Ultratech Intermediate Rounds?

[Tallor]

Ultratech has the 7mm and the mighty 10mm rifle bullet, but both of these have a little too much punch for civilian duty (or assault rifles, which do a bit less damage for higher RoF).

Instead of just houseruling that ALL the 5.7mm guns do Piercing damage instead of Small Piercing, I'd like to have a "5.56mm equivalent" set of guns for Ultratech--ones that model the NATO round in its assault rifle and Light LMG uses in weight and performance.

Now oddly enough, the Ultratech 7mm rifle bullet is nearly identical to the 5.56x45mm round, with slightly higher damage (perhaps better propellant)?

But if 7 is the new 5.56, then that leaves the big 10mm as the new full-size rifle round, and the 10mm-R as the super deluxe rifle round, like a .338 lapua.

Maybe I'm rambling. I can sum up by saying... why are ultratech bullets thicker than their equivalent counterparts? And are my assumptions about ultratech bullets being equivalent to hightech bullets correct?

What do you think?

[hal]

Originally Posted by Tallor

Ultratech has the 7mm and the mighty 10mm rifle bullet, but both of these have a little too much punch for civilian duty (or assault rifles, which do a bit less damage for higher RoF).

Instead of just houseruling that ALL the 5.7mm guns do Piercing damage instead of Small Piercing, I'd like to have a "5.56mm equivalent" set of guns for Ultratech--ones that model the NATO round in its assault rifle and Light LMG uses in weight and performance.

Now oddly enough, the Ultratech 7mm rifle bullet is nearly identical to the 5.56x45mm round, with slightly higher damage (perhaps better propellant)?

But if 7 is the new 5.56, then that leaves the big 10mm as the new full-size rifle round, and the 10mm-R as the super deluxe rifle round, like a .338 lapua.

Maybe I'm rambling. I can sum up by saying... why are ultratech bullets thicker than their equivalent counterparts? And are my assumptions about ultratech bullets being equivalent to hightech bullets correct?

What do you think?

Based upon what you're saying above, I'm not certain that you're looking at the stats for Ultratech weapons and comparing them against High Tech weapon stats to see which is more deadly.

7mm gauss weapon round does on average, abou 40 points of damage. It reduces the effective armor value of any armor it strikes to 1/3rd its normal effectiveness.

Contrasting that against a 5.56mm round fired from an M16A1, doing a respectable 5d6 damage, we're looking at about 18 points of damage on average. Striking a target wearing armor that is DR 20 for instance, will usually stop the rifle round from damaging its target. 40 points against that same DR 20, would inflict 40-20/3 or roughly 33 points of damage to the target.

So I'm not certain what is going through your mind when you make the above statement you made. Probably needs clarification. ;)

[The_Ryujin]

The 7mmCL round is based on the idea of intermediary rounds like the 6.5mm Grendal and the 6.8mm Remington SPC which have greater "stoping power" then the 5.56 but are more controlable then the 7.62mm.

In a future with Reflex ballistic vests and titanium nanocompsite body armor the modern day 5.56 just wouldn't cut it.

[weby]

Basically a round is chosen for many reasons some rational some not...

On the rational side of thinking you want to consider the target type, like if they are armored or not. In the default UT the assumption seems to be that most likely for military uses the targets will be armored so you want to take that into account.

A 5.7 firing AP rounds is not any worse for being pi- as even pi type gets reduced to pi-

As for house ruling the 5.7 to being pi, there is really no need as a +P round or LP Boosted velocity or ETC such goes into the pi territory. (With the same type real limitation as current 5.56 carbines that really they are only fast enough for pi for a short distance and should be considered pi- at longer ranges...)

As for 7mm being the carbine round, yes the Assault Carbine works in many ways like a current carbine, and there is no specific reason for it being larger than current military rounds...

But the 10mm Storm Carbine actually gets couple of extra benefits for being large bore like the redction of damage type is only from pi+ to pi when firing AP ammo. There are also several types of special rounds than can be fired from 10mm weapons but not smaller, everything from Biochemical Aerosols to Jammers. Further at higher TLs things like homing round comes at earlier TLs.

