Future Weapons: ?Wait a minute, this is the future. Where are all the phaser guns?? ? Simon Phoenix

[Jack Action]

I was aware of them, but the fact that they fell far short of catching on shows that they weren't overly successful. Although I may of course be wrong on that count.

Well yeah, they didn't really do anything regular guns didn't already do better, aside from having a flatter trajectory. Those tiny rockets having really fragile nozzles and the fact that it would've been cheaper to use solid gold bullets didn't help much either.

 

[The Heik]

Star Wars: Blasters in Star Wars turn out to be as effective as the projectile firearms we use, not even today, but at the time the film was made. They are actually less effective because every weapon fires the equivalent of tracer ammunition and tracers point both ways. Princess Leia is shown getting shot in the shoulder and it is only a minor injury. Lightsabers are pretty cool but, since Jedi seem to be awful at multi-tasking, a fully automatic weapon or area of effect is all you need. It is terribly convenient that nobody uses those in Star Wars. Don't even get me started on Stormtrooper armor, though I once had an idea of re-writing Star Wars and making the white Stormtrooper armor refractive so only a direct hit in a black area would hurt them.

Yep, pretty much all the tech from Star Wars fall into the categories of Cool, but Inefficient and [link"http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AwesomeButImpractical"]Awesome but Impractical[/link]. Now granted Star Wars is closer to Science Fantasy that regular old Science Fiction so the tech's not designed on actual scientific principles, but seriously, did no one think about any of the tech in this franchise!? A Jedi is supposed to be a psychic space knight with literally superhuman abilities, and yet a single squad of Vietnam-era US army grunts could kick their ass through simple application of concentrated fire.

Heck there's even an in canon lampshade of the whole mess that is Star Wars tech. Roughly paraphrased, since blaster bolts and lightsabers and such go straight through in universe armor, most people stopped wearing it because all it effectively did was make them a easy target for anyone who used such weapons. This meant that projectile weapons (called slugthrowers) suddenly became a viable weapon again because hot lead never lost effectiveness versus unprotected flesh. Add to this the facts that blasters and other high tech weapons and equipment tend to falter in adverse weather conditions, and that slugthrowers could be silenced and were generally cheaper to buy, build and maintain, suddenly the slugthrower becomes the epitome of Boring, but Practical.

So yeah, even the Star Wars canon knows its tech is stupid.

But I digress.

Lets talk about some cool Sci-Fi weapons, and I personally can't think of a better example than the Empire from the Ashes book series by David Weber, so let's sound off in an ascending order of firepower.

First up is the grav gun. It uses small gravity-altering fields to fire a 10mm dart at supersonic speeds, which explodes on entering the target. To the 5th Empire, it's a simple backup sidearm. To anyone who doesn't have the 5th Empire's biotechnic enhancement capabilities, it's a two-handed, shoulder-slung heavy weapon. In other words, the people in this universe use bolters as pistols (and no not bolt pistols, these things are full auto)

"But TheHeik" you cry "that's just a fancy version of a regular gun! Where's my space laser?"

Well fear not my friend, next up is the energy gun. The mainstay infantry firearm on the 5th Empire, this weapon shoots a near invisible wave of energy (think the ripples you see above hot asphalt) that literally shreds its targets on impact. Just one of these (with a couple of grav guns for support and flavour) managed to rip apart a heavily fortified base in the span of a few seconds and the dudes they were firing it at had no clue what was going on. To those poor schmucks, everything just exploded and they got splattered all over the rubble as a garnish. And not even the 5th Empire's own armor can take that hit from an energy for more than a fraction of a second. That's how powerful it is.

But even an energy gun has been done before, and I think someone with such discerning tastes as yours would prefer something more.......exotic

Thus, I give you the Warp Gun, my personal vote for "scariest handheld Sci-fi gun ever". To explain how this gun works, I first have to set up a little context. In the EftA universe there's a dimension called hyperspace, a place containing an effectively infinite amount of pure energy, which gets used not only as a power source but also as one of the methods for FTL. The warp gun weaponizes this dimension, and it doesn't simply fire it out at the enemy. Oh no, this weapon is far more surgical. The Warp gun projects a field which opens up a portal to hyperspace for the merest fraction of a second, effectively teleporting everything within the target field to hyperspace, where they are instantaneously ripped apart/blown up on a subatomic level.

And the scariest thing about this gun? There is effectively no defence against it. You can't dodge it, you can't hide from it behind cover, armor won't stop it, and it the field can be dialed in size to destroy an entire tank or just zap the driver and leave only his hands wrapped around the controls. Even in universe, the only countermeasure against it requires that the other side put up a blanket jamming field, effectively blinding their own side and shutting off all of their communications in a fairly large area, all just to stop just one gun. You know how it's said that the sniper rifle is one of the most cost effective weapons out there because it can stop entire platoons in their tracks? Well the warp gun takes that concept and dials it up to 11.

