Small Arms

(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))

Hand-Held Weapons Available to Confederacy Personnel

Weapons within the original Confederacy are almost non-existent except for items in museums as the member races are opposed to violence. The humans, now that they have been recruited, have started to take existing Darjee equipment and turn it into weapons. Because of this approach weapons are not standardized, especially amongst the various militias. This can lead to problems with supply and maintenance on longer campaigns or where units are operating far from their bases.

Early Expedients

Before better weapons were developed, early ships and Marine formations used traditional Earth weapons: rifles, pistols, grenade launchers. These were rapidly shown to be inadequate against the Sa'arm except at very close range. Only the larger-caliber high-powered hunting rifles had the momentum to punch through the Sa'arm's natural armor, and they didn't have the range to do so from a safe distance. All of these expedients were dropped as soon as better weapons were developed using Confederacy technology.

Earth Extraction Standard Issue

Because actions during extraction are not supposed to be fatal to the participants, the weapons issued are usually of the non-lethal variety.

PS-1 Stinger Pistol

The Stinger Pistol is a small, easily-concealed weapon that resembles brass knuckles with a spike. Usually issued to advance teams scouting out an extraction location or covering known/suspected Earth First-type terrorists.

RS-1 Stinger Rifle

Larger and for psychological reasons designed to look very imposing is the RS-1 Stinger Rifle. It has a setting that allows the stinger field to hit wider fields and non-lethally bring down multiple targets. It is actually larger than the RLI-1, and takes a standard bayonet, which is frequently given a shine in order to increase the psychological impact.

Battlefield Standard Issue

RLI-1 Laser Rifle

The RLI-1 is standard issue to all Marines. Similar in appearance to the British SA-80 and the Demeter Militia's M61, it carries 30 rounds in the magazine. Uses one laser crystal per shot, each laser crystal is slightly larger than a standard 7.62 NATO round, but lighter in weight than a 5.56 NATO standard round (12mm/ diameter and 55mm overall and weigh 11.5gm/0.4 oz. Thirty rounds will weigh in at 12oz/345gm and tuck them in an double stack 30-round detachable box magazine (DBM -- ~415 gm / 0.915 lbs w/ 30-crystals. 100 crystal C-Mag -- 1380gm/~3 lbs). Includes mounts for K-2 bayonet and GL-8 grenade launcher.

RLA-10 Automatic Laser Rifle

The RLA-10 Automatic Laser Rifle has twice the power per round as the RLI-1, but is heavier. Utilized similar as the M240 Medium Machine Gun. Laser crystals (15mm x 69mm and weigh 0.8 oz/ 22.7 gm) can be belt-fed (100 crystal belt ~1380 gm) or use a 100-round drum magazine (C-Mag w/ 100 crystals -- 2725 gm / ~6 lbs). The Ironman 500 crystal backpack with feed chute weighs 15,890 grams (~16 Kilograms / ~35 lbs.) becomes available on one of the Colonies late in Timeline Year 4 and rapidly spreads thru the Sectors during Year 5.

RLA-20 Automatic Laser Rifle

The RLA-20 Automatic Laser Rifle is another incremental increase in firepower, each blast is double that of the RLA-10. Utilized as a Heavy Machine Gun. It is belt-fed and is preferably mounted on a tripod. Also mounted on turrets of the armored fighting vehicles and on the Corgi light scout vehicle. Can also be used as point defense on Navy vessels. (19mm x 87.5mm x 1.6 oz/45.5gm, 100 crystal belt 4550 gm / ~10 pounds)

GL-8 Grenade Launcher

The GL-8 Grenade Launcher is really a small hand-held mortar, it fires a variety of types of 40mm grenades including high-explosive, armor-piercing, ground marker and star parachute. It fits under the standard 'RLI-1', and in a pinch can take the NATO standard grenades used by the United States and Canadian military, although these are far less powerful than their Confederacy equivalent.

RAS-2 Sniper Rifle

The RAS-2 Sniper Rifle is a bolt-action rifle firing 7.62 standard NATO calibre round. Usually issued with DU rounds.

