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CTD - [Cannon]


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The Ctd for Cannon was open, so I decided to give it a shot.

 

Until recently, Air to air combat was done entirely with .50 caliber machine guns. Eventually, as planes became faster and missile technology became more advanced, they became more practical than .50 caliber machine guns, and use of projectile weapons was limited to the 20mm, which is effective as an air to ground weapon due to it's ability to damage lightly armored vehicles. When developing the XC-1 the nations that had previously attempted to establish anti-alien programs noted that their fighter plans had never even gotten into a dog fight with any UFOs, and the primary reason they failed to shoot it down was because the UFOs either simply outran them, or they didn't have enough stopping power with missiles or 20mm rounds. The development of the avalanche and stingray missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow launch time due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for stealth. This meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to physically "reload" increasing the launch time significantly.

 

The cannon is a high caliber weapon designed specifically for the XC-1. It features a 75 mm smoothbore cannon. The rounds have fins which line up with grooves on the sides similar to modern tanks, only the rounds are smaller. Smoothbore cannons can propel shells much faster and farther than rifled ones, however accuracy is sacrificed in the process. The high-tech stabilizing wings actually move to keep the round flying on a straight path, however this is only a minor improvement of a couple of percentage points in accuracy. The kickback of the weapon also deceases the accuracy, despite the best hydraulics and aircraft stabilization. The fact that the pilot is never even 25% accurate even with the best computerized aids also decreases the accuracy, leaving the cannon with a low average accuracy rating. It's rounds are large enough to do damage to heavily armored aircraft, yet small enough to allow the reasonably rapid fire rate of once every 2 seconds.

 

feel free to criticize.

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The original is one shot every two seconds that'ss what I based my caliber on, I guess I could call it 50 mm, and have it fire twice a second, or I could say it's new technology, like a faster hydrolic system allowing it to recover from recoil faster.
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Or it's a multibarrel cannon... :huh?: Don't know that's possible, 75mm gatling? Would be cool though, and you can have a serious rate of fire. Besides, the cannon was useless in the previous games, maybe we can improve it somewhat, and giving it a faster rate of fire helps with that...
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In X-com it's dual-barreled. If each cannon had a recoil recovery of 1 second, that would be one shot every .5 seconds. That could work.

 

Edit, A multi gun system would work more like most aircraft machine-guns, each gun would have it's own ammunition source and they would each be timed to fire when the other ones weren't (and when the propelor wasn't blocking the shot, which was a problem in WWI)

 

Aw man, that's the third propelor this week. :uh:

Edited by Ancalagon
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Yeah, well things are a little more advanced now :) I always thought it was a shot every 1/2 a second I'd have 2 check, and I thought it was a multibarrel ne way if not then it should be as it is what is on pretty much every other aircraft and IIRC u took 100 ammo with u ne way.
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here's the new Cannon script.

 

Until recently, Air to air combat was done entirely with .50 caliber machine guns. Eventually, as planes became faster and missile technology became more advanced, missiles became more practical than the .50 caliber gun, and use of projectile weapons was limited to the 20mm anti-tank gun, which is effective as an air to ground weapon due to it's ability to damage lightly armored vehicles/tanks. When developing the XC-1 the nations that had previously attempted to establish anti-alien programs noted that their fighter plans had never even gotten into a dog fight with any UFOs, and the primary reason they failed to shoot one down was because the UFOs either simply outran them, or they didn't have enough stopping power with missiles or 20mm rounds. The development of the avalanche and stingray missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow launch time due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for stealth. This meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to physically "reload" increasing the launch time significantly.

 

The cannon is a high caliber weapon designed specifically for the XC-1. It features 2 75 mm smoothbore cannons. Smoothbore cannons can propel shells much faster and farther than rifled ones, however accuracy is sacrificed in the process. The rounds have fins which line up with grooves on the sides, similar to modern tanks, only the rounds are smaller. The high-tech stabilizing fins actually move to keep the round flying on a straight path, however this is only a minor improvement of a couple of percentage points in accuracy. The kickback of the weapon also decreases the accuracy, despite the best in hydraulics and aircraft stabilization. The fact that the pilot is never even 50% accurate even with the best computerized aids also decreases the accuracy, leaving the cannon with a low average accuracy rating.

 

A state of the arts hydraulic system allows each cannon to recover from recoil in 1 second. The cannons feed from separate ammunition stores and fire alternately, allowing a fire rate of 2 rounds a second. Unlike 20 mm machine guns, the 75 mm cannons have no trouble piercing the armor of alien craft, and their faster firing rate makes them useful for quickly and efectivley taking down UFOs, especially when used effectivley with long range weapons such as avalalanches and stingrays on the approach.

 

I added in he alternating dual cannon explanation and incorperated it more with the avalanch and stingray misslies. I also mentioned the recoil for people who didn't already know that large caliber weapons have recoil. :D

 

What do you think?

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Let's not get too crazy with the size of the cannon. The GAU-8 Avenger cannon, the mainstay of the famed A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthog" tank killer is "only" a 30mm cannon. .50 caliber is somewhere around 25mm and most air-to-air guns of the modern age are between 20mm-30mm. The key to taking down air targets with cannon is volume of fire, and secondarily the size of the round. 50mm-100mm fall into the range of artillery rounds, which are beyond the practical size for aircraft to fire in any rapid fire fashion. The single exception that comes to mind is the side-mounted cannon aboard the AC-130 Spectre Gunship, which is a slow-moving heavylift plane with four turboprops - and that gun moves that 155,000 lbs (69,750 kg) aircraft all over the place. The A-10, which is a jet, bleeds speed at a fantastic pace while pumping rounds out through its cannon, enough so that the aircraft (designed specifically for low-speed flight) can stall if it fires too long a burst or at the wrong attitude. Most fighters, weighing in at only 12,000-80,000 lbs would blow around in the sky if they fired anything heavier.

