 future weapons |
  |
 Dec 25 2006, 03:59 PM
Post
#1
|
|
|
Shooting Target  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 1,755 Joined: 5-September 06 From: UCAS Member No.: 9,313  |
Future weapons show on discovery, first season was ok not much had'nt seen before but new season starting Jan 15 looks like might be interesting, some sneak peeks and preview commercial.
readyaimfuture.com |
 |
 
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 01:47 AM
Post
#2
|
|
|
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
Linkage for the cut-n-paste impaired. :)
|
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 04:03 AM
Post
#3
|
|
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,109 Joined: 16-October 03 From: Raleigh, NC Member No.: 5,729 |
I spent some time on the website and watched a few of the video clips. Very little of the stuff there is "new" for those of us who follow such things. Also, take the anouncer's statements with a grain of salt...
In the video about the Tavor, he calls the M-16 a "machine gun" and says that the Tavor is "...as accurate as a sniper rifle". Although, I will say that a standing(un-supported) shot with a 5.56mm unscoped rifle at a 300 meter man-sized target is a tough one. Still not exactly sure he made that and didn't just fool us with camera trickery. Nonetheless, it's a interesting site, and seeing shit get shot/blown-up is always entertaining. <edit> Just read that the host is a supposed ex-navy SEAL. If that's true, the 300 meter standing shot is more plausible. </edit> |
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 04:41 AM
Post
#4
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 170 Joined: 18-September 06 Member No.: 9,412 |
I remember watching one episode of this show that was showing these electrical guns, called "Steelthunder" or something like that. No, normal triggers, but it was electrical impulses that fires the metal slugs out of the gun, one bullet right after the other. It didn't hold much ammo, but it could fire off all 6(?) bullets in a fraction of a second. No recoil. It was amazing. Just blew targets apart with all 6 shots hitting the exact same spot almost instantly.
They also showed large scale version of the technology, used as morter fire and from tanks and planes. It was insane how accurate and powerful these guns were. If the show was accurate then the stuff were are using in SR right now is nothing compared to what would actually be available by that time in the real world. |
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 04:49 AM
Post
#5
|
|
|
Immoral Elf Group: Members Posts: 15,247 Joined: 29-March 02 From: Grimy Pete's Bar & Laundromat Member No.: 2,486 |
You're thinking of the MetalStorm technology.
|
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 05:00 AM
Post
#6
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 170 Joined: 18-September 06 Member No.: 9,412 |
That's it! I knew it was something like that. Steelthunder, Metalstorm... I was close. :) |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Dec 26 2006, 05:03 AM
Post
#7
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Metalstorm
Its interesting though that some of the videos they used to have are no longer present. Though they've got a few new ones now. It's been a while since I've been to the site, and that tractored 4 barreled GL drone is new to me at least. Used to be they had vids of them firing off a 20 barreled GL at various RPM levels up to something stupid crazy like 1,000,000 (All barrels had 4 grenades, the last setting was just one big ringing from the barrels basically) |
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 05:05 AM
Post
#8
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 223 Joined: 6-December 06 Member No.: 10,259 |
Isn't there some sort of weapons in the Cannon Companion which sort of represent this? Twice as many bulles in bursts and full auto, or something?
|
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 05:11 AM
Post
#9
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Not that I'm aware of.
I remember when they first started playing around with the technology they had this one gun that fired 8 barrels at once. They had a 9mm and .45 version I belive. There was also a rumored .50 cal 20 barrel version that was ment to be an anti tank trap. The real problem with the current system is that, save for it's use as an artillery piece (Which is why I at least belive they switched soley over to a GL version) purely becuase it works on that whole 'stacked round' principle. Infact thats really the only reason far as I can tell why it can get a totally crazy ROF. So really you wind up with a very limited ammo payload, or you put in an ammo feed and you cut the maximum obtainable ROF by 3/4ths or so (They seem to generally go with a stack of 4 rounds per barrel) |
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 06:34 AM
Post
#10
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 295 Joined: 10-July 05 Member No.: 7,492 |
You're thinking of the Ultravelocity (or something similar) Yeah, bursts were 6-round, and they couldn't take barrel mods. They also got like 1 or 2 points of recoil redux for going ultravelocity. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Dec 26 2006, 07:31 AM
Post
#11
|
|||||
|
Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
Nope.
|
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
Dec 26 2006, 09:34 AM
Post
#12
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Ah yeah the Sakura is really the actual representation of that. Though if your refering to pure ROF then the ultra velocity stuff would be it. Though that stuff doesnt have an electronic firing mechanism.
