Well, NM140 and Mk211 MOD 0 are apparently the same round, so I guess I was wrong about what kind of weapon it was designed for. I could swear I read somewhere that it was developed under a US DOD contract specifically for the M82A1A.

At any rate, the US military definitely treats Mk211 MOD 0 as a "match grade" munition. Being that it costs (IIRC) something like 4-6 times that of M20, I can't see why anyone would opt to use Mk211 MOD 0 in an HMG platform except under very special circumstances.

You're absolutely correct. However, a lot of things tend to be abstracted in ways that some of us don't agree with and find particularly rediculous. So we change them, often times making things a bit "more realistic" (or "less abstract" if that's less offensive to you) without making the game any more complex than it already is. After all, you don't have to play with any of us. If you're happy playing directly out of the book, enjoy.

But if someone wants to ask a question about firearms and how they relate to the game, those of us who know a thing or two about firearms might give an answer. Please, try not to split a blood vessel over it.

I remember being put off a bit when I saw a GAU-19/A firing what looked like all Mk 211s, just thinking about how much money is being burned there. But then it was common during Iraq War 2 to eliminate single gunmen with TOW 2s, which is quite a bit pricier.

Well... Foot meet mouth.
I fully stand corrected.

That's a friggin' rediculous waste of money. You have a link for that?

I'd guess it's somehow different in production quality from the "CTG CAL .50 API MK211 MOD 0 MULTI SNGLE" they're also acquiring in lower quantities (cost isn't much different, though; one's belted with M20 4/1, one isn't). Obviously the rifles don't use belts, so...

Well, looks like I'll have to eat some humble on this one. I thought Mk211 MOD 0 was largely restricted to rifle use, but looks like I was wrong. 3/1 cost ratio compared to M33 ball (which is what I meant to refer to instead of M20), which is a lot lower than I thought it was. Must have been thinking SLAP (5.46/1 to M33 FY04).

So my shit was not straight. Sorry.

I just don't get why they'd be buying so much belted Mk211. Not like there's much armor in Iraq and Mk211 seems a bit much for MOUT.

If the round reliably ignites and fragments even when penetrating lighter forms of cover (I seem to remember a picture of the fragmentation pattern through very thin aluminum plates), then could that effect be the main reason for using them on M2s in Iraq? It might not be worth $7.25/shot, but it might be a bit better for clearing a room through a brick wall or engaging car passengers.

I can't imagine that having been the main reason for purchasing over 4 million of them back in 2004, though.

Whew, that _is_ an expensive sniper round.

It might make sense if the gunman has a RPG, and your convoy will be driving into his range in a few minutes.

Though, come to think of it, since all US soldiers have life insurance, if you keep one soldier from dying by using a $50,000 weapon, you have _saved_ the US Govt. roughly 1/4 million dollars.

Wow, thanks for that well thought-out and terribly informative addition to the conversation at hand. *thumbs up*

In related news -- Raygun, when you gonna toss up some new toys on your site? We neeeeeds them, the preciousssss.

Because perforating a carful of Iraqis with a couple hundred rounds of .50 BMG is fun?

I've had a few things in the pipe for a while now, but I've just been too busy to make sure they're kosher and upload them to the site. If I get some time, I'll add them tonight.

The other thing is that I am so far totally uninterested in SR4 (especially after spending about 30 minutes with a copy at Barnes & Noble) so I don't currently have plans to add SR4 rules to the site. I'm not sure if I'll be wasting my time on continuing through with SR3 rules.

Opinions?

I also will continue to run SR3, and would love to have you (and anybody else who cares to) continue to support it.

Realism transcends game balance.

If we want to make a game balanced, we could make it so that pistols shoot faster than sniper rifles, but sniper rifles do more damage and have a longer effective range. We could arrange everything so that by using terrain a pistol hero was roughly equal to the sniper rifle hero. Sort of like how some D20 feats are balanced.

But if we're going for realism, all that is irrelevant. The pistol would generally be inferior to long arms. And that would be how it should be.

Your mistake is thinking that a *game* must always be *balanced*.

What is "game balance"? A fairly useless descriptive term due to the amount of sheer subjectivity contained within. As far as i can tell, the mistake is in assuming that "game balance" is rigid and inflexible, law laid down by the almighty Book. What seems balanced to one group may seem like vertigo to another. Even the pope changes shit from time to time. Obviously, if I thought SR3 were "balanced" from canon, I wouldn't go about changing things. But what's even funnier is that most of us "gunheads" can't even seem to agree on what that "balance" should be. We all seem to play it to different degrees.

There's no reason to limit yourself to playing only a "realistic" or "comic book" or "Monty Python" type of game (even in terms of just Shadowrun), viewing one as "right" and the other as "wrong". Just depends on what you want at the time.

Oh, and the site is updated. Don't let the flash banner on the splash page fool you. I'll fix that later.

Oops. Fixed.

I don't know about lazy, but cheap, certainly. Gets the job done, from what I hear. Besides, they're Russians, not Germans, dude.

