|
|
Post by albertkermin on Mar 25, 2017 11:16:54 GMT
First off- Hello! In case you can't tell, I'm new here, and this is my first actual post. I've been playing the game for a while, and I finally created an account here. I guess I should mention a little about myself, as well. I'm a long time space geek and second-generation trekie. I also have a bachelor's degree in Electro-Optics, and I live on a tiny farm eight miles outside of nowhere, so lasers and guns are something I have a fairly good understanding of (doesn't mean I'm always right, it just means that feel worse when I get something about them wrong  ). Anyway, to the point I created this thread for- I am convinced that, in game, guns- straight-up explosive-propelled-projectile-firers- should require a few more crew to operate. Why? For one thing, barrel fouling. Whenever an explosive goes off, it creates a lot of gas. It also creates a number of different residues, all of which have a love of sticking to whatever is around them. These residues can even be used forensically, determining the type (and in some cases, particular batch) of explosive used, and being in space wouldn't stop them from occurring. These residues also love to collect on the inside of gun barrels and firing mechanisms, creating a number of problems - potential misfires, jamming and loss of accuracy being the most significant. And no, being in space wouldn't help with this. What would help is getting into the mechanisms after Every. Single. Firing. (the exasperation here comes from personal experience) with a solvent-coated rag and soft metal brush. By hand. For another thing, explosive-based weapons are finicky. A railgun or coilgun, unless they are using specialized ammunition, is inert when stored. Not so with a traditional gun. Many "wet" navies have lost people (and even entire ships!) to malfunctions in handling and storing ammunition (and spacecraft, with as fragile as they are-I don't even want to think about it). The best way to keep safe? Have someone keeping a close eye on things. Which, again, requires enough people to be watching. This does not seem to be represented in game. For example, in the "orbital attack craft" design, a crew of two gunners and two cannon technicians keep watch over four separate guns. I believe it would be more reasonable to step that amount up to four techs and four gunners- one each per weapon. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 25, 2017 14:04:39 GMT
you really only need 1 or two gunners per a weapon (eg, 60mm cannons), the gunners don't aim they watch computers that do the fighting. As for techs, the ammo is stored in tanks and as far as I can tell already in the belts for when it needs to shoot, barrel fouling is not a problem, flush the barrel after an engament by plugging the barrel and filling it with noble gases, then pop the plug and all the fouling is sucked into space
|
|
|
|
Post by newageofpower on Mar 25, 2017 14:21:24 GMT
-snip-I believe it would be more reasonable to step that amount up to four techs and four gunners- one each per weapon. Gunlaying is handled by automated fire control computers - like with todays CIWS fire directors. A single "gunner" can oversee and direct dozens or more gun's of gunnery computers. A large warship may carry an extra 'gunner' or two. Given that we are using electrically driven guns, and not ones using mechanical blowback, it is feasible to design a system that minimizes particulate matter getting into the machinery. Gross barrel cleaning needs can occur between battles with use of automated robot. Modern mechanically driven automatic weapons (machineguns, mostly) can fire off thousands of rounds without failure or need for cleaning. Electrically driven systems are even more reliable, capable of magazine dumps without cleaning or maintenance. CoADE systems are likely to prove superior. Of course, I only use conventional guns on tiny disposable micro and minidrones myself... |
|
|
|
Post by dragonkid11 on Mar 25, 2017 15:56:00 GMT
One of main reason why conventional cannons on Earth required quite a lot of cleaning and maintaince is because of one thing.
Mother fucking nature.
Rain, wind, mud, sand, corrosion, rust and soot tend to screw with complicated machinary.
Space? Not so much.
Even the soot produced from gunfire would get mostly sucked out by the vacuum that is SPACEEEE and get mostly cleaned.
It still required maintaince of course, but compared to on Earth? Not so much.
|
|
|
|
Post by goduranus on Mar 25, 2017 16:29:05 GMT
"Bill, pass that ammo,
"Bob, crank us to the left, while I look through this scope.
