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Revitalizing Firearms


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Hi there!

 

I need some time to get used to new forum order. Oh, well... :huh?:

 

Back to topic. My idea is like this - there should be a tech tree for upgrading firearms. I'm big fan of human technologies and I think that we have something (apart from lasers) to counter alien threat. This something are firearms.

 

I know what you think: "What? Firearms? You mean that puny rifle that can't kill simple sectoid? Or that @#$% pistol?". No no no. You are wrong. I mean REAL firearms of XXI century.

 

After first encounter it should be clear that standard issue firearms are not effective against aliens. So, instead of lasers (or apart from lasers) there should be new research thread: BETTER FIREARMS. After little research you should get something like this:

 

"It is obvious, that our weapons are not only inferior to aliens, but are also simply uneffective. Since sufficient weapons are essential to our success, we need quickly to adapt some better firearms before further research allow us to develop new generation of weapons." - and after that you get new tree:

BETTER PISTOL - BETTER RIFLE - BETTER CANON

 

Researching above threads would be more like field testing existing weapons and choosing those best for killing aliens. If you research one of them you don't get possibility of manufacturing new weapon - you get possibility of BUYING new type of weapon.

 

For example BETTER PISTOL could be Desert Eagle .50 (or any other big caliber pistol). When compared to standard issue it would have:

- less ammo capacity (6 instead 12)

- less accuracy (big recoil makes it hard to aim properly)

- some more weight

- higher price

- twice as much damage

So, it's not wunderwaffe, but now you can in case of emergency shot alien with pistol and really hurt him, not just take two or three of his armor points.

 

An so on. BETTER RIFLE could be Beowulf .50 rifle (for example). Again,

- slightly heavier

- only 12 ammo in clip

- higher price

- semi-auto only

- slightly less accuracy

- MUCH more damage

 

BETTER CANON could be 45mm CTA or something.

- less ammo

- lower rate of fire

- more damage

 

All above weapons actually EXISTS, and when I'm looking at thingies like Beowulf .50 I'm starting to think that government is hiding something... It really looks like they are getting ready to war with aliens. :uzzi2: :alienoooh:

 

After completing this tech tree there should be unlocked one more tree: METAL STORM. Actually MetalStorm is existing weapon system. Not yet adapted, but operative prototypes exists and I've seen videos of them in action. Uhh, impresive. To put it short, MetalStorm is when you put several bullets into one barrel, and put several barrels together. Add electronic primer and you get it!

 

Whats so great about this? One thing. Rate of fire. And it's enough. During testing they achieved 100000 rounds per minute (yeah, there is no spelling error - one and five zeroes). Such great rate of fire is possible because of that electronic priming - you can start them in sequences - all bullets in barrel can fly out almost all at once. And multiply it by number of barrels. It can shot 180 bullets in fraction of second. Now imagine poor sectoid hit by all them at once... :explode:

 

So, it's certainly possible to design operative model of MetalStorm based weapon and start production in couple of months. Then, why not?

METALSTORM PISTOL - METALSTORM RIFLE - METALSTORM CANON

 

What are MetalStorm abilities?

- purely earthborne technology (no ellerium, no alien alloys needed)

- extremely high rate of fire (auto fire at AP cost of single (or snap))

- high accuracy (auto as accurate as single - cause all bullets left barrel and THEN you feel recoil "kick")

- damage similiar to standard rifle or pistol, but instead you get high multiple hit possibility - auto is faster and you can get more bullets in series)

- more ammo capacity

 

So, there certainly are technologies that allow us, humans to kick some gray a$$. Let's use them! It should be ALOT of fun. :happybanana:

:happybanana: :happybanana:

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Sounds fun... :devillaugh:

 

Have you ever noticed how inaccurate earth weapons are in XCom? The best soldiers in the world with the best equipment in the world an they cant hit a barn door...

 

Cameras fed to the soldiers sights would make a much better aiming device than a scope, it would also be alot faster aiming, especially if there was some TargetLock software included in it...

 

And maybe when you get Alien Alloys, you should be able to upgrade human guns and ammo to be lighter and harder..

 

And some AP rounds, ManStoppers and DumDums for Rifles would be nice...

 

Just my 3 Cents

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Recent attempts to make a better pistol have yielded the hybrid ammo types developed by HK and FN for the MP7 PDW and FiveSeven.

 

For the rifles they have tried caseless ammo, flechette rounds, and blended metal bullets (the blended metal bullets are gross).

 

For cannons they have been playing around with various kinds of electronic acceleration technologies.

