Bad idea unless you're a really beefy guy (ie. a troll). There's a very good reason why assault rifles heavier than the original AK-47 (4.5kg) are extremely rare. Like people have been saying, less recoil isn't very useful if your general handling of the weapon is compromised. If you don't mind carrying a 7-10kg weapon and your main concern is recoil, just get a LMG. (Except in SR3, where LMGs have a stiffer recoil than ARs for some inexplicable reason.)

I figured as much, but adding 4kg to any assault rifle will make insanely heavy -- 1.5kg+ over the original AK-47 with the milled receiver. ~6kg is simply too heavy for a shoulder-fired weapon meant to be easily maneuverable in CQB by humans.

Adding weight to SMGs is an ever worse idea. At least with ARs you can justify the weight by making it more of support weapon with a heavier and longer barrel, bipod and all that. With SMGs you're only interested in CQB, so quick handling is a must. It's not by accident that SMGs have dropped from around 4-5kg to 2-3kg in weight (empty) since WW2. I can safely say you won't be seeing those 6kg+ monster SMGs you get with the SR Firearm Design rules IRL.

Well I can only speak in human terms. But it doesn't really matter how strong you are... beyond a certain point. A very strong human can manage recoil about the same as a above average strength human.

Someone with normal strength or a weakling would have trouble with it. But beyond just keeping the gun steady strength just doesn't come into play. No matter how strong you are (as a human) the barrel is going to jump when you shoot, period. Just like you will always blink when the gun fires. It's ok, everyone does it.

What does matter is how quickly you can bring the barrel back into alignment of your target. Which is more agility and acuity then anything else.

Perhaps a troll with 14 strength could hold a barrel perfectly steady, as it is 'super human' strength. But it would have to be beyond the realm of human capability for that to work.

No matter how strong you are, your hand is not a metal vise - the skin, connective tissue and muscle are soft, at least relatively speaking. That alone makes it nearly impossible to hold a gun so firmly that you'll be able to ignore recoil.

Second, I'm not sure it's just physiologically possible to make the muscles which stabilize your arm and hand strong enough to matter, and to lock them in place at the appropriate moment - holding something steady and tensing up the muscles in question might be mutually exclusive.

Third, because of the way our hands are designed, and because of how guns are made, you're always at a huge mechanical disadvantage when trying to overcome recoil - it's roughly the same principle as trying as hard as possible to hold a stick steady while someone pushes on the far end with one finger - you won't be able to.

The internal bits of the weapon were not particularly light -- at least I wouldn't think so, since the weapon weighed 3.6kg empty (about the same as an M16/AR-15), and it doesn't seem to be of particularly heavy construction. You can see the gun eviscerated here.

Also, there will be a recoil force the moment the propellant gases begin pushing the payload down the barrel, and it will have done all its work once the projectile and the gases have exited the muzzle. Simply increasing the rate of fire will not reduce the loss of accuracy from recoil -- unless you increase the RoF massively, as you can with Metal Storm weapons (with their own downsides), so that the recoil doesn't have time to move the weapon before the next bullet or several have left the barrel; but this approach is not viable with a conventional firing mechanism.

The revolutionary thing (well, one revolutionary thing anyway) about the G11 design was that it allowed felt recoil to be delayed by pushing back the action inside the actual weapon while the 3 rounds are being fired. This way the momentum is preserved at first by moving the action and not the whole weapon. Only once the 3 rounds have all exited the muzzle, the action will return to the full forward position, exposing the whole weapon and the shooter to the full momentum -- and by now a much lower recoil energy.

Loweing the weight of the operating mechanism would not help in achieving something like this other than perhaps allowing the bits to move around quicker -- I doubt that's the limiting factor in increasing the cyclic RoF even higher, however. Or do you have some sources with more in-depth analysis of the design?

More about the G11 here.

i think this is best done by increasing the strength of the arm; as far as i know, i don't THINK that they are limited by the normal metahuman that they're designed for, but i could be wrong, and it would get expensive, but i think, doable.

