[Ultra Tech] Increased Firearm Power with TL

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Or they use smaller calibers. How many people use .45 today?

Despite everyone below pointing out that .45 is still popular in the US today, I think Anthony is correct over large time scales - since the introduction of gunpowder, both personal weapons and battlefield weapons have generally shown a reduction in caliber and an increase in chamber pressure.

What percentage of hunters today hunt with musket-ball-sized ammunition? How many battlefield long-arms use musket-ball-sized ammunition?

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

What percentage of hunters today hunt with musket-ball-sized ammunition?

That would be the percentage of deer hunters using shotgun slugs.

This would be an example of how weapon and ammunition choices suffer artificial constraints.

[DemiBenson]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

That would be the percentage of deer hunters using shotgun slugs.

This would be an example of how weapon and ammunition choices suffer artificial constraints.

Ok, sure.
For battlefield use, I’ll bet it’s much, much less than the “100%” value that was true centuries ago.

[Varyon]

I feel we're getting rather far afield of the thread topic. Does the idea of +20% at TL 9, +30% at TL 10, +40% at TL 11, and +50% at TL 12 make sense (assuming the users can handle the increase in felt recoil - either by being strong enough or with appropriate recoil compensating technology)? Conversely, what about weapons that can only safely manage the +10% of standard +P - do my suggested weight reductions make sense, and what impact would this have on MinST?

Or maybe +20% is actually TL 8? I came across some mentions of +P+ 9mm when looking up the popularity of .45 ACP, but from a brief bit of searching there's no proper specification for it - rather, it just means "higher chamber pressure than +P." One test I came across showed 9mm +P+ having around 25% more muzzle energy than standard 9mm, but considering GURPS firearm damage generally scales with the square root of energy (Douglas Cole's spreadsheet divides by a factor related to projectile cross-sectional area here, but as that's constant when comparing 9mm to 9mm +P+, we can ignore that), that's only around a +12% boost to damage. Then again, some of what I came across for +P had only around a +10% boost to muzzle energy, which would be around +5% to damage. Is the +10% in HT more appropriate for something like +P+, but the authors opted to let that work for +P on account of +5% damage generally being beneath GURPS resolution (you need around 6d-1 before you get a full +1 to damage)? With that in mind, might it be more appropriate for TL 9 to be +15%, TL 10 to be +20%, TL 11 to be +25%, and TL 12 to be +30%?

[apoc527]

A few thoughts:

First, this is very much what the NGSW program was all about: the chamber pressure for what will become the M5 rifle (I think that's the name?) is rather high and the new ammo uses a steel-brass hybrid case in part for this purpose. I suppose you could call that the highest end of TL8 or early TL9 if you wanted.

Second, isn't this really what ETC is for? Or are you looking for something that's an interim value between TL9 standard rounds and ETC? Alternately, if ETC isn't realistic (I don't actually know the physics of it), then this idea could be a good alternative.

I think, however, that by TL10, you may be maxing out the usefulness of higher chamber pressures and should probably look at energy weapons or magnetic propulsion, no?

[Tinman]

Originally Posted by apoc527

I think, however, that by TL10, you may be maxing out the usefulness of higher chamber pressures and should probably look at energy weapons or magnetic propulsion, no?

Only problem is that the 4mm gauss guns are much weaker than ETC, ETK, & other chemical slug throwers. There needs to be more options for the TL10 gauss guns.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by apoc527

First, this is very much what the NGSW program was all about: the chamber pressure for what will become the M5 rifle (I think that's the name?) is rather high and the new ammo uses a steel-brass hybrid case in part for this purpose. I suppose you could call that the highest end of TL8 or early TL9 if you wanted.

Yeah, the fact some small arms are starting to get some rather impressive chamber pressures was part of the idea, here.

Originally Posted by apoc527

Second, isn't this really what ETC is for? Or are you looking for something that's an interim value between TL9 standard rounds and ETC? Alternately, if ETC isn't realistic (I don't actually know the physics of it), then this idea could be a good alternative.

ETC isn't available for small arms until TL 10, an ETC firearm is rather expensive, and I'm not certain ETC would work for a cased cartridge. Also, ETC isn't about having a higher peak chamber pressure, rather it's about maintaining peak pressure for longer - you could combine these options with ETC to have both a higher peak pressure and maintain it for longer. Of course, realistically ETC should probably increase MinST proportionally to the increase in damage, and from what little I understand of firearm design, I think semi-automatic and fully-automatic weapons may need a beefier bolt to deal with the increased recoil, but it's possible some sort of recoil-compensating tech is part of the increased cost for ETC.

Originally Posted by apoc527

I think, however, that by TL10, you may be maxing out the usefulness of higher chamber pressures and should probably look at energy weapons or magnetic propulsion, no?

That's part of my question here - is it appropriate to have the chamber pressure just keep going up, or would it peak out somewhere before +50% or so to damage?

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

http://knowledgeglue.com/what-are-th...ers-in-the-us/

......seems to have .44 Magnum as the 15th most popular caliber in the US with 1.4% of the market. With 2018 numbers of 8.1 billion rounds sold in the US that should come to over 100 million rounds sold in one year.

That probably counts as significant to the ammo makers. Even some of those calibers you want to count as "zero" are probably significant.

So the statistics you came up with are about firearm sales, not ammo sales, and it's risky to assume that those have the same proportions...

But also, the extended chart shows the first even 20th century loading larger than .44 magnum (which is somehow .50 BMG!) having sales less than a fifth of .44 magnum. The rounds you actually talked about start just above a tenth. Of the 1.4%. I'm comfortable calling that negligible use. (.50 BMG of course has plenty of military use, but I don't think that's what we're talking about here.)

(Also, why is "significant to ammo makers" a thing I'm supposed to care about?)

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That's part of my question here - is it appropriate to have the chamber pressure just keep going up, or would it peak out somewhere before +50% or so to damage?

Chamber pressure doesn't really get you straight up more damage, what it does is reduce the barrel length required for any given performance (it doesn't reduce any of the other requirements for higher performance).

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by DemiBenson

Ok, sure.
For battlefield use, I’ll bet it’s much, much less than the “100%” value that was true centuries ago.

Yes, but the tendency to look for smooth curves is part of the observer's biases. both barrel diameter and barrel length have gone down over that time frame but it has tended to do so in significant jumps followed by plateaus while everyone waited for new technology.

When you have intervals of 100 to 150 years between introduction of the .72 "Brown Bess" and c. 80 years from the introduction of the .30 smokeless powder rifles to their replacement with 5.56mm drawing a smooth curve is just wrong.

Now we've had 60 years of 5.56mm and the best chance for its' replacement is the new 6.8mm LMG round. Which you will note is not going in the "curve"s usual direction.