Questions tagged [weapons]
For questions about existing weapons or designing new ones.
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How would a scaled-up ballista designed to launch 50-foot spears function?
This question is for a story in which society’s most advanced technology is basically identical to that which Europeans possessed in the Middle Ages, particularly around the last 50 years of said time ...
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Designs for copper-gold-silver armor
In this world, the three metals noted above are the only ones available in meaningful quantities, excluding metals inside live organisms.
Obviously, these metals and most of their alloys are softer ...
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How much clothing could one cut through with a chainsaw before it stalled, the chain broke, or some other disastrous thing happened? [closed]
The worldbuilding context is that I have a character who is in a terrible urban-fantasy situation, and is led somewhere where there is something he could use to defend himself with. It's unfortunately ...
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Is it possible to use rail guns or mass drivers as some kind of anti orbital weapon?
I know it is possible to use missiles to shoot down satellites in orbit but what about using rail guns or mass drivers as some sort of anti orbit weapon. I know the idea of a "space gun" ...
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Thermal Superconductors vs Pulse Lasers...in atmosphere
Based of a conversation with @Starfish Prime regarding the answers from this question here.
In short, while the question itself had a satisfactory answer with it being that pulse lasers would ...
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Moving Arrows to Supersonic Speeds
In a sci-fi world that I am making, an infantry held launcher is one of the many weapons developed to counter increasingly tough armor protection, brought on by the advent of advanced materials and ...
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Thermal Superconductors vs Pulse Lasers
How well can a thermal superconductor protect against pulse lasers?
First off, what is a thermal superconductor? It is a material that has a theoretical infinite thermal conductivity, similar to what ...
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Underwater Civilisation warfare [closed]
I'm interested in finding out, for a humanoid civilisation that develops underwater (with gills), how would they develop the equivalent of a modern-day assault rifle, with a minimum effective range of ...
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Could a low cost gliding bomb go through modern military defences? [closed]
A warfare that involves nations with a little military budget. One of the two decides to build gliders made out of fibreglass because it is transparent to radio and radar waves. The glider in mounted ...
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Sterilising a planet quickly and realistically [duplicate]
So in a red dwarf system with two planets, both of them develop life, but the inner planet develops advanced life much quicker than the outer one and is equivalent to current human tech, maybe a ...
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Sci-fi soldiers with bulky armor brace their rifles on their chest plates. What do their rifle stocks look like?
The sci-fi soldiers have bulky$^1$ armor that gets in the way of traditionally shouldering a rifle. They brace their rifles on their chest plates instead. Conditions are otherwise similar to modern ...
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Would direct matter to energy conversion be hazardous?
A simple question...
In a setting I am working on, I want most advanced civilizations to use a form of Cymatics to facilitate matter to energy conversion.
They have the technological acumen to "...
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Why is my laser’s effectiveness dependent on the target material?
This is for a moderately hard sci-if (as in, as real as I can get it, minus FTL & humanoid aliens)
Side B has been captured by Side A, in order to get them to fight Side C. But Side B has a plan, ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Short and simple are there any actually effective alternatives to firearms as the main alternative for WW1-1920s era aircraft including biplanes and airships?
Rules:
1: The weapon must be able to be ...
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Feasibility of “invisible” orbital bombs
The fleet is in orbit around the planet. The enemy is in a similar orbit, and they vastly outnumber the allies. The allies have a plan, ‘invisible’ bombs, incapable of being seen will float in orbit ...
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Grenade that makes you see all black (opposite of flashbangs)
Can flashbangs in real life make you see all black for a few seconds instead of all white?
I'm making a videogame and I want to know if it's possible to have flashbangs that are already available in ...
user104995
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How can my weapons kill enemy soldiers but leave civilians/noncombatants unharmed?
In my RPG, an engineer is working on an energy weapon that kills enemy soldiers but leaves civilians and noncombatants untouched.
During the game, he takes the weapon designs and goes on the run, out ...
