Shadowrun
Shadowrun General => Gear => Topic started by: BaronBanana on <12-03-13/1554:04>
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I was just about to convert all the Arsenal 4th edition weapons to 5th edition rules for my shadowrun group when i stumbled over the rule for Machine Guns in the 5th edition.
I quickly compared machine guns to assault rifles and i couldn't grasp in which situation taking a MMG or LMG (especially a light one) would be viable.
Accuracy Dmg AP Mode RC Ammo Avail Price
AK97 5 10P -2 SA/BF/FA - 38(c) 4R 950
Yamaha Raiden 6 11P -2 SA/BF/FA 1 60(c) 14F 2,600
Ingram LMG 5 9P -2 BF/FA 2(3) 50(c) 12F 5,800
So basically the LMG is less accurate, does less damage and has a higher price than the Raiden. Even compared to one of the low-end assault weapons (the AK) the LMG sucks.
The slight benefit of the additional recoil reduction is pretty null and void as soon as you put a gasvent rating 2 in the Yamaha (same like the one used by the ingram LMG).
This comparison doesn't even include the negative effect that MGs stack recoil like crazy due to their special unresisted recoil x2 rule.
Am i missing something or do LMGs just make no sense in SR5 from a gameplay (not fluff) point of view? Please tell me that i missed something, i would be really glad :)
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What makes Machine Guns so powerful is their option to go for beltfeed. This lets you fire far more rounds without having to worry about reloading. If you lay down Suppressive Fire with them, recoil also becomes irrelevant. So while with a Raiden you can lay down 3 rounds of Suppressive Fire, a Machine Gun can make it 5.
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only thing they did really well in sr4a was provide a decent belt fed weapon option for vehicles/drones. the option to stick an ammo bin on a reinforced weapon mount meant you could pretty much fire indefinitely until everything was dead and not need to worry about reloading.
of course, as a man-mounted system, even assault rifles are a bit precarious an option, let alone an LMG. i mean, how the hell do you move it about? its massive!? the recoil is huge so it has to go into a gyro harness which attracts attention like a bad mofo. i can only really see them being used by PC's as a vehicle mounted weapon or by a heavy weaps troll in a paramilitary/merc kind of game. other than that i think they're more likely to be statted up so GM's can deploy them onto players by means of HTR + paramilitary response teams.
edit: ninjad!
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What makes Machine Guns so powerful is their option to go for beltfeed. This lets you fire far more rounds without having to worry about reloading. If you lay down Suppressive Fire with them, recoil also becomes irrelevant. So while with a Raiden you can lay down 3 rounds of Suppressive Fire, a Machine Gun can make it 5.
That was pretty much exactly the only upside i saw after thinking about it for a while. But this only works if there won't be an option for extended clips in the upcoming Run and Gun rulebook. In the 4th edition Arsenal there is an option for an "extended clip" which basically increases the ammunition of SMGs or Assault Rifles to 100. Which left me with the conclusion: Any assault rifle + extended clip > LMG in every single way, except the fluff part where you might enjoy the sound of destruction by a machine gun :)
i can only really see them being used by PC's as a vehicle mounted weapon or by a heavy weaps troll in a paramilitary/merc kind of game. other than that i think they're more likely to be statted up so GM's can deploy them onto players by means of HTR + paramilitary response teams.
Even if you think about a gun for a vehicle, a proper Assault Rifle is superior to the LMG provided in the SR5 rulebook in every way (when you include the "feed unlimited ammo" feature you talked about earlier in your post).
I do get the purpose of HMGs, especially if you fit them on a troll who doesn't care about covered operations or attention, or on a vehicle. But LMGs and MMGs .... i dunno i can't envision having them used by my players in any situation.
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Also, the fluff in Arsenal suggests it's possible to convert Machine Guns into Gatling Guns. And Gatling Guns have AWESOME Suppressive Fire.
But yeah, some weapons do not exist for being a proper choice, but simply because they exist. It also gives you a viable option for arming mooks.
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range table (p185) makes a small difference for lmgs and a bigger for the heavier guns.
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range table (p185) makes a small difference for lmgs and a bigger for the heavier guns.
For the MMG, the range thing is huge. I've spent most of Missions Season 5 wondering why I bothered with carrying an M202 over an Alpha. Then the GM says "they're about 1100 meters away" and I shrug, shoulder the thing, spend a simple action zooming in, and splatter the dirty hippie all over the landscape.
Being just shy of a sniper rifle in range is kind of handy in some environments. In most cases, the range doesn't matter so the only benefit you get is as a sustained suppressive fire platform. However, suppressing with Stick'n'Shok is a special brand of hilarity since it's one of the few ways that you can actually incapacitate a target with a stray suppressive round.
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So the LMGs & MMGs are there for bursts at huge range and for suppression? Fair enough!
I hope thats not against the forum rules because i also have a somewhat related question and i don't wanna create a new topic and spam the forum page.
I noticed that MGs have strength requirements at the start of there section, but i couldn't find anything like that for cannons. I am only playing shadowrun for about a year so i am not sure about this, but a panther xxl can't be carried around without high strength right?
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Well, you'd be dealing with something weighing at most 10kg, so I don't think so.
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So the LMGs & MMGs are there for bursts at huge range and for suppression? Fair enough!
I hope thats not against the forum rules because i also have a somewhat related question and i don't wanna create a new topic and spam the forum page.
I noticed that MGs have strength requirements at the start of there section, but i couldn't find anything like that for cannons. I am only playing shadowrun for about a year so i am not sure about this, but a panther xxl can't be carried around without high strength right?
Well, you'd be dealing with something weighing at most 10kg, so I don't think so.
10 kilograms is nothing. a standard bag of sugar is 1kg. I can carry 10 of them in a supermarket shopping bag with little difficulty. if we're talking about this guy:
The panther XXL Assault cannon's description: (emphasis mine)
"This huge fragging gun is an assault
cannon that uses ammunition similar to the primary
weapon in many small tanks. It comes with a built-in
smartgun system."
We're talking vehicle mounted or main battle troll level of strength. Just lugging about the spare ammo for this thing is gonna be taxing enough, let alone the huge launcher.
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Fun note: one of the real life early dedicated-use extreme range sniper rifles from the 60s was simply a Ma Deuce machinegun, accurized a bit and mounted with a scope.
-k
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Fun note: one of the real life early dedicated-use extreme range sniper rifles from the 60s was simply a Ma Deuce machinegun, accurized a bit and mounted with a scope.
-k
Return of the "Anti-Tank Rifle", retasked as an "Anti-Material Rifle". The M2-HB was originally developed for, amongst other things, to take out tanks between WWI/WWII. By the time it got introduced, it couldn't take out most tanks on the field, but was still a damned fine weapon.
A primary usage of an LMG is to deny an area via suppressive fire. The large magazine/belt allows for that, as well as (typically) a more robust mechanism to handle continually firing on full-auto than an assault rifle will. This is the type of thing that will happen to most assault rifles if you try to use it as such for an extended period of time (http://youtu.be/eNAohtjG14c).
Of course, stuff like that can get pretty complicated pretty fast...
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Because with an LMG you can do this. :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g) (jump to about 45 seconds into the movie).
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Because with an LMG you can do this. :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g) (jump to about 45 seconds into the movie).
Recon by fire?
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Because with an LMG you can do this. :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g) (jump to about 45 seconds into the movie).
Recon by fire?
"Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!"
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Because with an LMG you can do this. :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g) (jump to about 45 seconds into the movie).
Recon by fire?
"Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!"
"How can you shoot Dwarves and Trolls?" "You either don't lead 'em as much, or lead them a bit more!"
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@OP
LMGs are great for suppressive fire
LMGs are great as vehicle mounted weapons (you use sensors as limit and not accuracy of the weapon when you remote control them)
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I think converting any gun on a mount into a belt-fed weapon was a mistake, by the way. It takes the advantage of MGs away. If an Ares Alpha on a mount has the same ammo size as an LMG on a mount, then there's no use for the LMG unless you make it a Gatling.
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I think converting any gun on a mount into a belt-fed weapon was a mistake, by the way. It takes the advantage of MGs away. If an Ares Alpha on a mount has the same ammo size as an LMG on a mount, then there's no use for the LMG unless you make it a Gatling.
My thoughts exactly, so i hope at least the extended clip (100er belt) option will not be included in Run and Gun book.
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I think converting any gun on a mount into a belt-fed weapon was a mistake, by the way. It takes the advantage of MGs away. If an Ares Alpha on a mount has the same ammo size as an LMG on a mount, then there's no use for the LMG unless you make it a Gatling.
My thoughts exactly, so i hope at least the extended clip (100er belt) option will not be included in Run and Gun book.
