DINO EATER (IT'S NOT OVER YET)

[Shroom Man 777]

Hrm... the ceramic barrel was supposed to show how, in a world where cyborg dinosaurs packing plasma pistols are expected, even basic firearms technology will have progressed. It was deliberately fictitious - like the depleted uranium buckshots (which I've been putting in my sci-fi stories years ago). But yeah, you're right, all the fancy shmancy ceramic barrel does is cool down faster.

Hey, do those machineguns mounted on the sides of helicopters and on cars also need replacement when they overheated? Or are they made out of heavier and less-heatable metals?

[Sidewinder]

Almost all machine guns currently in production have quick-change barrels, so a hot one can be replaced with a cool one; this is necessary to prevent jamming, damage to the barrel (extreme heat will weaken metal, making the barrel bend), and cook offs (extreme heat setting off the ammo, making the gun fire when the gunner does NOT want it to fire).

To prevent the VERY BAD THINGS described above, soldiers are trained to fire machine guns in five to seven-round bursts (when I was in basic training, the instructors told us to pull the trigger for the second used to say, "Press, release!" then release the trigger). Only amateurs and DESPERATE men hold down the trigger until the ammo belt is used up.

The old Maxims, with their water-cooled barrels, didn't have quick-change barrels because they weren't needed; unfortunately, the water needed to be replenished (you might see hoses connected to Maxim guns in old photos), and it was HEAVY. That's why gun designers moved onto air-cooled machine guns with quick-change barrels.

Gatling guns don't really have quick-change barrels (to replace them, you must disassemble the gun) because each barrel has time to cool down after the bullet leaves it. Sustained firing CAN warp the barrels (as described in SOG, about US Special Forces in Vietnam), and a Gatling CAN jam if it's not maintained (a trained soldier can spend up to 30 minutes disassembling, cleaning, and reassembling a M134 Minigun; if he doesn't, the weapon WILL jam the next time it goes to a gunnery range).

[Shroom Man 777]

How do you change the barrel of a .50 cal mounted on a Humvee, or an M60 on the side of a Huey?

And we can't fault Fidel for being desperate in the face of giant rocket-launching reptiloids

[Sidewinder]

How do you change the barrel of a .50 cal mounted on a Humvee, or an M60 on the side of a Huey?

IIRC, you change a vehicle-mounted machine gun's barrel when it's parked at the base (read: not moving and within walking distance of the unit armory). I doubt there's a difference between vehicle-mounted and infantry (manhandled) machine gun barrels; armies like commonality to reduce supply hassles (it would suck if an aviation unit orders a barrel for a helicopter's door gun, only to get one they can't use because it was designed for the infantry variant of the same model gun) and costs.

And we can't fault Fidel for being desperate in the face of giant rocket-launching reptiloids

Yeah, Fidel holding down the trigger is understandable (machine gun manuals DO authorize this FOR EMERGENCIES, with the warning that the barrel must be replaced every 15 seconds or so, along with others to discourage holding down the trigger).

[Ford Prefect]

I should note that the right type of ceramic could take temperatures int he thousands of kelvin range before it would even begin to be stressed. While generally speaking ceramics are very brittle, the performance is of OZ Comix! ceramics is implausibly excellent - there was an anti-tank progressive knife in Things Might Get Trippy which was made out of a ceramic material designed for use on hypersonic aerospace fighters, for example. It can be assumed that this is just not the peak of EVIL weapons tech (which is, as has appeared in DINO EATER, around the range of hypersonic electromagnetic guns. They do make and sell 'doomsday devices' that are supposed to be able to hold the world to ransom, but they invariably never work, because that would be bad for business).

Though not your best, the battle against the carnotaur was rather impressive. At times it felt something like an unstoppable force, making it more impressive than any other dinosaur appearance yet.

[Sea Skimmer]

The old Maxims, with their water-cooled barrels, didn't have quick-change barrels because they weren't needed; unfortunately, the water needed to be replenished (you might see hoses connected to Maxim guns in old photos), and it was HEAVY. That's why gun designers moved onto air-cooled machine guns with quick-change barrels.

Well those hoses on those old machine guns are to direct steam into a condenser box. This didn’t really save any water, but its real purpose was to avoid the guns position being given away by a rising cloud of steam.

[Shroom Man 777]

I'm really dissatisfied with the prose of this latest chapter (the 18th). I really feel like I only got my 'mojo' back in the last part. Goddamn it!


Mang, SeaSkimmer. Are you a long-time reader, first-time poster?

(I wish! )