Solved that number of threads problem... so this will be the right thread. Moon-Hawk is right, refresh the main page and see if the post was sucessful before reposting

I feel a gun thread coming....

I would call it searching fire. And if I wanted a rule for it I would give extra dice on the attack roll for each extra bullet, and not modify DV or dodge rolls. If there's no recoil compensation, it's just a waste of ammo, but the more RC you have the more helpful this can be.
For that matter, you could create a unified autofire rule where if the number of bullets fired is n, then you get (n-1) points to distribute however you desire amongst:
1) Extra dice for "searching fire"
2) Extra DV for narrow burstage
3) Penalty to dodge for wide burstage
All of the existing rules and modifiers would be a subset of this rule, but it would allow for more combinations.

If you wanted to. It's just an idea that I had while sitting here at my desk avoiding work. Someone will be along shortly to point out why it's crap.

Not exactly:

With respect to the immobility issues and suppressive fire, that's the paragraph that causes the most grief. I prefer to read it that the last sentence says "Characters in the suppressed area who take an action other than diving for cover or dropping prone are at risk." It's, I feel, the spirit of the rule, YMMV.

Also, regardless of how the last sentence is read, a person standing still in the suppressed area is going to have to test to be shot at least once unless they have a held action. The first sentence tells us that any character in the suppressed area but not prone or behind cover must test.

No they can't. Typical is 600-750 rounds per MINUTE. So 10-13 rounds per second. You have rare exceptions, like the MG42, but they are rare for a reason and they shoot maybe 20 rounds a second. 100 rounds per second is a minigun.

The other interesting thing that was brought out recently in an Army survey was that using automatic fire significantly increases the chance of a malfunction or a jam in combat.

What's that you say? 3 or 4 complex actions of autofire per combat turn? How convenient!

My main issue with SR firearms is that pistols are too deadly and rifles and MGs are not lethal enough.

I'd like a hit location system to make armor work better, but that's actually pretty hard to do well.

I get the feeling that was a conscious design choice carried over from older editions.
Heavy pistols are disproportionately good relative to reality, because that's what the designers want to see an emphasis on.
That's just my guess, but heavy pistols have always been way too good in SR.

Huh?

Boy are you incorrect about pistols and rifles.

Yes a .44 magnum is a larger caliber than a 8mm '06(.32) a wildcat rifle I own.

But the 8mm'06 delivers more energy to the target, than a .44 could even hope.

I have hunted with a .44 magnum and with my 8mm'06, the wound channels are vastly different, yes I was using wound increasing rounds in both too.

Most rifle cartridges have a larger capacity to hold more powder, which can mean more joules delivered to the target.

I would much rather get shot with a .44 magnum, than a modest hunting rifle like a 7mm Win Mag, .30'06, .243 Win, etc.

Some pistol OEM's due to the limited capacity of propellant, increase the diameter of the round, giving them more mass and some what increased propellant capacity.

As for delivering more energy/joules to target, rifles are the hands down winners.

Yes that .600 nitro express pistol is powerful, but the .600 nitro express rifle is even more powerful.

As for complex actions to fire a rifle....poppy cock

the rifle round will only deliver more energy to the target if it doesn't overpenetrate and sail right through them--which a rifle round is more likely to do because it's better at going through things. otherwise, it's going to deliver much of its energy to whatever's behind the target.

rifles are better not because they do more damage 'per hit', but because they're more likely to get a hit in the first place. better range, better penetration, less deviation.

*Sighs*

Check out where I mentioned terms like "superior wound enhancement" by using Silver Tips.

Wound Enhancement bullets give a better transfer of joules to the target, ie creating a greater wound channel.

I am not talking of military ball ammunition here.

I shot a wild pig with the 44 at about 20 yards, I shot a deer with the 8mm'06 at 75 yards. Different bullet weights, the 44 240 grain Jacket Hollow Point was heavier than the 8 mm 225 grain Spitzer Boat Tail Hollow Point. Both animals were about the same weight, here in Texas the deer are like dogs with antlers. FYI at that time I was reloading my ammunition, gave me combinations of bullets and powder that factory loads allowed.

Both rounds exited the animals, the exit wound on the deer was much wider than the one on the pig. Both were side heart shots just behind the right shoulders. Both had similar chest thicknesses, rib structures were similar.

Now if at that time they made a 44 magnum silver tip it might have been a better comparison, they make silver tips now for 8mm.

The difference between wound enhancement technology is now,,, is much better.

i am talking about military ball ammunition, because that's the baseline. silvertips and hollow points and glazernosesofts are all special types of ammunition, with special rules that are an addition to the baseline rules. using one of these special ammunition types would alter the damage code of the baseline weapon--increase the DV, decrease the AP, probably. a rifle, using standard ammo, still leaves a smaller hole than a pistol using smaller ammo.

i said "ready", not "fire". as in, to go from a position where you are not ready to fire a rifle (slung, or hidden under your longcoat, or whatever), to a position where you are ready to fire--that takes longer than does going from a position where you are not ready to fire your pistol (in your holster, more likely than not) to a position where you are ready to fire. the "read weapon" action.

