Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I can only imagine the horror of a Chinese Knock-off Chauchat

Straight from the Warp tier

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Straight from the Warp tier

Clearly they recoiled in fear and terror when they beheld with loathing the thing that they had made.

There are photos, and it's about what you would expect.

Before it found an aquatic grave, I briefly owned a Chinese Kar98k, and it told a fascinating story. Totally non-matching serial numbers. Barrel and receiver built in 1945 at the 21st Arsenal. This pattern was known as a "Zhong Zheng Rifle" (named after the generalissimo) but his name has been struck out.

The stock was of German manufacture. Mostly illegible stampings on both sides of the butt, but the clearest indicates "Peoples' Militia."

Perhaps because it was a rebuild, the barrel isn't bad with rifling clearly visible.

No import stamp, so how did it get here?

My surmise: It was built by the Nationalists and was captured during the Civil War. Afterwards, the PRC did an overhaul and that's where it acquired a German stock (the Soviets had lots of spare parts to share).

They defaced the production stamp, issued it to militia, but pulled it out of storage during Korea and sent it to the PVA units there, which were largely made up of ex-Nationalist soldiers. It got captured by a GI, brought home and thrown in a closet until the estate sale.

The ones with the import stamp are easier - kept with the militia, saw "service" during the Cultural Revolution, sold off in the 1980s because they were so obsolete and more modern weapons were available in quantity.

But the unstamped ones must have been bring-backs because there was no way for an outfit like Interarms to sweep them up as they did in Spain and elsewhere. For a while I wondered if Taiwan sold them, but doing some research I leared that they hoard their weapons, even the old ones.

Surplus is fascinating.

Completely random one.

Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Completely random one.

Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?

Probably the Leman Russ- canonically the gun is a 125mm cannon with the bulk due to a liquid-cooled barrel shroud.

...oh I see you mean mounting a small firearm in the actual model, not scaling up the model to full size.

Any of the assault gun vehicles should be relatively easy- Vindicator, Thunderer, Laser Destroyer (bonus points for laser pointer) etc.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Completely random one.

Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?

I used to have a 1:24 scale remote control M1A2 tank that fired airsoft pellets. I think mounting even a .22 in a plastic model would have issues with the rest of the model not withstanding the forces of the gun firing. But a Co2 or electric motor pellet gun would be doable...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Completely random one.

Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?

The problem is twofold: fitting the action into the model and also withstanding the recoil.

An obvious choice would be simply going with a rocket - no recoil and if heat-shielded (by foil), damage to the model would be minimal (the board surface is an entirely different matter).

I'm going to guess that the old "parlour guns" that fired pellets with nothing more than a primer would be okay. The only modern cartridge that I would trust would be .22 short.

To put it another way, one could conceivably encase an action within a plastic model, but the model might not stand up to it.

There's also the question of where the round goes when you fire it on the tabletop...

Plenty of real pistols would fit within various GW tanks and theoretically be capable of firing if you modified the gun, but would shatter the model with the recoil unless you strengthened and made them heavier.

Probably the Leman Russ- canonically the gun is a 125mm cannon with the bulk due to a liquid-cooled barrel shroud.

I didn't know that but that's rad as heck

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:

Probably the Leman Russ- canonically the gun is a 125mm cannon with the bulk due to a liquid-cooled barrel shroud.

I didn't know that but that's rad as heck

Yeah, it is pretty niche, old lore, but hasn't been contradicted anywhere as far as I know and nicely explains the oversized barrel on the model.

The presence of a water-cooled jacket is stated in the Imperial Guard unit entries in Epic: Armageddon. I can't remember where the calibre came from.

Maybe from imperial armour tomes?

 Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:
Maybe from imperial armour tomes?

Found it, it is actually referenced on Lexicanum. Chapter Approved (2004) has a schematic with the Mars-pattern turret listing it as a 120mm smoothbore cannon (I misremembered 125mm above). Battle cannon is a catch-all term for many similar weapons so other calibres probably do exist.

I too thought IA at first.

Edit: only 36 rounds for a water-cooled cannon? If that level of cooling is required for a weapon that can't put out that much sustained fire, it suggests the propellant is impressively energetic per shot.

Probably, because if not, a 120mm cannon 40 000 years in the future doesn't sound that impressive. And in a universe of space magic, pretty sure it would be fitting to imagine they found some bs ore to make retardedly powerfull shells/propellants

36 rounds may not sound like a lot, but its not unreasonable. Russian MBTs carry 40-42 rounds depending on the model. Leopard 2s and Abrams can carry 42ish depending on the model.

So its a little on the low side, but similar enough to modern/cold war design tanks.

Water cooling is of course completely unnecessary. However, maybe the cannon on the LRBT was originally designed for some sort of autoloading system, possibly on a different vehicle, where it would be potentially useful. The cannon was later incorporated into other designs including what would become the LRBT. The water cooling was kept because that is what the design for the cannon specified. And in the technological dark ages nobody understood the reason for the watercooling was no longer present and thought to remove it, they just followed the design to the letter.

