Machinenpistole is correct.

If you really think about what a Machine Pistol vs a Sub Machine Gun is, they are effectively the same thing.

both fire pistol ammo (typically 9mm P today). And a lot of them can be stuck in a holster (Mini-Uzi for instance).
Big uzis are SMGs, smaller ones are Machine Pistols. Yet my 100' tape measure and my 10' tape measures don't have different names (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro_uzi#Variants

they're just two terms for almost the same thing. One is just slightly bigger than the other, and a lot of them fall into both categories.

For instance, the Ingram Smartgun is an SMG in Shadowrun, but it's the descendant of the MAC-10/MAC-11 family of Machine Pistols (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MAC-11

The military term would be Maschinenpistole (literally "machine pistol"). I have not seen an official term for what SR labels a machine pistol, probably something along the lines of "Automatikpistole" (i.e. "automatic pistol"). I'm more of a weapons "expert" than a weapons expert, though (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) (The only times I shot any weapons was during my basic military service ("Grundausbildung", 9 months of mandatory service unless you do the equivalent time in civil services ("Zivildienst").)

€dit: WIkipedia says it's "Reihenfeuerpistole", a pretty unusual term (at least to my ears).

Well, I suppose that would make for decent suppressive fire.

Damn, he really should have said "Say hello to my little friends!" before he opened fire.



Yep. Nobody would want to be anywhere in about a 90-degree arc in front of him and not have their asses safely in a trench or armored vehicle or something.

The funny thing is, IRL the same criticisms of SMGs have been leveled as well. In the 80s, when Shadowrun was first coming out, SMGs were all the rage among SWAT and special forces teams. Everyone and their mom was using the MP5 and you couldn't have a depiction of a generic terrorist in an action movie without an Uzi showing up somewhere. In the late 90s and 2000s though, the lack of armor penetration, poor range, and awkward middle-ground size was critiqued, and there was a general move away from SMGs towards carbines like the M4. Nowadays you're much more likely to see operators handling a scaled-down assault rifle than an SMG. The new hotness in the SMG size category is the "PDW", personal defense weapon, which is an SMG-like weapon that generally fires a rifle-sized armor penetrating bullet. (See: FN P90.)

I still equip my characters with SMGs all the time because I think they look cool and I love that 80s flavor. (Also love recreating this scene from GitS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIiRRgb0nPE) In my games I allow them to be quite a bit more concealable than an assault rifle (easily hidden on a sling under a longcoat, for example). I also see no problem with using them one-handed if one isn't using the folding stock some of them come with. But yeah, game mechanics wise as well as real life wise, you'd probably be better off with an AR.

So that would be a no.
Just wanted to sheck my hunch that you can't really draw much conclusion from the fact that MP5 is a "machine pistol" by its German name, as there's no seperate word for SMG like the English has.

Exactly.
Roughly it goes like this in German.
Pistole: One handed semi automatic gun (including the ones with burst fire). (The term Revolver is also used in German)
Maschinenpistole: Small gun (theoretically usable with one hand) with full automatic fire.
Gewehr: Semi automatic long gun.
Sturmgewehr: Magazine fed long arms with full automatic capability.
Schrotflinte: Every shotgun, no matter the available fire modes.
Maschinengewehr: Every belt fed long arm with full automatic fire mode.

A little bit of history, the worlds first assault rifle was at first also only a "Maschinenpistole" and only later renamed into assault rifle.

The timing has more to do with carbines becoming much more available and body armor becoming much more prolific than real deficiencies with the SMG platform. The M4 rolled out about 1994, and with an OAL of 29", was just a hair longer than the MP5A2 w/fixed stock. Better ballistics, better range, and better barrier penetration than an MP5 in the same size package.



All told, the 5.7x28mm (and MP7 4.6x30mm) rounds are garbage when it comes to killing bad guys. The reason you carry 40 - 50 round mags is that you need to dump half of one just to put someone down.

And SR has be garbage as well when it comes to modeling damage and armor penetration of those weapon systems (and of most firearms too).

And to nit-pick (nothing personal, Shinxy), it's a stretch to call the the 5.7mm "rifle-sized". The M855A1 5.56x45mm round currently being fielded by the US Army and USMC has a 62 grain copper slug with a steel tip that comes out of an M4 at ~2900fps

The 5.7x28mm round has a 23 grain copper jacketed plastic core projectile that, at best, is going to see a MV around 2400fps. I know which one I'd rather be shot with.




One-handed firearm operation (whether SMG or pistol) is 100% pink mohawk. That's fine if it's the kind of campaign you are in, but has no place in a setting more serious.

