Realistic wanked out swords/close range weapons in sci-fi.

[Sarevok]

Melee weapon could be usefull in a realistic SF scenario. Beams and Bullets on a realistic starship mean death for everybody when vital equipment or the hull gets damaged/destroyed. A knife or stabbing sword would be really usefull for boarding actions.

Something that qualifies as an interstellar warship would have a hull stronger than a pepsi can. At least strong enough to withstand bullets / magical light bolts lethal to the squishy human crew inside.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Melee weapon could be usefull in a realistic SF scenario. Beams and Bullets on a realistic starship mean death for everybody when vital equipment or the hull gets damaged/destroyed. A knife or stabbing sword would be really usefull for boarding actions.

Something that qualifies as an interstellar warship would have a hull stronger than a pepsi can. At least strong enough to withstand bullets / magical light bolts lethal to the squishy human crew inside.

Why ? In a "realistic SF scenario", the ship is going to be as light as possible to save mass, and unarmored. Against the kind of ship to ship weapons you'd see in an interstellar culture, any armor you can put on a ship will be useless. The crew's personal space armor may well be stronger than the ship's hull.

[bilateralrope]

In Glasshouse they have Voporal swords that can cut anything. The society can generate wormholes of varying size pretty much on a whim, using them for travel - scan body (destroying you in the process), open wormhole, transmit scan information through, nanites build body on other side. Continuity of conciousness so you feel like you just stepped through a door to be there.

Thing is, the adapted it somewhat, and took metal bars, and lined them with microwormhole generators. So instead of a blade, you have a series of wormholes. So whatever you hit with it gets shunted off into deeps spae as the sword moves along that vector.

So they have a handwavium blade that can cut anything. But whats stopping someone just shooting the guy holding it before they get into melee range ?

[Teleros]

Something that qualifies as an interstellar warship would have a hull stronger than a pepsi can. At least strong enough to withstand bullets / magical light bolts lethal to the squishy human crew inside.

The hull might be strong enough to withstand personal weapons fire, and armour around vital components may also be (if boarding is expected etc), but that still leaves plenty of important systems you can trash with a misplaced shot.

So they have a handwavium blade that can cut anything. But whats stopping someone just shooting the guy holding it before they get into melee range?

I doubt it's their only weapon you know . When the fighting does get close and personal (and yes there are cases where it will) it sounds like a very nice cutting weapon, and I doubt it'd be hard to use it as a tool - ie cutting through bulkheads for example.

[PeZook]

Why ? In a "realistic SF scenario", the ship is going to be as light as possible to save mass, and unarmored. Against the kind of ship to ship weapons you'd see in an interstellar culture, any armor you can put on a ship will be useless. The crew's personal space armor may well be stronger than the ship's hull.

In a realistic sci-fi scenario fighting is going to be done by swarms of unmanned drones over vast distances, and boarding is going to be a complete non-issue.

Unless some wanktastic thing happens that makes ranged weapons useless, guns will be superior to melee weapons. A "realistic" sci-fi melee weapon will probably be similar to today - a blade of varying lenght, made of superior materials and using superior manufacturing techniques. Extra-sharp, light and very durable. Maybe heated or with a vibro-head added for good measure.

[Xon]

So they have a handwavium blade that can cut anything. But whats stopping someone just shooting the guy holding it before they get into melee range ?

Or shoot someone with bullets/missiles with a cutting surface made out of that handwavium.

[Nyrath]

I don't remember where the idea of the pole was from, but I remember that people used them to get around in some wicked-old sci-fi book.

Arthur C. Clarke's 2010? Actually, I recall the "broomstick', as he called it, being discribed in an earlier story, but either way, I think he originated the idea, albeit as a pure tool.

Islands in the Sky by Arthur C. Clarke, 1952

http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket ... broomstick

[Nyrath]

Most practical CQC weapon I can think of is a bayonet. Mount it on a rifle, hell, even a pistol, and it'll be practical as a last-resort weapon.

In addition, bayonets are exceedingly effective crowd control weapons. At least according to Jerry Pournelle.

[Zixinus]

I don't quite understand why people would assume melee weapons would be useless under any and all circumstances. Against enemies in a long range battle the reasons are obvious, but not all battles will be from hundreds of meters away.

Almost any encounter in any situation where melee weapons could be used, guns or better can be superior. Most people would pick a shotgun over a katana any day.

Why ? In a "realistic SF scenario", the ship is going to be as light as possible to save mass, and unarmored.

Leaks aren't your only concern. Remember we are shooting from INSIDE the damn thing. Imagine what would happen if you shoot out the hydrogen propellent tank from the INSIDE. Or the oxygen recycler. Or a long list of other things you don't want to see a hole in.