RAS-3 Sniper Rifle (Barrett)

The RAS-3 Sniper Rifle is a standard Barrett .50 calibre sniper rifle, firing DU rounds.

RH-5 Hand-Held Anti-Armor/Anti-Aircraft Rocket

The RH-5 Anti-Armor/Anti-Aircraft Rocket is an unguided rocket capable of punching through Sa'arm armor. Single-use, single shot weapon resembling the Panzerfaust, but with collapsible tube for easier carrying and tail fins for flight stabilization when fired in an atmosphere.

BH-7 Hand-Held Anti-Personnel Area Rocket

The BH-7 Anti-Personnel Rocket is a 'beehive' round ICM, or 'Improved Conventional Munitions'. Delivered direct-fire, by a launcher that looks and act's like an RPG-7. Sight the weapon in on the target area and designate the dispersal location. It blankets a hundred meter circle with tiny bomblets the size of marbles. The dispersal pattern is perfect; it'll turn any dickhead in sector into hamburger. It's also effective against light armor and any buildings that aren't any too solidly constructed. Beehive rounds can be deployed directly over friendly troops -- the bomblets generate a repulsion field upon detection of the material in standard chameleon battledress uniforms and redeploy outward using it.

MB-15 Concussion Hand Grenade

Small jewel with a big bag, it's about the shape as a standard Soviet RGD-5 fragmentation grenade, but slightly larger. In a confined space (underground, for example) it is capable of taking out Sa'arm. "MB" stands for Mills Bomb - although the historical Mills Bomb was a defensive fragmentation grenade, unlike the offensive MB-15.

MB-20 Fragmentation Hand Grenade

Designed for defensive use, the MB-20 has a lethal blast radius of 45 metres but can usually only be thrown 30 metres. It is intended to be used when the thrower and his fellow soldiers can hide behind protective cover. The fragmentation will easily take out advancing Sa'arm.

Colonial Small Arms

The various planetary militias used a wide array of small arms.&nbsp: The Womb's militia at Beerat, for example, was concerned with keeping Sa'arm out of their homes but also with not _destroying_ said homes at the same time.&nbsp: The Womb kept only one type of weapon in the residential corridors' ready-use lockers, a Barrett-derived .50-caliber elephant gun.&nbsp: The below list is taken from the standard equipment list used by the Demeter Militia:

M11

The Demeter Militia mortar sections were equipped with the M11, 120mm mortar capable of firing rocket assisted munitions out to a range of eight thousand metres. The M11 had a variety of ammunition available, including high explosive, anti-personnel, smoke, minelettes and chemical, though the chemical rounds had never been issued. The rounds could be fused for air burst, impact or delayed operation.

M61

The M61 is the assault rifle carried by the Demeter Militia. It is a bullpup design, gas driven personal defence weapon which fired combustible cased ammunition comprising a 3mm depleted uranium core with a 6.5mm jacketed sabot. The high burn cartridge propelled the round in such a manner that the sabot stayed attached to the flechette and on striking a 'soft' target the whole mass penetrated the body. If the target was 'hard', like the exoskeleton of the Sa'arm or was wearing body armour, then the sabot detached on impact with a minimal degradation to the flechette velocity. This allowed the DU penetrator to punch holes in most 'hard' targets whilst still giving a round that stopped 'soft' targets, solving one of the problems of earlier flechette ammunition.
The M61 mounted a thermal sight group which included an integral laser range finder. This provided information that allowed an offset aiming mark to be produced. The range finder was capable of pulse operations and so could double as a laser designator for laser guided munitions. The power supply built into the butt of the M61 could provide sufficient power for the sight group for twenty four hours of normal operation. The troopers were issued with a solar powered charging system that could be deployed, in defensive positions, to trickle charge the battery in the M61 indefinitely. The M61 was normally fitted with the M261 grenade launcher.

M71

A squad support weapon, the M71 was also in use and differed from the M61 mainly in having a longer heavier barrel, which gave extended range and being adapted to take linked belt ammunition. Some troopers had attempted to fit this to the M61 but had found that the weapon became unmanagable. The M71 couldn't be fitted with the M261 because of the weapons longer barrel. The basic sight group was the same as that fitted to the M61 but needed to have its firmware updated to match the support weapon.