 

I like your idea about prolonging the life of firearms, but I think that that can be done more technically- like the other weapons in the game. There isn't much technical achievement in simply buying weapons of a heavier caliber.

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ammo being upgraded to inflict more damage by cross researching it with alien alloys, would seriously open up a new avenue in game play.

 

METAL STORM, If i remember correctly was invented by an Austalian Green grocer then purchased by the yanks :huh?:

Edited by RustedSoul
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Larger caliber isnt really the way to go, ballistics speaking, the .44 deagle outperforms the .50ae, the .50ae makes a larger flash though which people like, Dumdums are not in line with any kind of modern round design, and technically they arent a round, all a dumdum is, is a few grinds and a cut on the round near the cartridge neck, makes the round give fouler wounds. if you were to use a deagle against armoured aliens youre best bet would be a more necked down cartridge like the .41 cor-bon, but i wouldnt have deagles in the game anyway, thing weighs a ton, hardly fit as a sidearm!!
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Considering the original xcom handgun was fully automatic, I'd go with the PDW. It's the cutting edge of self defence arms for vehicle crews, and is about the size of a large handgun. It is usable with one hand, but for rocking and rolling, two are recommended.
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I don't expected so much replies so fast. I'm happy :happybanana:

 

4.6 PDW vs. .50 AE

 

Yeah, I'm aware of existence of 5.7mm and 4.6mm ammo, and I think they are great. But. You see, main advantage of this ammo is great penetration. It can pierce titanium clad personal armor, what is impossible for any other pistol ammo including .50 AE. But when it pierces that armor it does little damage. Simply travel through tissue making small hole. To be lethal shot must be placed on vital spot.

 

X-COM don't fight with fellow humans. They fight with aliens. And finding vital spot of Muton or simple Chryssalid might be a little difficult, don't you think? So I personally think that best tactic would be deliver them as much energy as possible. Even if it don't puncture their thic skin, at least it can slow them down for some seconds. So in case of emergency, when I run out of ammo for my rifle and meet face to face with wounded Reaper I'd prefer to have Desert Eagle .50 rather than Five seveN. Six .50 shots gives me chance to stop it, while 20 puny 5.7mm holes cant do much harm to its doubled organs.

 

The same for rifles. Of course fletchettes have much greater penetration. Yet it's not penetration we need most when dealing with aliens. When compared to 5.56mm or even .270 SPM Beowulf .50 still is better. Even if it don't get through armor, it still have much more energy which is delivered to target, causing things like massive bleeding, damaged tissues and organs and broken bones. So, in case of aliens - not humans - bigger caliber seems to be better.

 

Of course, you may have different opinion. All suggestions are welcome.

 

Oh, one more thing. Gauss guns (rail guns) are great in potential, but... Right now they are planned for phase II of US Littoral Combat Ship programme. That means we can't see them sooner than some 20 years from now. And you know, battleship can have little powerplant onboard. HWP or aircraft rather not. So, if it would be purely earth technology (not ellerium powered), I'd vote for MetalStorm. It is already tested as part of Aussies future combat system, so I think it will be implemented for infantry use in some 5 - 10 years. Much more realistic than gauss guns.

 

P.S.

DEagle weight some 3 pounds - sure it's to much for sidearm, but PDW with larger clip weights even more. To be REALLY honest, I'm torn myself. I think PDW is a great weapon of new era, whether DEagle is more gunmaniacs toy. But when I'm trying to imagine game implementation of both it seems that DEagle is better for dealing with aliens. Maybe if there would be a critical hits system in game, using 4.8mm ammo would be making sense? But it's another story.

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I've seen the 5.7 bullets travel through ballistic gelatin (on video) and it makes a considerable temporary cavity. The holes are small, yes, but you'll never incapacitate a badguy with a single shot of handgun based on its width. The .50 ae makes a 13 mm hole. The path of the bullet and all the tissue destroyed by the path is called crushing damage. The crushing damage of a bullet of any given size is going to be less than 1% of the total body mass of the target. The real damage potential of any gun (except the 5.56 round at close range, those bullet explode inside people) is in its penetration capacity. Whether the whole is 5, 6, or 13cm in thickness, if it hits the spine there will be incapacitation, or the heart, there will be death shortly. The only time the temporary cavity (what people like to refer to as the mythical hydrostatic shock effect) comes into play is when the bullet hits something that is non-elastic like the liver or the brain. Suffice it to say that at least the 5.7mm round has enough temporary cavity to kill anyone it hits in the brain. And realistically, the only effective place to shoot someone in a firefight with a handgun is the CNS. Anywhere else and the badguy is more likely to become angered and shoot back than he is to fall down or run away.