So have I sufficiently scared you shitless? Well hold on to your britches, because now it's time to move onto capital ship weaponry.

Now the Imperium's ships are not what you'd call "conventional". In fact, you'd be hard pressed to call them "ships", as the Imperium's standard for spacetravel is a man-made planetoid about the size of Earth's moon. As such their guns are both large and numerous, so lets do a rough overview of their main weapons, again in ascending order of the Pant Browning Effect.

First up are the planetoid's beam weapons. Now these beams aren't your usual directed energy weapon, as they induce a subatomic reaction in anything they hit, turning their targets' own mass into an explosion. Think the Dr Device from Ender's Game, minus the potential backfire. This is the 5th Empire's knife-fighting weapon (and yes, ships the size of planets can have a knife-fighting range), and it only gets used when things get very close and personal.

The mainstay weapon of a planetoid is the Hyper Missile. These missiles use hyperspace as a loophole around the lightspeed barrier, traveling to their destination in a fraction of the time it would take in real space. This allows the 5th Empire to hit targets accurately from a long distance. Already a pretty scary weapon, but just wait until you hear what their payload is

First is the Antimatter warhead, which does the old matter-antimatter explosive romance to form an earth-shattering kaboom. But that's the AK47 of Hyper Missiles, cheap and numerous, but not the cream of the crop in terms of firepower. For the real heavy hit, you want the gravitic warhead, which creates a temproary black hole that implodes everything in it's area of a effect. And like the Warp gun, there really isn't a defence against it. You either need to be far enough away that it doesn't effect you, or have enough mass that whatever part of your shipped that got ripped off doesn't wreck you out right. and these get fired in salvos. Think of a hundred of those going off at once, and you have the thing that God has nightmares about.

So we have bomb-maker lasers and FTL black holes missiles. What could be worse than that? Well as a special we have a weapon that's not a weapon, namely the Enchanach Drive. Now I mentioned before that the EftA universe has more than one method of FTL. Hyperspace is the speedy straight line approach going straight to one's destination with no detours. The second method is by using the Enchanach Drive, which while slower, allows for an active pathing while in FTL. This is accomplished by turning the ship into a white hole (aka wormhole), which requires that the ship TEMPORARILY ACTIVATE A BLACK HOLE ON THEMSELVES. This effectively squeezes the ship from one location to another in a series of rapid "mini jumps". The actual teleporting occurs only over the span of a few femtoseconds, which means that the ship can travel inside of a system with no effects on the system. The activation of the Enchanach drive however takes microseconds, which is just long enough for the ship to wreak havoc on matter around it.

"But how is this a weapon?" you ask. Well, just a couple of Enchanach drives activating at once can completely destabilize a star, causing it to go supernova and WIPE OUT THE SOLAR SYSTEM. That right, this universe's most powerful weapon is technically an engine.

TL;DR: THE EMPIRE FROM THE ASHES UNIVERSE IS FUCKING TERRIFYING

 

[Therumancer]

I have to run I can answer a few of this later if I remember as I think a couple more can be explained. One last one quickly is the "Starship Troopers" movies are nothing like the books, in the book they use Massively powerful powered armor, and the odds are entirely different (one trooper can easily take out hundreds of bugs... but there are lots and lots of them, not to mention the bugs have servant races if I remember).

On that note, a lot of people think the Starship Troopers movie is just an unfaithful adaptation, but it's actually kind of a deliberate insult to Robert Heinlein.

Starship Troopers was written as a response to anti-nuclear activists in the wake of the second world war. It's this big, bombastic ideological defense of American military power and superior technology and the right of the USA to defend itself from the faceless, conformist 'red menace' by whatever means necessary.

Paul Verhoeven, the director of the movie, spent a chunk of his childhood in the Netherlands under German occupation during world war 2. His neighbourhood was hit by Allied strategic bombing and a lot of his neighbors were killed. So it kind of makes sense that his film is a deliberate mockery of the ideals presented in the source material.

Spoiler

Actually, the most gratutious thing is the character of Carl. Carl is a pretty minor character in the book and actually dies, but there's a theory that he's an author insert for Heinlein (in the books, he's a military R&D guy, which is what Heinlein did during the war). In the film, Carl is aiming to get into R&D but actually becomes an intelligence officer.. and this is just just my interpretation, but he seems to have been deliberately set up as a human counterpart to the brainbug. They both have the same goal - learning about the enemy, they both manipulate events from behind the scenes and both sacrifice the lives of those under their command, seemingly without remorse, to achieve the goal. They also both have psychic powers. Symbolism!

