Rapid fire infantry laser weapons

[Carlobrand]

Rambling thoughts.

My Traveller collection is rather limited: most of GDW CT stuff, Striker, some MegaTrav, and a couple bits from GURPS and Mongoose - in the latter two cases, not including the core rulebooks, which is sometimes a royal pain when trying to interpret the supplement, but such is life when you're prowling the used book stores. Very little from supporting companies, which is also a big headache.

So, I'm confronted with the lack of high tech rapid fire weapons in CT. Not too terribly curious, when you look closely - it's taking more and more power to punch through the armor, so the rapid-fire weapons with the punch to do that tend to be confined to vehicles, since they have the power. Still, there are ways.

The laser carbine at TL8 and the laser rifle at TL9, I basically ignore. Nasty weapons against the unprepared, but reflec is a very effective defense, the more so if you're using Striker rules and layering it under a Combat Environment Suit; a well-equipped professional military force isn't going to be threatened by low tech lasers.

At TL13, the laser carbine has potential. Penetration of 12, best armor at that tech is 10, and I don't think reflec has any effect on x-rays, or else someone needs to explain to me the logic of a silvered material stopping x-rays as well as an inch of steel. At any rate, at TL13 the carbine offers the option of a gatling laser affair - four barrels mounted on an assembly drawing either off the battery (which of course lasts 1/4 as long) or off some other power source, to put out laser fire at a +2. At 17.6 kg - maybe a little less if I give credit for dropping stocks, but then I have to figure the mass of the assembly - it's in the same weight range as the good ol' .50 caliber heavy machine gun. Useful light crew-served weapon. On the other hand, the oddsmaker in me points out that it's statistically no better than two men with single-shot carbines. I could go better with more barrels, get it up to a +4, at the price of becoming heavier and more energy-hungry, and cost becomes an issue: taking out one Cr64,000 weapons position with a RAM grenade is not an appealing balance.

I could do the same with a laser rifle - makes a nasty gatling but at a price that makes losing it hurt.

(The infantry weapons come to mind because they are, watt for watt and kilo for kilo, more efficient than their vehicle-mounted Striker-built counterparts of the same penetration. Closest Striker-built vehicle laser draws much more power and is larger, though that's not really a problem since the vehicles tend to have ample power and space for that kind of antipersonnel arm. However, that makes them impractical for infantry use. Rule of thumb with the Striker lasers is more shots per round requires a bigger gun, ergo the gatling concept.)

Plan B is something like a 25mm autocannon. At Imperial TLs they're about twice the weight of a .50 cal and pack the punch to penetrate the high tech armor - reasonably portable and effective. However, serving a machine that consumes close to 50 kg of ammo per fire phase to achieve +4 is quite an undertaking.

I'm curious about other supplements and rules systems, and how they handle infantry firepower at the high tech levels.

 

[Enoki]

An alternative might be to allow laser weapons to continuous fire with the firer moving the weapon about like a fire hose or the like. The down side is that doing so greatly increases the chance of the weapon failing (due to overheating things as the "book" ROF allows for cool down between shots).

The way to fix the overheating would be to add a cryogenic cooling unit (say a container with liquid nitrogen or such) that cools the weapon when continuously fired. That adds weight and one more thing the user has to tote along to use it.

So, you get reliable "automatic" fire at the penalty of hauling an extra 5 to 10 Kg along. But each shot from the weapon can take 1 to say 10 charges out of the battery pack. When the battery is exhausted the coolant is too.

 

[Ulsyus]

Remember that CT was designed in the late 70's, so concepts then of energy weapons may be a little different to now. I've got to get some stuff done but will build one with the T5 Weapon Maker rules later and post it up.

In the meantime, the T4 Emperor's Arsenal has on p83 a TL12 VRF Point Defence Laser coming in at 16.8kg (for mounting on a veh of course), and the TL13 version, more powerful, is found on p90 massing 26.5kg but doing more damage.

 

[jec10]

Dunno if you've seen Ken Pick's work already.

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/tech/advlasers.html

 

[Ulsyus]

I'll have to dig back through my Challenges to see what was published.

So why would one seek to arm power-armoured troops with a heavy laser rifle rather than a PGMP? As a sniping weapon?

 

[sabredog]

Yes, it weighs a lot but if you add a grav-assist module you can make it a man-portable support gun. IMTU the technique is to use the grav module for transport unless you wear battledress. Then, turn the module off and thus ground the weapon for a stable firing platform.

Often these particular weapons are connected to a perimeter defense net with remote sensors and linked off of two or more power supplies (frequently the vehicles they were carried in, or the bunker complex power supply. redundancy on the power supply is preferred for obvious reasons.


