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prokhorvlg — Reinhart HI // BRAP
Published: 2016-01-25 04:48:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 10996; Favourites: 202; Downloads: 150
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Description
It’s as long as a thesis! I don’t want to read this... TLDR: read the bolded bits.
It's a multirole combat weapon, designed to operate in space and on the ground by a trained operator.
You see, in the Wetware universe, contemporary kinetic weapons - the kind you are used to seeing - have largely been phased out of any space-related duties. The reason for this isn’t too difficult to understand.
- Space is now up close and personal - someone is being boarded...
A spaceship here can only be boarded once it has been largely disabled, due to the incredibly effective CIWS and defense systems. When that vessel is about to be boarded, whoever is operating that craft has the option to put the thing into a spin. This is usually done for several reasons.
They now have centrifugal gravity. Most military craft have two sections - a core, which is a cylinder running straight through the middle of the ship, and the rest, which spins around it separate of the core. This core is designed for centrifugal gravity, while the rest has the illusion of gravity when the ship is accelerating. Now that the craft is in a spin, there is 1 g perceived within the core, and multiple g’s in the rest of the ship.
The crew retreats into the core. Anyone who tries to board will have to try from either the front or rear of this core cylinder - because if they enter anywhere else, they will be anything from immobilized to crushed by the centrifugal forces.
Now you have a combat environment which is set within this ~1g centrifuge.
- Coriolis effect - and why that damn M1911 just keeps on missing.
Welcome the Coriolis effect. If someone fires a gun from one area within the cylinder to another above themself, they miss. Why, you may ask?
Unlike that individual and their target, the bullet is not influenced by the centrifugal force. It’s not actual gravity - the individual is being pushed into the floor in a way that they perceive it.
So the target and the individual are moving with the spinning floor. The bullet moves in a straight line from where it was fired towards… where the target was just now.
Normal bullets have too low of a velocity to hit what they need to. So you’ve got a few options to choose from.
- You have a choice - kinetic-electromagnetic or photonic rigs.
Keep in mind that battery and supercapacitor technology really panned out in this universe.
Light moves at light speed. It doesn’t care for how fast the cylinder is spinning - it will land where it is pointed at, always. So photonic rigs are very prevalent, mainly in the form of electrolasers and blasters, depending on what it’s going to be used for.
But that’s not what we’re here about. We want to increase the velocity of a kinetic projectile. We love that gorgeous brute force they come with. We want a multirole weapon, that can be used everywhere. For that, we will look into electromagnetic weapons (in this case - I’m sure other methods would exist.)
- Railguns (and Coilguns, I guess.)
A railgun is a weapon that… eh, who cares. It’s basically a weapon that uses electricity to fire a special bullet. The more electricity you put in, and the better your tech for shooting it into the rails is, the faster your slug (the special bullet) will go. Maybe even fast enough to not care about that pesky Coriolis effect.
You’ve also got coilguns, which are more durable and less dangerous - but they are also more complicated (which is a bad thing when it comes to guns) and less powerful (which is very important in our scenario!) So we’re throwing these out for now. They’re probably used in this universe too.
- The BRAP BRAP BRAP BRAP…!
The BRAP is one of these railguns. Finally, battery and supercapacitor technology has come to a point where it’s actually practical to lug one of these things around.
The weapon was designed and built by Reinhart Heavy Industries, a company which often receives contracts from the Federation of American Entities. The FAE is one of the most advanced nations in the Wetware universe when it comes to military… and basically any other kind of hardware. This weapon model in particular is used by some of the most advanced combat units known to man, in missions ranging from interplanetary warfare to exploration to guard duty.
- Optics
You could say that the weapon falls into the category of ‘smartgun’. In any environment, but especially in CQC in urban areas and spacecraft (what this gun was intended for), you’d want a way to look around corners, see ammunition count, among other things. The BRAP is fully digital. Ammo count, a reticle, charge, environmental data, and more are fully accessible through the integrated aperture or a wearable HUD.
A small camera is mounted into the front to allow a user to put the entire rifle around a corner and aim using their HUD. But it’s really simple. No zoom, no NV, nothing.
For that, the weapon can come equipped with a BlueShift RT-1. This device, which attaches to the upper rail, provides the user with zoom and NV (such as FLIR). Even better, it’s connected to the integrated system by wire and is accessible on its own if needed. To top it all off, it even folds over to the side if everything fails and the iron sights need to be used.
