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  1. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    What are some things that could happen if all guns had infinite ammo?

    Discussion in 'Setting Development' started by disasterspark, Apr 9, 2019.

    I'm writing a story set about 100 years from now. Everything is super futuristic. Modern medicine has advanced to the point where illnesses and permanent injuries have become obsolete, but the USA is getting taken over by a dictatorship, along with other issues.

    And in this world, I'm writing a group of cowboy-like outlaws who try to escape the US before shit truly hits the fan. I want their gear to be slick, where they can carry lots of stuff and yet run around with ease. I don't want them to carry too much ammo, yet I want them to stand a chance when fighting against the evil bad guys (even though from a certain pov they are the bad guys)

    I've thought about inventing a system where in this future, 1 bullet could actually be shot 5 or 10 times before being ejected but that might make things confusing. So I've now thought about just making every gun simply be like the blasters from Star Wars. Where maybe the guns do have infinite ammo and don't need to be reloaded however maybe they would get really hot and need to be cleaned and maintained.
     
  2. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    in response to your thread heading.... infinite casualties.


    but in all seriousness (sort of).... if you want something that makes sense, there needs to be some way of replenishing stock. You cant just make something from nothing, unless you are Edward Elric. If its energy, maybe have it solar powered. If its water, the moisture in the air. something thats all around you that can be converted to infinitely power your gun
     
  3. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    realistically ammo is rarely the limiting factor in a firefight* - its unusual for a infantry soldier to blast off all the bullets hes carrying in an engagement, its normally more to do with how many casualties and how much damage one side or the other can take before the fall back

    (*planes are the obvious exception - they frequently have to break station to rearm)
     
  4. Friedrich Kugelschreiber

    Friedrich Kugelschreiber marshmallow Contributor

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    That doesn't really make any sense, because the bullet is what's being fired from the barrel. The cartridge is the metal casing containing the bullet, propellant, and primer.

    But if you want your little band to be truly mobile, more than ammo, I'd be worrying about food and other supplies. How big is your group? Just how mobile are they? Are they carrying tents around along with food and supplies, or are they loose in the wilderness with nothing but their rifles and the clothes on their backs, sleeping under the stars? And it's hard to be extremely mobile without vehichles or some other form of transportation such as horses, jeeps, land speeders. If they have these forms of transportation, then they will surely be able to carry enough ammo along, and if they don't have them, then they aren't really that mobile after all. Unless we're talking about extremely difficult terrain. Maybe you could read about some historical examples of highly mobile fighting groups.
    As far as combat goes, the main difference of having unlimited ammo would be that they wouldn't have to reload, and if their enemies have this tech it wouldn't make much difference.

    Edit: Another thing to consider is whether they're in sympathetic or hostile territory. Supply will be much easier with a sympathetic population than with a hostile one.
     
  5. Bobby Burrows

    Bobby Burrows Banned Contributor

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    Ammo stores and factories would have to adopt a new business model to stay in business.
     
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  6. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    I forgot to mention that the story is written in 1st person view of an ex-cop turned fugitive. Right now I'm thinking about some mechanism stored inside of the gun's "magazine" that causes a chain reaction mixed with the air all around it to fire a bolt of energy, similar to the blaster bolts in Star Wars. So essentially you can't fire the gun in space, but everywhere else, they're fine. Kinda like in Star Wars Battlefront 2015 and 2017, the guns could also get hot and overheat if they are shot too much, especially if the user is careless and doesn't clean or maintain them. Maybe the "magazines" can occasionally falter and have to be taken out and replaced with new ones. It's not an uncommon occurrence, but it could happen, so they may carry a few extra mags in case of emergencies. Or the gun may break so they need a new weapon. I haven't thought about shotguns, revolvers, sniper rifles, or just guns that are not magazine fed. Maybe with Shotguns and Snipers they carry a more powerful blast and thus need to be racked after every shot to compensate. Or single action revolvers just don't have that self loading mechanism.