 

Even supposing our aircraft (post Interceptor/Skyranger) have some kind of antigrav drive that doesn't rely on tradtional phyics, the sheer volume of the rounds that have to go into the gun will occupy critical real estate in the airframe. Unlike your traditional arcade flyer, in which an aircraft cannon is loaded to infinity with as many rounds as you can shoot, a real aircraft is critically limited in its cannon payload. The Panavia Tornado, Europe's mainstay ground attack plane, carries only a couple hundred cannon rounds. The A-10, loaded for bear for ground attack missions, fires 3,900 rounds a minute according to the official fact sheet, but in fact only carries a maximum load of roughly 1,170 rounds (note that certain websites confuse the rate of fire with actual payload, thus claiming 4K rounds aboard and such, which is nonsense). This is at the extreme end of the spectrum; most 20mm cannon-armed aircraft carry between two and seven hundred rounds, with typical rates of fire in the 4000 RPM range with resultingly short time to fire.

 

Scaling up the dimensions of 30mm brass to 50mm or 100mm projectiles would require four to sixteen times the volume per round using contemporary designs. This means that a fighter, drawing from modern fighters as a realistic design range, would only have between 25-100 rounds before running dry. With aerial cannon RPMs averaging four thousand rounds per minute, this gives the pilot approximately one trigger pull the length of a hiccup before the cannon runs empty.

 

As an alternative, our fighter could carry caseless ammunition, which would not only have the advantage of even more rapid rates fire (no extraction phase in the firing sequence would be needed), but would also require less space for the rounds because casings are absent. Disadvantages to caseless systems are that so far all prototypes have been complex mechanisms by necessity (the G-11, for instance, was refered to as the "cuckoo clock machine gun" for its hardly-simple internal workings) and thus prone to unreliability under heat and stress. Increasing the caliber makes for even more pressure on the mechanical workings, and cannon-sized caseless calibers may not be practical at all. On the other hand, this is advanced technology we're talking about here, so perhaps our scientists can come up with something.

 

On the other hand, we need to also keep in mind that the larger the projectile, the slower it is. A 5.56mm round, depeding on weapon, begins flight with a muzzle velocity in the 2300-3000 feet per second range. A .50cal round with a powder-filled cartridge of almost eight times the volume only musters 1400 fps. Artillery rounds are often visible to the naked eye while in flight, the larger rounds making only 200-500 feet per second for the majority of their flight. These speeds are completely impractical for an air-to-air engagement with a speedy ufo; the interceptor itself could potentially outrun its own bullets once terminal air velocity set in. As a comparison between the standard "fighter" 20mm cannon and the A-10's 30mm: The Warthog's gatling gun is wickedly effective against ground targets, but performs poorly except in slow-speed aerial engagements.

 

Something to think about, hope this info is helpful.

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Dang, now I gotta riwrite the entire thing... -_-

 

Edit, .50 cal is 1/2 of an inch. And since an inch is 2.8 centimieters or so.

.50 cal is 14 mm. And I know for a fact .50 cal machine guns were used in WWII planes. 20mm IS standard AT weaponry, however in X-com it had 200 rounds, which is not enough sustained firepowerto even to a bit ofd damage to the hul of a UFO. So can I assume we are discarding all x-com info and rewriting the enteire thing?

Edited by Ancalagon
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Oops...right on the .50 cal. The actual projectile dimensions are 12.7x99mm. And they were used all the time on WWII vintage planes, its true.

 

Another correction: muzzle velocity of 5.56mm averages 3,100 fps while a .50 Browning round goes around 2,800-2,900 since they are all pretty much custom loads these days and aren't really standardized.

 

That's what I get for doing the math in my head at 11 at night.

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20 mm wouldn't make a dent. HE probably wouldn't help against heavily armored craft like that, would it? assuming an f-16 (standard fighter plane design) we wouldn't even be able to cary 200 30mm bullets, since they have a payload of 500 20mm bullets, an we have half payload to work with. At best, we can have 200 25mm rounds. And given it's specs it can't have a lot of space for bullets anyway.

 

Wow, the cannon from x-com is entirely ineffective. only 30 rounds a minute.

:laser:

Should I just turn the "canon" into a machine gun?

Or should I use a bunch of fluffer text to justify it.

For example: The canon is a rail gun which uses magnetic force to propel bullets with rare earth magnets embeded inside them. This allows for constant acceleration through out the barrel, signifacantly reducing the kickback issues of high speed bullets and propeling them to speeds of 6000 ft/second.

:D

 

Thr fluffer text is definatley closer to the original x-com

 

Edit: All you'd need is an electromaget so powerful it would fry all the transistors on board. :rolleyes:

 

Edit: You could always design it like a magnetic railway, which alternates electromacnatic fields (It's to late to post a link :zzzzz:) to propel Trains and would be slightly more efficient, although it would still fry the transistors.