Aku, the strength of the arm (as long as it's at least average human strength) wasn't my point. Think about a fixed weapon mount, like on top of a HMMWV for example. It only need be strong enough to support the weapon, especially when firing. The main advantage it gives to the weapon is the stability, i.e. the mount won't move very much, which increases the accuracy of the weapon (or in some cases just makes the damn things accurate at all). If it were possible to lock a cyberarm at a certain degree, along with the hand/wrist, it should provide near the same benefits as that godawful gyromount thingy. I think. You're right, as far as the game rules go, but maybe this makes sense enough to use? Just my opinion. Cheers!

Tim

More like 4.5 lbs...a bit more fully loaded. I didn't find it much more diffuct to aim than my old HK USP45 full size, though. However, I've got smaller hands than the average guy, so yeah, the grip was really uncomfortable for me too.

I'm a helluva lot closer to 5'6" and 6'5", and though I've never handled an actual AK (just SKS knockoffs), M-16s and M4s fit just right on my shoulder. Again, I think adding stuff like that is just a little too detailed for SR.

Now I would LOVE to have some good rules for CQB. I think SR REALLY needs 'em. Anyone have some good, static house rules for weapon size and how they are effected by CQB?

No, because your body will never be as rigid or weigh anywhere near as much as the vehicle that the mount is attached to.

Like Method suggested above, in dealing with recoil, rigidity generally works against you by causing a greater part of your body to move. If your arm won't flex, it simply acts as a lever for the rest of your body to deal with. Instead of dealing with the energy flowing through you, you're fighting against it, which tends to cause more problems that it solves. Of course, that does depend on how much recoil energy is generated; depending on the weapon, there might be so much as to make handling it in a fluid, graceful motion impossible.

The Cyberarm Gyromount (MM.36) makes more sense. Of course, as it is explained, it should only work with handguns or similar weapons that are not fired from the shoulder.

This is also why I'm not a big fan of the Strength attribute having anything to do with recoil compensation. I agree with Method that a Body + Skill "recoil pool" is a better way to handle it.

And as pretty much everyone has said, adding mass to a firearm will reduce the amount of recoil energy that is transferred to your body, but there are no free lunches (except maybe in SR). More mass does make for greater handling problems. Which is why machine guns aren't general issue weapons in any military.

I didn't think it was that bad and I'm 6'2". It's certainly big, clunky, loud, and it makes a pretty big fireball, but I wouldn't say it was all that awkward to handle. There is a lot of mass up front, and that does take some getting used to. The .357 Desert Eagle is a dream, though. Still big, heavy, and clunky, but pegging steel silhouettes at 100-150m in unusually fast succession is stupid-easy.

Not that I've written down, but I have applied manuverability modifiers in some situations. I think that kind of thing might be too complex to nail down a set of rules for.

As usual, Raygun's right. I didn't even consider that part. Thanks once again for the education!

Tim

Okay. I think what caught my attention most was your "If I can't get my weapon pointed, what good is it?" question. Given, I wasn't doing rapid action drills with it or anything - it is a freakin' Desert Eagle - I just thought that that was overstating the case a tad. To me, getting it on target was really not so much a problem as having to deal with about six times the recoil I'm used to from a handgun. A defensive pistol it ain't, at least, not for anything we have to worry about IRL.

Well, yeah. Concealed carry is not exactly what they had in mind, there. But it does a fine job of knocking over heavy silhouettes at respectable distances in my experience, as well as deer and feral hogs, from what I've read.

I've heard that a lot, too. On the other hand, I've seen a DE50 eat 80 rounds in about two hours without a single misfeed. The .357 went through 200 rounds in about the same amount of time without a problem. Whether the guy who owned them had done any work on them, I'm not sure. He's a tinkerer, so it's very possible. But those two seemed to work pretty well.

Prior to that, I'd only seen a DE50 go through 20 rounds (a not-so-clean rental gun), and the only problem I can remember with that one was that it kept bouncing brass off of people's foreheads. And .50 AE brass is pretty substantial stuff...

