Boarding less lethal weapon/device

[Icosahedron]

YTU:

"Captain of the PugUgly, you will heave-to and shut down your drives to prepare for boarding. Turn off all Sensors and muster your crew in the Hold. Any deviance from these instructions will result in severe penalties. Do you understand?"

MTU:
"Captain of the PugUgly, welcome to Arglebargle 4. Please prepare for a routine customs inspection. As always, we will endeavour to make this process as expeditious as possible. If you have passports and manifests available on our arrival we can have you on your way within 30 minutes. If you have anything to declare please bring it to the attention of one of our inspectors. Have a pleasant onward journey and we hope you will enjoy your stay.

I can see why your inspectors might need weapons - hopefully you can see why mine don't.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

An armed Inspector is a polite Inspector.

I figure most ports are going to use both methods. Roadhouse kids. Say what you want about it, but you can not lie it has the ultimate in first responder ethic.

"Be nice. Always be nice. Until it's time to not be nice."

Yep, I heard a variation of this from a former MP then EMT long before I heard it in the movie. So my SPA Customs Inspectors are very polite and come backed with some arms just in case polite ins't working.

Obviously this is mostly in the main ports. Them Class Cs might have a looser approach. Every port is different, that's why we read the Library Data as well as the Charts. Oh, and check for Rumors before we leave for the destination.

 

[Spinward Scout]

NASA has such maneuver tools as you describe, Spinward Scout...

Very cool!

 

[McPerth]

At high tech levels, personal disintegrator with a stun setting (Star Trek phaser, lower tech version would be a Star Wars blaster with same setting).

In MT there are the neural weapons, but they are TL 16...

If you hit someone in anything but Vacc Suits, Cmbt Environment, Combat,Battle Dress its a 3D6 roll against END or less or the character is out for 10 minutes. At level 2 its a 4D6 roll and be effective against vacc suits and Combat Environment suits, at level 3 its a 5D6 roll and works on Combat Armor (but not Battle Dress). The rolls are still 3D6 against End or less when the levels are used against the appropriate armor - so at level 3 you still make a 3D6 roll against End< for knocking the target out...the higher dice rolls are for unarmored targets and useful against large animals.

(emphasis is mine)

I guess most ship crews in a situation that may lead to a boarding (except for custom inspections) will be (at least) in vacc suits, as the probability there has been combat before is (IMHO) quite hard.

I wonder how can any baton affect someone with a vacc suit taht will act against any punch as a neupatic pillow.

 

[Blue Ghost]

With recent developments in "e-weapons" it may be time to reconsider the TL.

 

[Carlobrand]

Carlo:
If you can take a ship without killing the defenders, you can then interrogate said defenders.

True, except that in a military context, those defenders are, at the minimum, likely to be vacc-suited against possible hull breaches. That makes gases, peppers and other irritants ineffective. Vacc suits tend to have at least enough resistance to block tranq shots, so that's not very effective either. The slipperies and stickies are an interesting option, unless they turn off the grav plates, in which case it will have some inconvenience effect but not as much - and it'll either work on both them and you, or they're likely to have access to the same counters you have. And, while you're trying to do nonlethal, they're trying to kill you.

I'd only try that if I'd secured the ship and had a bunch of high-value officers in officer-country that I wanted really badly. Or maybe if I had knowledge there was an admiral or someone of similar value to be had. Risking the capture of the ship itself, and any papers or personal electronics that might have useful intelligence, to capture lower ranks - recalling that the nuke is the best way for the defender to destroy all such intelligence and that your top priority is to stop the big boomie - doesn't sound like a good investment.

 

[aramis]

IMTU, the average Inspection Boarding Team is all in CA12 or better, and is quite polite - unless resistence is shown.

A typical CIBT is 1 officer, 1 engineering rating, 1 life support rating, 1 medical/public health rating, and 8 troops (NI, Mar, Pol-SWAT, as appropriate). Weapons on the ratings will be auto-snubs. On the troops, usually Gauss Rifles or ACRs, with UBGL's with beanbag and/or flashbang rounds.