I'm afraid it will be, along with the option to make any weapon FA. Then the Crockett will make machineguns AND assault rifles obsolete.
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I'm afraid it will be, along with the option to make any weapon FA.
Hmmm... even Assault Cannons? ;)
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I think converting any gun on a mount into a belt-fed weapon was a mistake, by the way. It takes the advantage of MGs away. If an Ares Alpha on a mount has the same ammo size as an LMG on a mount, then there's no use for the LMG unless you make it a Gatling.
My thoughts exactly, so i hope at least the extended clip (100er belt) option will not be included in Run and Gun book.
I'm afraid it will be, along with the option to make any weapon FA. Then the Crockett will make machineguns AND assault rifles obsolete.
Not entirely, since the Alpha still comes with 2 inherent RC. And the downside of extended drum is that it costs capacity, so costs you space for other modifications. But my Missions character can't wait until he can mod his EBR. :)
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Someone allready did the conversions from Arsenal to 5e.
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It's nice to use if you can't wait, but I wouldn't rely on it. It's also rather outdated, such as Savalette Guardian: BF is already possible as Complex for an SA weapon in SR5. Meanwhile, 7 Accuracy for every Sniper Rifle and 4 for every Shotgun sounds like an easy way out by overly generalizing, I'd expect differences there, just like in the Core Shotguns and Sniper Rifles.
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My wager is that we're going to see LMG and MMG have their damage raised to match the light and medium damage assault rifles. Then with the recoil penalty they will be balanced with ARs.
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Hm maybe light machine guns should just have more built in recoil reduction? Today some light machine guns shoot the same caliber round as carbines and assault rifles but are much heavier, that should help with recoil shouldnt it?
Imagine a light machine gun with 4 points build in recoil reduction, gas vent 2 and foregrip on a gyrostabilizer firering multiple long bursts without having to stop to let the recoil settle back. Sounds very LMG to me.
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The other Bandit If you've ever fired (or rather, tried to fire) an LMG from a standing position, you'd know that a heavier weapon does not for less recoil make.
During my service, we got to fire 200 7.62mm rounds from a German Rheinmetall MG-3 downrange at a full-size target (human adult equivalent), and the muzzle climb is so atrocious that I hit the target with two rounds. Scary as hell, yes. Effective as a suppressive weapon, yes. Accurate? Not only no, but hell no!
(In my defense, my first couple of rounds hit the piece of wood holding up the target and it fell over, but that still does not make up for a 2% accuracy ratio...)
Higher damage would be my best estimate. The same 7.62mm round impacts with approximately similar kinetic energy when fired from a shorter-barreled H&K G3 assault rifle as it does when fired from an MG-3; the MG has the advantage of proper bipod and tripod mounts, a barrel that can actually sustain 200 rounds of fire in a short time (20-25 rounds per second, in real life), a belt feed, and a quick-swap barrel. Despite that, the muzzle velocity and the mass of the round are still the major factors in terms of damage output.
The G3 would buckle from the heat of sustained fire long before the MG-3 did, but this is not reflected in SR5 game mechanics as barrel wear is not an issue.
To me, SR5 is more of a squad based system than all-out war. Most armies in the world do not make their soldiers carry emplacement-size MGs around with them, because these types of weapons are better suited for entrenched positions; the squad based weapons of modern warfare are almost exclusively lighter, smaller caliber, rapid fire weapons as opposed to the machine guns of World War I and II such as the MG-42.
A troll-sized metahuman might change the need for setup time, but it's still a glaringly obvious weapon. My Troll ganger-level character has had tons of fun running around with an Ingram Valiant when an Ares Alpha would have been "better", because with his relative skill a suppressive fire zone allowed him to a) scare the fuck out of the opposition, B) engage more targets, and C) introduce a dice pool penalty to the opposition. An AR can realistically do two (three in the case of one particular rifle) suppressive fire actions before reloading, while an MG can do 5. I think they are fine, statistically, for what they do...
Think of the Ingram Valiant more as the M249 chambered for 5.56mm, the Stoner-Ares M202 as the MG-42 (or more recent MG-3) or FN MAG (aka M240) chambered for 7.62mm, and the RPK HMG as the timeless Browning M2 heavy machine gun chambered for massive 12.7mm rounds, and you'll have an accurate representation of what I believe MGs are like in SR5.
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Think of the Ingram Valiant more as the M249 chambered for 5.56mm, the Stoner-Ares M202 as the MG-42 (or more recent MG-3) or FN MAG (aka M240) chambered for 7.62mm, and the RPK HMG as the timeless Browning M2 heavy machine gun chambered for massive 12.7mm rounds, and you'll have an accurate representation of what I believe MGs are like in SR5.
"Jake, put the HMG down. No, Jake, I don't care if you're a Troll, it's a HMG, don't try to fire it from your shoulder! JAKE! JAKE!!! ... Oh Ghost, thank goodness you're OK! Yeah, OK. Someone order Jake a new shoulder!"
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I'm just nitpicking at this point, but an M2 does not have all that terrible recoil if fired in semi-automatic mode; because it's based on a cannon type weapon, it has both a fluid barrel mount and can be equipped with a honkin' big muzzle brake which greatly disperses the escaping gases, reducing shoulder recoil substantially. Carlos Hathcock did just this during the Vietnam war, setting the world record for longest sniper kill with a mostly unmodified M2 with a telescopic sight, a record I believe stood for a good 30 years.
The Barret M82A1 Anti-Materiel rifle and several other 12.7mm (.50 caliber) rifles are all made on the same principle; by comparison, my Sako TRG-42 chambered for .338 rounds and with a 28" barrel with a 10-in-1 twist kicked like a freakin' mule because it did not have a muzzle brake nor did it have a free floating barrel mount.
And any troll with STR 10, the requirement to wield an HMG and more than 3 times the strength of an "average" human", should easily be able to absorb the recoil of such a weapon, even on full auto. If you haven't already seen the videos, look up Elephant Rifle on youtube. That's what would likely happen to the average human trying to wield such a "rifle", in my not so humble opinion...
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Because with an LMG you can do this. :o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tpsTDOVV4g) (jump to about 45 seconds into the movie).
Recon by fire?
That is so not a viewpoint I want my players to have.
"Anyone who runs, is a VC. Anyone who stands still, is a well-disciplined VC!"
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@martinchaen:
I have fired the MG3 during my time too and would hardly call it an LMG, furthermore the much to high RPM of this machine gun does not help in any way too. Although it is heavy for sure. What exactly is that thing at the barrel called again? You know where other machine guns have muzzle brakes or compensators... oh right the "recoil booster" ;)
A better comparison would be the american M4A1 and the M249, felt recoil from a 3.4 kg carbine and a whooping big 10 kg heavy machine gun firering the same fast and light caliber will make a difference, standing or prone.
There are weapons that can and should be fired from shoulder (Smaller caliber LMG, slower firering MMgs) and weapons that should not be fired from shoulder (hyper fast MMGs and big ass HMGs).
In SR5 the HMGs have a place because of range, damage and penetration.
But point of this thread seems to be the weird place LMGs take in this version, a problem which should be adressed so that all my 2nd and 3rd edition mercenaries can rest in peace knowing that there IS a reason to lug around the big stick!
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Maybe set up something like that scene in RED where the machine gun just keeps chugging along while everyone has left?
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The other Bandit
You'll note that at the end of my previous post I compared the MG-3 to the Stoner-Ares M202 "Medium" class machine gun in SR5 (what I would call a general purpose machine gun). I made no attempt to classify the MG-3 as a light machine gun in SR5 terms, as it is very clearly no such thing.
That is also precisely why I compared the MG-3 machine gun to the G-3 assault rifle, as both weapons fire 7.62mm standard NATO rounds; with the MG-3 at approximately 10kgs (unloaded) and the G-3 at a little over 4kgs (again, unloaded and without accessories), these are very similar to your example of the M4 and the M249, except that they fire a larger caliber round and will therefore have much higher felt recoil in both instances. Firing either at full auto from a standing position is highly ineffective if accuracy is your goal.
I would also argue that the M249 is a light machine gun in SR5 terms, not an MMG. It's 7.62mm equivalent, the FN MAG, is more along the lines of a general purpose machine gun, or MMG, at least to my mind.
All in all, I don't think LMGs have a weird place at all, as you have to compare like for like and take caliber of the round into account.
Real world examples:
Comparable 5.56mm chambered LMG and AR: FN Minimi (M249) and AR15/M16/M4 type rifles
Comparable 7.62mm chambered MMG and AR: FN MAG (M240) or MG-3 and G-3 and AK-103 (modernized version of the AK-47, though both of these are chambered for the slightly different 7.62 x 39mm round)
Comparable 12.7mm chambered HMG and "AR": DShKM, GAU-19, or Browning M2 and Barret M82 carbine and M82A1 (or newer variants) rifle
The M134 Minigun could be classed as an MMG based on caliber, but it's high rate of fire, weight, and actual usage as a vehicle mounted weapon places it more in the HMG category.
