how big/strong would you have to be to use an M230 chaingun as a weapon?

does anyone actually have numbers on how much armor explosive rounds chew through? like for the BMG or the 20mm/30mm?

Because Japanese materials science leading up to WW2 sucked much more than what you'd expect from what they proved capable of after world war 2.
Because they were primarily fighting the Chinese and thus had little reason to require better guns than those they had, so what faults existed weren't exposed until it was too late and even so rarely fixed.
Because they had an institution where revealing a mistake of someone else (or yourself) was a big no no so even things that could be fixed fairly easily were frequently ignored.

okay, so squad level heavy weapon, theoretically fired from the hip, mobile, able to march with it. What is the target? other infantry and light vehicles? if so, a .50 cal might work, or just a 30mm Grenade launcher. the grenade launcher would be fireable in single shot mode anyhow on the move, and frankly could be used in burst mode with a sling mount. with the new air-burst systems for grenades, this would make a pretty nasty weapon. you could probley work up a ballistics smart link to use radar / rangefinding lasers to lob the grenades at the enemy, to turn it into a light mortar system. though getting that system working 100% will be a bitch.

it doesn't have crazy armor penetration, but it would work on any infantry as long as they do not have powered armor. if they do, load up some phosphorus / thermite rounds and it'll eat right through about anything. good for cooking off ammo / fuel as well.

Isn't this from a Colonial Marines doujin?

If you're on a battlefield where chainguns are conceivable infantry weapons, this might not be a reasonable assumption.

The biggest downside to a grenade launcher compared to a chaingun is that if you're fighting armored targets that won't be reliably taken out with area effect munitions, getting direct or near hits on them with a grenade launcher at a distance can be problematic. Especially if the targets are faster than humans.


example: You spot an armored cyborg running 10 meters per second 225 yards from you. Your low velocity grenade rounds take 2-3 seconds to hit him, so you have to aim 20-30 meters ahead to get a direct hit. If he changes his direction or ducks into cover you won't hit him.

There was a doujinshi?

All I know is that some artist called max Kim made a bunch of animu style Alien VS Predator pictures as fanart and they were hovering around the net.

I would also like to know if there's any more information on this.

true. though with air-burst rounds, cover won't help him so much, as you just fire past the cover and air-burst. if you are using phosphorus rounds the cyborg is now covered in burning death. hmm... here is some info about a 25mm Grenade launcher / anti-material rifle in development. the muzzle velocity is not much different than that of the .50 BMG.

the trick with "alien smart gun" style rigs is, well, human frailty. i recall that the Browning Automatic Rifle was originally going to use a rig to fire from the hip. but then john browning broke his hip while testing it. or some such. with powered armor / legs and or cybernetics on the field, these kinda weapons become more possible for a soldier, yes. but infantry armor just... isn't up to stopping anything like this. hell, a .50 BMG round will take out any bodyarmor we have, so far as i have heard or seen.

if .50 BMG isn't cutting it, then you are likely going to be switching to explosive rounds. to get real good Armor Penetration you need a long barrel, and a long barrel is death in infantry combat (at least where you get close in fighting).

hell, you are wanting a Heavy Bolter, honestly. which you could do with that weapon above, rigged to a belt-feed from a backpack. then it's just about getting the rounds dialed in.

I've read some conflicting information online about the muzzle velocity, but that's very interesting.

What kind of rig? The biggest issue I'm seeing is that unlike in this case, it probably wasn't a powered and articulated servo explicitly designed for load bearing, recoil compensation and target acquisition.


I was kind of envisioning automatic rifles chambered for .50bmg caseless as being somewhat like sub machine guns for something that could handle a chaingun/auto grenade launcher. It can still take out allot of targets, and is even a threat to heavier androids/cyborgs/combat armor. So semi auto rifles firing 33mm (the same that the smartcannon rig fires) rounds that are better at taking out armor are often used as well.

I don't think you quite need as long as a barrel for a weapon firing explosive rounds. And the .50bmg's would probably be bullpup. But overall, yeah.

You could say that. Mind I think what I've put forth sounds a bit more reasonable than the Heavy Bolter (or at least doesn't look so bat shit insane as it )

When .50 BMG was first invented it had the ability to penetrate about 20mm of steel plate at 90m; the Type 97 could penetrate 30mm at 250m. .50 BMG today is better than this, but that's today.

well, there is a 25mm low velocity round in the work, and a hi velocity round. so getting conflicting info is understandable.

the rig was very rudimentery (i believe it was a piece of metal on his hip). and he was old. but i had to mention it. the voices, you understand.

the "sub-machine gun" for someone carrying one of these chainguns, i would go with something like the AA-12 fully automatic Shotgun. with the 50 round drum magazine, you can do plenty of damage. those new micro-Grenade rounds would work well, or perhaps some depleted uranium AP slugs. more compact on the ammo, but comparable (short range) bang for the buck. you can carry allot more ammo, and fire it one handed (with these soldiers / set-ups).

