Babylon5's PPGs

[beyond hope]

My understanding is that whether a ricochet will or will not occur is dependant on a number of things: the material being struck, the shape of the projectile, the angle it strikes at (which is why tank armor is sloped) and the velocity of the round. So Thrawn, you're right: a heavier projectile with more power behind it is less likely to ricochet. It's also likelier to go through all kinds of things you don't want it to go through.

[starfury]

I never liked them because they don't look cool. Most scifi weapons have a nice looking casing.

too true, whatever other problems they had, the uncool part was really bad, most other sci-fi weapons cause large explosions and are in general more intimaditating, this one is just wimpy compared to phasers, blasters.etc.

[Enlightenment]

Wong, next time you take a grenade and blow it up in a space station, we can give your family our condolences.

Do you seriously mean to suggest that a hand grenade would pose a risk to the survivability of an 8km long colony like B5?

Hint: not all space stations are small enough to count as confined spaces.

[Sea Skimmer]

I think it is logical to have weapons that can kill a man (or alien) in one square shot, but won't breach the hull. Remember that this is Earth technology of a couple hundreds years from now. They don't have force fields that can hold the atmosphere if the hull is compromised.

We have handgun bullets that are quite lethal yet won't even go through the skin of a jet liner, today. I see little point to building a tiny little energy weapon to do the same thing.

That's entirely true, but would they take down someone in body armor? PPGs are designed to kill the target with hull breaches and ricochets not without damage.

Real body armor, no. Bulletproof vests, possibly. But if your fighting people with acutall body armor I question the sanity of any force which doesnt at least have submachine guns or rifles. If the hull of B5 ships will be breached by 4.6mm fire, its truly pitaful. And the round in question doesn't ricochets very much.

[Master of Ossus]

In the episode when Garibaldi was talking about his Grannie's gun before he fights the Zar in the abandoned deck, he says that they switched over to PPG's because they needed a weapon that would knock someone down without leaving a flesh wound. It made no sense to me when I heard it, and it still doesn't make sense to me. Can anyone explain that? Am I really not getting something obvious? Or are they just trying to make up an excuse after the fact?

[SyntaxVorlon]

You've got it confused. He was saying that the weapon had to be strong enough to burn through flesh, but not damage the hull in any way.
Also it's Zarg.

Enlightenment:
I didn't mean any space station in particular but really I was thinking about him taking a grenade aboard the ISS and how that would turn out. Explosives on B5 are not as disastrous because the station can take a great deal of internal damage, plenty of internal space. Really I should have said space ship, as the incedence of the blast door break in was on an Omega destroyer, a far more closed environment than a station of B5's calibur.

[Enlightenment]

One possible reason that EA might be so keen on PPGs is that, as a police state, it'd be very convinent for EA to be able to dispose of dissidents while minimising the quantity of forensic evidence left behind. Everyone here is likely familar with the forensic data trails left by a bullet; energy weapons leave no substantive clues that could link a victim to a specific weapon.

[Perinquus]

One possible reason that EA might be so keen on PPGs is that, as a police state, it'd be very convinent for EA to be able to dispose of dissidents while minimising the quantity of forensic evidence left behind. Everyone here is likely familar with the forensic data trails left by a bullet; energy weapons leave no substantive clues that could link a victim to a specific weapon.

You do realize that the standardization of PPGs in their military predates the transformation into a police state?

[Stormbringer]

One possible reason that EA might be so keen on PPGs is that, as a police state, it'd be very convinent for EA to be able to dispose of dissidents while minimising the quantity of forensic evidence left behind. Everyone here is likely familar with the forensic data trails left by a bullet; energy weapons leave no substantive clues that could link a victim to a specific weapon.

You do realize that the standardization of PPGs in their military predates the transformation into a police state?

Enlightenment is never one to let the facts stand in the way of good B5 rant.

[Enlightenment]

You do realize that the standardization of PPGs in their military predates the transformation into a police state?

You do realize that EA was a fascist police state long before Clarke took over?