Each inspector has 1 combatant with, and 4 stay at the entry point until called for.

 

[sabredog]

True, except that in a military context, those defenders are, at the minimum, likely to be vacc-suited against possible hull breaches. That makes gases, peppers and other irritants ineffective. Vacc suits tend to have at least enough resistance to block tranq shots, so that's not very effective either. The slipperies and stickies are an interesting option, unless they turn off the grav plates, in which case it will have some inconvenience effect but not as much - and it'll either work on both them and you, or they're likely to have access to the same counters you have. And, while you're trying to do nonlethal, they're trying to kill you.

In law enforcement we always had lethal ready at the same time as less-lethal - so behind the shield or other cover we had guys with guns ready to fire if the TASER didn't work or things escalated. And taking (or at least trying to) the bad guys alive is what being a cop is about now or in the future. Unless I guess in the Klingon Empire.

So in a boarding action if you want prisoners and/or are customs inspectors or other LEOs then you need more tools in your belt. Nothing says you can't have the shotguns out when deploying the 40mm gel-bag launcher. Its not a question of technology - its merely about tactics.

The tech will be there until we have the Mad Max mean and nastiverse where we all carry submachineguns, but until then there will be actually a greater need for less-lethal is only because it can be more effective in deterrence than just shooting everyone in sight. Makes the populace less likely to rise up against you and start shooting cops on sight.

 

[sabredog]

As for techonolgy - what about a spray gun that deploys an adhesive foam in a manner similar to the industrial-sized OC foam "extinguishers" we have in prisons and jails? The foam deployed could have a polymer glue that, if nothing else, gums up the target's limbs and slows him down so he can't get away or fight back. You could add an irritant for extra measure or punch up the adhesion and weight of the polymer to drag the threat down to the floor.

I think - tactically speaking - if we are talking about boarding a ship one of the counter-tactics (for smart experienced threats) will be shutting off the gravity. It is SOP IMTU for the military anyway when entering combat and so, LEO personnel (like customs agents) and rescue teams in tow ships are required to have zero-grav training just in case the target has shut off or lost gravity.

So anything that hits the target bobbing around or depending on balance in that environment, clings to them and makes it harder to move is going to have as much of an effect sometimes as stunning them. It would add some negative DM's to the zero-grav roll required for the threat to shoot back or even move effectively. Then something deploying high-carbon fiber netting could round them up.

So deploy glue-guns, gel-bag throwers, and followed up with a net gun....keep a couple of guys stacked with you with snub guns and/or worse and you'd have a boarding team ready to bag/glue/net the threats and also kill them if they don't comply.

 

[DangerousThing]

I think that the standard amount of friendliness shown to a given ship depends on how familiar the ship is to the customs inspectors. If they personally know the ship and captain, then it might be as friendly a boarding as possible. If can identify the ship through their records and it's been through this system many times without problems, then there might be a bit more watchfulness and preparation.

And if the ship is completely unknown, then perhaps break out the powered armor and such.

As for a military boarding, I like to think that even the Imperial Navy would have some search and rescue ships or crews to help out the trapped personel on both sides. Though first I assume they'd try to open communication and tell all who can hear to abandon ship if possible, and otherwise get to a common area so they can be transported safely.

I do see a potential problem if the officers have been killed off, it might not be possible for the ship to surrender as a unit.

 

[aramis]

I think that the standard amount of friendliness shown to a given ship depends on how familiar the ship is to the customs inspectors. If they personally know the ship and captain, then it might be as friendly a boarding as possible. If can identify the ship through their records and it's been through this system many times without problems, then there might be a bit more watchfulness and preparation.

And if the ship is completely unknown, then perhaps break out the powered armor and such.

I'll note that the USCG boarding teams gear up full tactical even for regulars, and ascertain that the crew is still in charge before relaxing... you can't see below-decks at all on modern ships, at least until aboard.

Just like you cop buddy won't open his vest just because he knows it's you driving when he pulls you over; he's going to check that you're not sick, injured, captive, or stoned, even if he is going over to your place after shift, before he relaxes. (Unless he's pulling you over 'cause he can't make it due to unscheduled OT... had that happen once. On EAFB... Still, he reflexively checked the back...)

