Always had a hatchet in my kit. Chopping down trees was a right pain in the ass with an e-tool.

Actually knives aren't even close to firearms. Firearms wounds survival rates are around 80%+ and knife wound survival rates are around 96%+. It's the psychology of cutting someone open and getting their blood squirting all over you while they screech and moan, the fact that knives make horrible fight stoppers, and the typical "bad breath range" that their maximum effectiveness is attained at.

I take great affront to your use of the term "BOOT" in that instance, sir! Comparing the aforementioned personage to a "boot" does great disservice to "boots" everywhere! I mean, at least a "boot" is typically willing to learn!

Typical BudK garbage. Those in the know go with quality items from places like RMJ Tactical or Winkler II...

You are correct, however I did not want to get completely offensive and go Full Metal Jacket on here, at least a boot has earned the right to be called a boot. Off to the sand pit of infinite mountain climbers for me.

I personally think that if this M27 thing pans out with the Devil Dogs, we're looking at the end of the purpose built LMG, at least in military forces to be taken seriously. Why have all the extra weight, the lower reliability, and incompatibility with other weapons in the squad that a LMG creates?

I would have to agree that for most missions, and most situations it would be the superior solution. If they approve the 100 round magazines at some future date it takes away the reload argument completely. I carried the SAW for a year and a half, it was a pain in the ass in MOUT situations especially when you take into account full gear, gas mask, helmet, and body armor. Plus with an open bolt weapon nothing is as shitty as hearing that wonderful kthunk sound as it slams home on a dud round.

For those not aware, there are several current or former military and law enforcement folks on the Dumpshock boards.

Be careful who you try to call out as ignorant. You may make yourself the bigger fool.




-k

And now for the rules:

Double recoil = stupid. Ignore it.

Extra range = Good. Add a bit of extra range (like 25% or so) for machineguns vs assault/battle rifles and you should be good to go.

Trolls packing the mega-heaters like HMGs and AGLs? Sounds fine to me. It's a bit of a stretch, but it's all in fun, right? The issue then becomes, of course, finding the SuperGat 2000s in the first place and keeping them in the high-cost ammunition to keep them running.

Also keep in mind that there is a definite difference in police responses, and response times, for more reasonable weaponry like what you typically see and seeing full-on SmashTV "TOTAL...CARNAGE!" I can say with great certainty that chopping down half a neighborhood with a 2060s version of the Ma-Deuce (let alone an autoloading grenade launcher) is gonna bring down some serious-ass heat.

Or when you bump the belt box and you now have a kink in your belt or a lovely strand of ammunition dragging in the dirt behind you...

There were more then a few people who suspected the entire plan was really a back door way for the Marines to replace the M16. I have no idea what is really going on or how successful this has been in combat.

One thing is that light machine guns are not always the same as a squad automatic weapon, though in many armies they are. For example, the Russians consider a variant of the PK machine gun as an LMG and it fires 7.62, not 5.45.

I was an artillery guy, though I ran around with infantry companies as an FSO I'm not a MG expert by any means, so I'm not sure. The main advantage of belt-fed guns is their ability to deliver sustained fire, but not all armies have chosen to use belt fed weapons as squad automatic weapons, like the Russians with the RPK. So if the Marines experiment works out them maybe squad automatic weapons will be less and less belt fed.

The Germans seem to be going to 5.56 for their general purpose machine gun (the MG4) which seems kind of an odd thing to do.

My idea of a machine gun is an A-10 or AC-130 on close air support, but I guess being Air Force makes you biased.

And they are getting ready/talking about retiring the Warthog.

Or the box that absolutely refuses to stay attached to the damn weapon, so you have to tie it to the SAW, and load belts into your now semi permanent magazine, because that RAMBO shit don't work IRL.

It will indeed be a sad day when it is retired, I share your pain. It was like the old Timex commercials, takes a lickin but keeps on tickin.

True enough. Apache support is fine, A10 support is final.

Just think of all the youtube videos that won't get made if it's retired.