 

When you're comparing weapon effectiveness, you must take into account rate of fire. The pdw does weigh more but it's also not a side-arm. However, if I was going into a fight with anyone, I'd rather have the PDW's rate of fire, clip capacity and penetration than the de's noise. Same with the .50 rifle. In CQB, I'd opt for a 5.56 carbine over a .50BMG monster.

Edited by fux0r666
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Theres no reason the round cant be small caliber if its designed properly, especially if it loses balance on impact.

fux0r666 is right in saying the elasticity of most tissue will allow it to survive the passage of a fast round not directly in its path, pretty much regardless of caliber as long as it keeps straight .

that said the shock displacement effect of a slow large caliber round, especially an easily deformed round, at the point of impact is fierce, but soft and slow aint the way to pierce armour.

Flechettes are a terrible thing, they can create zig-zag paths (the right ones) which can be really nasty, and they cut as opposed to crush, and they can pierce bodyarmor (usually).

Its also worth taking into consideration that modern military rounds are as much designed to incapacitate as kill, its far better to have a wounded man using resources behind the lines then a dead one.

Ballistics is a terrible subject to try and educate yourself in, for every expert, theres another equally read up expert who says the exact opposite. :cussing:

 

from a game perspective it might make sense to balance rate of fire, mag capacity and more importantly damage, as futuristic as it might be to have a small caliber high damage 1000 rounds a minute gun with a magazine bigger then the topbox on a goldwing, its not going to make the game much fun!

 

 

fux0r666, is that a video available on the net by any chance?

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I found it originally on the official FN Herstal website.

 

I've read a lot on ballstics and such and the information I summarized is an essay by the FBI on handgun ballistics and tactical effectiveness. It can be found at http://www.firearmstactical.com/

 

Illustrations of various wounding patterns for common military and civilian rounds can also be found there.

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hmmm, well if I understand the concept of bullets correctly

 

APs are more effective if they are slightly smaller, pointed, and have the right type and quantity of gunpowder.

 

more malicious wound types could be achieved by just simply cutting the tip off the ap round for instance, even just adding serrated notches would do somthing.

 

so in theory, a smaller round could do just as much damage as a higher caliber, provided design and other factors are taken into account. Once the right design is achieved, larger rounds are just excess in materials.

 

I believe the only real limitations to bullets are, Can the current weapon handle that much discharge in powder, will the total length of the cartridge fit.

 

examples

a .22 500gr solid :P

 

a .243 600gr pmc SP :devillaugh:

 

LOL, using either of these would result in you needing a new barrel and face

 

higher calibers are prefered because of their weight and size, (the bigger it is, the more likely i can blow up mars).

but a simple comparison would be, sombody throwing a rock vs sombody firing a .22 (a real pissy gun ^_^)

 

I won't argue that higher calibers do less "damage", but once you reach a certain point in the bullets design, the larger just becomes overkill. To me, firearms are a tool, not just somthing i woul use to disintegrate anything that threatens me.

 

Eg. Flak gun vs infantry

Edited by RustedSoul
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While conventional firearms ARE good, they just aren't that good. You get a hole in you, you get kicked around a bit, and you bleed, and that's pretty much it. If you're really lucky or skilled, you can get in a good, fatal hit. Anyone on combat drugs would barely notice getting shot, and would shoot you back, unless you use some really big guns. And if someone has thick armor, you'll be exchanging more shots than you'll feel comfortable with. Even after all of that, with some medical attention and surgery, you can heal most of the wounds.

 

Plasma, on the other hand, is quite effective. You have singing, heat shock, and it can destroy important body components pretty well. The high temperatures can wreak havoc, causing blood to boil, cooking organs, and will destroy the nerves that you need to move and function. It'd be much easier to do some serious damage with plasma, unless you can protect against the heat. As I've said before, no amount of combat drugs can make molten nerves work, and no amount of medicine can fix charcoal.

 

Also, there's game balance to consider. You shouldn't be able to burn through the game using only human tech. You should need stuff from the aliens to be able to defeat them.

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Recent attempts to make a better pistol have yielded the hybrid ammo types developed by HK and FN for the MP7 PDW and FiveSeven. 

 

For the rifles they have tried caseless ammo, flechette rounds, and blended metal bullets (the blended metal bullets are gross).

 

For cannons they have been playing around with various kinds of electronic acceleration technologies.

 

I like your idea about prolonging the life of firearms, but I think that that can be done more technically- like the other weapons in the game.  There isn't much technical achievement in simply buying weapons of a heavier caliber.