So yeah.. I'm pretty sure Paul Verhoeven was calling out a dead science fiction author by suggesting that ideologically he was closer to the thing he hated than he would like to admit.

Sorry, I kind of love that movie.[/quote]

Well, I was merely talking about the technology involved more than the point of the books, and how someone mentioned that the level of technology and order of battle in the movie(s) seemed stupid. I think a lot of it was simply that they wanted to show the actors, and it was a lot more "tense" and easier on the FX budget the way they did it, than if they had tried to accurately portray the suits from the book.

That said I mention book(s) above because one thing you need to understand is that a lot of Heinlein's stuff is liked through a sort of multiverse concept he explores in a his books about Lazarus Long and his organization. "The Number Of The Beast", "The Cat That Walked Through Walls", and others. What's more various characters from his different stories meet rather directly to discuss their philosophies in one way or another. Especially towards the end of his life he sort of "sold out" on a lot of his ideals, I think partially due to criticism and fear for his legacy, he still wrote some books like say "Friday" which were thought provoking in their own way, "Friday" pretty much dealing with the collapse of a society he had developed in other stories like "Gulf".

It's been quite a while, but one thing that should be noted is that the Sky Marshal from "Starship Troopers" is actually part of Ouroboros which is Lazarus' organization, and he is revealed as a traitor if I remember in "The Cat That Walks Through Walls" which in part explains the crisis that leads to the rather caustic protagonist of that story needing to willingly sacrifice himself, with the story being largely about his hard bitten attitudes of self sufficiency and only looking out for yourself that had been conveyed through the story, along with a general dislike of governments and institutional service due to what he endured in the military.

The point here being that I don't think that "Starship Troopers" really said anything that Heinlein himself didn't say in one way or another. Granted I think he would be rolling over in his grave as much as Asimov probably is over the Will Smith "I, Robot" movie, given how badly they bungled some of the points, but at it's core the bottom line is that "Starship Troopers" is justified in both the movie AND the book by presenting a high threat environment to society. The big problem with the movie I felt was all of the wonky "propaganda broadcasts", and the "service guarantees citizenship" stuff, which is never fully explained the way it is in the books. For the record I myself tend to agree with Heinlein that there is a need for voter responsibility, and that I think before someone can vote or run for and/or hold an office they should have been involved in some form of public service that let's them see behind the curtain of regular society, and what the overall playing field looks like to an extent. Unlike Heinlein I do not think the only kind of service that should work for that is military, especially seeing as his justification revolves around there being a constant state of war, which is maintained by the portrayal of inherently hostile aliens, but in reality you couldn't rely on that. As a result I'd personally extend that to things like police services which operate in peacetime and such as well.

As far as Heinlein's dislike of communism goes, we both agree there, I suppose today's liberals don't agree though even if they do not consider themselves communists or socialists. To be honest though I think David Weber was more damning of a lot of those ideals in his "Honor Harrington" stories and depiction of "The People's Republic Of Haven" (a sort of combination of China, France, and the US) than Heinlein was though. At the end of the day Heinlein was a big believer in personal empowerment and individual self sufficiency, combined with large scale cooperation. His idea was government was basically when everyone is self sufficient, the more people put into the society, the more say they have in it (basically).

 

[Nimzabaat]

-snip-

So I guess I get a bunch of excellent reading suggestions. Thanks very much

Aside: My all time favorite nit-pick from Star Wars was... "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power..." to choke someone three feet away from you. I'll take destroying planets actually.

Aside and around the corner: LEXX! Speaking of blowing up planets, I forgot all about Lexx. That was a weird, weird show. Germans and Newfies making a science fiction series and... yeah not sure how to categorize it. It did have a giant dragonfly ship that could blow up planets even if just because they were ugly planets.

 

[dragoongfa]

As both a military buff, amateur military historian and someone that writes a sci-fi novel I can't stay out of this...

Let's begin with the most basic of the basics: Weapons are for killing stuff and the weapons that are both efficient and good at what they do will always be better than those who only cover one of the niches. In sci-fi weaponry this is important because it helps with the suspension of disbelief.

After I finished my military obligations I found myself thinking heavily on how sci-fi weapons miss A LOT from a military perspective.

Stormtroopers in Star Wars:

Armor that doesn't do shit and woefully inaccurate weapons being a problem that a lot of people point out. I will add a few things on top as well.

