HELP WANTED: firearms enthusiasts needed

[darkbutflashy]

To the firearms ethusiasts on the board,

for my year 2150 police story, I need some input on your other hobby:

* data of future pistols/rifles used by SWAT - based on existing models, a short background story of the gun with the data in it would be *cool*.
* practice ammunition, possible to use this in a man-to-man training combat (with full protection, of course), or still too dangerous? If yes, how is practice done - paintballs?
* "common" modes of error a pistol/rifle can have.
* how to secretly manipulate a pistol/rifle so it will fire but miss.

For your help, I'd mention your contribution in the chapter's info blurb.

[General]

I wouldn't consider myself an enthusiast but I think I can address a few of your issues.

1. It's kind of hard to tell what weapons may be used in the future by SWAT teams since 2150 is a long ways out. We may be talking weapons that are less based on current technology and more based on rail/gauss guns. If you're looking for that far forward I would check out this page: http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Weapons But if we look back in history and try to extrapolate we might have a shot based on the round fired.

Pistol: Right now there is a bit of discussion between folks about what round makes sense (9mm, .45ACP, .40S&W, etc) but they're all geared towards taking down a human being without any sort of armor. Both the 9mm and .45ACP originated between 1900 and 1910 which puts them over a hundred years old now and they're still very effective. Therefore there is a good chance that a modern round might still be kicking in 2150. If I had to guess, I'd go with the FN 5.7mm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_5.7%C3%9728mm). It is lightweight, widely used already, fairly accurate and provides decent penetration which would be key if your SWAT team will need to take down somewhat armored droids. Right now you can shoot it out of an FN Five-Seven (pistol) or a FN P90 (PDW). Either is a thoroughly modern design that could feasibly be updated for the next hundred years or so.

For a rifle, you're going to have something firing either the 5.56mm or 7.62mm NATO rounds. You could have something more exotic and specialized but in general either of those two rounds run a very good chance of being around and used in 2150 just due to the backlog of rounds and weapons available. The weapons that fire them are constantly in flux. SWAT would probably use some sort of M4 type weapon but pretty much anything could work. If you want a fancy future gun look try the F2000.
If you want to hit really hard, go with something that can fire the .50BMG such as a Barrett. A MK211 is basically a mini-cannon round for the 50 cal and combined with a good rifle would be a wise choice for knocking out any sort of droid.

Realistically if you want more details, just check out wikipedia.

For practice ammo, try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simunition. These are basically tiny paintballs fired from real weapons. They're realistically closer to a real bullet and allow cops/soldiers to train with a real weapon and not a paintball gun.

The main error mode you're going to get on a gun is a jam, where for one reason or another the bullet won't automatically feed. They're very easy to detect but sometimes can be difficult to clear. If in the future you build sensors into the weapon that provide diagnostic feedback you could have lots of other errors. For instance under high use, the barrel may over heat and reduce accuracy.

If you want to foul with someone's accuracy you could just screw with someone's sights. Some are adjustable some are fixed.

However in the future it may be possible that folks won't use old 'iron sights' anymore. You could have a small ballistic computer on each gun that would determine range, take into account windage and adjust the shot point accordingly. This could be 'hacked' to change one or more variables and adjust the ballistics.

I hope that helps.

[darkbutflashy]

It's kind of hard to tell what weapons may be used in the future by SWAT teams since 2150 is a long ways out. We may be talking weapons that are less based on current technology and more based on rail/gauss guns.

Nah, physics stays the same and detonation-based ammo is cheap, small, lightweight and effective. Anything based on electrical energy has to fight against so many technical limits it's totally impractical for something you want to carry with you. The only place where you actually want the latter is extreme short-range (centimeters) inwards-bound "super-detonation", like for core fusion experiments. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z_Pulsed_Power_Facility

But if we look back in history and try to extrapolate we might have a shot based on the round fired.

Yeah, that's what I look for.

