NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: These are PMT because of the materials involved, unless you want to spring a lot of extra money for MT special forces.
http://tinypic.com/9056c0.gif
Caliber: Pistol ammo, rifle ammo up to .30 caliber variants, shotgun gauges up to 12
Action: Advanced ignition direct blowback
Weight: 4.1kg w/o barrel or ammo
Barrel Length: Variable from 250mm (pistol ammo with body integral silencer) to 600mm (LMG and sniper variants)
Firing Modes: Safe, Semi-Automatic, 2-shot burst, Full Auto (varaible cyclic rate)
Magazine Capacity: magazine dependent, accepts most standard designs and belts
Maximum Effective Range: ammo dependent
Attachments: 5 standard picatinny rail points
Price per unit: $1120
~~~~~
Time to enter a building..... Your commander orders you to switch your gun over to twelve gauge and you gladly oblige. After removing the magazine and pulling a release lever, you slip the 5.56mm NATO barrel out of the gun and put it away in your pack, then take out the twelve gauge barrel and push it in. The gun clicks and clanks as its internal parts take on new stances and ratios, just like a turning key the new barrel pushes pins and cams, adjusting the gun to fire a totally different ammo. The firing mode selector window changes its little pictures to inform you that this ammo doesn't allow full auto fire. The auto-shotguns the enemy uses have 10 round double-stack magazines, but the gun doesn't care. You pull a small lever and the clamp area opens up, then closes once you put the magazine in all the way and press the release button. If you should find a saiga magazine lying around, you can repeat the process to adjust for the more narrow magazine, until then you can keep this setting. You cock the gun and it seats the first shell in the barrel. Since this is using a soft-walled round (paper), its important to note the difference in mechanisms for hard-walled (brass) cartridges. The gun uses an extremely inexpensive straight blowback system with advanced ignition that detonates the primer as the entire cartridge is pushed into the chamber. The costs offset in making it a very easily machined straight blowback design are partially used to pay for the advanced materials that go into making the gun tough, like the near frictionless carbon coating that removes the need for oil, the corrosion proof alloys, and the polymer shell that camouflages the gun and protects it from things normal guns would snap under. For all the looseness of tolerances in the gun, it shoots dead on thanks to the barrel being fixed in place and the sights being automatically rezeroed. The standard sights are simple iron-sights mounted on top of the carrying handle, although standard rails are included to allow more flexibility in selecting visual aids; a favorite being a digital scope mounted seperate from the iron-sights. The shoulder stock is padded and highly adjustable to individual tastes. The ejection can be switched from right to left by a simple toggle switch. For most standard box magazines, ammunition may be added to the magazine while it is still in the gun via stripper clips or as individual cartridges. An interesting feature of the full auto mode is it is specially timed for each caliber to cycle at the exact rate that eliminates upward recoil, similar to the Ultimax 100 LMG. As an LMG it works admirably, a different barrel is needed to adapt to a discarding chain. Most caliber barrels come with optional silencers, rifle-grenade cups, and side bayonet lugs (so the bayonet doesn't interfere with underbarrel grenade launchers and also slips between ribs more easily). You wonder why you just thought of all these things; you've got a building to clear and your rifle is more than capable of doing its job, giving you an edge when you do yours...

Bump

good idea

Interesting idea, but I was wondering how you'd deal with these instances:

1.) Can you deal with different firing mechanisms, such as rimfire/centerfire or even electronic ignition caseless ammunition?

2.) How many barrels is a soldier going to carry? I can't imagine hauling around fifteen different systems. One or two, cool, but if they're carrying the gamut, soldiers will *bitch* about this and not take their gear on long hauls.

3.) What about tolerances? You are restricted by the type of ammunition you wish to fire. If you wish a true sniper rifle, you're going to need match grade parts to work correctly, while even Designated Marksman's Rifles require more control than straight blowback. However, if you have to have everything match, you're going to crank the cost of the system up.

4.) Weight. If it can handle all these styles of weapons, complete with varying firing systems, different rifling (or lack thereof), different calibers, and different necking... all without breaking, how much is this going to weigh in at? (4kg seems a little... light.) In a related issue, how about sheer bulk, from having to make room for the changes.

5.) Idiot proofing. Will those cams and rods work after this gun takes its first GI mudbath? How will the varying firing rates work? How will they work AFTER said dunking?

1) No, anything with a different firing pin location is out, as is caseless. It will only fire cased bullets with the primer on the back center and some sort of extraction groove or protruding base. In theory an electrically enhanced firing pin could be installed, but that would be an aftermarket part because we view such things as asking for trouble (tiny electronic components deep inside a gun = bad).

2) I see two or three at most; 1 for their nation's ammo, 1 to use captured enemy ammo, and possibly 1 specialized barrel. The idea is to give the soldier the ability to use captured ammo without having to switch or disgard weapons.

3) (Being post-modern) The parts are of high quality (like H&K) although the gun doesn't profess to being able to act as a marksman's weapon. The bullet does detach from the case very cleanly though, so some of a high grade cartridge's benefits are kept.

