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I'm going to address the components of your question in reverse order.
There is a way to craft new shells, without a big apparatus, like in your own home?
Absolutely. You don't even really need power tools, although they help. The question is how LONG you can keep reloading the same brass until it doesn't work anymore. I've seen people state that they'...
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Modern defense using Western (NATO) weapons:
Bad news for the troll-warriors and their slaves: We've practiced defensive warfare for centuries, and it's brutal.
At 3000m, a rain of 60mm mortars devastate their formation, spotted by hidden observers and directed by radio or field telephone. No large formations of conscripts after that - the smart ones just ...
42
No, not really.
Dead Space is a game about engineer stranded on a mining space-ship fighting off space-zombies. Primarily, mining and construction tools are what he has access to. Secondarily, space-zombies in DS are animated by space-magic emanated by space-artefacts, said space-magic makes them impossible to kill and keeps them going forever. Main ...
37
Is a sociological reason good enough? Because if so, perhaps AI smart enough to fight truly autonomously is taboo. Maybe in your universe, there have been AI that ran amok, and now they're considered essentially WMD's. The kind of thing the Space UN will hang you for if you lose the war.
The logic here being that if an AI goes rogue, there's no one to ...
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Rampant Hacking
Sometime in your civilizations history, the balance of power between cyber security and hacking has tipped in favor on exploits becoming simple. Like Hollywood simple where a random guy can hack into the NSA in under 5 minutes.
In an environment like this, electronic weapons have a high chance of targeting yourself. Or suddenly thinking ...
21
When I think about climbing and melee weapons, I think of ice axes.
(DMM Apex)
Real-world ones are of course not designed for hitting people with, but lightweight one-handed axes and picks have existed as hand weapons for thousands of years (bronze aksines, pick axes, were used by the ancient Greeks and their neighbours, and were described by Homer). They ...
20
Combat equipment has to travel long and fast. Take for example the difference between Light, Medium and heavy tanks.
Heavy tanks are far superior in armor and weapons to light and medium tanks, but due to the weight of its parts it becomes a nightmare to deploy to the battlefield because of its low speed and high fuel cost. Add to this the fact that their ...
20
War is banned
In the far future, nuclear weapons, relativistic kill vehicles, and interplanetary trade blockades have destroyed dozens of worlds in the most brazen human rights violations known to man at the time. therefore, all civilization band together to make an agreement, "no more war". To enforce this, all civilizations are constantly watching every ...
18
Daggers & Throwing knives
When clambering up and down trees, rushing through the foilage and clinging to trunks, you don't want anything to snag on some twigs. You have to be sleek and slender. So, keep your weapons close to your body. A dagger on each hip, strapped to your thigh. One, or even two closely fitted belts with throwing knives, or maybe a ...
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Look at this The Telegraph article and scroll down to the Falklands entry. Dump the NBC gear and carry more food, ammo, and electronics plus batteries instead.
Modern radios, night vision gear, light drones, and similar gear. They will make quite a difference.
A modern military would find it difficult or impossible not to bring rifles. That's what they're ...
17
Tungsten is very brittle. So brittle that it shatters when hit.
Your warrior will be helpless on the battlefield after the first blow.
Summary: it will work very poorly.
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Shock and awe.
The idea here would be shock and awe - convince your enemy that they are faced with an incomprehensibly more powerful opponent, so that they surrender and agree to terms. Your enemy is not going to understand what sort of abilities the moderns have. Keep it that way.
Your moderns are not going to be swapping fire with enemies. They are ...
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It would damage itself more than the opponent.
As other answers mentioned, Tungsten would be much too brittle to use, and shatter at the first strike(s).
If this can be overcome by changing the metal composition, you would run into different problems like heat dissapation making the handle too hot to hold.
Even if a structurally sound and handleable sword ...
12
The "Booming Maid" was dead ahead - a massive capital starship so large that it could hold an entire city in its belly, looming in the distance, with those gigantic sail-like towers stretching up, painted in the cobalt and golden colors of the Gaian Empire. In the past, those golden strips meant hope - the symbol of a nation that hold fast against anything ...
12
Self-loading crossbows go back to antiquity, predating the invention of gunpowder, in China. Modern developments along these lines already approach AR capacity with light crossbow power and accuracy. YouTuber Jorge Sprave has even built units powered by a battery drill motor that can continue to repeat as long as there are arrows in the magazine and power ...
11
is there a reason that mining tools would be made to specifically prioritize durability while military equipments may not be?
