> Date: Sun, 10 Nov 91 14:34:24 EST
> From: [email removed]
> Subject: (3096) Gyros on lasers
>
> Carsten, your point is well taken. In fact, lasers SHOULD be treated
> as if they are Gyrostabilized, due to their lack of recoil. But this
> is not stated in the rules; it is merely an application of common sense.
While I am not an expert on gyrostabilization (I have never actually fired
a gun that has it if there are real ones in existence), I don't think that
the main purpose is control recoil. The effect of a gyro would be to make
the entire gun resistant to quick rotational changes (in any plane). So you
have 2 choices - a weak (low mass/angular velocity) or strong (high mass/vel)
gyro. The weak one's only real effect would be to steady your aim (which
would apply to lasers just as well as any other type of gun). Your aim point
would not jiggle around because the very small unsteadiness in your arm/hand
would be damped by the gyro. It would do very little to control the amount
or direction of recoil. A strong gyro (let's ignore the problems with the
materials required to make such a thing that small and light, with
correspondingly HUGE rotational velocity, and what would happen when it was
hit in combat - I wouldn't carry one), one big enough to control recoil, would
a) make the gun impossible to aim - you couldn't track a target with it!
b) would only change the direction of the recoil by 90 degrees - that's what
gyros do. so you might end up recoilling to one side instead.
c) the gyro would require HUGE amounts of energy to spin up - all the kinetic
enery in the spinning gyro if it were perfectly effecient. Of could
maybe once you can build such an amazing thing, you could use it for
battery!
You could try to answer (a) by:
a) only have the gyro engaged (connected to gun frame - you certainly couldn't
spin it up quickly) just as the trigger was pulled, but it would still
be hard to track a target with an automatic weapon because the gyro
would resist the firer.
I think the way to control recoil is to keep the barrel in line with the
firer's shoulder or handgrip as in some bullpup designs today. Since there is
no moment arm for the force to act through (the recoil force acts directly
toward the support), no rotation would be induced. There could still be quite
a kick, but it would not mess up your aim (directly anyway).
Once again, my main conclusion is that a practical gyro could only help steady
your aim - anything big enough to help control recoil is probably impossible to
make and too dangerous to use in combat anyway.
> Anyone care to argue that lasers have kick, like in Star Wars? Hmmmm? |->
Well, you could argue that those weren't lasers, since you could watch the
'bolts' fly across the screen. Certainly subsonic. Of course maybe you
meant some other 'lasers' I forgot.
Maybe they were actually lasers, but with the light slowed from 'c' to a
few hundred fps - then the photons would have a really BIG mass for the
same energy as a regular photon! (that was just a joke - really - don't
explain to me about basic physics).
> metlay
Jim Pendergraft