Additional problems on the armor itself:

1st: It doesn't provide any camouflage at all. The most basic of all things, every last soldier is trained on how to properly camouflage himself. If the enemy can't see you, or has trouble seeing you, then your chances of survival are way better than when you are protected from head to toe by a suit of armor.

2nd: It limits mobility. Soldiers need to be able to run, hide, duck for cover, move stealthily and all that. Stormtrooper armor limits the soldier's mobility and as such his chances of survival are lower.

With just these two points any advantages that the armor itself may provide are automatically nullified. Even if the armor protected it's wearer from 50% of the shots, the fact that it doesn't hide him would mean that he would be a walking bullseye. What use if a piece of armor that protects you 5 out of 10 times when it makes you 10 times more likely to be shot at while also limiting your speed?

In short Stormtrooper armor and it's derivatives are just stupid.

Blasters and all such derivatives:

Take a modern weapon bigger than a handgun. What is the one thing that they have in common?

They all have stocks:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stock_%28firearms%29

A stock is the second most important part of any firearm (after the firing mechanism). A firearm without a good stock cannot be aimed.

Now look at stormtrooper blasters:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/E-11_blaster_rifle

See the stock design?

It's freaking stupid! How the hell are you supposed to aim that thing?

So in essence StarWars got something right with its portrayal of Stormtroopers as a joke. Their equipment is a joke and thus they are a joke.

W40K got some things right in it's own way:

The basic lasgun does look functional and it is easy to use. Imperial guard armor is a basic flak jacket without useless garbage, some camo could be applied on it and it doesn't limit mobility.

Space Marine armor is Power Armor, although it does not provide camouflage it provides an increased level of protection with an increased level of mobility.

The problem is with the bolters, their design is stupid and the fact that they don't have any form of stock is downright moronic.

Now personally I am aiming for a realistic W40K style of warfare in my novel. It's simple: apply common logic on everything.

 

[Thaluikhain]

But even an energy gun has been done before, and I think someone with such discerning tastes as yours would prefer something more.......exotic

Thus, I give you the Warp Gun, my personal vote for "scariest handheld Sci-fi gun ever". To explain how this gun works, I first have to set up a little context. In the EftA universe there's a dimension called hyperspace, a place containing an effectively infinite amount of pure energy, which gets used not only as a power source but also as one of the methods for FTL. The warp gun weaponizes this dimension, and it doesn't simply fire it out at the enemy. Oh no, this weapon is far more surgical. The Warp gun projects a field which opens up a portal to hyperspace for the merest fraction of a second, effectively teleporting everything within the target field to hyperspace, where they are instantaneously ripped apart/blown up on a subatomic level.

And the scariest thing about this gun? There is effectively no defence against it. You can't dodge it, you can't hide from it behind cover, armor won't stop it, and it the field can be dialed in size to destroy an entire tank or just zap the driver and leave only his hands wrapped around the controls. Even in universe, the only countermeasure against it requires that the other side put up a blanket jamming field, effectively blinding their own side and shutting off all of their communications in a fairly large area, all just to stop just one gun. You know how it's said that the sniper rifle is one of the most cost effective weapons out there because it can stop entire platoons in their tracks? Well the warp gun takes that concept and dials it up to 11.

So have I sufficiently scared you shitless?

Nope, you really haven't. 40k has it's own Warp weapons...only when you get sucked into the warp, you don't instantly die, or sometimes all at. The Warp isn't merely hyperspace, it's more or less hell (Event Horizon is joked at being a 40k movie). Alternatively, you don't suck people in, you let something out.

The weapon you describe sounds very quick and painless.

The problem is with the bolters, their design is stupid and the fact that they don't have any form of stock is downright moronic.

2nd ed era marines had (odd looking) stocks on their bolters, you can sort of still see them on the bikers (for some reason). Not sure if marines would need stocks, at least when the weapons are described as having no real recoil (to a marine).

 

[dragoongfa]

The problem is with the bolters, their design is stupid and the fact that they don't have any form of stock is downright moronic.

2nd ed era marines had (odd looking) stocks on their bolters, you can sort of still see them on the bikers (for some reason). Not sure if marines would need stocks, at least when the weapons are described as having no real recoil (to a marine).

Stocks don't just control the recoil, they are the primary point of stabilization when you aim a weapon. The only way to properly aim any long range weapon is to lock the stock onto your shoulder and aim down the sight. Stocks provide the necessary stability to aim, without them you just can't aim at anything.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Stocks don't just control the recoil, they are the primary point of stabilization when you aim a weapon. The only way to properly aim any long range weapon is to lock the stock onto your shoulder and aim down the sight. Stocks provide the necessary stability to aim, without them you just can't aim at anything.

Not sure if that'd be necessary with power armour, though.