Whoops. His bad for not realizing that his post to a thread containing a discussion on a public forum, regarding a subject that people have varying views on, in which the merits of things being discussed as they affect the game are entirely subjective, must conform to your standards in order to be relevant and worth posting.

I'm sure he'll never let it happen again.

Go read the sticky on thread crapping, go reread his post, and then come back here and defend it to me again. We were having a conversation (on-topic) about firearms in Shadowrun, and he poked his head in and said "LOL OMG NO ONE CARES, SHUT UP!"

How is that, y'know, in any way a meaningfull addition to a conversation, a positive influence on a thread, or anything at all besides thread crapping?

Regardless -- your post to me (and now my post to you) aren't on-topic. If you really feel a need to continue defending him from my horrible wrath (or whatever), you can do it in PMs.

Raygun: Top notch new stuff (well, duh). I've got an ork that just might need a Groza. Though I've yet to use all your rules (most folks like to keep it a little simpler, especially for already-slow online play), I can just flip through your pages and pages of guns and be happy. I recently was googling Kel Tec Sub 2k's, just trying to find reviews and opinions and whatnot (thinking of snagging one, to use my G19 mags) -- and ended up hitting your page in my search, and then forgetting what I was doing entirely (IE, "real world" stuff). I do like the old music better, though.

Sans mount, an M2E2 generates all of @ 37 fpe of recoil energy per shot with M33 ball. Full auto @ 500 rpm isn't going to lift a friggin' HMMV off its wheels, nor would they mount M2s on HMMVs if that were the case, considering that they have to be able to move and shoot at the same time. Aside from that, if what you're saying were true, an M2 going full auto would make pretty short work of the 44-pound M3 tripod the thing is normally attached to for static ground emplacements.

And disregarding the fact that mounting M2s on Jeeps during WWII was somewhat common practice, these guys must have a hell of a time.

23mm @ 1500m? Wow. Your 10-20 round handload groups beat the world record for 50-cal heavy benchrest 5-shot group (1,000 yards) by 1.6947" (43mm). You'd better get involved in the FCSA. Make some money selling ammo.

Awesome.

No, my "mistake" is in thinking a *game* should have playability is its prime directive.

Yeah. That's a pretty big mistake.

Nice try, but with a little between the lines it more closely reads, "As a game, its designed to do what it needs to do: Fast, efficent, and enough balance and reality to make it flow and play efficently. All these ridiculous rules and clarifications only serve to make you look like the 14yo kid at the gun counter at Walmart regailing the elderly sales person with stories of your Vietnam Marine father's custom whathaveyou shooting this-by-that, and look, you know obscure desginations for cartridges! W00t."

Some people tend to focus to the point of detriment on the inconsequential, and in turn then have to fill a board clogged with a glut of posts explaining an already oft complex game with meaningless drivel which in turn only feeds the hordes of barely literate D&D D20 players more nonsense with regards to useless power-up like toys in lieu of them focussing on things like play, plot, and story.

But, if you prefer, "LOL OMG NO 1 CARES, SHUT UP!" Your interpretation.

Suffice to say, if knowledge is power; the lot is barely dangerous 'round these parts.

So then the quad 50 on a 3/4 ton truck fo AA duty is all in my head?
Quad 50 trailer

Didnt think so.

*Edit* Erh, not a 3/4. One of those tri axel big haulers. 5ton? 2.5 ton?

Okay. My mistake. With a little "read between the lines," as you put it, your inane and ignorant post becomes more personally offensive and insulting, simply by virtue of the fact anyone who knows more than you do about guns is likened to a hyperactive 14 year old. Nice work.

I'm sorry if you play a game where gunplay is a major draw, and have no idea what you're talking about. I'm sorry the game developers are much like you in that respect. However, that doesn't mean the rest of us necessarily have to play in your simple, streamlined, basic, dirt-stupid, little world. Some of us know a little more about firearms, and one of us (Raygun) has taken a lot of time and a lot of effort (more than some of SR's designers, no doubt) to write up a comprehensive set of rules to replace (not just augment, but in some places wholly replace) the simple, streamlined, basic, dirt-stupid set in the main rulebook.

No one's making you use them. Is this somehow negatively impacting your game? Do you have any sort of proof (aside from your own ignorant and obviously slanted opinion) that this somehow "takes away" from "play, plot, and story?" I can show you detail-oriented RP that'll make your fucking head spin, son.

The addition of realistic gear and rules adds to, not detracts from, the ability to tell a good story -- because the players don't have to work so damned hard to believe what's happening. It's harder for some of us to turn our brains off so that it makes perfect sense that my street sammie can swap ammo between an Ares HVAR (6M damage) and an AK 97 (8M damage) just fine, but not between that AK97 (assault rifle) and it's folding stock/carbine version (but otherwise mechanically the same) SMG. You know why that's harder for me to believe? Because I understand a little fucking something about how guns work, and I'm pretty sure tacking a folding stock onto a gun doesn't make it require a whole different active skill (and ammunition class), and because I also understand that just because an AK and an M-16 are both kinda sorta called assault rifles doesn't mean they fire the same ammo. So maybe, just maybe, I use Raygun's rules instead. Not to "clutter up" the game, but to keep me from having to smack my head against a wall 'till I'm concussed enough to accept the canon rules.

