Rechargable laser rifles?

[alanb]

Cool.

It just was giving me visions of some big siege engine built by Archimedes - a kind of Honkin' Big Microscope for setting ships on fire, or something like that.

I _like_ having visions like that.

 

[abegubler]

Interesting game idea Traveller 23AD... Just replace the Kafer with Celts and the Legionaires with well the Legionaires...

 

[Glen Allen Mcinnes]

on the topic of strapping a bunch of E-clips to your body and running a cable to the clip port to power the weapon all though it's a nice idea look at the down side,

well there’s that bloody grate cable to get tangled in the scrub making noise as it catches on the brush when your trying to move quietly,

Or when you’re trying to Dity-Dity getting caught up causing you to trip ect slowing your rate of movement.

Then theirs the trouble when you’re trying to deploy from a vehicle of catching on the internal fittings or tangling with the cables of the guy next to you.

If your trying to redistubute ammo (like from withdrawing, fallen or non-combat operative comrades) you have got to go through their webbing unfasning it to get to the ammo in steed of simplify liberating it from their ammo pouches. it also prevents easy hand off of a weapon should need be.

its difficult to ditch the weapon should it get busted or if it's acting as unwanted ballast or encumbrance, all though it prevents Your govements small arms ending up on the never fired, dropped once. Resale markets.

When it dose (and it will) get caught on something there is potential for damage to the clip rig, the connecting cable or the weapon it’s self any of witch can effect the performance and /or safety of the weapon or prevent it from firing (not good).

It is my opinion that for the above reasons that not using a self contained weapon is a good idea the stealth and movement I have leant from hunting (Roo’s, pigs and feral cats mostly) the others where logical supersisions that have bean confirmed by talking to a dozen people with combat training (over half with combat experience) in land warfare (from three separate generations) some of who are still serving in the ADF or Reserves in the past few days, all thease people said that dangily bits are a BAD THING,and said that unless there is a darn good reason that any free swinging bits should be avoided at all costs.

 

[abegubler]

It’s wrong to assume that the power cable is dangling or swinging. As I posit in my Etranger articles the power cable is part of the rifle's sling. The Australian Army has been anti-sling until recently because it was seen as an opportunity for soldiers not to hold their weapon and keep it ready – I know I had to tell off a few soldiers under my command for bringing private slings on exercise because it wasn’t the then policy for how to use weapons.

But keeping the power cable out of the way and under control isn't that hard. Some of the new Solider Combat System ideas had the weapon connected to the operator by a cable for targeting information and have developed simple and efficient ways to keep this cable out of the way. Standard issue pistols in the Australian Army come as standard with a lanyard that is to be attached to the webbing and this is the way the weapon must be worn – even in East Timor – unless you are in SASR.

As to passing the weapon and ammo on this isn’t that hard. In the same way that you just take off the webbing of an incapacitated solider to access their ammunition you can do that with the “e-Ammo” - how you do it as no one rummages through ammo pouches still attached to someone who was most likely in the location where one can get shot. Plus rather than ferreting through the ammo pouches for 5-20 magazines one can just quickly hook up your webbing to the spare one and directly drain the “e-Ammo” cells. Also in terms of handing off the weapon all soldiers have the same standard power ports. So you can pass on the section/fire-team machinegun to someone else and they just plug it into their port. Also you don’t need to pass on ammo. So no need to pass up belted ammo for the machine-gunner, especially if the MG fires a different calibre (which doesn't apply to laser weapons that may fire at a different pulse level as they all use the same "calibre" of energy).

Finally the advantage of lower weapon weight is well worth it. Worse than having a sling and any disadvantages this may have (and a sling between the rifleman’s chest and weapon above the elbow level isn’t much of an inconvenience even when tiger crawling or leaping from a helo) is having to hold in your arms an extra kilo or so. This is why the IDF for one has replaced M16s and Galils with M4 carbines - so the soldiers don't have as much weight to hold ready (which is arms up - hard to do, as opposed to arms down - easy). Every second that the rifleman can keep their weapon at the ready position is worth it. It could be the second that saves your life.