SLDF Mauser 960 extra features.

[Terrace]

Let's talk about this extra stuff, which I personally blame for why the rifle is so damn heavy at 10.5kg, when a generic IS Pulse Laser Rifle is only 5kg.

Integrated Vibroblade Bayonet: What wrong with a standard detachable Bayonet? To me, this looks like feature-creep.

Integrated Compact Six-Shot Grenade Launcher: Would it kill them to make this detachable? Six shots is nice, but it's dead weight if you're not issued any grenades for it.

Survival Kit: This is where things get truly ridiculous. Let's go through the list of what they stuffed into the stock.
- 4x 2-hour emergency flares
- Flashlight with batteries sufficient for 48 hours of use
- Pulse signal stick with strobe light and emergency radio
- folding spade
- medical kit which includes a two day supply of nutrition pills and five meters of bandages

Remove all three of these systems, and you're left with a Pulse Laser Rifle that not only has improved range and energy efficiency per shot, but doesn't give up any hitting power when compared to the "generic" IS PLR. In fact, it greatly approaches the Clan PLR in performance, giving up only 60 meters at the longest range. And the Clan PLR had to up the energy requirements to both increase the damage and get that extra range.

But how much do you figure this hypothetical stripped-down 960 would weigh?

[Robroy]

Striped down as you have it, I would cut the weight by half.

In the RPG campaign I used to run I would strip the survival kit and replace the stock with a skeletal style. Drop the weight to 8.8 kg.

[Terrace]

Striped down as you have it, I would cut the weight by half.

In the RPG campaign I used to run I would strip the survival kit and replace the stock with a skeletal style. Drop the weight to 8.8 kg.

That's a bit more extreme than I was imagining. Good grief, what sort of kickbacks were involved to get the SLDF to accept such a stupidly heavy all-in-one system as their standard-issue infantry rifle? The bayonet could be redesigned to act as a separate combat vibroblade that happens to be usable as a bayonet, the compact grenade launcher could be removable and normally only added when expecting heavy combat where grenades would be useful, and the survival kit should be stuck in the soldier's pack where it belongs!

[Liam's Ghost]

The vibroblade is detachable. In fact, you can shoot it at somebody (it has an effective range of 8 meters). No joke, the vibroblade is designed so you can shoot it at somebody!

The Word of Blake's Mauser upgrade (and I think the clan version) dispensed with the survival kit. I'm not certain about the shootable vibroblade.

[Robroy]

The Clans kept the survival kit. And made it heavier still.

[Terrace]

The Clans kept the survival kit. And made it heavier still.

Yeah, didn't they also turn it from a Pulse Laser Rifle to an Extended Range Laser Rifle in the process? They also upped the power per-shot over a "generic" ER Laser Rifle while keeping all the same features of the 960, so it being even heavier makes sense.

[FedRatCowboy]

Yeah, didn't they also turn it from a Pulse Laser Rifle to an Extended Range Laser Rifle in the process? They also upped the power per-shot over a "generic" ER Laser Rifle while keeping all the same features of the 960, so it being even heavier makes sense.

And with the harsher worlds the clans had to live on it kind of make sense that the survival kit got heavier too.

Personally out of all the IS armed forces, the FedSuns have got the better small arms all the way around (M42B, M61A, and the SERREK 7875D pistol.) Heck even their slug thrower battle rifle (the M42B) is in my opinion better than the Mauser 960.

[Nodachi]

Something I mentioned in a previous incarnation of the boards, the Star League threw money at problems. And I still suspect that the 960 went lostech more due to cost than anything else.

[Robroy]

Something I mentioned in a previous incarnation of the boards, the Star League threw money at problems. And I still suspect that the 960 went lostech more due to cost than anything else.

I am sure it was expensive for the Star League, but I was under the impression that the high cost was because it was lostech. No other energy rifle has its combination of range, damage, and power use.