 

[sabredog]

Aramis is right about the mindset thing that will play a role when dealing with professionals. It didn't matter if I pulled over a little old lady in a new Buick with its lights off, or a POS slot car with rap music thundering out and full of what looked like gang-bangers....I treated them all the same until I found out they needed treating differently.

You have that mindset that goes with your training that keeps you focused and alive.

And that's why I stressed that the boarding party issue isn't so much a technology one as a tactical one. You can bring whatever toys to the party you want, and use them however you need to once you decide to blow the airlock open or step through the hole in the bulkhead and see what's on the other side - but professionals will always have a default mode they rely on until they have confirmed if the situation can be ratcheted up or down a notch. And that will probably be something like I always heard: Treat everyone with courtesy but have a plan to kill everyone if you need to.

So like I aid: less-lethal can always be there as part of the options, but lethal will be there, too. It might even be the default tactic until lethal force is shown to be the required tactic. Then drop the TASER and transition to the gun while the guys who already have guns ready cover for you. Cops do that now...they'll do it 500 years from now. The military...well, that's why they tend to make lousy cops - their default is break things and kill you. So it depends a lot on who is doing the boarding....but that just proves my point: its tactical...technology just gives you more ways to use that tactic, but it doesn't exclude others.

 

[Carlobrand]

In law enforcement we always had lethal ready at the same time as less-lethal - so behind the shield or other cover we had guys with guns ready to fire if the TASER didn't work or things escalated. And taking (or at least trying to) the bad guys alive is what being a cop is about now or in the future. Unless I guess in the Klingon Empire.

So in a boarding action if you want prisoners and/or are customs inspectors or other LEOs then you need more tools in your belt. Nothing says you can't have the shotguns out when deploying the 40mm gel-bag launcher. Its not a question of technology - its merely about tactics.

The tech will be there until we have the Mad Max mean and nastiverse where we all carry submachineguns, but until then there will be actually a greater need for less-lethal is only because it can be more effective in deterrence than just shooting everyone in sight. Makes the populace less likely to rise up against you and start shooting cops on sight.

By "military context", I refer to an opposed boarding of an immobilized combatant vessel in wartime. I sincerely hope customs inspectors and LEOs are not being used in such a capacity, although I imagine if one is hard-pressed for troops, one will do whatever is needed to win the war.

Again, priority one is to locate and secure any radiologicals so they can't be used. Troops in wartime go armed to win the fight in front of them; if gluesprays are actually better for that purpose than lasers, they'll use them, but I don't think there's actually a case for saying nonlethals are a better way to win a fight quickly. Nonlethals come into play AFTER primary objectives are met, precisely because it's so much quicker and easier to kill a man than to disable him.

That is not the same case in an LEO/customs situation. In that situation, you can not assume every person on the other ship is a hostile ready to kill you. Neither can you assume they're not - but you can be reasonably certain most of the time that there's not someone huddled over a tac-nuke punching in arming codes. Your objective in that context is as much to discriminate between threat and nonthreat as anything else, because your mission is to apprehend both without getting yourself killed and without killing someone who was no threat to you. Your equipment and tactics will be tailored to the situation: be prepared, take defensive measures, but please don't go in with guns blazing - and the nonlethals can be a more effective tool because the consequences of a mistake in judgment are less severe.

As Aramis points out, the Coast Guard goes prepared for anything, and I can assure you the men at the border checkpoints down along the Mexico border are likewise prepared, but the police officer who pulls you over in Las Cruces has a sidearm and - possibly - that light Kevlar stuff you can wear discretely under clothing, and a Brit cop doesn't get the sidearm. I recall that the Israelis have always been deadly serious about security, but we in the U.S. didn't get serious until something happened to point out the need.

