Firearms in space?

[Weird WWII]

Is it possible to fire a machine gun in space as a realistic usable weapon? What kinda drawbacks or bonuses would have?

Brian

[archangel1]

Are you thinking of a hand-held weapon or mounted on a vehicle or ship?  I don't think there would be any problem with the actual firing of the gun since the process is self-contained but I would assume a personal weapon would need to be well insulated.  It's COLD out there! It wouldn't take long for the gun to become brittle, especially with the rapid heating and cooling between bursts.
The one big advantage is that there would be no air resistance to act on your bullets.  They'd go for miles, in a straight line, without the curve to earth that gravity imparts on them.  As long as the recoil is controlled, they'd be more accurate than on the surface.

[Weird WWII]

I'm thinking about hand help weapons like assault rifles and light machine guns.  So in theory they would work fine just as long as you were given say thicker barrels and maybe have some sort of recoil absorber so the firer would be propelled backwards?

Brian

[pnweerar]

The weapon would have to be Recoilless. Rail weapons might be a good bet, and won't leave heat signatures for infra-red targeting drones to lock on to and fire X-ray lasers at.

But in a pulp adventure, I'd use a Vacuum Vickers. Double damage versus Venusians.

[archangel1]

I don't think it's simply a matter of thicker barrels.  You'd need to insulate the whole weapon, including the magazine.  Some kind of heat sink/exchanger of some sort.  Eliminating, or at least absorbing, the recoil would be a primary concern.  Otherwise, the chances of staying on target, unless you're clamped down to a solid surface, are rather remote.  It's not easy to shoot straight when you're tumbling through space!  ::

[Weird WWII]

Well keep your peepers out in the near future because you just might have SS Space Grenadiers and USMC Space Marine minis.  Just need to think about space-ing WWII era weaponry like the MP44 and M1 Thompson.

They are coming :mrgreen:

Brian

Soon to be owner of What The?! Miniatures

[TadPortly]

A supply of oxygen would be handy - without it combustion cannot occur.  The old Traveller rules got around this by having oxygenated ammo, but this meant the cartridges were quite large.  As mentioned, recoil would  be a big problem too...

[revford]

Would the rounds not have to be properly pressure sealed too?  Or once you get out into space, the bullets would pop off the end of the cartridge?

[Mark Plant]

Space is sometimes technically "cold", but not in the way people usually think of cold. Astronauts inside the Solar system are just as likely to cook as freeze. The trouble is that there is no medium with which to regulate temperature: if the sun shines on you, then you just get hotter and hotter.

The problem with an MG in space would be over-heating. Basically all that heat would stay locked up in the gun, for lack of any way to lose it except IR radiation. Even if recoil could be solved the barrel would melt after a few bullets unless a very large amount of fluid was circulated to prevent that.

The recoil is a bigger issue, of course. You would spend so long correcting yourself that you would never get more than one shot off. Even the most sophisticated "recoilless" weapon has some recoil: we just don't feel it much when earth's gravity is so dominant. (Recall that in space even raising the gun to your shoulder will start you spinning.)

Then there's visibility. Which is pretty much zero in most directions. You would struggle to see the target, and absolutely never have any idea where your shots were going.

Shotguns would beat rifles and MGs in any case.

The only sensible weapon is space is a rocket. Very little propulsion is needed in the absence of gravity. Radar targeting can be done in the absence of vision.

Grenades might work, with a proximity fuse of some sort.

(BTW the lack of oxygen is not a problem, plenty of explosives work fine without external sources. We can explode stuff underwater, after all.)

[Bako]

The one big advantage is that there would be no air resistance to act on your bullets.  They'd go for miles, in a straight line, without the curve to earth that gravity imparts on them.  As long as the recoil is controlled, they'd be more accurate than on the surface.

Every projectile fired would go on for seemingly ever at extremely high speeds until it either hit debris or encountered a significant force of gravity. Another massive danger is the recoil created by the weapon. In zero-gee that could send the user off elsewhere. I'd suggest you have some form of EVA suit equip with gas-propellant thrusters to keep from seeing deep-space and becoming one of those skeletons in space suits you see occasionally in sci-fi stories.

[Ramshackle_Curtis]

Basically, bulk out the weapons and run wires into a power unit on the models back or belt. THis would simulate the coolant/temperature control. Oxygen can be chemically bound into the propellant, so is not such an issue.

[Plynkes]

One of the Cyberpunk supplements had some pretty cool rules for Zero-G combat, including recoil rolls. You had to pass a test when firing weapons, otherwise you would go spinning backwards out of control due to the recoil (and possibly take damage when you smack into something). Heavy calibre and automatic weapons were notoriously difficult to keep under control.

One way around it was gyrojet weapons. The round is launched from the gun by a simple spring (a bit like a PIAT - hardly any recoil), and then once it has cleared the weapon by a foot or so a little jet in the round kicks in, propelling it towards the target at considerable speed. Expensive blighters, though. Toys for the military and corporations really, as the ammo is so precious.

Even a very slight hit in a vacuum was something to worry about. Space survival skills need to be rolled to stop you panicking for long enough for you to slap a patch on your space suit, never mind about patching yourself up. And be careful spraying your machine guns about inside a space habitat. The walls are extremely thin, they have to be. Most orbital facilities equip their security people with safety rounds, which won't penetrate the habitat's hull. But if the bad guys turn up wearing body armour, then the security find themselves in something of a tight spot, as their feeble rounds bounce off.

All great fun. Takes me back just thinking about it. I think I prefered it to a universe where hand-held laser weapons are the norm.

[Faust23]

In Traveller they just space proof the guns and call it a day...

[Hauptgefreiter]

As most of the others said before:
- using firearms is possible, as the propellant contents all chemicals necessary for the reaction.
- Heat transfer rates in vacuum are limited to radiation effects, and this is less effective than conduction and convection. Helpful might be the effect of heat storage capacity, meaning that material can absorb a certain amount of heat energy. A thick barrel might be able to maintain more bursts before overheating than a thin one.
- The gyrojet weapons mentioned by Plynkes remember me of GW bolters - similar principle here, using a small charge to propel the bolt from the weapon before its internal charge fired. Sounds reasonable for a weapon used in space, as it would reduce the initial recoil

A space rifle would definitely need an adaped design.

Concerning gravity, don't forget inertia effects. A weapon with low recoil will have less effect on a user with a high mass. So mount a small calibre rifle on a Terminator or APE suit and you'll have less problems with recoil. But you'll, of course, have bigger problem harming someone wearing such a suit...
The Image of the G11 came to my mind - small calibre and caseless ammunition. Get some penetration power into that, then you might have your space weapon  

[anevilgiraffe]

inside a space habitat. The walls are extremely thin, they have to be.

did they never hear of micro-meteoroids?