In SR5 terms, this breaks down into the following based on base DV (note that the MMG and the HMG has superiour AP values by 1 and 2, respectively):
Comparable caliber LMG and AR: Ingram Valiant and Colt M23
Comparable caliber MMG and AR: Stoner-Ares M202 and AK-97 or FN HAR
Comparable caliber HMG and AR: RPK HMG and Ares Alpha and Yamaha Raiden
As evidenced by the above, comparing the Ingram Valiant, the only LMG available in SR5, to an Ares Alpha is unfair because in reality it is a weapon more suitably compared to a smaller caliber assault rifle like the Colt M23.
The same amount of firepower in SR5 as that thrown downrange by an Ares Alpha thus requires a strength of 10 to wield unless it is mounted on a vehicle.
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The same amount of firepower in SR5 as that thrown downrange by an Ares Alpha thus requires a strength of 10 to wield unless it is mounted on a vehicle.
Agreed, but I'm pretty sure that Alpha is getting toned down, or everything else is getting tuned up. My preference is to tune everything else up, SR5 is especially deadly and I like that a lot.
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Judging from the first two fights my Character was I totaly agree on the lethality. He is in Doc Waggon care now after getting chopped up by frikkin ninjas.
Interesting to note is that the first few rounds not much did happen, all were dodging quite happily along until the first hits got through. After that with penalties stacking up it got pretty intense. I really like it!
@martinchaen: Yes that sounds completely logical, nice summarisation! It is interesting that I never thought of HMGs as .50cals (or equivalent). That is food for thought!
I am still getting the feel for the new damage codes and combat rules. What do you think is or should be the LMGs niche in the new system?
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Personally, I think the LMG has it's niche; it's a fully automatic weapon capable of carrying 100 rounds of ammo (enough for 5 sequential suppressive fire zones without reloading), at a low cost with a decent damage and AP value, which can be used by anyone as it has no STR requirement.
Sure, if you're a cybered up street sam or a Troll, you're better off packing a MMG or HMG if you don't care at all about subtlety, so I would make an LMG just a tiny bit easier to conceal (on par with an AR at +6 or a Sniper Rifle at +8, given that most real world LMGs are not that differently sized from their AR counterparts; take the M16 rifle vs the M249 LMG, for instance. Mag size is the only thing differentiating them). Other than that, they fulfill their role as portable machine guns that can be carried and fired by anyone, unlike the MMG and HMG. Everything has a cost...
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SR5 determines difference between MG cassifications by their ranges (p. 430). Does not make much sense because MMG and HMG share the same range, but ... What ever. If MGs are classified by calibers as in real life today it would get a bit unbalanced - especially concerning MMGs and HMGs. I do not want to image an augmented Troll with a M2 Browning marching fire from the hips as well as I do not want to image running into a deployed M2 Browning operated by a Dwarf. In my understanding of what SR's common gameplay is meant to be these two types of firearms are out of place. They are a victim of balancing for sure, but that is not a drawback. For future editions the developers maybe should get rid of MMG and HMG in the core rules and add them later with an additional source book. Would be more interesting to have 3 unique LMGs then.
Generally, LMGs in SR5 are fine as they are and in opposite to their bigger siblings pretty close to real life potential. The question why they seem useless when compared to Assault Rifles is the common gameplay I already mentioned above. SR is not war. It is more about convert operations in close, possibly urban quarters where you simply have less use for a firearm which on the one hand can be carried and operated by a single individual, but on the other hand is primarily designed for sustained suppressive fire in terms of support and covering (which was already mentioned by many others in this thread). From my experience even a Troll can better go with an Auto-Shotgun. Somebody already said the real use of a LMG comes into play when the team has to keep down a lot of targets, but if a Run has come to this situation everything else already went wrong.
Nevertheless, I would suggest to drop the doubled recoil modifier for LMGs and apply a minSTR of 5+ for undeployed use.
@martinchaen, I do not agree with your comparation in a negligible detail. The russian 7.62x39mm caliber is classified as an intermediate rifle cartridge (which are recently also investigated by NATO partners in terms of the 6.8mm Remington SPC or 6.5mm Grendel as a replacement for 5.56x45mm) while the 7.62x51mm is classified as a full-powered rifle cartridge. In SR5 terms, the former one would be 10P -2 and the latter one 11P -2. At least, that is the result of my disassembling of game mechanics ... Which might be totally wrong, because nobody knows if there was any reference to nowadays calibers involved in SR development as all :-X
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mjack I wholeheartedly agree that Shadowrun is (in most cases, at least) war. Shadowrunners carrying machine guns are definitely on the more violent side, which is fine and dandy but not par for the course. My troll street sam managed to pick up an LMG in a street level game I play in and it was hella fun shooting up the Redmond Barrens (until I got my hands on an assault cannon, that is), but now that we're transitioning into a more shadowrunner-y style I'll likely be ditching the LMG in favour of slightly more subtle weaponry.
I would also agree with you on removing double recoil modifiers for LMGs, with the caveat of STR 5+ for hand-held use.
I stand by my comparison of the two 7.62mm rounds. In my own personal experience, a 7.62 x 51mm round fired from a G-3 rifle has similar destructive capabilities to the 7.62 x 39mm round fired from a good old-fashioned AK-47 at 200m. I will concede that in the real world there are certainly differences between the rounds, but to my mind and based on my own experience firing at practice targets with both rounds and for the purposes of this highly theoretical comparison of real world vs Shadowrun weaponry, I felt the comparison was, in short, close enough.
You'll note that part of my argument is that the AK-97 is listed as a 10P weapon in the core rules, and this is likely because it is either based on the AK-47/AKM/AK-12 type models chambered for 7.62 x 39mm, or the AK-74/AK-105/AK-107/AK-12 type models chambered for the newer 5.45 x 39mm. And while you're right that the designers may not have intentionally based their weapons on caliber size, it seems too much of a coincidence that the weapons we know are based on real life versions (the AKs, Colts, FNs, Remingtons) are seemingly scaled in damage potential according to real world calibers of some sort.
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[spoiler]
mjack I wholeheartedly agree that Shadowrun is (in most cases, at least) war. Shadowrunners carrying machine guns are definitely on the more violent side, which is fine and dandy but not par for the course. My troll street sam managed to pick up an LMG in a street level game I play in and it was hella fun shooting up the Redmond Barrens (until I got my hands on an assault cannon, that is), but now that we're transitioning into a more shadowrunner-y style I'll likely be ditching the LMG in favour of slightly more subtle weaponry.
I would also agree with you on removing double recoil modifiers for LMGs, with the caveat of STR 5+ for hand-held use.
I stand by my comparison of the two 7.62mm rounds. In my own personal experience, a 7.62 x 51mm round fired from a G-3 rifle has similar destructive capabilities to the 7.62 x 39mm round fired from a good old-fashioned AK-47 at 200m. I will concede that in the real world there are certainly differences between the rounds, but to my mind and based on my own experience firing at practice targets with both rounds and for the purposes of this highly theoretical comparison of real world vs Shadowrun weaponry, I felt the comparison was, in short, close enough.
You'll note that part of my argument is that the AK-97 is listed as a 10P weapon in the core rules, and this is likely because it is either based on the AK-47/AKM/AK-12 type models chambered for 7.62 x 39mm, or the AK-74/AK-105/AK-107/AK-12 type models chambered for the newer 5.45 x 39mm. And while you're right that the designers may not have intentionally based their weapons on caliber size, it seems too much of a coincidence that the weapons we know are based on real life versions (the AKs, Colts, FNs, Remingtons) are seemingly scaled in damage potential according to real world calibers of some sort.
[/spoiler]
In other words, a little bit of damage adjustment, either to assault rifles (not my adjustment of choice) or to machine guns (my adjustment of choice) is in order simply to keep the weapons in line with each other as far as caliber is concerned.
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frankhlane
That is not at all what I'm saying, just to be clear. The entirety of my last three posts have been intended to show the similarities between assault rifles and machine guns based on caliber. Different guns firing the same caliber round will (in large part, and without extreme modifications) have relatively similar damage potential.
The most significant difference between an AR and an MG lies not in damage potential per round, but in operational role as a result of platform features. One is designed to be the standard service rifle in most armies as it fits the majority of engagement requirements of a modern soldier, while the other is designed to be a force multiplier (like sniper rifles) and fulfills a more specialized role.