It's better to be safe then sorry.

So they have a handwavium blade that can cut anything. But whats stopping someone just shooting the guy holding it before they get into melee range ?

Absolutely nothing.

In a realistic sci-fi scenario fighting is going to be done by swarms of unmanned drones over vast distances, and boarding is going to be a complete non-issue.

Space combat, yes. Infrantry combat not necesarly so.

Maybe heated or with a vibro-head added for good measure.

What's a vibro-head?

[Drooling Iguana]

Leaks aren't your only concern. Remember we are shooting from INSIDE the damn thing. Imagine what would happen if you shoot out the hydrogen propellent tank from the INSIDE. Or the oxygen recycler. Or a long list of other things you don't want to see a hole in.

And why would any of these be kept near the hatches, where combat is most likely to take place? A real spaceship wouldn't be designed like a movie set. They aren't obligated to put some high-tech flashy gizmo in the wall every three feet.

[Zixinus]

True, but the risk collateral damage poses is still high. A misfire can cause tremendous harm. I'm not necessarily talking high-tech, merely important.

Remember, this is outer space, if something brakes and needs to be fixed fast, you have nothing but what is on the ship, or if you are lucky, on the enemy's ship. A spaceship is usually a highly complex piece of technology, so braking anything will effect everything else.

[Drooling Iguana]

The same is true for submarines right now, but submarine crews don't carry swords.

[Zixinus]

And rarely expect to be boarded.

[Darth Smiley]

If one wanted close combat weapons to be viable, you would have to find a way to negate the advantage of ranged weapons. The most common method in science fiction is the hackneyed 'shield devices' (Star Wars, Star Trek, pick any random SF, etc), or some kind of 'power armor' (Warhammer 40k, any of the various Mecha anime ) that offers absurd levels of protection/weight ratio. Then either make these magical shields/power armour penetrable by close combat weapons for technobabble reasons (Holtzman Effect Shields, Dune), or create extremely powerful close combat weapons that punch through the protection with (relative) ease ('power/force/chain weapons in Warhammer 40k), or even some combination of the two (think Starcraft).

One alternative might be changing the setting. Underwater has potential - yes, one could use depth charges, and there are such things as underwater guns, but I imagine that making armor to stop underwater bullets is significantly easier than actually making the gun in the first place. If the setting is an underwater city, inhabited by a species that is adapted to underwater life (flat out xenos or genetically altered human), then close range combat may be plausible (or not. I know zilch about diving, or hydrodynamics, so if someone actually can confirm or refute this, please do).

Currently, I can't come up with a weapon that is (a) plausible and (b) does not use handwavium. Heck, even the handwavium weapons often fail the plausibility test. One of the big problems is from the same old drones/cruise missile vs space fighter debate - why is the human needed? As an example, lets take to 'Force Pike'. What exactly is stopping me from placing the 'Pike on a rocket, and placing a big grenade right behind the shield generator. Boom! And there goes your tightly packed formation of pikemen. I'd take a simple shield generator and a shield-rocket launcher (or a scaled down version. Think speargun) over a 'Pike anytime.

[Covenant]

Well, in my example, that'd be pile putting a grenade behind a sheet of steel and lobbing them both at a tank. By putting the nonsense behind the sheet of steel you're basically fucking the purpose of the steel.

You'd really be better off firing the rocket as-is rather than attaching a shield generator to it. Or, if you mean, why not set the thing to a tight aperature setting so that it forms a penetrator head? The problem with that is that it's over-engineered, and that in my example at least (the idea of the forcefield pike) that there's no point to putting a grenade on the thing.

Reasoning:

It's an electromag shield, not some sort of redonkulous one-way "You can fire through the shield" shield. So what's going to happen is your pike head will penetrate the enemy shield in all likelihood, but the shaft won't, and if it crosses the shield barrier it'd be shredded like a branch in a wood-chipper by a variety of shearing forces.

So while you could attach a variety of nasty explosives to the back of the spear, the spear isn't a cavitating weapon, so it doesn't make a hole through which the missile could fly. And as soon as the forcefield tip passes through, and the connecting elements are sheared off by force, the head disappears. That's why they're on a stick. So some dumbass with a short Forcefield Sword can't stab you. ;D

Now, if both people turned their 'Pikes to small aperature 'slicing' mode, then neither of them have shieldwalls and they BOTH can be shot by a gun. The value of the 'Pike design comes from the Ye Olde Idea that a lot of these forcefields are primarily defensive, but that a first or second rank of Pikemen could be able to stab through it (IE, stab from behind you forwards through your shieldwall) to force someone back and you advance your ranks Spartan-style or--more importantly--hold territory.