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Not-so-precious metals: tools with only precious metals are available
Imagine a world where only precious metals are available. They are as common and plentiful as iron or aluminum are in our world. Any metal that is not precious does not exist outside of biological ...
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How do my enemy robots' weapons not kill my characters?
I’m working on a story-driven game, and I have an aspect of my game I need to create a lore-based explanation for. In this game humans are battling highly advanced robots. These robots are heavily ...
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I cast spark! Or, Design of preindustrial firearms when people can cast spark
So, in this fantasy preindustrial world almost everyone can cast small spells like spark within a one meter radius from their mouth.
Taking that into account, igniting mechanisms like matchlocks or ...
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How to non-lethally capture a sapient gorilla using only what can be found in an average American kitchen? [closed]
I'm writing this story where a good friend of the main character gets kidnapped by a clan of sapient Gorilla-like creatures. In order to find where they are keeping him captive, the MC decides that ...
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Ideal weapons and combat gear for prehensile feet
What weapons and combat gear would suit a race of creatures with prehensile hands and feet?
I'm designing a high fantasy warrior who comes from a bipedal race of creatures with prehensile hands and ...
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Effectiveness of antimatter particle accelerators in space warfare
I came up with this idea for a space-based weapon and I'm wondering how viable it actually is. The weapon is made possible using portals.
The Portals
The portals are a clarketech produced by a portal ...
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Stop all mobile phones with EMPs
In this question, I found out that a single EMP is not enough to stop all mobile phones from working. So as a follow-up question: how many EMPs would you need, and how expensive would this be?
To be ...
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EMP that causes all mobile phones to stop working
I know that there exist nonnuclear EMP weapons, but these do not influence the entire world. Could someone build a device that creates an EMP that is powerful enough to make all mobile phones on the ...
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What would a Medieval-Tech "super-metal" look like?
Edit: I am not looking for a specifically scientifically supportable answer. Rather, I am curious as to what characteristics of weapon metal lead to making them harder, and better at penetrating/...
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Unconventional ranged weapon for primitive sci-fantasy race?
This race lives underground in massive caverns/cave network. Hundreds of square miles large per cavern. Large/wide/tall enough that they have their own atmospheric conditions, essentially large ...
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How long could a soldier expect to stay effective while wearing "High-Level" HazMat protective equipment?
Assuming a technological level similar to or slightly more advanced than our current one, what is the longest amount of time that a front line, foot slogging soldier could expect to survive and carry ...
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Physics feasibility of a light-gas driven rifle cartridge? Diagram example included
The idea would be a typical rifle cartridge with a case and propellant but with a gas section placed between the case and propellant and bullet with a soft metal disc that would be driven by the ...
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Sonic weapons vs Faeries: Can we survive The Cloud of Blades & Bombs?
The faeries of my world are nightmare fuel.
They 5-7 cm insects that have two legs and four upper grasping limbs. Paired with this, they have the flight characteristics of humming birds, making them ...
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Would a weapon made of a piezoelectric material be able to notably shock an opponent?
In my world, people are able to use magic to produce piezoelectric materials of a high strength, making it a viable material for use in weapons and armour. For the purpose of this question you can ...
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Alternate Bullet Propellants [closed]
For my world, I want there to be many types of ammunition due to the world being an apocalyptic-anarchy kinda thing. Mostly land combat, little to no spacecrafts or vehicles. Anyone know any good ones?...
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What's the optimal weight of a bladed weapon? [closed]
In my magic system, people are capable of forming weapons out of their aura. The density of aura is naturally around 0.1g/cm3, but can be compressed down to 0.5g/cm. This means that aura can at most ...
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What is the best handheld/portable weapon for a person who is 1 inch(2.5 centimeters) trying to take down an 6 foot man?
I am back in a 'shrinking/being small is neato' phase, so I have been thinking about things at small scale.
Anyway, my question is what would be the best choice of weaponry for a 1 inch tall man that ...
