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We (March) Towards a New Pile of Releases

Discussion in 'News' started by Keyrott, Jan 13, 2020.

  1. Ceilican

    Ceilican Well-Known Member

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    For FGA take into account that, outside of the (licensed?) manufacture of arms by the Nomads, you see these positively huge government contracts to supply arms. You can inflate the price due to increased regulation required on government contracts, and can price this stuff right out of the average citizen's range. Plus, you're probably adding bells and whistles that don't actually improve anything important.

    For example: The PanO military has weapons with a backwards clip. Getting that thing to work is truly an engineering marvel, and probably requires special ammunition just so it feeds correctly. It's not substantially better than any other combi rifle in the sphere, but it's impressive.

    The problem with that comes in the supply chain. The PanO military doesn't have to worry about it. They can throw money at the manufacturers and build up a stock of ammunition, replacement parts, replacement weapons, whatever. Your average mercenary or bounty hunter has to put more thought into it. Resupply has to be as guaranteed as possible; having to order specialty bullets can create a logistical nightmare.

    It makes sense to me that a lot of mercenary organizations would use Yu Jing weaponry. Yu Jing doesn't have those cushy government supply contracts, so it's sensible to focus its market share elsewhere. They have a huge manufacturing base, and they're basically only producing one product line for each weapon type (compared to FGA's three different combi rifle designs for example), so their productivity can easily meet demand. The supply chain on Yu Jing equipment is much more solid and reliable and actually focused on more...irregular customers.

    The logical outcome is that a lot of Mercenaries, Bounty Hunters, Bodyguards and Libertos (*ahem*) use State Empire arms.

    Really, I love to see it.
     
  2. barakiel

    barakiel Echo Bravo Master Sergeant

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    It's important to reference munitions too.

    When you have a conversation about how and why each firearm is issued to which faction, the round that they chamber is just as relevant as the firearm itself... The firearm is an ergonomically-friendly tool for delivering ammunition to a target. Not only does ammunition influence the actual trigger-pull performance of the weapon in question, but there are tons of logistics involved to get that ammunition from the manufacturer to the people in the field who use it. When we look at the history of arms as well, the evolution of ammunition is just as big (if not a bigger) factor than the actual weapons that utilize them.

    The subject of ammunition in Infinity has always been kind of hazy (see PanO's reverse mag design?) but I think it's an interesting notion to speculate on. Think of all the factors that go into selecting tools for an operation: security of supply lines, duration of an operation, environmental conditions, terrain/topography, opposition, plausible deniability, etc, and ammunition is basically at the center of each of these topics.
     
  3. the huanglong

    the huanglong Well-Known Member

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    I recall it being said that PanO weapons generally use a gel propellant to fire caseless rouds, but I don't know if that means the projectile and gel are loaded separately into the rifle/magazine or as a caseless round that includes the gel
     
  4. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Regurgitating info gained from others (I don't find Infinity's writing to be of sufficient quality to spend time on it):

    Combi Rifles (and sub types) have caseless two-part bullet design. There's no reason for a forward facing banan mag in them. You've got one mag with the bullet and one mag with the explosive fluid and the rifle's systems will adapt fluid amount.
     
  5. inane.imp

    inane.imp Well-Known Member

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    They're not 3 different FGA designs they're 3 different PanO arms manufacturers designs.
     
  6. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    Another reason why you wouldn't arm your troops with Rifles+LSgs as standard unless you have to... Ammo logistics! Two cartridges per soldier!
     
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  7. Solar

    Solar Well-Known Member

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    Definitely the best Spitfire

    Best MSR is the Nomad one IMO though
     
  8. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    All (human) factions except Ariadna use caseless ammunition for their weapon systems, PanOceanian designs as everything PanO really is designed to work in a high tech ecosystem only PanO can truly provide and sustain, hence why their weapons may not be as appreciated outside of the PanOceanian Military Complex, there is a great passage in the third offensive about a PanO TAG engaging some Shasvastii, the outcome of the fight is not as relevant as the description of the entire automated supply and logistics chain been mobilized the instant the skirmish is initiated, ammo, personnel, even predicted spare parts for possible repairs are been ordered to be forwarded to the TAGs forward base before the pilot has managed to press the trigger.

    PanOceanian supply and support chain is something not seen in the tabletop, but is an intimidating giant Only PanO could sustain and this allows them many quirks any modern or indeed Human Sphere army would outright prohibit as a logistical nightmare.
     
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  9. Ceilican

    Ceilican Well-Known Member

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    Sure, but for ballistics’ sake, you’ll still want roughly conical bullets.
    Clearly the design is possible; we see it within the reality of the setting. Is it desirable? Dunno. However, everyone else, including the far advanced EI armies, uses straight or forward curved mags (admittedly, Shas and tohaa don’t have recognizable magazines on their combi rifles). Probably not a coincidence. Why bother, then? Well, I bet “this rifle uses proprietary ammo” sounds really good to an arms manufacturer.

    on a personal note:

    This is the kinda stuff I get really into. Not guns and supply chains specifically, but taking idiosyncrasies in the setting and speculating about them. So thanks everyone for engaging.
     