Thus the empire in my scifi setting(TL 10 on edge of TL 11) as example uses 10mm ETC carbines as the main infantry weapon as the weapon is still light, but can fire homing shots if needed and can fire things like HEMP. There has been a try for several decades to go to elmag guns including some field trials but so far the versatility of the old(service introduction over a century ago) 10mm has kept it in service. "Where is my homing HEMP round?" - Gunnery Sergeant Ascroft of the 347th colonial infantry regiment when trialing gaus weapons.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by weby

...
Thus the empire in my scifi setting(TL 10 on edge of TL 11) as example uses 10mm ETC carbines as the main infantry weapon as the weapon is still light, but can fire homing shots if needed and can fire things like HEMP. There has been a try for several decades to go to elmag guns including some field trials but so far the versatility of the old(service introduction over a century ago) 10mm has kept it in service. "Where is my homing HEMP round?" - Gunnery Sergeant Ascroft of the 347th colonial infantry regiment when trialing gaus weapons.

I thought homing was limited to 15mm gyroc rounds..? o:

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Tallor

I thought homing was limited to 15mm gyroc rounds..? o:

...No, UT146 is quite clear on the fact that guns can fire them and the calibers required by TL. TL10 allows 10mm IR homing rounds.

Aside, if there's any reason for the gyroc micromissiles costing 10 times as much when applying homing capability should only be 4x cost, I don't think I've ever seen an explanation.

[Tallor]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...No, UT146 is quite clear on the fact that guns can fire them and the calibers required by TL. TL10 allows 10mm IR homing rounds.

Neato! I imagine that would combine well with 25- or 40mm grenades. Indirect-fire homing grenades!

PS. What about electrothermal guns with APFSDS rounds? o:

[Ulzgoroth]

May also be worth mentioning that Pyramid 3-37 adds a 5.7mmCL rifle that is more a combat rifle than a shoulder-fired minigun. (Though the article it's in contributes more in bulking out the heavier ordinance than small arms, I'd say.)

[weby]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Aside, if there's any reason for the gyroc micromissiles costing 10 times as much when applying homing capability should only be 4x cost, I don't think I've ever seen an explanation.

They were $50 in the first version of UT. The special price was removed in the new version and it just uses the normal costs for homing weapons.

Originally Posted by Tallor

Neato! I imagine that would combine well with 25- or 40mm grenades. Indirect-fire homing grenades!

The basic homing weapons in UT are "stupid" and will need a lock on and will have a direct flight path.

For more complex weapons you need a robot weapon like the example weapons in ut.

PS. What about electrothermal guns with APFSDS rounds? o:

The empire has started to supply most of their troops with about one magazine of APHD for the 10mm ETC carbines. That thing is kind of nasty in how well it penetrates armor, the average penetration of 184 points penetrates even the heavy battlesuit chest armor and mostly ignores any lighter armors.

(And the fact that it will also penetrate the dreadnaught battlesuit chest armor the empire has in testing 1/3 of the time has sent the dreadnaught battlesuit project back to the drawing board and the only deployment of new armor is in the form of the improved light power armors.)

[Varyon]

The 7mmCL round weighs the same as a 5.56x45mm. This isn't due to any similarity in design - in fact, it's because the former is caseless, meaning its weight is almost 100% propellant and bullet, while the latter has a significant weight fraction eaten up by brass. The 7mmCL round does more damage because it has more propellant pushing a larger bullet, it just happens to weigh the same because there's no brass casing to account for. A 5.56x45mmCL round would have more-or-less the same statistics as its cased variant, but would weigh 93 grains less, dropping WPS from 0.027 to 0.014. Note here I'm assuming the caseless propellant has the same weight as the normal propellant did - this may not be the case! The 7mmCL round seems most similar to the 7x57mm Mauser (which typically gets 6d+2, but is fired out of much longer barrels), and like my calculated 5.56x45mmCL dropped half its weight by discarding the case, so it doesn't seem outlandish that making a caseless equivalent to a modern round would simply halve the WPS.