Personal weapons in space.

[RainDreamer]

So on this forum we have been discussing a lot of weapons in space, but they are mostly weapons installed on ships and stations and other huge spacecraft. What about personal weapons? What kind of weapons would our Space Marine uses in space, perhaps? What kind of challenges and obstacles that we will need to handle in designing these weapons? What types of weapons would we have for what purposes and in what kind of situations? In sci-fi, we have seen serveral kinds of weapons, from conventional bullets spewers to blasters firing lasers, but I doubt they would be all there is.

For example, such high powered weapons could severely damage equipments and hull, which could mean death in space thus necessitate a type of weapon that only damage or incapacitate another biological being. Or think about the cramping space within a space craft and the possibility that a close-quarter melee weapon may in fact be more viable if the user has the skill to use it in microgravity. Or what about EVA weapons, when one is hooked up inside a huge suit and doing boarding another space craft, possibly fighting defence system from outside?

For this discussion, I think we should limit our scope to near-future technology, so we wouldn't have fancy things that bend laws of physics like teleportation or forcefield, but nanobots, monofilament whips, and energy weapons are still permitted.

So go ahead and discuss what you think the future of personal space combat will be. No need to discuss whether we actually need to do space combat in person or not...lets hand wave that for now.

[Hcube]

Bullets sound like a bad idea because of recoil, so i'd say a big powerful laser that will cut through the other guy's suit in no time.

[RainDreamer]

I remember in a scifi story I read, the choice weapons for security forces on a generation ship are pneumatic guns that shoot plastic darts, which deal minimal damage to the interior and equipment, no fire to spark up, and essentially endless propellent when resources are limited. Basically an amped up version of airsoft gun that can actually kill a person that is used to suppress the populace. Though I imagine an actual combat situation would require much more different design.

[Tex_NL]

Yesterdays news: [url]http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/140204-Handheld-guns-in-space-LOX-as-propellant[/url]

[Just Jim]

One of my favorites shows (bad or not...) was Babylon 5. On there they used something called a Phased Plasma Gun. Don't know if it could exist or not. That's not why I mention it.
I mention it because in one episode the chief of security was cleaning an old school Colt 45. When his assistant saw it he got this suprised look and asked,

[I]"Chief... Is that a slug-thrower?" [/I]

Slug-thrower.... hehehe.... is that what folk will call conventional weapons a couple centuries from now???

[RainDreamer]

[quote name='Tex_NL']Yesterdays news: [URL]http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/140204-Handheld-guns-in-space-LOX-as-propellant[/URL][/QUOTE]
Yeah, this thread is here slightly because of that thread. Although that thread is focusing more on the kind of propellant used for the space gun, while I am thinking here about the situation that necessitate weapons in space and what kind of weapons that would be used then. A firefight on an asteroid where damage is permitted would allow different weapons and tactics than a firefight inside a cramped spaceship with delicate equipments. And battles that fought where resupply is easy is different than battles fought on a ship in deep space where any kind of recycling possible will be needed.

[Scotius]

Air gun, or a small handheld crossbow. It would shoot small darts tipped in fast-acting poison or anesthetic. Shock baton for hand-to-hand combat. In any case nothing powerful enough to damage vital equipment, or puncture the hull. Eventually (and that is my favourite option) something akin to Spider-Man's web throwers. They would shoot compacted nets, or globules of strong, fast drying adhesive that would restrict movement of the target without posing a threat to its surroundings.

[Kryten]

You could just use conventional firearms with frangible ammunition, or hollow-point if the walls are tough enough to take it.

[LordFerret]

Ah yes. The community which promotes peaceful space exploration, no politics or religion, equality, we all get along, discusses personal firearms. The irony.

[Whirligig Girl]

[url]http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunintro.php[/url]

Nyrath is here to save the day!

He includes some hand-weapons amongst the ship-board weapons. Read the entries for Introduction to Space Weapons, Conventional Weapons, and Exotic Weapons.

[RainDreamer]

[quote name='LordFerret']Ah yes. The community which promotes peaceful space exploration, no politics or religion, equality, we all get along, discusses personal firearms. The irony.[/QUOTE]
It's research for writing scientific fictions!

[wumpus]

Don't Soyuz capsules contain a shotgun? "Slug throwers" still tend to be ideal, especially if mass needs to be considered and siberian brown bears tend to be in the landing zones.