 

 

You know what would be really cool--maybe you could customize the development of earth-based firearms in your own way, so to speak. You know, as if you can allocate research to create a special fully-automatic handgun used primarily to dispatch a certain kind of race with higher effectiveness, etc.

 

Also, there should be more than one of each kind of weapon. I know you shouldn't burden yourselves with needless things, but "rifle," "pistol," "cannon" weapon types sound a bit too...generic, or stilted perhaps? Say you can have a light submachine gun that would benefit a "scout" unit with a faster rate of fire and higher magazine capacity, or a long range rifle with higher accuracy for soldiers with higher affinity for ranged weapons. I know it sounds somewhat tedious, but in the end I'm sure giving the player more choices would pay off. As long as the weapon designs stayed within "modern" technological bounds, I don't see a problem with having more than one of any given kind of weapon, each with its own set stats and abilities, or maybe even individually upgradable (as in giving each soldier that unique touch). Armor and equipment could benefit from the same multi-faceted outlook.

 

Hmm, I don't know. Keep up the good work, guys!

 

And that's a great point, dojo. But still, you don't want everybody walking around with alien plasma weapons too early. There should be a large portion of the game spent trying to improve what you've got--besides, realistically you wouln't have fully researched how to make such a weapon work in a couple of months.

 

Also, you kind of underestimate what a real bullet can do. One good hit is enough to cause a nervous system shutdown in a human. I know that we're talking large, powerful aliens, but regular weapons shouldn't be neglected. Besides, we don't want a whacked, 50's sci-fi movie feel, do we? Cool thing about X-Com is that I actually went for more than half the game with human technology before even researching alien plasma weapons. It's not a good idea to force development upon the player if there's, perhaps, some alternative. Bah, just my useless input...

Edited by The Master Maniac
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Wow, so many ballistic educated people! I'm in good company. :party:

 

Well, I think you don't really get my point, so I try to explain it again.

 

I never, ever claimed that "microcalibers" are useless, uneffective or inferior. They have some very strong advantages. Yet, they have some drawbacks. The initial point of my way of thinking is that:

a) we face aliens

B) aliens are big, bad and have good survivability

c) most of them barely have any clothes, not to mention body armors; yet they have thick hides

d) our standar issue assault rifles provide little lethality towards them

e) usual combat range is short to very short, rarely stretches to medium

f) aliens packs very effective weapons and they fire response is usually lethal to my troops

 

Considering all above, I don't need small caliber, high velocity and high accuracy, long range, rapid fire weapon that can penetrate titanium plate. No.

 

What I need is elephant gun, to deliver single shot at point blank range with maximum possible chance of incapacitating three hundred lbs alien.

 

If my enemy was humans wearing personal armors and using standard tactics, then like heck I would prefer to have PDW or even better M8 with 6.8mm SPM.

 

You see, to be sure that enemy is killed immadietly you must hit lower part of his brain or upper spinal cord. Even brain shots - but at lobes - or heart shots doesn't mean immediate death. And even if he eventually die of wounds, he can fire his plasma before.

 

You see, there are well documented reports of big animals - like boars or bears - which get shot at heart (obviously lethal wound), but won't die for couple of minutes, doing a lot of really nasty things to unfortunate hunters. I think the same apply to aliens. Just scoring vital point is not enough (not to mention impossible at CQB) - you need also to do A LOT of damage, to make sure he couldn;t pull the trigger (or just bite you). And to do that, you need as much lead and energy as possible. And small and very fast bullet is not enough.

 

BTW - well, it could be enough, if you could achieve velocity above some 1600 m/s - more than speed of sound in tissues. In that case there would be additional damage due to sonic boom occuring INSIDE body. But no small arm can provide such high velocity, so I stick to my .50 Beowulf (which is not .50 BMG and can be shot from standing position without broken bones) when next time I went hunt some aliens.

 

P.S.

Developing own X-COM firearm using all that hypervelocity-caseless-microcalibers-flechette-glazer-plastic-whatsoever technologies would be nice, but to keep at least minimal realism, it would take you a lot of time, sadly. So not until late in game.

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The speed of sound travelling throught the medium of the body would be much higher than the speed of sound in the air. The bullet would not make a sonic shockwave that travels through the flesh of whatever it hits.. I don't think that the supersonic nature of the bullet would mean anything special but a lot of energy to transfer. This would probably mean that the bullet would pass in and out of the body without lingering to tumble- thereby reducing the amount of damage done.

 

Heavy rounds do not necessarily penetrate armour better than light ones. It depends on the nature of the armour. Since none of the aliens have plated suits, you could liken their armoured skin to kevlar. Small. fast and pointy rounds tend to penetrate kevlar best. Perhaps if Xcom was using 5.56mm instead of 6.7mm it would be more effective.