Edited by Ancalagon
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We could go for DU-tipped rounds, could be more effective. At any rate I would like to have an actual use for the cannon, apart from only taking on small scouts. And one option would be to increase damage, another to increase ROF, and another to increase range (though I don't think that makes sense, a cannon with the (practical) range of an AA-missile ^_^ ).

 

Or we forget about the cannon and get some '50s era technology from under the dust, the nuclear AA-missile :devillaugh:

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A rail gun Ctd might look like this.

 

Until recently, Air to air combat was done entirely with .50 caliber machine guns. Eventually, as planes became faster and missile technology became more advanced, missiles became more practical than the .50 caliber gun, and use of projectile weapons was limited to the 20-30mm anti-tank gun, which is effective as an air to ground weapon due to it's ability to damage lightly armored vehicles/tanks. When developing the XC-1 the nations that had previously attempted to establish anti-alien programs noted that their fighter plans had never even gotten into a dog fight with any UFOs, and the primary reason they failed to shoot it down was because the UFOs either simply outran them, or they didn't have enough stopping power with missiles or 20mm rounds. The development of the avalanche and stingray missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow launch time due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for stealth. This meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to physically "reload" increasing the launch time significantly.

 

The cannon is a medium caliber weapon designed specifically for the XC-1. It features 2 20-mm rail cannons. Rail guns increase power and speed significantly by using electro-magnets to accelerate a bullet with rare earth magnets embeded inside it along the whole length of the barrel, allowing it to reach the extremely fast speed of 6000 ft/second. Rail guns can propel bullets much faster and farther than regular guns, however rate of fire is sacrificed in the process. To fix this, the cannons feed from separate ammunition stores and fire alternately, allowing a fire rate of 2 rounds a second. The kickback of the weapon also limits the rate of fire, since the kickback is too significant to allow the gun to shoot as fast as most modern aircraft guns, despite the best in hydraulics and aircraft stabilization. Normally the volume of fire wouldn’t be near enough to take down an air craft, however, the high speed of the round does severe damage to any aircraft, and advances in computerized systems have improved accuracy significantly. However the fact that the pilot is never even 25% accurate even with the best computerized aids limits the accuracy significantly, leaving the cannon with a low average accuracy rating.

 

Given the nature of the electro magnets, the cannon needs to be heavily magnetically shielded to prevent the magnetic fields from destroying the equipment on board the aircraft. This limits the total amount of ammo it can cary to 200 20mm bullets.

 

The rounds will either be DU AP rounds or DU HE rounds which explode after entering the hull.

 

Edit: Yes, I did just change my previous text slightly to make it about a rail gun.

Edited by Ancalagon
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Wow...Kenshiro knows his sh!t. Good stuff, Ancalagon.

 

the interceptor itself could potentially outrun its own bullets once terminal air velocity set in.

 

Hmm...and if the deceleration due to air resistance is more or less constant, that means that if the rounds leave the barrel at 400 fps, they'd return at...er...the exact same speed...d'oh.

 

However the fact that the pilot is never even 25% accurate even with the best computerized aids limits the accuracy significantly, leaving the cannon with a low average accuracy rating.

 

http://www.thesaurus.com :D

 

or DU HE rounds which explode after entering the hull

 

Naw...rail guns and depleted uranium are enough, we don't need explosives too, it's just the basic cannon.

 

Other than that, looks good, whether it's a cannon that can't actually exist on a real airplane (shhhh...no one will know :pink: ) or a depleted uranium rail gun, it works for me.

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It took me surprisingly long to figure out why you put a link to a thesaurus.

:stupid:

 

Is this better?

 

I decided to add it as an attachment so It didn't waste a bunch of space.

 

It didn't work, :cussing:

Oh well, here it is.

 

Until recently, Air to air combat was done entirely with .50 caliber machine guns. Eventually, as planes became faster and missile technology became more advanced, missiles became more practical than the .50 caliber gun, and use of projectile weapons was limited to the 20-30mm anti-tank gun, which is effective as an air to ground weapon due to it's ability to damage lightly armored vehicles/tanks. When developing the XC-1 the nations that had previously attempted to establish anti-alien programs noted that their fighter planes had never even gotten into a dog fight with any UFOs, and the primary reason they failed to shoot it down was because the UFOs either simply outran them, or they didn't have enough stopping power with missiles or standard 20-30mm rounds. The development of the avalanche and stingray missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow launch time due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for stealth. This meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to physically "reload" increasing the launch time significantly.

 

The cannon is the solution to this problem. It is a medium caliber weapon designed specifically for the XC-1. It features 2 20-mm rail cannons. Rail guns increase power and speed significantly by using electro-magnets to accelerate a bullet with rare earth magnets embedded inside it along the whole length of the barrel, allowing it to reach the extremely fast speed of 9000 ft/second. Rail guns can propel bullets much faster and farther than regular guns, however rate of fire is sacrificed in the process. To fix this, the cannons feed from separate ammunition stores and fire alternately, allowing a fire rate of 2 rounds a second. The kickback of the weapon also limits the rate of fire, since the kickback is too significant to allow the gun to shoot as fast as most modern aircraft guns, despite the best in hydraulics and aircraft stabilization. Normally the volume of fire wouldn’t be near enough to take down an air craft, however, the high speed of the round does severe damage to any aircraft, and the advances in computerized systems have improved accuracy significantly. However the fact that the pilot is never even 25% accurate even with the best computerized aids limits the guns precision significantly, leaving the cannon with a low average accuracy rating.

