Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[Just Jim]

5 minutes ago, ARS said:

A bit unrelated, but I've seen a scene where the antagonist lay waste to the office room with a handheld minigun. The main character managed to evade it and get close using office tables as a cover and slash the minigun with a katana that cuts it's barrel assembly. The antagonist respond it with ditching the minigun and draw the knife for a melee combat. The minigun is only cut (cleanly) at barrel assembly, it's basically halves the barrel length (all 6 barrels cut). In theory, this still allows the minigun to be used right? Does this affect accuracy?

hehehe... No, this is good. Assuming the barrels were all mangled when it was cut, the aim would be terrible, and the gun would most likely jam...

However, this is Hollywood, and you said the katana sliced through the barrels like melted butter, and left a super clean cut. And given this is apparently in some office, which is super close range, I don't think it would have effected it a bit. The hero was a fool to ditch the now sawed-off mini-gun, and could have still riddled the bad-guy into swiss-cheese.

Awesome bad science catch!!!  hehehe  

Edited March 18, 2018 by Just Jim

[Technical Ben]

Or... like... how a table would not stop a minigun? They were carrying the battery pack to it too, right? As it cannot be operated gun only... or did the scene forget that too?

 

That and a Katana would not cut the gun... but I'm assuming rule of cool/super powers?

[kerbiloid]

Probably, the work of gas pressure inside the barrels would decrease so dramatically that it will be insufficient to power the gas engine of the minigun.
Work = Force * Distance
Distance is twice shorter - work is twice less. Not enough joules to move the assembly.

[ARS]

1 hour ago, Technical Ben said:

Or... like... how a table would not stop a minigun? They were carrying the battery pack to it too, right? As it cannot be operated gun only... or did the scene forget that too?

 

That and a Katana would not cut the gun... but I'm assuming rule of cool/super powers?

Well, the minigun is terminator-style so yes, no battery pack (even if it should). As for katana cutting the barrels... Well... The gunner is a supersoldier, able to easily lift the heavy minigun, but the swordfighter is purely rule of cool, since the sword used is a normal katana (no gizmos like HF blade, laser edge, monomolecular edge, etc.) and that barrel-cutting scene is done because of "swordfighting skills from my dojo"

 

[Technical Ben]

And the table? I gotta get me some bullet proof tables...

[KerikBalm]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Probably, the work of gas pressure inside the barrels would decrease so dramatically that it will be insufficient to power the gas engine of the minigun.
Work = Force * Distance
Distance is twice shorter - work is twice less. Not enough joules to move the assembly.

Gas driven gatling guns use ram air from a fast moving jet to initially start the barrel rotation (like the old vietnam war era gun pods mounted on F-4s before they added internal electric gatling guns). They wouldn't be used on a stationary or slow moving gatling gun, so it has to at least have an electric starter.

As to the question, I suppose it depends on where its cut and the design of the gun. At high RPM, its acting like a centrifuge. There would be rings to hold the barrels in place. 

Lets take the M-134 / GAU-17 minigun (Note, some people refer to any gatling style weapon as a minigun. Its really only "mini" and a "gun" if its smaller than 20mm, since the first of the modern style gatling weapons was the M-61 20mm gatling cannon, and is the benchmark. The first weapon to be called a minigun was a miniaturized version of the M-61 20mm cannon... dropped down to a 7.62x51mm rifle caliber)

Now if these rings on the ends were cut off, presumably the barrels would fly apart, either completely, or just splaying otuward so that a cone of bullets is fired around the point of aim, rather than at the point of aim. I suspect it would fly apart.

If the cut was at an angle, it would also result in each barrel having a different mass, so that is going to have the effect of an inbalanced centrifuge, which is also pretty bad.

So.... my guess is that it should be able to fire some more, but its going to come apart if the barrels really start rotating fast.