If I have a gun in my hand and you walk around the corner, see me, and start to draw a pistol I'll probably get at least 4 shots off in your general direction before you have a pistol drawn. It's about the same motion to get and aim an SMG or pistol grip shotgun in some sort of concealment rig as it is to draw a handgun.

At fairly close range the odds are you are going to get shot if you try to draw a gun on someone who is already aiming a loaded gun at you. So I'd suggest against that approach.

If you have a long gun you are logically going to be either holding it in your hands or having it in some sort of container (either in one piece or broken down). A longarm in you hards is really fast to get on target. I'll try anyone who wants to try drawing a pistol before I can get a shot off from a loaded AR in my hands. If your long arm is broken down in a backpack you are not going to be readying it in a simple action.

People don't get their heads blown or their lungs destroyed off by a single pistol bullet. Shotgun and hunting rifles can easily do that. The comment on the profile of a 7.62mm soft point bullet wound in the last edition of War Surgery was "The 7.62 NATO soft-point is a popular big game hunting bullet, and although shooting accidents are not infrequent with such rounds, they are rarely seen in the hospital since few victims of torso shots survive."

that depends on the pistol. a .45, a .44 magnum, a .357 magnum--one of those will a'splode your head.

i think we're talking about different things, though. i'm talking about military ball because, to me, that's the standard. if you want something else to be the standard--soft nose, whatever--then, okay, increase the damage over that of a heavy pistol and make military ball ammo a special ammo type with reduced DV and higher AP.

The point you are missing is that in both cases you hit a vital organ, namely the heart.

In either case had you missed the heart or any major blood vessels the pig or deer could have run off, perhaps lived for quite some time. The size of the exit wound is comparatively trivial in the face of that simple fact. A larger exit wound does suggest that more tissue damage was done, thus increasing the chances of doing significant trauma to the vascular system.


Not being a total expert on ammuntion weights, the 240 vs 225 seems like a relatively trivial difference, and yes the 8mm will be backing a great deal more powder behind it. This allows it to fly farther and penetrate deeper at that range.


It may be apocryphal, but I understood people used to carry 44 magnums to bring down rhinocerii in Africa, back when that was still popular. The magnum 'pistol' rounds were designed for bringing down big, dangrous game, and they remained popular because they work.

No SOTA is involved in these discussions.

Now: Back to autofire rules, please.

That's an urban myth. The development of all the ARs I know of didn't include any attempt to wound vs kill. Early reports on the M-16 claimed it significantly increased lethality over M-14 bullets, based (partially) on this they put it into widespread use. AK-74 bullets are explicitly designed to tumble in the body, greatly increasing the damage done.

I'm way to busy at work to fight with Medline, but I've seen people claim that you get very similar fatality rates in ED visits between pistols and rifles.

What I've seen suggests that a lot of the "rifle" wounds are .22s. They also doesn't seem to track how many times someone got shot. If you compare single 5.56 wounds to someone who gets shot 6 times by a .40 s&w it's not too helpful. So I'm not really sure how useful these studies are. Plus extremity wounds from rifles firing FMJ will normally by through and through, so it would seem the same as getting hit by a FMJ pistol bullet.

The extremely questionable works of Sarnow and Marshall (but it's the best data that I can really find) shows that rifle and shotguns are vastly more effective than pistols, particularly pistols firing FMJ. There are about half a dozen good reasons why their data shouldn't be accepted uncritically, but it's what you can find.



The main thing to think about with automatic fire is that, in reality, most trained troops don't typically use automatic fire in combat with ARs. Even in urban areas. Shooting someone twice in the chest tends to be more effective than shooting them once in the chest, winging their right arm and shooting the wall and the ceiling 8 times.

Unless you are pretty close or shooting off a a tripod it's hard to keep a long burst on target, though it varies by caliber and weapon. The M-14 was notorious for being essentially uncontrollable on full auto, climbing really badly. This was apparently due to the full rifle round producing a lot of recoil and the stock not extending in a straight line. Low recoil (hence lower energy) bullets are easier to keep controlled then heavier recoiling (hence more powerful) bullets. In addtion, heaver guns handle recoil better than lighter guns.

SR doesn't seem to reflect these at all. SMGs should be more controllable than automatic shotguns and hence have lot lower modifier to fire a long burst.

Actually shotguns get the "heavy" weapon double uncompensated recoil modifier. SMGs don't.

Though as you said heavier guns are heavier and thus compensate for some of the recoil simply by design. And that simply isn't accounted for. I don't think it's big enough to house rule, but it might make the auto shotty with flechette only ammo more attractive.

AK-47 rounds are not particularly lethal compared to other assault rifles. Tends to make through and through hits. NatoEWS says "The long path through tissue before marked yaw begins (about 25 cm) explains the clinical experience that many wounds from this weapon resemble those caused by much lower velocity handguns."

You missed the most important reason: establishing FPL's using machineguns. A Final Protective Line is established by a tripod mounted machinegun and provides grazing fire across the unit front that will almost certainly hit anyone running or walking across it. (Mostly because someone running at 10 MPH will only move 14 inches between bullets.) This is more or less the trick that made infantry attacks in WWI so horribly lethal. And it will do exactly the same thing today or in 2070.

It's also set up so you can fire it accurately in zero visibility.