 

Given the nature of the electro magnets, the cannon needs to be heavily magnetically shielded to prevent the magnetic fields from destroying the equipment on board the aircraft. This limits the total amount of ammo it can carry to 200 20mm bullets, despite not having a need for gunpowder. The bullets themselves are depleted uranium tipped , allowing them to pierce armor much better than lead bullets. The cannon is best used with in conjunction with missile fire while approaching optimum range.

Edited by Ancalagon
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I would suggest one more change - and this is only a suggestion. Rather than blaming the pilot for inaccuracies, I would fault the slow rate of fire of the weapon, something to the following effect:

 

Pitted against the incredibly high speed and maneuverability of a UFO, the low firing rate of a railgun-based cannon still makes putting rounds on target difficult. However, with current technical limitations, this tradeoff of rate-of-fire for speed-of-projectile is a necessary one in order to create a kinetic projectile weapon that can engage a UFO at all. Computer aids to lead rounds across the UFO's flight path must be used to hit the target, with the pilot's skill playing no small role in any aerial engagement. Even still, only limited accuracy is possible under the circumstances, since even the short time-in-flight of railgun rounds still leaves a wide margin of error against this class of opponent.

 

Nonetheless, given this cannon is the first weapon of its class to even be able to make effective strikes on a UFO, we should still consider it an acheivement in countering the present menace.

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Is it ok if I quote you on that?

 

I'll be sure to give credit to you when I send it to greatgold.

 

However, pitted against the incredibly high speed and maneuverability of a UFO, the low firing rate of a railgun-based cannon still makes putting rounds on target difficult. However, with current technical limitations, this tradeoff of rate-of-fire for speed-of-projectile is a necessary one in order to create a kinetic projectile weapon that can engage a UFO at all. Computer aids to lead rounds across the UFO's flight path must be used to hit the target, with the pilot's skill playing no small role in any aerial engagement. Even still, only limited accuracy is possible under the circumstances, since even the short time-in-flight of railgun rounds still leaves a wide margin of error against this class of opponent.

 

 

 

Edit: Was technical supposed to be technological?

Cannon.txt

Edited by Ancalagon
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If I was a superfrantic and knew anything about airplanes these are a

Few points which are I would have problems with.

 

1.You know with moden jets there 500 supply of cannon ammo is only enouth for about a continued .5 second burst.

 

Do you know why they fire so fast? Because jet fighters were flying between the rounds of machineguns. Thats right BETWEEN.

 

Something fireing 2 rounds a second will not hit a damn thing unless your target just sits back and flies straight and you get directly behind it.

hmm(thinks of xcom1) or its extremly slow. UFO are hyperfast compared to moden jets am I to assume...so your going to need something that fires even faster.

 

2 Your American I guess? You sure loved your brownings in worldwar2

However most aircombat was actually done with 20mm cannons :P and 13mm cannon(.50=13mm~)....no it wasnt a .50 cal it was a cannon not a machinegun..lower speed per round, heavier round.

Allied combat was mostly 50cal, early on, and with american planes, Tempest however is a good British plane later in the war 4 20mm cannons :) BOY did the germans hate that baby.

 

 

 

3.You get less kickback and higher damage potenial with smaller rounds at a higher velocity, the reason for this is when a bullet is shot..it actually acclerates over a % of a second...when it hits something it basicly has stops in a instant.

 

 

4.Rail guns dont have to be slow, what limits them in the real world is power, and the need to charge capastciers(sorry about the spelling) To power the electromagnets. Since the interceptor is spose to be using hydrogen cells the engine could power the Electromagnets directly resulting is a continus and very rapid firerate...and as about 4/5 of cannon rounds is the cart and powder this will allow for a much higher ammo capacity. If you wanted to use large shells, have 2 rail guns at a time using spiral barrals *think of a phonecord* and have them reversed to each other. So as one electromagnet fires right and pushes the round in barral 1.....electromagnet fires left and pushes the round in barral2 bringing basicly a net kickback force of 0 to the fighter:)

 

5.Ufo can travel though space :P and not get destroyed by micro metors, so something more then just kentic weapons have to be used.

Electro magnets generate heat when a magnetic object passes though the field. You could in theroy use it to Generate and fire plasma... But as were hunmans and the ALiens have plasma.....maybe just molton rounds of firey death so we can penetrate their hulls :P

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Well, Maby we can say that since the railgun is firing its rounds at 1/2 the speed of light, that the ufo hull can't take that much kinetic energy. I mean, otherwise the cannon would be totally useless.

 

Or maby, the ufos have shields that can only be used outside of an atmosphere. Interceptor had em! :D

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I'll have a fixed draft soon...

 

Edit:only problem is, I dont think a 5.56mm round is gonna do much to a ufo, even if it pierces the armor. And if the cannon uses 20 mm rounds, people are gonna be mad that it can only fire for 2 seconds.

 

I suppose you could make flat rounds, but those would be an aerodynamic nighmare.

 

Also, isn't it 6 seconds?

 

Apperently you haven't played x-com either because as we all saw the aliens just sat back and went straight in every engagement. :hammer:

Edited by Ancalagon
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I really must be going insane and writeing total CRAP :P or people are not taking the time to actually READ what I write.(and perhaps not writeing things at 4am could help too :)

I guess I will just have to write alot clear and be redundent.

 

To quote myself

"Something fireing 2 rounds a second will not hit a damn thing unless your target just sits back and flies straight and you get directly behind it.

hmm(thinks of xcom1)....."

