Could someone explain to the different kind of guns?

I know what a pistol and a shotgun is.

I'm confused as to the difference in between a rifle, a SMG (what's a submachine gun? Is is just a gun who fires in automatic?) a cannon and other types.

Also, what does a Ruger Super Warhawk looks like? I can't find any decent pictures of the weaponery in Shadowrun.

Thanks.

A SMG is basically a weapon designed to fire pistol rounds full auto. A rifle chambers larger rounds. For comparison go to the gun counter at a Walmart and ask to see the difference between a 22 short (pistol round) and a 22 long (rifle round) and remember that these are the smallest caliber of bullet you'll commonly see. A better comparison might be a 9mm (found in the MP5) to a 7.62mm NATO round (found in the M16). Cannons are really just big versions of any other gun from 20mm all the way up to 16" navel guns. During WWII at least Cannons refered to weapons firing explosive shells usually put on airplanes. They were designed to disable other planes and occasionally light vehicals since they could tear the workings up better than a solid slug could. I think that now though anything over 50 caliber is concidered a cannon.

As for a Ruger Super Warhawk... Go to google and search for a "Long Barreled 357 Magnum" Should give you a pretty good idea.

I know for a fact though that there are people on the forum who know FAR more about guns than me so I'll leave it to them to go into detail because I'll get something wrong and make a fool of myself in the process (assuming I havn't already).

The most basic information you can easily find on Wikipedia (you can start here or even a standard dictionary -- though the latter are infamously crap for correct terms.

One might assume the Super Warhawk is similar in looks to the actual Super Redhawk. Still, it's 50+ years from now. Aesthetics change.

Because of the SS rate of fire I always assumed a Super Warhawk was single-action revolver, which would make it closer to an updated version of the Super Blackhawk (somewhat older kissing cousin of the Redhawk) with the somewhat different asthetics as shown in the book.

Never a fool as long as you acknowledge that you may be wrong.

I don't have access to Wikipedia, China blocks it. .

Okay, thanks for the reply.

But I don't know anything about guns, so what you are talking about right now is WAY ahead of me.

Could someone vulgarise a bit please?

Holy fucking shit!

Then scratch the above, my only advice is to expatriate ASAP.

Thats a dozy of a question.

You have to have basic understanding of guns for this all to make sense, but I'll take a stab at this.

You know what a pistol is, and what a shotgun is, but have you fired either, or handled the ammo for either? If not, then its time to go to hit the internet.

This is a good site.

http://world.guns.ru/main-e.htm

This is a good site.

In simplist terms, a pistol fires pistol ammo (.38, .45, 9MM, 10MM etc.), and is usually semiautomatic (everytime you pull the trigger the weapon loads and fires a cartridge), and fed from a removeable magazine (Clip is the common term). Revolvers (and I believe a Ruger Warhawk is a revolver) are simliar, but may not be semiauto.

A Submachinegun is a weapon that fires pistol ammunition fully automaticiallly (As long as the trigger is held down, the weapon continues to load and fire ammunition untill the magazine is empty). An example of a submachinegun would be the Thompson (Tommy Gun), this fires .45 ammunition, the same ammo that the Colt 45 uses.

Generically, Rifles are weapons that are Rifled, that is they have spiral grooves inside the barrel that impart spin to the bullet and thus add stability. Nearly all modern firearms are Rifled in this way, so "rifle" is commonly used to descibe all non pistols, but more technically is used to describe long arms that fire larger ammo than pistol (Winchester .308, for example), bigger bullets AND more powder. These are commonly semiautomatic, but not always. Bolt action, manually working a lever to load the next round is common. We now think of Rifles as hunting weapons, as Rifles were replaced by Assault Rifles in most modern armies after WW2. During WW2, the main battle rifle was the M-1 Garand, chambered in .30-06.

Machine Guns usually fire Rifle sized ammo and are fully automatic. The M-2 fielded by the US in WW2 is .50 caliber Machine Gun, developed by Moses Browning. Another Example is the Vickers Heavy Machine Gun, fielded by the British.

Assault Rifles were developed after WW2, based on the premise of giving infantry controlable automatic weapons. A fully automatic .30-06 is very powerful and difficult to control. Assault Rifles typically fire rounds that are bigger than pistol rounds but smaller than traditional rifle rounds, trying to hit a balance of power and manageable recoil. You should be familar with these, think M-16, or AK-47.