[magnemoe]

37 minutes ago, KerikBalm said:

Gas driven gatling guns use ram air from a fast moving jet to initially start the barrel rotation (like the old vietnam war era gun pods mounted on F-4s before they added internal electric gatling guns). They wouldn't be used on a stationary or slow moving gatling gun, so it has to at least have an electric starter.

As to the question, I suppose it depends on where its cut and the design of the gun. At high RPM, its acting like a centrifuge. There would be rings to hold the barrels in place. 

Lets take the M-134 / GAU-17 minigun (Note, some people refer to any gatling style weapon as a minigun. Its really only "mini" and a "gun" if its smaller than 20mm, since the first of the modern style gatling weapons was the M-61 20mm gatling cannon, and is the benchmark. The first weapon to be called a minigun was a miniaturized version of the M-61 20mm cannon... dropped down to a 7.62x51mm rifle caliber)

Now if these rings on the ends were cut off, presumably the barrels would fly apart, either completely, or just splaying otuward so that a cone of bullets is fired around the point of aim, rather than at the point of aim. I suspect it would fly apart.

If the cut was at an angle, it would also result in each barrel having a different mass, so that is going to have the effect of an inbalanced centrifuge, which is also pretty bad.

So.... my guess is that it should be able to fire some more, but its going to come apart if the barrels really start rotating fast.

An gatling is external powered, almost all automatic guns uses recoil to reload, often using gas pressure from the barrel to. 
recoil would be hard on an gun who is so heavy, rotate and has an so high rate of fire, Gas would be even more troublesome because the rotating barrels. 
As you will always use this on an vehicle its not an serious problem with power and it has an major benefit, if an round don't fire it will simply be ejected, while an normal automatic weapon you has to use the bolt to cycle an new round into it, this is hard then the gun is on the underside of an supersonic plane

You could shorten the barrel carbine size down to the inner ring it would reduce muzzle velocity, it would not reduce the weight much as the mechanism is heavy. 
You can not cut an gun barrel with an sword blade, does not matter if you are an half-good like Hercules. Steel quality is pretty much the same, most likely the barrel has better steel and its far thicker. Now if you hit the barrel at 1000 m/s or higher things get interesting, this however will ruin your sword. 

[Shpaget]

2 hours ago, KerikBalm said:

Now if these rings on the ends were cut off, presumably the barrels would fly apart, either completely, or just splaying otuward so that a cone of bullets is fired around the point of aim, rather than at the point of aim. I suspect it would fly apart.

Miniguns have rates of fire of around 2000 to 6000 rounds per minute. With 6 barrels that brings us to 350 to 1000 revolutions per minute. I'd say that's not nearly enough for barrels to fly apart. They'd flex outwards slightly, but nothing catastrophic. 

As for accuracy drop, you don't need match grade accuracy to hit a person with a minigun at a katana range.

Of course, a katana (or any hand held blade weapon) has any chance of cutting through even a one gun barrel, let alone six. I would be surprised if it would nick the barrel enough to cause any drop in performance.

Edited March 18, 2018 by Shpaget

[StrandedonEarth]

16 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

an electromagnetically self-confining plasma cloud

So, basically a Star Wars blaster bolt

[suicidejunkie]

On 3/5/2018 at 11:46 PM, ARS said:

Nuclear weapons is designed to go off ONLY when you want it. After all, you don't want to lose a huge chunk of your country because someone accidentally dropping a nuclear warhead during bomber rearming operations on an airbase

I think this could be clarified; it isn't so much that the weapon is designed to only go off when you want it to, but that everything has to go exactly right in order for it to work...  in order for the warhead to detonate by accident, it would have to be quite carefully designed to be able to go off in that situation, which makes it not an accident anymore.

As noted in the previous point:

On 3/5/2018 at 11:46 PM, ARS said:

The precise engineering of a nuclear weapon makes the best Swiss watch look like a flint knife in comparison.

 

Edited March 18, 2018 by suicidejunkie

[insert_name]

what really bugs me is when graphic design teams think that all moons look like earth's moon.