TL-9 Dual Mode Pulse Laser

This weapon is designed with a selectable fire mode for either anti-personnel or anti-armor work using a direct fire control system. The operator can select single lens (AP mode) or 16 lens anti-personnel modes.

Wt= .84 tons Signature = +1 Price= 52,600 Cr

16 / 1 lens Pulse Laser Input=10MW Output=.625 or 10MW

Anti-personnel Mode
Effective Long Extreme #Targets
1.25km (22)+4 2.5km(14)+4 4km(7)+4 8

(Anti-Armor Mode)
Effective Long Extreme #Targets
1.25km (54) 2.5km(46) 4km(38) 1

 

[sabredog]

Also these have potential:


TL-13 Anti-personnel Pulse Laser

At TL-13 fusion power becomes more efficient still, so more powerful lasers can be used on vehicles, fire control advances, and the most important improvement is the step up in penetration multipliers for lasers. Other than improvements to fire control and power supply efficiency there are no further advancements in laser capability. They just get cheaper and easier to power (so you can make still bigger ones) and more accurate to longer ranges.

16 lens anti-personnel pulse laser

Wt= .76 tons Signature = +1 Price= 168,000 Cr

Input=10MW Output= .625

Effective Long Extreme #Targets
5km(25)+4 10km(16)+4 20km(9)+4 8

Battle Dress as introduced in Striker/AHL at TL-13 has 18 points of armor protection. Since explosive damage is bumped up one level on the wound table (HE, KEAPER, energy weapons, and lasers all count) then given the formula of PEN 25-armor 18=7 + 2D6 = and average score of 14 on the wound table. 12+ is death. 9-11 is a serious wound which would be bumped up to death.





TL-15 Pulse Anti-armor Laser

A 16 lens pulse laser designed for anti-armor work, this weapon would be the type emplaced in a hardened position. The starship variant is a 4-lens version with far higher penetration for the same input. However, this version can engage up to 8 targets instead of 2.

Wt= 16.61 tons Signature = +3 Price= 1.350MCr

Input=250MW Output= 15.625MW

Effective Long Extreme #Targets
10km(62)+4 20km(53)+4 40km(47)+4 8






TL-8 Defensive Laser (1 MW)

This is an example of a positional defense laser to be hooked into a network with several others to provide a defensive net with overlapping fires and channeled approaches and exits. Ideally the system should use multiple power supplies with the lasers hooked into them in such a way as to create enough redundancy in power that large areas will not go undefended should a power supply be disabled, but good positioning will help in case of limited supplies.

This laser is basically an anti-personnel system and could be operated remotely through a map box or other datalinked system by one or more operators.

4 lens pulse

Wt= .106tons Signature = +1 Price= 10,6000Cr

Input=1 MW Output= .25 MW

Effective Long Extreme #Targets
500m(12)+2 2km(6)+2 4.5m(3)+2 2

With 50kg of the same type of batteries that are built into the laser to power the pulse you could get 50 shots between re-charges which might make this weapon more useful when mounted on a vehicle. At this TL you get 1 MW second per kg of battery.

At TL-8, the best armor per Striker/AHL is 5 or 6 points; so again, this laser is extremely effective at the lowest possible power input allowed when used against personnel wearing Cloth and Combat Environment Suits.

 

[sabredog]

I'll have to dig back through my Challenges to see what was published.

So why would one seek to arm power-armoured troops with a heavy laser rifle rather than a PGMP? As a sniping weapon?

Using Striker means can hit multiple targets with either a beam or pulse laser. Point-defense fire with a 16 lens 1 MW pulse laser means knocking a ridiculous number of incoming shells out of the sky before they get anywhere near you. Turned against infantry, depending on how many lens you use, TL, and power levels you can make an extremely effective weapon for squad, or larger, support.

And lasers weigh a lot less than high energy weapons do in addition to showing up at far lower tech levels than plasma and fusion guns. At TL 13+ lasers are ineffective as anti-armor weapons, per Striker, due to prismatic aerosols, BUT, they are still useful as secondary weapons to a primary high energy battery. Prismatic aerosols can run out, and if the unit using them moves then it leaves the cloud behind. The laser can be used for target designation, point defense, and against infantry.

 

[Carlobrand]

An alternative might be to allow laser weapons to continuous fire with the firer moving the weapon about like a fire hose or the like. ...

Interesting idea. Existing beam lasers do that to some extent: they get a +2 to their to-hit as if they were a rapid-fire weapon, reflecting a longer-life beam that can be swung around a bit. I'm trying to work within the existing CT/Striker framework to avoid being surprised by effects that alter play balance too badly. In that context, an extra-long beam laser with extra space for cooling units is functionally indistinguishable from a 16-pulse laser, so it's either a second route to the same end or it has the effect of eliminating the pulse laser from the setting by being a superior route to the same end.

