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View Full Version : desperate plea for info, fellow weapons geeks take note!



beachhead1973
2006-11-27, 05:31 PM
okay, i have a project i'm working on and it's a biggie

i am building a world, several worlds actually

so yeah, huge project

this is for a novel i am working on and potentially a future RPG

this is set in the far, far future, over 200 million years to be exact

the Great Reaving decimated humanity, our only hope was to lock ourselves in suspended animation in the great cryo-bunkers untill the earth was safe to live on again.

200 million years later, human nature took it's course and we found ourselves again at war.

the conflict quickly used up any large stores of preserved weapons and technology, forcing us to resort to the PITCs (Pre-fabricated Infrastructure Template Constructs) and whatever could be glaned from the much degraded computer cores.

we now find ourselves in the fourth age, the age of the wolf; The WolfTime. and the world has changed. there are no more super powers after four-hundred some-odd years of intermitant conflict after the age of war. the armies of today find themselves using widely ecclectic equipment. a pistol designed in the civil war could find itself riding into battle on the hip of a soldier in powered armour, himself riding in a halftrack of german WWII vintage design.

and there in lies my problem. i like to have detailed info available about whatever i am using in a story so that i can use it realistically. mostly i am well equipped for this. however i almost completely lack information in two vital areas;

namely tank guns and naval armament. i need anything in the field or on the drawing board between 1914 and 2006, excluding missiles, no shortage of info there. i need deatiled performance info and specs on the weapons and their ammunition.

if anyone can suggest a good website or book(s) which i could track down i would be much obliged.

if you have a holy grail you are trying to track down i may be able to help some in return.

sigurd
2006-11-28, 12:14 PM
Depending on how detailed you want, you might be able to get by with role playing support material.

Look at a game called twilight2000 or check the modern games to see if there is a system for you to internalize. Then find bits of reality to hang the system on to give you verisimilitude.

Sigurd

Ganimeide Anamon
2006-12-07, 05:59 PM
Encyclopedia of Armaments: A complete guide to WWII weapons. It is relativity comprehensive, but you would have to do all of the conversion into a game system.

Also, anything by Jane is a wonderful source. Jane's books are actually government published and backed librams of arms.

StickMan
2006-12-07, 11:16 PM
I hate to be a book idea basher, I write a little my self, but if you have powered armor, but have a gun thats model is dating back to the civil war there is somthing wrong. I'm only a freshmen history major right now but I take a lot of focus to weapons and why the are the way they were.
A gun circa civil war would be made the way it was because of tecnology that could not produce a better weapon. Honestly know nothing about guns I could make a gun that is better that the guns of the civil war with modern equipment. Also if you have any kind of modern body armor on a gun from that area would be usless. They do not have the power to go through armor.
I'm sorry if this was rude and plz feel free to call me a jerk, but when I write I'll like to make sure every thing works so I'm just trying to help.

ShneekeyTheLost
2006-12-08, 02:14 AM
I hate to be a book idea basher, I write a little my self, but if you have powered armor, but have a gun thats model is dating back to the civil war there is somthing wrong. I'm only a freshmen history major right now but I take a lot of focus to weapons and why the are the way they were.
A gun circa civil war would be made the way it was because of tecnology that could not produce a better weapon. Honestly know nothing about guns I could make a gun that is better that the guns of the civil war with modern equipment. Also if you have any kind of modern body armor on a gun from that area would be usless. They do not have the power to go through armor.
I'm sorry if this was rude and plz feel free to call me a jerk, but when I write I'll like to make sure every thing works so I'm just trying to help.


the conflict quickly used up any large stores of preserved weapons and technology, forcing us to resort to the PITCs (Pre-fabricated Infrastructure Template Constructs) and whatever could be glaned from the much degraded computer cores.

They didn't make either the gun or the armor which could effectively ignore it. Both were scavenged. People use what they can get their paws on.

