weapons' design and evolution thereof

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Arthur hault-Denger:
Let me rephrase my question:

Hang in there Arthur. I get it. You keep responding to the concept of a powerfull magnetic shield used to deflect projectiles that was posted earlier in this thread ... but everyone responds to your posts as if you were talking about the Gauss Weapon.

You are correct that walking around with the equivilent of an MRI magnet surrounding you to deflect missiles would have negative side effects. Watch the scene in the movie ROBOTS where the hero becomes magnetized.

 

[veltyen]

Let me rephrase my question: in a defensive battlefield environment, would externally applying a significant magnetic field (such as that induced by an MRI device) be sufficient to cause enough variance in the trajectory of an incoming ferrous projectile (whether fired by a gauss or other small arm), that said projectile would miss its intended target, (for all intent rendering it harmless)?

There were rumours about a russian defensive feild design for tanks. Never got out of prototype stage due to certain electrical problems. Scrambling internal electronics, knocking out the crew, and the weight of the batteries and capacitors are just some of the downsides.

Rumour mind you. Probably just disinformation.

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Arthur hault-Denger:
Let me rephrase my question: in a defensive battlefield environment, would externally applying a significant magnetic field (such as that induced by an MRI device) be sufficient to cause enough variance in the trajectory of an incoming ferrous projectile (whether fired by a gauss or other small arm), that said projectile would miss its intended target, (for all intent rendering it harmless)?

Depends on the size and strength of the field, but generally speaking no. A field strong enough usefully deflect bullets is also strong enough to cause buildings to fall on you by pulling on the rebar in the walls.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by Anthony:

A field strong enough usefully deflect bullets is also strong enough to cause buildings to fall on you by pulling on the rebar in the walls.

Not talking about repelling the projectiles; in fact, the device I have in mind might use its magnetic bias to attract incoming enemy rounds away from friendly personnel, thereby neutralizing those rounds. I would think this could be highly effective where flechette and other low-mass ammo is involved. Disrupting enemy communications might be a nifty bonus.

 

[Blue Ghost]

A grav-field generator might be a step up from that technology. Looks like you might have yourself a Mercenary Volume 2 in the making, Arthur

 

[Anthony]

Originally posted by Arthur hault-Denger:
Not talking about repelling the projectiles

I know, that's why I had the buildings fall on top of you, rather than be blown away from you.

; in fact, the device I have in mind might use its magnetic bias to attract incoming enemy rounds away from friendly personnel, thereby neutralizing those rounds. I would think this could be highly effective where flechette and other low-mass ammo is involved.

Unfortunately, small ammunition is also subject to much less force than larger objects, and bullets are moving fast enough that an enormous amount of force is required to deflect them fast enough.

To deflect a 4g bullet at 1,500 m/s (canon gauss rifle) by 20cm over a course of 15 meters requires the bullet to be accelerated at 400 Gs. Anything that can accelerate a bullet at 400 Gs won't have trouble applying 10 Gs to a nearby car, at which point you get to have a ton of metal ram your generator at 150-200 kph.

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Anthony:
To deflect a 4g bullet at 1,500 m/s (canon gauss rifle) by 20cm over a course of 15 meters requires the bullet to be accelerated at 400 Gs. Anything that can accelerate a bullet at 400 Gs won't have trouble applying 10 Gs to a nearby car, at which point you get to have a ton of metal ram your generator at 150-200 kph.

Or the other way around if it is portable - the generator gets pulled up against the car.

 

[TheBrain]

actually now that I think about it there is some cannon for the Arthur's mag field. In the back of the Cental Supply Catalog page 57 for T4 there is an entry for magnetic sheilding as vehicle equipment.

"Superconducting lattices are integrated into the armor, capable of holding an intense magnetic field with minimal(but still signifigant) interferance...and acts against any charged particles, ferromagnetic, paramagnetic or diamagnetic material that intersects it. this includes lead, aluminum, iron, steel or crystaliron projectiles, HEAP warheads' or plasma cannon. When such an attack hits the vehicle, it first inter sects with the magnetic field, which deflects and spreads it before it strikes the physical surface of the vehicle."