M88

M88 plasma launcher was a man portable weapon with an effective range of two thousand meters. It was also capable of taking out hardened positions such as bunkers and had been used against buildings and bridges with some effect.

M211

M211 air defense system was a grav-sled mounted weapon system comprising a pair of quick fire lasers, a thermal sighting system and a fire control computer. Whilst effective if it could hit the target it was limited in its seeking and predictive capabilities and relied more on its operators than was considered optimum.

M261

The M261 grenade launcher was an underslung weapon designed to match the M61 assault rifle. It clipped under the front of the weapon and provided a three round pump action weapon firing 30mm grenades. The grenades were available in high explosive, anti-personnel and smoke variants. A riot control grenade was available but had never been issued to frontline troops. On connecting to the M61 an additional option became available within the sighting sub-group that allowed the laser sight to adjust for the 30mm grenades.

Discussion

[20140814]   Nuke Danger added this: "Note that, in all of the stories so far, the crystal "cartridge" is expended, so, short of being dropped into the recycle chute of a replicator, not rechargeable. The necessary materials are all there, the replicator just has to un-do the chemical reaction that the crystal used. Part of it is that the crystalline structure get consumed/disrupted as part of the firing process.
   The replicator restores order that firing consumed making disorder. The key is that replicators can re-charge things by re-arranging molecules and taking energy from its power source to deal with any rearranging.
  I'll grant that the above is more detailed than anything else we've seen about these cool toys." -nukie

[20140826] Lordship Mayhem (Gary Lying) admits to first posting the Swarm Wiki "Small Arms" page in May 2010 (Thank You!) and pointed out the following early this morning: "That sounds about what I was envisaging when I created the page - the RLI-1 as a sort of assault rifle, the RLA-10 as the equivalent to the BREN gun, German MG-42 or the modern SAW, and the RLA-20 as similar to a .50 cal. The initials stand for "Rifle, Laser, Infantry" and "Rifle, Laser, Automatic"

Confirming my assumptions re: the meaning of the nomenclature. --mdk

[20140826] Nuke Danger pointed out, also early this morning: "I think the "laser rifle" was first mentioned in Kevin's "Sunday Stroll"; I suspect we've been working to retcon what was mentioned there. -nukie"

I had forgotten that story (even tho I've probably read it at least three times), I looked it up to see how close we came. --mdk

Here's the original passage: "Oh shit," muttered the Corporal, "It's too far for the stinger." He dropped to one knee and dragged his rifle forward, his fingers automatically selecting single shot and ensuring that the safety was off. Without energising the sighting system he bought the weapon to his shoulder and using the old fashioned iron sights lined up on Teddy and stroked the trigger.
His pulsed laser rifle dumped the contents of it's power capsule into the focusing crystal and the immensely powerful monochromatic beam sliced into the soft, water based flesh that was Teddy Bainbridge. The rifle recycled but another shot wasn't needed as Teddy, a fair proportion of his body vaporised by the first strike, collapsed to the ground. -- "Sunday Stroll" by Duke of Ramus. Posting history asstr - 2007; SOL - 01/01/2008

Story Usage

A textual analysis of the story repository, current as of 9/2019 and performed on 2019-09-23 and using SS Lib ver 1.15.08 (9/21/2019) identified the following top ten usage counts for Rifle:

Maquis by starfiend 50 instances.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern by lordshipmayhem 33 instances.
THE Harem Tales 1 The Times They Are A Changing by Omachuck 28 instances.
Targets of Opportunity by Frostfyre 20 instances.
Islanders by Duke of Ramus 19 instances.
Chosen Frozen by lordshipmayhem 17 instances.
A Peril at Ishtar by Allan Joyal 15 instances.
Pickup Loop Hole by corsair 13 instances.
The Davidson Chronicles by Cat5 13 instances.
Tufts Family Anthology by Doc Tufferson 12 instances.