(Oddly enough, SM scouts with pistols have stocks, but not with full sized bolters)

 

[dragoongfa]

Stocks don't just control the recoil, they are the primary point of stabilization when you aim a weapon. The only way to properly aim any long range weapon is to lock the stock onto your shoulder and aim down the sight. Stocks provide the necessary stability to aim, without them you just can't aim at anything.

Not sure if that'd be necessary with power armour, though.

(Oddly enough, SM scouts with pistols have stocks, but not with full sized bolters)

If you mean auto aiming mechanisms embedded within the armor itself then yeah but it is still stupid with some mental digging.

Think about it, if for some reason the armor's systems are compromised (EM warfare and damage for example) then all you will be left with is a weapon that cannot be aimed. Just look at the canon, every time a Space Marine would fight a warp demon he should be at a severe disadvantage for just this reason, reality itself is warped in the presence of such demons and any reading the armor uses in order to aim the bolter would automatically be faulty.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If you mean auto aiming mechanisms embedded within the armor itself then yeah but it is still stupid with some mental digging.

Well, that or being able to have the armour go rigid and prevent unnecessary motion or something.

Think about it, if for some reason the armor's systems are compromised (EM warfare and damage for example) then all you will be left with is a weapon that cannot be aimed. Just look at the canon, every time a Space Marine would fight a warp demon he should be at a severe disadvantage for just this reason, reality itself is warped in the presence of such demons and any reading the armor uses in order to aim the bolter would automatically be faulty.

True...though wouldn't that apply just as much to the marine? What about ones with lots of bionics?

 

[dragoongfa]

If you mean auto aiming mechanisms embedded within the armor itself then yeah but it is still stupid with some mental digging.

Well, that or being able to have the armour go rigid and prevent unnecessary motion or something.

That is dangerous on so many levels. Strained muscles and broken bones from the armor's pressure to the body being one of them, someone hijacking the armor's system and ordering them to break the wearer is an other.

In the end the armor's mechanisms are far more prone to fault and external interference than the one who wears it.

Think about it, if for some reason the armor's systems are compromised (EM warfare and damage for example) then all you will be left with is a weapon that cannot be aimed. Just look at the canon, every time a Space Marine would fight a warp demon he should be at a severe disadvantage for just this reason, reality itself is warped in the presence of such demons and any reading the armor uses in order to aim the bolter would automatically be faulty.

True...though wouldn't that apply just as much to the marine? What about ones with lots of bionics?

Space Marine indoctrination training covers the psychological/mind bending problems when they deal with the warp. That's why the Grey Knights are sent to cleanse Imperial Guard regiments that have fought powerful demons, since regular humans are not shielded from the warp.

Bionics should suffer the same malfunctions as machines if they were subject to the warp.

The Warp is one of the things that fans of W40K shouldn't think to much about. If you dig into the canon it cannot be opposed and yet it is successfully opposed. It only serves to give canon nuts a headache.

 

[Thaluikhain]

If you mean auto aiming mechanisms embedded within the armor itself then yeah but it is still stupid with some mental digging.

Well, that or being able to have the armour go rigid and prevent unnecessary motion or something.

That is dangerous on so many levels. Strained muscles and broken bones from the armor's pressure to the body being one of them, someone hijacking the armor's system and ordering them to break the wearer is an other.

In the end the armor's mechanisms are far more prone to fault and external interference than the one who wears it.

Surely that's a problem with power armour no matter what you do, though?

 

[dragoongfa]

If you mean auto aiming mechanisms embedded within the armor itself then yeah but it is still stupid with some mental digging.

Well, that or being able to have the armour go rigid and prevent unnecessary motion or something.

That is dangerous on so many levels. Strained muscles and broken bones from the armor's pressure to the body being one of them, someone hijacking the armor's system and ordering them to break the wearer is an other.

In the end the armor's mechanisms are far more prone to fault and external interference than the one who wears it.

Surely that's a problem with power armour no matter what you do, though?

It depends on the concept.

Power armor that can 'act' on its own is dangerous. Locking up to prevent unnecessary motion is just that. The power armor in Halo universe is a proponent of this concept, the Spartans are enhanced superhumans and the only ones that can survive wearing the armor.

Power armor as is usually envisioned in sci-fi is the type that reads the movement of the wearer and enhances them without straining the body. W40K power armor falls in this category as there are a lot of people who wear it and they are not space marines.

In reality the concept will land somewhere between the two.

The wearer must be trained on how to use it properly and the armor must be calibrated for each individual wearer in order not to strain him too much.

If you can find the 'All you need is Kill' light novel you will see what I mean.

PS: Edge of Tomorrow just butchered that light novel, the good part though is that we got to see Tom Cruise die a lot.

