[GZG] [SG] Cracking Eggs with a Sledgehammer, was Power Armour with Shotguns

[John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 10/4/05, Ryan Gill <rmgill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Using shotguns, great against the swabbies on board. Two of their guys have body armor, fine, swich to grenades or SABOT slugs. 10 Gauge Slugs will put a lot of energy down range. 8 Gauge rounds would do even more. A guarantee that a Power trooper could carry an 8 guage short barrel automatic smooth bore just fine. It'd also probably do a number on a target that was slightly armored.

 

So tell me, what's the practical difference between a 4 gauge automatic shotgun (computer-selectable to feed from either the flechette or the sabot drums) and a light autocannon?  If a suit of PA can carry the latter (see the ESU writeup in SGII) then it should have few problems with the former.  Especially if you put a muzzle brake on it, and equip the 'arm' of the PA with hydraulic recoil compensation.

Here's the problem with boarding actions vs. PA-suited opponents or with PA-scale weaponry:  Starships are, in general, full of things that do not 'react well to bullets'.  Not least of which is the hull.  In the case of merchantmen (IE those ships you'd most want to board and loot rather than just blow into scrap metal) those hulls are probably not real heavily armored.  And using AP rounds, high-power heat rounds, etc is probably going to poke holes in things that the design engineer did not intend to function with holes in it.

 

Like the skin of the ship.

 

For boarding actions against merchies, I like the Traveller:TNE  Guild Deck Sweeper, a low-tech submachine gun with extendable stock firing 9x24mm ammo and an underbarrel 25mm low-velocity grenade launcher.  In the hands of reasonable competent troops working against civillians, it does the job without opening huge gaping holes in the cargo bay resulting in all your loot being sucked into hard vacuum which may impair the resale value.  Unlike, say, a man-portable plasma gun designed to kill light armored vehicles. The GL is intended for locked hatches and security doors only, and is a single-shot breechloader usually loaded with HEAT rounds, issued 1 or 2 per weapon.

 

Boarding actions against military starships would be rarer than hen's teeth and undertaken only by special operations forces.  I'm inclined to equip them with cutting torches in one hand, and a 12 ga shotgun loaded with #1 buck in the other.  Against unarmored opponents the latter will do nicely without overpenetration issues, and against armored opponents the former makes an interesting hand-to-hand weapon.
 

I'm back from the field.

John
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani 
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