[Kryten]

[quote name='wumpus']Don't Soyuz capsules contain a shotgun? "Slug throwers" still tend to be ideal, especially if mass needs to be considered and siberian brown bears tend to be in the landing zones.[/QUOTE]
They had specially-built rifle/shotgun combination survival weapons, but they've been retired because the custom ammo passed it's use-by date. They just have some russian standard semi-auto pistol, and most crews choose not to bring it.

[Tada]

Long stick with nail on one end - for making holes into pressure suits!

[SomeGuy12]

So, ok. For keeping order inside a space station or spaceship, I think you'd want to use tasers - either the extending prong kind or the kind that shoot low velocity bullets that shock people from a greater distance.

Well, what if the unruly populace make themselves anti-taser armor (basically a suit made of foil)?

Then you'd have to use regular bullets. Thing is, I don't think the risk of a puncture is as bad as it sounds. The material that space habitats will be made of probably will handle getting shot fairly well. That is, there might be a hole, but it won't lead to a rip, just a slow leak through a small bullet hole.

Well, so long as only one shot is fired. If you are talking about full scale military scuffles, both sides will be wearing pressure suits and the place they are fighting over will be evacuated of air one way or another (either by parties blowing holes in the side so they can board from an unexpected angle, or from the cumulative effect of firing thousands of rounds of ammunition that is designed to punch through space suits...and walls...and everything else)

Another factor that would probably prove relevant are :

1. By the time there are enough people in space to even have a battle with, there will be various combat drones. In a low gravity habitat, flying drones is really easy to do, either using air fans or thrusters or both. Instead of sending space marines you are going to want to send drones, with the marines themselves controlling them safely from a distance.

2. Remember how Tracking Point introduced a guided firearm where the gun locks on to targets and helps you aim? That kind of thing would be on every space gun.

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[quote name='Tada']Long stick with nail on one end - for making holes into pressure suits![/QUOTE]

[I]That[/I] might not work so well...but isn't there some kind of anti-shark weapon that is a shotgun shell on a pole? You jab the shark and the pressure of contact triggers the shotgun shell? A very crude and dangerous weapon (to the people wielding it), but it sounds like it would work fine in space. Edited November 23, 2015 by SomeGuy12

[magnemoe]

[quote name='Kryten']You could just use conventional firearms with frangible ammunition, or hollow-point if the walls are tough enough to take it.[/QUOTE]
Yes, this is common, now the main issue in zero g is not the recoil itself but that any gun will rotate you as you don't fire along your center of mass. some sort of gyrojet gun would solve this issue, another option might be an miniature recoilless gun, stuff who could scale up to smart weapons.

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[quote name='Kryten']They had specially-built rifle/shotgun combination survival weapons, but they've been retired because the custom ammo passed it's use-by date. They just have some russian standard semi-auto pistol, and most crews choose not to bring it.[/QUOTE]

The Russian gun is for use after landing, they land in the wilderness where it can be bear and wolfs. An shotgun is perfect here as its lightweight and can also be used for flares, flares are also nice for scaring away animals.

[RainDreamer]

Certainly combat drones will be around by the time we have space combat, but stories about some people sitting behind a screen pulling trigger is kind of difficult to engage readers as much as stories someone who is in mortal danger and come out on top. Hence why I think we can hand wave the necessity for space combat in person for now. Although thinking of combat drones designs for microgravity environment inside space structures is going to be quite interesting too, but we can leave that for another thread.

And if we are talking about non lethal weapons, a potato gun shooting kushballs at very high speed is an easy way to deal with unruly population. Or sonic gun. Or tear gas (in a closed environment, the effect would be extremely dangerous).

As for military combat, I think they are going to use skintight suit design with armour layers on top (if not an actual powered armour system), as that save mass for other things like ammunitions, and even if it is damaged and the wearer get hurt, it will still be localized damage instead of failure for the whole suit as it loses pressure and kill the wearer. The kind of weapons though, I supposed will be varied depending on the mission. A mission where collateral damage is allowed would be different than a mission where minimal damage is required. The defender side would certainly not wanting to destroy the hull of their own ship/station and other critical compartment like life support, and would probably use weapons that minimize damage comparing to the attacker with a mission to capture and allowed for more collateral damage as long as they don't blow up the whole thing.

[magnemoe]

[quote name='RainDreamer']Certainly combat drones will be around by the time we have space combat, but stories about some people sitting behind a screen pulling trigger is kind of difficult to engage readers as much as stories someone who is in mortal danger and come out on top. Hence why I think we can hand wave the necessity for space combat in person for now. Although thinking of combat drones designs for microgravity environment inside space structures is going to be quite interesting too, but we can leave that for another thread.

