beam sniper, just how practical it is?

[Black Knight]

Of course a projectile weapon loses effectiveness at long range; that's why I used the word power. The power, i.e., kinetic energy and explosive potential, of a weapon firing solid projectiles in space doesn't change, as there is no atmosphere to slow them down.

All weapons lose effectiveness at long range due to the targeting issue, but beam weapons also lose focus and so destructive power. 08th MS Team either chose to ignore this or else its beam weapons are considerably more powerful and advanced than those used in 0083, nearly four years down-stream in the technology flow chart.

[DAG101]

Two words for you: Linear cannon

except, in every single (fictional) depiction of a railgun I have seen shows a visible muzzle flash. although these types of weapons may not normally have muzzle flashes, in at least the CE universe, they have muzzle flashes.
The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

[Black Knight]

Two words for you: Linear cannon

except, in every single (fictional) depiction of a railgun I have seen shows a visible muzzle flash. although these types of weapons may not normally have muzzle flashes, in at least the CE universe, they have muzzle flashes.
The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

Starcraft probably isn't too far wrong. All animation takes liberties with weapons; another example is that every single solid shell fired by just about every firearm is animated as a tracer round, though in reality tracers tend to only be used in select circumstances, and even then are typically only one of every five or ten rounds.

[Kuruni]

The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

Never play X-COM: Terror from the Deep, right? It depict guass weapon in same way.

[domtropen]

The overpower big beam guns used in 0079 are mostly imperfect. The famous beam sniper rifle's beam seems to need prolonged contact time to melt/cut through big targets, and need external support & coolant for really long range shot. Is it laser instead of particle beam though? The shot that melt through EZ8's chest should crush or knock it out badly if it is particle beam?

G04's beam weapon is very powerful according to the sidestory manga, but this experimental weapon is clearly unstable and unsafe, and its reactor does blow up... Z and ZZ era mega launchers seem less powerful but pretty safe to use.

[Sean_ODuibher]

First, I have a pet peeve. A suit firing from long-range with a beam is not, cannot be, and never will be acting as artillery. Artillery is by definition indirect fire and beam weapons, also by definition, are direct fire. Okay. I'm done.

I think the primary benefit that most people overlook is that beam rifles don't, or at least shouldn't, produce any noticeable recoil. I believe that a pure laser has about a 1 to c ratio of momentum to energy, but even a particle beam weapon would have negligible recoil. This means very rapid rates of fire as you would have to spend literally zero time bringing your weapon back into battery. And if you think about a shooting a round a really long distance, it would take a lot of force, thus a lot of recoil. Even if you've got a big, 50, 70 ton mobile suit sucking up recoil, its still going to slow you down. Also, while a beam will lose focus in the atmosphere, repeated fire along the same line will help with that problem. The first beam will lose focus and become less powerful, but it will sort of clear the way for the follow up beams. Thus, your second or third shot would be near full focus, even at extreme range.

[NachtWeissritter]

The cannon uses too much power. Rail cannons needs a lot of power to accelerate the slugs. Only uber powerful MS like Freedom could do it. Either that or uses a GM Sniper beam sniper rifle, that comes with an external generator.

Eh? Railguns are power hungry but particle cannons aren't?

The rate of fire could be too slow. It need times to built up the charge in the capacitor. It's not like having an extra large E-pac could solve the problem. It's the nature of the gun.

A bigger generator would though. You only need capacitors if your reactor cannot supply sufficient power to run the cannon while the mecha is active.

Really if you're going to point to a problem with high powered railguns on mecha it'll be recoil more than anything else.

It's not really sexy. A rail cannon will go 'whoosh'. Not "blam". No muzzle flash. No fireflies gathering at the muzzle. No light, no sound.

Look up video of firing railguns. They make plenty of noise and light. Besides particle beams won't do a lot of the things they do in anime either so it's not like they can't fudge things a bit.