A Civil War era gun would be handy, because not everyone would be wearing Powered Armor, and it's much easier to make the ammo for it than, say, for a modern Desert Eagle .50 cal. pistol. The Civil War era gun would require, at most, a bullet mold, raw lead, and a campfire. Plus the gunpowder, of course. The Desert Eagle, on the other hand, uses Nitro Powder, and delicately tooled ammo, which is not able to be produced out of anything short of a modern-day lab (chemistry lab for the Nitro powder and machine shop with tolerances of .001 cm). Furthermore, the civil war era gun has fewer moving parts to potentially jam, and is generally easier to a) unjam, and b) get or make replacement parts for.

Energy weapons likewise. If you have a way of recharging it (solar powered battery recharger or somesuch), then it becomes feasable. Otherwise, in a few shots, it's just a club (treat as a Wand? x charges and it's worthless).

As far as military crew-operated weapons, I second the Jane's books. It's got detailed tech specs on every weapon ever invente dby man.

Oh, and why exclude rockets? They were, after all, the first gunpowder weapon ever invented, created by the Chineese around the time Abraham was getting a spiritual revelation. They do damage, sure, but they're one-shot deals, and probably expensive. Although you wouldn't be able to launch an ICBM without a computer station to interface with the onboard computer with the proper security protocalls.

beachhead1973
2006-12-08, 09:11 AM
I hate to be a book idea basher, I write a little my self, but if you have powered armor, but have a gun thats model is dating back to the civil war there is somthing wrong. I'm only a freshmen history major right now but I take a lot of focus to weapons and why the are the way they were.
A gun circa civil war would be made the way it was because of tecnology that could not produce a better weapon. Honestly know nothing about guns I could make a gun that is better that the guns of the civil war with modern equipment. Also if you have any kind of modern body armor on a gun from that area would be usless. They do not have the power to go through armor.
I'm sorry if this was rude and plz feel free to call me a jerk, but when I write I'll like to make sure every thing works so I'm just trying to help.


it's okay, the idea there isn't fully stated there.

but it's the other way around from how some people may be imagining it.

anything really high tech is most likely scavenged. anything really old is probably a new build with modern technologieas and techniques to an design.

so we have lets say a Walker Dragoon as our civil war handgun. it probably been made with some modern light-weight/high strength materials to prevent occasional explosions of the weapon as used to happen, but it would be a cartridge firer. probably something like .444 marlin or 45-60 .45-60 being the direct cartridge conversion of the old dragoon's load (.45 cal bullet backed by 60 grains of powder.)

kanachi
2006-12-08, 09:44 AM
I like the idea of the world your crafting here, but i think you have to respect that people don’t simply scavenge items... if you found something and understand how to use its simple logic to speculate that some would probably attempt to reverse engineer it. this in itself could be interesting, if a person only has steam technology and yet comes across a futuristic armour they may construct some wild and exotic in an attempt to replicate it.

I would speculate that most the weapons in your world would infact be items crafted in such a way and finding a true original specimen would be something special.

just my initial thoughts anyway :)

beachhead1973
2006-12-09, 08:34 AM
by anything 'really' high-tech i mean 'really' high-tech stuff like laser rifles, powered armour, force field projectors, plasma weapons, sneak suits. the really sci-fi stuff.

everywhere i talk about this people assume there are folks living in the dark ages. if there are, they choose to live that way, like the Tribal Nations. after 400 years the lowest tech base your going to see is early 1940s.

and even then they have the advantage of recorded history and industrial records to show thm what not to do. but i suppose people DID use alot of steam engines back then. and steam locomotivea are very popular mode of travel

MandibleBones
2006-12-09, 09:18 AM
http://www.af.mil/factsheets/ : Fact sheets for every U.S. Air Force aircraft currently in operation.

http://www.navy.mil/navydata/our_ships.asp : Fact sheets for everything the U.S. Navy has to offer - past and present, anyway.

http://www.army.mil/fact_files_site/ : U.S. Army fact files site

Hope that helps :)

Triaxx
2006-12-10, 02:34 PM
Don't forget the wealth of resources that is offered by Wikipedia. If they don't have the information on the page, most of them have links to pages that might.