Slugthrower questions

[SquigglyV]

How viable are slugthrowers as a military tool right now? Do modern blasters always outdo them in firepower or does lead still have a chance outside of specialized applications? I'm specifically thinking of large-caliber weapons like heavy machine guns and anti-materiel rifles more than pistols and normal rifles, because I know those smaller ones can't stand up to a blaster of similar size.

I know Star Wars uses plenty of projectile weapons like grenade launchers, rockets and missiles, mortars, etc but those are on a larger scale than just plain old bullets. And I have seen slugthrowers used as specialized tools because they can be silenced, but then you don't get the dakka sounds so why bother?

[recoveringgeek]

Slugthrowers

Pros;

• Harder to parry via Lightsaber
• Can pass through shielding designed to withstand pure energy bolts or blasts

Cons;

• Stormtrooper armour is impervious to slugs

[SquigglyV]

Is stormtrooper armour impervious to all kinds of bullets though or just average bullets? Because wookieepedia generalizes stuff way too much in my experience, like the page for blaster pistols saying they all cost 500 credits.

I don't know that a giant piece of tungsten would care much about some flimsy plastoid either, but I could be wrong about that.

[recoveringgeek]

A couple of things;

In lieu of Canon movie lore, which will never concern  itself with the minutia of How Things Work or any sort of galactic economy, so much of Wookiepedia is sourced from role-playing game resources. That's where most of your prices and things will come from.

Despite their movie role as hapless mooks, Stormtroopers are the shock troops of the Empire, and their armour is some of the most advanced in the Original Trilogy era, barring Mandalorian bounty hunters of course.

[Orell]

Yeah, the big con is that the standard issue body armor used by the galactic militaries are largely bulletproof, at least when it comes to standard rounds. There's specialized ammo that breaches armor, of course, but Specialized in this case contextually means "expensive"...

...which also brings up one of the other major cons. A blaster pack? I think it's been established in stories that one of those fires a few hundred shots or so. The FPS's have fiddled with that number a lot, because of gameplay mechanics and balance, but it's still important: You can only fire as many shots as you can carry.

An M16 that can fire 30 rounds before needing a reload vs a blaster rifle that needs a new pack after a few hundred rounds get expended? Becomes kinda important in an extended firefight.

There's other issues that sci-fi brings us too. Bullets arc because they're dragged down by gravity, blaster shots don't... and that arc's going to be different on different worlds. Slugthrowers are also loud as hell, nothing quite like destroying your hearing during a firefight, and a suppressor can only do so much.

Still, it would not surprise me at all if the Republic and Imperial militaries have large caliber anti-materiel rifles in their arsenal. In the hands of a good sniper and with the right ammo, they could just be nasty...

[SquigglyV]

Armour now in the SWTOR era is even more advanced than in the OT because of that nasty dark age that starts in a few centuries. So I guess most bullets are completely out of the question.

So my new question is what kind of bullet would be necessary to be effective at killing someone in armour? I'm sure you could fit it in an anti-materiel rifle of some sort, but how fast/large/exploding would it have to be to pierce durasteel and other such materials?

[recoveringgeek]

So my new question is what kind of bullet would be necessary to be effective at killing someone in armour? I'm sure you could fit it in an anti-materiel rifle of some sort, but how fast/large/exploding would it have to be to pierce durasteel and other such materials?

Explosive slug

[SquigglyV]

That's perfect. Kinetic energy penetrators might be good too now that I think of it, but I like explosives.

[blingdenston]

The Verpine shatter gun ( http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Verpine_shatter_gun ) was a pretty good sci-fi slugthrower, at least until it got into the hands of Karen Traviss and just became an all-purpose Jedi-kill button. It's a magnetic accelerator that comes in sizes from pistol to rifle and fires with no sound.  And all you have to do to get one is find some friendly bug-people and negotiate with them for one!

[GabrielThorne]

So my new question is what kind of bullet would be necessary to be effective at killing someone in armour? I'm sure you could fit it in an anti-materiel rifle of some sort, but how fast/large/exploding would it have to be to pierce durasteel and other such materials?

Explosive slug

Huh. You'd think that would be around for all of existence instead of created by the rebellion during the galactic civil war. Like...Seriously how hard is it to just pack a hollow point with explosives?

[SquigglyV]

Obviously they would have been invented before by someone somewhere. Really small or obscure pages on wookieepedia tend to lack common sense and/or obvious inferences though. Plus there's little to no lore out there about minor stuff like explosive bullets.

[Iaera]

Why go through the added trouble and expense of making HEAT ammunition for uncommon, obsolete weapons (and then incurring the logistical problems of keeping that ammunition supplied to the people who need it) when your cheap, common, standard-issue blaster does the same thing but better?

The reason it hasn't come into existence outside of obscure circumstances is because there's no reason for it to exist. HEAT is a straightforward enough concept in the real world, but it has no real relevance to Star Wars. A real world analogy would be shouting 'Eureka!' because you have the bright idea of using a bow that shoots arrows coated in a specially-formulated acid that causes a lot of damage... why would you use that when you could just use a gun?