Shadowrunners carrying machine guns regularly are going to be more of a mercenary outfit than clandestine operatives, as a machine gun is everything but subtle. And while an AR is far from inconspicuous, at least you can get a silenced carbine that'll still perform quite well as a scaled down machine gun AND allow for some concealment.
However, if concealment is not on your menu and you just want to fuck shit up, go for the MG every time. Mount if on a vehicle if you can, and enjoy the benefits this gives you as you roll up on your enemies and unload.
Again, I feel that the LMG fits the role it needs to: a squad level heavy weapon that can be carried by anyone, with decent damage potential, high ammunition capacity, and low cost. Would it be more attractive if it didn't suffer double recoil at the expense of being limited to use by STR5+ characters: yes. Does it badly need this adjustment? No, not in my opinion.
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Again, I feel that the LMG fits the role it needs to: a squad level heavy weapon that can be carried by anyone, with decent damage potential, high ammunition capacity, and low cost. Would it be more attractive if it didn't suffer double recoil at the expense of being limited to use by STR5+ characters: yes. Does it badly need this adjustment? No, not in my opinion.
I don't want to be a nitpicker but you might feel that the LMG fits its role, and if you look from a fluff point of view it might, but looking solely at game balance terms it does not.
- "can be carried by anyone" (counts for every assault rifle as well)
- "decent damage potential" (less damage than basically every assault rifle)
- "low cost" (12x to 2x the price of assault rifles might be "low" but still higher than all assault rifles in the book)
The only selling point is
-"high ammunition" (and if they go for it like in the 4th edition this is gone with weapon mods)
And you pay for this list of disadvantages and one advantage by doubling the un-resisted recoil, no possible concealment, and a high weight.
Yeah it might be cool to fire a LMG in Shadowrun and yes it might be described in-game as terrifying, but the data behind it doesn't back that up. I think that's also the point frankhlane is referring to.
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Which is why I think it's a bad move to declare mounted weapons all have 250 rounds available. Without that, even a heavily-modded AR still only has 200 rounds available, while the LMG has 250 without trying and can get ammo-bins for 500 or even more rounds. At that point it truly is the weapon it should be. Not to mention it makes it an actual decent drone-weapon, since a drone with 500 rounds doesn't need to go in for a reload as often as one with only 40 rounds pre-mods.
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That seems reasonable. Its not that easy converting magazine fed weapons to belt fed weapons (for example there are one or two companies today that make uppers to convert AR15 style rifles to belt fed) and even then you got just a rifle with tons of ammo, while the safe sustained firerate still sits at 12 to 20 rounds per minute for long engagments.
There is a damn good reason machine guns are bulkier, sturdier and heavier.
My fear is just that with weapon modding rules coming up we will see the return of very large magazines for assault rifles (drum mags, coffin mags, simple very looooong mags).
But just popping in a 100 rounds Beta C Mag in your M4 doesnt make it a LMG.
Or maybe I am thinking too long term or complicated for Shadowrun use of this stuff?
Does a streetsam care that after putting 100 rounds through his AK97, at full auto, at these poor corp sec slobs his rifle may jam or ammo might cook off in the chamber on the next mag?
Have these thoughts a place in a "normal" Shadowrun session?
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Since the majority of people (not players) does not have a military bacckground or even a reasonable enough understanding of physics to where they would know about barrel wear, potential cook-off, and exploding barrels, I'd say this is not a concern for most players.
Adding such rules would increase the logistical part of the game and make the rules more complex, and I for one don't think that's necessary.
Also, Baron, just because something is not "the best choice from a game mechanichs point of view" or "suboptimal" does not make it useless.
The LMG works fine as is. I've used it for a troll hanger who didn't have to worry about concealment, and I had a blast. Your mileage may vary, of course, but that doesn't mean the game needs to change.
Counter argument. How many players realistically take the lower end ARs voluntarily? The Colt M23, the FN HAR, the AK? I see a lot of builds with Ares Alphas, desppite the fact that this weapon is Forbidden, just like the LMG...
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yeah, no matter how good your licensing is on a low end AR, the cops are still gonna screw you for carrying one around to the shops. if you're gonna get screwed anyway, might as well take the big bad boy and get the job done well!
that said, my chars that take the Automatics skill use MP's 95% of the time. if the situation is really grim, they bring out an SMG. haven't found a situation where i was glad of an AR as yet, i prefer concealability and a large clip size over raw stopping power most of the time
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that said, my chars that take the Automatics skill use MP's 95% of the time. if the situation is really grim, they bring out an SMG. haven't found a situation where i was glad of an AR as yet, i prefer concealability and a large clip size over raw stopping power most of the time
The beauty of ARs comes in at damage, and more importantly, range. You can start reaching out and touching the bad guys a lot farther with an AR than either MPs or SMGs. Not generally an issue in heavy urban environments, but I can assure you that you will be glad to have the range if you get caught out in one of the more wide open areas.
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that said, my chars that take the Automatics skill use MP's 95% of the time. if the situation is really grim, they bring out an SMG. haven't found a situation where i was glad of an AR as yet, i prefer concealability and a large clip size over raw stopping power most of the time
The beauty of ARs comes in at damage, and more importantly, range. You can start reaching out and touching the bad guys a lot farther with an AR than either MPs or SMGs. Not generally an issue in heavy urban environments, but I can assure you that you will be glad to have the range if you get caught out in one of the more wide open areas.
Yes, but good luck walking around downtown with an AR. A MP, and in the right situations a well concealed SMG, are easy to conceal, and make a better 'walkin around' weapon. A good GM will make you life a living hell for trying to openly carry around an AR, and especially a LMG, even in a Pink Mohawk game. Don't get me wrong, having a good AR stashed away for runs in the Z-zone is always a good idea...
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I refute the "a good GM will" call, because there are as many personal variances on setting as there are GMs...
Sure, walking around downtown Seattle with an AR on your back is very likely to attract attention in most people's view of the setting, but that does not mean all. Nor does it mean that walking around with an AR on your back in Snohomish is going to be a problem. I'd encourage everyone to do away with the "a good GM will" arguments, because there's no such thing as an objective grading scale for what a GM should and should not to, only what makes the game fun for the group...
In one of my games, my character carries an Assault Cannon on the streets of Redmond (and quite possibly the outlaying areas). Sure, he probably won't be doing that if and when we get to Downtown Seattle, but I'd like to see anyone calling our GM "not good" for allowing that particular behaviour, and this game has gone from one end of the subtlety scale to the other from session to session.
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Yes, but good luck walking around downtown with an AR. A MP, and in the right situations a well concealed SMG, are easy to conceal, and make a better 'walkin around' weapon. A good GM will make you life a living hell for trying to openly carry around an AR, and especially a LMG, even in a Pink Mohawk game. Don't get me wrong, having a good AR stashed away for runs in the Z-zone is always a good idea...
I never said that they would be useful in every situation, just that there is a use for them (beyond higher damage ratings) when you are being attacked at range. In the middle of downtown, that situation doesn't apply; all the buildings and other obstructions reduce any range advantage you might have had. In the more open areas of the Barrens though? That's where the range advantage will shine; you can drop your enemy long before they can get into the effective range of a SMG or MP.
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Which is why I think it's a bad move to declare mounted weapons all have 250 rounds available. Without that, even a heavily-modded AR still only has 200 rounds available, while the LMG has 250 without trying and can get ammo-bins for 500 or even more rounds. At that point it truly is the weapon it should be. Not to mention it makes it an actual decent drone-weapon, since a drone with 500 rounds doesn't need to go in for a reload as often as one with only 40 rounds pre-mods.
Srsly...how many times you have used 250 rounds on the run?
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Srsly...how many times you have used 250 rounds on the run?
*Cough*
Then again, I'm the GM.
I'm always the GM. :'(
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Well, I think it is doable. If your Lagos based team is hired by UN to extract at least some of those inspectors from Assamondo, you may find even 500 ex-ex rounds in every gun your team has at its disposal is not enought...
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If your drone is operating separately and is providing cover fire, it's quite easy to run through 500 rounds in bad circumstances.
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Well its about 25 combat turns of suppressive fire. That means main battle, not the firefight during standard mission :) But I know, that from time to time, there are situations that call for this...
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Not just a single fight, you may spend quite a bit of time without being able to reload the drone.
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In a contest of Player Will Vs Tactically Smart. ... Player Will usually wins :-)
I have had games where the players literally turn to each other and go "you know, the really smart thing to do here is run, right?" And the other go "Yea, but you heard what he said... no one says tgat about Moma and lives!!"
:)
It is at these times that ammo count and "right tools for the right job" comes into play... and it is not always about the highest level of damage...
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I refute the "a good GM will" call, because there are as many personal variances on setting as there are GMs...
