Date: Tue, 13 Jun 1995 18:35:58 GMT From: "Brendan O'Donovan" Subject: Gauss LCSW & CSW Standard disclaimer: Sorry if someone else has already done this better. "Sometimes, even with all our technology, you realise you have limits. I knew that the child was dying when I first saw him, seeimg far too small for his bed. I began to operate within the hour, his appendicitis was severe, but I should have been able to treat it. I don't know exactly what happened, maybe he began to come out of sedation, flinched a little, maybe I'm just making excuses. The blood came pouring from the nicked artery, and within seconds the child just let go his weak grip on life and died. It was a mistake, just a mistake. We can travel the stars, but that doesn't make us perfect. His father didn't see it that way. All he knew was that his son had been alive, until I walked in. He probably knew it wasn't my fault, but all the same he needed someone to blame. He'd got together a crowd of the villagers, there must have been twenty or thirty, shouting, spitting, waving torches in my face. My escort backed away from the mob nervously. I could see Gray tensing his finger over the trigger of his rifle, trying to hold his fire until he had no choice, trapped between his duty to protect me, and his duty to the bootstrap mission. Our pilot came round the corner at that moment, he had no such hesitation. He drew a pistol from his jacket and sprayed the crowd with bullets. None of the crowd had any visible gunshot wounds, but in moments they had all slumped to the ground unconscious. 'Tranquiliser' he shouted by way of explanation, followed by 'I think we should leave now'. As the Air Raft carried us away from the village I saw the sprawled crowd below. It looked like a massacre, but even as I watched, some of them began to sit up. It had not been a good day, but I shuddered as I thought of the sprawled mass of sleepers, and how much worse it could have been." Dr. Laskey - RCES field surgery Some bootstrap missions encounter problems with native mistrust, and small groups of Coalition personnel may find themselves trapped by crowds of natives. Use of standard ammunition and resulting civilian casualties are clearly unacceptable, and there are occasions when use of knockout gas is inappropriate, because a fast response is needed (where there is no time to put on gas masks), or because only some of the people in an area need to be subdued. With this problem in mind, the RCES produced the Crowd Suppression Weapon and Light Crowd Suppression Weapon. These gauss weapons shoot an extremely small caliber round (1.94mm*9.7mm) at high velocities. These weapons have very significant advantages over standard arms firing Tranq rounds. The magazine sizes are much larger than a standard gauss weapon would allow, and recoil is much lower, allowing personnel a much higher controllable rate of fire. The weapon is produced in two configurations, a pistol for general and covert useage, and an SMG configuration for security personnel. The weapon is manufactured at TL12, with the exception of the TL13 barrel, which is purchased from the Hivers. CSW (crowd suppression weapon) TL :12/13 Ammo :1.94*9.7mm Muzzle Energy :144J (required power 288J) Weapon Length :51.5cm Weapon Weight :2.82kg loaded, 1.91kg unloaded Weapon Price :937.64Cr Magazine Weight :0.9097kg loaded, 0.8812kg empty Magazine Price :2Cr empty, 4.04Cr loaded Ammunition price :0.00456Cr Tranq Ammunition weight:0.057g Features :Gyro compensator, SA stock, Telescopic sight -recoil- Round ROF DamVal Pen Bulk Magazine SS Burst Short Range Tranq 50 -1* nil 3 500 1 3 30 (19) LCSW TL :12/13 Ammo :1.94*9.7mm Muzzle Energy :144J (required power 288J) Weapon Length :22.15cm Weapon Weight :1.39kg loaded, 1.25kg unloaded Weapon Price :630.73Cr Magazine Weight :0.131kg loaded, 0.127kg empty Magazine Price :1Cr empty, 1.328Cr loaded Ammunition price :0.00456Cr Tranq Ammunition weight:0.057g Features :Gyro compensator -recoil- Round ROF DamVal Pen Bulk Magazine SS Burst Short Range Tranq 5/10 -1* nil 1 72 1 1/2 7 *tranq effect The rules for powering down for tranq rounds (eg. range x0.6) were not applied as the weapon was designed from the start to fire at non-lethal muzzle energies. -- Brendan O'Donovan