 Caseless, Guns, ammo, and that stuff |
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 Mar 11 2004, 06:53 PM
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#26
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Mostly Harmless  Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 937 Joined: 26-February 02 From: 44.662,-63.469 Member No.: 176  |
You certainly can get rifling marks off of bullet fragments. Very small fragments at that. You only need a very small part of a bullet in order to identify it uniquely with a microscope. In practical terms, the type of bullets 5.56x45mm rifles use tend to explode when the hit a semi-fluid medium within a certain range, no explosive needed. In the case of the DC snipers, police positively identified each attack using ballistic forensics. They also knew that all of the attacks had occured within a range of 100 meters because of the type of bullet used and the degree of bullet fragmentation. Explosive ammunition wouldn't help you much. Like mcb has been saying, a shotgun is really the easiest way to go, caseless or not.
Considering that Timothy McVeigh blew up an entire building with extremely common components such as gasoline and fertilizer, that probably wouldn't make a whole lot of difference. I think access to a small chemical lab and a machine shop along with a good degree of knowledge (chemical and mechanical engineering) would allow someone to make their own explosive ammunition. Waiting for the FBI to come shut this discussion down... |
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Mar 11 2004, 06:55 PM
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#27
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Mostly Harmless Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 937 Joined: 26-February 02 From: 44.662,-63.469 Member No.: 176 |
What does it say about that? |
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Mar 11 2004, 06:57 PM
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#28
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
The majority of actual explosive ammunition would still probably come from commercial sources, such as Armed Forces contractors. And while making bombs from common components is easy enough, many shadowrunners might tend to go for the high-end stuff, like C-12, which is quite a lot more difficult to cook at home.
And not all shadowrunning teams have members or know people who can readily make large amounts of effective and useful explosives in a short time. Thus they would tend to have explosives that come from commercial sources every now and then. And this is nothing compared to the Improvised Explosives thread. |
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Mar 11 2004, 06:57 PM
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#29
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 3,066 Joined: 5-February 03 Member No.: 4,017 |
In the CC section about making ammo, there is a part explaining how much harder it is to make caseless.
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Mar 11 2004, 07:00 PM
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#30
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
The Cannon Companion has some scribbling about it on p. 84 (although I know you don't have that book). Basically, it's 2 TN harder to manufacture, can only be done in a shop (vs a kit for cased), and the minimum cost of manufacturing is slightly higher (cased ammo can be made cheaper if you're really good and have old cases). |
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Mar 11 2004, 07:01 PM
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#31
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Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,751 Joined: 8-August 03 From: Neighbor of the Beast Member No.: 5,375 |
What about the bit where after you shoot someone, run a rat tail file down the barrel of your gun a few times. Gun's pretty much a paper weight now, but if crime reinactment shows can be believed, the bullet can't be traced to that gun. Right?
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Mar 11 2004, 07:03 PM
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#32
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Yeah, sure, but you might as well throw the gun into a river. Or if you take this thing really seriously, you could use some thermite...
The amount of filing it takes to completely hide the original patterns would, as you said, screw the accuracy to a point where the weapon would be almost useless. |
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Mar 11 2004, 07:21 PM
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#33
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Target Group: Members Posts: 37 Joined: 8-March 04 Member No.: 6,134 |
I know how that feels. I was trying to figure out how much cheaper TPDS is compared to APDS, and let me tell you, I was awfully nervous typing "price buy TPDS Target Practice Deployed Sabot" into google... |
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Mar 11 2004, 07:25 PM
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#34
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
I've got government sponsored files on my computer, downloaded from the homepage of the Finnish Defense Forces, that tell me how I can stop tanks with home-made materials and how to build and effectively use chemical weapons, so I've never bothered with that kinda stuff. :)
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Mar 11 2004, 07:34 PM
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#35
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
Neat, care to post?
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Mar 11 2004, 07:44 PM
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#36
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
http://www.mil.fi/reservilainen/pdf/suojel...unkasikirja.pdf
Only in Finnish, sorry. Doesn't even appear to be a Swedish version, even though that's (supposedly) our second official language. The AT stuff is here. Same thing with the languages. I'm not gonna translate the few hundred pages and post them, either. :) This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Mar 11 2004, 07:45 PM |
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Mar 11 2004, 07:45 PM
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#37
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Chicago Survivor Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 5,079 Joined: 28-January 04 From: Canton, GA Member No.: 6,033 |
Now if only I had maintained contact with that Finnish tech i used to work with...
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Mar 11 2004, 08:12 PM
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#38
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Mostly Harmless Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 937 Joined: 26-February 02 From: 44.662,-63.469 Member No.: 176 |
Definitely. Just kind of making the point that it can be done otherwise, with fewer resources than most people tend to realize. Depending on how you play your game, I think it should be entirely possible to have a couple of guys with a mobile shop that produces specialty ammunition and markets it to shadowrunners through a network of fixers and armorers. No major manufacturers or mass-produced explosives involved.
Also true. The situation is always going to dictate what kind of tools you need to use. But if said shadowrunners are concerned about being traced through the type of explosive they use, there are ways to make that very difficult without a whole lot of effort. Just takes a spin around the right places on the matrix to get the knowledge and a trip out to a couple of rural farm stores.
Yikes.
I bet.