Seems I did play Xcom1 :P

Seems I said that because of the fact in XCOM they just fly straight.

:P

Actually, some Sabot rounds used agasint tanks end up putting tungsten core into the tank that has become molton from the forces involved...and molton metal inside a object does ALOT of damage :P

 

Hollow point rounds are a good EXAMPLE, if you ever hunt rabbits for food you use a .22 solid tip..if your hunting just to kill them to control their numbers you use a .22 hollowpoint.

a .22 doesnt do much damage to a rabbit...a .22 using a hollow point blows its head off :)

 

Size isnt to important...its what the round does after it hits...most cannon rounds have explosive shells now so take that into account.

 

Hollow stips bow the crap out of a rabbit :)

 

I was wrong on the firetime not sure why I wrote .5

5 seconds on the f-18.

Not sure what I was thinking, musta been temporay insanity :)

 

thou it depends on the craft and weapon(lets assume its the m61)

F-18 carry 578

F-15 a-d carry 960 rounds

f-14 also carries the vulcan but damnned if I can remember ammo capacity.

Firerate is 7200rpm for the vulcan it can also switch to 6000 and 4000 rpm depending on type of target its attacking.

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I think we can fix the slow reload time for a railgun by simply making the thing multibarreled (like every other modern aerial cannon). With five or six barrels each firing even twice per second, that still gives us 10-12 rps, which comes out to 600-720rpm. Now that's still a lot slower than a conventional cannon, but keep in mind the velocity of these rounds is such that no frickin plane is going between them. Add on computerized target leading, and you've got a winning solution, I think.

 

FireHawk, you're partly right about the size of the round mattering less. What is most important is the kinetic energy delivered to the target. A .22 LR bullet delivers a muzzle energy of only 160-180 foot pounds. However, given the front cross section of the round is only .22 inches in diameter, this gives a lot of energy over a small point. Given a soft target like a rabbit, a regular point .22 delivers all of that energy over a tiny area and zips right through the bunny, which is a really soft target. The hollow point transfers its energy, on the other hand, it deforms, spreads, and tumbles inside the rabbit, creating a shockwave that distributes practically all the energy in the projectile to the tissue of the rabbit, tearing it apart and causing massive wounding.

 

The .22 hollowpoint is not more powerful, it just transfers energy more efficiently, at the cost of penetration power.

 

Fire into a semi-hard substance, such as a wooden log, and the .22 regular tip will go several inches into the log. The hollowpoint will cause a large chip at the surface, but not penetrate.

 

However, if you take that same .22 regular tip round and fire it against a 1/4 steel plate, the round will not penetrate and will ricochet, because all that energy has to go someplace. Some of it will transfer into the plate, but not enough to damage it. A .22 hollowpoint will pancake against the plate and drop to the ground a flat piece of lead, because as the energy is transfered into the plate, it deforms the bullet instead of the material it is striking. Neither round, however will do anything to the plate except perhaps leave a tiny indentation.

 

Over the flight of a round, a .22 loses energy rapidly (in comparison to other kinds of bullets) because even though it starts out at a higher speed than other bullets, it has less mass and therefore is more subject to losing momentum through drag. Heavier projectiles start out slower, but because they are more massive, lose less of their overall energy due to higher mass with a lower relative cross section subject to drag.

 

Bigger cannon rounds such as 20mm-30mm shells are a trade off between high velocity and high energy. Making them larger makes them too slow for their intended purpose or requires a heavier, more robust gun to fire them at the proper speed, neither of which works well in an airframe. DPUs are used because they maximize the amount of mass that can go into the cartridge of a given cross-section. A 20mm DPU is nearly twice as heavy as a 20mm steel boat-tip ball bullet, with the same amount of drag. As a result, a 20mm DPU will deliver more energy to the target, although it will get there somewhat slower than the 20mm steel round because of a slower starting (muzzle) velocity.

 

Sabot rounds deliver high energy because they cheat the physics of the firing process a little. As much powder as a larger round can be put behind the bullet and efficiently exploded before the round leaves the barrel. Then, an outer casing comes off and the smaller bullet, travelling at a higher velocity than would otherwise be possible for a round of its size, continues on to the target.

 

The molten effects in a tank occur because the impact transfers so much energy so quickly that the armor of the tank is heated to the point it melts. The energy is not transfered just in a straight line; starting with a small hole at the point of initial impact, it spreads out in a cone shape as the round passes through the tank hull and creates a rather sizeable hole once reaching the back of the armor plate. The round continues through the armor because it still has plenty of energy, as does the molten material that has just been melted away, accelerated by the bullet to ballistic velocity. The entire mess then flies around the inside of the tank until all the energy is transfered or absorbed, usually resulting in the crew being reduced to chunky salsa.

 

The acceleration of our cannon, using a 20mm penetrator but at a hypersonic velocity, is likely to produce so much kinetic energy that even an advanced alien alloy material will be penetrated. A side advantage to hypersonic speeds is that the shockwave will cause the round to literally skip through the air without experiencing ordinary air drag (though it will be subject to the influence of its own shockwave). This will deliver energy on the order of a much, much larger conventional round. Since energy is delivered as a factor of mass and velocity and not just a regular multiplier, this method produces a projectile with hundreds (perhaps thousands) of times more energy than its conventional equivalent, creating quite a mess in our hapless enemy UFO.

Edited by Kenshiro
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Kenshiro

 

Yes but your forgetting the fact micrometors travel ALOT faster then even the railgun could generate...