Speaking of Desert Eagle point-five-ohs, check this guy out.

If your shooting position is right, you wont have to re-align. The way we trained, once you got into position and had your sights on the target, close your eyes, take a breath and let it out, then open your eyes. If your position was right, and you werent muscling the weapon around, you'd still be on target.

Of course, this is on a one-way range. I've taken fire on accident, and if someone was shooting at me on purpose, I'm not going to worry a whole lot about getting my legs in the right position, getting good bone support, or any of the rest of it. Rather, I'd be trying to find a nice hole in the ground to dive into, or a destroyed tank to hide behind, or something else to keep those little pieces of high-speed metal from hitting me.

Also, I dont remember who posted it, but not everyone blinks when they shoot. I cant speak for others, but I dont. I also shoot with both eyes open most of the time. The only time I can think of that I blink is when the AR throws gas back in my eyes. Not a real common occurence.

One thing to consider, you go adding weight to something, you're going to pretty much HAVE to shoot from kneeling, sitting (BAD idea in the middle of a firefight), or prone position to hit anything. The M249 SAW is significantly heavier than the M16A2 (quick, Raygun, whats the exact difference?), and trying to fire that standing is a good way to make a lot of noise, see tracers fly, and not much else. Between adrenaline, muscle fatigue, and recoil, its not a pretty picture. Fun though.

OTOH, I knew a guy who could shoulder and fire the M240B like the rest of us fired our M16's. He was a giant monster, and stuck to short bursts, but thats still quite an accomplishment in my book.

Sorry, not Raygun, but it's about 4kg vs. 10.2kg, loaded (30 round box magazine and 200 round belt box, respectively).

Are you sure about that? I don't pretend to be an expert on firearms, but I thought a big part of recoil is not just the fact that the recoil knocks you around a bit, but that it tends to "turn" the barrel upwards with every shot.

If that's the case, then having a wrist mount gyro will help as long as you're strong enough to keep your grip on the firearm. Gryos will resist changes in movement in all directions, including angles of deflection. If you set the gyro(s) with just the right spin, not only will the gyro help to resist the upward impulse, but it will also create a downward impulse of its own from the backward "kick".

To give you an idea of what I'm talking about, consider the childhood memory that I'm sure we all have, when we realized that a bicycle is easier to keep upright if it's in motion. This is because the angular momentum of the wheels resists the bicycle leaning from side to side; well, if you have a gyro on your wrist, and you're gripping the handle on the gun, when the barrel lifts from the recoil, that's going to change the angle of your wrist too, yes? The gyro should resist that a bit.

Also, consider when you're driving one of these cheap cars that has the engine block mounted sideways. Have you ever noticed that when you suddenly hit the brakes (reverse acceleration), the front end of the car dives towards the ground? That's the angular momentum in the engine responding to the reverse acceleration, and pushing it down. The impulse generated by the firing of the weapon will push back on your arm, yes? Which will in turn pull your wrist backwards, yes? Which will result in a reverse acceleration in the gyro, which will then create a downward impulse on the wrist as is the case in the car -- and this impulse will be proportional to the amount of acceleration; this is where the real strength of the gyro would come into play, because the acceleration of the rifle should be fast -- it goes from zero to whatever speed almost instantaneously, so even if the absolute velocity is slow, the acceleration is very high. How much of that actually gets transferred to the wrist is debatable I suppose, but might not a clever samurai brace more of the shot on his wrist then?

Both are generally learned responses. It's very rare that I've run into an inexperienced shooter who doesn't flinch (even as minor as just blinking) from the get go. If you don't flich, you have a leg up. Then again, it doesn't matter who you are, we can find a gun big enough to make you flinch, too.