It's a melee weapon second, but it's an application of forcefield techology. Any arbitrarily advanced defensive forcefield system is essentially an arbitrarily advanced weapon system as well, as we've stated several times.

And the reasoning, again, for having it on a stick is that it is extremely hard to fire blobs of mobile electromagnetic forcefielding, which forces you to turn something into an Ultramagnet, and unless something changes dramatically, that means the field lines will be more or less limited in range from that target.

Anyway, I agree that most of the melee weapons are merely contrivances, but since I made up this one, I'll explain the reasoning. And by the way, water melee wouldn't work well, it's extremely hard to swing your fists with any degree of force through the water. A gun would be immensely more useful than any variety of blade. A spear would do okay, but really, it'd be like a slow-motion boxing match. Not very sexy, unless you had people with water-cavitating forcefields. You know, they force all the water back, so that there's a small 'empty' area and you can melee fight in it--but only from 10 or so feet from the wearers.

[Ryan Thunder]

If one wanted close combat weapons to be viable, you would have to find a way to negate the advantage of ranged weapons. The most common method in science fiction is the hackneyed 'shield devices' (Star Wars, Star Trek, pick any random SF, etc), or some kind of 'power armor' (Warhammer 40k, any of the various Mecha anime ) that offers absurd levels of protection/weight ratio. Then either make these magical shields/power armour penetrable by close combat weapons for technobabble reasons (Holtzman Effect Shields, Dune), or create extremely powerful close combat weapons that punch through the protection with (relative) ease ('power/force/chain weapons in Warhammer 40k), or even some combination of the two (think Starcraft).

And of course, they always seem to conveniently forget that they could probably make a javelin-like 'bolt' that would accomplish the same effect from range.

No matter how you look at it, a pistol will enable you to kill more people faster at short range than a melee weapon, and its more maneuverable.

Guns don't just magically stop working because you're too close, and to contradict the 40K rulebook, the best gun in the universe WILL help you if your opponent is attempting to bash your brains out with a rock; you will be able to force him to cease bashing your brains sooner than if you were stabbing him or some other such foolishness.

[Ford Prefect]

you will be able to force him to cease bashing your brains sooner than if you were stabbing him or some other such foolishness.

What if you were stabbing him ... with a chainsaw?

[Cykeisme]

No matter how you look at it, a pistol will enable you to kill more people faster at short range than a melee weapon, and its more maneuverable.

We're already dealing with hypothetical scenarios where there are reasons why the melee weapons are more effective than ranged projectile or directed energy weapons, such as "shields" or extremely effective personal armor.
Basically, a situation where the pistol can't reliably stop the kind of big game you're going after, but you have some sort of high tech bashy bashy stick that can.

Besides, if I'm not mistaken, having a pistol in close combat does help in 40k rules.

..the best gun in the universe WILL help you if your opponent is attempting to bash your brains out with a rock

Not if it's a shoulder-fired long arm, or worse, an unwieldy heavy weapon. If he's close enough to bash your brains out with a rock, he'll also have to be nice enough to take two steps back for you to shoot him.

[Cykeisme]

And of course, they always seem to conveniently forget that they could probably make a javelin-like 'bolt' that would accomplish the same effect from range.

Whoops, I missed this part.

Are you suggesting we shoot chainsaws at people?

Cool!

[Starglider]

Are you suggesting we shoot chainsaws at people?

Cool!

Cannot... resist... urge... to... image... spam...

[Darth Smiley]

The basic point I'm trying to make is that in most 'close combat weapons ftw!' situations, even with contrived technology, don't make sense. Your pike is an awesome bit of sci-fi ( much better than those silly lightsabers ), but nonetheless is still utterly destroyable to an intelligent opponent using the same tech (Lasers, or the Shield/Rocket).

I think the flying chainsaw of doom(tm) is a little extreme, but in Warhammer 40k, if your opponent has the '+20 OMFG immune to bullets relic of asskicking', but a '-3 zombie weakness to chainsaws' then thats exactly what you do - you chainsaw them from way the hell far away, and laugh as they uselessly try to defend with thier pathetically oversized 'demonic axe of buttstomping(tm)'

Finally, I think I miscommunicated with you on the whole 'rocket pike' idea. The idea is that shield generator creates and extremely narrow field that punctures the shield wall, then explodes the 'nade when it gets through. Maybe that is different from the way you envision the physics, but most of the point is still valid. One can remove the 'nade, make the pike and shield generator as small as you can, then create a gyrojet style 'gun' that renders the shield wall ineffective. Still, barring a really effective weapon like that (perhaps due to expense, or problems miniaturizing it) at close range fighting (ie in a city, or something like that), the pike is a neat idea.