 

[rcs619]

As both a military buff, amateur military historian and someone that writes a sci-fi novel I can't stay out of this...

Let's begin with the most basic of the basics: Weapons are for killing stuff and the weapons that are both efficient and good at what they do will always be better than those who only cover one of the niches. In sci-fi weaponry this is important because it helps with the suspension of disbelief.

After I finished my military obligations I found myself thinking heavily on how sci-fi weapons miss A LOT from a military perspective.

Stormtroopers in Star Wars:

Armor that doesn't do shit and woefully inaccurate weapons being a problem that a lot of people point out. I will add a few things on top as well.

Additional problems on the armor itself:

1st: It doesn't provide any camouflage at all. The most basic of all things, every last soldier is trained on how to properly camouflage himself. If the enemy can't see you, or has trouble seeing you, then your chances of survival are way better than when you are protected from head to toe by a suit of armor.

While I completely agree with you about the general useless of the common Imperial Stormtrooper, I'm gonna play Devil's advocate for a moment.

To be fair, We've only actually seen Stormtroopers deployed as proper, planet-based military unit once in all of Star Wars (the Battle of Hoth). Every other time, they've either been boarding an enemy starship, where camouflage doesn't mean anything, or inside of their own bases (the Death Star, and even Endor) where they don't actually expect any enemies to turn up. The white armor could be a sort of default, general-purpose armor, for areas where camouflage doesn't really matter. Ideally, you'd want the plates on that sort of armor to be modular, so that they're easy to change out for camo plates when you actually need them.

Or the Emperor could just be dumb, and obsessed with fear-tactics, and want his Stormtroopers to be insanely visible at all times. If we're discounting Lucas' lack of knowledge about any sort of reasonable military tactics, I think that's probably the likely answer. The Emperor was always more interested in how things *looked* to everyone else, than how practical they actually were in use.

2nd: It limits mobility. Soldiers need to be able to run, hide, duck for cover, move stealthily and all that. Stormtrooper armor limits the soldier's mobility and as such his chances of survival are lower.

As the stormtroopers' armor was depicted in the movies, yeah, pretty much. But the concept of futuristic plate-armor is not entirely invalid. It's going to be a lot more nimble than you'd expect. Even medieval steel plate was actually quite mobile due to the insane amounts of articulation. Knights were not the big, slow, awkward fighters that a lot of movies depict them as.

But I wouldn't even go for full 'plate armor'. What you'd want would be armored plates layered over the top of a tough, durable undersuit. They'd attach to the outside of the undersuit itself, so you could swap out damaged plates back at base, or jettison them if you needed to in the field. With thin enough plates and plenty of articulation, the wearer's movement wouldn't be limited much at all. It would be impacted even less if the plates are made of some sort of plastic, or composite, and actually had some flex in them themselves. Basically, instead of someone putting on a whole suit of armor, you're adding the bits of armor over the top of the suit they're already wearing.

W40K got some things right in it's own way:

The basic lasgun does look functional and it is easy to use. Imperial guard armor is a basic flak jacket without useless garbage, some camo could be applied on it and it doesn't limit mobility.

Keep in mind, Imperial Guard armor is basically useless against every single possible enemy they could encounter, besides people armed with modern firearms. It would help against shrapnel and stuff (which is a pretty good selling point), but it doesn't help them at all if they actually get hit by anything.

I never understood why they didn't just give every Guardsman a boltgun. Laser weapons are nice and all (much more ammo, and power-packs being able to recharge is handy), but they've got shit-all for penetrating, the ability to cause internal damage, or knockdown power. Give me a good slug-thrower any day. I don't want to just cauterize the surface, I want to do deep, penetrating, debilitating internal damage.

The problem is with the bolters, their design is stupid and the fact that they don't have any form of stock is downright moronic.

Now personally I am aiming for a realistic W40K style of warfare in my novel. It's simple: apply common logic on everything.

That is actually a complaint that I have with them. It makes sense in the space marines' case, and even the Sisters too, since they're wearing powered armor at all time in combat. The recoil doesn't really matter when your suit is dampening it for you, and maybe even auto-correcting for it some as well, depending on how advanced the suits internal software is.

If you like more realistic military sci-fi, you really should read the Honor Harrington books. It's still stylized enough to be fun, but it generally leans more towards realism than fantasy. The starship combat is especially interesting, since it centers around long-ranged missile duels fought across several million kilometers. Shipboard energy weapons are considered to be last-resort, due to their incredibly short range (only a couple light-seconds). Instead of forcefields, or other magical, regenerating defenses, the primary defenses of starships in the setting are electronic warfare and point defense guns. Armor helps if you take a hit, but every hit is going to do *some* damage to the ship. Damage actually matters.