[ARS]

On a topic of movie inaccuracies, let's talk about one of the most ubiquitous plot device about ace pilots: Ejection Seats! The favorite plot device to avoid killing (or deliberately killing when it malfunctions) a character so the plot can continue. Some of the notable inaccuracies/ mistakes about ejection seats that's often depicted in movies:

1.I was once an ace pilot, but then I took a missile to the wing, now I'm gonna get a revenge: A common way to progress the plot about fighter pilots is having a main character being shot down by enemy ace before he ejected to save his life and taking off to the skies on another day to take a revenge against that ace pilot. In real life, 20% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot sustaining career-ending injuries (including death). Also, 100% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot losing several inches of height, due to the sudden compression of being flung out of plane at anywhere from 12 to 22 Gs (depending on what ejection seat your plane was equipped with). Most air forces impose a career limit on the number of ejections permissible (and that limit is usually one) before it's desk job city for you. Pilots don't eject at the first hint of trouble, either. Considerable effort is first put into slowing the aircraft because at supersonic or just plain fast speeds the wind the pilot is slamming into could possibly rip the mask off of a pilot's face, tear his helmet off and ram high-speed air down his esophagus, which makes simply impacting the ground sans parachute sound like a better option. Slowing down to a more reasonable speed to eject into is a good idea, if you can do it. A 200 mph wind is about the fastest nature throws at us. 600 mph is unnatural. The conventional wisdom among pilots is to eject only if not ejecting will kill you

2.Eject-i3n: On military aircraft with more than one seat the commanding officer will yell "eject" thrice to the other crew member(s) to order them to bail out. This ensures that no single utterance of the order - possibly spoken completely out of context - will result in unnecessary (and expensive) ejections, as well as to ensure the rest of the crew will eject, no matter what, if they do hear the repeated order. Somehow this is rarely seen on movies, especially on large military aircraft with more than one crew that's indeed have an ejection seat, because in movies, only fighters have ejection seats (Since usually the stories about bomber crew is often less interesting/ thrilling than fighter pilots)

3.Bailing (Out of seat): Before ejection seats were invented, escaping an aircraft by "bailing out" was even more dangerous. If you were lucky, there was a control that would blast off the canopy with explosive charges. If not, you had to open the canopy yourself, either climb out or roll the aircraft over and fall out, and essentially perform an impromptu skydive. Unlike a normal skydive however, the aircraft is likely to be violently spinning and rapidly losing altitude due to loss of engines, control surfaces, entire wings, or all of the above. If the plane was flying low enough or couldn't be controlled at all, many pilots chose to stay in their planes and die instantly in the crash instead of risk bailing out and dying a slower, more horrible death. At least 50% died on the way out (not counting the ones who didn't make it out at all), and only around a quarter made it back home safely, the rest of the survivors either being taken prisoner or horribly wounded. Some of the pre-ejection seat era aircraft are notorious for this. For example, early-model Messerschmitt Bf 109s and Bell P-39 Airacobras were notoriously difficult to bail out of because the wind would literally hold the side-folding canopy shut, making it almost impossible to escape the plane. Production Airacobras didn't have sliding canopies, they had doors, but that didn't make them easier to bail out, for a different reason. The relative positions of the cockpit door and the stabilizer effectively made sure that if any pilot taller than a midget would forget to take a fetal position after bailing out, his legs will be broken by a stabilizer, this usually being a career ending injury even if the pilot managed to land on his own territory and was saved by the ground troops. Another example has the Lockheed P-38 Lightning, which had a nasty habit of killing or permanently injuring anybody attempting to bail out of it. The plane basically had 2 fuselages, with a boom-like horizontal stabilizer stretching the entire width between them. Bailing out of the cockpit (located in the middle between the 2 fuselages) would likely slam you into the boom, whether you curled into a fetal position or not. In an example about bomber planes, The B-24 Liberator heavy bomber was virtually impossible to bail out. It had only one door, at the tail, and the catwalk was too narrow to even walk through while wearing a parachute, much less run while the plane is going down. It also had a tendency to break up on hitting water due to the design of the wing. On the other hand... spare a thought for the early Soviet VDV, who, lacking cargo aircraft with such bourgeois luxuries as enclosed fuselages, had to deploy like this all the time: (See for yourself)

