...because the melee guy has to run up to do melee, gun still trumps melee in range, because it's no longer range that which the melee is being used.

Close, but not quite. If you were to say you could dodge bullets, then chuck your battleaxe into their gut or remove their hand, that'd be melee trumping the gun.

But I'm being technical and getting amusement out of this.

Aaron: To be clear, you're talking only about SR(4), and not what'd happen IRL?

Okay. So you advocate knives and swords for CQB instead of MP5s and M4s? Have you considered contacting the Naval Special Warfare Development Group on this?

Well, you seem to be saying their using firearms is stupid and bound to get them killed against knife-wielding opponents, especially in such confined spaces as they often face in maritime operations, so maybe you should clue them in. I'm sure they'll appreciate you telling them they've wasted decades on such silly toys as the MP5 when they could've been carrying katanas.

you want to use the right weapon for the job. this includes such things as range, reach, and such. at long range, you want to have a rifle, maybe a heavy weapon. at medium range, your better off with pistols and shotguns. at short range... now the swords come into play.

If i have an enemy at range, i may want to shoot him. a silencer is good if i need to keep quiet. If i have an enemy in close, i need a weapon to use, and fight him with what skill i have. A shock glove and unarmed combat is a good way to drop somebody.

If the swordsman gets suprise at sword range, hes gonna win. if a pistol and sword fight at pistol range, smart money is on the pistol (if he knows how to use one). at longer ranges? bet on the sniper.

If you have 3 swordmen, and i have 3 gunmen, with pistol, assault rifle, and sniper rifle, i think the guy with the pistol will die before i can kill all the swordsmen. lets hope he has docwagon.

to claim a sword is better than a gun is silly. but to claim that the adept swordmaster is better than the gunbunny street sam? he could be. tactics and luck are a significant part of combat in SR

Aaron==Ninja Mofo.

Thanks for the heads up, I saw Kempo where he said Kendo. It doesn't change the relevance of what I said, but I agree, you should always quote directly.

Even as absurd as this arguement is (Blades vs. Guns) I can't stand by and let LARPING get mentioned as combat experience....I just can't...

LARPING isn't combat experience, no way.

No, it isn't, but its definately at least more practical than no experience with anything.

Linking LARPING with combat knowledge is like linking masturbation to knowing how to please a woman. Swinging around foam weaponry in a playing field is in no way similair to real combat.

If you're a woman squinky, then your analogy is more apt. Simply because you'd know how to please yourself, so thus you'd have a better idea of how other women might want to be pleased. Larping gives you a better understanding for the level of skill used in a real combat, simply by having the experince of trying to hit someone while being (relatively) unskilled yourself.

I am just going to shake my head and walk away now. I pray you are never in combat, I really do.

This is seriously the stupidest argument I've ever.. even HEARD of. Seriously. However, being a woman, I did get a great laugh out of Squinky's last comment ;)

I have not, in fact, ever been in life or death combat. I did get some unarmed and club training in the military because I was trained as an MP (in the Finnish DF), but it was for peace time operations only. Against any armed opponents we'd have our assault rifles, and we were taught to always trust 180 rounds of 7.62x39mm over our hands.

If I remember correctly, Raygun has not been in the military, but has way, way more experience in everything gun-related than I do.

I dunno, I'd say quite a lot of people are fucking morons and walk around with a knife of gun with them with the "I can use this and be ok" idea behind it. When a situation comes up, who knows who'll win, simply cause they're both fucking morons.

As far as SR combat goes, you're right, but trolls bows shooting through tanks isn't very good either, but it happens. Sword guys can beat rifles sometimes too, it happens.

The clinically retarded who are holding a weapon for the first time usually stay the hell away from combat. Or else they get killed in short order while those who know what the fuck they're doing continue fighting. Either way, they make no real impact in the serious fighting that goes on around the world between groups of people with firearms.

Even the idiots you saw jumping around in the streets with AKs in the footage of "war" in Liberia are bright enough to kill equally sucky people with machetes.

Melee can be effective in SR, way more so than IRL (like I implied in my very first message in this thread), but that doesn't really have anything do with the relative stupidity of all the characters in the game. It's got more to do with the same sort of silly rules that allow for anti-vehicular bows, like you said.