 

Shields as suggest does solve the problem thou....say atmosphere stops them working, so thats why our little alien friends can fly though space avoiding all the dangers...get to earth and get shot down by some cannon rounds :)

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I'm not forgetting this. While micrometeors do travel at ultra high speeds, they lack sufficient mass (and thus, kinetic energy) to inflict damage. This was a strong concern of the early space program, but extensive testing proved worries about these particles to be unwarranted. This is why we are able to go into orbit without constantly having astronauts get killed by specks of orbital debris.
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Do you know that astronaughts see white flashes in space :P

 

As atoms ejected from a supernova and stripped from electrons travel though the spaceshp hull, then there body (eyeball) at nearlight speed :)

 

Remember when we had a metor storm a few years ago and we lost alot of satalites and some mobielphone services and otherthings were affected :P

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Off topic but intresting :)

Intersting enouth 500tons of iron alone each year is despoited on earth about 6 times as much other material is also depostied:) times that by how old the earth is spose to be and you start getting inconsistancies :)

 

 

Micometoroids as their actually known as are about the size of small grains of sand and less.

 

sorry as its 3:44am maybe I should be in bed.

 

They were metors of many diffrent sizes up to about the size of a car if I remember correctly

Edited by FireHawk
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Here is the new Ctd with 600 rpm and all that.

I also increased the speed of the round to 15,000 fps in order to keep the distance between bullets relativley equal to modern aircraft machine guns, although it is still nowhere near half the speed of light (299,792,458 metres per second).

 

Edit: should I mention the whole molten thing?

 

And Firehawk, would you please stop using the :P sign?

 

Thanks

 

Edit: :cussing: the atachment didn't work.

Here is a formated cut and paste versopn too.

 

Until recently, Air to air combat was done with 20-30mm machine guns. Eventually, as planes became faster and missile technology became more advanced, missiles became more practical than the machine guns and use of projectile weapons was limited largley to air to ground use. When developing the XC-1 the nations that had previously attempted to establish anti-alien programs noted that their fighter plans had never even gotten into a dog fight with any UFOs, and the primary reason they failed to shoot one down was because the UFOs either simply outran them, or they didn't have enough stopping power with missiles or standard 20-30mm rounds. The development of the avalanche and stingray missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow launch time due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for stealth. This meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to physically "reload" increasing the launch time significantly.

The cannon is the solution to this problem. The cannon is a six-barrel 20mm machine-gun capable of firing 600 rounds per minute. Rail guns increase power and speed significantly by using electro-magnets to accelerate a bullet with rare earth magnets embedded inside it along the whole length of the barrel, allowing it to reach the extremely fast speed of 15,000 ft/second. Rail guns can propel bullets much faster and farther than regular guns, however rate of fire is sacrificed in the process. Normally the volume of fire wouldn’t be near enough to take down a super sonic air craft, however, the high speed of the round limits the distance between them, and the advances in computerized systems have improved accuracy significantly. However, Pitted against the incredibly high speed and maneuverability of a UFO, the low firing rate of a railgun-based cannon still makes putting rounds on target difficult. However, with current technological limitations, this tradeoff of rate-of-fire for speed-of-projectile is a necessary one in order to create a kinetic projectile weapon that can engage a UFO at all. Computer aids to lead rounds across the UFO's flight path must be used to hit the target, with the pilot's skill playing no small role in any aerial engagement. Even still, only limited accuracy is possible under the circumstances, since even the short time-in-flight of railgun rounds still leaves a wide margin of error against this class of opponent.

Nonetheless, given this cannon is the first weapon of its class to even be able to make effective strikes on a UFO, we should still consider it an acheivement in countering the present menace.

Given the nature of the electro magnets, the cannon needs to be heavily magnetically shielded to prevent the magnetic fields from destroying the equipment on board the aircraft. This limits the total amount of ammo it can carry to 200 20mm bullets, despite not having a need for gunpowder. The bullets themselves are depleted uranium tipped, allowing them to pierce armor much better than lead bullets. The cannon is best used with in conjunction with missile fire while approaching optimum range.

Cannon.txt

Edited by Ancalagon
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I know that came after the I should be in bed part since I didnt answer your question and answered it afterwards with a edit

 

 

Sorry... its some kind of internet version of biteing fingernails or something....dont worry I annoy myself with it too..... :spank:

Edited by FireHawk
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  • 4 weeks later...

Then say that "While originally designed to target large aircraft, the cannon has been discovered to be reasonably effective against ufos."

Or something to that effect.

 

Also, if we make the cannon a railgun, that kind of kills any possibility of adding rail weapons further down the version list, which I know some people wanted to see.

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The problem with not making it a railgun, colonel, is that it would be entirely inneffective against UFO's without being one.

 

Also, you could still add in rail hand-held weapons or something.

 

If you have any ideas of what to use other than a rail-gun, let me know.

 

I'll consider adding the effectiveness bit but I think fux has a point.

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I also agree, this is X-Corp's first base and not even at the first mission, so how would they know? I prefer the view that this is the first time anyone on Earth has provided resistance against the Aliens, remember that at the start they don't send the big guns until u start pissing them off, or until they start to get a good foothold on Earth with a base or two ready.

 

Rail guns aren't that far away IIRC, a lot closer than Laser weapons so it might as well be a starting tech. A laser would be more effective than a rail gun anyway, all they are is bullets that are accelerated by an electromagnet, yeah they are much faster than a normal bullet but compared with the damage a laser is portraied to do in game I don't think they would be worth researching.