And if we are talking about non lethal weapons, a potato gun shooting kushballs at very high speed is an easy way to deal with unruly population. Or sonic gun. Or tear gas (in a closed environment, the effect would be extremely dangerous).

As for military combat, I think they are going to use skintight suit design with armour layers on top (if not an actual powered armour system), as that save mass for other things like ammunitions, and even if it is damaged and the wearer get hurt, it will still be localized damage instead of failure for the whole suit as it loses pressure and kill the wearer. The kind of weapons though, I supposed will be varied depending on the mission. A mission where collateral damage is allowed would be different than a mission where minimal damage is required. The defender side would certainly not wanting to destroy the hull of their own ship/station and other critical compartment like life support, and would probably use weapons that minimize damage comparing to the attacker with a mission to capture and allowed for more collateral damage as long as they don't blow up the whole thing.[/QUOTE]
Combat drones would be most practical for military use or heavy duty security. They will not replace cops or agents of various types.
Now if you are an criminal or infiltrator you might want weapons who can take out the drones while not looking like an heavy weapon.

An handgun would not breach an habitat for living in an sci-fi setting you have to protect against micrometeorites and radiation anyway.
It will breach temporary or light structures, connecting tubes or inflatable greenhouses.

An taser round would be nice. it would also be an round for an small recoilless weapon. another round might be armor piercing to take out the drones.

Now in an rotating habitat an normal gun would work just as on earth.
In zero g you should be able to get off one shot before you start spinning. This could be used for an fun plot, in the zero g part of the station you jump across some large open area like an dry dock. Two attackers jumps towards you and draw knives, you draw the gun and shoot one who will intercept closest. this will send you spinning but the other attacker will not reach you.

[SomeGuy12]

One issue is that space habitats are worth a lot more than buildings on earth. And it's a lot harder to sneak up on one. (let's just call it "ridiculously hard" so we don't have another endless "stealth in space" argument)

The whole point of infantry is that if bad guys a holding a place, and you want to capture the place intact or capture some of the bad guys alive, or save some hostages, you send in infantry to shoot the bad guys individually.

But if you don't care about the above, or there is no practical way to accomplish the mission, you might as well just fire at the space habitat with railgun rounds or lasers from maximum range until it's vapor.

Point is, it's really hard to save hostages, or take a station intact, or capture anyone alive if the enemy team decides if they are going to die, they are going to make sure you can't get what you wanted. In space there's so many high energy mechanisms - ways to self destruct, vent the place, purposefully trash the place so you can't use it again, and guarantee the hostages can't be recovered via armed assault.

James Corey books pointed this out. An assault force of space marines is trying to take over a real warship. But it's space, and in space every warship has fission bombs as kind of the lowest tier weapon onboard. So you just set off a nuke as a scuttling charge and the whole thing vanishes in a flash.

So you really need to stop the bad guys from taking over in the first place. You ain't getting it back if they do.

[Just Jim]

[quote name='LordFerret']Ah yes. The community which promotes peaceful space exploration, no politics or religion, equality, we all get along, discusses personal firearms. The irony.[/QUOTE]

I actually agree in that I'm not a fan of Kerbal weapon or combat mods. I prefer peaceful exploration.

But for the sake of argument, I look at this from a self-defense aspect. If all else fails, what's the biggest, nastiest weapon I can have to defend myself without blowing the ship apart?

[magnemoe]

[quote name='SomeGuy12']One issue is that space habitats are worth a lot more than buildings on earth. And it's a lot harder to sneak up on one. (let's just call it "ridiculously hard" so we don't have another endless "stealth in space" argument)

The whole point of infantry is that if bad guys a holding a place, and you want to capture the place intact or capture some of the bad guys alive, or save some hostages, you send in infantry to shoot the bad guys individually.

But if you don't care about the above, or there is no practical way to accomplish the mission, you might as well just fire at the space habitat with railgun rounds or lasers from maximum range until it's vapor.

Point is, it's really hard to save hostages, or take a station intact, or capture anyone alive if the enemy team decides if they are going to die, they are going to make sure you can't get what you wanted. In space there's so many high energy mechanisms - ways to self destruct, vent the place, purposefully trash the place so you can't use it again, and guarantee the hostages can't be recovered via armed assault.