So in a nutshell it acts as an enhancement to armor against just about everthing except lasers, maybe neutral particle beams, and flint headed arrows and spears(damn ewoks). I'm sure somebody can find a whole in the science but theres the official cannon fig leaf the hide behind.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by TheBrain:
So in a nutshell [the magnetic field] acts as an enhancement to armor against just about everthing except lasers, maybe neutral particle beams, and flint headed arrows and spears(damn ewoks). I'm sure somebody can find a whole (sic) in the science but theres the official cannon fig leaf [to] hide behind.

So when that superconductive lattice air/raft hull smacks into Anthony's ground car which in turn bounces away in the opposite direction, but with equal force, it's really 'cause of fig Newtons?

(I'll apologize, that one was just too hard to pass up!)

Originally posted by TheBrain:

"Superconducting lattices are integrated into the armor, capable of holding an intense magnetic field with minimal(but still signifigant) interferance...and acts against any charged particles, ferromagnetic, paramagnetic or diamagnetic material that intersects it. this includes lead, aluminum, iron, steel or crystaliron projectiles, HEAP warheads' or plasma cannon. When such an attack hits the vehicle, it first inter sects with the magnetic field, which deflects and spreads it before it strikes the physical surface of the vehicle."

Seriously, though: aren't we actually talking about primitive repulsor technology here? (The critical element in that superconductive lattice being, of course, handwavium!)

 

[Anthony]

Not sure what device T4 is talking about. A related real-world tech is electric armor. What it does is create a strong temporary field inside the armor (since it's inside the armor, it doesn't move things around or need as much energy), which causes a bullet (or shaped charge jet) to break apart, reducing its penetration.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by Anthony:

A related real-world tech is electric armor. What it does is create a strong temporary field inside the armor ...

May we assume this is vehicular armor and not personal armor?

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Arthur hault-Denger:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Anthony:

A related real-world tech is electric armor. What it does is create a strong temporary field inside the armor ...

May we assume this is vehicular armor and not personal armor?

</font>[/QUOTE]The difference is just a matter of a few Tech Levels.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Hmmm. Interesting concept. Wouldn't the wearer be at serious risk of electrocution and/or severe burns in addition to gunshot trauma should such body armor become fully breached?

 

[atpollard]

If someone penetrates your enhanced battle dress, electrical burns are the least of your worries. (one FGMP-15 can ruin your whole day

)

Seriously, the armor would probably be constructed in layers – like a modern vest – so damage to the electrically enhanced plate would probably not affect a character through the lower layers of ballistic cloth. It would just destroy one “scale” in the armor and penetrate the victim.

 

[Arthur Denger]

Originally posted by atpollard:

Seriously, the armor would probably be constructed in layers – like a modern vest – so damage to the electrically enhanced plate would probably not affect a character through the lower layers of ballistic cloth. It would just destroy one “scale” in the armor and penetrate the victim.

All right, Arthur, let's assume (energy weapons aside, as we were discussing slug throwers, and for the sake of argument) that the "lower layers of ballistic cloth" are made of an insulating material: say, a non-conductive material such as rubber. Even if this is somehow 'self-healing and fusible', the very real danger of a high voltage electrical arc as the metallic (electrically conductive) projectile penetrates these layers into soft tissue is very real. Short of ballistic cloth woven from only the purest handwavium filament

, I remain unconvinced about the risk of additional injury or death from the resulting electric shock.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Last yer someone posted a good link about energy weapons; from fiction to speculative fact; i.e. how sci-fi's portrayed them, and they might actually function in there here in now and in the far future.

I think the gist of the article (which was very good and informative) was that there would be more of a traditional physical damage than electrical or thermal damage to the target.

'Wish I could remember the link, but it's somewhere here on this BBS.

 

[mike wightman]

Was it this one?

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3l.html

 

[mbrinkhues]

"Electric Armor" is a real world (IIRC british) concept aimed at disrupting HEAT penetrators. Basically it works as an electromagnetic version of Explosive Reactive Armor. The major problem of ERA is that you can either have infantry close by or ERA deployed, not both. It was never intended against massiv long-rod penetrators or bullets, nor useful as an infantry defence system. For the stuff to work you need a strong armor backing, a full-body field and the ability to withstand heat/shrapnel. It might work with a Powered Armor.

