OK, a newby friend of my GM's has recently built a character (we've only just got rid of the crane ) that carries two Sakura Fubuki pistols, of which both are silenced. Now, my GM has, quite rightly, asked him to buy four suppressors per pistol for it to be silenced.

This is fine from a purely games rule perspective, as no where have i seen that the Sakura Fubuki pistol cannot have barrel mounts of any kind, but i have to ask, does anyone else find this slightly unrealistic?

It does, i suppose, depend on how the gun works. Personally i assume it runs off todays Metal Storm technology and that it works by firing one round from each barrel sequentially, thus giving it such a high rate of fire with as little recoil as it suffers from. My two major questions about this are thus:

1) Does each barrel, being close together, have enough space to accomodate a silencer/suppressor without fouling the muzzle of it's adjacent barrels?

2) if this four barrelled beast fires the way i've described and can fit the necessary silencing device to it, surely, because each barrel only deals with one bullet at a time, only a silencer is necessary, not a much bigger, therefore more prone to adjacent muzzle fouling, suppressor?

It's an interesting quandry that i'm unsure was considered when the weapon was introduced into SR4. Personally, i don't believe that you should be able to fit a silencer/suppressor to the weapon as i'm sure that it would foul adjacent muzzles, not to mention, with the weapon being a breach-loader, it would make the already cumbersome job of reloading a nightmare in a combat situation.

Your thoughts please, ladies and gentlemen?

1) Probably not if we're talking independently attached normal suppressors, but there's easily enough room for a giant multi-suppressor.

2) Each barrel does not fire one bullet at a time. The idea behind metalstorm is that one may fire an entire "stack" in a very short timeframe—the gigantic number of barrels you see in certain area denial/antimissile systems are just there because the system is also very parallelizable.

Also, you may have better luck with this question over in the SR4 forum. In SR3, it cannot be silenced because it cannot exist.

~J

@Feyd-47 Go to the SR4 forum and use the Search function. Set the date to 180 days and search for Fubuki. There is a recent thread and a few older threads talking about this weapon in detail including entries from the artist that drew the picture in the book.

hahah. yeah, sure, go ahead and silence all four barrels on each weapon. and then spend, what, 10 passes reloading, every time? one simple action to eject all four barrels, one simple action to insert a new set of four barrels--and then four complex actions to remove the silencer from each of the four old barrels, and another four to install them on each of the four new barrels.

incidentally, you'd need a suppressor, not a silencer, for the fubuki, unless you plan on not using bursts.

The only downfall is the Fabuki is a muzzle loader [ML designation in the description]. Speed loaders only work for revolvers. It would take a character with a reaction of 8 five combat turns to reload. Also the initial high cost of the weapon makes it expensive to have a second one on hand to use when the first runs out of ammo (especially if it is smartlinked).

KK will stick with her 2 Super Warhawks.

I have two guns, one for each of you...
-Doc Holliday from Tombstone

yeah. i was assuming that there'd be some sort of speed-loader for them--not like it'd be hard to make one.

It is a reloading tool. Some people call it a "barrel".

~J

Feyd-47 you are verging upon territory, that while humourous, is paved with good intensions.

I would submit that this pistol is possibly one of the worst firearms you could have picked if you wanted silenced/suppressed fire.


-karma

Feyd-47:

Theoretically, I'd say that a weapon using the Metalstorm technology *could* be silenced--just not in the sense that you mean.

As I see it, there are two ways to go here:

(1) A suppressed/silenced system in which the devices are disposable, and are actually *built into* the barrel stack, rather than having to be attached; or

(2) a variant of the weapon using compressed gas--dry nitrogen or carbon dioxide, for example--as a propellant, rather than gunpowder.

My suggestion is to see what Raygun thinks. He's pretty much the resident authority on such matters.

P.S.: Kyoto Kid--Val Kilmer's John H. "Doc" Holliday had most of the good lines in Tombstone--including that one.

--Foreigner

What the hell kind of gun makes you buy whole BARRELS to use? Or did whomever made this thing somehow surpress Metal Storm technology?