The first two books in the series are up online, in full, for free on the publisher's website
http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0743435710/0743435710.htm?blurb
and http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0743435729/0743435729.htm?blurb

 

[Thaluikhain]

Keep in mind, Imperial Guard armor is basically useless against every single possible enemy they could encounter, besides people armed with modern firearms. It would help against shrapnel and stuff (which is a pretty good selling point), but it doesn't help them at all if they actually get hit by anything.

I never understood why they didn't just give every Guardsman a boltgun. Laser weapons are nice and all (much more ammo, and power-packs being able to recharge is handy), but they've got shit-all for penetrating, the ability to cause internal damage, or knockdown power. Give me a good slug-thrower any day. I don't want to just cauterize the surface, I want to do deep, penetrating, debilitating internal damage.

It's stated often that boltguns are much more expensive, and hard to maintain, so only elite troops tend to get them. Lasguns have always been said to be more or less functionally equivalent, or better, than assault rifles.

The main problem with the Guard is that the default troops everyone is measured against happen to be 8ft tall genetically engineered superwarriors.

Against cultists, mutants, lesser tyranids, to an extent orks, the IG are reasonably well equipped.

(And, about knockdown power...yeah, that's not a thing with modern guns anyway)

 

[immortalfrieza]

Snip

Well, when it comes to Harry Potter at least the explanations I tend to hear are either that most muggle tech doesn't work that well in the presence of magic, and/or that magic itself is capable of doing all the things current muggle tech can do and then some and have been able to for centuries, thus there's little point in the wizards using any of it. i.e. why bother using a gun when you can set countless people on fire or electrocute them as many times as you want to just by speaking a few words repeatedly, stuff like that.

Whether either of these explanations make any actual SENSE however is another matter.

 

[Nimzabaat]

Now look at stormtrooper blasters:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/E-11_blaster_rifle

See the stock design?

It's freaking stupid! How the hell are you supposed to aim that thing?

You are right of course, but... that's a Sterling SMG. It's a real weapon and that is what the stock looks like. It does make sense that we never see it extended.

As for the Stormtrooper armor, I was working on a re-write (sigh, fan fiction) where I tried explaining it. Basically the white armor was refractive and you'd need a direct hit for a blaster to harm them. I am a bit interested in how the JJ Abrams Stormtroopers are going to be depicted.

 

[Jack Action]

You are right of course, but... that's a Sterling SMG. It's a real weapon and that is what the stock looks like. It does make sense that we never see it extended.

As for the Stormtrooper armor, I was working on a re-write (sigh, fan fiction) where I tried explaining it. Basically the white armor was refractive and you'd need a direct hit for a blaster to harm them. I am a bit interested in how the JJ Abrams Stormtroopers are going to be depicted.

I'm not sure that really works though. Blasters are plasma weapons, as someone mentioned before. The bolts they fire do damage by bursting open on contact and covering whatever they hit in plasma. Being refractive wouldn't help much against that.

 

[dragoongfa]

While I completely agree with you about the general useless of the common Imperial Stormtrooper, I'm gonna play Devil's advocate for a moment.

To be fair, We've only actually seen Stormtroopers deployed as proper, planet-based military unit once in all of Star Wars (the Battle of Hoth). Every other time, they've either been boarding an enemy starship, where camouflage doesn't mean anything, or inside of their own bases (the Death Star, and even Endor) where they don't actually expect any enemies to turn up. The white armor could be a sort of default, general-purpose armor, for areas where camouflage doesn't really matter. Ideally, you'd want the plates on that sort of armor to be modular, so that they're easy to change out for camo plates when you actually need them.

Or the Emperor could just be dumb, and obsessed with fear-tactics, and want his Stormtroopers to be insanely visible at all times. If we're discounting Lucas' lack of knowledge about any sort of reasonable military tactics, I think that's probably the likely answer. The Emperor was always more interested in how things *looked* to everyone else, than how practical they actually were in use.

Camouflage always matter, if you look at the US army they have a camo pattern for every conceivable environment and urban setting. The plates don't even have to be modular, they could be painted over by droids in a matter of minutes which from a logistics side is far more efficient than having numerous camo uniforms for each soldier something that many modern militaries practice.

This is something that Lucas overlooked and it just looks stupid to anyone who has gone through basic military training.

As the stormtroopers' armor was depicted in the movies, yeah, pretty much. But the concept of futuristic plate-armor is not entirely invalid. It's going to be a lot more nimble than you'd expect. Even medieval steel plate was actually quite mobile due to the insane amounts of articulation. Knights were not the big, slow, awkward fighters that a lot of movies depict them as.