4) Its firing system stays the same IE it is always direct blowback advanced ignition, it is merely the timing and distance traveled that changes. Rifling, caliber, and necking are all functions of the barrel and basically, if a gun designed to fire a certain ammo can't fire a similar ammo without modification, this one can't either. It is 4.1kg without the barrel or ammo, which is already heavier than some assault rifles when loaded. It is pretty ergonomic under most circumstances, although a common complaint is some BMG boxes are uncomfortable since it is a bullpup design.

5) Extremely idiot proof; the interior surfaces are almost all coated with near frictionless carbon, which can shrug away caked mud (or dried superglue) with a touch. Unless you pour gravel into every hole, the internal mechanisms should be fine. The springs that control firing rate (and all the other springs) are housed in sealed tubes, unsprung except for the few that are compressed in cocking (if uncocked, they're fine). Even the little window that displays available firing modes is sealed from the outside (and the glass is actually a transparent ceramic). The gun is held together by pushpins that don't require tools to operate, and the whole thing can be cleaned with almost anything on hand. An RIW-5 can be thrown away in a muddy creek in a rainforest and be recovered decades later, to be repaired with a garden hose. Nothing on it is any more technically delicate than an adjustable wrench.

To get a gun to fire different sized rounds, surely you would need to replace the entire mechanism rather than just the barrel? Or is this not so. I am aware of guns which can be converted from rifles to LMGs to carbines etc in the field (indeed I RP having one for my forces) but these guns only requre a change in barrel length, not a change in calibre. I dont know an awful lot about guns, but how can the ignition chambre (or whatever it's called) be the same size for several different sized rounds?

In this, the mechanism reorients itself depending upon the size of the barrel. Imagine the chamber as a shelf and the mechanism as a forklift. The chamber is part of the barrel and is a different size and shape for different types of ammunition.

So in essence you're selling people an expensive rifle casing which they can open and replace the mechanisms?

Something about this just doens't jive with me - if the thing can take different caliber rounds, then the firing chamber and firing pin and hammer would need to be able to smoothly change radius to keep pressure up. I just don't see a system like this happening.

Also, it's way to small to be a blowback. The mechanism just wouldn't fit in a bullpup design.

Praetonia: No, I'm selling a rifle that people can change the mechanisms of without opening.

The Candrian Empire: The chamber is part of the barrel and is suited to the type of ammo the barrel is made for. Unlike normal designs that fire the bullet once the bolt is firmly pressing the cartridge in the chamber and has stopped moving, advanced detonation hits the primer as the bolt is moving into place, pushing the cartridge into the chamber even as it is detonating; effectively, the bolt is experiencing the beginnings of recoil before the bullet has detached, giving it a head start on maintaining pressure when it escapes the casing. The spring and bolt weights (when applicable) are held in front of the bolt and pull it forward rather than there being a set of springs behind it pushing.

Hmm... that sounds kind of dangerous, detonating the cartridge before it's seated. What about leaking gasses blasting the user, detonating other rounds with their heat, or the bullet itself firing off because the cartridge wasn't seated in alignment yet?

(No, I'm not trying to rag on you. This is an interesting idea (I do some caliber swapping, but nothing to this extreme) and I want to help you think through the kinks and "uh-oh"s.)

The detonation occurs as the cartridge is being seated; once detonation is far enough along to be releasing gasses outside the case, the cartridge is already in the normal place a cartridge would be.

(I understand your concern, but the advanced detonation system has been used in the past without that complaint.)

So let me ask you this. Say a soldier ran out of ammo on the battle field, and he has your weapon. There's a dead eneomy near by, now would he stop in the mist to grab that gun, measure the caliber of the runds the enemy is using and then put in the correct barrel/chamber system.(Side note- That process would take a bit of since you need to make sure everything is secure. But then pressure issues come in as enemy gun positions begin opening up on your squad.) So what's the point of risking your life in the middle of a battle to change barrels/chambers when you can just pick up the enemies weapon an use it? The average Infantry man would not wantto STOP in the middle of a battle to do a switch-a-roo so that he can use the enemies ammo in his gun.

It's a nice concept but it's just not pratical since it wouldn't get used out on the battle field.

Also you do realize not all rounds are the length? psst they used pistol bullets in WWII guns not the guns of today buddy.

Now the way I would do things is simple...

If you know the caliber of the enemys round then just make a modifided verson of one of your rifles to shoot that size of a round. That's what the USA did, they have some rifle(forgot the model) that fires the same caliber rounds as from a AK-47.

You must excuse any errors i've made I've stayed up wa way way WAY too late...hell I thought the letters I had typed started to move across the screen up and down.


:P The Littlehandland NU-1 design which I use seems by far seperior to this weapon.

