Silent Ammunition Questions

[Kax]

Originally Posted by HANS

No. These don't fire silent ammunition. They fire subsonic ammunition. Big difference.

The only difference is how much noise there is from the gas, and these are effectively silent gas-wise.

And this is usually still surprisingly loud. You can try that out yourself by dry-firing any gun at home. Also, the impact can also be remarkably loud.

The striker noise on an M16 is not too bad--the big thing is that it doesn't sound like a gun, so it can get away with a little volume.

Anything that claims to have an "assured-kill range" should be taken with an entire shaker of salt. And no, Jane's Infantry Weapons isn't reliable in this regard . . .

Cheers

HANS

I was deriving the "assured kill range" from the point at which it retained enough Joules to kill on a central torso shot. Janes doesn't call it that, the magazine does; I used Janes for the ballistic info.

[starslayer]

Ok, I am going to assume that silent in this case actually means 'no noise at all'- these weapons actually do exist, but are SUPER specific, normally the 'mouse-fart' type suppressed weapon will do just fine in 99% of applications.

This means things like-
The round MUST be subsonic (if it breaks the sound barrier, it makes a LOT of noise)
The round MUST have no tumble ballistics (it would make too much noise whipping through the air)
The weapon itself must prevent basically all escape of expanding gasses
The weapon itself must have all of its mechanism deadened (no click on the trigger, no noise from the hammer striking down, etc)
The weapon itself cannot make any sudden movements (the bolt cannot snap back, it has to move slowly, etc)

The end result is that a completely silent weapon has virutally no penetrating power due to the round not being ideal for delivering energy, and not having much energy to begin with. The weapon itself is very heavy due to all the extra baffling, and the recoil is terrible due to the slow movement mechanics inside, and the rate of fire will be very slow.

1- To my knowledge there are no SILENT automatic weapons, or weapons using any form of ammunition heavier then pistol rounds PERIOD for the above mentioned reasons.

2- Silent ammo is only perhaps 1/4 of the equation, smooth flying subsonic ammunition exists for basically every sort of weapon ( for use with silencers, indoors, varmint hunting, etc); it would probably be easier to just build a new silent weapon then to modify an existing one to be silent. Subsonic and supersonic ammunition are generally interchangeable, but it may be required to change the spring pressures for the two to encourage proper cycling of rounds (The spring would need to be replaced, but could be switched back, the spring is generally accessed during regular weapon maintenance) .

2a- Both basically impossible to make SILENT. Both can be equipped with a suppressor which will make it more quiet, but not silent.

side note: When Monster Hunters says silent; pretty sure they mean 'subsonic' (If you note it says that it it only provides a -5 to the monster hunters hearing check for that weapon see pg 61)

see:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_MP7

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BCzUvCRiBZs

Note that that M16 is still really damned loud (above a capgun), and it jams really easily (could potentially be fixed with a spring change, or perhaps not).

[HANS]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

1 - Are there real life Silent Ammunition PDWs, SMGs, Assault Rifles, or even MGs?

No.

Originally Posted by Kallatari

Can any ordinary weapon use Silent Ammo?

With the exception of shotguns and grenade launchers -- not really. The cartridge case has to be fairly long and straight. The round has to be relatively low-powered. All of this is less than useful in semiautomatic and especially full-automatic weapons.

In fact, this is why it says "Most require a specially designed weapom to fire them" in High-Tech. I put that in there for a reason . . . For the MP7A1 and M16-series? Forget it.

Cheers

HANS

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Kallatari

I'm curious as to what weapons can use Silent Ammunition (GURPS High-Tech, p.165). More specifically, my players are looking for options for Silent Ammunition for weapons like the M16 and MP7.

The immediate problem I see with those is that silent ammunition traps the gas. You know what makes the M16 and MP7 cycle?