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Perhaps you guys are right. :)

 

For the effectiveness blurb, just say that it is designed to engage small aircraft at close range. That doesn't say ufo, and still pleases the people who don't want to read all about the gun.

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The point is that you guys didn't want to mention UFO in the effectiveness blurb right? And apparently mamutas and some others decided to have an effectiveness blurb for those who don't want to read our great CTs :(
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Effectiveness vs. UFO's... I would just say the projectiles carry an unprecidented amount of energy due to the obscene velocities that they fly at, etc etc. And how much homogenous, rolled steel it penetrates at 1000 yards and it's cone of accuracy at a certain range.
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Yes, a short description of applications, u could say "This has been theorised to be effective against small UFO's" but u shouldn't give too much away. A little hint of it's usefullness, lead them by the hand and u take away their ability to think for themselves.
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  • 1 month later...
As there are several posts with various text, could the current version be posted here as a linked file, and I'll update the asset list. As to the rounds per minute versus amount of ammo being 200 in xcom: 200 doesn't mean total rounds necessarily, it could mean bursts as well. Each time you pull the trigger, your vulcan gun or rail gun could fire off 100 rounds of high energy ammo. A multi barrel weapon would work, Demich made a concept a while back for a vulcan autocannon that was side-mounted, we might use a modified version of that.
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  • 1 year later...

We should be careful to have consistency between this entry and Cpl.Facehugger's Sidewinder IIb entry. At the moment, the SIIb CT suggests railguns were used in the Gulf Reformation Wars. *reminds self to change those railgun entries to [cannons]

 

Parts of this CT were confusing, so I've made some suggestions on how they might be clarified and simplified.

 

Red text indicates additions, orange text indicates deletions, and blue text indicates comments.

 

Added [brackets] and capitalizations of “Alien” have not been denoted. Also, instances of “rail guns” have been changed to “railguns” for consistency.

 

[CANNON]

X-Net://Pegasus.net/Armament/[Cannon]

 

Until recently ”Not long ago”?, Aair-to-air combat was ”aerial dogfights were”? done fought with 20-30mm machine guns. Eventually, as planes As planes eventually became faster and more difficult to hit missile technology became more advanced, guided missiles became more practical than the machine guns, and the use of projectile weapons was limited ”relegated”? largley largely to air-to-ground use purposes. When developing the XC-1 Prior to the establishment of the X-Corps, the nations that had previously attempted attempting to establish initiate anti-Alien programs noted that their fighter plans had never even gotten into a dog fight with any their infrequent success in air-to-air combat with UFOs, and the primary reason they failed to shoot one down was primarily because of the UFOs' either simply outran them, superior speed or they didn't have enough the inadequate stopping power with of missiles or and standard 20-30mm rounds. The development of the avalanche Titan and stingray Sidewinder missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow launch time rate of fire due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for stealth Is this an accurate assertion? Are pre-XC-1 craft all stealth-oriented?  Perhaps “due to aerodynamics” or somesuch. This meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to physically "reload" increasing the launch time significantly after each missile was fired. Maybe add something about missiles being far more expensive, both for launcher and missile?

 

The six-barrel, 20mm [cannon] is the solution to this problem was developed to partially address these concerns. Its range will never surpass that of missiles, but its virtue is its ammunition capacity; in extended firefights, a pilot can always fall back on a [cannon] long after the missiles have been exhausted. Added to address range issue.  Might also want to add that railguns can carry more, cheaper ammo The [cannon] is a six-barrel 20mm machine-gun It is capable of firing 600 rounds per minute.  Railguns increase power and speed significantly by using electro-magnets to accelerate a the bullets. with The rare earth magnets embedded inside it along the whole length of the barrel, allowing it allow bullets to reach the extremely fast speed of 15,000 ft/second speeds in excess of 4,500 meters/second. Railguns can Although railguns propel bullets much faster and farther than regular guns, however their rate of fire is sacrificed in the process. Normally, the volume of fire wouldn’t would not be nearly enough to take down a critically damage supersonic aircraft, however, but between the high speed of the round limits the distance between them, (which reduces the time spent in transit) and the advances in computerized systems computer-assisted aiming, accuracy has improved significantly. have improved accuracy significantly. However, Ppitted against the incredibly high speed and maneuverability of a UFOs, the low firing rate of a railgun-based cannon is still a liability; still makes putting rounds on target remains difficult. However, with With current technological limitations, this tradeoff of rate-of-fire for speed-of-projectile is a necessary one in order to create a kinetic projectile weapon that can engage a UFO at all imbued with enough force to punch through the UFOs’ armored hulls. Computer-assisted aiming focuses the [cannon]’s fire aids to lead rounds across the UFO's flight path must be used to hit to increase the chances of hitting the target, with the pilot's skill playing no small role in any aerial engagement. Even still, only limited accuracy is possible under the circumstances, since even the short time-in-flight of railgun rounds still leaves a wide margin of error against this class of opponent.

 

Nonetheless, given this Despite its shortcomings, the [cannon] is the first weapon of its class What class is this?  Railgun, regular gun, projectile weapon? to even be able to make achieve effective strikes on a UFO, and we should still consider its capabilities an acheivement in countering the present menace.