 

Taking a heavy .50 bmg into close combat would be like signing your own death warrant. There is no way anyone hefting a personal rifle that fired those ridiculously large anti-material rounds would be caught dead in CQB. Likewise, the .50AE desert eagle has been shown to be less effective than its smaller magnum counterparts.

 

I still believe that increasing the effectiveness and the lethality of the weapons Xcom starts with originally can be more sophisticated and more exciting than simply increasing the mass of the projectiles they fire.

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I still believe that increasing the effectiveness and the lethality of the weapons Xcom starts with originally can be more sophisticated and more exciting than simply increasing the mass of the projectiles they fire.

You mean, like using the gravity properties of Xenium to propel deadlier projectiles with less kickback? Or using alien interfaces to improve the handling and reactions of the weapon? Or using the alien metals on the tips of bullets, somehow improving their penetration power? Or making conventional weapons from alien alloys, to make them lighter and more durable?

 

Heck, with all of that stuff, the last thing you would want to research are the alien weaponry. ^_^

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5.56mm xenium 122 tipped alien alloy rounds, would make an interesting research subject  :D

Well, yeah, except game designers always seem to want to add their little "alien technobable" to everything they touch... seems kinda repetitive...

I gues we can make the human weapons a bit less puny without compromising game balance too much...

 

Besides, adding radioactive material to bullets is never a good thing, like the US "depleted Uranium" anti-tank shells... Thousands of soldiers dying of Cancer after first gulf war but Nooooo, they were'nt responsible... and still use DU :huh:

 

"Well, Commander Tommy, you've been diagnosed with Terminal Cancer due to our new ammunition..."

"Well, at least I've kicked some alien A.."

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yeah, I'm not so hot on the idea of xenium bullets, furniture and boxershorts. Xenium seems to be able to do everything. A block of xenium in the home will keep your whites whiter.

 

But I liked the train of thought- like using the alien interfaces. If the weapons knew where they were pointing and could convey that knowledge to you mentally, you could fire it intuitively with great accuracy.

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But I liked the train of thought- like using the alien interfaces.  If the weapons knew where they were pointing and could convey that knowledge to you mentally, you could fire it intuitively with great accuracy.

so something like the smartgun off aliens.

 

with maybe the research being based off the guidance system from the fusion ball launcher and alien/human psi abilities.

 

gives boost in accuracy and interrupt

 

It would be nice to see some upgraded or new human/alien hybrid weapons derive from the various research being done, rather than being encouraged to completely scrap everything human for that shiny new plasma pistol.

 

just my thoughts anyway :)

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Oh gosh, one more time.

 

.50 Beowulf IS NOT .50 BMG

 

Here is Beowulf rifle

http://www.gunblast.com/images/50Beowulf/Mvc-001f.jpg

- as you can clearly see, it's nothing more than heavily modified AR-15/M-16 clone.

 

and here .50 Beowulf ammo, compared to 5.56mm

http://www.gunblast.com/images/50Beowulf/Mvc-005f.jpg

 

Recoil is almost the same as that of 12 gauge shotgun.

 

It is possibly and quite reasonable to get that thing to fight with some mutons, reapers or snakemen. Obviously much more reasonable, than tiny .223, which, as we all know, did almost nothing to them.

 

About DEagle .50 I absolutely agree that it's not the best nor most powerful handgun ever. Yet it seems obvious, that some heavy pistol could do more damage to alien than default Beretta 9mm. If you don't like Desert Eagle, make it Wildey or whatever that have more than 750 J of energy and some nasty ammo. BTW - Hague convention only apply to military, and countries that signed it. None of above applies to aliens. So lets use some dum-dum bullet with cyanide tips for better performance. If aliens don't like it, they can always sue us :devillaugh:

 

Second thing, why hypervelocity is so deadly. When bullet trawels through body with speed higher than speed of sound IN TISSUES, it creates shockwave. When it happens usually flexible muscles or whatever human have inside starts to behave not like elastic, but more like rigid and they BREAKS. We know this for sure, because there were ballistic tests (with ballistic gelatine). Of course there may be some minor differences when using real flesh, but general rules are the same. So human hit with bullet travelling more than some 1600 m/s would be probably dead, because he BREAK LIKE GLASS. It's the physics. When jet airplane break barrier of sound loud boom is heard. When bullet break barrier of sound in body, large splash is seen. :explode: Fortunatelly they not have such technology available yet. At least for small arms. For anti-tank use they already have LOSAT, which is hypersonic missile that can destroy tank with sheer kinetic energy of hit. Not using single ounce of explosives.

