Futuristic Assault Rifle

"Who wants to put money on this? If only there was a way I'd be a rich man in my retirement."

I'll take that bet! Beam weapons are hopeless. Smart guys in the military have been throwing billions at the idea for decades, but to no avail. They DO have some fine applications. They can help aim and they can blind. But they simply aren't good enough at killing to replace rifles and cannons in that role.

Also, keep in mind that the humble rifle bullet can be made much more lethal if certain ethical constraints are lifted. It can be made to explode after impact, or even to function as a mini-UXB, blowing up only when the surgeon touches it. Take out a surgeon's finger and you've done more damage to the enemy than killing a whole platoon of grunts. Napalm wads or "dragon's breath" loads are a possibility--they work as good as any futuristic "plasma" rifle. Flechettes are another *very* deadly permutation. With all this unexplored territory, it will be a long, long time before the traditional small arm is replaced with a beam weapon. I'm willing to bet it never happens. Mainly because everybody has *expected* it to happen since the first ray guns appeared in the pulp mags. The real innovations are never so anticipated. It's like expecting colonies on the Moon.
 
Mullens Bullets had some good rounds that would do very well in space... Compressed powdered tungsten. A very drastic prefrangible that acted as a regular bullet untill it hit something hard like either bone mass or the breastplate of a space suit...
The infomercial on it said that it delivered a "expanding rotational mass of metalic particulants", These particles severly cut up tissue - and I mean seriously destroyed a lot of meat! These would do well inside a spaceship. They would break up and not harm a bulkhead - but would devestate a target.

Energy Weapons? Sure, you can use them... I'll use Kenetic Energy Weapons, thank you very much. :D
 
I never said that energy weapons would replace kenetic weapons. That's silly. Projectile based weapons will always be around. What I did say was that energy weapons (in most cases) would be better. They are more expensive but you get what you pay for. I'm sure that when the first laser was made and the team of greasy nerds that created said laser were waving it around like a light saber at eachother giggling up a storm had no idea the implications or future of technological advancement. They just though it was cool to shoot it at eachother and put red dots on foreheads. For somepeople this mentality has not changed. Laser weapons will be a usable medium of distruction on an infanry level very soon. Not used to mow down other troops but tanks and aircraft. Mowing down troops with a laser is much less marketable. This is why it won't REPLACE the projectile weapons but just be damn better. Try knocking a nuke out of space - or anything traveling fast for that matter - with a cannon and you'll see what I mean.
 
Nightcrawler, I would be interested in reading your story if you don't mind e-mailing it to me.

slg2qcorreia@yahoo.com

I'll admit, I'm a big sci-fi fan. Even though I have to agree with Dr.Rob, I tend towards the giant cockroach vs. rusty shotgun genre. :p

And I really think that powered armor is a very real possibility in the next 200 years. We have already developed materials that will contract when given an electrical shock. Just like synthetic muscle.

If you want to read some pretty cool sci-fi with some great weapons in it, read the Hyperion series by Dan Simmons. Swiss Guards with powered armor, flechette guns, nuclear missles that jump in and out of hyperspace, and of course the great unkillable Shrike, great stuff. :D
 
...and there will be colonies on the moon

...populated, no doubt, by legions of ATOMIC MEN and their SPACE WOMEN and STAR CHILDREN!

;-)
 
I have a perverse love for shotguns spewing flechettes.

As for violently boarding an unfriendly starship, I like the idea of suddenly exposing the crew to hard vacuum. A future version of .338 would be usefull. Maybe belt fed!
 
Lunar and Mars Colonies

Whenever the average joe thinks of humankind colonizing space, he thinks of us living on other planets. We've lived on a planet since we've existed; many can't imagine living elsewhere. Can you imagine expalining to a baby in the womb what the outside world would be like? In much of sci-fi, the writers have mankind roughing it out on the moon, Mars, and innumerable planets that have 1g of gravity and a breathable atmosphere, yet contain no sentient life and are just ripe for colonization.

Let's look at one simple fact. The Moon has 1/6th of earth's gravity. Mars has somewhere around 1/3rd. Science has shown us that long term living in low gravity has serious health side effects on humans. Muscles, no longer needed, become atrophied, bones become brittle, the person becomes weak and frail, and then there's the matter of bone marrow loss. Not to mention, simply, spending your whole live in low gravity would probably be uncomfortable. Our bodies are DESIGNED for 1g, after all.

I think that Lunar and Mars colonies will primarily be mining and scientific facilities, maybe some military bases, but I dont' know if too many people would want to live there forever. It's quite possible that a child born and raised in such low gravity would never be able to visit earth, or any other place that simulated 1g of gravity, anymore than you could safely walk around some place with 3gs of gravity.
 
Nightcrawler, why don't you have your hero walk past a newstand and glance at a copy of Guns & Ammo with the article headline "Beam or Projectile, which is best?" :)

Personally, I love the idea of getting my story back from the class instructor with a long argument about ballistics and impact energy... <sigh> Where did all those teachers go...?
 
Hey Nightcrawler go here, http://www.baen.com/library/. Then click on authors, and David Weber, is one of the greatest authors of Military Sci-Fi, mostly space navy type, but there are Marines in them. Get a copy of Path of the Furies! Or better yet March Upcountry which he wrote in conjunction with John Ringo.
 
Nightcrawler:
I think we are in agreement for the first time. I don't think the moon will be vastly populated but I was thinking along the lines of research facilities, observitories, way stations, and I suppose military stuff too -which is too bad.
It's going to start somewhere. I think that eventually these "out posts" will exist. You will inevitably have couples, then kids, then families and who knows from there. And "VIOLA!" a Colony. Don't forget those people that will want to live there for no particular reason, just 'cause. Besides, who's going to flip the astro burgers?
 
Check it out:

Just had to add this in my latest edit of the story, a little poke at the Gun Rags. :D

_________
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When Catalina, Sophie, and the survey team returned to the shuttle, she took off her pressure suit, and headed into the cockpit, where she found Alex sitting quietly, reading a magazine on a handheld computer.

“Whatcha readin’?” she asked.

“Universal Shooter Magazine”, he replied, looking up. “I had the latest four issues downloaded when we were at Blue Heaven."

“Anything interesting?”

“Not really, same old stuff rehashed over and over. This month, it’s ‘Caseless ammunition versus nonmetallic cartridge ammunition: New data you need to know’. I mean, really, they’ve been arguing about that for the last hundred years. They also have a review of the Penelope Corporation’s Model Fifty-Four pistol. They give it a good review. They give everything a good review. My sister in Ohio tried out a Model 54. It’s a piece of junk!” Alex turned off the computer, and looked back up at Catalina. “How’d the survey go?”
 
Speaking of gravity....

Although railguns would be theoretically recoiless, almost no other projectile weapons would be. In a zero gee situation, that wouldn't be an especially good thing.
 
Klaatu, there is also the possibility of a rocket gun similar to the Gyrojet except using a small burst of cold gas to expell the rocket from the chamber before igniting the rocket motor. This would minimize recoil in zero g.
 
future weapons

Try "the Weapon Shops of Istar"(?) as I think it was titled. It's been about forty years since I read it but it had some truely interesting ideas on weapons. It was the first book of (I think) a trilogy by the same author.
 
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