Well, the Islamic Federation had better watch out now. Nic Robson from Eureka
Miniature's has started casting the New Israeli's for SG. Now these guys are
really cool! I suppose they could be mistaken for Bobba
Fett look-alikes (at a quick glance, in the dark from a moving car at a
long distance!). A total of seven Ultra Hi Tech pro's. Change the helmet and I
reckon you would have pretty good ESWAT team members for Appleseed; well judge
for yourself. A SAW gunner, Sniper (Gauss Rifle
with Silencer?) and the rest have a combo under/over rifle probably
Advanced Aslt Rifle with GL. A GMS/PIG should be forthcoming soon. Full
Combat Armour and a back pack arrangement (EW, Comms, Environment Control,
other 3CI stuff?) make up the package.
Now I just gotta figure out what I'm gonna do with
them...................
> At 11:36 01/09/97 +0000,Steve P. wrote:
..You are correct however such a weapon might need a muzzle charge build up
..suppressor for sniper activity!..It could build up charge and 'crackle' in
the air (a sound that would..need to be suppressed) or even ionise gasses in
the atmosphere (therefore
..a flash suppressor required) and many more plausabe psudo-sci answers!
..Any way if it looks like Boaba Fet(sp?) and is recognised as a cool
..sniper figure _who cares!_ we will use it.
..Its not like the 'evil empire' one that costs £3.00!
> And anyway, well all know there's no such thing as a silencer, only
..You mean Sonic Suppressor!
;-)
Jon(top cat) Sprayforming Developments Ltd. [production tools]
made in
[prototype times]
'The future is now'
Amongst the list of new goodies from Eureka was:
> Sniper (Gauss Rifle with Silencer?)
Um, I don't think you could silence a gauss rifle if you tried. The firing
mechanism is already silent by the fact that it's electromagnetic not
chemical, so you probably won't have any exhaust gases to worry about. But the
whole point of a gauss rifle is to throw a very small penetrator at very high
speeds. I don't think you'll be able to do much about the sonic boom. I'm
could be wrong, been a while since I read about this sort of thing.
And anyway, well all know there's no such thing as a silencer, only
sound suppressors. ;-)
Cheers,
Actually if you look at some of the research and developement work on sound
suppression (inverse harmonics?) that has been occurring over the last few
years you will be surprised at how close we are now to a "silencer" in the
layman's terms.
> ----------
> On Mon, 1 Sep 1997, Steve Pugh wrote:
> gases to worry about. But the whole point of a gauss rifle is to
Well, there's no reason it couldn't fire a heavier projectile at lower
speeds -- e-mag arty probably will -- but that would affect the range
and penetration.
> I don't think
With sufficient PSB, you can... but the sonic crack is harder to locate than
the sound of firing anyway. I'm not sure a suppressor would have many military
applications. The sniper's happy with no muzzle flash or
sound -- the target dies before hearing the projectile.
> On Mon, 1 Sep 1997, Sprayform wrote:
> At 11:36 01/09/97 +0000,Steve P. wrote:
Actually, you should be able to suppress the sound. Just as the crack of a
regular rifle is due to the bullet breaking the sound barrier, so would a slug
from a gauss rifle. You may not be able to completely silence it but oyu would
be able to muffle the sound to levels that wouldn't be audible further than a
hundred feet. I believe that these operate by using a series of movable disks
or baffles that breakdown and disperse the shockwave in a contained
environment so that the resultant sound is not a sharp crack but a more
muffled thud. Actually gauss guns should be more easily silenced since the
firing chamber and barrel could be totally contained as opposed to something
like a revolver which can't be effectively silenced because of the openness of
the design.
--Binhan
> On Tue, 2 Sep 1997, Binhan Lin wrote:
> Actually, you should be able to suppress the sound.
Well, up to a point.
> Just as the crack of
There are three things making noise in a modern rifle:
1) The action. Usually insignificant, but must be considered if you want to be
really quiet. 2) Supersonic bullet passing through air. 3) Supersonic powder
gasses.
You can do something about 1 & 3, but the only thing you can really
do about 2 is to slow the bullet to subsonic speeds -- killing most of
its energy.
When you slap a suppressor on a modern rifle, you do away with the blast
noise (powder gasses), but the flight noise remains. It IS very audible, it's
just hard to locate because the sound source keeps moving.
Still, I like a suppressor on my AR-15 because with it I can shoot
without hearing protection.
> There are three things making noise in a modern rifle:
This is right back to my original point. 1 and 3 are silent anyway in a gauss
rifle (or nearly so). On the other hand I had always imagined gauss rifles as
firing small, dense penetrators at very high speeds, so 2 is going to remain.
Conventional silencers work
best when used with sub-sonic ammunition.
Still a sonic boom is not the easiest way to pin point a firing location.
Would there be any flash from a gauss rifle? Of course, they would have an EM
signature that may be detectable, but if you're up against that sort of sensor
the sniper's body heat is as much of a problem.
> Steve Pugh wrote:
When I was living in Austin I had a friend who was at the Univ. of Texas
there. He worked in the same building as the scientists and engineers
who were working on "coil-gun" EM guns, and he said that they were
enormously LOUD!! Now the caliburs that they were working with were
larger than man-carry, but even scaled down the noise level would be
higher than modern weapons. At this point I don't see where the noise
reduction is going to come from.
> The sonic boom would come from the entire track of the projectile. ie:
from
> point of origin to impact site. Rather hard to pinpoint! Anyone close
{This
> assumes no change in pitch or sound as projectile travels & slows down
How about gadgets working out its point of closest approach by Doppler shift,
then working out where it came from?