Pistol: Right now there is a bit of discussion between folks about what round makes sense (9mm, .45ACP, .40S&W, etc) but they're all geared towards taking down a human being without any sort of armor. Both the 9mm and .45ACP originated between 1900 and 1910 which puts them over a hundred years old now and they're still very effective. Therefore there is a good chance that a modern round might still be kicking in 2150. If I had to guess, I'd go with the FN 5.7mm (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FN_5.7%C3%9728mm). It is lightweight, widely used already, fairly accurate and provides decent penetration which would be key if your SWAT team will need to take down somewhat armored droids. Right now you can shoot it out of an FN Five-Seven (pistol) or a FN P90 (PDW). Either is a thoroughly modern design that could feasibly be updated for the next hundred years or so.

For a rifle, you're going to have something firing either the 5.56mm or 7.62mm NATO rounds. You could have something more exotic and specialized but in general either of those two rounds run a very good chance of being around and used in 2150 just due to the backlog of rounds and weapons available. The weapons that fire them are constantly in flux. SWAT would probably use some sort of M4 type weapon but pretty much anything could work. If you want a fancy future gun look try the F2000.
If you want to hit really hard, go with something that can fire the .50BMG such as a Barrett. A MK211 is basically a mini-cannon round for the 50 cal and combined with a good rifle would be a wise choice for knocking out any sort of droid.

Realistically if you want more details, just check out wikipedia.

This is useful information, but I'd hoped for some enthusiast think of an actual gun future design and short background story for it. Something which can be used throughout the story, when such details are useful.

If I do it myself, I would certainly mix things up and make people angry about my foolish attempt. That's why I'd written HELP in big letters. (I'd read the wikipedia pages on various guns before and felt LOST.)

For practice ammo, try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simunition. These are basically tiny paintballs fired from real weapons. They're realistically closer to a real bullet and allow cops/soldiers to train with a real weapon and not a paintball gun.

Ah, great. Also links to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_house, which has additional valueable information.

The main error mode you're going to get on a gun is a jam, where for one reason or another the bullet won't automatically feed. They're very easy to detect but sometimes can be difficult to clear. If in the future you build sensors into the weapon that provide diagnostic feedback you could have lots of other errors. For instance under high use, the barrel may over heat and reduce accuracy.

Thanks for the note on diagnostics, that's sure something I will put into the story.
How likely is it for a pistol/rifle to overheat if (semi-)automatic firing isn't used/not possible?

If you want to foul with someone's accuracy you could just screw with someone's sights. Some are adjustable some are fixed.

Ah, ok. Thought about that already, didn't know whether it is common to have the sights adjustable or not.

However in the future it may be possible that folks won't use old 'iron sights' anymore. You could have a small ballistic computer on each gun that would determine range, take into account windage and adjust the shot point accordingly. This could be 'hacked' to change one or more variables and adjust the ballistics.

Yes, that's the base advantage of the cyborg protagonists: they can integrate with their armor and weaponry far better. But even they have to learn, so it's a lot of story to tell there.

I hope that helps.

It does, thanks!

[Sthurmovik]

First there are a few things to avoid.

1) Caseless ammo is unlikely to ever take off because it leads to massive overheating problems since the ejected case is the best way to remove heat from the system.

2) Explosive tipped ammo is practical and can cause nasty wounds to flesh, however it reduces the ability for a bullet to penetrate armour of all kinds. Same goes for hollow point and other expanding round popular with police forces that only have to shoot civilians.

Following on with #2, larger rounds are better for "stopping" flesh based beings. However smaller, high velocity rounds are better at penetrating armour and hard substances. See the FN 5.7mm round for an example for an example of one such new anti-body armour round. A SWAT team that mostly encounters unarmoured humans would stick with the 9x19 Parabellum round in use today. However if body armour takes off go with the 5.7 or 5.56x45 NATO. One exception would be small HEAT rounds, which used shaped charges to punch through hard materials even from low velocity weapons. I could see this being employed to fight androids using handguns.

There is a limit on how much energy a human being can keep under control. This is why infantry rifle ammo has gotten smaller over the years. Something that is stabilized (think Steadycam) might help overcome this limitation, but at that point it would probably be mounted on a drone.