    Edit: Maybe guns with no external magazines (shotguns, sniper rifles, and maybe revolvers) could just be more susceptible to breaking and would make it much harder to fix since you can't just replace the magazine.What are those kinds of revolvers that you have to take off the entire cylinder and replace it with a new one called?

    Hope that makes sense.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2019
  7. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    Yeah I myself thought the "one bullet can be shot multiple times because future" was dumb and too confusing so that's why I thought about changing it to be like the blasters from the EA Star Wars Battlefront where they're technically infinite but can overheat if shot too much. After that, you would have to wait a bit for the gun to cool off before you can shoot again.

    The band consists of 4 members at most. But by the end of the story it may be down to just 2. I imagine them to be like a family going on a big, deadly road trip. With them traveling through all kinds of terrain. But mainly a city. With the government and police after them. The govt releases propaganda that demonizes them, think of Emmanuel Goldstein from 1984 by George Orwell, especially the leader (and MC) of this group. In fact, the reason why he writes his book is to tell his side of the story, giving people a different perspective. So most terrains would be "hostile". But they have devices they can use that makes them invisible to the mass surveillance and so officers can't recognize them.

    But part of the reason why they survive is that there is also an underground society of criminals. Not much is known about it. If someone catches the interest of a member, that person can be invited to join. And they essentially keep criminals alive and thriving. Like meetup for criminals mixed with your standard resistance society. One of the things you should never do, is snitch. Because if you do, they will hunt you down to the ends of the Earth and kill you. It's a pretty big society, with people of all professions being members. So I guess that is their "sympathetic" territory.

    As for transportation, I could probably see them stealing cars and driving them. Even though they are criminals, I don't see them stealing someone's car unless they really have to. But illegally buying cars seems like something they would definitely do. They could also use public transportation as a backup, though that can be risky.

    As for food and other important supplies. Maybe they can carry these things called 72 Hour bags for those long trips on foot. Essentially, backpacks they all carry filled with supplies that last 3 days at most. But given how its the future they might have bags that carry more. Plus they can definitely sleep in a tent, sleeping under the stars seems like a terrible idea in my eyes. It would be too easy to be spotted by police, predators, or just other people who have less-than-good intentions.
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2019
  8. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    I mean you're not wrong.
     
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  9. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    You could do indirect fire with rifles, couldn't you? With infinite ammo, you could all shoot a constant stream of bullets up, and let them rain down on the enemy, with someone spotting for you and telling you to move the stream in or out. Like sheet shooting with arrows, but from really far away.

    You'd have people holding suppression fire on an enemy behind a wall, and then you would sit there for as long as it took to saw the building down around them. Days, weeks. Maybe you even fill the whole building up with bullets and suffocate him. If the bullets are depleted uranium, maybe you give him radiation sickness and kill him that way.

    People would get oddly skilled at bullet art. They'd learn to write in cursive with bullets. Draw with bullets. Stuff like that. Music with bullets, shooting things near and far to tap out a rhythm.

    I don't know. This has a lot of potential to be really funny.

    I think you'd see a lot of construction using bullets, like waddle and dab, but the fill is made of bullets.
     
  10. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    This could actually be a really fun movie
     
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  11. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Thats already done with machine guns like the GPMG and the M60 - most rifles don't have the range to do it effectively
     
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  12. John Calligan

    John Calligan Contributor Contributor

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    No kidding? That's terrifying.
     
  13. Alan Aspie

    Alan Aspie Banned Contributor

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    Really easy answer would be not to miss + to take ammo & gear from their victims. Your dudes don't pull the trigger if they don't have straight visual contact.

    Gang of 5 has 5 guns and 100 bullets. They meet 15 enemies. They use 16 bullets. (One bloody idiot missed once.) Enemies had 30 guns and 600 bullets. They sprayed 300 around.

    Now your dudes can pick the guns and ammo they want from dead enemies. And the tour goes on.

    Our enemy is your logistic support group. You don't need fancy impossible guns. You just need enemies to get ammo & gear. If you don't have them you don't need ammo.