- Fire Select (and what other bits do)
There are close to a billion knobs and buttons on the gun. Each is responsible for something…
The fire selector has 4 settings. Ascending, they are Safe, Semi, Burst and Auto. The small switch next to it is a quick switch from subsonic to standard velocities. When set to subsonic, it is ideal for stealth missions where a minimal noise level is critical. For everything else - armor penetration, Coriolis-negation, and maximum accuracy is provided by the red option.
The small screen and the nearby bits on the side allows a user to view and adjust charge rates, charge levels, energy storage, ‘loss rate’, and other nonsense. It’s labelled ‘TEKKAG systems’ because that’s the company that’s responsible for making the majority of the rail-related electrical components.
It’s very adjustable and customizable - the cheekrest and stock can be moved to more favorable positions, and custom setting profiles can be switched between using a knob right in front of the trigger.
And the whole thing is presented in the style of an advertisement on a FAE planet. i.gyazo.com/6393dc64977dd2f8e7…
- Everything else should be pretty self explanatory, but ask away if you’ve got any questions.
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Comments: 46
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Unless you aim and fire at where the THOT will be when the bullet hits him/her
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whelp, this firearm may or may or may not have rendered all ballistic weapons irrelevant in my book.
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Is that a good or bad thing?
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Where's the ammunition? It's a railgun, sure, but it still shoots projectiles. Where are those stored?
What is it with you and putting sling attachment points under the weapon?
Ooh, fancy adjustable stock. Me likey.
If it's all digital, then you're fucked when you hit an EMP? It could be from anything -- a nearby ship's reactor goes boom, someone's a fucking retard and causes it intentionally -- and it kills your gun. Quite possible kills your user, too, and anything within a few meters, depending on the size of the projectile and how many shots you can have between recharges.
And that's not even the only problem. You say that
Normal bullets have too low of a velocity to hit what they need to.
But is that true? Let's see.
[note: The following calculations assume a stationary target, but a trained operator leads moving targets anyway, so I'm not counting that.]
[also: I did the math right, probably, but it couldn't hurt to double-check. I got the numbers from the official sites, or Wikipedia if I couldn't find them there.]
[lastly: TL;DR: I math'd a bit, and normal guns work fine for any sane range.]
A good ol' AK47 would do just fine in space stations, because a 15m diameter core would have 1 gravity at the edges spinning just over 3 times per /hour/, meaning that at the AK's effective range of 350m, and muzzle velocity of 715m/s, your target has moved less than 0.05m, or a whopping... two inches. That's a little less than the length of a AA battery.
So let's compare it to an MP5 instead. The lowest muzzle velocity for any MP5 model is 285 m/s, and the lowest effective range -- which is from a different model, incidentally -- is 100m. That means it's cutting through that distance in a third of a second, which means the target's 1.3 inches away, a bit less than the diameter of a golf ball.
But hey, even though that might be the iconic CQB weapon, let's do something a little CQBier: A 12-guage. Specifically, my favorite shotgun, the Mossburg 500 pump-action. It has a muzzle velocity of 403 m/s, which means that it's clearing its maximum range in a tenth of a second. It's getting there pretty much instantly -- the target has shifted an incredible total of 0.4 inches. That's a little more than the diameter of a penny.
Now, 15m is big. Like, really big. What if we halved that number -- made it 7.5m across? It'd spin faster, right?
Yep. All the final numbers in this -- double 'em. Someone aiming for center of mass is still going to have no additional trouble with a normal gun. Someone aiming for the head would have trouble, but no good soldier would aim for the head without the target being still and at point-blank range, or without gear that's designed for long-range shots, as opposed to his normal weapon. At 3m, you have double the problem distance, but that only adds up to about 5in at the worst case (for the MP5), which means that you're still not missing center-of-mass shots, just headshots.
I like the design quite a lot aesthetically, though. Super cool ^^
Oh, and one last thing: The Coriolis effect exists on Earth, too.
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...there’s a huge drum labelled 40 rnd.
I think that at the scales of space warfare, a ‘nearby’ ship is a lot more distant than you think. Besides, in my world, spacecraft are extremely fragile when it comes to nukes. If someone wants to disable a ship, it will be a lot more effort than just nuking it to kingdom come. Either way, what prevents it from having a Faraday cage of some sort?
It is true. I did the math, using Atomic Rocket’s information on artificial gravity in centrifugal environments. I think your numbers might be off. According to their table, a station with a radius of 8.95 meters would require a rotation rate of 10 rpm. I’m not gonna show you all of the math here, but something with a velocity of around 1200 m/s would be around half a meter off, with your favorite CQB weapon being even more. Furthermore, the cylinder sizes you are using are even smaller, requiring an even faster rotation rate.