But I wouldn't even go for full 'plate armor'. What you'd want would be armored plates layered over the top of a tough, durable undersuit. They'd attach to the outside of the undersuit itself, so you could swap out damaged plates back at base, or jettison them if you needed to in the field. With thin enough plates and plenty of articulation, the wearer's movement wouldn't be limited much at all. It would be impacted even less if the plates are made of some sort of plastic, or composite, and actually had some flex in them themselves. Basically, instead of someone putting on a whole suit of armor, you're adding the bits of armor over the top of the suit they're already wearing.

Knights didnt have to hide from bullets but I am glad you agree

What you are describing are modern tactical vests, in short a soldier wears his camo uniform and over it he wears a tactical vest which is modular and provides exactly what you say, here is a RL example:

http://images.military.com/media/equipment/personal-equipment/improved-outer-tactical-vest-iotv/improved-outer-tactical-vest-004.jpg

Keep in mind, Imperial Guard armor is basically useless against every single possible enemy they could encounter, besides people armed with modern firearms. It would help against shrapnel and stuff (which is a pretty good selling point), but it doesn't help them at all if they actually get hit by anything.

It's a great selling point when you consider that most casualties in modern battlefields are shrapnel related.

I never understood why they didn't just give every Guardsman a boltgun. Laser weapons are nice and all (much more ammo, and power-packs being able to recharge is handy), but they've got shit-all for penetrating, the ability to cause internal damage, or knockdown power. Give me a good slug-thrower any day. I don't want to just cauterize the surface, I want to do deep, penetrating, debilitating internal damage.

I agree, in one of my novel proposals to GW for a W40K novel (sadly denied) this was the basic weapon of the regiment.

http://dragoongfa.deviantart.com/art/Caledonian-Highlanders-262904709?q=gallery%3Adragoongfa%2F28258413&qo=6

And a direct quote: between a cauterized wound and a bleeding wound, the bleeding one is preferable.

That is actually a complaint that I have with them. It makes sense in the space marines' case, and even the Sisters too, since they're wearing powered armor at all time in combat. The recoil doesn't really matter when your suit is dampening it for you, and maybe even auto-correcting for it some as well, depending on how advanced the suits internal software is.

I already commented on how Power Armor has it's issues, look at my previous posts

If you like more realistic military sci-fi, you really should read the Honor Harrington books. It's still stylized enough to be fun, but it generally leans more towards realism than fantasy. The starship combat is especially interesting, since it centers around long-ranged missile duels fought across several million kilometers. Shipboard energy weapons are considered to be last-resort, due to their incredibly short range (only a couple light-seconds). Instead of forcefields, or other magical, regenerating defenses, the primary defenses of starships in the setting are electronic warfare and point defense guns. Armor helps if you take a hit, but every hit is going to do *some* damage to the ship. Damage actually matters.

The first two books in the series are up online, in full, for free on the publisher's website
http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0743435710/0743435710.htm?blurb
and http://www.baenebooks.com/10.1125/Baen/0743435729/0743435729.htm?blurb

For space combat I believe that the Lost Fleet series by Jack Campbell probably comes closest to what it will look like.

In short space ships that are traveling at a fraction of the speed of light cannot be targeted due to relativistic effects, you simply cannot know where they are at a given point. Missiles fired at such long ranges will inevitable miss and the only way to hit the enemy is to clash with each other at ridiculous speeds in extremely short ranges.

It may sound ridiculous but that's the only way for relativistic effects to be nullified. Give at least the first book a spin and you will see how even this style of combat can be awesome.

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Fleet-Dauntless-Jack-Campbell-ebook/dp/B000OZ0NXU/ref=la_B001H6W4PU_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410886567&sr=1-9

You are right of course, but... that's a Sterling SMG. It's a real weapon and that is what the stock looks like. It does make sense that we never see it extended.

There is a reason the Sterling SMG was universally hated in all its iterations, the side magazine was one and the stock was the other. It was a bad weapon to base anything onto.

As for the Stormtrooper armor, I was working on a re-write (sigh, fan fiction) where I tried explaining it. Basically the white armor was refractive and you'd need a direct hit for a blaster to harm them. I am a bit interested in how the JJ Abrams Stormtroopers are going to be depicted.

Nothing wrong with Fan-Fiction, I find it a pleasant alternative when I suffer from writer's bloc when writing my original fiction .

Still I think that a fully camo pattern armor would be better even if the armor was refractive and I already explained why:

Even if the armor protected the wearer 50% of the times, it would still make him a walking bullseye that would have him shot 10 times more than if he was wearing camouflage.