 

So, concluding, hypervelocity small arm is great addition to X-Com armoury. It would do A LOT of harm to this poor, innocent alien lads. :birthday:

 

So much for today. Bye. :happybanana:

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not to the same extent though. i always wonder, what are the chances that a child sized creature could survive a 30+ pound tank shell moving at supersonic speeds that is moving so fast when it hits something hard it makes plasma?
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All that matters when producing 'hydrostatic shock' is energy transfer. If it is going fast and has much mass, it has more energy to transfer. If it is steel jacketed or made of a hard composition, it will transfer less energy than one that mushrooms. If a nondeforming round that stays stable in the body passes through at supersonic speeds, you won't be left with much more than a hole in one side and out the other.
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No no no no. The bullet shape after hit doesn't make so big difference in this speed scale.

 

The big damage in fast bullets comes from the shockwave that passes through tissue. Larger bullet produces larger wounds, yes. But, faster bullets make larger wounds than slower ones. The visible hole in surface might be even smaller, but the shockwave has smashed the tissue around the pierced hole far wider than in slow bullet case. Thus we have light and fast bullets instead of large and slow.

 

That is the basics, and occurs with normal weapons. Next comes the funny part.

 

If the bullet speed in tissue exceeds the speed of sound in it, the effect is yet dramatically increased. Laws of hydrodynamics, (or aerodynamics, there is really no difference) say that the behavior of shockwave changes just as much as when passing Mach 1 with aircraft. Result is: a single hit in torso -> instant crush of internal organs, crush of ribs and spine, and you guess it. Death.

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No no no no. The bullet shape after hit doesn't make so big difference in this speed scale.

 

The big damage in fast bullets comes from the shockwave that passes through tissue. Larger bullet produces larger wounds, yes. But, faster bullets make larger wounds than slower ones. The visible hole in surface might be even smaller, but the shockwave has smashed the tissue around the pierced hole far wider than in slow bullet case. Thus we have light and fast bullets instead of large and slow.

 

That is the basics, and occurs with normal weapons. Next comes the funny part.

 

If the bullet speed in tissue exceeds the speed of sound in it, the effect is yet dramatically increased. Laws of hydrodynamics, (or aerodynamics, there is really no difference) say that the behavior of shockwave changes just as much as when passing Mach 1 with aircraft. Result is: a single hit in torso -> instant crush of internal organs, crush of ribs and spine, and you guess it. Death.

 

I'm not ballistic expert, but I know Kinetic energy is proportional to the mass of the projectile, but proportional to the SQUARE of the velocity... Thus, higher speeds can be fairly devastating... -_-

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I know very little about modern human firearms, but you could do something like use some small elerium based generator inside a bullet to deliver electric shock to the target. You could also make the generator 'overloard', causing it to explode in a big explosion or something.
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The average speed of sound at sea level is 340 m/s.

 

This is the wounding profile of a 9mm parabellum round. The bullet is supersonic, travelling at 362.4 m/s.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/9mm%20US%20M882.jpg

 

This is the wounding profile of a .45 ACP silvertip. It is subsonic, travelling at 286 m/s.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/45%20ACP%20WW%20STHP.jpg

 

For an analysis that controls for bullet diameter and is a little closer in grainage, here are two supersonic .22 LR loads travelling at similar (supersonic) speeds.

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/22LR%2037gr%20HP%20Wound%20Profile.jpg

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/22LR%2040gr%20RNL.jpg

 

Here are two examples of very large 7.62 mm rounds. Notice that in this example, the significantly slower bullet does significantly more damage.

 

This bullet is travelling at mach 1.8

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/30-30%20Winchester.jpg

This bullet is travelling at mach 2.5

http://www.firearmstactical.com/images/Wound%20Profiles/M80.jpg

 

I hope this illustrates what I failed to convince you of by just telling you. To recap my points:

1. The speed of sound through the medium of the body is much higher than the speed of sound through the air, so the shockwaves that are produced are not sonic.

2. Hydrostatic shock is a function of energy transfer, not raw energy of the bullet.

 

I hope this clears up any misconceptions you have about the miraculous wounding effects of supersonic rounds.

Edited by fux0r666
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Sheesh, where did you find those pictures?

You must be a real ballistics afficionado :D

Nice explanation though, I never thought it did that kind of effects...

 

I see your point about the energy transfer, my point was simply that the reason bullets are small is simply to make them faster, thus granting them more potential energy...