If it were a Metal Storm kind of gun, though, woulden't it be firing twelve rounds before it needs reloading? Three-stack in each barrel?

What I don't understand is how the accuracy can be the same for each shot, even though the length the first bullet travels along the barrel must be very short compaired to how much barrel time the last bullet gets. ??? Isn't this a problem? And what about exaust fumes, or whatever it's called? How can loaded bullets sit safely behind a bullet that is being fired?

The amount of propellant, and maybe also the type of propellant changes between each shot, allowing the muzzle velocities stay about the same even though the actual length of barrel used changes. Still, this can only correct slight changes in barrel length, so the stack only fills up part of the rear of the barrel.

The barrels aren't rifled, and when one shot is fired the projectile behind it flattens a bit, effectively blocking the barrel so that the propellant gases cannot go around it.

Because of the deformed projectiles, no rifling, etc., the accuracy is at best consistently crap.

The amount of propellant doesn't change. The barrels are not stacked that deep, and the minimal difference in barrel length should not affect the accuracy much.

That being said, MetalStorm was originally conceived as an area fire weapon, and pinpoint accuracy is not the concern. The company had plans to develop sidearms using the same technology, but their latest updates no longer include those development lines. It may be that they dropped those for the reasons discussed here:
Less accurate on first rounds fired
Difficulty in quick reloading
Bulky and awkward to carry replacement magazines (with existing gear)

Also, just my 2 ... If these are not breech loaded, but instead have whole replacement barrels, then couldn't they integrate the silencer/suppressor on the replacement, so that it could be replaced en toto?

They could, but suppressors are expensive and fairly precise pieces of equipment. Much moreso, at least, than a MetalStorm barrel assembly.

I will venture that it is a firearm that should fall into the cannot be stealthy catagory, like a shotgun loaded with bird shot. Hence a gun you take for area denial and mass trauma and not for zero foot print/zero tag covert ops.

The manipulation of propellent loads works for weapons where the entire barrel was being replaced but for long arms and lager weapons where you want to have thousands of rounds available (vehicle mounted) it sounds silly to carry that many full length barrels. Better to have ten round mettle storm modules in a belt loading into a weapon like a normal machinegun and fire a 10 round burst each time the belt moves.

Edward

What about that modified Styr AUG the Australian Army is testing that has an integrated Metal Storm 40mm grenade launcher, holding 3 rounds?

That's the reason why I added "small caliber" after "personal". Most militaries have only one type of low velocity 40mm grenade launcher, so interchangeability of ammunition for those is a non-issue for that platform.

The Metal Storm site no longer has any mention of the VLe handgun project, nor have they come up with any new information about such a project for several years now. I assume that means that such plans are currently on hold/dumped.

When the site still mentioned VLe, it did indeed have 4 barrels. 30 shots per barrel out of handgun is not going to happen unless it fires tiny pellets. 30 9mm 112gr bullets alone would take up ~47cm of barrel, and then there's the space taken up by the propellant, and the issue of muzzle velocity which requires that only part of the barrel is used for the stack.

Frankly, I would say no to a silencer. Since you have to swap barrels to reload, a silencer would be difficult at best to create and along the lines of impossible to impliment.

Feyd-47:

Here's a thought:

How about a CO2-powered shotgun? Would that serve the purpose as well?

I saw one in a gun magazine about 30 years ago.

IIRC, the Crosman company made it.

It's been awhile, but I believe that the beastie was essentially a modified semiautomatic design.

The gas cartridges, wadding, and shot pellets were all contained inside the shotshell. Said shotshell was made entirely out of plastic, but was otherwise externally identical to a conventional 12-gauge 2.5" shell.

Instead of firing in the conventional manner, the gun's firing pin, instead of igniting the primer, acted upon a spring mechanism inside the shotshell, forcing the gas cartridge against a valve inside the shell itself. When the gas cartridge's seal was broken, the escaping CO2 acted upon a piston inside the shell, forcing the wadding, and the shot out of the case and down the barrel.