4.My plane killed me after I've ejected: We get it, the movie isn't particularly good when it comes to a practical design as long as it looks cool (emphasis on practical). Aerodynamic, functionality and ergonomics ar often thrown out of the window for rule of cool. This often extends to a supposedly high-tech super secret prototype aircraft which is going down and the pilot needs to eject, which due to the design of the aircraft (purely for cool factor), ejecting will severely injure/ kill the pilot if it's attempted in real life. in fact, the first generation of fighter jets such as the F-80 Shooting Star and F-84 Thunderjet made ejection seats indispensable. Pilots attempting to bail out now had a very significant chance of being unable to get out of the way before the plane would catch up with them. In fact, on faster airplanes, the slipstream, the layer of air traveling around the plane's body, could actually pull the pilot up against the plane once he left the cockpit (the same problem also applies to things like missiles or bombs, requiring a bit of engineering on how to get them to leave the plane once you dropped them). While ejection seat designs had been experimented with since 1916, the first practical designs were developed by Heinkel in Germany (1940, while working on a jet fighter prototype) and Saab in Sweden (1941, while developing the Saab 21 twin boom pushing propeller fighter). The Germans employed ejection seats on their experimental jet types (first emergency use, January 1942) and were the earliest to install them on production models. The first aircraft built with ejection seats was the Heinkel He 219, a nightfighter, which had its engines so close to the fuselage that the propeller tips reached within a foot of the cockpit, just aft of the pilot's seat (first combat ejection, April 1944). Another German type needing bangseats, although it never entered production, The was the Dornier Do335, which had two propellers, one pulling in the front, the other pushing in the rear, just in the right place to mince a pilot (although the ejection sequence had this propeller jettisoned as well). On the other hand, the KA-50 Alligator/Black Shark (NATO Reporting Name: Hokum) is probably the first combat helicopter to be fitted with ejection seats. Obviously, with two rotors on top of it, it is very easy to get blended into meat chunks when ejecting, so the design also detonates charges built into the helicopter rotors axles just before the ejection seat activates. Aircraft design isn't only about designing a plane and then slapping the ejection seat onboard and call it a day. Considerable effort must be done to ensure that the pilots ejected safely and make sure that the plane does not pose a hazard by having it flying away from ejecting pilot.

5.He killed my wingmen! I'm not done yet until I shoot him to death with my plane!: On shooting an airman after he or she's ejected or otherwise left a stricken aircraft being a war crime. In real life, this was generally respected in WW2 by all sides, even (most of the time) on the Eastern Front. But Polish pilots in the Royal Air Force had to be frequently brought to book for seeking to kill German aircrew who had bailed out - they generally loathed the Germans so much that they considered the fight was not over till the pilot was dead. Some British pilots justified shooting at a bailed-out Luftwaffe pilot with the simple cold calculation that the Germans could quickly replace an aircraft - it took time, money and experience to make a good pilot, and to make sure he was dead would really harm the German war effort, especially if he bailed out where his own side could recover him. This attitude was rare, however, and besides, it is difficult and expends too much ammo to make sure of getting a man hanging under a parachute. Although during the Battle of Britain, some British pilots thought nothing of shooting down seaplanes tasked with recovering German pilots who came down in the Channel

