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Emrys Industries Sniper Rifle

Zakalwe

Zakalwe

Inactive Member
I'm sure you all know how imcompetant I am at designing guns. To this degree, any criticism will be well recieved.

Emrys Industries Sniper Rifle

Em-W-2a

This Sniper rifle uses a rail type electromagnetic projection system to launch a extremely sharp bullet at its target with extreme power. In adition the range is superb, the projectile loosing little speed from the downward pull of gravity, or crosswind, it can fire far further than even conventional sniper rifles. It actually has two power settings, one that simply uses the entire force of the rifle, and therefore delivers an extraordinarily powerful hit, although by breaching the sound barrier several times over there is a very noticeable sonic boom, and a lower setting which fires the projectile at a fraction under the speed of sound, allowing for silent hits.

The Sniper Rifle is in appearances little different from a standard sniper rifle, apart from a somewhat larger and longer barrel.

To supply the power needed to fire the rifle, a capacitor is used to gather the energy from the powerful batteries, into enough energy. The battery fits into the body of the gun, while the magazine, carrying ten of the bullets, fits into the butt. The bullets are made from an extremely dense tungsten-carbide, and designed for maximum penetration capability. A secondary version of the bullet, has a soft outer layer so it doesn't ricochet, with a core denser than the standard bullets for maximum penetration, coming to an even sharper point than on the standard bullet. The batteries contain enough energy to fire twenty below sound speed shots, and five full powered shots. It takes a few seconds to charge for a normal shot, around ten for a full powered shot.

In addition to this there is a sniper scope, which allows you to see in ultraviolet and infrared. The laser sight connected is ultraviolet, making it invisible to the human eye spectrum. The scope also has an inbuilt range finder, and the essential crosshair. The rifle also has a reasonably powerful computer in it, which is capable storing personal information and comparing it to the target in the rifles scopes. The amount of bullets left, and the number of charges in the battery yet to be expended, are on LED screens on the top of the rifle, and also in sniper scope.

Cost: 3,300ks
Standard bullets: 10ks
Armour Peircing bullets: 15ks
Rechargable battery: 30ks
Five slot battery recharger: 500ks
 
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Sniper Rifles

First off, I don't mean any part of this to be a personal attack, Zakalwe. Having ready the descriptor package for your proposed weapon, I've found that numerous design features integrated into the weapon are either a)non-sensical and inconsistent with ballistics and sniper roles, b)superfluous, or c)both.

We'll begin with your first paragraph. You're essentially designing a long-range railgun system for use as a sniper platform; itself made to fire 'a extremely sharp bullet'. First off, let's consider kinetic energy here. Your 'extremely sharp bullets(!?)' won't transfer a lot of it to their targets. In fact, the chances of overpenetration (the bullet going clean through the target without doing significant tissue damage) are more a certainty than just 'likely'. Your (normal) bullets will not likely deform unless they contact military-grade armor plating of sufficient thickness or something of the sort because of their construction material so the risk of accidental overpenetration is very high. I sincerely hope you didn't intend this weapon to be used in hostage or urban situations.

Your second bullet design which calls for "a soft outer layer so it doesn't ricochet, with a core denser than the standard bullets for maximum penetration, coming to an even sharper point than on the standard bullet, and on the inside of that an oxygen ignited explosive" is downright cryptic to even figure out what the damn thing does. From what I can figure, you have a penetrator, which is for some reason hollowed, surrounded by a 'soft outer layer' which I'm guessing means you have an ostensibly frangible bullet...with a penetrator inside it...which itself is carrying a small explosive charge...and is 'sharp'. What the hell sir. What the hell, is my only response to that. I truely do not mean this as an insult, but it's just mind-boggling as to why anyone would want a round of ammunition that is in itself contradictory to whatever mission purpose you'd find to even have cause to deploy it.

"It actually has two power settings, one that simply uses the entire force of the rifle, and therefore delivers an extraordinarily powerful hit, although by breaching the sound barrier several times over there is a very noticeable sonic boom, and a lower setting which fires the projectile at a fraction under the speed of sound, allowing for silent hits."

'Extraordinarily powerful hit'? It'll send your needle-round punching through the target and most anything and everything else behind it until the round's kinetic energy is dissipated, but I'm not entirely sure if that counts as an 'extraordinarily powerful hit'. More than likely the round will cleanly lance through the target (and probably cauterize the wound going through due to friction) without doing significant trauma to tissue or even material. There would be multiple sonic booms as your round goes hypersonic and their sonic signatures would be roughly analgous to what you hear today as the crack of gun (which is pretty much the round goin supersonic). Given the speeds tha the round is fired at, I assure you that your needle will have already poked your target long before they hear the sonic boom. If anything, I'd be more worried about the plasma rings the round would generate as it exited the barrel of your weapon.

