[BT] Another Infantry Design and SUPER fluff (long) More options
ghostwriter
The fact is that RL gyrojet weapons dont generate any amount of heat
in the barrel, but zero heat would be major munchkin. The small
portion of gasses vented in the barrel were vented out the sides of
the weapon and so also generated zero recoil. Gyrojets were cheaper to
make than traditional slugthrowers, since everything could be aluminum
and the barrel was the only machined piece. But the rounds have always
been extremely expensive and difficult to make, so maybe increase the
price to a factor of 20 rather than 10. Or give them a penalty to hit
due to difficulty in getting the larger rounds perfectly spin
stabilized (that is what killed the RL gyrojet, the last run of ammo
had imperfections in the nozzles and horrible accuracy). Extra
critical slots is justifiable, since it wouldn't be hard to say that
the rounds were physically less dense (maybe they are fin stablized
rather than spin stabilized) and therefore required more bays to hold
ammo.
A major reason that RL militaries dont use gyrojets is because they
have rockets and missles with targeting computers that would be
impossible to mount on the mini-rockets. Prior to the intro of
targeting computers, there was a plan to mount larger automatic
gyrojet weapons with the round stablized by a stick (think large
stainless steel bottle rocket) rather than by spin or fins. Which
while less accurate, the round was so cheap/easy to make that the idea
was to use them as short range, armor piercing, saturation artillery.
The original cluster bomb.
Ghostwriter
Cra...@gmail.com
wrote:
> The fact is that RL gyrojet weapons dont generate any amount of heat
> in the barrel, but zero heat would be major munchkin. The small
> portion of gasses vented in the barrel were vented out the sides of
> the weapon and so also generated zero recoil.
Sorry, I don't buy it. While that makes sense from a real world
perspective, that should also apply to LRMs, SRMs, and MRMs. Drawing
from real life rocket launcher designs, those could be cold launched
or fired from well-vented tubes that build of negligible heat. Yet in
BT, rockets generate heat. The gyrojet should not be exempt on
battlemechs.
> A major reason that RL militaries dont use gyrojets is because they
> have rockets and missles with targeting computers that would be
> impossible to mount on the mini-rockets.
Actually, three major reasons were the high price of the ammo, low
damage at point blank range (to the point you could plug a gyrojet at
the barrel with a finger and not lose the finger), and horrible
accuracy.
RL militaries were also put off by:
1) The smoke trail leading back to the shooter, giving away his
position
2) The low reliability of the mechanical design of the gyrojet weapons
3) Poor quality of all ammo made in humid, hot environments
Those might've been solvable, but they didn't leave a warm-n-fuzzy
impression
> Which
> while less accurate, the round was so cheap/easy to make that the idea
> was to use them as short range, armor piercing, saturation artillery.
> The original cluster bomb.
No, just a reproduction of a the Katyusha and similar saturation
bombardment rockets.
Mike Miller