The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

Eh? There are railguns all over the place in fiction. Starcraft has them, the Red Faction games had linear accelerator sniper rifles you could shoot through walls with, uncountable sci-fi novels have linear accelerators, most of the firearms in Andromeda were gauss weapons, the movie Eraser centered around railguns, there's railguns all over GDI's arsenal in Command and Conquer, etc.

[DAG101]

The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

Eh? There are railguns all over the place in fiction. Starcraft has them, the Red Faction games had linear accelerator sniper rifles you could shoot through walls with, uncountable sci-fi novels have linear accelerators, most of the firearms in Andromeda were gauss weapons, the movie Eraser centered around railguns, there's railguns all over GDI's arsenal in Command and Conquer, etc.

Yeah, the only shows I've seen Linear weapons in are Gundam, only games I've seen them in are Starcraft. But yeah, I miss-typed that. should have been:

The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon that I've seen, without a muzzle flash is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

uncountable sci-fi novels have linear accelerators

Forgot about all those! But I was reffering to linear weapons.

[razgriz]

theoretically a gauss rifle shot should be able to plug the target without any sort of warning due to its extreme velocity i dont even think a radar could respond fast enough for the target to be able to evade assuming this is at a reasonable sniping distance and obviously unlike in seed there wouldnt be a visible yellow trail, maybe there might be an electrical discharge at the barrel's tip but certainly not a bright "follow me here" flash. i dont see a downside yet in terms of a sniper gauss rifle.

[NachtWeissritter]

Yeah, the only shows I've seen Linear weapons in are Gundam, only games I've seen them in are Starcraft. But yeah, I miss-typed that. should have been:

The only fictional depiction of a linear cannon-style weapon that I've seen, without a muzzle flash is the Gauss Rifles from Starcraft, which are just magnet-assisted assault rifles, I believe (but I am probaly wrong on that)

They have a muzzle flash in starcraft to.

Theoretically they shouldn't but in practice every railgun we've built in the present has one because although you have no exploding gunpowder you do have bits of rail and projectile vaporizing from the power running through them and getting tossed out the front end.

[bluemax151]

(Although in 08th MS Team, they actually seem to favor beam weapons for sniping, which makes little sense.)

-- Mark

Well (I believe) the regular beam rifles (P.B.R-0079/A12 S-000011/XBR-M-79E) used by the 08th showcased both in episode 6(Battle Line On The Burning Sand) and 8(Duty And Ideals) are used mainly for the one shot one kill factor rather than their long range accuracy. Sanders has shown he can work quite proficiently with the 180mm cannon (NFHI*GMCa-type.09/FH-X180) but it's possible it's HE/AP rounds could or would have caused more collateral damage than the former. The GM Snipers' long range beam rifles of course while impractical are superior because of their increased range power and duration due to being essentially a powered/cooled emplacement weapon. My point although convoluted is really only the long range beam rifle is used specifically as a "sniper weapon" with the other being more relegated towards general purpose heavy hitter.

[Zangetsu]

The whole questioning of the stealth aspect is assuming that an MS sniper fills the same role as a human one - it seems to me to be more likely that the emphasis is on a high-power, highly accurate long-range beam rifle, rather than staying hidden etc. After all this is a giant robot, not some guy in a ghillie suit.

I would have to say this is the exact case in OO because we know the gundams can cloak so if steath was there goal then they would use a soild sniper rifle.

[Kuro No Sakura]

I though beam particle cannon is so "eating up" power is because you need large amount of energy to compress normal Minovsky particle into Mega-Particle but then the problem is solved using E-cap to store a highly compressed Minovsky particle just to a point it almost become a Mega-Particle, so only a little additional energy is required to make them Mega-Particle and fire.
Of coz this only in UC. i don't know anything about other series

as somebody already state Railguns need time and energy to charge

so beam weapon should have a better firing rate then a railgun

[baka]

Frankly, the idea of a Gundam sniper trying to be "stealthy" isn't exactly a logical one.

Well, the idea of any 50 foot robot trying to be "stealthy" is rather ridiculous. Take a look at the 08th MS team stomping through the jungle.