 

That said, you're absolutely right about getting the bullets a bit more lethal in Xenocide, but let's not forget that Plasma weapons are a heck of a stronger punch... Laser on the other hand, are a bit overrated IMO.

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fux0r666, you are 100% right, but you don't understand one thing.

 

I am not talking about SUPERsonic (above Mach 1, roughly 320m/s), I am talking about HYPERsonic (above Mach 5+, roughly 1600m/s).

 

Speed of sound in flesh is about the same as 5 time speed of sound in air. So HYPERsonic bullet in air would be SUPERsonic bullet inside body. But SUPERsonic bullet in air would be way less than sonic at all in body.

 

It makes difference. Trust me.

 

The second misunderstanding is that I am NOT talking about hydrostatic shock. I am talking about sonic shockwave in flesh. It is effect of propagation of sound waves that interfere with each other at speed of sound, causing a local pressure difference. Simply molecules of human flesh cannot compress so fast, and start to behave like RIGID, not like FLEXIBLE material. The result is that flesh will fracture instead of usual stretching - and thus instead of puny temporary cavity we will get volume fractures - including broken bones, ripped muscles and internal organs, and massive internal bleeding. Most probably - fatal.

 

This is one of the reasons that DARPA is spending millions of dollars on electromagnetic guns and hypersonic technologies.

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There is no such thing as a hypersonic small arm. Attempts to build such a weapon would be a total waste because it certainly would not be man portable or man-firable. Any information on the wounding capacity of such a weapon would be purely conjecture.

 

So, basically, what you are telling us is science fiction, which is fine. But you present it as if it is fact. If it is fact, I would like to see your sources. It would prove to be an interesting read.

 

By the way, hypervelocity does not equal hypersonic. I have a box of .22 truncated conical hollowpoints that boast a hypervelocity of a whopping 457 m/s. As you can see, they are barely supersonic themselves.

Edited by fux0r666
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Check out the diagrams on the previous page. The permanent cavity is where the damage is done. The temporary cavity would only affect inflexible tissue such as the brain and the liver. In the permanent cavity the tissue is torn and in the temporary, it is stretched. The apple explodes because it is inflexible.
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Thanks Ekelmann, that was what i was trying to say too... just jouldn't figure out right terms in english.

 

There is no such thing as a hypersonic small arm. Attempts to build such a weapon would be a total waste because it certainly would not be man portable or man-firable. Any information on the wounding capacity of such a weapon would be purely conjecture.

 

That's why it is discussed in labs. ^_^ With very small bullet it is possible as recoil measures mass x velocity but energy of bullet is 1/2 mass x velocity^2. A quick calculation gives us: 0,5 g bullet at 5km/s results in 2,5ms recoil and 6250j energy as 7,62 WP has recoil value of 5,6ms and muzzle energy of 2970j. Such a light bullet slows down fast and is tremendous stress to the gun to make the pressure needed. With current tech, nearly impossible, and impractical at least.

 

So, we need a way to reduce friction of air, and some ubermetal to make the gun of. Nasa has made a solution to first one when researching with US military. If air around flying body is ionized (turned to plasma) friction reduces dramatically. They used microwave emitters (large microwave oven). Dear aliens kindly provide us with durable enough metal.

 

With alien alloys to handle the pressure, and microwave emitter in gun to ionize air ahead bullet it would be a real killer gun. :devillaugh:

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Right, the laboratory development of a hypersonic small arm was not what I was contesting. Firstly it was the assertion that hypervelocity rounds create sonic shockwaves in the body, secondly it was that hypervelocity means hypersonic, thirdly it was that hypersonic rounds would create sonic shockwaves through human tissue, and finally, that current developments in railgun technology is for manportable weapons. None of these premises are true. Edited by fux0r666
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Firstly it was the assertion that hypervelocity rounds create sonic shockwaves in the body

Well... The terms hypervelocity and hypersonic rounds are a bit dim to me, what are the speed scales and limits here?

 

The only thing that matters in creating a sonic shockwave is speed compared to speed of sound. When projectile speed exceeds the speed of sound a shockwave is created. Fact. -> Bullet speed in tissue exceeds speed of sound in tissue, shockwave is created. Fact. A shockwave tears apart structures in matter. Fact. What is the problem in this??? A bullet needs only to penetrate its target fast enough to create the effect. (some Km:s a sec, couldn't figure out the exact number.)