TNE's Fire-Fusion-Steam (EM Armor) had a similar system with a lengthy explanation how it worked. Basically it detected the HEAT jet (or Plasma/Fusion bolt) and discharged a heavy EM-jolt in the direction. Needed a bulky High-Output/Low Duration power system like Explosive Power Generation or huge high-drain batteries/condensators

 

[mbrinkhues]

Originally posted by atpollard:
Would a weapon's basic design be altered much over the years?

Yes. The key will be advancements in materials technology altering some game statistic.

At TL 3, most of the features of a modern rifle could be created if someone had thought of them (cartridges, rifled barrels, breechloading, etc.) but the hand made steels are not nearly strong enough for modern bullets. The result is a large projectile fired at a low velocity to kill without bursting barrels.

By the wild west (TL 4), steel had improved enough to allow bullets like the 45 caliber bullets fired at faster velocities to kill better than the old 60 to 70 caliber flintlocks. But a more powerfull bullet (like the 30-06 or 9mm parabellum would burst the barrel of a TL 4 weapon.

You get the idea. Magnum rounds. High Powered rounds. Bullets get smaller and faster as barrel pressures get higher. Same Kill for less bullet.

Caseless ammo will change things again by allowing faster rates of fire. See the G11 and Metalstorm for ideas of this tech. Bullets can becone much smaller when each "shot" is a near instantaneous 3 round burst.

Self propelled ammo might require another change in basic firearms. No recoil means large fast bullets with heavy armor piercing capabilities. Large bullets open the possibility of high explosive bullets.

Obviously Gauss becomes the ultimate small arm with hypersonic projectiles.

Actually there is a very important difference between the .45-70 of the 1860s and the 7.92x57 of 1888 - the propellant charge. The former uses blackpowder, the latter uses nitro-powder, invented by the French in 1885/86. This was the reason that infantry weapons dropped in size. The steel of the old Trapdoor(Alin conversion) Springfield would have been up to the stress of the new bullet quite easily(2) And those gun started it's live as a muzzle loading blackpowder rifle (Pattern 1858 rifled musket IIRC)

OTOH you could build military-useable rifles as early as the Napoleonic wars and kill targets at 400m (Baker Rifle, Bavarian Ranger Rifle) and you could build working bolt-action systems as early as the 1830s (Dreyse, LeChauchat). The reasons for not using rifles where less in the possible technologie and more in the low rate of fire and higher training requirements. Once Miniee designed the self-expanding bullet, rifled muzzle-loader became quite common. And the .44-40 used in a revolver is no more powerful than some of the cap-and-ball charges a few decades earlier.

The last step towards FFS and the 4.92mm Caseless has more to do with a change of rifle doctrin than technological advances. Weapon concepts have changed from long-range precision firing to mid/short range high volume, form "Killing a charging cavalry horse at 400meters(1)" to "badly wounding a man at 200meters

(1) One official design criteria for the 7.92x57 Mauser
(2) Actually .45-70's where used in the development of the .30-03

 

[atpollard]

Originally posted by Arthur hault-Denger:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by atpollard:

Seriously, the armor would probably be constructed in layers – like a modern vest – so damage to the electrically enhanced plate would probably not affect a character through the lower layers of ballistic cloth. It would just destroy one “scale” in the armor and penetrate the victim.

All right, Arthur, let's assume (energy weapons aside, as we were discussing slug throwers, and for the sake of argument) that the "lower layers of ballistic cloth" are made of an insulating material: say, a non-conductive material such as rubber. Even if this is somehow 'self-healing and fusible', the very real danger of a high voltage electrical arc as the metallic (electrically conductive) projectile penetrates these layers into soft tissue is very real. Short of ballistic cloth woven from only the purest handwavium filament

, I remain unconvinced about the risk of additional injury or death from the resulting electric shock.

</font>[/QUOTE]I only mentioned the FGMP because it did lots of damage ... a non-energy weapon version of the same concept is "One 30mm cannon can ruin your whole day".

People in cars struck by lightning seldom get shocked. This is not because of the insulation provided by the rubber tires, but because the Arc follows the path of least resistance. So backing the "plate" with a highly conductive layer that is grounded to the outside of the armor should redirect the arc from the armor to the backing instead of to the bullet and the person.