Interestingly enough, a friend and I have been discussing the details
of boarding actions in another gaming setting. One of the things we
postulated was that in any situation where a ship is likely to enter
combat any time soon, the first thing that will happen is that the
crew will suit up and depressurize the ship, to eliminate the risk of
explosive decompression from a lucky hit. The byproduct of this would
be that almost all boarding actions would be in vac. This might
mitigate the problems caused by unintentional holes in the wrong
places a bit, since once the action is over, you repressuirze slowly,
detect leaks and patch them. Also, this game setting doesn't have any
artificial or anti-grav, so recoil is a big problem. We've come up
with a few ways to pay our respects to Mr. Newton:
1. Lasers (Not mounted on fricking sharks, though). I'm not a big fan
of them, but they make sense in this situation.
2. Mag boots. They help, but only mitigate the problem.
3. The high tech solution for the military is an integrated weapon
and PA suit, where the suit fires little bursts from it's thrusters to
compensate for the gun's push.
As for how rare or common boarding actions would be, I don't know
whether I agree or disagree.
On 10/6/05, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
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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