Boarding gun

[Uncle Bob]

Its really designed for busting locks, although it is fairly lethal. I compromised the LAG with the 10mm snub HE, then gave it carbine range DMs.

When it blows up on a person it will create a nasty looking crater but not a very deep one. And a shotgun causes really remarkable damage penetrating deep into the body. Deep wounds cause the real lethality, disrupting organs and severing major blood vessels or the spine. The FBI won't even consider a bullet that doesn't penetrate 12" in gel.

But the HE round to the ribcage will cause pneumothorax, a belly hit virtual evisceration, so 4D6 is appropriate.

 

[Todg]

What about fragmentations effects? If its performance is like the Argentine 12 gauge minigrenade, it will have at least a small bursting radius. The mini grenade is descrbed as being able to kill all the occupants of a sedan, for example.

 

[Uncle Bob]

I haven't got the rules handy, but the 4D6 is for a contact wound. I would assume adjascent characters (within 2m, say, or adjascent deck squares) could `suffer 2D6 damage.

I am not sure I would depend on even a heavy M26 hand grenade to kill everyone in a car. Unless the car was speeding.

 

[veltyen]

Corejob,

Have you got a handy reference for the minigrenade? It's a staple of Roleplaying, but I wasn't able to find any real world examples.

A pump action punt gun would also be an interesting idea.

Probably not a 50mm 3 metre long one though.

 

[Todg]

Sure. It's detailed in Swearengen's "World's fighting Shotguns."

I plan on putting detail up on my new web site devoted to combat shotguns once I get some extra time.

The round in question is know as the Explosive minigrenade (MGE-12/70) manufactured by the Federal arsenal in Argentina. It uses the standard Argentine military aluminum shotgun casing. The projectile is cyclindrical except for a slightly rounded ogive and wad-like cusion attached to the base. It is made from aluminum, and has a thin plastic bourrelet around th body.. An impact fuses is located in the base of th body of the projectile, and there is bore riding safety pin which prevents the round from detonating until it has left the barrel. The explosive used is designated as 40TH60, and the combined weight of projectil and explosive is right about 1 oz.

Performance is described as follows:

The round is capable of defeating 1 mm steel sheet, or typical automotive glass. it has an accurate range of 80 meters.

While I have not been able to find any phtographs of this round, WFS does have a detailed drawing.

The round is not well know outside of rather limited circles and definitely falls into the realm of firearms obscura.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
When it blows up on a person it will create a nasty looking crater but not a very deep one. And a shotgun causes really remarkable damage penetrating deep into the body. Deep wounds cause the real lethality, disrupting organs and severing major blood vessels or the spine. The FBI won't even consider a bullet that doesn't penetrate 12" in gel.

Bear in mind that the FBI is interested in weapons that put people down immediately, not weapons that cause them to die twelve hours later due to septic shock. Blowing a large shallow crater in someone might well kill them, it just won't kill them fast enough to make it impossible for them to kill you.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Unless, of course, that shallow crater is in their skull, Anthony. Of course, if you're that good a shot in a firefight, you can kill with a 22LR.

 

[mike wightman]

Well, according to the articles, the frag-12 comes in three versions:

HE - 1" hole in 1/4" rolled steel plate

HE-AP - high explosive armour piercing will penetrate 1/2" steel armour plate

HE-FA - high explosive fragmenting antipersonnel no further details

They may be capable of more than a large shallow crater.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Anthony:
Bear in mind that the FBI is interested in weapons that put people down immediately, not weapons that cause them to die twelve hours later due to septic shock. Blowing a large shallow crater in someone might well kill them, it just won't kill them fast enough to make it impossible for them to kill you.

Funny. As a role-player, that is what interests me, too. If the bad-guy dies a week after I roll-up a new character I receive small satifaction

I am not so sanguine about the effectiveness of the HE-Frag warhead. 25-40 mm grenades with a weight of 120-150 g pretty consistantly have casualty radii about 5 m. I don't see that an 18mm 30-40 g shell can have a casualty radius above 3m, probably less.

 

[Todg]

Bob, I agree. The argentine minigrenade mentions 'all the passengers in a car', which is something like 2 m, so three meters is probably about right. The small size of these grenades also means there won't be a lot of frament mass.

It should also be borne in mind that when most of those minigrenages, like the V40, mention 5 meters, that the radius for a 50% chance of casualty.

Fo those using deck plans, you can really only expect a shotgun HE round to effect the target, and someone in the next hex - and that's about it.

 

[parmasson]

Would the killing power and range change with TL?

 

[mike wightman]

Well in Striker/MT the penetration of RAM grenades increases with TL.

Oh, and in MT the LAG 20mm HE round has a danger space of 1.5m - 1 square.

[aside]Anyone else noticed that the RAM grenade lists in the MT PM appear to have got HE and HEAP confused?[/aside]

 

[Straybow]

Originally posted by Corejob:
I you like pretty doublegun, but want something suitable for close in work, ATF has a stolen Purdy best grade side by side that someone sawed the barrels off.

I guess the crminal didn't know he was ruining a $50,000+ shotgun.

Get a rope!

 

[shadowdragon]

thin merchant ship hull
HE shotgun round misses enemy boarder
travels down 6m passage
rips through swiss cheesed hull from the fleschette rounds
rapid decomp becomes explosive decomp
all boarders sucked out 1" dia hole in hull
Yeah Team!!!!!!! We WIN!!!!!!!!!!
*gasp - gurgle - wheeze*

IMO space ships and firearms do not mix, armored or not
thats why Weapon Proficiency (Swordsman) exists.

 

[Todg]

No one is going to get sucked out of a 1" hole. That's pure Hollywood.

 

[far-trader]

I'd also not be too worried about small arms rounds penetrating bulkheads, let alone hulls

Interior partition walls, that's another story

 

[Todg]

IIRC, it requires 100 points of damage to make a 1 meter hole in an interior wall - 1000 for a bulkhead or exterial wall (with armor factor 0). A rifle has an average of 10 or 11 points of damage per round, suggesting that interior walls aren't much good for cover against smallarms.

 

[Zutroi]

Originally posted by Corejob:
No one is going to get sucked out of a 1" hole. That's pure Hollywood.

I must concur here. I have, on numerous occasions, stopped the end of high-vacuum lines with my fingers. These were the 'business ends' of industrial high-vacuum pumps, the kind that will pull an ultimate vacuum of less than 1mm of mercury.

Strangely I've never once been sucked thru the hoses!

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by shadowdragon:
thin merchant ship hull
...

A common misconception. The 1000 pt hull has already been mentioned. Even the wimpiest traveller hull can stop solar storms and cosmic rays, which implies about 2-3 kg/cm2 of mass sheilding. That is about a meter of aluminum alloy. No wonder it takes a FGMP to breach it!

 

[shadowdragon]

was joking about the sucked out the hole bit

while it may take boucoup amounts for a 1 meter hole, i'm talking more about the weakening that a hull could recieve in a firefight and become breached. thin merchant hull when compared to military armored hulls is not a misconception. fully aware that we are not talking iss here. there are portholes, any damage to the hull from prior to the boarding action etc.....

lets go with a simple 1m x 1m hole in hull. 1000 pts damage to make one that big, okeedokee..
thats what, one point per cm^2 right?

small holes are a b**&* to find sometimes....

also known as GM scare the hell outta da player tool.