Has anyone used the Sub Machine gun?

[Irishrover13]

Has anyone tried the Sub-machine gun in play yet? Is it well costed or over powered. We have a local player who side Nazis as a league he could run (as a joke) but since I am a little crazy I immediately went to time travelling Nazis from the society of Thule sent back to kill a certain person in the 1890's. As 1930's nazis they would not be armed with stuff much more advance then the existing military rifles except for the MP40. So this brought up the discussion of how powerful the existing in game sub-machine gun is and if it would be a good fit for the "Time Travelling NAZIS!"

Through the stats below for quick reference.

A Sub-machine Gun is a lightweight machine gun that fires pistol bullets. It has a range of 18”, an attack bonus of
+3 and a Pluck penalty of -1. It can be used to attack groups and for “walking fire” in the same way as a Machine
Gun. It requires two hands to use. It costs 11 points.

Cheers,

Irish

[copeab]

Did this appear in one of the books? It sounds familiar ...

[Trix2K]

I think the issue is that there is no man-portable, automatic weaponry in the game at this time period.  You would have to buy a Maxim and take the appropriate skill.

It would be nice if the weapon building formula had a cost factor for auto fire.

Undoubtedly, a smg would not have the same range or Pluck modifier as the four-handed Maxim, but as a Weird Science weapon option it would be nice.

[Craig]

An early sub-machine gun would fire pistol ammunition, but be the size of a carbine.

So you could give it the range of a carbine but the single shot punch of a pistol. That's 18" and then +1/-0.
Allowing for automatic fire we could either increase the likelihood of hitting the target (Weapon bonus) because of the sheer number of bullets it put's down range, or the increase effect as the target is hit with more bullets (Pluck penalty).

As an early SMG is going to be less accurate than a Carbine I would go with the latter. Thus it ends up as being 18", +1/-2 (same as a machine gun), with the added option of being able to attack a group.
This makes it 9 points.

[copeab]

A couple of alternatives are a clockwork pepperbox and a Gatling pistol. Both would be the same in game terms, except that since the pepperbox has to have it's barrels reloaded individually (as compared to just replacing the magazine on a Gatling), it could only fire every other turn. Both would be powered by a wound spring (a hand crank would be awkward, I think).

Possible stats: SV Bonus +1, Range 9", Hands 1, Pluck Modifier -1, Cost 6 (pepperbox)/ 7 (Gatling)

[copeab]

It would be nice if the weapon building formula had a cost factor for auto fire.

Isn't that what the +3 cost for being able to attack multiple targets represents?

[Craig]

Isn't that what the +3 cost for being able to attack multiple targets represents?

It does indeed

[Trix2K]

Oooops...  Selective observation.

[Irishrover13]

Thanks for all the input everyone.

Also Trix2K terribly sorry for missing those game.

[Trix2K]

My Sundays are booked for the next while.  We need to find some flexible nights because there are a number of people wanting to play this game.