I think Austere may have nailed it.

So Machine guns pack more power than submachine guns. right?

How fast does a bullet travel? It's in m/second right?

How does bulletproof vest work?

There's no way we can tell you all of this stuff on a forum like this, and the little knowledge we could let you in on might just make you more confused if you can't then check up on the actual facts because the CCP is scared shitless of their subjects knowing things.

And that said...
"Power" is subjective, but in most applications, rifle cartridges (which are what machine guns fire) can be called more powerful than handgun cartridges (which are what submachine guns fire).

Right after leaving the barrel of the firearm that fired them, bullets often travel anywhere from 250 meters per second to 1100 meters per second. Handguns often clock at the lower end of this spectrum and rifles at the higher end, but that is by no means always the case.

A bulletproof vest works by stopping bullets and reducing the blunt trauma from the impact. Is HowStuffWorks blocked in China too?

[Fallschirmjäger Gewehr 42]

Pistol bullets typically travel between 275 and 450 meters per second (the speed of sound is around 340 meters per second). Typical 9mm pistol loads go around 350 meters per second (slightly faster than sound).

Rifle bullets usually travel around 600-1200 meters per second (2-3 times the speed of sound). A bullet from a 5.56mm assualt rifle will go at around 900 meters/second.

Also worth noting is the weight of the bullet itself. A rifle bullet will typicall weight between 3.5 and 12 grams. Pistols typically fire slightly heavier bullets with typical weights from maybe 6.5 to 15 grams.

[edit]
I hope I got all those conversions to that heathen metric system right. That velocity for the 5.56 looks a bit low.
[/edit]

No, it's not blocked, they're not that bad.

Well, I understand guns better now. The whole thing is rather confusing for a neophyte though. As you've got different names for different types, and you also have the brands, and some terms mean multiple types of guns.

I was wondering why protetion is under two forms:

Ballistic and Impact. Protection is protection, isn't? I'm not sure I understand the difference between the two types of protection.

As I understand it, armor disperse the kinetic energy of a projectile on an area, which prevents penetration.

So since some bullets travel faster than the speed of sound, if someone were to shoot at you, you would be hit before you would hear the detonation?

OFF TOPIC:

I hear there's a way to bypass the block if you use the website:

www.answers.com

Haven't tried though.

I'd be careful with that if I were you. Firewalls are one thing, but abduction, holding indefinitely without trial, torture, and "disappearing" are quite another. But I'm sure you know all about that.

Yes, you'd be hit before you heard the shot. No, you wouldn't particularly care at that point.

Holy shit, 2,5 kms that's intense! I can't believe anyone could hit anything at that range!

More than two seconds, most likely. Unless he was firing SLAPs (which I doubt), the average velocity to that distance would be under 600m/s by my reckoning. That means 4 seconds or more at 2430 meters.

If they haven't blocked that, they clearly don't know what's best for them.

I'm sure someone's got extended ballistic tables for the Mk 211 Mod 0 somewhere, but it's rather too late for me to do anything but check TM 43-0001-27 and use the Windows Calculator...

SeekerOfPeace: As a general rule, pre-Cold War body armor will not be worth shit against modern firearms. Most handguns will penetrate a late medieval plate cuirass (torso armor) front and back, and any rifle damn well ought to.

[Edit]Gun-threads have animal magnetism. Almost half of the people on Dumpshock Forums are reading this thread![/Edit]

Great site, Raygun, it does clarify things quite a bit.

Why on earth would you do a Called Shot on that?

Anyway, I have no idea how you got 1.5km. Sniper rifle max range in SR3 is 1km, extendable to 1.1km with extended barrel option. You can snipe people at 2.5km if you're willing to go Assault Cannon, though, and machine guns will get you long distances as well.

~J

I've you've got the time to take multiple aim actions in SR3, and a smartlink II, the called shot can be worth it. With a sniper rifle, it's generally unnecessary, though (since they've already got a pretty high power/damage armor's seldom a problem, and rolling a ton of successes is normally more fun). At sniper rifle ranges you're also running into the "no smartlink with magnification" issues, blah blah blah.

But, yeah. If you know you can aim long enough to drop the TN to something funny, it's kind of fun to go ahead and aim for his head with the .50. Uncalled for, but fun.

Even without a smartlink II only 6 take aim actions would be necessary to reduce the TN to 2 (assuming Image Mag III). At a kilometer it should be trivial to stack this many take aim actions, assuming that there is no countersniper or artillery support.