Or you could just look online and decided that your nation buys the MGI QCb Upper with interchangeable magwells. It uses the basic M16 operaitng system, but has two internal clamps that hold different barrels in place by operating two levers on the underside of the weapons forearm. the interchangeable magwell system is currenlty in testing, but should be able to accommodate a wide variety of calibers. The system has already been built and makes a lot more sense than the system described in this thread. By changing the magwell piece, the bolt (which is very small and lightweight), and the barrel you have changed the weapons capabilites completely.

The company also plans to make the forearm out of carbon fiber and they offer Barrels wrapped in carbon fiber, shaving about a pound off barrel weight and dissipating heat 4 - 8 times faster than typical steel barrels. So with the carbon fiber barrels and forearm, the system weighs about 6 to 7 pounds, with each additional barrel, bolt, and magwell piece weighing in at about 1.2 pounds. Another big plus is that with the barrel removed, and upper detached, you can have an entire weapon system with 4 different configurations to fit in a medium to large briefcase. While the system itself is lightweight, once you start adding scopes, night vision monoculars, vertical foregrips, and other accessories it rapidly gains in weight.

And the whole bit about your weapon operating in direct blowback advanced ignition still deosnt make sense your wepaon seems more likely to explode than fire a shell, even with your further explanation.

MGI QCB Upper (http://www.mgimilitary.com/qcb.htm)

MGI Interchangeable Lower (http://www.mgimilitary.com/Lower_Receiver_Mult_Mag_Wells.htm)

More about the system on AR15.com (http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=7&f=22&t=258692)

Carbon Fiber/ Stainless Steel Rifle Barrels (http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=7&f=22&t=262783)

Nano soft: What if your soldiers aren't trained on the enemy weapon and have to fidget trying to determine where everything is on it? If you don't know what caliber ammo the enemy is using, you need a new intelligence gathering force. Since you should know the enemy caliber in advance, you should send your troops in with a spare barrel in that caliber.

You seem to get the idea of the battlefield confused with the general state of the war. I don't expect troops to sprint out and grab discarded weapons, but if they happen to come accross a cave full of ammo, wouldn't it be nice to use that instead of bringing more truckloads of your own ammo up?

The internal mechanism changes deal with this via different timing, adjustments of how far the bolt travels, etc.

I find it far simpler to hand out spare barrels for one rifle than issuing an entirely new rifle.

Feindseligkeit: I think its simpler to change one piece (the barrel) and have the rest of the gun automatically adjust than to have to take the gun apart. Do you honestly see a soldier being able to strip the weapon down enough to replace the bolt and the magwell, then replace the barrel, in a reasonable amount of time? With this, the soldier replaces the barrel, then resizes the magazine well with a lever, the entire process not requiring tools.

It is possible for this to use different barrel materials (in fact I'm looking into ceramics, and possibly near frictionless carbon linings [im not sure how having much less friction would effect rifling, although I know the barrels would wear out much less quickly and be easier to clean]) I believe that carrying an extra barrel is lighter than carrying an extra barrel, bolt, and magwell.

These storefronts aren't the place to advertise other storefronts, for one thing :). Its like putting up a sign for Burger King in a McDonalds...

The advanced ignition blowback mechanism exists in real life and works fine..... Near frictionless carbon surfaces are completely different from carbon deposits (like how diamonds and graphite are different); near frictionless carbon surfaces are (to my knowledge, and they are still brand new in MT) the most slippery solid surfaces in existance.

First of all, I wasn't advertising for his storefront - he sells normal rifles and armor, like every godforsaken storefront on this forum. But I'll edit my post and remove the reference. I don't plan on selling anything, the market is already covered by more than 40 different people, its just that I have more information about it if people are interested in whats going on today.

Secondly, the interchangeable magwell portion is only for magazines with a huge size difference. 5.56 x 45mm, 6.8 x 43mm, 6.5mm grendel, .50 AE, .458 Socom, and a few other calibers have the same magwell size. As for chaning the bolt, it isn't a difficult process and soldiers are already used to stripping down their rifles quickly for cleaning.

I'll accept the carbon surfaces idea, but your rifle seems incredibly underpiced for its capabilites. Current prices for an M4 Carbine wholesale(from what I remember) are $600-700, and they've been making rifles almost exactly like it for 40 years. Add in the cost of manufacturing the frictionless surfaces in the gun, all the moving parts necessary for it to adjust for different ammunition, and the price should be a lot higher. You say making it blowback accounts for some of the cost reduction, but $1120 is a bit low for such a complicated system.

And since it is now 3:51 AM and I really should not attempt thought at this hour, I'm going to logoff and go to bed, all of this will probably seem to be insane rambling when I look at this at a decent hour.

The price is only because this is post-modern tech. If you wanted to buy something like this today, assuming anyone even bothered to try to start a business capable of working with all these materials, each gun would probably cost $5k+ just so they could cover their production cost. 20 or 30 years from now, stuff like this should be commonplace.

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Quite interesting... I don't suppose you play Shadowrun, do you? Or is this completely original?

This is original, although I have heard of shadowrun and have run my own cyberpunk campaign in the past.

OOC: Just wondering. There's a similar concept therein, tho rather a bit more extreme...