[Terrace]

Thinking further about it, the 960 was probably approaching the point of diminishing returns when it comes to squeezing more performance out of a Pulse Laser Rifle. The impressive range, when combined with the energy efficiency per shot (2 power points per shot, versus 4 for the generic PLR), made it the flat-out superior choice. Even the Clan Pulse Laser Rifle, which has improved range and damage, had to sacrifice the energy efficiency to get that increase.

Now if only the SLDF hadn't saddled the poor infantrymen who had to carry it with all those heavy addons they couldn't remove...

[Demon55]

That seems way too heavy for an infantry rifle.  For a machine gun that weight is still a tad high. 

[glitterboy2098]

That seems way too heavy for an infantry rifle.  For a machine gun that weight is still a tad high.

it's basically most of a standard Infantry kit packed into the rifle. just add body armor.

The Clans kept the survival kit. And made it heavier still.

Yeah, didn't they also turn it from a Pulse Laser Rifle to an Extended Range Laser Rifle in the process? They also upped the power per-shot over a "generic" ER Laser Rifle while keeping all the same features of the 960, so it being even heavier makes sense.

And with the harsher worlds the clans had to live on it kind of make sense that the survival kit got heavier too.

it probably helps that the people most likely to be using the clan version are Elementals.

and i suspect that the survival kit aspect made it useful for mechwarriors. clamp it to the ejection seat of your mech, and you now have two kits.. one in the gunstock, one in the seat itself. handy if you have to bail out.

[Daryk]

Don't forget the customization rules in the Companion... the SAS probably had modified 960s that only used one power point per shot (for three times the cost, of course).

[Ruger]

One good thing about the weapon is that if for some reason you have to bug out in a hurry, all you need to worry about grabbing is your rifle, and you can survive for a while...

Still heavy though...

Ruger

[Daryk]

Heavy, sure, but below the threshold to be "Encumbering" by itself.

And FedRatCowboy has a point about the M42B... I submitted errata inquiring as to why it's the only non-support weapon to have the Heavy Burst special.  That looks like an error to me (I think they averaged the various modes for some reason).

[truetanker]

Just like WWI, the Mauser 960 could also be used as a impromptu melee club when out of ammo. I mean, really, would you throw away the weapon if your an Infantry on the run? Sure you used all of your allotted power packs and only have a few nutrition pills and a meter or so of bandage left. You've still got that weapon, do you A) drop it and run, or B) carry it and hope for the chance to get a charge?

And what about using it like they did way back then, WWI you ask?

Take the barrel and swing it!

* CLUNK! *

Nice club there soldier...

TT

[marauder648]

The Mauser 960's feature creep is amusing but lets have a looksee

Integrated Vibroblade Bayonet: What wrong with a standard detachable Bayonet? To me, this looks like feature-creep.

Not sure here, I suppose if its retractable or the like then yeah its a bit weird but it saves the trooper having to carry it on their webbing and the bayonet is there when you need it and isn't going to be left behind or get caught on things on your webbing.

Integrated Compact Six-Shot Grenade Launcher: Would it kill them to make this detachable? Six shots is nice, but it's dead weight if you're not issued any grenades for it.

I would assume that they would be issued with grenades and it would be a simple plug and play kind of magazine to reload it. useful firepower to have in a firefight and you don't have to rely on one guy or gal lugging around a grenade launcher when your whole squad's got them and this could be a LOT of firepower against hostiles (or smoke or illumination etc depending on the grenades used)

Survival Kit: This is where things get truly ridiculous. Let's go through the list of what they stuffed into the stock.

- 4x 2-hour emergency flares

An odd thing for sure, this isn't really needed but you could use them as a heat source or something to start fires so they are probably multi-purpose

- Flashlight with batteries sufficient for 48 hours of use

Again, an odd choice, and how big is this flashlight? Are we talking full on big ass maglight here or a lil pocket torch?

- Pulse signal stick with strobe light and emergency radio

This to me makes sense, emergency comms is always good

- folding spade

Okay..why's this here?  That's just extra weight and bulk and not really needed.  But I can kinda see some use, you could use it as an entrenching tool but yeah, drop this damn thing.