What's more, no one's making you read this thread. So go about your business, stop trolling, and be aware that you're not adding a damned thing to the conversation by popping your fool head in and telling us that what we're talking about doesn't matter.

Here's a news flash -- nothing any motherfucker on Dumpshock says matters. We're all sitting here talking about a role playing game. Your pointless drivel is no more or less important than our pointless drivel, in the great, global, scheme of things. None of us are curing cancer by posting here, none of us are feeding sick children by creating new threads, none of us are bringing about global peace and harmony by taking advantage of clickable smilies.

That means everything everyone says on here is "meaningless drivel" that serves no real purpose. So go tell everyone else, on every other thread, they need to stop talking, too. And while you're at it, follow your own fucking advice. Read the sticky on thread crapping, while you're at it. You'll realize that popping onto a thread like this and doing nothing but telling people what they're saying is worthless and inconsequential is a textbook example of that, and that the only likely thing keeping you from Admin attention is the fact the fucking "report" button doesn't work.

So go back to whatever it is you do when you're not trolling. You're disrupting this otherwise productive and informative thread. Thanks.

So, by that logic, Big Eyes Small Mouth should have totally beaten out Dungeons and Dragons.

not that Raygun really needs any backup on this, but i've been in a HMMWV with an M2 mounted, firing a hell of a lot more than 10-round bursts. we didn't tip. moreover, i don't think the mounting is nearly strong enough to tip one over--it'd break first.

hey, gfen? LOL OMG NO 1 CARES, SHUT UP!

Through here (sans the snark, of course), I would have seen your point at least well enough to acknowledge it.

Here's where you start to lose any sort of credibility that you had. Knowledge isn't something to be belittled, regardless of whether you choose to use it.

And here's where you completely fall apart. Guess what? I would wager that quite a few DSers play D&D D20. And yes, some of us most likely do enjoy debating points of that game, as much as we like debating points of this one. The fact that you're implying that all posts on the subject of D&D are "nonsense about toys and powerups" destroys any base for making an argument that you had, due to the fact that it clearly shows that you know fuck-all about what commonly gets discussed at the D&D forums (the most common theme as of my last venture over being alignment; feel free to try and come hold your own with some of us over there).

Your lack of ability to combine intricate detail with plot and story has been covered just fine by Critias.

Then, you finish it off by insulting everyone on the forums. Nice.

[cue: Trideo announcer]
So after last quarter, the score stands solidly at Critias 1, qfen 0, and it doesn't look like the next half of the game is going to be all that exciting. Yup, fans are already leaving the stands. [/cue]

Public apology to Critias: That shall be the last time I infer too deeply into a post. I'm pretty sure your initial instinct beat the living piss out of mine...this time.

The trailer you're showing actually comes from a deuce & a half engineering truck. With the modifications made to it for the Q50, the finished product weighs in about the same as a 1 ton truck. My friends & relatives who've used these against ground targets in Vietnam say "HEAVY sand bagging was required to form a fixed emplacement & required daily restacking of the sandbags to keep it in place. The M113 APC mounted version was filmed moving the vehicle sideways when fired to the side. The film I'm referring to was from NBC News. It aired as part of their coverage ot the '68 Tet Offensive. I watched it 2 years ago as part of a video journalism class. The audio sucks, because of poor storage of the media, but I think it may be available on interlibrary loan. I'll track down the professor I had & see about getting the relavent ID stuff to order it or even look it up online.

An M2 on an M3 tripod shrugging off a few sandbags around the cleats after a thousand rounds is one thing. Flipping a Jeep after 3 rounds is something else entirely. If you'd like to see video of an M2 on an M3 tripod firing without any sandbagging whatsoever, here you go. Not exactly flipping 120-ish pounds of gun and tripod onto the shooter's head, is it?

Was the subject "drawing the wrong conclusion"? I'd really love to see that video.

Incidentally, here's a video of a GAU-19/A (that's a .50 BMG gatling gun) mounted on an HMMV firing at a bit more than twice the rate of an M2 (roughly 1,300 rpm; Average Peak Recoil: 500 Pounds (2.2 kN)). While it appears to set the HMMV back on its shocks an inch or so, there aren't any wheels coming off the ground, even after the 50th round.

That's fucking amazing.

None needed. I guess it's a good thing not everyone's as cynical as me (even if it means they're wrong when I'm not), overall.

Okay, weapons guys, question: What is the name of that high-speed minigun that they mount in helicopter doors and (I believe it's the same one) on naval vessels?

I saw a clip from CNN (or one of those "news" networks) in which the reporter was suddenly drowned out (he was riding right next to the door gunner) by this "rrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiipppppppp" sound, and the camera man turned just in time to catch a literally solid looking stream of brass pouring out of the thing. Must...find...video...and watch...over and over.....

(I suppose the SR equivalent would have to have the HV option, but somehow ignore the lame-o damage adjustment.)