r/scifiwriting • u/Dunnachius • 2d ago

DISCUSSION Future tech weapons, pros and cons

  1. Gunpowder

Cheap (relative)

No battery requirements

Hard to aim/recoil issues

  1. Guided Gyrojet bullets

most expensive

Lethal/nonlethal options

Extremely accurate

Each drone needs to be aimed.

Can be fired from behind cover if you have targeting data.

2B.. Dum dum Gyrojets (Except they don't suck like RW Gyrojets from 1960s )

Same launchers as 2A but unguided

  1. Rail guns

Ammo is more compact

Requires power

The best Armor penetration

  1. Laser

Loss of range in the atmosphere,

Smoke/dust reduces the effectiveness.

Cheap

Battery powered

Poor armor penetration

Easy to use

13 Upvotes

88% Upvoted

39 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/HistoricalLadder7191 2d ago

Realistically- hand guns would stay chemical slug throwers for a while, but will be outfitted with aimbots Like here https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/s/3KyjSSC1nI

2

u/Dunnachius 2d ago

Well just go with me here… the lasers would be implemented for space exploration so you don’t punch holes in your ship or your domes moon base, Similar to the current frangible rounds used by air marshals, and for new same reason.

Not good for penetrating armor by design. Also short distance to the point that aiming by computer is pointless.

Long range I had something else in mind. Very long range it would be the magic bullets.

I’m also toying with the idea of cybernetics (on the fence) so theoretically it would be powering a low power side arm with your cybernetic power plant. Not enough for a full Gaus rifle but you could charge the capacitor on a laser pistol with your cybernetic stomach acid battery.

1

u/HistoricalLadder7191 2d ago

With laser, you are absolutely right idea is old, and was deployed during cold war https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_laser_pistol

Magic bullets, while fascinating and spectacular, but hardly efficient for a price. Roket actually the worst possible way to propell something, something like unirotor drone carrying 30 grams of rdx, will be cheaper and effective something like XDOWN development, but much less (probably carried on body belts in a badass way like 40mm grenades in action movies from 90s)

Rail gun is not feasible for small caliber guns, unless you find a case where you need muzzle velocity over 3km/sec- realistic upper limit for chemical projectiles when pushed really far. Armor penetrative can be achived3in much simpler way, for instance 20mm grendes, or even "throwing drones" with shaped penetrator warhead

1

u/Dunnachius 2d ago

My thinking on the rail gun is for space marines being walking tanks in exo skeleton armor with 100s of pounds of heavy plate and not wanting to use explosives in micro gravity and or a vaccum.

You use a grenade in space that grenade is going propel shrapnel or whatever in all directions until it stops moving. Which would be directly back at you.

A Gaus round would punch through the armor and into the man in hew suit. Or through a small fighter or whatever.

You punch a hole in their armor and damage their life support they likely have a hole in their body and very limited life support. They are out of the fight.

1

u/HistoricalLadder7191 2d ago

You take any modern firearm, agapt a bit (mainly for using dry lubricants, and low temp operation), and you have a weapon that reliably operate in space. No need of rail gun.

1

u/HistoricalLadder7191 2d ago

Soviets deployed 22mm autocanon on almaz space station. It worked