James Corey books pointed this out. An assault force of space marines is trying to take over a real warship. But it's space, and in space every warship has fission bombs as kind of the lowest tier weapon onboard. So you just set off a nuke as a scuttling charge and the whole thing vanishes in a flash.

So you really need to stop the bad guys from taking over in the first place. You ain't getting it back if they do.[/QUOTE]
You would not try to board an modern warship either. At least not in an war setting.
That is unless the other ship surrenders and you take it over. Boarding of ships suspected for smuggling drugs or similar is common.
In this settings its smart to be armed because some might be desperate.

However my setting was mostly inside large city sized stations. Her you will have cops, common criminals and various agents.

[LordFerret]

[quote name='Just Jim']I actually agree in that I'm not a fan of Kerbal weapon or combat mods. I prefer peaceful exploration.

But for the sake of argument, I look at this from a self-defense aspect. If all else fails, what's the biggest, nastiest weapon I can have to defend myself without blowing the ship apart?[/QUOTE]

Keep your suit and helmet on and your hand close to the 'blow hatch' button. ;)

[VincentS]

You could use "top guns" (pun intended) that would fire rapidly rotating slow (top) slugs. Of course, you'd have to launch those by (contra rotating) pairs in order to conserve your angular momentum. Any target hit by one (and only one) would start spinning uncontrollably and effectively be out of fight until attitude control is restored (in the best case -- additional helmet cleaning may be necessary after such a spin..).

I didn't run numbers, so I'd appreciate if anybody could check if big enough angular momentum is actually achievable.

[AeroGav]

I think it's already been established that space combat is going to be

a) ship to ship, the same reasons that make personal combat unlikely in modern naval actions apply even more so to space
b) at very long range, thanks to absence of cover and horizon
c) with directed energy weapons, projectile weapons wouldn't have the delta v to close with another ship, and thanks to very long flight times and lack of cover, would be shot down long before reaching target

However, i don't know about the rest of you but I came here to talk about cool ray guns, so lets ignore the above and let our intrepid Flash Kerman show off his gunslinging skills.

It is often stated that laser weapons would burn a hole in their target and cauterize the wound.

The former sounds like something that creates unecessary suffering and the latter like something that reduces lethality. Firearms people talk for hours on the grim subject of "terminal ballistics", ie. trying to get the victim to bleed out as rapidly as possible, supposedly before they have time to shoot you back. So even if you assume our ray gun is based on visible / infra red laser technology , manufacturers are going to try pretty hard to prevent this from being the case. An obvious answer, which exists with current tech, is to compress the laser energy into very short pulses. The result, rather than acting like a cutting torch, is that the laser vaporises a small piece of the target into plasma, then , as plasma is opaque to electromagnetic radiation, the plasma will absorb the remaining laser energy and become hotter still. After this nanosecond laser pulse has ended , the superheated plasma will expand violently over the coming milliseconds, it will be like setting off an explosive charge against someone's body.

The problem with this is that it isn't very lethal either. The energy dissipates in all directions and will probably take the path of least resistance. If you imagine emptying the propellant grain out of a rifle bullet and detonating it against someone's chest, it'll leave a small burn and make them very angry, but won't actually endanger their life. Compared with actually using the same amount of propellant in an actual rifle and shooting them with it, anyway.

However, there's something much more awesome than IR lasers and they already exist. Eximer (ultra violet) lasers as used in surgical procedures.

The thing is, all light, including that from a laser, is transmitted by photons. The brighter the light, the more photons transmitted per second. The higher the wavelength of light, the greater energy each individual photon carries. A light source with the same energy output will therefore emit photons at a lower rate if it is sending out UV than if it is sending out Visible or IR. However , the exiting bit is what happens when they land. Visible / Infra Red photons individually carry less energy than is required to break the chemical bonds of the atoms they strike, so all they do is heat those atoms up a tiny bit. Of course, a sufficiently large deluge of such photons can raise the temperature to the point where things melt, burn or vaporize.

But these UV photons carry just enough energy to break the chemical bonds of the atoms they strike, basically dissociating our body tissues into their constituent elements (carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen) with little heating effect. You see them being used in surgery and the tissue just flashes to vapour, but there is no burning or cauterising.

Such a laser would make a perfect ray gun, because it would penetrate deep without wasting energy, vapourise the flesh in the wound channel and not cauterise anything, so you'd bleed profusely.

[RainDreamer]

^ so basically, disintegrating death ray is possible.