Never had any issues with my USMC Issued SAW. Of Course, that was 25 years ago, so they were pretty new, and in really good shape) at the time.
And then I traded up for a Radio, and the resulting devastation was glorious.

I vaguely remember us having a similar discussion a long time ago in an edition far far away, or not that far away or long ago, with similar commentary on the SAW. My love/hate affair with the SAW was 22 years ago, amazing what three years of abuse will do to a weapon. It operated fine for about 5000 rounds, once that was done it was back to the extractor blues.

Yeah, I can see that. I far preferred the M60, personally, but it was a pain to hump around, It was heavy as hell, and I never had what I would consider to be enough ammo.

No such thing as enough ammo.

They don't make them like they used to...

Seriously, sustained for more than 48 minutes 12 seconds (over 21,000 rounds) without failing.

I think you only read half of what I typed. Please note certain important contextual items:

• QUOTE (Koekepan)
  Knives tend not to penetrate very deeply, but can penetrate enough to reach vital organs, depending on the size (and fat layer) of the victim and the length of the blade.
• QUOTE (Koekepan)
  A knife wound is close to a pistol wound in lethality, but since stabbings usually entail multiple knife wounds, and the torso hit rate tends to be better, the knife is on balance more lethal than the pistol.

Knives are fairly close to pistols in aggregate survival rates, once you include multiple wounds in a particular event, and allow for the range in size of knife wounds hitting the ER - because your shadowrunner will be using a purpose designed stiletto, not a small steak knife, right? Or a military fighting knife of some description at any rate.

Also, it's not all firearms wounds that are 80+% survivable. .308 softpoint wounds tend to go to the morgue, not the ER. A .44 Magnum is a powerful round, but has nothing on most hunting rifles at comparable ranges.

• If you shoot someone with a pistol, it's because you don't like him and want him to eat hospital food for a while.
• If you stab someone once, it's because you're in a duel to first blood, or you want to distract him, or you're a knife adept.
• If you stab someone multiple times, it's because you're actively looking for vital organs.
• If you chop someone with an axe, it's because he inconveniences you and you wish him to be removed from your world.
• If you repeatedly chop someone with an axe (or machete for that matter), it's because he has not only inconvenienced you but substantially angered you as well.
• If you shoot someone with a rifle it was either a hunting accident, or because you actively intend for him to be dead in the very near future.

You forgot to add: If you shoot someone with a shotgun, you might be a former VP.

He was lucky it was bird shot on a small gauge.

For clarification to those who know: two-tab blackbelt in MCMAP and a total of 21 years of other martial arts. He has me beat by one year (and a MCMAP black belt - I just picked that one up).

Just out of curiosity do they go over all the weak points in MCMAP during training or not. I was a LINE Instructor in the 90's, and have 32 years in a mixed bag of martial arts, so it is at least somewhat knowledgeable curiosity. A few years ago I did a film study of different demos and training videos I managed to track down (always looking to add good techniques to my repertoire), and I noticed a large number of techniques I found very dubious. Also I have yet to see any training in full gear, so make that two questions. If you think we should take this to PM or do another thread let me know, I don't want to hijack the thread.

Interesting way to put it, but the harsh reality is that when comparing one bullet wound vs one stab wound with all other "woulda, coulda, shoulda...didn't" factors out of the equation, firearms of any ilk are far more lethal across the board than knives. A bullet is the liver tends to be more lethal, all other factors aside, than a stab. Same goes for a bullet in the heart vs a stab. The fact that bullet wounds cost, on average, about three times as much to treat as a stab wound also points to the higher complications in treatment you see with bullet wounds. Higher rates of complications = higher chances of the person wounded by a bullet eventually dying or not healing to be combat-effective.