"Valentina, quit slacking and get us some snacks."
|
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 25, 2017 17:04:40 GMT
"Bill, pass that ammo, "Bob, crank us to the left, while I look through this scope. "Valentina, quit slacking and get us some snacks." 1. Autoloader 2. auto-turret 3. coffee-robot |
|
|
|
Post by bdcarrillo on Mar 25, 2017 18:26:45 GMT
"Bill, pass that ammo, "Bob, crank us to the left, while I look through this scope. "Valentina, quit slacking and get us some snacks." Jeb, leave the snacks alone and pull the trigger! |
|
|
|
Post by albertkermin on Mar 26, 2017 0:41:29 GMT
"Bill, pass that ammo, "Bob, crank us to the left, while I look through this scope. "Valentina, quit slacking and get us some snacks." *runs out of the lab waving and yelling* "Jeb! My surface experiments are not targets!" As to the main point of this discussion- newageofpower- While a cleaning robot would be nice, if there's one thing I don't want to trust to a robot- it's cleaning. Robots are programmed. They don't double-check, they don't think "Hey, that widget looks a little dirty, better bring it in too." And if that widget is important- like part of your feed system, or the bolt itself- it being dirty is going to cause problems. While having an electrically driven loading system (and I'm assuming the use of an electric primer as well, to eliminate the firing pin and that whole mechanism)- would help, (although having the gas blow-back option for drones would make sense!) soot finds a way. I had to help my brother a few years ago disassemble the bolt of a bolt-action single shot rifle to clean combustion byproducts off the internal springs- which aren't supposed to be exposed to the explosion. Yes, modern machine guns-and the good old WW1 Vickers- can fire incredible volumes, a few thousand rounds in, you're going to notice a loss of accuracy as soot starts to clog the rifling. Not that this would matter in a space combat scenario. My thought isn't so much about barrel cleaning, as it is about cleaning the bolt, magazine, ammunition hoist- all of which are exposed to a small degree of fouling. Add to this, COADE guns are apparently caseless, so if anything goes wrong with the feed system- it's not a sealed brass container full of low explosive that got jammed somewhere, or thrown extra hard against something- it's at best a thin paper case, at worst a straight-up chunk of explosive. dragonkid11- I know. According to my third-hand knowledge of the chemistry involved, one of the biggest dangers on Earth isn't mud, wind and rain, but the fact that un-burnt smokeless powder (chemistry being the messy thing it is), when reacted with atmospheric humidity, turns into a number of nasty acids, that will strongly attack metals. Thankfully, this isn't a danger in space. However, my understanding is that the fouling is mostly laid down by the time the bullet exits the barrel, and therefore space would only slow the fouling somewhat. Enderminion- Sadly, flushing with noble gases is going to do nothing to any soot stuck to the barrel (or you can bet I'd be using that! .22s are a royal pain to clean normally). It's essentially smoke which has stuck to the metal, and if you've ever tried cleaning a dish that was used over a smoky canned heat source, you'll know it doesn't come off with anything short of steel wool. Also, your second comment made me think of the British use of Vickers guns in WWII. They served double duty as an automatic, explosive-powered kettles. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 26, 2017 4:05:10 GMT
very extremly high pressure noble gas, directed down the edge of the barrel, may or may not work. the loader is, I believe a railgun type thing, no moving-mechanical parts. also cordite and gunpowder are different beasts from RDX (Cyclonite) and HMX (Octogen)
|
|
|
|
Post by albertkermin on Mar 26, 2017 12:51:44 GMT
The loader is, I believe a railgun type thing, no moving-mechanical parts. also cordite and gunpowder are different beasts from RDX (Cyclonite) and HMX (Octogen) A large fraction of guns in COADE still use Nitrocellulose (smokeless powder). Also, you HAVE to have moving parts. The projectile and charge are physical items that have to be stuffed in the barrel, and correctly handled on the way there. |
|
|
|
Post by nerd1000 on Mar 26, 2017 14:33:26 GMT
The loader is, I believe a railgun type thing, no moving-mechanical parts. also cordite and gunpowder are different beasts from RDX (Cyclonite) and HMX (Octogen) A large fraction of guns in COADE still use Nitrocellulose (smokeless powder). Also, you HAVE to have moving parts. The projectile and charge are physical items that have to be stuffed in the barrel, and correctly handled on the way there. Guns in COADE are loaded like a real-life chaingun: the bolt is operated by an electric motor rather than tapping off some energy from each round (using blowback, gas piston or recoil) like most RL small arms. This has big benefits for lifespan: Modern military chainguns are able to fire tens of thousands of rounds without breakdown. The L94A1 chain gun used on some British vehicles has a mean lifespan between breakdowns of 50,000 rounds and in testing was able to fire a 10,000 round continuous burst without failing... twice. That said, I tend to think of COADE guns as disposable items: we often operate them so close to the limits of the materials they're made of that the (several thousand) rounds loaded into the magazine are probably the only ones that gun will ever fire. Once the magazine is empty the weapon is discarded and replaced, because the barrel and loader are worn out anyway. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 26, 2017 14:47:54 GMT
