacture of powered weapons has been sufficiently established. Until then, they use graphite-lubricated versions of their standard weapons as stopgaps. The German government has made it clear that they are not interested in conventional space pistols, though they seem to be planning on using rocket-carbines (raketenkarabiner), and have ordered new weapons in three possible calibers, those being 17.6x36mm, 19x41mm, and 21.21x50.5mm. Other nations are still undecided at this time.


*Powered weapons: This category includes coilguns (magnetically-accelerated metallic projectile weapons), railguns (which use a slightly different action, but their metallic projectiles scrape the rails, making these very rare - if used at all, the rails are often part of the ammo-case or magazine), both of which use the Guns skill, and rayguns (masers, electron guns and other devices covered by the Beam Weapons skill; these are mostly reverse-engineered from Martian tech, thanks to gadgeteers, though there are also some weird ones with little or no Martian tech, most of which are large, and need to be vehicle-mounted in normal gravity). All tend use the same bulky (and quite expensive, which is a major downside of this type of weapon) post-Martian ultracapacitors, or sometimes weird Earth-tech (also usually expensive). Plasmoid blasters somewhat overlap between the two, being weapons that shoot magnetically-accelerated projectiles, but the projectiles are plasma, and the weapons have little or no felt recoil (Rcl 2 at worst; use Beam Weapons skill for Rcl 1, Guns skill for Rcl 2). While sonic weapons do fall under the same heading (and also use a Beam Weapons skill, usually Projector), the inability of sound to travel in a vacuum, and greatly reduced effectiveness at Mars's predicted atmospheric pressure, leave them out of the 'space gun' competition. Navies and police forces show rather more interest in the concept, and some experimental atomic submarine designs are armed with artillery-scale sonic weapons.

For BIS powered weapons, the nearest thing to standardization so far is that if a pistol-size weapon needs a power pak of equal or greater weight and/or volume to the rest of the weapon (as most do), the batteries and/or ultracapacitors will be belt-mounted and a sturdy cable of reasonable length may connect the gun to the belt; the USA, IJN, and Brazil use similar standards by 1938, with Brazil specifically exploring the idea of wrist-mounted heat rays, with the power cable being held by loops along the body and arm of the space suit, rather than hanging loose. The SS and IJA have loosely standardised on either helmet-mounted or body-mounted powered weapons for pistol sizes (small coilguns or railguns are always body-mounted, due to recoil, while rayguns may be helmet-mounted or body-mounted). The Soviets do not use pistol-size powered weapons at all, while the French and Italians have no standards.


Due to expected combat ranges, many space guns have some form of targeting scope. In nearly all cases, this will be either a long eye-relief scope mounted in the usual position atop the weapon (though higher than normal, due to ergonomic difficulties brought on by the necessary shape of space helmets), or a scope built into the helmet (in the latter case, this often means that the weapon is also part of the space helmet, or involves a bulky camera mounted on the weapon and a bulky video screen mounted on the helmet).


(See also Pizard's equipment page and Atomic Rocket's sidearms pages.)

*****

Weapon skill specializations

Both Beam Weapons skills and Guns skills have a few new specializations (optionally applicable to Crossbow).

Back-mounted: Any weapon worn as a backpack; most often fires over the shoulder or behind the head, and may be pointing along the length of the body. This sort of weapon, along with chest-mounted and shoulder-mounted, are collectively referred to as 'body-mounted.'

Chest-mounted: All weapons worn on the chest, generally designed so that the recoil, if any, is widely spread. Also covers weapons mounted on the abdomen.

Shoulder-mounted: All weapons worn on the shoulder (often similar to but lighter than Back-mounted or Chest-mounted weapons).

Headgear: Any weapon worn on the head, often built into a helmet.

Wrist-mounted: Any weapon that is strapped to the wrist when carried and used, rather than held in the hand.


Thoughts?