I voted for magazine style packs, and don't see how anyone can think that anything but some sort of a magazine style energy cell would work for a typical energy weapon.
I may be more into the hard sci-fi area of things (yes I know I am playing the wrong game. ;) ) but the quick change magazine style makes sense. As others have stated, all energy weapons in a squad would run off of these same power packs. Bubba's man pack PPC only gets a shot or two from one, whereas a standard issue infantry laser rifle would get maybe 30-50 or more.
A magazine is fast to change. I can reload an AR in around a second if I have a good reload, and around 2-3 seconds if things get a little sloppy. I shoot a lot, but am not professionally trained, or an active duty soldier. I would imagine that by the time we get around to developing laser rifles, the act of changing a magazine will be even more simplified. So the added benefit of
me gets more shots from this dumb backpack is outweighed by the fact that you have to carry around a backpack, with exposed wires of some sort, or at the very least a tether within your combat uniform.
Snagging isn't going to be an issue with a magazine and its not like you have to worry about springs and gravity and feed lips so literally it could be inline with your rifle (as opposed to dangling below it)
I personally believe this
Seriously? Why does the cord have to be free-hanging to begin with? Why not have it run along the sleeve of your jacket on the inside of your arm? That would keep snags to a minimum.
is an even worse Idea. By having your rifle permanently tethered to its ammunition supply with a little cord that runs along the inside of your jacket, you now cannot set your rifle down to take a leak, or eat some rations or whatever without disconnecting it from its ammunition. Further, now you have to hump the ammo around as dead weight and not have a usable weapon.
After all of these issues, the biggest one that I see is being able to share ammo with other members of your squad. You're in the middle of a pretty hairy fire fight, and click, your laser runs dry. All out of juice in your gun. If its tethered to some pack or bag, you can't just turn around and yell MAG! to your buddies and have them toss you a spare power pack. And just a guess, they probably aren't going to unplug theirs.
Also its a safety in numbers sort of thing for your ammunition. If you have a big backpack unit, or even a satchel at your hip or whatever, and that thing takes a hit or you fall on it, or it shorts out, or whatever. You are done. With a magazine, you just chuck the damaged one out and throw a fresh one in.
In the 21st, let alone the 31st century vehicle operations are a must. Infantry are hauled around and supported by vehicles in pretty much every conflict we get in, let alone the auxiliary and support stuff. In this capacity, how does it make sense to have a backpack or bag unit? One its going to be uncomfortable to sit in a crowded APC seat with a backpack on, let alone having any cables or power feeds get snagged, and it's not realistic that you are going to take it off for these scenarios.
With all this said however, I do see a place for large (probably backpack mounted) power packs, these would be for large weapons and heavy gunners. And the gunner struggling with the weight of such a weapon would have limited ability to carry reloads. So it would be very possible for infantry men to be running around with their standard combat load of a laser rifle and magazines, and an extra backpack or two for the big gun.
I envision these heavy weapons having a port for these large power packs and also a port for the more common magazines. Much in the vein of the M249 SAW which can either be fed by large belts of ammo, or belts coiled up in a bag or drum, or alternately be easily loaded with 30 round M4 and M16 mags.
There is so much more I could type... but I'll leave it there for now. Definitely an interesting topic.
Poll