To me, it really comes down to the mission. ARs are great, and the go-to choice if you are going to be in a gunfight. But what does the mission call for? Are you going to be infiltrating via the sewers and exfiling by chopper? Sure...AR all the way. Are you going to have to disguise yourself and your team as employees, and plan on running out the front door with the rest of the wage slaves after you pull the fire alarm? Yeah...an AR won't be your friend there.

The factors are really cost, portability/concealability, and licensing

The Ingram Smartgun comes with gas-vent 2, integral suppressor, and a smartlink. For 800 nuyen, Availability 6R.

The marginally better Colt M23, the cheapest, easiest to get assault rifle, is 1100 nuyen for the integral smartlinked version (6R), plus another 400 for the gas-vent 2 (6R), and then another 500 for the suppressor (9F). 2000 nuyen total.

The workhorse AK-97 is 2800 for the same kit (at 6R + 6R + 9F), and the Ares Alpha is 3,150 (at 11F + 9F).

So you can get the Ingram Smartgun for 800 cash in a minute in a half, or throw out several times that and have it in a day or two. Plus the Ingram can be licensed and carried on the street with just a nod from the cops, which no suppressed assault rifle can claim. Plus you can hide the Ingram under your coat or in a backpack in a pinch.

Likewise some of the 'less dmg' aspects of the SMG can be mitigated by ammo load. Slapping on APDS for example helps even things up vs armored dudes. Sure its not as good as a bigger gun with APDS vs armor, but its likely enough to help keep heads down. And a fun thing about ammo is that unless you've got RIFD tags screaming, "I'm Armor Piercing Incendiary rounds, totally FORBIDDEN!" there's no way to easily tell what kind of ammo you've got until you start opening up.

So restricted gun + forbidden ammo can possibly pass a cursory inspection unless the guy strips your mags and checks to see what ammo you've got.

Not true.

Here are a few examples of sabot rounds. (Although I kind of suspect that APDS is supposed to be more of a miniaturized version of these much larger anti-armour rounds for tank main guns and artillery.)

Note that they're all very noticeably not normal ammunition. The sabot itself is an obvious component of the round. If you go through security, they're gonna check your ammo, and they're gonna have problems with your ammo looking like this, because it sure as drek ain't hunting rounds.

Now yeah, if they're already loaded up in your gun, fine, they won't be obvious unless someone asks to inspect the gun. But people do ask to inspect your guns, and that includes checking to see if it's loaded, which will immediately reveal to them that your rounds aren't normal. If you're not expecting to be searched, you might as well just carry a duffel bag full of machine guns, LAWs, or plastic explosives instead of bothering to take an SMG. But in cases where you just might be searched? Bad idea to be packing APDS.

Unless you plan to pull a Matrix, that is. (Glob, such a good movie. So very Shadowrun, even if it is pretty damn Pink Mohawk. Gotta watch it again now.)

~Umi

I know the SOP is use a tag eraser for the RFID, but how hard would it be to rework to broadcast whatever you want?

Like say I want my ammo's RFID tags to show as Captain Crunch Cereal bits (ok, weird but go with it for a sec), preferably with the appropriate ARO to go with it.

If I use said ammo, the decker looking onto the fight sees hot flying Captain Crunch Cereal bits tearing his guys apart. (stays crunchy even in blood!)

Now obviously he will realize it's not really Captain Crunch Cereal but in fact actual bullets, but just for amusement factor how difficult a reprogramming would we be looking at?

Well, according to 4E...


With a Signal rating of 1, unless you're using a radio signal scanner to detect the tags reporting their locations, you as a decker wouldn't realistically detect them flying through the air unless they're doing so within a very short distance of you, which seems unhealthy.

Rules don't seem to have changed much in 5E.


There's no longer any mention of Fixed data, or requiring a Hardware test to modify such information, though. Maybe RFID tags are now completely unfixed and totally reprogrammable?

~Umi

Other than the fact that Signal doesn't exist as an attribute anymore, and everything has a "handshake range" of 100m?

Point. I suppose if you set the RFID to constantly broadcast, rather than just update it's GPS-derived location every so often, anyone within 100m will detect it.

So yes, I suppose you could shoot Captain Crunch at someone, although there's a decent chance they'd be filtering out data that looks useless like that.

~Umi

Right up until you look at the players (who failed their surprise tests) and say "According to your AR display, a few dozen pieces of Captain Crunch have come flying down the hallway. Roll for soak."

If you're waltzing through a static checkpoint sure, but in a 'just checking your commlinks to see if your license are valid' spot check, which would likely describe most outdoors/external screens, they're not going to go "please unload all your mags". I suppose you could also just top off a mag with a round or two of conventional, and hide the fun stuff lower. Heck, smartguns let you skip through it if you want (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)