Water cooling isn't going to necessarily harm the effectiveness of the tank either, other than adding a few hundred unnecessary kilos to the weight of the vehicle, so it isn't really a problem persay.

 Grey Templar wrote:
36 rounds may not sound like a lot, but its not unreasonable. Russian MBTs carry 40-42 rounds depending on the model. Leopard 2s and Abrams can carry 42ish depending on the model.

So its a little on the low side, but similar enough to modern/cold war design tanks.

Water cooling is of course completely unnecessary. However, maybe the cannon on the LRBT was originally designed for some sort of autoloading system, possibly on a different vehicle, where it would be potentially useful. The cannon was later incorporated into other designs including what would become the LRBT. The water cooling was kept because that is what the design for the cannon specified. And in the technological dark ages nobody understood the reason for the watercooling was no longer present and thought to remove it, they just followed the design to the letter.

Water cooling isn't going to necessarily harm the effectiveness of the tank either, other than adding a few hundred unnecessary kilos to the weight of the vehicle, so it isn't really a problem persay.

I agree with this- I didn't think 36 rounds was a silly number, only that it would be difficult to get a conventional modern barrel to fail with 36 rounds, let alone super-durable far-future Imperial tank barrels, so why water cool it?

I did consider that they do water cooling because the STC says to water cool and to do otherwise would be tech-heresy, but I think it is much more interesting to consider that the water cooling is necessary because battle cannon shells have very spicy propellant loads

It’s not necessarily operating in earth-normal conditions. Cooling/heating jacket would be extremely useful in extreme temperature conditions even without sustained fire. Also one of the things about tank barrels is that any amount of differential heating along the barrel will affect accuracy. Challenger 2 has a thermal shroud to help with this, but a liquid cooling jacket would do the same thing.

 Flinty wrote:
It’s not necessarily operating in earth-normal conditions. Cooling/heating jacket would be extremely useful in extreme temperature conditions even without sustained fire. Also one of the things about tank barrels is that any amount of differential heating along the barrel will affect accuracy. Challenger 2 has a thermal shroud to help with this, but a liquid cooling jacket would do the same thing.

very good point you make there

 Flinty wrote:
It’s not necessarily operating in earth-normal conditions. Cooling/heating jacket would be extremely useful in extreme temperature conditions even without sustained fire. Also one of the things about tank barrels is that any amount of differential heating along the barrel will affect accuracy. Challenger 2 has a thermal shroud to help with this, but a liquid cooling jacket would do the same thing.

Fair point. Solar Auxilia Russes operate in void environments, cooling shrouds would be very helpful there due to the lack of convectional cooling.

 Haighus wrote:
Fair point. Solar Auxilia Russes operate in void environments, cooling shrouds would be very helpful there due to the lack of convectional cooling.

I don't think heat buildup is a problem in the vacuum of space.

I think the answer is with the STC template, insofar as there were vehicles that could use them in rapid-fire mode, and so that jacket is included in all production models.

This is kind of like how the Lewis and Vickers were designed with jackets, but then lost them in aircraft mode. Now imagine Imperium's approach to this: "No, you can't take of the jacket because it's part of the template. What are you, some sort of heretic?"

I mean, the Imperium does a lot of stuff without knowing why. it's their way of life.

Grey Templar wrote:Well yeah, you need to have a gun that is comfortable in your own hands. Which yes will be different for everybody. But, once you have found a gun that is comfortable if you have options for what caliber to get for that type of pistol I would always choose the larger one.

I think the main reason that a lot of people have issues with .45 is not because the round has a lot of kick. IMO it really doesn't. It has more to do with most .45 auto pistols being too big for those individual's hands so they can't get a good grip(which will cause issues no matter what caliber you are shooting). If someone has issues with a .45 1911, they're going to have issues with a 9mm 1911 because the grip size is what is the issue and not the round.

On the other hand, if they could find a pistol in .45 which fit their hands nicely then they would do better.

Naturally shot placement is important, but I think it is important to put as much advantage in your corner as possible. So if you can get a round which has a bigger margin of error its only going to help you, assuming stepping up doesn't cause you to lose control. But I doubt anybody who can put tight groups of 9mm or .32 is going to be dangerously off with .45.

Interesting. I was always told that the advantage of the 1911 platform was the "slimness" afforded by the single stack magazine.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:Not gonna lie, unless you are literally fighting people dosed up on slaught, or rigged to the gills on some other bath salts type drug, a 9mm will knock most people down just as fast as a .45. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess very few people here have been shot with either. Being shot with anything sucks. Doesn't matter if it's a .454 casulle or a .9mm Kurz.

This,I can agree with. The best self defense handgun is the one that you can hit with.

1911s are very slim side to side, but thats really only relevant to its concealability.

The grips are longer front to back compared to something like a Glock or other 9mm pistols which can impede people with small hands from operating them well(the total circumference of the grips is bigger than most 9mm pistols). Though usually only in terms of running the mag release. If you're using a proper two handed shooting grip anybody should be able to use one. The recoil isn't going to be bad unless you have extremely tiny hands and can't get a good grip at all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Haighus wrote:
Fair point. Solar Auxilia Russes operate in void environments, cooling shrouds would be very helpful there due to the lack of convectional cooling.