The main factor in multiple stabbings isn't lethality of the tool, it's the psychology of the assailant. To paraphrase one of the premier knife combat trainers in the US, SouthNarc, "I wouldn't suggest to anyone to select a knife as their primary defensive weapon because I can't, in good conscience, suggest someone primarily focus on a tool that relies on an assailant's willingness to quit." The fact that the vast majority of knife wound "stops" is based upon psychology rather than physiology (and yes, the same can be said of handguns as well but to a lower percentage) further points out that knives, to be frank, really suck at killing people. Add the fact that 12-inch dirks are no longer the norm and are largely replaced with 4-inch or less folding blade knives and you get yet another drop in their lethal potential except in extreme circumstances. By the way, a pissed-off ork slamming your character into a wall and sewing-machining a 10-inch Ka-Bar into your character's guts counts as "extreme circumstances".

So knives aren't common killing tools because of the inherent lethality of knives as a tool for killing people, it's because humanity just so happens to be really good at killing each other...

Can't we have BOTH?

And got rapid medical attention. It was not a minor wound, ended up with cardiac involvement IIRC.

Funny. Again a case of nerdrage without first taking a look at the case in general...
To make "guns" realistic you first need to be able to simulate the differences.
To align a pistol is much easier/faster than to align an MG or even an assault rifle. (One of the reasons for SMGs)
The same thing with fireing while realigning etc. works much better with an SMG than with an MG.
Shooting while moving, same thing again.
This all does not exist in SR. (Not to talk about running around with it and then aiming with it (which was brought up in this threat)

So before you get in the face of the damage value (which has due to the lack of everything else address those things, too) you should think about that.
And to think you get balance into an game by making several values super realistic and ignoring other things completly is an interesting point of view, but definitly wrong.

So if you would start doing it realistically you will end up with Shadowrunners never using anything heavier than an assault rifle, not because everything else would be stupid to use and has no application in general, but simply because of the fact, that it is from a game perspective always better to have something you can use in 99% of cases with at least 70% effectivity than to have something which allows you 85% in 50% of the cases but can easy drop below 50% for 30% of the cases.

@psychophipps
The problem with the statistical argument is, that you normally do not count the bullet that missed or the one which was never shot.
Then there is the whole issue with knives as an improvised weapons with no intention to kill. (Which is quite pointless to argue with shooting a gun at somebody)

Yeah, it's kind of funny how the statistics become a bit less relevant when you're busy trying not to get dead. Also keep in mind how many firearms homicide cases (justifiable and otherwise) have statements from the perpetrator along the lines of, "Yeah, but I didn't mean to kill them..."

A big part of MCMAP is ground fighting, so we learn the basic moves and then wrestle the crap out of each other to refine it. Additionally, often you'll practice MCMAP in at least boots & utes, but sometimes in cammies - cover and sometimes with a SAPI plate carrier or flak on. Not really full gear but a fairly functional training simulation.

If you want to bring it to PMs about these dubious moves (dubious as in probably wouldn't work or dubious as in potentially too damaging?) feel free.

Yes and No.
How much of that is down to not wanting to admit to 1st degree murder (premeditated) as versus 2nd degree (no foreplanning or intent).
A gun has the advantage you can act quickly and with minimal effort. Trying to claim the same with a knife is harder as you had to close with the person.

When the mother decapitated her own child, she was later to have said she didn't mean to kill the child.

When someone pulls a gun on someone else, what did they expect as an outcome? It's not a toy, even if some folk do seem to treat it as one.

No lawyer worth his salt would ever tell you to admit to intent to kill, even in self defense.

I would argue if SR became totally realistic with suppression fire then SRs would carry 1 LMG per team. I am recalling my history about SEAL teams in the Mekong Delta with their famous Stoner LMGs. Part of the reason MGs are a bit silly is because there has never been a really satisfactory suppression fire mechanic.

Nope. Intent to stop, always. If lethal force is justified, then the fact that the necessary force to create a stop was deadly is not a problem.

100% agreement here.

