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On Wed, 5/4/16, Tim <xxxxxx@little-possums.net> wrote:

 Subject: Re: Gaussbow?  was Re: [TML] The Anachronistic Future
 To: xxxxxx@simplelists.com
 Date: Wednesday, May 4, 2016, 8:05 PM

 On Thu, May 05, 2016 at
 01:23:09AM +0000, Phil Pugliese (via tml list) wrote:
 > But that leads to another thought: What if
 the standard shipboard
 >
 "sidearm" is a pistol crossbow?
 >
 >
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 >
 > How about a  pistol
 'gaussbow' that fires (launches?)  the same
 thing?
 >
 > or maybe
 uses compressed gas?

 I
 figure that the "fragile ships" thing is a red
 herring -- or even an
 AF plot device in its
 own right.

 Starship crew
 members aren't going to blow a hole in the hull with
 any
 reasonable personal sidearm, because
 Traveller ship hulls are required
 to be
 extremely tough -- even the civilian ones.  You may damage
 some
 internal ship systems, but the most
 critical ones will have backups,
 some
 armouring, and be well out of the usual way anyway.

 If the worst does happen, well
 ... once you're in the position where
 you're drawing lethal weapons, you've
 already accepted that people are
 likely to
 die.  You're going to want effective weapons to
 increase the
 chance that it's the
 enemy.  Blades or gaussbows are likely to be
 bulky, heavy, and not as effective in most
 situations as other choices
 for a standard
 weapon.

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As I recall, CT had the 'accelerator rifle', a type  of gauss weapon that was optimized for low recoil to use in, or in case of, zero-G.

I agree that TU hulls are actually pretty tough & probably should be considered a sort of semi-armor.
In fact, 'armoring'  important systems may just be sandwiching them 'tween a section of double hull.

Sure there are FGMP's & PGMP's but no sane sophont is going to fire up one of them inside a starship travelling thru space.

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