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The speed of sound depends on what medium it travels though. The more dense the material is, the faster sound is conducted. The speed of sound through air is 340.29 m/s. The speed of sound through sea water is 1531 m/s. Now, that puts the speed of sound through sea water and mach 4.5. This is where some of my assumptions and experience kick in. My first assumption is that the human body is more rich in dissolved minerals than sea water. The speed of sound through distilled water is somewhere in the upper 1300's m/s. My second is that the solid material is more dense than our blood. The heterogenous nature of the medium would prevent a shockwave from forming properly, even if the speed of the projectile was sufficient to create a shockwave for a long period of time. At such speeds one would anticipate the projectile to explode on impact, or slow down and deform substancially. This would be the wounding mechanism of such a round- the energy transfer- not its ability to make the elastic tissues of the body giggle.

 

To answer your first question, hypervelocity (bullets) just mean fast bullets... faster than your average round of that caliber. Hypersonic refers to speeds greater than mach 5.

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Ok. Now i got at least one point... Mach 5 wouldn't make it. Mach 10 or more in air.

 

The effect is basically that it smashes everything in temporal cavity(roughly). Bullet speed is reduced quickly as drag is huge, all the energy to hurt does come from the bullet, there is no magical shortcut. The great advantage is that bullet does not need to transfer energy by itself, the shockwave does the trick. And a mach 10 bullet has a lot of energy to transfer... without a shockwave it would make a clean small hole, but as shockwave is reality the whole torso gets wasted. :devillaugh:

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You could use xenium-based engines in the bullets. You could start off with the normal gunpowder (or whatever the heck they're using nowadays.) launch for the bullet, then a xenium engine kicks in. What about having more gunpowder? The only objection I see is the gun being damaged. So make the gun out of alien alloys.
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I was thinking quite human tech, really. If you figure out any problems/faults in this, please tell me too.

 

To get bullet in high speeds requires a lot of energy, to get useable ammo and barrel size i suggest stong explosive, gunpowder is weak and slow. Maybe pyrite or nitroglycerin based or plastique. To handle the pressure gun must be REALLY tough. -> Alien alloys. To have a handleable weapon recoil the bullet must be very light. (You know, kinetic energy = ½ m * v^2 and amount of movement??term in english?? Anyway, the thing recoil is proportional to is plain m * v) Thus we achieve large energy and reasonable recoil. A quick calculation gives us: 1 g bullet at 5km/s results in 5kgm/s recoil and 12500j energy as 7,62 WP has recoil value of 5,6kgm/s and muzzle energy of 2970j.

 

Another problem is tremendous friction slowing our small bullet down resulting in very short useable range and poor accuracy. NASA has researched high speed kinetics and made up a solution for us. They noticed that when air around flying body is ionized (turned to plasma) high speed friction reduces dramatically. So, we put a microwave emitter in the gun to make a small path of plasma in air for bullet to travel through. The bullet is so fast that trajectory is basically straight, and bullet is so small that the path does not need to be wide-> energy consumption is reasonable for human tech.

 

Our weapon looks and works basically like assault rifle, but is just a lot meaner... :devillaugh:

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To get bullet in high speeds requires a lot of energy, to get useable ammo and barrel size i suggest stong explosive, gunpowder is weak and slow.

 

As I said, whatever the heck they're using nowadays.

 

To handle the pressure gun must be REALLY tough. -> Alien alloys.

 

Yup.

 

To have a handleable weapon recoil the bullet must be very light. (You know, kinetic energy = ½ m * v^2 and amount of movement??term in english?? Anyway, the thing recoil is proportional to is plain m * v) Thus we achieve large energy and reasonable recoil. A quick calculation gives us: 1 g bullet at 5km/s results in 5kgm/s recoil and 12500j energy as 7,62 WP has recoil value of 5,6kgm/s and muzzle energy of 2970j.

 

Recoil. I always forget about that. :hammer:

 

Another problem is tremendous friction slowing our small bullet down resulting in very short useable range and poor accuracy. NASA has researched high speed kinetics and made up a solution for us. They noticed that when air around flying body is ionized (turned to plasma) high speed friction reduces dramatically. So, we put a microwave emitter in the gun to make a small path of plasma in air for bullet to travel through. The bullet is so fast that trajectory is basically straight, and bullet is so small that the path does not need to be wide-> energy consumption is reasonable for human tech.

 

Well, thats one of those things that we look back on and think, "Why wasn't that obvious in the first place?" :idea: . See, think about it: You have the most friction from solid objects right? Less from fluids, even less from gases. Next step? Plasma. You could also make it do a tad bit of plasma damage to burn through any armor then do the real damage straight to the target. And since this is an alien alloy bullet, the alien alloys in armor and stuff like that won't as effectively block it either. And then think of the various types of ammo. The existing human x-corps weapons already have HE and incendiary rounds. So what about fusion rounds or similar?

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