My interpretation of the ammo bin vehicle mod is that it effectively adds 250 rounds capacity to a mounted weapon, is that right?

If its a belt fed weapon then Yes

So, if it's belt-fed then it adds another belt, and if the ammunition is large then it adds to the capacity, but if it's clip fed then it does what? Is it just a container for ammo? That's a pretty crappy mod. Why is it even an option for non belt-fed weapons?

[quote Arsenal Page 131

Ammo Bins (Standard): Sometimes when you’re expecting
a lot of opposition, it’s good to have lots of ammunition
to deal with it. Each ammo bin is attached to a single weapon
mount, and each additional ammo bin attached adds another
250 rounds of ammunition, belt feed, or doubles the weapon’s
normal ammunition capacity in the case of weapons with larger
ammunition (such as rocket launchers).
[/quote]

Makes sense to me, Most vehicle weapons are of the belt feed type LMG MMG and such. If its something more interesting it doubles the normal clip

"each additional ammo bin attached adds another 250 rounds of ammunition"

You seem to be cherry picking from a whole sentence



As you should be able to see there is a comma after your quote not a fullstop. This implies further information or caveats such as the ammo being for a belt feed system. Or as it the goes on to say if its not belt feed it just doubles ammo capacity.

Whilst it might not be the clearest of options (and I think it could have been done better as two different mods one for belt one for eveything else) I cant seem to see where the issue is.

I thought the comma indicated multiple options i.e. (a) 250 rounds of ammunition, (b) belt feed, © or doubles the weapon's normal ammunition etc...

I can see where your coming from,

In my mind that mod has always been the mounted box of ammo next to the MMG which has always looked like a good mod if thats the weapon choice your going for.

If that was the case it would read:
250 rounds of ammunition, belt feed or doubles the weapon's normal ammunition

The fact that belt feed has comma on both sides means its addentum to 250 rounds part and not a part of an three item list.

I read it as small arms that don't accept belt fed ammo can't use an ammo bin.

I would allow the 250 round magazine IF the weapon in question was modified for full auto fire - those are the weapons most likely to utilize belt fed ammo bins.

You want a FA missile launcher, sure, make it full auto and pay up for 250 missiles - but remember, that ammo bin is gonna be quite huuge.

You may also set a comma before the "or" if it is an enumeration. The wikipedia article about the Serial Comma confirms my opinion.

If it were an addendum the passage should be: "250 rounds of ammunition, belt fed, or doubles the weapon's normal ammunition."

And it will be a real pain to load. Now where is my troll buddy when I need him?

What he said!

Um, the rules clearly state that the capacity of weapons with larger ammunition such as rocket launchers only double their capacity. Oh and I have found no rule stating that you need FA capability to have a belt feed.

deja vu?

Oh, you too?

We had this discussion a week ago.

"Belt fed" is not an option, it is a clarifying clause.

The start of it.

I agree it makes sense in the end, but it's poorly written.

Exactly, but the text says "belt feed".

next round

As I read it, aren't all small arm weapons belt fed when vehicle mounted (The cost of the modification being included in the vehicle mount).

There's no real difference between 'belt fed' and 'belt feed'. English is funny.

Draco's right, we talked about this, and it's obviously +250 for already-belt-fed guns, or +100% for rockets/etc. Don't put clip-fed guns on drones unless you know what you're doing. I wouldn't say it's 'crappy'; it's dirt cheap and no one's forcing you to use it with the wrong guns.

There's a difference. Feed is when the belt is feeding the gun. Fed is when the gun is being fed by the belt.

This chain of bullets is a belt feed for a belt fed gun.
This gun has a belt feed.
This gun is belt fed.
All belt fed guns have a belt feed.

In this case, the phrase "belt feed" is a parenthetical interjection modifying "250 rounds of ammunition".* It seems perfectly clear to me and the Arsenal quotation backs that up.

*Yes, I put that period outside the quotation mark. I prefer the British style (logical punctuation) over the American style (based on a long dead archaic printers practice that just basically ignores the rules of grammar).

Now you've got me interested. Why'd the printers do that?

Because every letter was on its own tiny metal plate that was slid into a rack that was then mounted on the printing press. Periods and commas are little small things and so their metal plates were little thin things. Quotation marks are about as big any other letter. Sometimes, a little thin period/comma might fall over (and fall out of the rack that held the letters or otherwise mess up the look of the page). You could put a blank metal piece in after it to give it some padding so that it couldn't fall over, but this was an extra piece of metal that you had to shove into the rack. So, American printers started to take a small shortcut when there was a quotation mark and put the period in then the quotation mark, so that they didn't have to bother adding anything else to keep the period from falling over. So, us Americans have that writing style because our printers way back when sort of took a lazy shortcut. Personally, I find that sort of ridiculous.