Rotation can even be randomized to make sure no one can adjust their sights to it.
www.projectrho.com/public_html…
I know that the Coriolis effect exists anywhere but it’s much more perceivable in the environment we are talking about.
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Oops, didn't see that. In my defense, the label is almost the same color as the mag, and its top isn't lined up with the barrel.
Are you sure? Right, did the math again, and it looks like the tangential velocity of a 15m space station for 1g is 12 m/s, which leads to.. yep, forgot a zero or two somewhere along the line. I need to remember how to math, apparently.
WRT "nearby" ships -- A ship doesn't have to be that near for a nuke going off to send a very, very powerful EMP through you.
Faraday shielding might work, but it depends on the wavelength of the EM waves. This is very, very far from what physics I know, so I'm just gonna say I have no idea but it might work? Besides, it works by "pulling" all the electrons to one side of the metal, or very briefly inducing an electrical current. If the current is too large -- i.e., you know, a nuke, maybe -- it will just melt the cage.
Also, the cylinder size I used was 15m, which isn't enough to reduce the numbers to what I said, but the spin would be lower to maintain 1g at 15m vs. at 9m, not higher. Nitpicking, yay!
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Umm... that's because there's a magwell?
I am sure. Contemporary weapons would be way inaccurate in an environment like this.
Hundreds of thousands of miles good? Either way, if there are nukes going off near your ship, clearly the enemy's intention isn't to board but to destroy you.
Most of modern military equipment today is hardened, and AFAIK it isn't that difficult to do... I don't think it's as big of an issue as you make it out to be.
Right. Sorry, I think my calculations were using a 20m diameter cylinder, which is why I said yours were smaller. Didn't clear that up.
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Um, what does a magwell have to do with it? That's a thing you put at the bottom of the entrance to slide it in, it has nothing to do with the top of the mag not being aligned with the barrel.
The "Are you sure?" was something I forgot to delete while confirming the calculations.
Seeing as I don't know what the tech level or typical tactics of your universe, I was guesstimating based on things like Halo, where the ships are nearly always within kilometers.
It's hardened against noise and a normal EMP, but I dunno what strengths they can withstand.
Besides, boarding craft have to be light and agile, and shielding generally takes the form of heavy metal plates.
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"top of the mag not being aligned with the barrel" ...what you talking about?
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The mag is the big thing just in front of the stock, with 40rnd written on it? The top of the magazine should be aligned with the barrel so the bullet travels in a straight line. Here, I made a picture:
i.imgur.com/Q61BA67.png
The red line shows the barrel, the blue shows the top of the mag. In most guns, the two are aligned vertically (i.e. same height); in this one, they aren't. It made it hard to tell that that's the mag.
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That's the camera for the smartgun features. What sort of barrel looks like that?
EDIT: Cooled down a bit.
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...The same kind of barrel as exists on every gun, where it's round and the only thing poking far out in front. If that's not it, what is?
Also, WRT this:
This core is designed for centrifugal gravity, while the rest has the illusion of gravity when the ship is accelerating. Now that the craft is in a spin, there is 1 g perceived within the core, and multiple g’s in the rest of the ship.
Uh, what? Are you saying that because something is spinning, it no longer feels gravity from acceleration along its axis of rotation? You'd feel 1g "down" and however many gs of acceleration towards the engines.
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A barrel that is not visible from the side because it's inside a shroud? Outrageous!
You have an extremely low opinion of my knowledge of physics. No, I am not saying that at all! There is no more thrust when the ship is being boarded. The engines are disabled. The entire craft was put into a spin, where the core cylinder has 1g pushing on the inside while the rest of the ship has much more because it is spinning at around the same rate as the core, but it is has a much larger diameter.
The core is not pressurized or used by human personnel until such a situation occurs, until which time it is occupied by the computer banks of the AI and other systems. At all other times the ship is under acceleration.
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Uncommon, and not something that you tend to think of when there's a far more obvious candidate for barrel. 
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...okay, this is how I would have done it. Instead of actively looking for a fault, I would assume that the barrel was where it should be, and work around that. If that camera/light was the barrel, where would the described integrated camera be?
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I wasn't looking for a fault. I was explaining why I didn't see the mag, and you decided to take that as an opportunity to curse at me as opposed to, you know, explaining. Like a normal person would.
Hell if I know. You've made all sorts of weird design decisions before; I assumed that was one of them.
