Ammo for Gauss Pistol

[Spinward Scout]

Hey Everybody!

I was wondering what everyone has come up with for ammunition types for a gauss pistol. I was watching XXX today and thought it would be cool to emulate some of the ammo that Xander's gun had. Not all of them would work with the pin sized ammo that a gauss gun would use, but these are the ones I came up with:

Standard
High-Density (heavy)
Thermal
Phosphor Flare
Explosive
Tracker
Sedative
EMP
Smoke
Tear Gas
Screamer

Say a button on the side of the gun would let you select which one you want and they would all be in a side magazine. Could anyone help me out with stats for these?

Later,

Scout

 

[kaladorn]

High-Density? Where is this an advantage?

KE = mv^2. v^2 is related to the acceleration down the barrel. As F=m/a, or stated another way, a = F/m, if we up the mass (density), we end up dropping the acceleration. Since that impacts in a squared fasion on the muzzle energy, why is this a good idea? Gauss pistol rounds want to go FAST. As fast as you can make them go and remain dynamically stable and not shiver when they hit the target.


Flare? You don't have enough cavity in a conventional 4mm round to hold any worthwhile amount of phosphor, I'd guess.

Explosive? Possible, but only at VERY high TL. (Possible + effective I mean)

Sedative? Sure. Tracker? (homing beacon) Sure.
EMP? Good luck. I can't see anything that small ever being able to generate the kind of EMP you'd need to effect the hardened electronics of the higher tech levels.

Smoke? From what? The ether? Converting air into smoke? We don't even have 12 gauge smoke! You need capacity for smoke making material.

Tear gas? Same problem.

Screamer? I assume *all* gauss rounds snap, hiss, and perhaps even scream through the air.


Now, nothing stops you making a 40mm gauss GL that can fire some of these. But it'll look like every other 40mm GL - not a small little gauss pistol.

 

[Spinward Scout]

I wasn't sure exactly what to do with the High-Density one. I was just looking for something that packs a little extra punch. Certain things react when they are exposed to water or other chemicals. I think tear gas pellets work like that. But you're right - it wouldn't be a lot. The screamer would be something with tiny nicks and grooves to make it sound louder or something. The EMP I was thinking with the higher tech levels could have some miniaturized battery or something. That was more along the Taser idea of knocking someone out with electricity more than electronics disruption. You could do some of this stuff like the ice guns - they shoot ice bullets. The sedative could melt/react when it struck the blood or something. Any other ideas?

Thanks for the ideas,

Scout

 

[vegascat]

High density rounds are effective in guns because what they are is sabot rounds with a subcaliber penetrator. The sabot is to increase the diameter of the projectile to catch the expansion gasses, then fall away after leaving the barrel. IN a gauss weapon, the only reason to use a sabot would be to carry a nonmagnetic projectile.
A Flare round of 4MM would burn for so short of a time as to be useless for other than giving away your position with a smoke trail to show exactly where your opponent should shoot for best effect.
Smoke and tear gas rounds woild also be so small as to be useless.
An explosive round of 4MM would be less effective than a 4MM solid projectile. The energy lost in mass for fuzing and converting mass into explosive would actually deliver less energy to the target than a solid iron projectile. The explosive delivered would be much less than a lady finger firecracker that will sting if it explosed against your bare skin.
A sedative or poison round could be quite usefull.
I could see a screamer round if the electronics could be made fitted into a 4MM. IT would use a tiny piezo electric speaker on the tail of the round emmiting a high frequency scream for a few minutes after firing, or as long as the tiny battery hold out. It would scream out its location to allow you to easily track the target. If the round hits something solid, ie. non flesh, it would shatter, sounding only on a hit on something soft like flesh.

 

[kaladorn]

Vegascat said:

An explosive round of 4MM would be less effective than a 4MM solid projectile. The energy lost in mass for fuzing and converting mass into explosive would actually deliver less energy to the target than a solid iron projectile. The explosive delivered would be much less than a lady finger firecracker that will sting if it explosed against your bare skin.

I reply:

That depends on a couple of things. Assumptions on energy are based off of current conventional explosive yields. This may fall far short of long term developments (or not, but at least you can use that as an out). Also, depending on the brissance of the compound, a good solid hit might set it off without any other fusing.

And I guess the taser-esque idea might work. Some sort of micro-sized charge reservoir could be embedded, giving you a taser effect. It might also be bad for BD equiped troopies or anyone with comms gear, etc. But it should require contact hits, rather than using EMP through air.

Also, I can see fragmenting flechettes as a viable ammo type, just useless against armour or shooting through cover.

 

[Aramond]

I can't believe that infamous 'Ice Bullet' has been mentioned. For those who don't know there is no way that any projectile could be fashioned of Ice or any other material that would leave no trace. This particular myth was actually tested on the Discovery channel show 'Mythbusters' and the results were clear, any frozen projectile is to fragile to survive the forces expeienced.

 

[far-trader]

Yeah, I liked the Mythbusters' try with a meat bullet in that episode. Gross but inventive.

Speaking of bullets that don't leave a trace, what about something of a self-destructive nature, like Sodium Metal (Natrium). Its hazard sheet warns:

DANGER! FLAMMABLE SOLID. CORROSIVE. WATER REACTIVE. CATCHES FIRE IF EXPOSED TO AIR. HARMFUL OR FATAL IF SWALLOWED. HARMFUL IF INHALED OR ABSORBED THROUGH SKIN. CONTACT MAY CAUSE BURNS TO ALL BODY TISSUE.

So could you make a bullet of this stuff, with a ceramic coating designed to fragment on pentration. Nasty injury and no way to trace it, if that's your requirement.

You just know some nut, government or other, has or will do something like this

 

[vutpakdi]

Originally posted by far-trader:
pentration. Nasty injury and no way to trace it, if that's your requirement.

Or, in the Traveller setting, just use a laser pistol.

Perhaps a new line of laser pistols with very limited capacity that are designed to look like other sorts of pistols?

Ron

 

[Straybow]

"no way to trace it" except the ceramic casing&#133

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Straybow:
"no way to trace it" except the ceramic casing&#133

Ture enough. I guess I was thinking of something that would fragment enough to be pretty useless forensically, but what with even today's technology using electron scanning microspcopy I guess there might be something to analyse unless it was only dust.