Logistics costs. Mining is a commercial enterprise; if using tougher kit makes it easy to keep a site up and running with reduced repair and resupply costs, some spreadsheet wrangler is eventually going to point this out and things ...
11
What is a poison gas? Technically, you'd speak about "Airborne toxic agent" or "airborne chemical weapon", as gas is an aggregate and most chemical agents that are not gas-shaped are powders or droplets carried by air. Now, what is there?
Caustic smoke
One of the most simple airborne chemicals is smoke. Thick smoke from burning wet wood or unpacked, loose ...
11
Since your species is highly mobile on trees, that means they have some quite good upper body strength. Their arms are probably quite strong, and so are their hands and fingers - when holding on a branch is a matter of life or death, a good grasp is essential. Let's capitalize on that!
Those things enable us to make a very silly fantasy weapon actually ...
11
Space is too big for long range combat-- so missiles and Drones aren't the best
I know that seems counterintuitive, but think about the absolute sheer size of the void. How stupid lucky would two warships out on patrol have to be in order to bump into each other?
In a universe with FTL travel, it doesn't make sense to duke it out in the void like on Star ...
11
Yes, you have an effective weapon here. Just throw away the useless sword and find a way to get the battery pack to release all its energy at once instead of over three hours. It contains a lot of energy, and will make an excellent explosive device.
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Different Weapons for different classes of Infantry
Probably 3 general use cases:
Skirmisher
Heavy
Specialist
Your skirmishers should be armed with ranged weapons - probably darts, as they are small, intuitive, and use gravity to increase their lethality. The skirmishers use light melee weapons - think short sword and buckler. This is the most mobile part ...
10
And, assuming that it can 'survive'. The ammunition for it can be created with used shells of the same gun? There is a way to craft new shells, without a big apparatus, like in your own home?
Yes, it can be done and people do reload shells. For example, I have read that the Sioux Indians in the 19th century invented a way to reload shells with loose black ...
9
Mining tools are made to crush, destroy, pullverize SPACE stuff. Things made in space scale temperatures mixed with space pressure.
On Mohs Scale diamond is 10, the hardest mineral. Hardened steel is just 8. You design tools for that to be used days after day after day for 8-12 hours a day. While your military equipment is designed to "work" for minutes ...
9
Is the idea that mining tools are designed to be very durable grounded
in reality at all, and if so what's the reason for it?*
Absolutely it is. I'm going to talk primarily about machinery here, and the key point is that in a working mine, the machinery works 24/7. The workers may trade shifts, but the trucks and the mining drills and everything else is ...
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Energy
All conflict boils down to who can concentrate lethal energy onto their enemy the fastest. Modern militaries are powerful mainly due to the amount of energy they can bring to the battlefield. An M1A2 Abrams carries 500 gallons of fuel to push 70 tons of metal around the battlefield over 40 mph. It's turbine engine can generate 1500 HP. So one ...
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Remote control
I realize that in space, battles will take place at ultra long ranges
The distance between the drone and the controller is the key, as it makes remote control impossible.
Take the rover curiosity for example. depending on the orbital positions, it can take between 10 minutes, to three-quarters of an hour to send a message. This isn't ...
8
Your combat will be in trees; what does this mean?
A fall might be just as, if not more, deadly than the opponents' weapons. Thus focus on keeping your, and disturbing their, balance. Blunt, possibly heavy weapons, so the enemy can be pushed, pulled or swept off.
If you lose balance, you need to be able to catch yourself. Clawed gauntlets might do the trick ...
8
As with all weapons questions, make the weapon fit the fighting style and terrain.
Since your critters are aboreal, that means they are going to be in trees. Unless it's a redwood forest, there is not going to be room for big swinging weapons. Anything too large or long is not going to be great because you need room to swing the weapon. How do you get ...
answered Feb 3 at 16:18
Paul TIKI -Monica come Home
18.1k1 gold badge28 silver badges75 bronze badges
8
Not really, no. Just put steps to the sides of the pole and you'll have a nice quick ladder. You might even design some endcaps for them to be stackable.
To expand on this: further advantage of these ladders is that you can more easily carry more and more encumbering equipment needed for this mission: huge hammers for demolishing mechanisms, burning ...
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Sounds like you mostly covered the bases in the bullet points. But I'll give you my take on it. The first two are unlikely uses, and the third is what I think is it's most practical usage.
Prosthetic Arm Weapon (Least Practical)
Now if you were in a culture where making a fully functional prosthetic hand is not possible, and you are going into battle, you ...
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