Okay then, let us start with some basic equations.

Force= mass*acceleration
acceleration=Force/mass
velocity = acceleration*time
distance = (acceleration*time*time)/2
time= squareroot(2*distance/acceleration)
velocity = squareroot(2*distance*acceleration)

Now, the acceleration of the bullet is caused by expanding gasses pushing it down the battel of the weapon. The more gasses you have the the lighter the bullet is the higher the acceleration will be. Likewise, the longer the barrel is the faster the bullet will be.

Also remember that the bullet is dropping with a constant acceleration of 9.8m/s downward due to gravity. This limits the range of any weapon. The maximum range of a bullet fired horizontally is muzzle velocity*squareroot(2*height/9.8m/s)

A pistol is designed for everyday personal carry or as a weapon of last resort, usually both. Pistols are small and light compared to rifles. Their cartridges often contain less powder and their barrels are far shorter, meaning far less acceleration.

Most rifles have long barrels and use large powder charges This means that the bullets will have a much greater velocity than a pistol and and a much greater range than a pistol.

An assault rifle is a relatively small rifle designed to fire fully-automaticlly or semi-automaticly. Assault rifles then to use weaker cartridges compared to sporting rifles and semi-automatic or bolt action battle rifles, but are still far more powerful than a pistol. Most assault rifles can defeat soft body armor.

Sub machine guns predate the assualt rifle and tend to be used for trench raiding, urban warfare, and other situations where close range engagment of multiple foes is likely and/or space is at a premium. They have the advantage of being shorter and more controlable than most assault rifles while having greater range and accuracy than most pistols in the same caliber (due to greater barrel length). They also tend to have stocks, which helps steady the shooter's aim.

Weapons classified as Light Machine Guns tend to fire assault rifle cartridges but have higher rates of fire than assault rifles and longer barrels than assault rifles. They also tend to be belt fed rather than using removable magazines. This allows them to achive much greater sustained rates of fire compared to assault rifles. However, due to their high rates of fire some have a tendency to overheat their barrels. An overheated barrel may warp and make the weapon dangerous to its operator. For that reason many machine gunners are issued spare barrels along with their weapons. Thicker and longer barrels are less likely to warp due to overheating but they are also heavier.

Medium Machine guns tend to fire the larger cartridges that were once common to semi-automatic battle rifles. Some may be man portable and some may be mounted.

Heavy machine guns tend to fire even larger cartridges such as the .50 BMG. They are almost always mounted and they tend to be very heavy.

It's been noted that Shadowrun guns aren't especially realistic; there's only so much you need to know about firearms. There's a LOT to know out there, but most of it isn't actually useful for a game environment, unless you're trying to replicate that kind of thing (which may involve houseruling if it's more than just colour).

There's also the problem that there are a lot of different theories abounding. Obviously, scientific testing of injuries from firearms is impossible in any vaguely ethical system -- so we get by on laboratory tests against blocks of gelatin (that have the same ballistic qualities as human flesh) and 'on the street' results. These are interpreted in any one of a hundred different ways; every expert has their own method.

My advice is that until you're ready to delve into the advanced stuff, don't bother with it. Oh, and howstuffworks.com is fantastic, particularly their 'how machineguns work'.

The other posts on here already give plenty enough detail to understand shadowrun guns.

I quite enjoyed reading your post Hyzmarca.

Didn't know the thread would become so popular. That's good, I'm sure I'm not the only one who doesn't (didn't ) know much about guns.

Cheers for all the detailed replies.

It's not a double standard, it's pandering to public will (IE, that of their shoppers). The public's vocally undecided on their feelings towards guns, so some Wal-Marts (though, trust me, not all) still sell them. The vocal minority shrilled and cried loud enough that some versions of GTA don't get carried by Wal-Marts (though, trust me, some versions of GTA still are).

It's not like the corporation's taking a moral stand on anything. They're just going with public opinion to keep people shopping.

Also, it's kind of sad that you talk about "guns" (and, in particular, Wal-Mart's willingness to sell them) like they're evil instruments that kill people all by themselves all the time. There are people that think the bulk of Europe has an amusing moral double standard, because they're so frightened of firearms, but so open about boobies (while it's plain to me that everyone, everywhere, should be madly in love with both!). *shrugs* I gave up trying to understand other people's morals a long time ago.