New answers tagged weapons
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Sci-fi soldiers with bulky armor brace their rifles on their chest plates. What do their rifle stocks look like?
Stocks are not always better than no stock
While a stock gives a firearm a number of advantages, it also comes with its drawbacks.
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- 87k
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Sci-fi soldiers with bulky armor brace their rifles on their chest plates. What do their rifle stocks look like?
Maybe it works something like the smart guns wielded by Pvt. Vasquez in Aliens, where the rifle has no stock but instead sits on a "mount" that allows it to be steadied and aims.
Behind the ...
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Sci-fi soldiers with bulky armor brace their rifles on their chest plates. What do their rifle stocks look like?
I'd suggest that it depends in part on just how bulky the armour is. The optimum would probably to have a ball-and-socket joint between the armour and stock, and since it would be undesirable to ...
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Sci-fi soldiers with bulky armor brace their rifles on their chest plates. What do their rifle stocks look like?
And Gun Jesus did Spake and say:
"Lo, For thine problem didst already exist in thine obscure cavalry rifles from the 19th century"
And Forgotten weapons did publish a Blog post about it: And ...
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Sci-fi soldiers with bulky armor brace their rifles on their chest plates. What do their rifle stocks look like?
Your question reminds me of the problem NASA faced when sending the astronauts to the Moon: due to the bulky space suit and helmet they were wearing, they could not use a conventional Earth camera, so ...
- 273k
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How well would chains do as a weapon?
They would be useless except against unarmed rabble and probably not even then, a club would be better.
Dual wielding poi's is ridiculous in a fight. Your moves are repetitive, constrained & ...
- 22.2k
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How long could a soldier expect to stay effective while wearing "High-Level" HazMat protective equipment?
One of the roles I had back in my army days was an ABC (atomic biological and chemical) purifier first respondent for our base (excuse me if it's not the exact title in English, I'm translating the ...
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Is this sci-fi weapon realistic?
You have a problem with the ammunition weight. The difference between loaded and unloaded weights is 0.6Kg, 600g. You have to fit the magazine and 60 cartridges into that. If the magazine is ignored, ...
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How long could a soldier expect to stay effective while wearing "High-Level" HazMat protective equipment?
I'm by no means an expert on the matter and I haven't done all the math with BTUs and such, but I've been in the military for about a decade and worn MOPP 4 in a hand full of different environments. ...
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Is this sci-fi weapon realistic?
The least realistic thing is how low-tech it is
By 2210, a weapon this low tech belongs in a museum, not on a battlefield. This weapons is already pretty much doable with today's technology; so, the ...
- 87k
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Would direct matter to energy conversion be hazardous?
If they have the technological acumen to do something impossible they probably can deal with minor problem of radiation.
You are asking if your imaginary impossible technology has specific physical ...
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Would direct matter to energy conversion be hazardous?
It depends on how its done, and how much is converted.
Energy can have many forms, when we do matter energy conversion, we usually get heat and radiation as the energy, which certainly can be ...
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Accepted
Would direct matter to energy conversion be hazardous?
Direct matter to energy conversion, according to our physics, produces gamma radiation, which in itself is surely hazardous.
When the radiation interacts with matter it generates other potentially ...
- 273k
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Why is my laser’s effectiveness dependent on the target material?
Sabotage the targeting computer, not the laser
This is the space age meaning that between every laser and gunman is a powerful targeting computer and sensor system that works together to detect and ...
- 87k
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Why is my laser’s effectiveness dependent on the target material?
Maybe lasers are not always homogenous: instead of true lasers (pure light), some some of the varieties of what we call "lasers" fire things like bursts of plasma, brightly-glowing physical ...
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Accepted
Why is my laser’s effectiveness dependent on the target material?
Lasers do have different efficacy on different materials. The thing is that it is not very mysterious and will be quite visually obvious. Therefore probably not very deceiving.
The main optico-...
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Why is my laser’s effectiveness dependent on the target material?
Have the hull be some sort of super strong material.
The simple way is to have the hull just be really good. Maybe in the sci fi future, hull platings are much tougher because they need to deal with ...
- 37.4k
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
In the James Bond movie "You Only Live Twice", the gyrocopter "Little Nellie" dropped parachute-borne bomblets above and in front of enemy helicopters, which detonated on contact ...
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Why is my laser’s effectiveness dependent on the target material?
The problem with weapons-grade lasers is that the sheer amount of energy they pump out means that even if the target is as close to perfectly reflective as practically possible against the frequency ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Therac gave you some excellent reasons why airguns, crossbows and rockets are problematic. In general gunpowder projectiles are fast enough and efficient enough to be effective, most others really ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
A combat kite
A kite-like structure is located behind the pilot, hidden under a moveable panel. When the pilot engages in a counter course attack vs his adversary, he should aim his plane below the ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Nets and Cables
You would only get one to a few "shots", but large steel-wire nets would be effective against most pre-1930 aircraft.
The net is carried in a pod under the fuselage or wings; ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Flechettes: a real WWI-era anti-infantry weapon.
I'm surprised that no one has brought them up. As KerrAvon2055's current top answer notes notes,
If any other weapons had been effective, they would ...
- 18.2k
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Problems: Drag and speed
There are two problems with low-tech projectiles aerial combat:
High relative speed of aircraft, which leads to high maneuvering speed.
When you shoot an arrow (average 50 m/...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Trained birds of prey
Hawks and eagles can reach speeds faster than WW1 era aircraft, especially when diving from a higher altitude.
The birds could be trained to either attack the pilot directly, or ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
No
Let us take a brief look at the development of military aviation in WWI. First, aircraft on both/all sides were unarmed and waved to each other cheerfully as they carried out reconaissance and ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
This might constitute as a frame challenge:
Firearms have a plethora of advantages over their alternatives. That is why we use firearms so extensively.
A plane with 1920's technology might be a ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Airguns and proximity explosives
Airguns might seem like reskinned guns, but there is probably a good reason for them not to habe been used. I haven’t checked the particulars, but a quick guess is ...
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
Crossbow bolts big weakness is size. You can't carry as many as you can bullets.
Perhaps an airgun firing an exploding canister of ball bearings or similar? If it was automatic you'd basically be able ...
- 22.2k
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Are there any good alternatives to firearms for 1920s aircrafts?
I think in these cases, it is worth working out what is different about your world
Is some part of the physics or tech different? If you have, through some weird quirk, naturally occuring room ...
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