There are a lot of factors there that need to be considered before suggesting that adding any weight means you would absolutely HAVE to shoot from a supported position to hit anything. I have to claim a distinct lack of personal experience here, but I would say that it is far from impossible to fire an M249 offhand and be relatively accurate with your fire depending on what you were intending to hit and at what distance, considering that you have to deal with less than half the recoil of an M16A2 per shot, which is not very much already. True, hauling the thing around would be a relative bitch. But all other factors being equal, dispersion is going to be worse with the lighter weapon.

Yeah, that's a heavy bastard. But that example should illustrate my point that adding weight /= must shoot supported.

This is the heart of the matter. If you choose to fire a weapon from the shoulder, you're choosing to use more of your body's mass to absorb and displace recoil energy. If you take a look at most modern shoulder-fired firearms (especially the automatic variety), you'll notice the the stock is in direct line with the barrel and recoiling mass (bolt). This is done not only in order to minimize the effects of "muzzle flip", but to more efficiently direct recoil energy to the shoulder, where it can be more effectively dealt with.

By choosing to fire from the shoulder, you're choosing to bypass your hand/wrist as the main point of energy transfer (and rotation) which means that you're choosing to bypass the gyromount and the vast majority of the effect it offers. Therefore, IMO, the Cyberarm Gyromount's effects should not apply.

I spent some time as a SAW gunner, and even with a 200 round box attached, it was pretty easy to fire when not in the prone. For relatively close range engagments (less than 50m) it was pretty easy. Consistantly hitting things much further out than that required more stable firing platform...like being prone, or having something to rest the weapon on. One thing I noticed is that when I'd be firing the SAW standing up, my burst would be much shorter (3-4 rounds) than the ones I would fire while prone (6-10 rounds). But anyway, back to firing while standing up. The recoil wasn't the limiting issue. I was how tired your arms would get just holding it like a rifle. And don't even get me started on the M-60. That is a beast you should never try firing while standing. Unless your target is the broadside of a barn and you have arms like Michael Clark Duncan.

That guy deserves a medal. We didn't have any brutes like that in my unit, but that's probably because they wouldn't fit in the bradleys.

Make modifiers based upon how much of the arm is actually cyber?

ie, if it's just a cyber-forearm, maybe have full effect for handguns, and reduced effect for most weapons with stocks (1RC or so) because depending on the weapon, surely you can adjust your firing style to transfer more of the energy to the wrist.

If it's a full cyber arm attached at the shoulder, wouldn't you expect that you could lock the cyberware in place and provide a fairly rigid platform for the energy transfer back to the wrist?

But you don't want the energy being transferred through the wrist - that's Raygun's point (unless I misunderstand).
If the recoil energy is interacting with your body at your wrist, then your arm is acting like a lever for the recoil, increasing its overall effect...and it won't much matter how rigid your wrist is, if your shoulder or the rest of your body is being twitched about by the recoil.
Example:
Take a long stick. Hold it as if it was a pistol. Have someone tap the other end of the stick, and watch how much it moves.
Now, take the same stick, hold it to your shoulder as if it was a rifle, and do the same thing.

[/ ]

I understand what you're saying, but we're talking about the cyberarm gyroscope (mm.36), which according to the description is installed in the wrist.

If you have such a device, you want as much of the recoil effects going through the wrist as possible, so the gyro can counter the effects.

(Under normal conditions, yeah, obviously you don't want recoil effects going through your wrist, because it's a fairly fragile joint to begin with, and the further down the arm you go, the more torque you have to deal with at the elbow/shoulder. But if you happen to have a gyro installed in your wrist, it will tend to resist the turn in angle, and actually induce a downward turn on the backward acceleration from the recoil... so you want as much of that turn and kick going through the gyro as possible)

According to the rules, it can only be installed into a full cyberarm or articulated arm (MM.36). Of course, also according to the rules, the thing works with anything up to an LMG. *shrug*

Anyway, it doesn't matter how much of the arm is cyber. What matters is how much energy is being transferred, the point of rotation, and the counter-balancing force of the gyroscope. If there's more energy being transferred than the gyro can effectively counter-balance, or if the vast majority of the recoil energy isn't even making it to the gyro, the gyro isn't going to do a whole lot for you. Another thing we might want to consider is the position of the wrist. How are these pop-out weights going to spin around if your wrist is cocked at an angle as it would be if you were firing from the shoulder?

