Brave Fencer Kirby wrote:
Zeonista wrote:
Given that their security forces work in the close confines of side colonies and ships, using less-powerful pistol rounds make sense.
Ships I'll give you, but trying to describe Island 3s as "close confines" when they're five miles wide and 20 miles long is a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say? Maybe that's close quarters in terms of, say, artillery, but for small arms it's plenty big.
I was mainly thinking of the service room & corridor layouts at the access areas of the colonies, where things can get close real quick, and having rifle-power rounds penetrating walls and smacking into things they ought not to might be considered a detriment to combat. Now, the Island-3 colonies have relatively high population densities, so chances are after clearing the docks & ports the attacking infantry find themselves in a built-up urban area. In that case, the SMGs are proven handy for house-to-house work!
Black Knight: Your comment about weight subtracted/added for the common soldier could doubtless have been repeated by one of Marius's legionaries.
I'll believe in the future of caseless ammo when a US or Russian manufacturer makes 10,000 units of a weapon that uses it. Steyr & HK's caseless weapons haven't held up to utility requirements that American/Russian military testing would like, to date. Could we expect the EFF or ZMF to expect anything different? I've heard about the polymer case ammo too, and that would be a plus, although when Tomino wrote out his original story polymers of that type hadn't been thought of yet. Lots of shiny brass cases rolling about in UC, just ask Al's buddies... The recoil-compensation weapons used by
White Base crew are genuine innovations for low-gee situations, but other than that feature, there's nothing especially different to them that a contemporary soldier would fail to understand.
Don't be afraid to strut your stuff if you think it will make a worthwhile contribution.