Their just a really fast MG basically. If I recall correctly there was some sort of MG in WWII that never got used too much because it had a totally crazy ROF (For a MG of it's time). Was built initially for AA use. I think it had an ROF of like 4,000 RPM where an average MG is like 1000-2000? Been ages since I read up on that stuff though, all I recall is that it had two to three times the ROF of the average MG even by todays standards. |
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 07:42 PM
Post
#13
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 223 Joined: 6-December 06 Member No.: 10,259 |
And why didn't they use that MG too much? Nazi-Germany never really cared about cost-efficiency anyway.
|
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 08:33 PM
Post
#14
|
|
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081 |
I have no idea which MG that might be.
The MG42, which was designed to replace the MG34 in most roles, normaly fired 1200 rpm, some where built to fire up to 1800 rpm. Which is pretty fast for a normal MG with a single barrel. (btw, the MG42 was cheaper and easier to manufacture than the MG34). (the MG3 had 1200 rpm also, but since it's essentially a MG42 rebuild to use the 7,62 Nato that's not really surprising). |
|
|
|
|
Dec 26 2006, 08:43 PM
Post
#15
|
|
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
A conventional machine gun firing at 4,000rpm, if it were possible considering the limitations of the belt feed and ejection cycle, would overheat its barrel pretty damn quick. Gatling guns then not having yet made a comeback, it was common in WW2 to slap together 2-4 machine guns or automatic cannons for use as anti-aircraft weapons. 2 MG42s on a single AA mount makes for a combined RoF of around 2400rpm, where a single US GPMG of the period, i.e. an M1919, has a cyclic RoF of 400-600rpm.
The MG42 (as well as the modern 7.62x51mm NATO version thereof, the MG3) does have almost 3 times the cyclic rate of fire of many old Maxim-style MGs and about twice that of the M2HB HMG or the M60 GPMG. |
|
|
|
|
Dec 27 2006, 04:27 AM
Post
#16
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Well as Austere mentinoed the heating was an issue (It was a big issue with the aircooled MG42 as well for that matter). And ammo was a big one. The MG42 sucks up ammo at a tremendous rate. You have to keep in mind that MGs are generally ment to be infantry portable. Your average infantryman can only carry so much ammo. At least in the past an MG Crew was -techncially- made up of five people. This is mostly because of how much ammo the MGs sucked up over a period of time. It is still a limitation to this day. As for the MG itself I'll have to dig through my books on old WWII weaponry and see if I can find the damn thing. The main thing I recall about it is that it mostly didnt see use because it was impractical. Other very useful guns, didnt see much use because they were expensive/time consuming to make and by the point they were invented, Germany was loosing the war. The paratrooper rifle comes to mind. As I understand it they were actually very well designed weapons but were only produced in the low thousands. Nazi Germany cared a great deal about efficency actually. It was as far as I can tell, really Hitler and his insanities that caused alot of the problems. Apparently the very heavy reliance on sort of so called 'assault gun' tanks, that being the ones with the fixed turrets. Totally ammazing armor on the front. Shit armor everywehre else. They really should have concentrated on building Panzers, Tigers and King Tigers. Those three tanks alone were notorious in WWII for shrugging off hit after hit from allied tank guns. There's some other oddities (such as the tank at the bottom of this page: http://www.tankmuseum.ru/p6.html ) Then there were some other... inteersting but ultimately failed anti tank ideas. The Germans at one point had these remote controled bombs that supposedly you'd drive under an enemy tank and detonate. It basically looked like a tiny tank with no guns. But the real downside was of course, there was no real armor, just a metal casing, and due to the weight they would get stuck in the mud very easily. They were also apparently quite slow, easily spotted and taken out with a 9mm or .45 handgun which apparently alot of allied tankers carried. Also in the name of 'effiecncy' some wako came up with the idea of piloted V2 rockets. They only ever wound up making about 100 of them and scrapped the idea. Afterall even though the pilot would survive (By bailing out) they wouldnt be getting him back since he'd be comming down over Britan and.. well I'm sure nto all of them would survive at the hands of the civilians they just bombed. The Japanese used a similar concept with kamakazi guided torpedoes. All in all there's some really wierd crap that came out of WWII |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Dec 27 2006, 10:51 PM