6.Ejection in space: Thankfully the movies about space battles (very) rarely depict the ejection of a space fighter pilot in space (This could lead to a much slower, horrible death since space is so empty, he could end up drifting forever, burn up inside atmosphere or slam into enemy ship at high speed or just plain blasted to dust by enemy ship's weapons) since the rules dictates that, in movieverse, space fighters have no ejection seat whatsoever (I'm looking at you, TIE fighter) and only bigger ship have a way to save their crew by using escape pod (Which is still bad in practice since the probability of you being rescued while drifting IN SPACE inside the cramped escape pod is amost zero since as explained above, the space is so dang empty). In real life, though, there's indeed an ejection seat fitted on space craft (Though they never used in space, they're intended to save the pilot when there's a catastrophic failure during launch sequence). The American Gemini spacecraft had extra-strong ejection seats that were designed not only to blast the astronaut clear of the spacecraft, but outside the danger zone of a potential launcher fire, and high enough for a parachute to work. They were never used, and would probably have permanently crippled the user. This design was unusual: most manned spacecraft have used a Launch Escape System consisting of a solid fuel rocket in a tower connected to the crew capsule. If the launcher is about to explode or otherwise fail catastrophically, the crew capsule is detached and the LES activated to put it at a safe distance. The LES is typically jettisoned when the spacecraft nears orbit. This has only ever been used once for real, when the two-man crew of Soyuz T-10-1, waiting for a trip to Salyut 7 in 1983, were ejected clear of their launcher just before a fire destroyed it. (In 1975, another Soyuz mission had its capsule ejected while heading for orbit as the third stage was deviating too much, but by then they had already jettisoned the LES and the crew capsule was sent clear by the explosive bolts detaching it from the launcher.) In a case of ejection by design, Yuri Gagarin, on the world's first manned space flight, actually ejected from his Vostok capsule and landed separately by parachute. This was covered up for many years, as the FAI rules of the time required a pilot to land with his capsule for the flight to count. Gagarin, dressed in a bright orange spacesuit, landed next to a man and his daughter, having to explain he wasn't an alien, he was a fellow Soviet and needed to find a telephone. The soviets kept it a secret that they hadn't figured out how to make the Vostok capsules land survivably and pretended that the cosmonauts usually, with a few exceptions, landed with their spacecraft, when in reality the only way to survive was to eject. The next generation of Soviet spacecraft, the Voskhods, had an improved combination of parachutes and braking rockets that made a soft landing possible. This made the ejection seat unnecessary and a two- or three-man crew could be fitted in the capsule.

7.I can't eject! The system has been hit by EMP!: EMP seems to be the most favorite plot device to kill any electronics (Including instantly downing any aircraft, which is true in real life except the plane would most likely turned into a glider, not plummeting into the ground instantly). The quote above is usually used to kill an important character. However, in real life, ejection systems does not use any electronic systems (or being shielded from EMP if it uses one) because, as a critical component to save pilot's life it's designed to be specifically usable even if the rest of plane's electronics got fried

Edited March 19, 2018 by ARS

[YNM]

2 hours ago, ARS said:

In real life, 20% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot sustaining career-ending injuries (including death). Also, 100% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot losing several inches of height, due to the sudden compression of being flung out of plane at anywhere from 12 to 22 Gs (depending on what ejection seat your plane was equipped with).

There's a good reason for an actual dimension limitation for pilots.

2 hours ago, ARS said:

On military aircraft with more than one seat the commanding officer will yell "eject" thrice to the other crew member(s) to order them to bail out.

Apparently, the RAF is even more ballsy than that standard - there isn't one.

Spoiler

Apparently it's used in USAF though.

Maybe the brits are secretly more foolhardy than 'muricans.

 

Edited March 19, 2018 by YNM

[p1t1o]

4 hours ago, ARS said:

2.Eject-i3n: On military aircraft with more than one seat the commanding officer will yell "eject" thrice to the other crew member(s) to order them to bail out. This ensures that no single utterance of the order - possibly spoken completely out of context - will result in unnecessary (and expensive) ejections, as well as to ensure the rest of the crew will eject, no matter what, if they do hear the repeated order. Somehow this is rarely seen on movies, especially on large military aircraft with more than one crew that's indeed have an ejection seat, because in movies, only fighters have ejection seats (Since usually the stories about bomber crew is often less interesting/ thrilling than fighter pilots)

I have heard anecdotally from an RAF pilot that you are never supposed to hear the 3rd "eject", because if you havn't pulled the handle after the 2nd "eject", the person giving the command will have.