Sure, walking around downtown Seattle with an AR on your back is very likely to attract attention in most people's view of the setting, but that does not mean all. Nor does it mean that walking around with an AR on your back in Snohomish is going to be a problem. I'd encourage everyone to do away with the "a good GM will" arguments, because there's no such thing as an objective grading scale for what a GM should and should not to, only what makes the game fun for the group...
You are correct, I misspoke.
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In SR4 it was possible to camo cloak your AR or LMG. A lot of times passerby did not have high enough perception to see the cloaked weapon, and if they did it was a blurry shape, not "hey, that's a gun".
-k
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Even chameleon coating is an option
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Now that Narrow Bursts to increase damage are gone, LMGs aren't nearly as useful, IMHO, other than as cover fire and intimidation. Sure, an Ares Alpha might do more damage/bullet, but staring down the barrel of an Ingram Valiant can be pretty damn frightening. Of course, they were a LOT more intimidating when you knew they could fire a Narrow Long burst for +5DV...
I'm still not sure why the designers eliminated Narrow Bursts. And I don't buy the whole simplifying the game argument considering how relatively complicated they made shot guns. Increasing damage with bursts has been part of the game from the start, and I for one miss it. I liked Narrow Bursts; but then, I also kinda miss staging up 6M to 9S, and I even sometimes miss 7M2 damage...
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Now that Narrow Bursts to increase damage are gone, LMGs aren't nearly as useful, IMHO, other than as cover fire and intimidation. Sure, an Ares Alpha might do more damage/bullet, but staring down the barrel of an Ingram Valiant can be pretty damn frightening. Of course, they were a LOT more intimidating when you knew they could fire a Narrow Long burst for +5DV...
I'm still not sure why the designers eliminated Narrow Bursts. And I don't buy the whole simplifying the game argument considering how relatively complicated they made shot guns. Increasing damage with bursts has been part of the game from the start, and I for one miss it. I liked Narrow Bursts; but then, I also kinda miss staging up 6M to 9S, and I even sometimes miss 7M2 damage...
Think of it this way then. If you fire a burst and get a lot of hits while your opponent doesn't. Think of that has the target getting hit by more than one bullet.
Honestly, does it make sense that hitting someone with 3 bullets only adds +2 dv?
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Honestly, does it make sense that hitting someone with 3 bullets only adds +2 dv?
it makes more sense than hitting someone with a burst doing no more Damage than with a single Bullet
HougH!
Medicineman
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Now that Narrow Bursts to increase damage are gone, LMGs aren't nearly as useful, IMHO, other than as cover fire and intimidation. Sure, an Ares Alpha might do more damage/bullet, but staring down the barrel of an Ingram Valiant can be pretty damn frightening. Of course, they were a LOT more intimidating when you knew they could fire a Narrow Long burst for +5DV...
I'm still not sure why the designers eliminated Narrow Bursts. And I don't buy the whole simplifying the game argument considering how relatively complicated they made shot guns. Increasing damage with bursts has been part of the game from the start, and I for one miss it. I liked Narrow Bursts; but then, I also kinda miss staging up 6M to 9S, and I even sometimes miss 7M2 damage...
Think of it this way then. If you fire a burst and get a lot of hits while your opponent doesn't. Think of that has the target getting hit by more than one bullet.
Honestly, does it make sense that hitting someone with 3 bullets only adds +2 dv?
That is a big part of why I liked burst staging up damage from 6M to 9S. Made a LOT more sense. As for losing dice to defend, losing two dice ALMOST equates to one fewer hits, which ALMOST equates to one higher DV. Not nearly the same. And if recoil isn't compensated, there is no point to it. I lose two dice for a short burst, and my target loses two dice to defend. It's a wash. And LMG used to be able to easily add +5 or +9 to damage, with Long Burst or Full Auto, and that was just fraggin' awesome.
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I don't get what Narrow Bursts have to do with LMGs, since ARs lost the same option.
As for why Narrow Bursts are gone, I can come up with two easy reasons:
- Dodge Pools have gone up, so they're no longer as viable a choice.
- Lethality has gone up, so you no longer need Narrow Bursts to take down heavy targets.
And keep in mind that they may actually make a return, as has already been stated.
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I brought up Narrow Bursts for two reasons: first to track the changes from 1st edition to where we are now comparing how LMGs and ARs work/show how increasing damage was comparatively better in earlier editions, and second to point out that LMGs were much more useful in earlier editions where it was relatively easy to do much, much more damage with an LMG firing FA(usually on a Gyromount or other recoil reducing mounting) than with an AR. With their ability to do increased damage, the role of LMGs, and even MMGs and HMGs, is reduced to that of cover fire and mounting on drones, mostly also for cover fire. And that's fine, I'm not complaining, as that more closely mirrors real world use, to cover large areas with a high number of rounds, not take out a single target.
Personally, I prefer to use Narrow Bursts with small arms like SMGs and Machine Pistols over FA capable weapons. A short, controlled burst of bullets at one target not to increase chances of hitting but to increase the relatively small damage of those weapons.
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I brought up Narrow Bursts for two reasons: first to track the changes from 1st edition to where we are now comparing how LMGs and ARs work/show how increasing damage was comparatively better in earlier editions, and second to point out that LMGs were much more useful in earlier editions where it was relatively easy to do much, much more damage with an LMG firing FA(usually on a Gyromount or other recoil reducing mounting) than with an AR. With their ability to do increased damage, the role of LMGs, and even MMGs and HMGs, is reduced to that of cover fire and mounting on drones, mostly also for cover fire. And that's fine, I'm not complaining, as that more closely mirrors real world use, to cover large areas with a high number of rounds, not take out a single target.
Personally, I prefer to use Narrow Bursts with small arms like SMGs and Machine Pistols over FA capable weapons. A short, controlled burst of bullets at one target not to increase chances of hitting but to increase the relatively small damage of those weapons.
But I'm pretty sure that statistically, the bursts in SR5 do more damage on average than narrow bursts ever did. If you rolled 100 narrow bursts and 100 SR5 bursts, SR5 bursts would do considerably more damage on average (setting aside the rules differences) because there will be fewer outright misses.
So really, you're getting exactly what you want, increased damage on an SMG, which you pay for with bullets and recoil.
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Statistically, everything does more damage in SR5 than it did in 4th. So I'm not sure why so many people always compare SR5's [Wide] bursts with SR4's Narrow bursts, instead of comparing SR5's [Wide] bursts to what a Narrow burst in SR5 would do.
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True, and the +1 per extra round is a lot less effective relative to 4th. +2 per round would be better, and maybe even a +3 per round for Heavy Pistols. I mean, a gun with a DV of 9 only does 11P if three bullets hit instead of 1? I don't really know how well that would work in game play, just throwing ideas around.
As for 5th ed (wide) bursts already doing more damage than 4th ed Narrow bursts, I still don't see that. Losing two dice in your doge pool does not quite statistically equate to one lost hit(assuming average rolls it takes three dice in your dice pool to equate to one hit). Even if it did equate to one full hit lost on the target's dodge roll, that's still not the same as a +2 DV. I'll take the DV any time. And even for those instances where the target would roll two more hits on his doge roll, two more rarely if ever would turn that hit into an outright miss. Maybe for fairly average characters with 3s and 4s in most stats, sure. But that would be for when your Decker pulls out his MP as a last resort, not when your Orc sammie is blasting away with his AR; you are looking at a dice pool diferrence of 6 to 8 vs 16 to 18).
Now, I've never been in combat, never been to war. I mostly have movies to go off of-I know, not very realistic, but then, we ARE talking about ORCS with WIRED REFLEXES here, realism can only be extended so far. And I see pistols double- and triple-tapping to put two or three shots in the chest(no more double tapping in 5th, I'm afraid). According to the rules, if you fire a SA Burst, you are only increasing your odds of hitting, which means three bullets but only one will hit, the other two are spread out so that if your target doges to the left or right he will hit one or the other of those. Why does it always have to be ONE bullet? WHY can't you group three in the chest? When firing an SMG short burst, why is it no longer possible to group those three shots close together?
I'm positive there are folk on here who can attest to the fact that is possible, whose much more well versed in fire arms than I.
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Why does it always have to be ONE bullet? WHY can't you group three in the chest? When firing an SMG short burst, why is it no longer possible to group those three shots close together?
I'm positive there are folk on here who can attest to the fact that is possible, whose much more well versed in fire arms than I.
perhaps that's why they put in the called shot (vitals) option? SA burst is just slinging more lead at your target, called shot is grouping more rounds in to the squishy bits
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Called Shot (vitals) was more powerful in 4th (take -X on the attack roll, get +X to DV, X = 1/2/3/4) than it is in 5th (take -4 on the attack roll, get +2 to DV).