[Stormbringer]

You do realize that the standardization of PPGs in their military predates the transformation into a police state?

You do realize that EA was a fascist police state long before Clarke took over?

Yeah, except it wasn't. Some branches had gone bad but it was hadly a police state.

[Sea Skimmer]

In the episode when Garibaldi was talking about his Grannie's gun before he fights the Zar in the abandoned deck, he says that they switched over to PPG's because they needed a weapon that would knock someone down without leaving a flesh wound. It made no sense to me when I heard it, and it still doesn't make sense to me. Can anyone explain that? Am I really not getting something obvious? Or are they just trying to make up an excuse after the fact?

Probably the later. If they wanted something that would drop someone but not kill them and a damn taser would work just fine.

[Perinquus]

You do realize that the standardization of PPGs in their military predates the transformation into a police state?

You do realize that EA was a fascist police state long before Clarke took over?

Fascist police states tend not to have things like free elections and parliamentary bodies that wield real power.

[Isil`Zha]

Windows....

[Ted C]

Wong, next time you take a grenade and blow it up in a space station, we can give your family our condolences. Explosive charges would be a bad choice in a closed environment, they give off too much heat and smoke and cause unneeded stress on oxy filters and the surrounding bulkhead. Superheated, magnetically fired helium that in is kept nice and compact means little damage and very little oxygen loss.

Mike never said anything about a hand grenade, SV, he said that an explosive charge would be more effective than PPG bursts at forcing an airlock. Using PPG fire for that purpose would require just as much heat, and there was certainly plent of smoke when Zack had his team shoot down a door in "Thirdspace". Furthermore, we've actually seen that B5 can handle multiple external explosions in a fairly short time, or have you forgotten the series of bombings that occurred in "Convictions". You should spend a little more time thinking before you run off at the keyboard.

The only advantage of a PPG over an explosive charge in this case is that a security guard (or team of them) will have sidearms and possibly rifles on hand when they need to get through an airlock in a hurry, whereas they'd probably wouldn't have explosives on them.

Also PPGs and PPRs can be used EVA as none of you as considered this yet. If you wanted to use a normal slug thrower, you'd be out of luck, and if you used a rail gun you'd be flying off in the opposite direction.

Making a self-oxygenating propellant for solid firearms would be trivial. Unless I'm mistaken, modern powder already will work in a vacuum. Consequently, your argument is worthless from that angle.

PPGs do seem to have minimal recoil, though. That actually would make them more useful in EVA than a slug-thrower.

[Ted C]

You do realize that EA was a fascist police state long before Clarke took over?

No, it wasn't. There was one major corrupt official (Vice President Clark) and there was one major corrupt government organization (the Psi Corps), but the Earth Alliance still had a ways to go before you could call it a police state.

[LordChaos]

Those things do blow down doors in a few occasions.

Okay, not blow down doors, per se, but destroy the edges so the door falls forward into the room.

When used for an extended burn at very close range, like a blowtorch. A modern soldier would just put an explosive device on it and blow the door, and he'd be into the room MUCH faster than these clowns. And the fact remains that their normal distance-firing mode is deliberately designed to be so weak that it doesn't damage shipboard equipment.

I have to disagree. While they are designed so that they won't penetrate the hull, they have no such limitation against actualy equipment and quite the contrary, do damage equipment.

What they lack is penitration, so your bit about body armor is correct. But when you are in the situation they are in, you don't WANT high penitration. For ground troups you'd want something with a bit more penitration though.

[Darth Wong]

Wong, next time you take a grenade and blow it up in a space station, we can give your family our condolences. Explosive charges would be a bad choice in a closed environment, they give off too much heat and smoke and cause unneeded stress on oxy filters and the surrounding bulkhead.

Actually, the demo charges they use to knock down doors create very little smoke or heat; it is mostly concussion. And the idea that this would stress the environmental control systems on a mile-long ship or five mile-long space station is simply moronic. Have you no concept of numbers?