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Old 06-15-2019, 09:30 AM   #81
Fred Brackin
 
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by Rupert View Post

I'll note again - the G11 and its ammo had passed acceptance trials. It was considered ready for introduction to service. I'll also point out that the US had no problems with H&K's entry to their ACR trials when it come to reliability and safety, the issues were the same as with all the entrants - they couldn't meet the (probably intentionally) unrealistic hit chance requirements.
As a side note I would just add that after a couple od decades of intense small unit combat since the ACR trials the G-11 might not pass now for reloading ergonomics.

The reloading gate or whatever you want to call it is on the front of the gun. Unless you are a literal gorilla you almost certainly can not insert the new rounds without taking the gun off your shoulder.

Pretty much every other modern combat rifle/carbine can be reloaded with the gun still in firing position and even with the user advancing at a moderate walk.

The 2 Ready actions added to the drill would be where the reload time of (5) comes from in HT. For the fellow with the empty gun that's probably at least 2 seocnds too long.

Even the mags being 45 instead of 30 rounds doesn't help that much. Even with the 2 mags stored next to the one in use on the gun still leaves with fewer ready rounds than the 7 mags listed in Tactical Shooting for the modern US Army Ranger (with the note that more are sometimes carried).
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Old 06-15-2019, 10:53 AM   #82
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Pretty much every other modern combat rifle/carbine can be reloaded with the gun still in firing position and even with the user advancing at a moderate walk.
Have P90 users mentioned this as a major issue? It should see a similar problem.

BTW, reloading a Steyr AUG while holding the rifle ready isn't that easy, either. Bullpups have some issues, there.
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Old 06-15-2019, 01:14 PM   #83
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Have P90 users mentioned this as a major issue? It should see a similar problem.
It would be my estimation that an average male would have arms long to avoid such a problem. We're talking about a bullpup with a 10 inch barrel.
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Old 06-15-2019, 04:14 PM   #84
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I think 4e borked up the TLs a bit by moving the beginning of TL8 back to 1980. It's kind of a funny choice (though understandable, given the zeitgeist of the early 2000's) to set the beginning point for TL8, which was considered the "cyberpunk future" TL back in 3e, to a date before the publication of Man-to-Man. We're certainly in a different TL now than we were back then, but I don't think the world of 1980 was in a different TL than the world of 1950. My adjusted TLs timeline would put the beginning of TL8 around the time of Y2K and the dot-com bubble. Alternatively, it could be put at the time of the publication of GURPS 4e! That would preserve backwards-compatibility between 3e and 4e such that no technology that 3e classes as TL7 would be classed by 4e as TL8 -- though there might be plenty of technology classed as TL8 by 3e that 4e would need to class as TL9 or above -- or, alternatively, as TL7+1. Continuing this idea, I think it would be more appropriate to call the TL9 described in 4e TL8+1!
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Old 06-15-2019, 04:23 PM   #85
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I'd probably go with 1990 and call it the networked age or something.
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Old 06-16-2019, 06:03 AM   #86
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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Originally Posted by VIVIT View Post
I think 4e borked up the TLs a bit by moving the beginning of TL8 back to 1980. It's kind of a funny choice (though understandable, given the zeitgeist of the early 2000's) to set the beginning point for TL8, which was considered the "cyberpunk future" TL back in 3e, to a date before the publication of Man-to-Man. We're certainly in a different TL now than we were back then, but I don't think the world of 1980 was in a different TL than the world of 1950. My adjusted TLs timeline would put the beginning of TL8 around the time of Y2K and the dot-com bubble. Alternatively, it could be put at the time of the publication of GURPS 4e! That would preserve backwards-compatibility between 3e and 4e such that no technology that 3e classes as TL7 would be classed by 4e as TL8 -- though there might be plenty of technology classed as TL8 by 3e that 4e would need to class as TL9 or above -- or, alternatively, as TL7+1. Continuing this idea, I think it would be more appropriate to call the TL9 described in 4e TL8+1!
With the clarification on how TLs progressed and refinements that didn't exist in 3e (Borderline technology, Split technology, Borrowed (familiar) technology, and superscience) and the facts good hunks of that 3e called TL8 already existed when Man to Man came out in 1985 meant pushing back the TL made perfect sense:

* Slower-than-light space travel (Spaceships) - Gemini and Apollo programs (1960s), spaceshuttle (1981)
* implants - internal pacemaker (1958)
* cloning - first animal clone (1885)
* Bionics - velcro (1941)

Sean Punch even wrote a piece regarding the change that he summed up as "Tech level 8 did not really happen quite the way we thought it would".

More over the TL scale before 4e was heavily influenced by Traveler which put TL8 (Digital Age) as starting roughly 2000 even though anyone actually paying attention would have realized the digital age had actually started in the late 1970s.

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Old 06-16-2019, 01:17 PM   #87
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

If I was re-evaluating TLs for a hypothetical 5e, I'd split the difference between 3e and 4e and put the dividing line around 1990, about the time when the Digital Age was truly taking off.

Actually, the key year would be 1992: That year the Internet was released from DARPA control and handed to the private sector, increasing the number of MacOS and Windows - rather than Unix - computers connected to it. That was also when the WWW itself came into being, and the browser wars between Netscape (forerunner of Firefox) and Microsoft Internet Explorer started. Prior to this BBSes and services such as AOL and Compuserve ruled the corporate sector, but after '92 many ISPs, generally in combination with local phone and cable companies, started offering Internet connectivity directly.

(I remember where I lived, the phone company, cable company, ISP, and local newspaper were all owned by the same parent company.)
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Old 06-16-2019, 04:03 PM   #88
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(I remember where I lived, the phone company, cable company, ISP, and local newspaper were all owned by the same parent company.)
Well, that narrows it down to the USA.
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Old 06-16-2019, 05:30 PM   #89
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Default Re: Approaching TL9?

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If I was re-evaluating TLs for a hypothetical 5e, I'd split the difference between 3e and 4e and put the dividing line around 1990, about the time when the Digital Age was truly taking off.

Actually, the key year would be 1992: That year the Internet was released from DARPA control and handed to the private sector, increasing the number of MacOS and Windows - rather than Unix - computers connected to it. That was also when the WWW itself came into being, and the browser wars between Netscape (forerunner of Firefox) and Microsoft Internet Explorer started. Prior to this BBSes and services such as AOL and Compuserve ruled the corporate sector, but after '92 many ISPs, generally in combination with local phone and cable companies, started offering Internet connectivity directly.
The internet did give the digital age a shot in the arm but the Digital Age was already very much around before the 1990s. Home computers and consoles were all over the place by the mid 1980s with the console market getting a swift bunch to the gut with the Video game crash of 1983 and even with limited distribution (brick and mortar stores and BBSes) software was reasonably available.

Pocket calculators had been around since the 1970s with improvements making them totally affordable from 1976 on. Heck, the HP-12C from 1981 is still being made today.
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Old 06-16-2019, 05:41 PM   #90
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Pocket calculators had been around since the 1970s with improvements making them totally affordable from 1976 on. Heck, the HP-12C from 1981 is still being made today.
When I was in Six Grade Pocket Calculators were being advertised in Popular Science Magazine for 600 dollars. I saw a better calculator for 3.50 in Dollar General. The cheap calculator had a memory that could store ten different numbers, sign, cosign, tangent, cotagent, and keys that let you choose what power or root you wanted.
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