[Recon 5]

Frankly, the idea of a Gundam sniper trying to be "stealthy" isn't exactly a logical one.

Well, the idea of any 50 foot robot trying to be "stealthy" is rather ridiculous. Take a look at the 08th MS team stomping through the jungle.

And lets forget about the use of camouflage color schemes (which real world militaries use to great effect) and those oh- so- wonderful optical cloaking devices, shall we (both have appeared in Gundam series)? . Anyways, 'stealthy' in mech combat normally means 'beyond the range of everything but a dedicated EWACS unit's radar', which has been shown to be as effective as invisibility when used against ground targets.

[baka]

And lets forget about the use of camouflage color schemes (which real world militaries use to great effect) and those oh- so- wonderful optical cloaking devices, shall we (both have appeared in Gundam series)? . Anyways, 'stealthy' in mech combat normally means 'beyond the range of everything but a dedicated EWACS unit's radar', which has been shown to be as effective as invisibility when used against ground targets.

Yes, camouflage can be effective, when used properly, which I have never seen done in any Gundam series. Mostly it's just brightly colored suits going at it, without giving any thought to stealth, or to put it as para-medic from MGS3: "Camo, schmamo. It looks good on you." When they do try to use camouflage, it's often easy enough to find your target by finding the place where the trees fall down and the birds fly up. Camo is allright when it's appropriate, but MS are not exactly Naked Snake. They're not nimble and quiet enought to make good use of camo. The same goes for for any invisibility cloaking. It's not really stealthy as anyone with ears knows they're there, they just don't know where exactly.

[Den]

as many of you pointed it out, having an MS that is tealthy is impractical because first of all it doent have a hyper jammer like the DSH or mirage colloid of the blitz, so all that is left for it is camouflage, which would be hard considering its size. so the dyanames would be more of a long range unit that would take out the more powerful or dangerous target then leave those other target for the melee MS. and even if it was discovered, it was shown in one episode where the dyanmes was using the GN full shield to shield himself from enemy fire and return fire using his pistols and the rifle. so i dont think that the dynames would have any probs with being discovered by enemies. having a beam rifle would also help because of the GN particle which shows that it almost have a unlimited number of shots, which oppose to the shell firing rifle. after firing your whole clip, you need to reload. and reloading means that you have to bring extra cartridges and that means more weight and less time to fire and destroy.

[Gadget]

as many of you pointed it out, having an MS that is tealthy is impractical because first of all it doent have a hyper jammer like the DSH or mirage colloid of the blitz, so all that is left for it is camouflage, which would be hard considering its size.

Hard but not impossible. Currently, it is possible to 'fludge a 60 ton main battle tank. Not as good as a human sniper, but still could keep RPV or sky eye from detecting.

having a beam rifle would also help because of the GN particle which shows that it almost have a unlimited number of shots, which oppose to the shell firing rifle. after firing your whole clip, you need to reload. and reloading means that you have to bring extra cartridges and that means more weight and less time to fire and destroy.

I'm not sure with 00's tech's, but to keep in thread, most sniper outfit have a motto of 'one shot, one kill'. And some outfit even feel that a semi-auto loading is not really nessery.

[teslashark]

a nitro gas/pressure air propelled rifle isvery stealthy,with no muzzle flash or heat emisson and it's powerful,as the russians see in Grozny, Chechnya.

PS: Anf is for elephant trunk in Arabian

[quasadra]

I'm not sure with 00's tech's, but to keep in thread, most sniper outfit have a motto of 'one shot, one kill'. And some outfit even feel that a semi-auto loading is not really nessery.

i believe thats why sniper still use bolt action rifles, but prefer a semi auto rifle for fire support. beam leaves a glowing streak when fire, it will surely make tracking easier. im not talking about dynames in particular, just using beam weapon as sniper weapon in a whole.

camo is more like delay detection, its not like your are invisible. but how long you can stay undetected same goes with stealth.