  10. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    There might be some peculiarities regarding the recoil mechanism, or possibly the bullets might have a miniature APFSDS shape, making the bend direction less useful.
     
  11. FireFangs

    FireFangs Space Oni

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    Maybe the ammos are actually like in Mass Effect. Just a solid block of matter and the gun computer shave off the necessary amount to shoot. Then the specialized ammo are actually mods on the gun itself to give the effect!
     
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  12. Xeurian

    Xeurian Well-Known Member

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    I loved that about Mass Effect 1. Such a cool concept... Really wasn't a fan of the way they had you reloading heat syncs(I think?) in the second one as a round about way of forcing reloads on you. I did however enjoy the aspect of weapon's technology actually moving forward.
     
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  13. FireFangs

    FireFangs Space Oni

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    I don't mind the idea of replacing the heat sink as ammos, though I was a bit bothered that guns could actually run out of ammo. It should have just severely slowed down your ability to shoot rather than stop entirely.
     
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  14. psychoticstorm

    psychoticstorm Aleph's rogue child
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    It was a necessity because people found ME1 weapons to behave oddly.
     
  15. Ceilican

    Ceilican Well-Known Member

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    That sounds like Eldar Shuriken weapons in 40K....
     
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  16. Tourniquet

    Tourniquet TJC Tech Support

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    Yup with the right weapon loadout you could forever hold down the trigger and suffer no recoil or overheat.
     
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  17. Vocenoctum

    Vocenoctum Well-Known Member

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    Years ago in an old FASA wargame (Renegade Legion) they had ammo that was a block like a bar of soap. Pistols shaved the short side, smaller but more capacity. Rifles shaved the long narrow side, and heavy weapons shaved the long wide side. So new ammo was interchangeable.

    Modern ammo has a larger case behind the bullet to encompass the powder and control the burn and help with loading and ammo tends to spear/round profile.. So the back is wider than the front, hence the tendency for curving that direction. Maybe Pano has highly efficient powder with a heavier bullet and smaller case as a result.
    Or maybe the front of the bullet is wider because it's a discarding sabot with a large front piece to pull the bullet down the barrel, but the rear is smaller to decrease resistance, then you can angle the magazine backwards so it doesn't stick out profile wise.
     
  18. FireFangs

    FireFangs Space Oni

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    We already know PanO uses caseless bullets so I'm afraid that theory doesn't exactly work. I personally don,t see how a backward facing magazine is inefficient, but I also don't know too much about guns. I feel though that with the technological advancement of the sphere, saying this is bad is viewing it with modern standards that might no apply. PanO is the most Advanced in many areas after all.
     
  19. Vocenoctum

    Vocenoctum Well-Known Member

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    The Case is the brass part that holds the gunpowder. Current caseless armor does away with the brass case to add solid propellant directly to the bullet, sometimes actually encasing the bullet in the propellant. Of course, most caseless trials have not really gone anywhere since heat is a thing.
    Current magazines are forward angled because bullets are narrow triangles (sort of, just handy for the topic). If you stack triangles on top of each other at the base, all pointing forward, they will tilt. If the magazine is straight and the tilt occurs, it may cause issues as rounds point down or just go odd in how the box magazine holds them at various angles. That hurts feeding the round up the ramp to the chamber as it is loaded during shooting.

    So to have a magazine that goes rearward, you need to have a triangle that points towards the shooter. Hence my suggestion of a discarding sabot (a shell around the bullet that is discarded in air once the bullet leaves the barrel). You'd still need a reason that it's not uniform over the entire round though, so if it's a sabot that doesn't run the entire length as part of something that is pulling the round forward vs pushing it from behind.

    Or, perhaps the sabot is what the separate propellent is injected into, but then there'd be deformation of the bullet I'd think. Better to go electrical propulsion.

    Obviously CB has no clue, they just wanted a cool look for the guns and have no idea how guns work, Rule of Cool and all. And of course, the subject has been discussed many times I'd think...
     
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  20. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    As one of the resident gun nerds, the issue with the original FAMAS was the proprietary magazine (and the lousy reliability with brass-cased ammo, the French issued steel-cased ammo). One of the points of the NATO standards was to make it so everyone could share ammo, even loaded magazines if you're in a hurry. But you could feed a FAMAS US-made brass-cased ammo in an emergency.

    My personal guess is that PanO ammo is, if not exactly proprietary, made in a limited number of factories due to tolerances, etc. Militaries honestly hate buying proprietary ammo, since that is almost always more expensive than whatever the local factories can crank out.

    Haqq, YJ, etc can be made in a lot more factories, which makes it a lot more popular among people who don't have a national-scale logistics system behind them. And Ariadna ammo is still brass-cased, because it can be recycled into fresh ammo without too much complexity.


    Yes, the brass case helps move heat out of the weapon. Plastic-cased (like shotgun shells, though I have seen some rifle ammo in plastic cases now) doesn't move the heat out so much as it reduces how much heat is put into the chamber from each shot.


    Not just the bullet, the entire case is tapered. More modern cases are less tapered, older cases are very tapered. Greater taper helps the empty case come out of the chamber when it's dirty, while lesser taper gives more capacity for powder in the same case. Tradeoffs.
     
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