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Sorry man. I think the heat from the other guy on this page spilled over into this debate on my end.
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Yeah, I've been reading through it. The guy is worse at mathing than me.
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It's funny how you try to point me out as the odd one out, when you're the one not giving me the benefit of the doubt when pretty harshly critiquing the design (showing out a fundamental flaw). Yes, I see you jumping to the conclusion that I'd make such a mistake as an insult, fuck me right?
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Keep making the awesome designs!
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Won't have any issue doing that
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I appreciate the thought you have put into the piece, if anything lol! Lots that I will now have to think about as I continue writing in my universe haha.
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Thanks! I'm glad someone noticed.
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As a fellow world/universe builder (which I have to do for my books which I write so that I may draw whats in them lol) I can appreciate the long hours pondering things like this.
I start to draw a new coin/money system for fun - and up researching the monetary system from all sorts of cultures, precious stones and materials and before you know it, you are 1000 miles from where you started out trying to get too! (Then again i am prone to tangential psychosis...)
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Amazing, but i highly doubt a railgun could work in that short a space.
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Because of the way rail guns work, that gun does not look like one.
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What do you think railguns are?
I stand by (most of) the design choices I made when creating this weapon.
A railgun is merely an advanced electrical device combined with a few mechanical parts. Much like a flashlight, or a computer. You can rearrange the pieces as long as you have a coherent, interconnected device by the end. And you have all of those parts here - battery, rails and supercapacitors, trigger, magazine with slugs, etc...
Now why would I stick the rails into the gun, unexposed to the environment (contrary to what we are so used to seeing)?
Because that would literally rip the thing apart. When firing, railguns produce a ton of force which tries to move the rails apart from each other, but if that is actually let to happen, it would be destroyed. Hence, it needs an extremely sturdy housing.
Furthermore, any exposure to the elements - dirt, snow, mud, anything, would probably render it unusable.
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Yes, but from your design there simply ISN'T enough room to house those things. And if there was, you'd be firing a caliber of object so small that it would be ineffective in close quarters. I just disagree with your design in its entirety as it doesn't seem realistic size and proportion wise.
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...Have you heard of a particle accelerator? They move very, very small things very, very fast, delivering frankly unimaginable amounts of energy. A piece of dust accelerated to those speeds would unleash a... hold on, checking my math... right, a metric fuckton of energy. Actually, no, it wouldn't, because it would cause a nuclear fireball, as Randall Munroe explains . The size of the projectile stops mattering if you go fast enough.
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Why wouldn't there be? It's 2000 years into the future. lol. Cannons were downsized to flintlocks to the handguns we see today. People create simple railguns TODAY with household materials even though they are underpowered (obviously since they don't have the technology available to miniaturize the electric parts. o.aolcdn.com/hss/storage/midas…
The caliber is written on the magazine and it is WAY more effective for anything it would be used for. Combined with the velocity a railgun provides (which would more than compensate for a small round), it would literally shred limbs and body parts off. It's absolutely plausible and I stand by my decisions.
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TL: DR
You should have told me the year BEFORE you start to go through the reasons with me. Would help a lot more.
And i still think it's a little unbelievable because of the basic size that you need fullstop.
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Maybe if you read the description, you'd figure out that the whole thing was designed to operate on spaceships...
And on that note, I bet you didn't read that battery and super capacitor technology panned out in this universe, meaning that miniaturization was successful (leading to the development of the weapon on the first place!) There is literally no way you or me or anyone on the planet today that can tell if this will be the case or not.
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Using a railgun on spaceships?
You're a fucking idiot. Just putting that out there. In fact, one of the main reasons they use "laser" guns in star wars instead of bullet guns is because of this very reason. You shoot a high-speed projectile on a spaceship, and you will fuck something up.
I'm saying that this is a failed project lore wise, but a very good artwork nonetheless.
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Nice, resorting to name calling, always a sign of maturity.
Has your smart ass ever heard of fragmenting rounds? Discarding sabot with flechette? Regular buckshot? None of these would harm the inside of a spaceship. In fact, fragmenting rounds are used by air marshalls because they would safely disintegrate when hitting the wall.
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Muskets dont much look like AR15s but both are guns, in his future envirronment is it not probable that someone would redesign something?
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Well what year is it?
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I don't know lol, but the point is, if it is far enough in the future, it is at least probable that many things we see as "impossible" are not. There are just so many examples in our own history, when enough research is done and new things learned, old methods are often improved and/or replaced by better ones!
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