[ARS]

5 minutes ago, p1t1o said:

I have heard anecdotally from an RAF pilot that you are never supposed to hear the 3rd "eject", because if you havn't pulled the handle after the 2nd "eject", the person giving the command will have.

By the time you heard the 2nd eject, you would be already pulled the handle anyway, sending you rocketing out of cockpit before the commander even said the 3rd eject

[kerbiloid]

4 hours ago, ARS said:

Most air forces impose a career limit on the number of ejections permissible (and that limit is usually one) before it's desk job city for you.

A plane costs several tens million USD. If an ace crashes it - they will give him another one. If a rookie - who will bet this money on him twice?

4 hours ago, ARS said:

Also, 100% of aircraft ejections result in the pilot losing several inches of height, due to the sudden compression of being flung out of plane at anywhere from 12 to 22 Gs

(Muahaha at Dragon v2 optimism with its puny 6 g LES.)
 

Spoiler

When a Kerbal hits the ground with head, he/she probably gets twice shorter.
Then restores like a spring.
So we can name the field to the north from KSC (where they mostly fall) "Springfield".

 

4 hours ago, ARS said:

ejection of a space fighter pilot in space (This could lead to a much slower, horrible death since space is so empty, he could end up drifting forever, burn up inside atmosphere or slam into enemy ship at high speed or just plain blasted to dust by enemy ship's weapons)

If a plane-size fighter has enough energetic capacity to be manoeuvring in space, it's highly likely that its escape pod delta-V is enough for simple deorbit.
Also rescue shuttles would be very fast, as they fly directly to it.

4 hours ago, ARS said:

pace fighters have no ejection seat whatsoever (I'm looking at you, TIE fighter)

Tiefighter's cabin is shielded by those two large... things from aside. So, it can be treated as an extra-atmospheric escape pod.

4 hours ago, ARS said:

In real life, though, there's indeed an ejection seat fitted on space craft (Though they never used in space, they're intended to save the pilot when there's a catastrophic failure during launch sequence).

Spiral spaceplane cabin was an ejectable escape capsule. Originally - conical, later - spherical.
Though Spiral is not an X-Wing, just recon/bomber/satellite interceptor, but it had it.
http://www.buran.ru/htm/spiral_5.htm

Spoiler

 

4 hours ago, ARS said:

The soviets kept it a secret that they hadn't figured out how to make the Vostok capsules land survivably and pretended that the cosmonauts usually, with a few exceptions, landed with their spacecraft, when in reality the only way to survive was to eject.

They just were not sure if the capsule will successfully land, while an ejection seat was a well-known routine.
And btw the ejections didn't stop their further career.

Also, early Shuttle and Buran were equipped with ejection seats (though probably just for lulz).
An ejection seat (for Buran) was tested in a Progress launch (ejected from the top of the fairing, successfully landed a _{mannequin personnequin person'n'horse skyrider} anthropomorphic mockup).
Ejection seats for Buran were just a modification of common aviation ejection seat K-36.

4 hours ago, ARS said:

In a case of ejection by design, Yuri Gagarin, on the world's first manned space flight, actually ejected from his Vostok capsule and landed separately by parachute. This was covered up for many years, as the FAI rules of the time required a pilot to land with his capsule for the flight to count. Gagarin, dressed in a bright orange spacesuit

They would just declare that this orange envelope is the inflatable capsule.
While that metal sphere was just a jettisoned volumetric heatshield.

Edited March 19, 2018 by kerbiloid

[ARS]

18 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

When a Kerbal hits the ground with head, he/she probably gets twice shorter.
Then restores like a spring.
So we can name the field to the north from KSC (where they mostly fall) "Springfield".

God, you make me lol'd so hard it makes my stomach hurt

21 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

A plane costs several tens million USD. If an ace crashes it - they will give him another one. If a rookie - who will bet this money on him twice?