I would seriously consider some sort of railgun or coil gun as I assume that in 150 years that tech will be been perfected and miniaturized. For a power source look to small fuel cells powered by Hydrogen or hydrocarbons like propane or natural gas. Such cells provide more power than batteries and are easily refueled.

Look at weapons that can have various "trigger by wire" technologies for firing N shot bursts or perhaps avoiding friendly fire. Another technology could be Electronic Primer Ignition (see wikipedia) or out of battery firing (sometimes called Advanced Primer Ignition) to reduce recoil. Remember that one brilliant thing about firearms is that they don't need batteries. Adding tech to anything makes it FAR less reliable. Maybe by 2150 tech would have sufficient 9's of reliability, but not necessarily. It would be your call as a writer, but you should at least address that gadget firearms have sufficient reliability.

Better materials science means that weapons can be lighter and use higher pressure rounds. Better firearms design typically puts the barrel in line with the shooters shoulder to avoid muzzle climb.

Reasons to stuck with "current" cartridges can be a desire to avoid being locked into a proprietary round, however as was mentioned previously both FN and HK have introduced new anti-armour rounds for personal defense weapons.

If you want to be fancy you can claim that the need for HEAT tips made rounds like 8mm (8x33mm) Kruz popular again.

[darkbutflashy]

Thanks for your input, very valueable, I will think about how to use it in the story.

(Railguns: Nah, believe me, I'm an electrical engineer who specialized in drives. The problem isn't energy supply but power density. You can't create the neccessary high-current pulses without a high-capacity capacitator array run at megavolts, which means the whole thing is far too big and heavy to carry. Not even on a tank. Only on a ship or as a railway gun.)

[--NightBattery--]

Don't forget the depleted uranium rounds that make armor plate as sad as skin and frontal assault mechas a waste of money in real life.

[darkbutflashy]

Yeah, but they may be only used by the bad guys because of the pollution.

But I don't think it's such a big problem, this is a police story, so the villians very unlikely have access to such weapons. Landmates can be stolen everywhere, like a bulldozer or such, depleted uranium ammo cannot.

[--NightBattery--]

they can always found one cache or two in the wasteland

[General]

Are you looking for these weapons to be used by humans, robots, or both?

Are they going to target humans, robots or both?

With answers to those I can come up with a few fictional weapons to use in the story.

[Saya]

You want a neat weapon for a police officer of 2150 to use? Here's a neat one.

There was an idea brought out by this Australian manufacturer, Metal Storm? It was called the MAUL (Multi-shot Accessory Underbarel Launcher). The concept of the weapon was that it utilized caseless ammunition (a form of which, known as telescoped or "semi-caseless" ammo is being field-tested by the U.S military for their LSAT support weapon) in what is known as a "superposed load", better termed as "stacked munitions".

Basically, the concept works like this. You take a single barrel weapon and load it with a tube, or you take a multiple-barreled weapon and you fill each barrel with a different tube, say a handgun or shotgun. Each tube holds a different ammunition type. For example, in the multi-barrel concept, one barrel has a 9mm or 12 gauge load, another has a taser load, while another has peperballs or tear gas munitions. A user selects the tube they wish to fire, then an electrical signal is sent through that tube, firing off one of the rounds.

The idea behind this is that a police officer, soldier or what have you can have one weapon for multiple scenarios as opposed to multiple weapons for each scenario. The weapon might look like an old pepperbox pistol, or maybe a more conventional weapon with a barrel system that allows for someone to insert each new tube. In the story, there could be multiple rounds for multiple situations, including handling any rampaging fembots! : D

And yeah. This does sound a bit like the ol' Lawgiver from Judge Dredd, so if it is TOO much so...

[Malkozaine]

To the firearms ethusiasts on the board,

for my year 2150 police story, I need some input on your other hobby:

* data of future pistols/rifles used by SWAT - based on existing models, a short background story of the gun with the data in it would be *cool*.
* practice ammunition, possible to use this in a man-to-man training combat (with full protection, of course), or still too dangerous? If yes, how is practice done - paintballs?
* "common" modes of error a pistol/rifle can have.
* how to secretly manipulate a pistol/rifle so it will fire but miss.