Dunno if you've seen Ken Pick's work already.

http://www.freelancetraveller.com/features/rules/tech/advlasers.html

Hmm, he's doing what I'm doing, but I don't know if he's done the math on their usefulness in battle. A quad laser for example gets a +2 to hit - which makes its odds of hitting statistically the same as two men with standard laser carbines/rifles. Since it's big enough to be considered a light crew-served weapon - which is to say big enough to require a crew of two or more men to lug it around and set it up - it's breakeven, two lasers' value out of four lasers, twice the power to achieve the same end, Golden Fleece Award material.

Gravitic support is a thought, but in the case of the plasma/fusion weapons, most of that support is dealing with recoil and a huge mass on your back. Here we have a huge bulky mass in your arms - think Arnold Swarzenegger porting around a gatling gun. Now it has gravitic support - think huge bulky mass in your arms with an invisible wheeled stand supporting it. You're not bearing the weight, but it still carries a lot of momentum when you try to swing it left or right. I can't see it being used as smoothly as a regular rifle.

Ganging up 16 of the things in a big towed or assembled field mount has potential, but the cost is staggering. Cost is not everything, but it becomes a consideration when C128,000 in hardware can be put out of action by a volley of Cr20 RAM grenades. It needs a point defense fire control for survival, and that adds a minimum 500 kilograms and Cr200,000. My thoughts on that are to mount the shebang on a brainless bot with a slave module, with a human using a control box ('cause the Impies are fussy about bots that kill on their own), thereby providing mobility, an endless power source, and some armor protection in a unit small enough to fit in a bunker or be carried in a vehicle. The same PDFC that protects the bot now also gives some point defense protection to the infantry platoon.

I'll have to dig back through my Challenges to see what was published.

So why would one seek to arm power-armoured troops with a heavy laser rifle rather than a PGMP? As a sniping weapon?

I'm thinking he wants a laser with greater penetration to fill the role currently taken by plasma weapons without the nasty plasma-weapon flash that gives the shooter away. The way he has things set up, the heavy rifle has a penetration of 28 but no tell-tale signature. The way the armor combination rules work, that means he can punch through 5 1/2 inches of reinforced concrete or 11 inches of masonry to kill a TL14 combat-armored man behind it without giving his position away. He'd have a better than 50% shot at wounding or killing the man even through up to 7 inches of reinforced concrete. And, yeah, he'd be doing 20 penetration through long range, which would be doubled by the increased power of the weapon, so an effective sniper rifle. Far future equivalent of a Barrett .50.

 

[Carlobrand]

...
TL-9 Dual Mode Pulse Laser

This weapon is designed with a selectable fire mode for either anti-personnel or anti-armor work using a direct fire control system. The operator can select single lens (AP mode) or 16 lens anti-personnel modes. ...

A bit big, but interesting. As I said, I'm trying to hew reasonably close to CT/Striker so I don't inadvertently throw something out of balance. Striker laser weight is decided entirely by input though; a 16-pulse and 1-pulse are indistinguishable from each other. I suppose they could come up with a selectable-mode laser pretty easily, and that would be a very useful feature, kinda like having a tank gun and being able to shoot flechette rounds. I like it.

... At TL 13+ lasers are ineffective as anti-armor weapons, per Striker, due to prismatic aerosols, ...

Correction: lasers are ineffective at TL12 and under due to prismatic aerosols. At TL13, x-ray lasers arrive and are not affected by prismatic aerosols. See Rule 27 in Striker Book 1.

 

[SpaceBadger]

If I really wanted to get detailed on energy weapons, to the point of designing new weapons as y'all are discussing, I'd dump lasers and go to the "powergun" technology used in David Drake's novels set in the Hammer's Slammers universe (I do not have the Mongoose Hammer's Slammers and do not know how faithful it is to the novels).

All powerguns, from pistols to tank guns, work by exact alignment of magnetic fields in the breech acting on rare metals embedded in a plastic cartridge, using yet undiscovered principles to liberate enormous quantities of energy.

Pistols and Rifles are differentiated by the barrel diameter and thus power and penetration of the energy bolt, plus the improved long distance aiming provided by longer focal length of a rifle barrel. They fire at semi-automatic rates, as a puff of coolant gas is necessary between shots to avoid barrel meltdown.

Submachineguns are rare, filling mostly a Self-Defense Weapon role for tank crews with broken down vehicles. They employ a larger coolant gas reservoir to handle the increased heating of the barrel by rapid-fire, but can still melt down.

The machinegun or gatling role is filled by tribarrel guns which rotate three barrels very rapidly on a load-fire-coolant-reload cycle. These are vehicle mounted to handle ammo and coolant supplies.

Tank guns are just MUCH bigger versions of the infantry rifle type weapon, as far as I can tell. Big cartridges in bigger barrels releasing more energy, but at semi-automatic rates of fire.