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That still only accounts for one bullet hitting the squishy bits. What if all three bullets from your burst hit the squishy bits?
My complaint here is that there is no mechanic to account for more than one piece of high velocity hot lead hitting the target. An LMG on full auto, with fully compensated recoil, SHOULD, in my opinion, be able to deal out HUGE amounts of damage to a single target, as six or ten bullets hit flesh. A Trog with an Ingram on a gyro mount should be something to fear. As the rules stand right now, my current Orc Sammie is rolling a lot more than 9 dice to dodge. Yeah, that's a huge penalty, but one or two hits on dodge will help reduce the amount of damage dealt, and he definitely has enough Bod and Armor to reduce the rest down to a manageable level.
Assuming the Ingram wielding Trog in question has a 5 Agl and 5 Automatics, with a wireless on smartlink, that's only 12 dice for an average of 4 hits. If we make him on the same level with my sammie, we give him 6(8) AGL and 8 Automatics, so with the smartlink he's rolling 18 dice for an average of 6 hits, and with the Ingram's Acc of 5(7 with smartlink) he gets to keep all 6. That's a pretty nasty hit, but let's see what my sammie can do.
Rea 5(8) + Int 4 means 12 dice to dodge, lose 9 for Full Auto, leaving him with only 3, for an average of one hit to dodge. Damn. That means 5 of the Trog's hits add to the Ingram's 9P damage for a total of 14P damage. Sammie's Armor Jacket of 12 and + 2 for Bone Lacing mean total AR of 14, and considering the Ingram's -2 AP that's fully physical(Now, if he my Sammie has had that shiny new cyberarm installed with +3 Armor it suddenly becomes STUN). Bod of 7, 14 Armor, +2 Bone Lacing, +1 Toughness, and 24 dice on the soak roll for an average of 8 hits. He only takes 6 boxes of damage, 5 once you add in Platelet Factories. That certainly hurts, but that's 6 boxes of damage from a full burst in short range from an LMG. He pulls out his heavily modified Ruger and shoots the Trog in the face for about that much. Well, maybe not THAT much, considering the Troll's high Bod. Had I been clever enough to suppose a human wielding that LMG, then yeah, Sammie does more than 6 boxes of damage on his turn. And oh, lookit that, just read that Gyro mount only reduces 6 pts of recoil. 1 pt free, high Str, and gasvent certainly compensates for the rest, but a second round of full auto will suffer more penalties than my sammie has from wounds, so second initiative pass favors my sammie. If that Trog is a human and is NOT on the same level as my sammie, with AGL 4 and Automatics 4 and I'm looking at even less damage.
Now, if we look at the same scenario where that Trog fires Full Auto Narrow, and while my Sammie now has all 12 dice to dodge, he's facing an 18P DV(Ingram DV 9 + 9 for Narrow burst). Average of 6 hits from the Trog, total of 4 for my sammmie(average roll on 12 dice) means two net hits for a total DV of 20P. I'm down and out with a final result of 12 boxes of damage even after my average roll of 8 on the soak. And even with that shiny new cyberarm it's gona be all physical, now way to avoid it.
As the rules stand now, my sammie knows he can take a point blank shot from an LMG and survive. In our most recent game, a human merc my sammie had pissed off previously jumped out of the back of a van with an LMG on a Gyro mount. This was the last session of 4th we were gona play, where Narrow Bursts still happened. I had to spend Edge to go first, quick draw my Ruger, and double tap with two rounds of APDS, Edge was added to both rolls. I laid him out dead before he could even pull the trigger. I was willing to spend three points of Edge to do it too, because I knew full well if I didn't that Ingram could easily kill me on full auto.
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99.997% of ALL rounds fired from a machine platform (Squad, vehicle, Aerial ) miss their target.
In fact, the only time in history when machine platforms had a better ratio of 8% hits was world war 1, when soldiers used to WALK into machine gun fire! And even then, the hit ratio capped out at around 15%.
Go back 100 years to the boar war, and things get even more interesting.
there was a famous squad of American soldiers... supported by 8 gattling guns (the orginal, recoiless automatic gun!) Each fired off over 15,000 rounds of ammo at a fortified hill.... and only 3 people where hit from the fire... that lasted minutes!
Machine guns have never really been about whole sale slaughter.... but, as said before, its about area denial, cover, and suppression of the enemy. All of which the machine gun does exceedingly well.
As to bursts only represening a single bullet hit, thats actually fairly true. Since Vietnam, many militaries are moving away from automatic weapons and moving to 2 or 3 round burst weapons, as they are more accurate, and save money on ammo and supplies.... not to mention that usually LESS then 1 round would hit for every 20 fired during Vietnam. (The last time fully auto weapons were mass deployed)
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Good to know. Means the current system is intended to more accurately reflect reality.
But then what about three round bursts from automatic and semi-automatic weapons? Are those spray and pray, or more clustered, accurate groupings where more than one bullet hits the target?
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Why don't you go to a range and fire some rounds at a moving target and find out?
Hitting anything with automatic fire, even at close range, is highly challenging if the target is moving.
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That would not be a fair representation, as I have the equivalent skill rating of 0 in Automatics. I would rather ask someone with a 3 or even better a 6.
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Doubt you'll find any 'sixes' on here :p
Lots of 2 and 3s sure :D
Of the 3 round bursts, the accuracy varies, but at 100 yards the percentage was something like 70% of 2 round bursts hit the matk with both rounds, while only 53% of 3 round bursts hit with all 3 rounds (can't tell you if that meant just 1 or 2 bullets hit, as the stats are just for all 3 rounds hitting)
After 200 meters... well things get dicey on hitting with the full burst. (40% and 23% for all rounds of the burst hitting)
Interesting to note: the HK G11 assault rifle boasted an amazing 88% total 3 rnd burst hit ratio at 350 meters... mostly due to the 2000 rnds/min cycle rate for burst fire.... compared to 650 rnds/min full auto.... HK claimed the hit ratio was so high due to the last bullet leaving the barrel before the recoil from the first rnd had a chance to impact the accuracy. Dunno if that is true or not...But when you fire 33 rnds a second, it makes sense.
Btw, the G11 was discontinued in 1992 as their was no major military buyers for the weapon, or its unique caseless 4.7mm ammo.
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The G11 is a perfect example of why comparing most modern day weapons to those of 2072 Shadowrun is fairly pointless when all is said and done. Our tech is simply not up to par when compared to SR tech. Can real life examples of technology provide guidelines on how SR4 and SR5 tech might work; yes. Are such examples useful as direct analogies; no. There's too much unac
Bottom line, extreme examples from long to short range based on anecdotal evidence from my own service as an infantry marksman;
After the first year of my service (one year of training in the Shadowrun equivalent of Automatics and Longarms) I could reliably achieve
1. a .5 MOA* group at 1000 meters from a prone, braced position, using a Sako TRG-42 chambered for .338 Sierra MatchKing ammunition with a custom 1-10" twist, 710mm long barrel
* at 100m 1 MOA is a circle with a diameter of 1.047" or 2.908cm. At 1000 meters a.5 MOA group means placing 5 rounds inside of a circle with a diameter of 5.235" or 14.54cm
2. 90% or higher hit rate at 300 meters firing 7.62 x 51mm ammunition from a prone or kneeling, braced position using a bone stock semi/automatic H&K G3 (my rifle was made in 1965, which just goes to show that if you take care of something that's well made it'll last you a long time indeed...)
3. an approximate 40% hit rate on human sized targets at 200 meters firing short, manually controlled bursts of 7.62 x 51mm ammunition from a prone, braced position using a fully-automatic belt-fed Rheinmetall MG-3
4. a stunning 1% hit rate on a human sized target at 50 meters from a standing, unbraced position (in other words, holding the pistol grip in one hand and the bipod in the other) firing a full burst of 200 rounds from the same MG-3
5. an approximate 80% hit rate on moving human sized targets at anywhere from 10 to 30 meters while on the move firing 3-round bursts of 9mm rounds using a stock H&K MP5
The same course with our standard H&K G3 assault rifle resulted in much less accurate fire due to the much higher recoil of the 7.62mm round compared to the nearly insignificant recoil of the 9mm round.
Make of that what you will.
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99.997% of ALL rounds fired from a machine platform (Squad, vehicle, Aerial ) miss their target.
In fact, the only time in history when machine platforms had a better ratio of 8% hits was world war 1, when soldiers used to WALK into machine gun fire! And even then, the hit ratio capped out at around 15%.
Go back 100 years to the boar war, and things get even more interesting.
there was a famous squad of American soldiers... supported by 8 gattling guns (the orginal, recoiless automatic gun!) Each fired off over 15,000 rounds of ammo at a fortified hill.... and only 3 people where hit from the fire... that lasted minutes!