True, but back then, when the term "ace" is first used during WW1-WW2, back then a plane is pretty cheap to build (the only thing that makes them expensive is the lack of manpower of skilled worker to build it manually since there's no high tech factory to build it like today) since the war economy during world wars allowed them to be produced en masse, with new pilots often being given new plane or veteran pilots given another plane when their previous ride has crashed simply to have more firepower when engaging in a dogfight. Also, an ace is a term given to fighter pilots who achieved around 5 kills (IIRC), which, back then, due to the aircraft technology mainly dominated by piston engines and straightforward machineguns (no jets until late in the war, and missile is still very primitive, no high speed AA homing missiles yet), a dogfight is often determined by pilot's skills, not his aircraft. Thus, those who survived the battle with enough kills becomes experienced pilots, and hailed as ace. There's even a term of "ace in a day" where rookie fighter pilots becomes an ace in just a day due to the massive scale of the air battle they participated into, allowing them to kill many enemies in a single engagement. Today, with the advent of homing missiles, high tech equipment that makes the plane far more expensive, BVR combat and the development of UCAV drones, the term ace slowly fades as the pilots today rarely survive long enough to see their 5th kill since the air combat these day is so one sided, the battle's outcome is now determined largely by who have the fancier tech. There's a modern day aces though, but each decades, from each wars in modern era, there's very little, if any new ace or none at all being born in this world

42 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

They would just declare that this orange envelope is the inflatable capsule.
While that metal sphere was just a jettisoned volumetric heatshield.

It makes sense in a context

50 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Tiefighter's cabin is shielded by those two large... things from aside. So, it can be treated as an extra-atmospheric escape pod.

Side material claims it's the solar panels (those 2 hexagonal plates). Whether you consider solar panels as a shield or not... It depends to you, considering TIE's fragility

[YNM]

2 hours ago, p1t1o said:

I have heard anecdotally from an RAF pilot that you are never supposed to hear the 3rd "eject", because if you haven't pulled the handle after the 2nd "eject", the person giving the command will have.

Apparently there isn't even one. (and that's with a civillian !)

Edited March 19, 2018 by YNM

[DDE]

17 hours ago, magnemoe said:

An gatling is external powered

Gryazev and Shipunov would like a word. Or six.

[roboslacker]

On 3/18/2018 at 8:14 AM, ARS said:

A bit unrelated, but I've seen a scene where the antagonist lay waste to the office room with a handheld minigun. The main character managed to evade it and get close using office tables as a cover and slash the minigun with a katana that cuts it's barrel assembly. The antagonist respond it with ditching the minigun and draw the knife for a melee combat. The minigun is only cut (cleanly) at barrel assembly, it's basically halves the barrel length (all 6 barrels cut). In theory, this still allows the minigun to be used right? Does this affect accuracy?

Was that from Black Bullet?

[ARS]

3 minutes ago, roboslacker said:

Was that from Black Bullet?

Correct! I just want to know whether it's possible to fire a minigun with it's barrel being cut

[p1t1o]

The ammunition struggles of the minigunman:

"IM HERE MOTHALUVVAS TIME FOR SOME REVENGE AWWWW YEAH LETS GET THIS REVENGE PARTY STARTED!!!"

BRRRT

....

....

....

 

[Technical Ben]

I would not be surprised if half the films forgot to put an ammunition box on it...

 

 

[ARS]

But then again, most movies will prefer ammo belt instead ammo box, since using ammo belt is undoubtedly makes you look like unstoppable badass when going rambo against horde of enemies

[YNM]

9 minutes ago, ARS said:

But then again, most movies will prefer ammo belt instead ammo box, since using ammo belt is undoubtedly makes you look like unstoppable badass when going rambo against horde of enemies

Are there side-loaded ammo box ? Most of the machine guns I've seen that could handle a "belt" are somewhat side-loaded. Or was it meant to refer just a box holding those "belts" ?

Edited March 19, 2018 by YNM