Post
#17
|
|||
|
Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,150 Joined: 19-December 05 From: Rhein-Ruhr Megaplex Member No.: 8,081 |
You do realize Nazi Germany run out of fuel before they run out of panzers? Up to that point, it made sense to rig the next generation PAK (Panzer Abwehr Kanone, anti-tank gun) onto the last generation tank chassis, and weld armor plates to the front. A Jagdtiger, the Panzerjäger (tank destroyer) variant of the Tiger tank, cost about a third of the Tiger. Nazi germany had a lot of future weapons or at least superior weapons in their arsenal, but mostly not enough to matter. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Dec 28 2006, 01:21 AM
Post
#18
|
|||
|
Shadowrun Setting Nerd Group: Banned Posts: 3,632 Joined: 28-June 05 From: Pissing on pedestrians from my electronic ivory tower. Member No.: 7,473 |
Indeed. My Tank Is Fight is all about wacky WW2-era weapons. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Dec 28 2006, 01:31 AM
Post
#19
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 600 Joined: 31-August 05 Member No.: 7,659 |
Panzer V's, Panthers, took like 1/3rd less labor hours to build or something. And were more reliable and manuverable.
Tigers were nice, but since they were so big and heavy they broke down often and also would sink into wet ground much easier. Their reputation is also increased because the veteran crews manned the Tigers, a unit full of veteran crews would do very well in nearly any tank. |
|
|
|
|
Jan 18 2007, 05:27 AM
Post
#20
|
|
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 944 Joined: 19-February 03 Member No.: 4,128 |
I'm not saying Machowicz wasn't really a SEAL, but he reminds more of what USA Network/Sci-Fi network says SEALs are like then the (admittedly few) ex-SEALs I have met.
I also wish I didn't find myself saying "Well, that's not _completely_ right." so often with a show hosted by an ex-SEAL. |
|
|
|
|
Jan 18 2007, 07:37 AM
Post
#21
|
|||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Thats largely because it's 'pumped up' claims. Not exactly untrue.. but not exactly true either in some of the cases. It's like the whole smartbomb thing. There's all this heavy press about how accurate they are, how they never miss etc. Yet in actual use, they've missed at least a few times by a rather wide margin for something thats supposedly 'allways on target'. But you just about never actually hear about those cases. Also allot of this tech presented as 'the latest greatest' isnt really. It's at best either stuff thats been around for a little while or simply 'improved' versions of a much older technology. Such as the metalstorm system presented. When it first came out they had all sorts of ideas on how it would work, could be applied. They wanted to use with with things like assault rifles etc. But.. it just isnt really practical the way the tech is setup to work. The handgun modle they have might be abit more workable, but even with that I'm more than a touch skeptical. And for example with the M32 grenade launcher. The only thing really 'new' ish about that is perhaps the scope and how quiet it is when firing. Multi shot grenade launchers like those have been around a good long while. And there's alot of other systems they didnt touch uppon like eh.. I cant recall the weapons designation right now but it's that assaultrifle/20mm grenade launcher combo that you can apparently pull appart, program the grenades detonation range with etc and has all sorts of other gismoes on it. That was announced years ago. And it still has alot of issues with it. I remember one apparent ex SF guy stating that he'd tried one out and it just had so many 'settings' to fiddle with that it was totally impractical. Of course the other reason is that when stuff finally starts being billed to the public as 'ultra tech' weapons. It's only the info thats not still under wraps, and it's often, also definately not 'bleeding edge' technology but rather something thats been around a few years now. I'm sure all the really cool prototypes are still wraped up under oodles of redtape and secrecy. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Jan 18 2007, 08:35 AM