Then, there's the subsonic mode. A good idea, we have 'Whisper' subsonic loadouts in the real world which do this. However, the Whisper rounds compensate for the lack of speed (thus allowing them to be more affected by environmental conditions) with slightly added mass so they have more forward inertia. Your needles, fires subsonically, wouldn't come close to the necessary MOA's needed to be considered match-grade ammunition as they would be too vulnerable to drop and wind.

"The laser sight connected is ultraviolet, making it invisible to the human eye spectrum."

Why ultraviolet? Unless you can see heat gradients, infrared is just as invisible to the human eye and since a laser is about directed energy then it would show up better as IF as opposed to UV. UV is just silly unless you want to sit there for a while, shine it on your opponent, and give them skin cancer.

"The rifle also has a reasonably powerful computer in it, which is capable storing personal information and comparing it to the target in the rifles scopes."

Snipers already have a computer like this. They call it their brains. Part of sniper training, especially in marksmanship, is target identification. Your computer just adds more unnecessary weight to the platform and, unless it powers itself through magic or something, is probably putting a load on the energy system that it doesn't have to.

"The amount of bullets left, and the number of charges in the battery yet to be expended, are on LED screens on the top of the rifle, and also in sniper scope."

Ditch the LED. If your scope also functions as a HUD, you're golden as it is. If you're in any situation where you're firing your rifle rapidly enough that you aren't using your scope and that you need a LED to tell you how many rounds you have left, you're not a sniper anymore and you're not using the right gun for the job.

Apart from those considerations, the gun seems fine.

And some closing thoughts on the idea of 'sharp' bullets:

Sharpbullets.JPG
 
Over-penetration ... well yes, it doesn't do the maximum damage, transfering the most damaged, however this is a sniper rifle, made for precision. A shot to the head is going to be fatal in either case. It isn't so much a design flaw as a design element, it just has to be used right. If you're aiming for a precise point it is still very dangerous.

The calibre is 0.50 if that matters.

Oh, and as a recoil absorbtion the buy has a highly shock absorbant polymer.

I've decided to remove the explosive bullets. They didn't add much to the bullet. However I don't know where you get the idea of it being frangile from. It is not, or at least in any way I understand the word. The soft metal simply crumples as the solid core continues forward maintaining the momentum.

Armor Piercing Ammunition is used to penetrate hardened armored targets such as body armor, vehicle armor, concrete, and other defenses. Armor piercing ammunition consists of a hardened steel, tungsten carbide, or depleted uranium penetrator enclosed within a softer material, such as copper or aluminum.
Click to expand...

Upon impact on a hard target, the copper case is destroyed, but the penetrator continues its motion and penetrates the substance.
Click to expand...

Both from Wikipedia

As for it not being extrodinarily powerfull, it depends on your definition. The round would be very penetrating, and yes it can overpenetrate, especially on an organic target, but it will penetrate materials and so forth. It is still extremely powerfull, since it can penetrate a great deal.

As for the sub-sonic model, it is already made from dense tungsten carbonite, or at least the core of it that makes up most of it. You are asking for extra mass, but it is already very dense. Therefore although it would still be effected by gravity and crosswind to a much greater degree compared to the normal state of fire, it would still not be effected to a great degree. It wouldn't be great at penetrating armour, but it would still be fatal to a unarmoured target.

IR has too many variables. It needs to heat the target by a significant amout for it to show up, the heat will spread, meaning pinpoint precision will not be maintained, and in a hot enviroment it will loose its ability. For the temperature increase needed to show up, I'd have thought the target would have felt it if it was on bear skin in any case. And really wouldn't be that good during the day. A UV laser works like any others, but only you can see it. Nothing complicated.

The computer still has a purpose. What if the person does not have sniper training? What if there are variables they are not used to? Especially severe enviromental conditions, even heavy wind, or a different planet with a different air density. Then a system like that would be extremely usefull. At the level of tech in this RP, in fact even that Emrys Industries has, a computer of this sofistication will not weith much, and the power from the battaries will be more than enough to power it for a very long time. Power would not be an issue.

And if you just want to quickly check on the amount of bullets or power? And in the terrible situation where your scope breaks? Then you wouldn't know, and it's important to know. It doesn't really make a huge differance, and it helps.
 
If the operator doesn't have sniper training, he shouldn't be touching the rifle and if he is, I personally wouldn't want him to know what to do with it. Also, if your glass breaks, as a sniper, your time is done. You call in an extraction. Done deal.

I don't think you people understand how snipers work. A sniper team ( a sniper and a spotter and possibly a second spotter) are either dropped or infiltrate enemy territory, set up their spot, wait around, ID and lock their target, take their shot, make sure he's down, and pack up and roll out, job Done.