A customs agent serving Class-A-starport Trin, backed by patrol ships ready to overtake and cripple any ship that tries anything funny, could conceivably go his entire career without facing anything worse than a bit of hand-to-hand with some passenger with a short temper; nonlethals may be all he's given, lest he inadvertently shoot some hot-tempered rock star. An agent serving Class-A-starport Efate, hotbed of Ine Givar activity, is likely to be in combat armor with a gauss pistol at his hip and a team of combat-armored men with laser rifles behind him, AND something like that superglue foam you mention, because capturing and interrogating terrorists is a high priority.

 

[sabredog]

By "military context", I refer to an opposed boarding of an immobilized combatant vessel in wartime. I sincerely hope customs inspectors and LEOs are not being used in such a capacity, although I imagine if one is hard-pressed for troops, one will do whatever is needed to win the war.

Again, priority one is to locate and secure any radiologicals so they can't be used. Troops in wartime go armed to win the fight in front of them; if gluesprays are actually better for that purpose than lasers, they'll use them, but I don't think there's actually a case for saying nonlethals are a better way to win a fight quickly. Nonlethals come into play AFTER primary objectives are met, precisely because it's so much quicker and easier to kill a man than to disable him.

That is not the same case in an LEO/customs situation. In that situation, you can not assume every person on the other ship is a hostile ready to kill you. Neither can you assume they're not - but you can be reasonably certain most of the time that there's not someone huddled over a tac-nuke punching in arming codes. Your objective in that context is as much to discriminate between threat and nonthreat as anything else, because your mission is to apprehend both without getting yourself killed and without killing someone who was no threat to you. Your equipment and tactics will be tailored to the situation: be prepared, take defensive measures, but please don't go in with guns blazing - and the nonlethals can be a more effective tool because the consequences of a mistake in judgment are less severe.

As Aramis points out, the Coast Guard goes prepared for anything, and I can assure you the men at the border checkpoints down along the Mexico border are likewise prepared, but the police officer who pulls you over in Las Cruces has a sidearm and - possibly - that light Kevlar stuff you can wear discretely under clothing, and a Brit cop doesn't get the sidearm. I recall that the Israelis have always been deadly serious about security, but we in the U.S. didn't get serious until something happened to point out the need.

A customs agent serving Class-A-starport Trin, backed by patrol ships ready to overtake and cripple any ship that tries anything funny, could conceivably go his entire career without facing anything worse than a bit of hand-to-hand with some passenger with a short temper; nonlethals may be all he's given, lest he inadvertently shoot some hot-tempered rock star. An agent serving Class-A-starport Efate, hotbed of Ine Givar activity, is likely to be in combat armor with a gauss pistol at his hip and a team of combat-armored men with laser rifles behind him, AND something like that superglue foam you mention, because capturing and interrogating terrorists is a high priority.

Well, the original thread was about customs agent types entering a ship for inspection and what kind of less-lethal weapons they might have. So we might be getting off track.

....still my "thin discrete armor" wasn't either and was class IIIA, and included an extra plate. And a hard plate to slip in if I felt the need. So even though I also had a TASER on my left leg (with an extra AR-15 magazine) I still had a .40SW Glock, 46 rounds, two knives, a backup Glock 19....and an assault rifle in the trunk. Oh, and an ASP. The OC spray just gathered dust.

So I would argue that an American cop is pretty well-equipped for most anything...but the training is the difference. Tactics are what's important - I was armed about as well as any soldier but not trained to act like one as my default so while military boarders will have a more...um, agressive default but custom agents will have a default more like a cop's.

 

[aramis]

The expected threat continuum and equipment can combine to have a very profound effect on policing styles and reactions.

Near-rant personal experience inside spoiler.

Spoiler:

My local police have a much more militant attitude now than they did 25 years ago...

in 1985, the body armor was class I, with class II as a personal option, worn under the uniform shirt, and the shirt not presenting a strong military appearance. Light blue shirts, dark blue trousers, heavy duty work shoes, no hat, pistol and tonfa, belt radio with hand-mic, 1-2 pair of handcuffs, and 2 spare clips or speedloaders. In the car was a mossberg pump shotgun, and additional handcuffs. Handcuffs didn't go on until they decided you were either looking to run, or they were arresting you.