Post
#22
|
|||
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
The XM29 OICW. No longer a "future weapon", since the program responsible for it was canceled in late 05. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Jan 18 2007, 09:11 AM
Post
#23
|
|||||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
AH yeah there we go. And while it might technically no longer be a 'future weapon' it sorta.. is in a way. Alot of it's features just arnt practical now. But what about say.. in another 20 years? Lasers technically arnt a 'future weapon' anymore either. THey currently -are- a weapon. But a laser pistol would sure as hell be a 'future weapon' afterall. Since.. far as I know at least those dont exist yet in weaponized form at least. It's still interesting to see what they do with some of this stuff though. I also find it interesting that dispite constant attempts over.. what? About 20-30+ years now? That they keep trying to go over to caseless weapons. Yet the metal cartridge is still, and will remainf or the forseable future the cartridge of choice. Mostly becasue their just compartively so damn durable I'm sure, even if you can get a higher ammo capacity out of the same volume of space as I understand it. I dunno. To some I suppose 'Future Weaponry' such as that presented with the show only applies to stuff that is now currently marketable technology. No longer purely in the development stage. Where as to me, 'Future Weaponry' more implies the stuff thats technically possible, just not perhaps currently feasable untill further technological improvements are made. I mean... dear lord. Look at the first tanks compared to what we have now. The very first ones were pertty much just litterally mobile steam driven pillboxes with machineguns. Now their Depleated Uranium encased monsters of destruction, speed and agility. Fully capable of fighting in day or night time conditions and all sorts of weather. Even if they still have various faults here and there. |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
Jan 18 2007, 09:20 AM
Post
#24
|
|||
|
Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Polymer cases might make an impact, at least in the military, in the foreseeable future. But cased cartridges are certainly not going away any time soon. The fire control and airbursting capabilities of the XM29 shouldn't take 20 years to make feasible for the average rifleman and grenadier, depending mostly on the development of batteries, but I'm not sure how much can be done about the combination of an effective, long range rifle with a large capacity repeating grenade launcher with serious anti-personnel and anti-armor capability. |
||
|
|
|
||
|
Jan 18 2007, 09:34 AM
Post
#25
|
|||||
|
Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 732 Joined: 1-December 06 Member No.: 10,116 |
Well as I mentioned earlier one comment I'd at least heard that part of the problem was also all the damned settings you had to make to the thing. Which is abit more involved an issue. Airbursting itself isnt really much of a hard to solve issue. It's timing those airbursts. So yeah if your using an electronic system like that batteries are still a big issue. I was also given to understand that the thing was not only rather bulky (it certainly looks it) but also rather heavy. As to the launcher itself.. take away all the other crap. Assume the grenades detonate on contact instead of timed airbursts and such. Was that really much of an issue beyond bulk? From what I understood the XM29's grenades really just ran a gamut of munition types. AP and AI varieties. Just load the type needed. Which you have to do anyway with any ammo. I mean it, to me -seemed- relatively workable. Course I've never actually handled one much less seen the real thing. And pictures dont allways give you a good idea of the weight and bulk of a weapon. |
||||
|
|
|
||||
|
|
Lo-Fi Version | Time is now: 4th February 2025 - 07:52 PM |
Topps, Inc has sole ownership of the names, logo, artwork, marks, photographs, sounds, audio, video and/or any proprietary material used in connection with the game Shadowrun. Topps, Inc has granted permission to the Dumpshock Forums to use such names, logos, artwork, marks and/or any proprietary materials for promotional and informational purposes on its website but does not endorse, and is not affiliated with the Dumpshock Forums in any official capacity whatsoever.