And you're not even a shadowrunner... Know anyone you can buy explosives from? ;) |
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Mar 11 2004, 08:20 PM
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#39
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
That was what I really should have said in the beginning. If such trace elements were commonplace, criminals (such as shadowrunners) would do their utmost to get their hands on explosives without such elements. All it would do, in effect, is make high-end explosives less common and more expensive in the shadows.
No, not really. Does knowing where I can steal them from count? |
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Mar 11 2004, 09:34 PM
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#40
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Target Group: Members Posts: 83 Joined: 12-February 03 Member No.: 4,083 |
So what would be the best bet for a SR criminal to do to avoid ballistic fingerprints? Change the barrel after every run?
OT: Which language group does Finnish reside in. I an read (with varying degrees of fluency) most Romance languages, along with German. Finnish seems to from another planet. |
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Mar 11 2004, 09:40 PM
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#41
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Finnish is Finno-Ugric, subset Finnic/Baltic-Finnic; a group which includes other, well known languages such as Karelian, Ludian, Vepsian, Ingrian, Votian, Estonian and Livonian.
The larger group, Finno-Ugric, also includes the different Sámi languages and Hungarian and a lot of other, really small languages from all over Russia, Eastern Europe and all the -stans. Finno-Ugric FAQ This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Mar 11 2004, 09:42 PM |
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Mar 11 2004, 10:00 PM
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#42
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 320 Joined: 13-August 02 From: Austin, Republic of Texas (not CAS) Member No.: 3,094 |
you could just use wepons without a ballistic fingerprint, like: bows, grenade launchers, spray weapons...
or you could buy cheap guns and use a different one each time. or you could pick up your cases, and dig the bullets out of your enemies, and the walls :D -Mike R. |
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Mar 11 2004, 10:08 PM
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#43
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Target Group: Members Posts: 83 Joined: 12-February 03 Member No.: 4,083 |
I see. Because it's not an Indo-European language threw me. I had thought that Finnish was related to Swedish. |
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Mar 11 2004, 10:57 PM
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#44
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 376 Joined: 14-July 03 Member No.: 4,928 |
And don't forget to wear gloves when loading ammo either into mag, cylinder or clip too, just in case you lose the firearm on a run or have to dump it quick. Not much point in making sure you have no prints on the gun or the scene if the ammo and expended cases are covered with your prints. |
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Mar 11 2004, 11:31 PM
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#45
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Someone more patriotic than me would be quite angry about that. ;) There are several words loaned from Swedish, but the structure of Finnish has very little to do with any germanic languages.
For those situations, always carry an extra incendiary grenade to all runs. :) |
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Mar 12 2004, 01:24 AM
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#46
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 413 Joined: 20-November 03 Member No.: 5,835 |
In a sense, I imagine that good forensic chemists can already do that -- explosives requires chemicals to make, and those would exist in proportions or something probably similar to those of a reference batch from various known manufacturers. THough, in the shadow world I imagine that that might not help much -- either everyone's using Ares ammo (hehe), or you're using something via the black market or shipped in from Asia, or whatnot -- so they might be able to say "this bullet had the same explosive load as that one last week", but might not be able to trace back to a manufacturer. |
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Mar 12 2004, 01:32 AM
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#47
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
I was sorta thinking that the trace elements would be sufficiently advanced to be capable of holding information such as when the batch was manufactured (what year or quarter) and where (which factory). This would be slightly more helpful than just knowing that it was made by a certain firm.
If the explosives could be traced back to the manufacturer (and thus original seller), the people who got it into the black market and at least the beginning of the distribution string would be in trouble. This would depend heavily on exactly what information would be recovered from the explosives -- if the explosives should currently be sitting in an active army base, someone has serious explaining to do.
If such elements were used, all major manufacturers would be "forced" to do so. If the ammo is produced by a major manufacturer, the originating country wouldn't matter, only how it got from there to the shadowrunners -- a chain of people and events that could be concealed with the proper precautions, but might prove troublesome at times. |
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Mar 12 2004, 07:07 AM
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#48
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Mostly Harmless Group: Dumpshocked Posts: 937 Joined: 26-February 02 From: 44.662,-63.469 Member No.: 176 |
I guess so. But then you don't really have to steal anything, do you?
The easiest thing to do (again) would be to use a shotgun and pick up your cases (or use a case catcher; caseless shotgun ammunition seems a bit far-fetched). Range is a bit limited, but shotguns are such versatile firearms that one would work fine for the majority of the things a shadowrunner would need to use a firearm for. A Saiga 12K loaded with something like Winchester Supreme Partition Gold or Remington Ultra Bonded slugs comes to mind. Those loads can be suppressed (somewhat). |
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Mar 12 2004, 08:46 AM
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#49
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Canon Companion Group: Members Posts: 8,021 Joined: 2-March 03 From: The Morgue, Singapore LTG Member No.: 4,187 |
Maybe since for APDS the sabot is discarded, the sabots can be "collected" be a screwed on silencer or some sort of muzzle attachment.
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Mar 12 2004, 11:53 AM
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#50
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,889 Joined: 3-August 03 From: A CPI rank 1 country Member No.: 5,222 |
Would it be too expensive to make the sabot self-destruct (burn away, for example) after it's been fired? If it's made of 2 pieces, it could be a chemical reaction triggered by the 2 pieces separating. And even if it was possible, would any ammo manufacturers do it? Do they mind the discarded sabots much?
I'm not a kleptomaniac and I'm rather well-off (for now), if that's what you mean. Might have to if I want to blow up a mall, though. :P |
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