Now, they wear Class IIIa, or even class III, over a sewn-in military creases black shirt with black trousers, black turtleneck undershirt, combat boots, and carrying auto pistol, 4-6 spare clips, taser, pepper spray, same style radios (with more channels), smartphone, and some even have flash-bang grenades worn, plus 3-6 pair of cuffs, and usually a radio. In the car now is a shotgun, with both beanbag and shot options (some appear to be detachable box-mags), plus an AR-15, grenades (including flash-bang and tear gas), tactical helmets, more pepper spray, and in some, a riot shield. They act more militantly, they treat every stop as a potential cop-killer, and they tend to be much more insular. They now act towards civilians much the same way US military police tend to act in the footage from Iraq. Handcuffs go on the moment they think you might be a suspect. Backup has a drawn weapon when they knock on the door.

I've seen guns drawn more in the last 5 years by police than I had from 1984-1996... counting the 5 times I was drawn upon in 1992-1994. Fewer shootings by police in the news, but more weapons drawn. (In the last year, I've seen 6 weapon-draw incidents; 5 of which I saw officers drawing while approaching a building; the 6th, well, I'm glad I didn't piss off the officer banging on my door - his supervisor was drawn and ready to shoot - neighbor claimed I'd killed someone.)

The change in threats and equipment over the last 25 years has, as a combined effect, been to cause my local PD to treat every entry as a tactical exercise, and every citizen as a perp.

The potential tactical environment for ship boardings, especially by customs, is one of 99% safe, 1% aggro. And given the lack of regulation in the OTU, the potential boarding threats are huge... you literally have to be prepared for everything from a nice old granny on her way to see the grandkids through to a full-on military unit ready to kill you.

 

[McPerth]

As for techonolgy - what about a spray gun that deploys an adhesive foam in a manner similar to the industrial-sized OC foam "extinguishers" we have in prisons and jails? The foam deployed could have a polymer glue that, if nothing else, gums up the target's limbs and slows him down so he can't get away or fight back. You could add an irritant for extra measure or punch up the adhesion and weight of the polymer to drag the threat down to the floor.

I think - tactically speaking - if we are talking about boarding a ship one of the counter-tactics (for smart experienced threats) will be shutting off the gravity. It is SOP IMTU for the military anyway when entering combat and so, LEO personnel (like customs agents) and rescue teams in tow ships are required to have zero-grav training just in case the target has shut off or lost gravity.

So anything that hits the target bobbing around or depending on balance in that environment, clings to them and makes it harder to move is going to have as much of an effect sometimes as stunning them. It would add some negative DM's to the zero-grav roll required for the threat to shoot back or even move effectively. Then something deploying high-carbon fiber netting could round them up.

So deploy glue-guns, gel-bag throwers, and followed up with a net gun....keep a couple of guys stacked with you with snub guns and/or worse and you'd have a boarding team ready to bag/glue/net the threats and also kill them if they don't comply.

I'm not an expert in those weapons, but, AFAIK, those glues, gels and nets act when in contact with atmosphere. This makes them useful in a Customs/LEO boarding, but I'm afraid in most military boardings, the ship (assumed crippled before any boarding takes place) is likely to be in vacuum, and I'm not sure if they will work in those conditions.

 

[Icosahedron]

Hear, hear, Aramis.

Spoiler:

I'm with you there, Aramis. Fortunately, over here we're a good 25 or more years behind you on the slippery slope, but if that's where we're headed, I'm glad the next 25 might be my last. I wouldn't want to be around 50 years from now if the 'guilty until proven innocent' and 'fez under the bed' culture continues. You'll need a permit to step outside your door...
Fortunately we still have some areas where coppers on bicycles will take a cup of tea and a chat over your garden gate. Long may it continue.

 

[sabredog]

I'm not an expert in those weapons, but, AFAIK, those glues, gels and nets act when in contact with atmosphere. This makes them useful in a Customs/LEO boarding, but I'm afraid in most military boardings, the ship (assumed crippled before any boarding takes place) is likely to be in vacuum, and I'm not sure if they will work in those conditions.

