Re: More MT Comments

John J. Wilber writes:
> Nick Sylvain ([email removed]) writes:
>
> >		If you were a ship commander, would you want your security
> >troops to have a Gauss rifle (Penetration 7) or a Plasma or Fusion
> >weapon (Penetration 20 to 34). I wonder. :-)
>
> Weapon choice would obviously depend on the situation.  Plasma or Fusion guns
> are usually a *BIG* no-no for repelling boarders.  Unless the fighting is
> taking place in a very large cargo bay, the defenders will end up turning them-
> selves into crispy critters along with the attackers.  There might also be a
> lot of unintended fatalities as bulkheads, decks, and the outside walls of the
> ship are inadvertently penetrated and people from both sides of the battle are
> sucked out through the resulting 3 meter holes.

Can a FGMP penetrate a ship's hull?  Its penetration rating is 34, while even
an "unarmoured" ship has an armour rating of 40 (according to Striker - I'm
still one of these old timers who sticks to the good ol' stuff :-) .

I dislike using PGMP's and FGMP's for on-ship - and other close-quarter -
combat for another reason.  Those things have severe recoil problems.  You
just do not do snapshots with them.  You have to get into specific poses, so
that the recoil can be absorbed properly.  They're also very heavy; even the
mini-gravitics on the TL15 stuff won't help you against inertia, and using
one will feel a bit like pushing a cannon around on a trolley.  Result; I've
got my high-tech laser carbine, he's got his FGMP.  He starts aiming his gun;
I take a quick snapshot and put a nice hole in him.  Lasers are especially good
for the tactic of standing by the corner, then quickly going round and firing
at any enemy in sight.  And for heavy duty, a high-tech laser rifle can match
the penetration of the PGMP-12.  Both, according to Striker, have penetration
of 20.  A bit more clumsy than the carbine, but much neater than the PGMP.

As for slug-throwers; I always preferred ACR's to gauss rifles.  They're down
a point on penetration (ACR 6, gauss rifle 7) but ammo is more widely
available as it's TL 10 vs. TL 12.  There are lots more TL 10 worlds of low
enough law level, than there are TL 12 worlds.  And at a push, you can use
ordinary slug ammo instead of the discard sabot stuff.  This drops your
penetration to 4, but its better than an empty rifle!

 "Keyboard? How quaint!" - M. Scott

 Adrian Hurt			     |	JANET:  [email removed]
 UUCP: ..!ukc!cs.hw.ac.uk!adrian     |  ARPA:   [email removed]

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