> From the silencing point of view, make it double barrelled, and fire
> On Wed, 3 Sep 1997, Steve Pugh wrote:
You *could* design a dedicated sniper gauss firing large, heavy and slow
projectiles -- but you would lose range, accuracy and penetration. And
it
wouldn't be an add-on you can put on any gauss weapon.
> On Thu, 4 Sep 1997, Steve Pugh wrote:
> A sniper rifle with worse range and accuracy than an equivalent
Actually, they exist. One model fires .45ACP I believe -- beats a .22
hushpuppy by a mile. But they are dedicated "sentry removal" weapons. As I
said earlier, real sniper rifles don't much care for the noise. The target is
supposed to be dead when the sound gets there, and a good sniper never takes a
second shot from the same place anyway.
> You *could* design a dedicated sniper gauss firing large, heavy and
A sniper rifle with worse range and accuracy than an equivalent assault rifle?
I don't think that idea will ever catch on!
As an assassination weapon, to be used at short range maybe. Fired from a
crowd for instnace, a silent, flash free weapon would be very useful. But not
much use on a battlefield.
> When I was living in Austin I had a friend who was at the Univ. of
Do you happen to know what produced the noise? Was it a sonic boom? Or was it
somehow produced by the mechanism itself?
In a message dated 97-09-02 03:05:36 EDT, you write:
<< > I don't think
> you'll be able to do much about the sonic boom.
With sufficient PSB, you can... but the sonic crack is harder to locate
than the sound of firing anyway. I'm not sure a suppressor would have many
military applications. The sniper's happy with no muzzle flash or
sound -- the target dies before hearing the projectile.
> [quoted text omitted]
The sonic boom would come from the entire track of the projectile. ie: from
point of origin to impact site. Rather hard to pinpoint! Anyone close to the
track would probably not be able to locate the origin, someone further away
might be able to say it was to the right or left of target at best. {This
assumes no change in pitch or sound as projectile travels & slows down through
the thick air}. You might have a good idea of where it came from only if the
shooters track passes you by to hit something further back (he misses you and
clangs the AFV) giving you two points to construct a line (you and the
impact!) Besides at this point everyone would hit the deck and all those fancy
helmet gizmo's would be looking for IR trace, EM signature ( gauss rifle would
have one hell of a magnetic signature!!!!) Magnetics would NOT be blocked by
terrain, walls, or anything less than a grounded Farraday Box.
I hope this cofuses the issue.
You are right about the sniper's disregard for the report of teh shot being
fired (althought that is more due to the fact that currently
available noise suppressors/silencers affect the the accuracy of the
shot too much) it is the muzzle flash and any other visible sign that must be
concealed. In that regard a Gauss weapon sounds like a better alternative to a
powder burning cartridge!
Owen Glover IT Services
> ----------
In a message dated 97-09-04 11:08:38 EDT, you write:
<< >The sonic boom would come from the entire track of the projectile. ie:
from
> point of origin to impact site. Rather hard to pinpoint! Anyone close
{This
> assumes no change in pitch or sound as projectile travels & slows down
How about gadgets working out its point of closest approach by Doppler shift,
then working out where it came from?
From the silencing point of view, make it double barrelled, and fire the darts
in such a way that their sound signatures are 180 degrees out of phase, and
silence each other. Hmm, might it be possible to shape the surface of the
penetrator in such a way that it silences itself?
Rob Paul
> [quoted text omitted]
I think we are hitting the KISS principle here. The bullets amplitude of
sound (how loud the sucker is) is a function of its mass and speed -
high
speed - low mass (as compared to a multiton jet!) I don't it would be
particularly loud in the first place. maybe the sound of a dry stick breaking?
On a windy day out in some overgrown hedgerow I don't think you could hear it
at 50 meters let alone locate it. Without the sound of the gunpowder, about
the only thing you might be able to tell is why the man next to you fell
down!!! All the other gimmicks to the weapon add more weight to weapon for
marginal increases in efficeincies. Just keep it simple.
I was looking into railguns and found references that it takes a long time to
charge the capacitors ( 5 minutes between shots) when you use batteries. It
has something to do with the physical design of a battery (chemical reactions
must go slowly or the darn thing blows up and melts at the same time.) There
are apparently a class of chemical reaction that might work but the reaction
is still very close to an explosion, so the real chances of a naturally silent
gauss rifle (or rail gun for that matter) are rather problimatic!!!! I guess
you need a suppressor system for the power generation system (that is
identical to a gun pwder exposion!)
What you might have are "smart bullets"; that is bullets that are finned
penetrators smart enough to fly either "True" of stay within 2 cm of the UV
targeting scope beam? Drop out wind, gravity, and range and it gets real easy
to be a sniper with an excellant "one shot, one kill" record. With that kind
of rifle, even I could hit something!!!! The darned thing would have to be an
IC chip shaped like a finned bullet, I doubt you could manufacture it any
other way. Anything that smart and small could be spoofed though, oh well
wheels within wheels I guess.
Tom Hughes wrote is part:
> I don't it would be particularly loud in the first place. maybe the
Having been a ranger marker for shooting with 7.62mm (nato) many years ago, I
can assure you that is is more than a breaking stick noise to have a high
velocity round travel overhead. At a couple of hundred yards there is often a
definite visceral 'thump' if you are out in the open (such as
walking/driving down the access road) and just a loud crack if you are
in hard cover ( such as in the marker's pit, about 12 feet below line of
sight, with a concrete and dirt wall several yards thick between you and the
rifle, but nothing between you and the stop mound). You definitely know
something is going on.
regards