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What makes my planetary shields more practical on the surface of planets than in space?
First off habitable planets play a major role in this setting. Furthermore this is a setting whose elements somewhat require that the surface of planets are not soft targets.
In particular planets are ...
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How big would the AoE/destruction of a nuke 72 times smaller than normal be assuming it still works at that scale?
I had the idea of a nuke that is scaled down for roughly 1 inch tall cockroaches. Why would they make one at all? Because it sounds cool. Would it effect them since they are roaches? Probably not.
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How would my collapsible sword blade work?
The collapsible sword in question would be:
3 feet / 90 cm long total length of handle + blade. The blade would be 2 feet / 60 cm long, and the handle would be 1 foot / 30 cm long. (Handle could be ...
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How to defeat Mesoamerican military without gunpowder? [closed]
Question : What weapons, armors and tactics required to defeat mesoamerican armies without gunpowder?
Assume that your army is made of native Texans unified under one leader.
Clarification: Native ...
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What would be the most effective real-world weapon againts intelligent hostile ants?
Inspired by this question, I want to know: what would be the best real weapons in a fight against ants?
All ants on Earth decide to exterminate all humans. Humans do not need to exterminate all ants, ...
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Is there a NON-CHEMICAL weapon that can target the central nervous and/or muscular system?
There is research on nerve agents and gases, but are there any man-portable weapons that may be able to harm the CNS without gas? Thanks.
AMENDED: Results in symptoms like shaking, tremors that are ...
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Modern era with magic that will stop gunpowder from igniting, what weapons are used instead?
One of the annoying problems with most urban fantasy series I've read is that they seem to mostly try to avoid discussing the fact that most of their fearsome magical foes could be felled with a ...
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What thickness of human flesh would have the same protective value as 100mm of RHA?
I'm trying to judge how much damage modern anti-tank weapons would deal to giants and I'm looking for a rough, order of magnitude estimate on how much protection layers of flesh would provide.
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How fast does a pineapple need to fly to kill?
Basically, spud guns use air pressure to shoot spuds. More air pressure, faster spud. How fast would a pineapple gun (ignore making it, say it just works) have to shoot the pineapple to be lethal?
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Can one get some partial ammo compatibility or tooling simplification by developing a few weapons of caliber ~80mm together?
For a few weapons there is something akin to sweet spot around caliber ~80mm:
Carl Gustaf 8.4 cm recoilless rifle (rifled)
81 mm mortar (smoothbore)
FIM-92 Stinger (72 mm) / 9K38 Igla (72 mm) (...
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Gravity-powered cannonballs for mountain dwellers
My mountain dwellers have endless patience. They spend their spare time fashioning spherical rock cannonballs of approximately equal size. This is in case of attack by enemies. Around their mountain ...
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Is there an existing name for this hook-sword-like shortsword design? [closed]
I was looking to add this premise of a weapon for a character I'm writing. I remembered this style existed in Breath of the Wild as an Eightfold Blade. While it does have a hilt, it is only a very ...
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What collateral damage would a mach 23 bullet cause?
In my sci-fi story there is a man-portable railgun. The gun fires a 4mm-wide tungsten bullet with a muzzle velocity of Mach 23.
The inventors of this weapon could have made the projectile faster but ...
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How fragile exactly are flint weapons? How much abuse can they take before breaking?
Obviously flint and similar stones are much more fragile than tool or weapon quality bronze and steel, but while writing I find I don't actually have any idea what this means in practice.
I use steel ...
user102593
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How would a primitive people recharge energy weapons in a hard science fiction setting?
In a hard science fiction setting, where things like glowing energy crystals or infinite batteries don't exist, how would a primitive aboriginal people recharge energy weapons they had traded for with ...
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Weapon damage assessment, or What hell have I unleashed?
In Weaponizing the return-energy channel of a one-way portal, I describe the function of a hermes portal, which are magical devices that, when activated by some command, create a connection to a ...
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