    Learn from Simo...

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simo_Häyhä

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1517044/The-long-view.html

    https://thenewsrep.com/77861/worlds-deadliest-sniper-simo-hayha/
     
    Last edited: Apr 10, 2019
  14. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    Indirect fire was a big factor in the Parachute regiments victory at mount Longdon during the falklands conflict - British GPMGs were able to drop fire on Argentinian positions considerably further away than direct fire would have made possible (its also harder to take cover from as the rounds are effectively falling like rain so being in a foxhole doesn't really help) the Argentine army had the weapons but not the training to return fire effectively

    Its worth noting that its best done by sections not single weapons, and that it produces a beaten zone (as with mortars) rather than pinpoint accuracy
     
  15. XRD_author

    XRD_author Banned

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    An M2 (.50 cal.) gunner in the Corps told me he killed a lot of Iraqis he couldn't even see in the Gulf, walking rounds in as directed by his forward spotters.

    Of course, he wasn't shooting at the Iraqis -- he was shooting at their equipment.
     
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2019
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  16. Iain Sparrow

    Iain Sparrow Banned Contributor

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    In a "super futuristic" setting, there wouldn't be a need for guns any more than light sabers make any sense in Star Wars. Presumably, in the distant future guns and such will be little more than curiosities from a quaint time in our past.
     
  17. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    I'm surprised just taking the guns from the dead enemies hasn't crossed my mind.
     
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  18. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    It seems to me that it pretty much has to be an energy weapon. A 5.56 (M16/M4 etc) rifle bullet, the part that flies through the air and kills people, weighs around four grams. That means that no matter how it's propelled, you're going to need to carry 4 grams per discharge. Not a lot, but if you're talking about a thousand shots, that's about the same as the weight of a second rifle, and if you're going to walk down a hail of bullets onto a target or chew your way through a building, you're going to need to haul around a lot of lead to do so.

    If it's an energy weapon, it's a lot easier. It's powered by a miniature reactor that uses the Aschendale-Moriarty process to combine ambient dark matter with methylated fairy dust and produced a blah blah blah blah weighs only 200 grams and can produce enough power to run a small city in theory, but tends to overheat if run at a more than 30% on/off cycle.

    I guess what I'm saying is don't try to science, what you want isn't possible by current standards, but SF readers are quite tolerant of "InventorName" tech as long as it has some rules to it.
     
  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    The only problem is that the enemy get wise to that and start planting booby trapped ammunition which explodes when you try to fire it - what the Americans called "Eldest Son" in vietnam where the VC were in exactly that habit
     
  20. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    In 1980s Afghanistan the Soviets used to allow grenades to be "captured" that had a zero-delay fuse on them. Basically, as soon as the spoon flew free, they'd explode, usually about three feet from the thrower's hand.
     
  21. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    yep - the americans did that in vietnam too (and mortar rounds that explode when fired) - probably a standard tactic for any large force fighting insurgents who use captured weaponry
     
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  22. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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  23. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Technically in the Star Wars universe, the blasters do have 'ammo'.
    Storm Troopers carry canisters of a gas that the weapon turns into
    plasma, and are on the heavier side. Hence why they only carry one
    extra with them. I think they have a few weapons that can be pushed
    out to 500 shots before reloading, but that is based on the weapons
    setting. But most average around 50-300 shots before needing a reload.
    Also a power-cell would need to be recharged after so many shots, which
    is usually less than the amount available by the gas canister. So things get
    heavy and cumbersome due to all that you have to carry just to burn through
    your ammunition.


     
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  24. disasterspark

    disasterspark Active Member

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    At least I'm not getting sued for copyright. Haha
     
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  25. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Why would you? Nobody holds a trademark on the broad range of
    beam and particle based weapons. You can literally have the same
    thing as what already exists in fiction, just change the model name
    of it, and that it's it. Though it is much more fun to cook up your own
    weapons and model names for your own works. :)
     

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