I don't think heat buildup is a problem in the vacuum of space.

I think the answer is with the STC template, insofar as there were vehicles that could use them in rapid-fire mode, and so that jacket is included in all production models.

This is kind of like how the Lewis and Vickers were designed with jackets, but then lost them in aircraft mode. Now imagine Imperium's approach to this: "No, you can't take of the jacket because it's part of the template. What are you, some sort of heretic?"

I mean, the Imperium does a lot of stuff without knowing why. it's their way of life.

Actually, heat buildup is a huge problem in a vacuum. Objects can only lose heat via radiation in a vacuum, which takes a long time. Convection is the most efficient way to cool an object down, and obviously liquid/solid contact is better than a gas at convection. There would be a hard limit to that though, a water shroud is going to help but its only going to prolong the issue of operating the gun in a vacuum. You'd probably need to replace the water after a half dozen rounds as its not going to cool fast at all or you'd risk bursting the container as it boils.

Guns work fine in a vacuum as modern propellent has its own oxidizer. But the heat build-up is going to be a problem. Here on Earth we have the luxury of a nice atmosphere to cool guns down naturally. That would definitely be an issue in space or in other less conductive atmospheres.

But yeah, I really like the idea of it being a by-product of the STC template.

Well, as said by commissar, could be both: a useful countermeasure to ensure the gun's operability in all condition, with the imperium keeping doing it because "if you don't add it to the gun then the gun's machine spirit will be upset and become to lazy to work under void circumstances plus you're a heretic PUT THIS BACK ON IMMEDIATLY IN THE NAME OF THE OMNISSIAH"

 Grey Templar wrote:
1911s are very slim side to side, but thats really only relevant to its concealability.

The grips are longer front to back compared to something like a Glock or other 9mm pistols which can impede people with small hands from operating them well(the total circumference of the grips is bigger than most 9mm pistols). Though usually only in terms of running the mag release. If you're using a proper two handed shooting grip anybody should be able to use one. The recoil isn't going to be bad unless you have extremely tiny hands and can't get a good grip at all.

An added complication is the grip safety. It's not enough to hold it in your hands, one must hold it with positive front-back pressure.

Another issue is that people with slender frames tend to "limp wrist" auto-loaders. These actually require a firm grip to function correctly. If someone is unable to control that recoil, the weapon will move in their hands, resulting in stoppages and/or jams. I've seen otherwise fit guys limp wrist guns simply because they aren't maintaining a firm enough grip.

I like 1911s, but they aren't for everyone. It's a lot easier to teach someone to shoot a .22 LR revolver than a 1911, and it is likewise easier to move them up the revolver ladder until they feel comfortable with something like .38 special than push them into trying a .45 ACP.

Always went the slowed countryman's way and made people start with the biggest I could get

I start new shooters with an M4 type rifle in .22. No felt recoil, very fun to shoot. Handguns I start with one of the 9mm, as I don't have anything smaller except a .38 revolver but it serves anti-snake duty and I rarely have other than snake shot for it. Never had problems teaching new shooters.

When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is their an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?

My random thoughts: 2 things to consider: handguns are generally harder to shoot correctly in my opinion, and while this is intendant to make the rest of us laugh when we hand the biggest caliber we can to a beginner, we acknowledge that this has subzero educational value. Not too much recoil at once. Ease of use (as in pushing the right buttons and racking to correct lever) seems irrelevant to me as anyone with enough braincells left to walk should figure it out with an explanation.

On a serious note I'd actually let someone shoot a gun with moderate recoil as my ak for the feel and to lose fear of the recoil. For actually learning to shoot straight, 22 is the real deal: affordable and smotth to let you train in shooting fundamentals.

If someone is brand new to guns entirely, I would always recommend a rifle.

Seen too many videos of people getting handed a pistol or revolver that is way too large for them and they end up shooting it, it recoils back and they end up bump firing a second round somewhere other than downrange. Also why its a good idea to pull a Barney Fife and only give them 1 round when they are doing a pistol.

Shotguns are also something to wait till they're a little more comfortable. Too many videos of people getting laid out on their butts or having the gun smack them in the face.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is their an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?

For either handgun or rifle, .22 LR is hard to beat.

For shotgun, .410 or 20 gauge are reasonable loads. With long weapons, one has to consider the size of the stock vs the size of the person. Even if the recoil is mild, having your arm at maximum extension is not exactly comfortable.

One of my (adult) daughters is so petite that she will need a "youth model" shotgun to use it comfortably.

Among handguns, revolvers are the way to go. They are simplicity itself. No weird buttons, levers, chambering, magazine, etc. to worry about. Put the rounds in the cylinder, close it and then pull the trigger. Double action is a bit much? Then thumb the hammer back.

I have a friend who struggles mightily with auto-loaders, but with a revolver he feels entirely at home.

Part of the reason I favor calibers like .32 is that they are so comfortable for novices to use, yet they are more reliable than rimfire, and pack enough punch to be useful.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is there an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?

I almost always start with the .22 M4 I mentioned.