Yeah, maybe,...but the original question was about less-lethal weapons so I'm just spitballing and trying to get it back on track.

Gel-bags should work fine in vacuum as they are self contained in a bag and provide a heavier punch than lead bags do, I suppose whether or not heavy blobs of gluey foam would or not depends on chemistry and TL...but I figure in a universe of jump drives and FGMP's anything is possible.

But as I have tried to point out before I'm just trying to come up with less-lethal ideas and show that you can have all these toys available and all the nastier tools in your ever-capacious ship's locker...once you decide to board the circumstances will dictate which ones you actually use.

Obviously if this is a Marine boarding action nobody is going to bring TASERs to the party, but the thread started over a non-hostile boarding and what sort of non-lethal devices could be carried by an office during routine customs type inspections.

 

[Carlobrand]

So here I am, wishing neural weapons were TL-15 so we could apply those nifty toys to this idea - but they're still research lab stuff.

And then an interesting thought occurs to me:

We have artificial grav plates - a 20 kg plate serves a kiloliter of ship volume. Don't know much about their characteristics other than that they provide a 1g field (or maybe a bit less if desired) at least to person-height. We also have inertial compensators working on similar technology, apparently able to compensate up to 6g acceleration.

We have standard grav thrusters - a 40 kg plate that gives up a ton of gravitic "push" for 100 Kw of power. At TL 10, it's 30 kg and only needs 20 Kw of power. At TL 12 it's 20 kg and only needs 10 Kw of power - though it costs dearly.

At TL 10 we get repulsor bays able to shove away high-speed missiles by the score or more. At TL 16 we get tractors that can exert that force over ranges of tens of thousands of kilometers. (Why does one rule say they can only go to Planetary range while the next says the TL17 variants can reach Far Orbit??

It seems to me that at some tech level we could take that tech to make a crowd-control weapon that could be pointed to knock people off their feet, even shove them away, by sending a beam of gravitic force straight through the crowd, in essence making "down" briefly behind them. Mounted on a stand with a pivoting joint, the device could sweep back and forth through the entire crowd, making it impossible for them to stand or to get closer to the device. Mounted at the end of a corridor, one is forced to destroy it or "climb" to get past it.

It would either have to be vehicle-mounted or firmly bolted to a foundation; I'm guessing Newton's Third Law still applies, and some thought would have to be given to countering the thrust it puts out.
___

Another thought:

If you are a customs agent concerned about the potential for assault, you might consider the solution nature has offered. Come aboard equipped with a gas mask or other enclosed suit, wearing a cartridge of a noxious gas at your hip. At the first sign of trouble, you activate the canister and become the center of a noxious cloud that drives away or disables potential attackers - and everyone else who isn't masked, of course, but you're not picky at a time like that. No one is killed, just an unpleasant experience - and an intense lesson in why you should not mess with customs agents. For added benefit, the cloud could be opaque to visible light but transparent in infrared; activate IR goggles and you can see while your opponents are blind.

An option against a suited opponent is paint. Imagine a round for the snub pistol that is basically a shotgun-like cartridge - except the "shot" is a thousand millimeter-wide tiny paintballs. At short range (up to 5 meters), the pellets spatter the target with a sticky paint that fouls the visor/faceshield (and other surfaces, but the visor is the key target), making it difficult for the target to see you and act against you. Rubbing at it simply smears it; it requires a specific chemical to clean off.

For a more effective paint weapon, make a hand-sized dedicated paint sprayer - a pressurized trigger-activated cartridge containing enough paint pellets for several seconds of continuous spray, and enough pressure to project the spray out five meters.

Either model is pretty much useless outside of short range, but it might be possible to build a "grenade" variant - a 40mm cartridge equipped with a proximity sensor that explodes within two meters of a target, splattering the target. Such a cartridge could be fired from any grenade launcher, with equivalent range.

 

[aramis]

Carlo,
Nice idea - take it up a level - it's a chemical agent which triggers regurgitation in humans and vargr... and is vacuum stable, microfine, encapsulated, and persistent...

Or, just release a canned motie watchmaker...