And as for overpenetration, Zak, there's going to be a Lot of that from this gun and, btw, no sniper aims for the head. The training standard is aim middle high chest; that means that even if wind or shake drifts the round some, it'll still likely hit flesh. A head shot is faaarrr more tricky and less certain. In Military encounters, certainty is what counts.
 
There are a lot of myths about the sniper, including yours technococcus. The sniper on the modern battlefield has many roles. Both you and Diver can't really talk about 'the proper use of a sniper' because you have no experiance with snipers in this setting.

Assume this is Neplesia, the goverment dosen't have time to provide anything more than basic training, this weapon not only provides the basics to make the average person a decent sniper but also has plenty of redundency so that, in the event of damage or malfunction, the user can still use the weapon fired from the hip or shoulder at shorter ranges. A horde of low grade snipers would work well in counter sniping on the chaos of the Nepleslian battlefield.

Again, assume this is Neplesia, overpenitration and hostages aren't that big of a deal. In a hostage situation this weapon could easily be used by the average person to disable an opponent by hitting them in the firing arm or killing them with a shot placed to the center chest cavity. Overpenitration is also a must have feature when going up against powered armors and the like on the modern battlefield.

In the event of the highly unlikely situation your discribing technococcus with a planet side vietnam era sniper attack odds are your loadout will be completely different, more than likely energy weapons, missles, and stealth power armor.
 
Yeah, sorry about that. technococcus and I will try our best not to drag real-world tested and proven concepts, research, and documentation into fantasy sci-fi worlds again. We just seem to have this nasty habit of doing it, damn our eyes.
 
Uso, what I described was almost a direct quote from a book recently published by a USMC sniper who returned from Iraq in 2004 with a substantial umber of sniper kills to his name. So, yeah, that's what snipers are used for. Anyone can use an M16A1 or an AR-15 to hit a target at 500-700 yards if they have a decent scope and a decent amount of experience. A "Sniper Rifle" is a highly specialized piece of military hardware, not an entry-level, "learn to shoot in 3 easy steps" sort of weapon. The sort of untrained, has-no-skills soldiers you describe would never be entrusted with such an expensive peice of equipment. They would instead be given a standard rifle. That will do the job for anyone not sniper trained.

Also, if you want to fire upon a heavily armored target, you use, guess what, an anti-material rifle! Example, the Barrett .50 cal M-82 or the NWT-20 20mm rifle developed in South Africa. A Sniper rifle is anti-personell. You use a round like .308 Win or 6.5 Grendel or 7mm Norma or .338 Lapua for that. It's fast, it's weighty, but not huge, it won't overpenetrate, but it'll get the job done at long ranges with high accuracy.


Also, the next time someone tries to tell me that a sniper would ever, ever purposefully try to take out an arm or a hand or even a head, outside of the occasional police sniper within a hundred yards or so of his immobile mark, is gonna get slapped. Hell no, no military operative would ever try for a wounding shot; you shoot when you intend to kill. And no, no military sniper would ever fire a rifle from 600+ yards (the usual) at a soft target aiming for the head. There's too much possiblity of wind messing up your trajectory, or of your target moving a few inches and you missing and telling them you're ther for no reason. Military snipers aim for the CHEST. It's the biggest target and the easiest lightsouts are spine hits on the trunck of the body, not headshots, regardless of what everyone's extensive Unreal Tournament sniper experience would have them believe.
 
Bringing in concepts and the like as pertains to technology, not tactics, is acceptable. Present day notions of warfare here are invald because this is a sci fi setting. You don't have large scale trench warfare of the world war eras and you don't have search and destroy, or urban warfare of the present day.

This makes technococcus first paragraph more or less pointless because we aren't talking even remotely close to 2004 era warfare. This weapon also does not try and pass itself off as a military weapon, just a sniper rifle. Why shouldn't technology be used to aid in the creation of snipers? Additional infromation can't hurt you on the battlefield of tommarow.

Power armors rule the infantry combat domain here, they are a cross between a tank and a solider as such it is logical that there be a weapon that holds the middle ground between sniper rifle and anti-material rifle, which this weapon does nicely. Of course considering this weapon might not be in the hands of a power armor equiped soldier it is logical that the weapon is simple, powerful, and user friendly so a large number of unarmored persons can use the weapon effectively against a power armored individual.

Again, this weapon wasn't built spcifically for the military, but instead for precision. As such it can be used to disable a target with tricky shots like used by police snipers and the like as well as for the normal person slaying abilities.