12 gauge automatics seems kinda light for something that can mess around with chainguns from the hips in controlled bursts.

Maybe if they're 8-10 gauge.

the idea is that the Shotguns would be Sidearms. as in place of a Pistol. for use against light targets of oportunity, or in close quarters fighting.

Except there isn't that much of gap between Rifle and pistol rounds as there would be between a 33mm chaingun/grenade round and a shotgun.


Besides. If you were willing to shorten the barrel, a cyborg this size could easily use a bullpup .50 cal using caseless ammunition as a carbine.

As for XM109 the 25mm rifle, the rounds are medium velocity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barrett_XM109
425 m\s is nowhere near .50 BMG and autocannons.

You are looking for this.
Shotgun made from cut down ZSU-23 barrels.

well. 33mm compared to 12 gauge (18.5mm) is 1.784 times bigger. the charge is far larger, 'natch, but within the same range as between a 7.62mm SAW (or m-60, or what have you) and a 9mm sidearm. the .50 BMG as a pistol / carbine would lose allot more accuracy and penetration / muzzle velocity (i believe, as it will have less time to develop spin / speed before it leaves the weapon).

as for the speed of the 25mm round, i have seen the muzzle velocity cited double that on the wiki page. there is the big issue of there being two seperate round being developed at this time (the low velocity round, and a high velocity round) and sense the weapon doesn't technically exist yet, at least not fully out of the shadows information is scarce and possibly conflicting.

if you insist on going with some crazy carbine, just have it fire the same 33mm rounds as the chain-gun, just in a smaller easy to use close in weapon. it will have crap for accuracy, but as york says "once you use your pistol you can either shoot them, or reach out and touch them". or something like that.

Hence, giant mechanical soldiers lugging around giant caseless ammo cans!

Somebody else mentioned using .50bmg pistols. I was always talking about using it as a rifle/carbine.

Mind, if you're talking about giant armored military cyborgs, an anti-material rifle sized weapon would be like a carbine to them.

Isn't a 33mm round for a rapid fire carbine even crazier than using .50 bmg? Though I was more imagining the cyborgs using 33mm semiautos, with the 33mm autoguns being used as a fireteam heavy weapon.

Though I'm not sure what you're talking about related to crap accuracy.

caseless rounds are basically gyro-jet rounds, aka little rockets. they are good at long range, but are much less effective at close range, as they keep going faster the farther they travel. gyro-jet pistols... don't work. not as well as a normal round in any case.

the shorter the barrel, the less spin. the less spin, the less accurate the round will be. you can mitigate this with fins and such, which are typically used on Sabot AP rounds, or things like those 12 gauge micro grenades. the above picture more shows an assault rifle than a carbine, but that is splitting hairs. you don't need a carbine with that 33mm cannon, as you would use it unless the target was closer than 10 yards, and that is if it is flanking you. you want a pistol / machine pistol. one handed weapon, no fore-grip. you let go of the main gun (it stays hanging off you) and pull the pistol (or activate the quick slide that places it in your hand) and shoot. once the close combat is done, you replace the pistol, and go back to using the main weapon.

remember that even on your spartan, your main gun is the size of one of those techs standing around him, with about the same weight (though connected to his back and front, 'natch). you want to keep your pistol small, and light weight. you shouldn't have to use it, almost at all. it is the last ditch, before you are fighting hand to hand... and losing. if someone closed to close combat with you, they are optimised for that combat. if they are smart, they just detonate their HE vest and take you out once they hug you. or their large slashing claws rip you into bits once you are close enough (too bad you fought bugs / tyranids and let a Gene Stealer get close).

..........what?


That is SOOOOOOOOO wrong I can't even begin to address anything else in your post.

your right. caseless rounds are not gyrojet rounds. my apologies. at least Gyrojet rounds have something somewhat positive to say about them (easier to aim at longer range, as they keep accelerating after the barrel), while caseless rounds are great on paper but not working in practice (for cost and safety). shorter barrel loses Muzzle velocity (after a certain point) which is penetration power, range and impact power. spin is imparted by the rifling of the barrel, and i suppose is not effected by the length of said Rifleing (as denoted by Paradox Guns). however a shorted barrel, on a pistol, will mean less accuracy (in practice) as a longer barrel is easier to aim with (and with these huge ass rounds will add more impact and power to the round as it will reach it's maximum muzzle Velocity (or at least get closer to it)).

i suppose my mistake with gyrojet rounds is mostly from 40k, where their (except when it's cool looking) caseless bolters are more rocket-propelled APHE grenades than bullets.

In excess of 7'6-8'0, and 1000+ pounds even?

So you probably are going to want to use a weaker charge for the rounds even if you've got a .5+ metric ton combat android.