A small portion of the gas was diverted into the shotgun's firing mechanism to eject the spent shell, and to propel a fresh one from the magazine and into the chamber.

IIRC, the weapon was almost completely silent, except for a muted hiss as the gas cartridge's seal was broken, and some mechanical noise as the action operated.

I'm not sure, but it *might* be possible to design a grenade launcher along the same lines, especially since, in-game, we're talking at least 50 years in the future.

After all, the gas reservoirs used by the more advanced weapons used in paintball competition are the size of small fire extinguishers--the type used for kitchen grease fires and the like.

Just some suggestions, mind you.

In addition, a similar weapon was designed for the U.S. Army's "Tunnel Rats" (1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Division, itself part of the 3rd Batallion of the 1st Infantry Division ("The Big Red One")).

Known as the QSPR ("Quiet Special-Purpose Revolver"), it was a highly-modified Smith & Wesson Model 29 .44 Magnum. The pistol's barrel was replaced by a two-inch smoothbore (that is, unrifled) barrel, and the chambers in the cylinder were bored-out slightly, both to accept the special cartridges and to prevent conventional .44 Magnum ammunition from being used. (Believe it or not, some soldiers (mostly officers) *did* use the big S&W in combat.)

The cartridges were made of blued steel, instead of the conventional brass. Inside each one, ahead of the powder charge, was a small piston. In front of the piston were approximately 25 Number 6 shot pellets, and the case was sealed by a flat metal nose cap.

Upon firing, when the powder charge was ignited by the primer, the resulting gases acted upon the piston, forcing it forward, which broke the seal of the case at the front of the case, and propelling the shot down the barrel at about 700 feet per second--below the speed of sound. When the piston reached the end of its travel, it sealed the case mouth, trapping the gas--and hence the noise--inside the case itself. As a result, just about the only sound the weapon made was the click of the firing mechanism, followed by a muted "pop" as the primer went off.

In addition to being almost completely silent, the weapon had little or no muzzle flash--an important consideration in the darkness of those tunnels, especially considering that one of the primary considerations for being a Tunnel Rat was excellent night vision. (The others were short stature (5' 7" or shorter), expertise with small arms (particularly pistols), hand-to-hand combat and knife fighting, and demolitions, because the tunnels were often booby-trapped. Needeless to say, applicants were also screened for claustrophobia.) In addition, the muzzle flash caused by a more conventional firearm--even one fitted with a silencer--would place the weapon's user at a disadvantage if he were wearing night-vision goggles.

The weapon's effective range was no more than about 15 feet, but it was enough for the typical engagement range that the Tunnel Rats usually encountered.

A grenade-launcher cartridge, firing Buckshot or Canister, designed along the same lines might be the solution to your problem.

--Foreigner

I'm trying to imagine the kind of velocities you'd get using CO2 to power a firearm, especially a Metal Storm type one. Paintball guns aren't exactly silent, I can't imagine you'd get something supremely quiet once you start trying to make the jump from paint and gelatin at 300 fps to lead at 900.

The way I ruled suppressors would work for the Fubuki was as a latch-on accessory that covered all four barrels. In order to reload, however, you had to remove the suppressor (simple action), reload the barrels as normal (complex action per barrel), and then reattach the suppressor (should you desire, another simple action). I was inclined to say that the suppressor was twice the cost of a normal suppressor, due to the strange design.

You could, in theory, have the suppressor hinged onto the gun, so that it "breaks open" and folds downwards out of the way for reloading.

paintball guns are very, very quiet compared to normal firearms, though. at a guess, i'd say that a paintball gun and a silenced pistol or SMG are roughly equal in sound output.

I'll give you that they're much quieter than normal firearms. Paintball guns have a distinct "barking" noise when you fire them, loud enough that it'll make your ears ring a bit in a small room... I've not heard suppressed gunfire with my own ears, but I'd guess it's quieter than that, based on recordings I've heard. And the application we're talking about here is going to be using a lot more pressure than what's required to get a paintball moving.