[Cykeisme]

Are you suggesting we shoot chainsaws at people?

Cool!

Cannot... resist... urge... to... image... spam...

Holy shit, did you just draw that?

[bilateralrope]

A quick google search tracks that pic to a forum post made in 05 as the first result.

[Zixinus]

How about situations and weapons where combatants AREN'T military or police personal, and thus do not necessarily have access to firearms of any kind or are not allowed to have any in the first place?

[Covenant]

One can remove the 'nade, make the pike and shield generator as small as you can, then create a gyrojet style 'gun' that renders the shield wall ineffective. Still, barring a really effective weapon like that (perhaps due to expense, or problems miniaturizing it) at close range fighting (ie in a city, or something like that), the pike is a neat idea.

Incorrect!

In extremely basic terms, you have a Disintergrator Field, and a Disintergrator Field Emitter, and a Bomb. Get three pennies--these represent each of these bits. Try to arrange the bits in such a way that emitter and bomb are always protected by the Field, but that the field is always in front so it can penetrate. Problem? Yeah, you can't do that with just one penny. As soon as the forcefield penny passes through the shield, the shield is acting upon the Generator or the bomb--neither of which survive, and thus ends the missile.

More complex reasoning:

The problem comes when you try to fire the gyrojet round (or any round) through the field. The field exists as a field, not as a brick of armor. Poking a hole in the field is like passing your hand through the field generated by a magnet. It interacts, but it does not 'cavitate' the field. It doesn't remove the field. The field is still acting upon your hand.

Because of this, you can view the 'generator' essentially as the 'hilt' of the forcefield projection. However, you're not using the forcefield as a stabby bit, but as a penetrator... which doesn't work. It isn't making a hole in the shield, it's piercing it, like stabbing into water. If you stab water, the hilt would still get wet. Similarly, shooting your rocket into the shieldwall gets the 'hilt' wet, and instead of water we're talking shearing electromagnetic forces, and it's turned into confetti. Any attempt to place the grenade in front of the forcefield fails, as that just results in the grenade being shredded and doing no more damage than if you just shot a grenade at the shield. This isn't to say none, but the forcefield penetrator is over-engineered and accomplishes nothing. Against armor it would, since it would theoretically be able to penetrate, but against another one of these fields it wouldn't.

You could make a missile with a penetrator head AND a forcefield to protect the body using two or three forcefield pike generators, a bomb, and a rocket motor... but at that point, it's overkill. Yes, you can overkill my shieldpikes, but ideally you want a reasonable counter to something, and there's no reason to use forcefields for that.

So if your field-rocket-bomb combo was fired at a shieldwall, one of three things happens. Let us presume that you're using no stronger a field for your projectile than the pikemen have on their pikes.

A) The Field Aperature is too wide (projecting in beachball mode instead of knife mode), and the Shields repel each other, and there is no penetration. The generator, however, is intact, until your grenade goes off and harmlessly pops the thing in front of the enemy.

B) The Field Aperature is thin (like a knife or a needle in front of the generator), and the Shield is penetrated, and the Field Generator gets shredded as it passes through the shieldwall. The 'hilt is wet' problem.

C) You decide to cheat and use a 1.5x as strong generator for your weapon, sheilding all parts of your missile--except the hole in the back for the rocket motor. You achieve penetration and splatter some d00ds.

The last option is hardly a worthwhile one. Note, I said the point of the pike is to defend against small arms, and that it does. If you're throwing the equivilant of a large, expensive weapons system at someone just to deliver a grenade, that's rather ineffective. If I was writing this story though, the Pikes would not be invincible weapons--you've forgotton one major point.

Like I said before, momentum is conserved. If you fired a M1A1 Abrams tank shell at the guy with the forcefield pike, he may be totally unharmed from the impact, but the momentum of the impact is imparted directly into the pike the pikeman. So while the tank shell may have been harmlessly deflected, the structural integrity of the pike may have been compromised (snapping it) or you may have just ripped the guys arm off as the pike rockets backwards with the full force of the shell.

Obviously, that's why I made it a pike. You want to set it for an attack, and try to angle it to deflect, rather than absorb, blows. You also want to be as far away from that tip as possible, since someone else's force blade will be able to slice in there. And while it won't make a hole that a missile could slip through (or even penetrate) the force blade itself does. And if they get lucky they might take the tip off your Pike, and break it. Now you've gone from having a very fancy spear to having a very expensive stick.