 

Given the nature of the electromagnets, care must be taken to the cannon needs to be heavily magnetically shielded to prevent the magnetic fields from destroying the magnetically shield sensitive equipment on board the aircraft, limiting. This limits the total amount of ammo ammunition it can carry to 200-20mm bullets, despite not having a need for gunpowder. The bullets themselves are tipped with depleted uranium tipped, allowing them to pierce armor much better more effectively than lead bullets. The Using the [cannon] is best used with in conjunction with missile fire while approaching optimum range a missile system allows the target to be weakened at a distance before the [cannon] delivers the coup de grace at close range.

 

Needs fluff.

Edited by Astyanax
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[CANNON]

X-Net://Pegasus.net/Armament/[Cannon]

 

Until recently aerial dogfights were fought with 20-30mm machine guns. As planes eventually became faster and more difficult to hit, guided missiles became more practical than machine guns, and the usage of projectile weapons was largely relegated to Air-to-Ground purposes. Prior to the creation of Project Xenocide, nations attempting to initiate anti-Alien programs noted their null success in Air-to-Air combat with UFOs, primarily because of the UFOs' superior speed or the inadequate power of Human missiles and standard 20-30mm rounds. The development of the Titan and Sidewinder missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow rate of fire due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for aerodynamic reasons; this meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to be physically "reloaded".

 

The six-barrel, 20mm [cannon] was developed to partially address these concerns. Its range will never surpass that of missiles, but its virtue is its ammunition capacity; in extended firefights, a pilot can always fall back on a [cannon] long after the missiles have been exhausted. It is capable of firing 600 rounds per minute by using electro-magnets to accelerate the bullets. The rare Earth magnets embedded along the length of the barrel allow bullets to reach speeds in excess of 4,500 meters/second. Although railguns propel bullets much faster and farther than regular guns, their rate of fire is sacrificed in the process. Normally, the volume of fire would not be nearly enough to critically damage supersonic aircraft, but between the high speed of the round (which reduces the time spent in transit) and the advances in computer-assisted aiming, accuracy has been improved significantly. However, pitted against the incredibly high speed and maneuverability of UFOs, the low firing rate of a railgun-based cannon is still a liability; putting rounds on target remains difficult. With current technological limitations, this tradeoff of rate-of-fire for speed-of-projectile is necessary in order to create a kinetic projectile imbued with enough force to punch through the UFOs’ armored hulls. Computer-assisted aiming focuses the [cannon]’s fire across the UFO's flight path to increase the chances of hitting the target

 

Despite its shortcomings, the [cannon] is the first weapon of its class to achieve effective strikes on an UFO, and we should still consider its capabilities in countering the present menace.

 

Given the nature of the electromagnets, care must be taken to magnetically shield sensitive equipment on board the aircraft, limiting the total amount of ammunition it can carry to 200-20mm bullets. The bullets themselves are tipped with depleted uranium, allowing them to pierce armor more effectively than lead bullets. Using the [cannon] in conjunction with a missile system allows the target to be weakened at a distance before the [cannon] delivers the coup de grace at close range.

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  • 2 years later...

fixed forum software mess, removed brackets

 

CANNON

X-Net://Pegasus.net/Armament/Cannon

 

Until recently aerial dogfights were fought with 20-30mm machine guns. As planes eventually became faster and more difficult to hit, guided missiles became more practical than machine guns, and the usage of projectile weapons was largely relegated to Air-to-Ground purposes. Prior to the creation of Project Xenocide, nations attempting to initiate anti-Alien programs noted their null success in Air-to-Air combat with UFOs, primarily because of the UFOs' superior speed or the inadequate power of Human missiles and standard 20-30mm rounds. The development of the Titan and Sidewinder missiles improved the situation, but both missiles had an extremely slow rate of fire due to the necessity of storing them inside the hull for aerodynamic reasons; this meant that instead of just arming and firing, the missile launcher had to be physically "reloaded".

 

The six-barrel, 20mm cannon was developed to partially address these concerns. Its range will never surpass that of missiles, but its virtue is its ammunition capacity; in extended firefights, a pilot can always fall back on a cannon long after the missiles have been exhausted. It is capable of firing 600 rounds per minute by using electro-magnets to accelerate the bullets. The rare Earth magnets embedded along the length of the barrel allow bullets to reach speeds in excess of 4,500 meters/second. Although railguns propel bullets much faster and farther than regular guns, their rate of fire is sacrificed in the process. Normally, the volume of fire would not be nearly enough to critically damage supersonic aircraft, but between the high speed of the round (which reduces the time spent in transit) and the advances in computer-assisted aiming, accuracy has been improved significantly. However, pitted against the incredibly high speed and maneuverability of UFOs, the low firing rate of a railgun-based cannon is still a liability; putting rounds on target remains difficult. With current technological limitations, this tradeoff of rate-of-fire for speed-of-projectile is necessary in order to create a kinetic projectile imbued with enough force to punch through the UFOs? armored hulls. Computer-assisted aiming focuses the cannon?s fire across the UFO's flight path to increase the chances of hitting the target

 

Despite its shortcomings, the cannon is the first weapon of its class to achieve effective strikes on an UFO, and we should still consider its capabilities in countering the present menace.

 

Given the nature of the electromagnets, care must be taken to magnetically shield sensitive equipment on board the aircraft, limiting the total amount of ammunition it can carry to 200-20mm bullets. The bullets themselves are tipped with depleted uranium, allowing them to pierce armor more effectively than lead bullets. Using the cannon in conjunction with a missile system allows the target to be weakened at a distance before the cannon delivers the coup de grace at close range.

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