While the weapon does not measure up to more powerful power armor weapons such as those employed by the NDI, it can hold a spot in the man portable weapons niche. As for your Barrett .50 cal M-82 and the NWT-20 20mm rifle, leave the pea shooters at home. They won't put a dent in power armor.


Keep in mind that this is technology discussion, not strategy.
 
"As such it can be used to disable a target with tricky shots like used by police snipers and the like as well as for the normal person slaying abilities. "

Hey Uso? You ever shot a rifle before? I've got extensive personal experience with .22 LR and .30-06 Springfield and can tell you for certain that even hitting a target outside of 300 yards is a tricky shot. It's hard to get a satisfactory group when shooting freestanding at 100 yards, really. The Absurdly-poorly-trained-soldier-of-the-future you espouse would be incapable of doing any damage with this rifle you speak of.

Go out and get some experience before you start telling me every untrained so-an'-so on the streets of Nepleslia can hit an arm from 300 yards.
 
You were using a present day sight, these futuristic rifles have more than simple magnification such as computers to make all sorts of adjustments for you, any so and so could easily preform marksman like shots by lining up the sight, which has been perfectly adjusted by the computer, with the target. Gone are the days where you had to get a feel for your weapon, get used to how the sight works for different ranges, and find the like.

I never said they would be shooting arms off at 300 yards, only that arm shots were a possibility.

On battlefields in this sci-fi RP hundreds of yards can be considered close range. Again, present day experiance can't be considered a final say in anything in a sci-fi setting.
 
It's all well and good that you can get your sight to line you up just right, but if you shake too bad because the rifle weighs 25 pounds (and because shaking a millimeter is shaking the impact point a couple feet downrange at 500 yards), you still can't hit the target. So, why even field a man? Send out a perfectly tuned robot to shoot at people and, eventually, when the other side wises up, other little robots? So, basically, you have to account for the human factor, or it may as well not exist.
 
I don't belive it said anywhere the rifle is 25 pounds, for all you know the weapon could be set to have zero weight in an earth enviroment. Also, why couldn't the gun's computer compinsate for the user's body movements as well? It would be a simple matter to build in a gyro to stabalise the weapon. Comparing a present day rifle experiance to this weapon would be like comparing a blunderbuss to a present day rifle.

Why not robots? They are already used extensively in space battles but on the ground the enviroment isn't as easy to navigate. You also can't instantly have billions of robots to do your bidding... unlike with humans. Robots are also not the main choice for ground combat, most of the time you will see artificial life such as the NH or HO series weapons on the ground.

Robots are of course used, but if it takes only a small peice of metal to allow a human to defend themselves why not make it and arm them in a combat situation? Why not have people backing up the robots? What about non-war situations where robots would be harder to deploy than humans? For whatever reason there is still a need for presonal weapons.
 
*sighs* What the fuck ever, Uso. You're never going to listen, you're never going to learn, and you don't know anything as it is.

Zakalwe, this design needs reworked from the ground up.
 
Have you read a single thing I've posted Tech? You don't seem to understand that this is not a present day weapon and is not intended for use in a present day setting. You can't c/p something out of a book that is written in a completely different setting and expect it to prove your point.

The design is on par with the other things being approved for IC useage, the tech isn't something that is beyond the bounds of reason however if it is going to see a lot of IC use it should recive more discription. The weapon is hardly in need of being re-worked from the ground up.

Bottom line, technococcus dosen't know what he is talking about. Diver dosen't think that the weapon needs to be reworked, he pointed out the flaws nicely and also pointed out a few things that are more a matter of preferance than tech.
 
I agree with the realists. Despite advances in vision and battlefield awareness, there's a limit to how far a person is going to see, and what type of soldier will be getting a sniper rifle.

I would like some more detail on the rifle though, and yes, overpenetration is an issue. All this penetrator junk and "sharp bullets" need to go.

We've got plenty of criticism, so no more replies unless they're friendly helpful suggestions or cool ideas, please.
 
It can be both. Useful replies only.
 
The type of person using the weapon as well as battlefield awareness is a situational thing, and hardly relivent to the tech of the design. If anything these issues should be resolved ICly by this companies marketing department.

The overpenitration isn't something that needs to be adressed to make the weapon functional. The sharp bullets are nothing more than AP rounds and the tech involved in the making and use of the bullets hardly seems like it would violate suspention of disbelief.

Why should the design be changed when the tech used in it is good? Even if the 'how to use the weapon' elements are in question? Even with the need for more detail there really shouldn't be any reason not to approve the weapon for IC use.
 
Weapon approved and added to the guns page.
 
As a final general note, I would just like to point out to the populace at large that yes, the target operator of any given technological system must be taken into account in order to design an effective piece of technology. Also, the conditions and situations that the final product will be used in must be considered. Any company that does not recognize this fails.
 
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