I suppose if you wanted to do it that way, it would be up to you. I think that even offering one point of compensation from a shouldered weapon would be too much, but that's just me. Now, if you opt not to use the stock at all, it might be a different story. Perhaps a point of compensation would be in order if you were to use the gyro along with something like the SAS-style sling tension technique (whatever they call it).

That's not how it works. It doesn't matter if the arm is cyber or locked or not. Something on the order of 90% of the recoil energy is being transferred directly to your shoulder, not to your wrist. The point of rotation is at your shoulder, not your wrist. Energy is transferred to your body through your shoulder and from there moves through the rest of your body; your chest, your abdomen, your legs, until it terminates into the ground. Relatively little recoil energy is going to move through your arms in the first place, let alone back into your arms, therefore the gyro in your wrist is going to have relatively little effect. Considering that and that the point of rotation is at your shoulder, the gyroscope is going to offer very little help in counter-balancing that energy transfer.

Ah hah. My mistake.

First: You are correct; it does matter how much energy is being transferred, the point of rotation, etc. Obviously, if the gyro doesn't have enough energy stored up in it, it's not going to do much of anything no matter where it's stored. So no question/argument from me there.

Well, I always just figured that it popped out a couple of dense material spheres and spun them at angles appropriate to the angle the arm is at.

Understood. I understand that when you fire a weapon with a stock, the energy is transferred into your body at the shoulder; I understand that it is the mass of your body at large that is primarily responsible for reducing the change in position (the energy released in firing a bullet is constant, but the more mass you make it move, the less the mass moves, etc). I understand that you try to use your legs to transfer any excess energy into the ground, etc.

But if the cyberarm (and hand), and the grip on the rifle is sufficiently rigid, AND you brace the rifle such that the rifle rotates around the same point (roughly) as the arm, you can treat the rifle and arm as one rigid body -- they will both rotate about the same point (shoulder), and they will both move in lock-step. This means you've effectively mounted a gyroscope directly onto the rifle, just behind the grip, along with a mass the size of a cyberarm.

Obviously, you couldn't do this unless the whole arm is a cyberarm, because human flesh just straight up can't be treated as a rigid body. But a cyberarm? Maybe.

I dunno. You're definately an expert on the subject of firearms with respect to me, but I'm looking at this with my engineering-eye, and what you're saying just doesn't make sense to me when I envision the rigid body diagram. The way I'm seeing it, the gyroscope is going to have to have SOME kind of effect. If you still disagree, I'll shut up now

Ahm, in shadowrun, aren't there a good number of people running around with hands that are metal vises? I think the composition of your limb should have more to do with your ability to absorb recoil in SR.

I have doubts as to how something like that would function at the kinds of positions the firing hand (most likely where the gyro would be installed) would be in, as well as being closer to your body when using a shoulder fired weapon, but it's not really worth arguing about. I'll just agree that even in a semi-contorted position, as opposed to relatively straight out in front of you as with a handgun, the thing will still spin things around like it's supposed to.

I'm not saying that it wouldn't have some kind of effect. Whether that effect would be worth awarding recoil compensation for is the issue I have. I'm definitely no engineer, but I don't think such a setup would provide enough counterbalance to award much compensation from a shoulder-fired weapon, locked cyberarm or not.

Well, that is what a gyroscope is. It's a circular or spherical mass rotating at high speeds. Basically, you spin this mass, it builds up kinetic energy that is trying to move in a specific direction, and when you try to move the mass in a way that isn't complementary, the energy built up in the mass will resist the motion (really, it's resisting the change in its own motion).

The gyroscope is not a mere counterweight, it's an active device using angular momentum to resist change in velocity and direction.

As I mentioned earlier, the examples of the bicycle and car engine are the classic ones.