I find it sort of awesome, but then again my punctuation and grammar has made grown English majors weep and my personal credo is "Work smarter not harder."

No matter how you slice it, the description of what an ammo bin adds is grammatically in error, however if read as an enumeration of three items it is grammatically acceptable (and adding an "a" before the "belt feed" would make it grammatically correct), whereas in order to be grammatically acceptable for the "belt feed" to be a conditional several additional words would be required or an additional word and a change of "feed" to "fed".

Grammatically, maybe, but not rule-mechanically. A $200 mod to make a gun belt-fed? That doesn't even require touching the gun?

Ridiculous.

If you feed the belt into a modified magazine, no modification needs to be done to the gun.

Not to mention, it's not that difficult or expensiveto modify a gun IRL.

Did you read Banaticus post post at all
He explains the grammatical part of it very well and he also new to use the correct term for it unlike me.
(parenthetical interjection just isn't a word i can pull from top of my head)

But the ammo bin doesn't say that.

Also, we've been over this.

Ahem, but in this context, 'belt fed' and 'belt feed' are the same. One is a past participle adjectival phrase, and the other is a noun adjunct adjectival phrase. They mean and do the same thing (here).

I'm glad someone's an English Major, I never got past prepositions (in, on between, under, through...)

So a past participle is the same as a noun adjunct? Oh, wait, it not only is entirely different, but, in this instance, we're not even looking at a noun adjunct (and from what I can find, the term "noun adjunct adjectival phrase" was just pulled from your ass).

Edit:


A parenthetical interjection would still require that proper grammar be followed.

"Belt feed" is a noun. It is also a phrase. It is also an noun adjunct.

I'm not entire sure its an adjectival phrase ("She is a nice, pretty, intelligent girl"), but it is most certainly a noun adjunct phrase.

"She is a girl, nice" means something entirely different from "she is a nice girl".

I think* all you did there is disprove that the wording "..., belt feed, ...." is NOT an adjectival phrase. Which I already said I was pretty sure it wasn't.

It's still a noun adjunct phrase.

*And I only say "think" because "She is a pretty, nice, intelligent girl" does mean the same thing. Where as "Belt feed, +250 rounds, +100%" may mean something different (it most certainly can no longer be interpreted as only two items).

Amazing; I never thought I would see an argument suited to grammar school happening on dumpshock.

huh, you sure this is not grammar school?

Why? The last time this topic came up, that thread contained a nearly identicle argument.

Ok, here's the low down on that: It's a non-restrictive adjective clause and as such must be set off from the rest of the sentence with commas.

Pretty Much...

The Ammo Bin is a useless modification for Small Arms... The Small Arms category has no belt fed weapons... so the Ammo Bin is strictly to add additional Belts (for MAchineguns), or additional Large Caliber Ammunition (Like Rockets or Missiles)...

Keep the Faith

No, but it may very well be first grade.

Yeah, I'm staying out of this one. The arguement from -last- thread's been rehashed entirely, and I didn't even have to start it this time.

but it basically boils down to this: Exactly what a "belt feed", on its own, does isn't clearly explained within the rules.

Not to be ironically pedantic (okay, yes ), but first grade *is* grammar school in several dialects.

SR4A Page 348

Weapon Mounts: Vehicles may be equipped with a number
of weapon mounts equal to their Body ÷ 3 (round down). Weapon
mounts may hold any LMG or smaller-sized weapon and 250 rounds
of ammo.

Obviously this isnt directly an ammo bin. But why cant a non belt fed gun Assault Rifle not have 250 rounds? Can someone prove me wrong?
If this Assault Rifle can have 250 rounds from the mount, why couldn't it have an Ammo Bin?

Because the rules from Arsenal for weapon mount supersede those in the main book. Arsenal clearly states that the weapon only gets 250 round if the weapon is beltfed.

If you only use the main book, you wouldn't have a problem when mounting an assault rifle on a vehicle and getting 250 rounds, but it is entirely impossible to mount anything larger than an LMG and nor can you add flexible mounts or turrets.

nemafow, you can have 250 rounds of ammo with your mounted AR. You just can't shoot them. They sit there in storage.

After all, An Assault Rifle uses Magazines/Clips... Let me see, Nope, No belt feed mechanism on an Assault Rifle...

Keep the Faith

Each weapon mount can also hold
up to 250 rounds of ammunition, if the weapon has a beltfeed
loading mechanism. Weapons with other loading mechanisms
or larger ammunition (rocket launchers, for example) are restricted
to their standard amount of ammunition.

On alrighty tho, figured CGL would of updated the SR4A book, I forgot its CGL.