26
votes
What collateral damage would a mach 23 bullet cause?
You had it right with the 2mm projectile before you edited.
A 20mm wide projectile would have far too much recoil for a man-portable weapon. Let's say it's 30mm long, since it needs to be longer than ...
- 4,241
23
votes
Accepted
How fast does a pineapple need to fly to kill?
I'm going to disagree with the other answers (even though they are good answers).
The reason is because of 'Beanbag rounds' - these are less-lethal rounds fired from a Shotgun for riot control and ...
- 6,674
20
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
Flashlight
Did I hear that right $-$ these guys are weak to light? LIGHT?
Flicks lightswitch
There. No more goblins. The goblins will stay where they are. Safe in your closet. Don't go in there ...
- 60.4k
19
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
This seems a smidgen obvious, but...
Flamethrowers
The monsters are vulnerable to fire and light. Why not give them both?
They can grow tall? Great! Bigger targets are easier to light up.
- 26.1k
13
votes
Accepted
Weapon damage assessment, or What hell have I unleashed?
With the amount of energy we are talking about - everything in the immediate path of the laser is pretty much vaporized.
The humans don't do anything particularly interesting - and they are the lucky ...
- 6,674
11
votes
How would a primitive people recharge energy weapons in a hard science fiction setting?
They wouldn't.
If someone's trading advanced weapons that require recharging to stone-age people, instead of things like knowledge of smelting metals, agriculture, the knowledge needed to build an ...
- 3,889
11
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
Incendiary Bullets
While it would be nice to have a bunch of specialized weaponry to deal with these monstrosities, that would take loads of money... money your secret agency has trouble getting its ...
- 9,478
10
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
Flashlights and flamethrowers have been done, that leaves flares.
Just the thing for a little hand-to-claw,
Or even a flambeau, in (plain speak a burning torch)
- 955
10
votes
How fast does a pineapple need to fly to kill?
Any reasonably hard and heavy object hitting the head has the potential to kill, either directly or by causing the victim to fall and get more injuries.
A coconut may be slightly harder, but it can ...
- 106k
6
votes
Accepted
Is there an existing name for this hook-sword-like shortsword design?
There's similar weapons in Japan
Jitte
A hook on a blugeon sword-like item is well known as a Jitte. The hook is a parrying device and to disarm an opponent.
^
kabutowari
An offshoot of the normal ...
- 14.1k
6
votes
How fragile exactly are flint weapons? How much abuse can they take before breaking?
Flint is sharp but brittle. It's slightly more durable than kitchen glasswear. A microlith projectile point will go through skin and tanned leather, but won't reliably penetrate any form of metal ...
- 9,969
5
votes
Weapon damage assessment, or What hell have I unleashed?
So, you tag it as "Medieval" and then you go and invent lasers? You could cause some pretty serious damage to a city without anachronistic lasers if your portal device exists. Place your ...
- 5,024
4
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
Everybody loves Lasers
Others have mentioned what I think are the two best choices: Lasers and Flashlights. However, I don't think that others have really illustrated the destructive power of these ...
4
votes
How would a primitive people recharge energy weapons in a hard science fiction setting?
An "infrastructure" answer:
They charge the batteries in the space-tech generator that the merchant left outside the mechanized pelt warehouse.
Load a spent battery into the blue slot.
Put a ...
- 1,270
4
votes
How fast does a pineapple need to fly to kill?
About 100 mph.
Google says Mike Tyson can punch you in the face with 1600 Joules. This will probably kill your average Joe Schmoe if they are not prepared.
The pineapple is mostly water. Mike Tyson is ...
- 60.4k
4
votes
How fast does a pineapple need to fly to kill?
As you mention, a pineapple to the head is much like a potato to the head. (Wise words). It turns out that potato cannon injuries have been studied as they relate to the speed, weight, and diameter of ...
- 4,241
3
votes
How fragile exactly are flint weapons? How much abuse can they take before breaking?
Using stone tools mostly means being more careful with the tool and not using one tool for everything.
A lot depends on what you are doing with it. A stone knife can be used a lot, you just need to be ...
- 73.8k
3
votes
Weapon damage assessment, or What hell have I unleashed?
The portal room would blow up, but not serious damage in the city
The problem is that your charge buildup on the destination side would cause attraction of ionized particles from the source side ...
- 3,306
3
votes
Weapon damage assessment, or What hell have I unleashed?
TheDemonLord gives a good explanation of the type of damage that your setup could potentially do, but you'd only see that sort of destruction if the enemy was completely stupid (which is very unlikely ...
- 7,771
3
votes
Can one get some partial ammo compatibility or tooling simplification by developing a few weapons of caliber ~80mm together?
A little bit of tooling simplification. All five of the weapons you mention fire completely different ammunition, and you can neither put a Stinger into a light naval gun nor fire a mortar bomb from a ...
- 106k
2
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
I feel like there's a certain amount of, well, dramatic tension that's missed here. How much fire and light - and since these creatures hate light, where do they live?
With modern LEDs, and maybe ...
- 7,529
2
votes
Goblins are Vulnerable to Fire and Light -- What Weapons Should we Use?
Fire ... or heat?
Is their weakness specifically fire, or is it heat in general?
If their weakness is heat then this opens up the door to all kinds of heat based close combat weapons, you could put a ...
- 1,013
2
votes
Accepted
Weaponizing the return-energy channel of a one-way portal
Lasers
This is the more expensive but long-term option. When the portal activates, arrays of megawatt-scale, pulsed lasers aimed at both sides of the portal burn anything and everything. The array ...
- 4,801
2
votes
How would a primitive people recharge energy weapons in a hard science fiction setting?
They would recharge energy weapons the same way that stone-age people who traded with Europeans repaired steel tools and weapons when they broke.
Not at all.
There's not any way this idea works in a ...
- 766
2
votes
Gravity-powered cannonballs for mountain dwellers
Being gravity a conservative force, we know that the maximum velocity you can get dropping from a given height is $v=\sqrt{2gh}$.
That maximum velocity will be reduced by a part due to losses. What ...
- 262k
2
votes
Gravity-powered cannonballs for mountain dwellers
Some quick googling gives a vertical terminal velocity of a rigid spherical object of ~ 70 Mph (Source ) - bearing in mind that is straight down. But that site also has a calculator, so...
Using a ...
- 6,674
2
votes
Can one get some partial ammo compatibility or tooling simplification by developing a few weapons of caliber ~80mm together?
Is it possible?
Sort of
What immediately sprung to mind was The MGM-51 which tried to combine an Artillery Gun with a Missile Gun.
TL;DR - it didn't really work that well. I think there are some ...
- 6,674
1
vote
Gravity-powered cannonballs for mountain dwellers
45 degrees is only good if you have no drag. With drag present, the optimal angle is lower. Reference: artillery tables based on farthest point of reach. An overview of what is in them could be read ...
- 3,306
1
vote
Is there an existing name for this hook-sword-like shortsword design?
I will add to Trish's answer (Edit: The image is now part of Trish's answer proper) that if you follow the Wikipedia link to Kabutowari, you get a picture of a supposed metal one of those:
Looks ...
- 60.4k
1
vote
How would a primitive people recharge energy weapons in a hard science fiction setting?
Where there's a will there's a way. These natives aren't an army, but they would certainly be marching on their stomachs as they recharge their rifles. Food is the best source of energy for these ...
- 130k
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