I'm pretty sure nobody's ever made an edged weapon that will create a wound cavity in tissue which can challenge some .308 HP loads in volume. Or can you fit an NFL spec football inside a wound caused by a gladius? You can beat most combat small arms in depth of penetration with any a blade that's more than 2 feet long (though you'll need a greatsword to match heavier solid bullets), but it makes little difference when you're going to get complete penetration of the target human body with most attacks.

Guys, we can solve this quickly and easily. I'll go get an old broomstick and duct tape foam on it, one of you get a squirt gun. Just make sure you yell "Burst fire!" when you attack.

For really close quarters I would prefer a knife.

Regarding the gun (pistol): I have seen people miss a 2m² target at 10 meters for 40 tries in a row, and that was under ideal, aka no-stress, situations. Of course, they weren't trained.
Neither was I, but I might have been just talented .

A small pistol can be used almost as if it was a jabbing knife in close quarters, only you don't need to commit to the attack to use it. Cybernetic triggers make this even more true.

As long as ammo (and jamming) isn't a huge issue ranged weapons rule. In a fight between a moderately trained kendo enthusiast and someone wielding a rifle or weapon of equal or greater barrel length while inside, I'd go ahead and bet on the guy with the sword. But even still I'd be a little nervous about losing my money, and the distinct possibility that the two would kill each other.

I'm no expert, but I've gotta say that there are very, very few situations when a knife or sword beats a gun. If you don't believe me, ask the samurai (very skilled swordsmen) who got cut down by Oda Nobunaga's musket wielding troops (far less trained with their slow rate of fire, inaccurate guns). Or, for a more modern example, the Japanese officers in World War II that led banzai charges armed with katana and more often than not got cut to ribbons by the opposing American soldiers.

In response to the "it takes one action to cut a guy, two actions to shoot him" comment made earlier:

A lot of places that provide firearm instruction will teach stress firing techniques. One of the things that gets taught is point shooting; the sights on the gun aren't used, and often times the gun isn't even brought up to eye level, because the intention of the drill is to get the shooter familiar enough with the weapon he's using that they're able to engage targets at the kind of close ranges we're talking about (within a couple of meters) as quickly as possible. Weapon familiarity and hand-eye coordination let you know within a small enough arc where your weapon is pointed that, once the gun is in hand and pointed in the right direction (just like you have to have a blade in hand and pointed in the right direction before you cut someone), you start shooting, and at the kind of ranges point shooting is meant to be used at, you should be on target.

If anyone's having trouble visualizing this, a decent example in film can be found in Collateral, when Vincent (Tom Cruise) finds himself being held at gunpoint by a thief in an alley. After knocking the gun out of line with his face (a cool-looking move, but not what we're watching this bit for), he's got a very limited amount of time to handle the situation, as the thief is still armed and has an accomplice (who is also carrying a gun, although it's not drawn). Vincent draws his sidearm, rotates it to the horizontal without raising it above his lower ribs, and fires twice into his target's torso, then turns to engage the accomplice. "Aiming" in the classic sense (lifting the gun to eye level, extending the weapon at arm's length, and aligning the sights) never happened, and was unnecessary at that range.

Are there situations where I'd rather have a knife than a gun? Sure, I can think of a couple. However, the likelihood of my encountering one of them is so small, even compared to the relatively low chance of my encountering a situation where I need a gun, that it seems almost silly to devote more than a small percentage of your training time towards those situations.

In that case, if you don't know what the hell you're doing, yeah, aiming for a dime sized target thats surrounded by dense bone isn't exactly the best idea. Better ones would be the throat, side of the jaw, nose, solar plexus or groin. Mostly soft targets, called so because you don't have to hit them as hard to cause damage.

Regardless, when you have a glove on over your hand, you're really only able to hit the side of their head, with maybe a little more pressure on the temple from where your knuckles compressed the foam a bit more. Mostly, its called a boxers fracture because even when you know what you're doing, you'll mess up eventually, so when your living is punching, you're gonna screw up and break a little bone every now and then.

I stand corrected. I admit that I can make a mistake too. However, you don't have to be sarcastic and downright rude about it.

I used to take kendo, and after the class, our instructor gave us the option to hang out and learn some other sword techniques. We actually did cover some of the Nito Ryu techniques. It was in fact with two swords. Not easy to do, but it sure was a lot of fun.