To be honest, it's also strongly dependent on what you use as your inspiration for your game. Some folks look at movies like 'Commando' and the 'Rambo' movies as to what they want their combat to be like. If you want to make Sam Peckinpah blush with your mil-spec firefights and make the Omaha Beach scene in 'Saving Private Ryan' pale in comparison, that's all in the good as long as your players feel the same way. I have personally gone in a different direction with using Michael Mann movies like, 'Heat', 'Miami Vice', and 'Collateral' along with what I personally call "The SR movie without magic", 'Ronin' as being hugely influential on how I set up my game world, how the various players will act, and to reflect the weaponry that will likely be used.

I personally think that you can do a whole mess of very tense carnage in a game scene with a pump shotgun and a smattering of pistol-caliber weapons and the willingness to use them. Tossing in mil-spec slaughterhouse weaponry doesn't necessarily add anything if you're doing your job right as a GM, in my own experience.

I had a seal who did that (though I think he carried a 60) as an instructor at Gunsite. He mentioned that they would practice by tossing a beer can out in a field and then bounce it around the field firing the 60 from the hip in short bursts. He said it just takes practice. Somehow I suspect it's a LOT of practice.

Couldn't agree more. I've often wondered why you would use an SMG in shadowrun besides that you could possible conceal it under a lined coat.

Personally I think there should be penalties with using big weapons in small spaces (like assault rifles in corridors for example), maybe bring back minimum ranges for sniper rifles (more for balance reasons than realism reasons although possibly for realism reasons as well. I just don't want to send all the realism nuts into a spin on that point) Maybe give all large weapons penalties to shoot out of moving vehicles (again maybe something a pistol or SMG has over assault rifles and long-arms).

I would always want to approach this from a mild realism base but then end on a point that is more about game balance.

You could add overheating fairly easily. Just base it on shots fired like recoil but have it continue across turns with cooling systems reducing it by an amount each turn. Overheated weapons would add a stacking gremlins quality till you eventually glitch either jamming or barrel melting or whatever. You would have to tinker a bit to get it balanced but it wouldn't be that hard.

Those kind of fiddly bits don't add much but complexity. At cyclic you need to fire for a minute straight before you should change the barrel, so how would you plan to track this in 3 second turns?

And this is why I think there should be a book called 'Gun Harder' which is composed entirely of optional rules such as jamming, overheating, durability, dirt, cumbersome weapons in CC, ect. The basic rules don't need to be at that level of detail but the option should be there.

The base rules are so screwed up that you can't do that. Adding better quality chocolate to your mud pie doesn't make it not a mud pie.

US Marine here. Assault rifles work fine in corridors. Sewer tunnels, maybe not so well, but office buildings, laboratories, and hospitals are just fine. Same goes for close combat. We actually have specific training just for those events (MOUT).


Right, but considering it takes two minutes to reach a hot barrel... How many Combat Turns do you know SR firefights normally last?

EDIT: For elaboration.

I don't think I've ever seen a 40 turn firefight in SR.

well, assuming 2 action phases per turn and suppressing fire every action phase (in order to overheat the barrel as fast as possible) you're looking at, what, 16 hundred rounds of ammunition used? I've never seen a runner team who took that much on a run between them. Even if you say that reloading costs enough actions to drop it down to 15 hundred rounds and you're using normal ammunition then you just blew 3 grand in ammo and I'm fairly sure the cops are on their way at this point because your suppressor died after the first three hundred rounds or so.

How much does 15 hundred rounds of machine gun ammo in 100 round belts even weigh? you'd need a backpack full of the stuff!

I saw one that was going that way until I just GM hand waved it to be over. Both of them had taken big wound penalties, used up their ammunition, had the rest of their teams occupied or taken out and were reduced to one-on-one with one of them trying to pistol whip while the other tried to stab with a combat knife. I think they were rolling 3 or 4 dice each. Both of them were wearing at least armored jackets and I think they had more armor to boot. After about the 4 or 5 hits that were completely soaked, I suggested that the player just roll an intimidate check to convince the other guy to give up.

But neither one of them was likely to melt their barrels in that fight.

You need some of these.




-k

I like that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNAohtjG14c