Machine guns have never really been about whole sale slaughter.... but, as said before, its about area denial, cover, and suppression of the enemy. All of which the machine gun does exceedingly well.
As to bursts only represening a single bullet hit, thats actually fairly true. Since Vietnam, many militaries are moving away from automatic weapons and moving to 2 or 3 round burst weapons, as they are more accurate, and save money on ammo and supplies.... not to mention that usually LESS then 1 round would hit for every 20 fired during Vietnam. (The last time fully auto weapons were mass deployed)
Good to know that all that technological advancement of next 60 years would mean no significant change...
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When you think about it, what REALLY has changed in the last 100 years of firearm technology? Plastics are used.... that's about it. All fire arms still rely on expanding gas to push the bullet. Some improvements in stress handling and recoil fatigue but really, modern guns are fundamentally the same as what was used 100 years ago, just ammo count and rate of fire has changed.
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Last 100-years? Less reliance on water cooling and the development of the assault rifle.
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Not to mention leaps and bounds where micronization tech is concerned; barrel rifling, ammunition advancement, optics, and integrated electronics...
Look at the equipment used in WW1 and in Afganistan or Iraq, and tell me we haven't made substantial advancements.
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Not as many as you think to the firearm.
Rifled barrels have been around since the late 1880s.
Ammo has actually dropped in caliber size for the average soldier. (Allows him to carry more ammo easily and really, the .30 caliber was a bit much for dropping people.)
As to optics and electronics, I don't really consider them part of the actual weapon. They are nice add ons for sure, but not required in the actual operation of the weapon system (except for a very few select ones, AKA mini-gun and auto launcher.)
But really, there hasn't been a dramatic change in the basic operation of the firearm in over 100 years.
Yes, ammo capacity and rate of fire have been improved, but these are really just marginal improvements (some experts argue that both of these changes are actually steps backwards. As ammo capacity and rate of fire has increased, general marksmanship has decreased.)
In fact the only weapon system that has seen dramatic changes are in the high end sniper weapons just by militaries around the world. These weapons have dramatically changed from the 5 round bolt action systems used in hunting rifles to exceptionally balanced and highly accurate semi automatic systems.... and usually in calibers not seen in hunting models.
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Well now try to imagine that some weapon supplier, like Ares, asked themselves a question: Why is burst fire less effective than single shots? Why is shooter unable to deliver burst fire with better hit ratio than 3% of fired rounds? HOW WOULD WE HAVE TO DESIGN WEAPON TO ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN? and than they employ some advanced tactical and material and ergonomic and whatever expert system or AI and create Ares Alpha, which allows soldier to deliver five round burst to 9/10 area of the target. Otherwise you can stick to 20th century FN FAL and have no reason to buy anything new.
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Burst Fire is more effective because it makes clean hits easier.
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Funny :)
It is meant to deliver more bullets to target. Not to fire more ammo to be able to hit the targwt with one of them. Imagine unmoving target. How would you justify that? Or troll in cq area where he has no placw to dodge, but the burst still deals the damagebof single shot.
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It's meant to hit people more, not hit them with more bullets.
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Well, you can always house rule it that bursts increase damage...
Even though evidence shows that bursts don't actually hit with all rounds...
Personally I never liked the old system as (to me) it made the assumption that the majority of rounds hit the target....
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Sides, warfare has never meant 'killing all the enemy'....
Idealy, you want to wound as many as possible.
A dead soldier needs 3 men to deal with him... 2 carry the body off the field of battle (assuming you win) and 1 to dig the grave.
A wounded soldier takes as many as 30 people to care for him, his cries of pain demoralize his fellow soldiers, and his recovery is a drain of resources (food, fuel, transportation, skilled care, medicine, etc)
I honestly don't think weapon makers (today or in the future) are really worried about increasing the accuracy of FA or BF modes as this would increase the deaths of soldiers, increase an opponent's resources (through not caring for the injured)... and decrease ammo sales :p
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The G11 is a perfect example of why comparing most modern day weapons to those of 2072 Shadowrun is fairly pointless when all is said and done. Our tech is simply not up to par when compared to SR tech. Can real life examples of technology provide guidelines on how SR4 and SR5 tech might work; yes. Are such examples useful as direct analogies; no. There's too much unac
Bottom line, extreme examples from long to short range based on anecdotal evidence from my own service as an infantry marksman;
After the first year of my service (one year of training in the Shadowrun equivalent of Automatics and Longarms) I could reliably achieve
1. a .5 MOA* group at 1000 meters from a prone, braced position, using a Sako TRG-42 chambered for .338 Sierra MatchKing ammunition with a custom 1-10" twist, 710mm long barrel
* at 100m 1 MOA is a circle with a diameter of 1.047" or 2.908cm. At 1000 meters a.5 MOA group means placing 5 rounds inside of a circle with a diameter of 5.235" or 14.54cm
2. 90% or higher hit rate at 300 meters firing 7.62 x 51mm ammunition from a prone or kneeling, braced position using a bone stock semi/automatic H&K G3 (my rifle was made in 1965, which just goes to show that if you take care of something that's well made it'll last you a long time indeed...)
3. an approximate 40% hit rate on human sized targets at 200 meters firing short, manually controlled bursts of 7.62 x 51mm ammunition from a prone, braced position using a fully-automatic belt-fed Rheinmetall MG-3
4. a stunning 1% hit rate on a human sized target at 50 meters from a standing, unbraced position (in other words, holding the pistol grip in one hand and the bipod in the other) firing a full burst of 200 rounds from the same MG-3
5. an approximate 80% hit rate on moving human sized targets at anywhere from 10 to 30 meters while on the move firing 3-round bursts of 9mm rounds using a stock H&K MP5
The same course with our standard H&K G3 assault rifle resulted in much less accurate fire due to the much higher recoil of the 7.62mm round compared to the nearly insignificant recoil of the 9mm round.
Make of that what you will.
Well, at least according to this recoil seems to be he biggest problem with grouping multiple burst rounds on target. Once you account for that, with SR's 'modern' gas vent tech and other advancements, hitting with more than one bullet should be possible.
For easy of play, I'm not going to push my GM for any new house rules, but just for discussion, maybe a +2 DV for each additional round in a Narrow Burst, but double recoil penalties? Either double recoil penalties, then recoil comp applies, or double any uncomped recoil. I would even suggest that a Narrow Burst is only possible for SA Bursts and Short Burst, not Long or FA, and the purpose of those is to cover more area.
That would still mean(getting back on topic) the LMG is less effective in this edition, as it's main use is cover fire. But that's ok too. Sprawl gangers don't need to be toting Ingrams around the Barrens.
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Recoil, level of movement of both shooter and target, and distance to target will be the biggest factors, as well as any environmental effects that are already adequately accounted for in the rules, in my opinion.
And yes, any machine gun will be more likely to be used for suppressive fire than for placing rounds on targets. If you've never been on the receiving end of a fully automatic weapon sending hot lead your way, I'm sure you can at least begin to imagine how scary that might be.
One thing I feel is lacking from the hard rules is composure; coming under suppressive fire means you take a potentially significant negative dice pool modifier to all actions, but you can still act. If the aim (heh) is to make the LMG more viable, add houserules for requiring composure tests when coming under fire and modify them based on the weapon used. Taking suppressive fire from a heavy machine gun should rattle the most stalwart combatant, unless they're oblivious to danger due to drugs or some other source of recklessness. I think a composure test might adequately reflect this.
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Composure is good idea, even battle experienced soldiers would rather lay down when the lead starts to fly...you need someone realy crazy to run against the barrel. Or some good motivation, like Russians had in WW2...
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One thing I feel is lacking from the hard rules is composure; coming under suppressive fire means you take a potentially significant negative dice pool modifier to all actions, but you can still act. If the aim (heh) is to make the LMG more viable, add houserules for requiring composure tests when coming under fire and modify them based on the weapon used. Taking suppressive fire from a heavy machine gun should rattle the most stalwart combatant, unless they're oblivious to danger due to drugs or some other source of recklessness. I think a composure test might adequately reflect this.
That's one for my list. When a character is caught in the suppressive fire zone of a Machine Gun she cannot take any action in her phase - except retreating or getting more cover - until succeeding in a Composure test. This would also increase the value of a good Leadership (Direct) skill and some decent Mental Attributes for Street Sams. I was even thinking about calling for a test whenever a character is in a fire fight for more than (WIL+CHA) Combat Turns without appropiate gear (like ear protection) to emphasize the mental stress caused by noise for example. But maybe that is a bit too much. Really, the idea of utilizing Composure Tests in combination with MGs is the best suggestion made in this thread.