For your help, I'd mention your contribution in the chapter's info blurb.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/ ... ew-ar-15s/

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/ ... red-rifle/

http://tracking-point.com/

I think those three links can help you a ton. There has also been a ton of work into Smart pistols the only work when near the matching wristband. So to the end if the stuff is software backed like those guns in the links then its all on how you can mess with software. You could also pair the info to a helmet Similar to how the F-35 is working:
https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities/helmet

If you want some cool idea's to build on future revolvers here are two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiappa_Rhino
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateba_Autorevolver
What is cool about those is that the barrel is aligned with the bottom of the cylinder instead of the top. What this does is help reduce recoil by pushing the energy back into your hand instead of over it like most handguns. Hell the Mateba was even in GitS.

What else are you looking for? Also what types of guns are you looking at using plus what type of Ammo?

[darkbutflashy]

Are you looking for these weapons to be used by humans, robots, or both?

The story plays in the universe of the 1985 Appleseed manga, 20 years later than the events in the books. So we have humans, bioroids (genetically enhanced humans), exoskeletons of all kinds, cyborgs, robots, in an overpopulated megacity state with a mad-maxian wasteland behind it. Endless sources of trouble.

The SWAT unit has humans in light and heavy exoskeletons and cyborgs in it. Protagonist is a cyborg woman (later two) not yet used to it.

Are they going to target humans, robots or both?

Mostly humans, the bioroids may have special abilities being a target for a gun, they count as humans. Some bad guys may have stolen a heavy exos and heavy weapons, but this isn't the norm.

I don't want to excess in gunfights, police would try to avoid shooting as far as possible anyway. But when they shoot, they should use the right weapon for their outfit and the purpose.

With answers to those I can come up with a few fictional weapons to use in the story.

Thank you again!

[darkbutflashy]

Basically, the concept works like this. You take a single barrel weapon and load it with a tube, or you take a multiple-barreled weapon and you fill each barrel with a different tube, say a handgun or shotgun. Each tube holds a different ammunition type. For example, in the multi-barrel concept, one barrel has a 9mm or 12 gauge load, another has a taser load, while another has peperballs or tear gas munitions. A user selects the tube they wish to fire, then an electrical signal is sent through that tube, firing off one of the rounds.

Nice idea. Maybe I'd put this in as a new experimental weapon as it needs a lot of explanation for the reader, who is sure not aware of the concept.

Thank you!

[darkbutflashy]

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/08/ ... ew-ar-15s/
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/ ... red-rifle/
http://tracking-point.com/

Eric S. Raymond's advocacy finally has beared fruit.

I think those three links can help you a ton. There has also been a ton of work into Smart pistols the only work when near the matching wristband. So to the end if the stuff is software backed like those guns in the links then its all on how you can mess with software. You could also pair the info to a helmet Similar to how the F-35 is working:
https://www.f35.com/about/capabilities/helmet

Yeah, that stuff is sure pretty standard SWAT equipment in 2150. If not already. I'd already planned to put their peculiarities into the story.

If you want some cool idea's to build on future revolvers here are two:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiappa_Rhino
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateba_Autorevolver
What is cool about those is that the barrel is aligned with the bottom of the cylinder instead of the top. What this does is help reduce recoil by pushing the energy back into your hand instead of over it like most handguns. Hell the Mateba was even in GitS.

Interesting feature! (but GitS is out-of-universe completely)

What else are you looking for? Also what types of guns are you looking at using plus what type of Ammo?

I'm not settled, because when it comes to guns I'm useless. That's why I wrote HELP, not "help".

Thanks for the input!

[Malkozaine]

Oh not a problem. It was late when I posted that so sorry if I made any mistakes. I have a buddy at work who is going to be a cop so I will ask him what he knows about cop stuff, also I have some other stuff I can share that I learned about when I was in the military. Have to do that when I get home later.

[liliwinnt6]

Don't forget the .45ACP, veterans never die!