"A no-guns sci fi universe" Topic

tabletopwarrior "Sounds like a job for nerve gas or chem-bio weapons. Acid wash the crowd and drop a grenade on them. G'night Knight."

Dune does specifically say that the shield allows air in, so I guess that this would work. However, it would be no more effective than it is today, and I am sure that they have the equivalent of chem suits.

Yep – I don't see why they wouldn't be air-sealed, provided with breathing filters, and even a short emergency self-contained breathing supply. You could use chem on the grunts (perhaps, more likely surface agents than inhaled), but not against properly suited up Knights. Also, I don't see why they wouldn't be following modern military doctrine and be operating in a dispersed formation – so no "washing the crowd."

Combination rounds are something else though, which I've also been thinking about. If you have two layers of armor (inertial dampening mesh to protect versus kinetics, and plate over this to protect against beams), then could you design a round that "cracked" the plate with kinetics and then followed up with a beam to penetrate the mesh? It seems like it would require a large penetrating explosive round and a very rapid follow-up by an intense beam – sort of a HEAT/Plasma combination. Sounds difficult to do … hmm … maybe a sabot round with HEAT and a plasma grenade?

So you are suggesting a beam based shaped charge round CAT? Or a round that upon impact with the plate cracking it open then firing a plasma cutter at point blank?

What I was imagining was either:

1. A two-part round, with the first part consisting of an AP round to "crack" the anti-beam plate armor, and then a second part consisting of a plasma charge to melt through the anti-kinetic mesh armor (and flash heat the target).

2. A sort of twin weapon, one barrel shooting AT to crack and the other barrel shooting beams to shoot through the cracks.

#1 seems far more feasible, but also seems like the rounds would be larger than the average small arms round … maybe an "in game" reason for heavier, shorter range weapons?

#2 seems needlessly complex, very possibly highly inefficient, but would look cool … which means it would probably be the official government program. ;)

I'm not really sure how traditional melee weapons would defeat this sort of layered armor. They would have to actually crack the plate, but the anti-kinetic mesh would defeat the bludgeoning effect of a strike. Assuming a weapon could crack the plate, it would also need an energy based element to defeat the mesh … unless we are saying that sufficient sharpness could overcome the anti-kinetic mesh, in which case a flechette round might be a possibility for ranged weapons.

Hmmm … maybe a sort of "mace" designed to crack the plate and then fire off an energy charge on impact? Melee would consist of big Crack! Boom! strikes.

At any rate, it would seem that a large caliber complex-round weapon for ranged and a high impact but energy/powered edge for melee would be the order of the day.

How about John Carter of Mars style campaign? Sure there are guns but for cultural and other reasons they are rarely used…