Timeline for What kinds of weapons produce little or no recoil that could be used aboard a spacestation?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
18 events
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| Jun 30, 2018 at 23:27 | comment | added | Hawker65 | Yes, probably. Still, 10cm seems a lot to me when you take weight into account. Maybe it's hard to visualise because we are not rigid as you said. It would be a fun experiment. | |
| Jun 30, 2018 at 18:30 | comment | added | SusanW | @Hawker65 Ah, yeah, I did wonder, I was trying to visualize it. But all in all, my intuition fails because a body isn't a rigid structure: you'd fold at the arm/shoulder, and it's possible the reaction wouldn't even reach your feet by the time you landed. You'd just feel a little off-balance as you recovered your posture. Actually, that I can imagine. | |
| Jun 29, 2018 at 11:07 | comment | added | Hawker65 | Just for clarification, I meant 0.5s of airtime, not 0.5s of fall. I would do something like jumping and firing as soon as I jump instead of shooting at the maximum height of my jump. I think getting 0.5s of airtime is doable. | |
| Jun 29, 2018 at 9:50 | comment | added | SusanW | @hawker65 your C of G might move back without you noticing. Your arms and shoulders would act like shocks taking most of the momentum, and by the time you'd reshaped, you'd have landed. And, Imagine jumping a whole 1.2 metre up (height for a 0.5s drop) AND firing a gun, AND being able to tell to inch-precision that you'd landed unexpectedly far back. I think it's far outside my intuition to guess... a metre jump is pretty high. | |
| Jun 29, 2018 at 9:36 | comment | added | Hawker65 | I find it weird that, if I jump and shoot a .22 LR cartridge while in the air, assuming I stay 0.5s in the air after the shot, I'll move 10cm back. Maybe my reasoning is wrong but it's bugging me. | |
| Jun 29, 2018 at 9:28 | comment | added | SusanW | @hawker65 it IS wrong. Nic used KE, but this should be a momentum calc. 0.04kg x 360m/s = 65kg x V, so V =~ 0.2m/s. | |
| Jun 29, 2018 at 7:57 | comment | added | Hawker65 | 1.5 m/s seems a lot to me for a single .22 LR shot. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 16:59 | comment | added | anon | @Hawker65 .22s actually have a fair amount of recoil, just not much, and little enough that you can absorb it easily while braced on something. For your average man, it'd push you back roughly 1.5 m/s per shot. (KE of the bullet = (40 gr * 1200 ft/s ^2 = ~350 J; sqrt(350J / 65kg) = ~1.5J) (assuming a spherical, frictionless man) | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 13:57 | comment | added | Hawker65 | How about bows/crossbows and .22 weapons? These have little to no recoil. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 12:37 | comment | added | Eth | Recoilless rifles can still work in closed areas if the exhaust is a big slab of soft material. It must be heavy enough to counter the projectile recoil even at low speed. The guy behind you won't like taking a 10kg pillow in the face, but he'll survive. Now, that kind of weapon is probably something you jury-rigged to repel those damn space pirates, but hey at long as it works... | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 11:55 | comment | added | Agent_L | Recoilless rifles are no-no in a closed areas. Pretty much anything kinetic but recoilless is just as deadly to the operator as to the target if fired indoors. (with exception of counterbalance ejection, which is deadly only to the guy behind as you noted) | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 8:56 | comment | added | dot_Sp0T | You could/should link to further reading material or current-day examples where applicable, e.g. mention the Bazooka as an example for recoilless rifles, etc. | |
| S Jun 28, 2018 at 7:28 | history | edited | Cadence | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
If it's a rocket launcher then it's not a recoilless rifle. Many recoilless rifles have bazooka-like appearances, but looking like a rocket launcher doesn't mean that it is. Sorry, I would have commented this, but I don't have the needed reputation.
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| S Jun 28, 2018 at 7:28 | history | suggested | Kapten-N | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
If it's a rocket launcher then it's not a recoilless rifle. Many recoilless rifles have bazooka-like appearances, but looking like a rocket launcher doesn't mean that it is. Sorry, I would have commented this, but I don't have the needed reputation.
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| Jun 28, 2018 at 6:58 | review | Suggested edits | |||
| S Jun 28, 2018 at 7:28 | |||||
| Jun 28, 2018 at 3:37 | comment | added | Cadence | @craq Yes, but the way grenades act in zero-gravity is different; they would bounce and roll in very unintuitive ways. If you spent some time practicing and acclimating yourself, it could work. Note that you'd still have to anchor yourself against the recoil of the throw, but that's comparatively mild. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 3:17 | comment | added | craq | would a grenade qualify as "explosives in general"? That was my first thought, since most of the recoil happens a long way from the thrower. Hopefully. | |
| Jun 28, 2018 at 0:25 | history | answered | Cadence | CC BY-SA 4.0 |