 

[aramis]

If I really wanted to get detailed on energy weapons, to the point of designing new weapons as y'all are discussing, I'd dump lasers and go to the "powergun" technology used in David Drake's novels set in the Hammer's Slammers universe (I do not have the Mongoose Hammer's Slammers and do not know how faithful it is to the novels).

It's so-so. It's almost like they had no clue about powerguns.

 

[sabredog]

Correction: lasers are ineffective at TL12 and under due to prismatic aerosols. At TL13, x-ray lasers arrive and are not affected by prismatic aerosols. See Rule 27 in Striker Book 1.

Ah, yeah. Had it backwards. Still, the aerosols don't stay with you once you move, only act as another layer of armor rather than stop them completely, most importantly eventually the bottles are empty.

And realistically, the aerosols have to be fired off before the lasers fire, which means the sight of such weapons turns those weapons into a sort of area denial weapon slowing down or halting and advance, much like chemical weapons.

Once Cpl Shortstraw's tank brews up from a laser fired form the enemy the aerosols pop off and everyone has to hunker down there for 4 turns or gets only one turn to move - then someone else might get pasted before the aerosols go off....unless you really do use them as described by firing them off ahead of movement (not unrealistic, but it would exhaust the supplies faster) and use the one turn you get for protection.

That part is unrealistic - since its hard to imagine the aerosol cloud following around a grav tank at NOE, or hovertank jinking about at 150kph+, but that's why I think the the rules are oversimplified. Fire off the aerosols and retreat or dig in - that sounds more reasonable and useful, and is how smoke is used today in armor. Which BTW, is still hard on Cpl Shortstraw, since his tank is going to often be the signal for everyone else to use countermeasures.

 

[Carlobrand]

...Once Cpl Shortstraw's tank brews up from a laser ...

Here's an off-topic question: assuming the unfortunate corporal's tank is, like his opponent's, a laser-armed fusion-powered tank, what is brewing up? He might have machine guns for AP or gatlings for point defense, but unless that ammo takes the hit or something else caused a fire, that shouldn't brew up. He's as likely to suffer suffocation and freeze injury from release of liquid hydrogen.

 

[mike wightman]

A short in the main laser charging capacitor could cause a considerable rapid release of energy - or explosion if you prefer the term

 

[Carlobrand]

Maybe it's the plasma conduits. :devil:

 

[sabredog]

Here's an off-topic question: assuming the unfortunate corporal's tank is, like his opponent's, a laser-armed fusion-powered tank, what is brewing up? He might have machine guns for AP or gatlings for point defense, but unless that ammo takes the hit or something else caused a fire, that shouldn't brew up. He's as likely to suffer suffocation and freeze injury from release of liquid hydrogen.

Even a solid armor penetrator causes internal fire and plasma splash in addition to the spalling. An APFSDU round can cause the metal armor of the tank to burn, depending on the armor materials used. T-72's and 80's in the Gulf Wars had their armor turn to plasma at the entry point, setting fire to anything flammable inside, and the metal armor burned for a time - releasing toxins and radiation from the penetrator.

A laser powerful enough to seriously penetrate tank armor might have the same effect. Or at least seeing the flaming survivors bail out and scramble for cover will likewise alert the rest of the unit.

 

[sabredog]

A short in the main laser charging capacitor could cause a considerable rapid release of energy - or explosion if you prefer the term

Yeah...those batteries are the Achilles heel of Striker lasers in several ways. Cost/mass/ and downright dangerous. Imagine the heat they generate, but I suppose a fusion-powered tank is going to have some pretty impressive air conditioning inside it, too. And an awesome coffee maker.

 

[selunatic2397]

Gotta have that coffee maker!!!

 

[Ulsyus]

That part is unrealistic - since its hard to imagine the aerosol cloud following around a grav tank at NOE, or hovertank jinking about at 150kph+, but that's why I think the the rules are oversimplified.

Maybe the aerosol cloud is held in place by a gravitic effect?

A laser powerful enough to seriously penetrate tank armor might have the same effect. Or at least seeing the flaming survivors bail out and scramble for cover will likewise alert the rest of the unit.

Paint used inside the hull? The synthetic seat covers? Cabling and tubing or various sorts? Could everything inside the vehicle be fireproofed?

Yeah...those batteries are the Achilles heel of Striker lasers in several ways. Cost/mass/ and downright dangerous. Imagine the heat they generate, but I suppose a fusion-powered tank is going to have some pretty impressive air conditioning inside it, too. And an awesome coffee maker.

But were those batteries designed with a late 70's-early 80's perspective in mind? I remember seeing my first mobile phone being used by a journalist at a street march in about 1992 - quite a brick! The battery design rules on TNE FF&S were far more inclusive of different tech levels