In general, more hard rules for Composure test are welcome here. Im my group it took some time until the GM started to call for such tests regularly. But since, some aggression and brutality vanished from the game table which is quite some effect I appreciate.
Btw. Rifling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifling) was already invented in the late 15th century, but it did not work well with at the time military tactics of marching lines and shooting volleys. Muzzle loaders with rifled barrels required way more time to reload than smoothbore muskets while the production was more costly.
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Composure could even be called for when coming under fire from any Heavy Weapon; to my mind, assault cannon rounds, machine gun fire, and rocker/missile launchers are terrifying weapons, and this could be represented by a simple composure test.
Suppressive fire for sure (add a requirement that unless you succeed at a composure test (threshold whatever you want for your table) you MUST take the free action to drop prone or the interrupt action if you have no free action left. Until you succeed at your composure test (taken at the start of each round in a suppressed area, or if being fired at directly by a Heavy Weapon such as an assault cannon or rocket launcher and you are still alive) you may take no actions at all except movement and the take cover action. Something like that.
And yes, while rifling was invented a long time ago, advancements in miniaturization technology did not allow for revolutionary use of said technology until the 19th century.
Reaver; I said ammunition has developed, that doesn't mean "got bigger". While the standard assault rifle round currently used by NATO is indeed smaller than what it used to be (7.62mm vs 5.56mm), this doesn't mean that the rounds are the same as they were 100 years ago. Advancements in research methodology and manufacturing technology have allowed manufacturers to develop more powerful loads (i.e. projectiles impacting with higher kinetic energy), as well as ronds that have significantly higher accuracy potential.
Rounds and rifles consistently performing at sub-MOA levels only "just" came into production in the last 50 years, and when you look at specialized rounds such as those used for anti-matériel and sniper roles the differences are even bigger. While Zaytsev managed to score an impressive amount of kills with his trusty Mosin-Nagant, these days a 900m kill-shot is not considered a difficult maneuver with the right equipment. The invention of very-low-drag ammunition such as the relatively heavy .338 caliber round coupled with more efficient chemical loads results in effective ranges of 1500+ meters. While the furthest kill-shot in history is somewhere beyond 2000m, luck plays as much a part of shots taken at these distances as anything, but Lapua and Sierra both qualify their rounds out to 1500m, and wildcats will further increase the range and damage potential.
And while you may not consider optics part of the weapon, I will guarantee you that every soldier with a red-dot, milrad, or good old fashioned MOA sight does; unless you're a machine gunner, accuracy does matter and putting the other guy down first can be the literal difference between life and death. Optics are no longer a snipers tool (though we certainly rely on them more and more), and advancements in computer technology means my scope can now indicate wind speed at my location, as well as compensate for range and elevation differences, allowing me to place more accurate rounds on target faster.
Heavy weapons benefit from barrels constructed using new metallurgy techniques, allowing for longer bursts of sustained fire before barrel replacements are needed. Again, ammunition technology has leaped forward with the advent of high-explosive, armor-piercing, incendiary rounds (aka multipurpose, see Raufoss MK211) leaving infantry with the capability of disabling or even damaging lightly armored vehicles.
Then there's the manufacturing process itself. My old G3 was a solid piece of weaponry, but it needed constant care and maintenance. The G36 that replaced it, while less powerful at longer ranges due to the smaller caliber, was nearly maintenance free due to the way it was designed. It was also far easier to clean, making them more reliable in the field.
And while we haven't really seen much of the most recent technological advancements on the field itself, there certainly is a lot of possibilities. The G11 with it's caseless ammunition was mentioned, and while it itself was a bit of a failure marketwise several similar technologies are being worked on. Metal Storm is another concept that sounds scary as fuck to this former infantryman, as does the computer-controlled, directionally stabilized, "smart" rounds currently being researched.
Would a few hundred modern assault rifles in the hands of WW1 soldiers change the course of the war? No. Advanced weaponry is all good and well, but tactics and strategy wins wars, not the weapons themselves.
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You have a good point about the powder loads in ammo. I should have thought of that myself, considering my experience with hand loaded shells. (Misread the grain count for the powder I was using, and put in 6 extra grains of powder into my .38+p rounds.... and blew my .357 up in my hand! Luckily I wasn't hurt... but I did unload, check, and recheck every single round I had hand loaded!)
The reason I don't consider a scope/red dot/laser sight as part of the weapon system is because these are essentially addons and generally do not come built into the rifle (there are exceptions to this of course). Are they a valuable addon? You bet! But they are still an add on, usually made by a different company then who makes the rifle (which makes sense. I'd put more faith in a scope made by an optics company then I would one made by Colt...)
If you want to talk serviceability, ruggedness, maintenance and weapon failure.... look at the AK-47! Designed in 1947, it is considered to be the most rugged, easy to maintain, and reliable rifle ever made! And it is almost 70 years old! Now if only the accuracy was better at long range....
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Ouch. And that's why I never hand loaded :) To be fair, the military was also fronting the bill for the more than 20k .338 rounds I fired during my service, so I just shot whatever the hell they gave me. Just imagine how much of a difference smokeless powder must have made; speaking of which, I'll have to look up when that was invented and when it achieved widespread use.
Fair enough on optics; I'll concede that it's technically not an advancement of the weapons technology in and of itself, though I maintain that it is certainly related given that it enhances it. And optics have come a very long way since WW1.
The AK-47 is a shining example of innovation done right; it is indeed still a weapon that sees a great deal of use. That being said, while the design most assuredly is of an extremely high standard, the many, many licensed and unlicensed copies are not necessarily so; when built to spec the rifle can take a pounding and keep on sending rounds down range, it's easy to use and maintain, and it doesn't cost much to build. But, as with all things in life, you can have any given thing a) fast, b) cheap, and c) well made, and you only get to pick two of those. I've seen a lot of discarded AK-47s with blocked chambers, rounds jammed in the magazine, damaged barrels, and all sorts of problems to warrant questioning the often-quoted reliability of the weapon. There's no doubt it's easy to come by, cheap, and easy to use, but in many instances the real world production models differ from the design by enough to make it questionable.
That being said, take a G36 or similar weapon and give it to an untrained civilian along with an AK-47 (or one of it's newer variants), and I will guarantee you that said civilian will be able to more accurately place rounds on target at ranges up to 200 meters and more easily learn how to and actually service the weapon.
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That being said, take a G36 or similar weapon and give it to an untrained civilian along with an AK-47 (or one of it's newer variants), and I will guarantee you that said civilian will be able to more accurately place rounds on target at ranges up to 200 meters and more easily learn how to and actually service the weapon.
A scary experience. Stripping a G36 is mostly about removing - cannot remember exactly - 5? studs. It is more difficult to replace the harddisk of a computer. And shooting this rifle made me even feel more uncomfortable with a live loaded firearm in my hands than I could have ever imagine before. With its little recoil and the red dot sight it was nearly impossible to miss a human-sized target on 100m.
Composure could even be called for when coming under fire from any Heavy Weapon; to my mind, assault cannon rounds, machine gun fire, and rocker/missile launchers are terrifying weapons, and this could be represented by a simple composure test.
Generalizing the idea of Composure Tests for all Heavy Weapons is a bit too much. No question, if the runner next to a character is eliminated by a Panther's 25mm grenade I would definitely call for a test. But expanding such tests on grenade launchers for example would also mean they would apply for thrown grenades as well. Actually, our characters are meant to be tough enough to stand at least a little bit of war ;) Optionally, you could house rule multiple attacks with heavy weapons (excluding MGs but maybe including grenades) - like 6 runners shelling a target's position with grenade launchers - as some kind of barrage fire with similar effects as Suppressive Fire of machine guns.
Heavy Weapons could certainly provide an additional bonus when comparing Intimidation Modifiers. Wielding a Revolver should not negate the bonus for wielding a Light Machine Gun.
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The problem with the AK47 is that its construction has been licensed to about 30 different countries for production... and not all those countries are up to the same standards when it comes to their respective machining abilities... not to mention the black market knock offs (made from scrap metals, not stress tested, etc)
That said, no other weapon system out tgere has seen as much abuse and miss use as the AK and still kept firing.
A couple of buddies if mine thought tgey would cash in on the jobs in Iraq/Afghanistan (and at $30k+/month, I was sorely tempted myself!) According to them, they got to handle a few AKs from the area.... beat to crap, missing screws, rotting wood, rust pitted frames.... but they still fired, and fired well! Just not accurate... (to be expected when your stock wobbles, or you are missing your nose sight, etc)
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S for the Composure test...this works both ways. It is funny as hell to roll for NPCs, when runners do something really ugly to one of them. Sometimes it helps to finish the fight far quicker and with less cassaulties.
Ah...and it helps with negotiations :)