But that's just the practical problems with it. Thematically and aesthetically, Star Wars gives us laser guns in space. There's no compelling reason to "break" that aesthetic. What point would that serve? You wouldn't insert guns into Lord of the Rings because that would just be silly and pointless; why would you do it to Star Wars?

[LVT]

They have their own perks. Low energy signature, can be silenced; no shooter trail. Notably imperial spec-ops used them to assassinate people due to them not even giving away that a shooter existed.

[Orell]

But that's just the practical problems with it. Thematically and aesthetically, Star Wars gives us laser guns in space. There's no compelling reason to "break" that aesthetic. What point would that serve? You wouldn't insert guns into Lord of the Rings because that would just be silly and pointless; why would you do it to Star Wars?

So, Star Trek mostly avoided projectile rifles, but there's two instances of them using guns that I always find interesting.

Both of them involving DS9, because DS9 is awesome.

"Field of Fire", one of the (rightly) maligned Ezri episodes in season 7, had a major point being that someone was running around DS9 killing people with a chemically propelled projectile rifle...

...but it was of Federation design, the TR-116, with all the advancements that could mean. Extremely strong slug and an advanced propellant, a scope with a linked eyepiece that could see through walls and the killer had even devised a small transporter on the barrel to transport the bullet right where it needed to be.

Beyond being supremely cool, it had a purpose in a primarily-ray-gun franchise: To have a weapon that actually killed people, a rare thing in Star Trek!

...also to match the barbarism of murder. That advanced as the Federation was, there was still murder... so an advanced version of a modern weapon.

The other one was one of the non-canon tie in books... and a good one too. "Fallen Heroes" has the station come under attack by enemies using armor that deflects away phaser fire and assault rifles that just wreck everything.

...yes, they're effectively wearing god-mode plot armor. It's still a tie-in book to a tv series after all.

The point of it though is twofold: First, to create nigh-invulnerable enemies for the DS9 crew to fight against in ways that showcase ingenuity, creativity and intelligence. You can't shoot them with your phasers... but if you modify the phasers right, you can turn them into grenades, which at least will knock them around.

...this may be the inspiration for Kyri's favorite move >_>.

But it's also to highlight, again, brutality. Time travel shenanigans ensure that none of it happened, so the writer is free to go all out, killing a whole lot of people, including main characters.

Because the point of phasers, blasters, lasers, basically all of ray guns? It's to make the killing clean. No blood, no gore, no seeing anyone with half their face blasted off. Shoot them with this gun and turn them off.

That's one time when slugthrowers can really work in Star Wars, why it does kinda work with Mandalorians: To make the killing not clean and pretty. Guns are loud, ugly, primitive, nasty. They blow holes in things, cause a cacophony, leave the dying suffering as they breathe their last...

It's not a good standard weapon, thematically speaking... but sometimes it's good to switch things up a bit.

[SquigglyV]

Why go through the added trouble and expense of making HEAT ammunition for uncommon, obsolete weapons (and then incurring the logistical problems of keeping that ammunition supplied to the people who need it) when your cheap, common, standard-issue blaster does the same thing but better?

Pew pew shooty noises is my main argument. Shooty noises are neat.

Other than that, blasters tend to leave blast marks on hard surfaces (metal walls or stone or whatever) without doing a hint of damage to whatever is behind it, at least in the movies and games. A good projectile like an APDS or something will just go through and, as a bonus, it isn't self-cauterizing when it hits someone. And that wouldn't need to have fancy engineering or chemicals like HEAT or HESH because it's just a pointy saboted rod of death. Even normal bullets will work for that, you'd be surprised how many inches of concrete a plain .30-06 round can go through.

Blasters are practical because they kill people and don't need ammo to do it. They're certainly better at killing than any small/medium slugthrowers but I still think they'd have a place in more than just niche roles if you go large enough.

A real world analogy would be shouting 'Eureka!' because you have the bright idea of using a bow that shoots arrows coated in a specially-formulated acid that causes a lot of damage... why would you use that when you could just use a gun?

Guns are loud, heavy, and the projectiles aren't covered in acid that causes a lot of damage. As a less extreme example, crossbows are still widely used across the world for both civilian and military purposes.

But that's just the practical problems with it. Thematically and aesthetically, Star Wars gives us laser guns in space. There's no compelling reason to "break" that aesthetic. What point would that serve? You wouldn't insert guns into Lord of the Rings because that would just be silly and pointless; why would you do it to Star Wars?

You wouldn't insert guns into LOTR because they don't have the technology for guns.

In Star Wars, I really just want to be able to shoot through a bloody wall and not get sad because my bolt melted a dent in the hole but didn't kill the guy behind it.

And to help Orell's point, Sith love to show what happens to their enemies. Would you rather leave a nice, pristine corpse to bury or would you rather leave a gory mess to terrify their loved ones and show them that the Empire is not to be messed with?


What about railguns, mass drivers, and other non-chemically propelled weapons? They seem cool but still have the sci-fi flavour of Star Wars.