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02-08-2020, 07:24 PM | #21 |
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: Berkeley, CA
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
Depends a bit on the threat environment. Police tend to be worried about pistols and knives, so a level IIIa with stab protection is plenty. Military tends to be worried about being shot with a rifle.
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02-08-2020, 10:18 PM | #22 |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
For armor, one thing to consider is if you want to go with a similar modular paradigm to what is found in many science fiction stories. This is where armor consists of a bodysuit that gives moderate protection while being sufficiently thin and comfortable for everyday use, and there are bulkier, clamshell-esque plates that can be worn over that for improved protection against more serious threats.
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02-08-2020, 11:24 PM | #23 |
Join Date: Aug 2014
Location: Snoopy's basement
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
Random thoughts-
a-As long as resources of almost any kind (cost of inputs, cost of transport, carrying capacity, etc.) are constrained, innovation and technological improvement will create a trend toward smaller and lighter weaponry. "Noise" in the trend will be caused by changes in the usage landscape (disruptive technologies, laws, wars, social change). b-characteristics, needs, frailties, and other preferences of end users and purchasers will continue to drive design choices and advancing technology will permit more scope to address these items. (To adapt an earlier comparison -- the recoil pad on a modern weapon is better than the butt plate on a 1550 wheel lock.) Targeting and other performance aids, safety features, monitoring and measuring systems, and comfort improvements (including emotional/psychological) will continue to be areas on innovation. c-technological progress in design itself will continue, though possibly there may be little room for major improvement. (One design development that is probably going to continue is seen in the modern AR platform -- modularity (and attendant customization for task or tastes). Should energy weapons become common it would not surprise me if they come to market looking a lot like an AR, with a core 'kill package' on a platform that also mounts accoutrements.) Another design direction that may emerge/continue is for the weapon to integrate or be integrated with other functions or equipment that fit with it's position in an overall loadout, similar to how a smart phone doesn't NEED to have GPS, but since it can, it does. d-I would expect to observe some divergence between civilian weapons and those found in an organizational/military context as civilian purposes and environments will not change as radically. |
02-08-2020, 11:36 PM | #24 |
Join Date: Mar 2008
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
They can be but I'd expect police to be lighter and less coverage. Different threat level and different psychological level. Convince the population that they police are scared and it raises the threat to the police because they need to respond more often with force and they get less cooperation.
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02-09-2020, 12:09 AM | #25 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
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The infantry, on the other hand, will have lighter body armour, accepting that stopping full powered rifle rounds costs too much, but will have limb armour sufficient to stop fragments from grenades, mortars, etc., because they can be stopped practically completely with relatively light armour, and cause a huge portion of the casualties unarmoured infantry take.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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02-09-2020, 07:29 AM | #26 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
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At the least this level of armor should become affordable after a "cheap" modifier is applied. A "cheap" and possibly an "expensive" modifier would seem to be good ideas generally.
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02-09-2020, 09:41 AM | #27 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
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Looking at UT, it has four armour weights: Heavy, Normal, Light, and Diaphanous, the latter for armour so thin and light it doesn't look like armour at all, rather than being able to be disguised as non-armour. For guns, if there's a continuum of size, 'light', 'medium', 'heavy', etc. some or all of them would probably use different ammo, such as 'light pistol ammo', until the point were they just use power cells. There would be space for a further option, 'powerful' or 'magnum' that either used ammo one step bigger for increased performance and smaller ammo capacity or used a 'magnum' round of similar size (longer, but not fatter, so it doesn't affect capacity), but costing more and having a small weight increase. By the way, Traveller 5 has a gun (and about everything else) description system that works rather like this. At least I think it does, as my read-through of it mostly made my head hurt.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
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02-09-2020, 11:38 AM | #28 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
In UT, the difference for rifles is 5.7mm CL, 7mm CL, 10mm CL, 10mm CLR, and 15mm CL. CLR is a more powerful version of CL, with 50% more weight and cost, and more damage and range (+2d damage and +600/2,700 range), so it should be possible to make CLR versions of 5.7mm, 7mm, and 15mm. For example, a 15mm CLR should weight 0.6 lbs, cost $6.6, deal 17d pi++, and have a range of 2,600/12,700 (the CLR versions of the weapons would be +25% weight and +50% cost). The 5.7mm would be light, 7mm would be medium, 10mm heavy, and 15mm extra-heavy (CLR versions would be extra-powerful versions of each).
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02-09-2020, 11:47 AM | #29 | |
Join Date: May 2005
Location: Oz
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Re: [Ultra-Tech] ergonomic paradigms for sidearms, smallarms, and body armour
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Tags |
body armour, concealability, ergonomics, sidearms, ultra-tech |
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