The loader is, I believe a railgun type thing, no moving-mechanical parts. also cordite and gunpowder are different beasts from RDX (Cyclonite) and HMX (Octogen) A large fraction of guns in COADE still use Nitrocellulose (smokeless powder). Also, you HAVE to have moving parts. The projectile and charge are physical items that have to be stuffed in the barrel, and correctly handled on the way there. a pair of rails in the ammo belts suck the bottom round up, pushing all the others because of the Lorentz force, when the top round reaches the top the rails are reversed and the remaining rounds stopped short of the breach, which closes by either another railgun or electric motors, the bullet is fired using electric curret, the breach opens, rinse repeat. EDIT: if your bullets don't have a counductor then they are semi-caseless with a plate of counductor on the back, after the bullet is fired and the breach opened the belt slides up and the disk leaves through the top, which also clears the ([very{very(very)}]rare) jams |
|
|
|
Post by demetrious on Mar 26, 2017 18:06:46 GMT
Another thing to keep in mind is that even on Earth, significant naval battles were very rare, (battleships only clashed with one another on a few occasions,) and most of the maintenance upkeep requirements were imposed by the elements (as mentioned upthread). Now multiply this by the travel times in space - easily two years, sometimes, if you remember the "Homecoming" mission - and you can see that engagements would be too infrequent to require fast turnaround times on cleaning (or even replacing) fouled or worn barrels.
The infrequency of battles, coupled with their significant consequences, both push spaceships towards the far end of a spectrum wet navy ships already experience - very highly trained crews. As the game's background documents mention, the crews are effectively skeleton crews, and for that to work every crewman has to be cross-trained in one or two other jobs, in case someone is killed in battle, or simply takes sick at a crucial time. (An extensive level of cross-training and proficiency is already the norm for modern nuclear submarine crews, in fact.) This means that the ship's gunners and techs are not alone when it comes to maintaining weapons systems; they can call on personnel from other departments with suitable training, and guide their efforts by serving as the ultimate authority/focusing on the trickiest bits. Likewise they'll have to get their hands dirty if the main air exchanger konks out and the atmos tech comes running into after berthing babbling in tongues and throwing toolkits at people.
|
|
|
|
Post by albertkermin on Mar 27, 2017 1:13:33 GMT
A large fraction of guns in COADE still use Nitrocellulose (smokeless powder). Also, you HAVE to have moving parts. The projectile and charge are physical items that have to be stuffed in the barrel, and correctly handled on the way there. a pair of rails in the ammo belts suck the bottom round up, pushing all the others because of the Lorentz force, when the top round reaches the top the rails are reversed and the remaining rounds stopped short of the breach, which closes by either another railgun or electric motors, the bullet is fired using electric curret, the breach opens, rinse repeat. EDIT: if your bullets don't have a counductor then they are semi-caseless with a plate of counductor on the back, after the bullet is fired and the breach opened the belt slides up and the disk leaves through the top, which also clears the ([very{very(very)}]rare) jams Using an electric current to move an electrically-fired explosive pellet away from a giant pile of explosives? Do I NEED to explain why that's a bad idea? demetrious- You have a point there. I had assumed that, with as advanced as these systems are, the gun systems would need a lot of training to run, and didn't think about the posibility of cross training. Railgun ammo isn't really dangerous untill fired, so I could imagine the gun techs "borrowing" the rail gun and laser crews to help when loading ammunition. nerd1000- that is something I hadn't really considered as well. Most of the guns I've been using have steel barrels because of the pressure resistance, and mounting on smaller ships. I don't use drones that much. However, there are a few factors in space that might increase the use of guns in space that COADE doesn't simulate- such as the fact that against fat, dumb, and non-manuvering targets (like instalations on the surface of a planet) weapon ranges are essentaly infininte (use carbon fiber as your projectile. In a day or so, once it cools off, it's almost invisible to infrared, and all but the strongest radar), and gun ammo is way cheaper. So if you're taking potshots at a city on Phobos from Lunar orbit- a gun might well be your best weapon. Also, when commerce raiding, a gun might be your best option for firing warning shots, simply because the ammo is cheaper. |
|
|
|
Post by Enderminion on Mar 27, 2017 1:38:34 GMT
I may have forgot about that bit albertkermin, but a lower amperage could be used in the loader. Boron is lighter and stronger then most steels in game |
|
).