- medical kit which includes a two day supply of nutrition pills and five meters of bandages

So...vitamin pills and bandages. An odd mix for sure, you'd expect a morphine injector (and reloads for it) and the like.

So yeah there's some stuff here that could be left out, the flares and the spade mainly.  Design bloat does seem to be a SLDF thing and this very heavy weapon suffered from it. But then again with the SLDF slowly starting to use PA(L) the weights nothing for them.

[Nebfer]

The only thing that really is head scratching is the "survival kit" (and not a really good one at that), integrated bayonets are known in real life, including more than one service rifle (Some Mosin Nagant's have them for instance).
As for the integrated Grenade launcher, again it's been something that has been looked into by many country's for decades, some have even made it into limited service).

Lets see
Mauser 960 10.5kg
- Pulse laser (5kg)
- Grenade launcher (3kg -though in this case it has a 6 shot capacity vs 1 shot), 6 shots at .2kg each (1.2kg total)
- Bayonet (.35kg) -vibroblade
- Survival kit (weight is unknown)

Now is that 10.5kg including the ammo or is it empty? I tend to think that most of the time the weight is for a loaded weapon (with a few exceptions).

So the two weapons are 8kg of that 1.5kg is ammo, so the 2.5kg left over is comprised of the survival kit, bayonet and anything else that perhaps is not mentioned, like say a integrated optic (the later 1200 series and the Clan model seem to have them in their depictions).
A "barrel mounted" flash light is 250g and a optical sight is 200g (a HC Micro power pack is only 20g).

The Clan version is 12kg but dose mount a larger grenade launcher
ER Laser 5kg
Grenade launcher 5kg
Vibroblade 0.35kg
Survival kit unknown

Ammo is 2.25kg for the five grenades (450g each), and a clan Power pack is 275g, so of the 10ish kg of weapon, ammo is just over 2.5kgs. Of the remaining 2kg, 350g are for the bayonet leaving us with 1.65kg for the kit and anything else (like that scope the art shows it having).

[Kovax]

1.5 of that 1.65kg is probably the spade entrenching tool.  Dropping that alone would reduce the weight to just over 9kg.....still a shade on the heavy side for a squad machinegun, and way overweight for a rifle, but better than 10+.

Making the GL optional or removable would make a bigger difference, so you might only want 2-3 of them per squad, rather than every grunt lugging one around.  If the ones without the GL included the spade tool, that would distribute the weight a little more fairly, while retaining all of the capabilities within the squad.

[Liam's Ghost]

I feel like I should mention again that the vibroblade bayonet is detachable.

Aggressively detachable.

[marauder648]

The Mauser IIC's heavier but the folks who use them tend to be generally on the whole a bit stronger to a LOT stronger than your standard IS infantryman.  An Elemental could easily heft a Mauser IIC without any issue.

Could it be that the Mauser 960 was originally designed for PA(L) use and with an eye towards PA(L) becoming more widespread?  That might explain the rifle's huge weight which as folks have said is heavy for a squad MG.  Its a bit heavier than the GPMG that the British army used from the 60's onwards and having lugged one of them around yeah that's gonna be exhausting after a while.

So what we could do (if we can) is design a stripped down one.  The laser system is obviously a good weapon so keep that, and instead of having a six shot launcher for the grenades, have the option to mount a slot on single shot reloadable one, much like you see on modern assault rifles. 

The bayonette is handy but really its a bit extranious (especially the launching system for it :s ), drop the rubbish survival kit as its just not needed and the bits and bobs for it could be carried on webbing or in combat pouches etc. 

I dunno what this would reduce the weight to, its still going to be a heavy ass gun but you can trim some of the weight and either use it as a rifle or issue it to troops who need the extra firepower.

Meanwhile the standard 960 system could be used with PA(L) equipped forces, who won't notice the extra weight and the weight of firepower they could put out would be ideal. 

I see this as being like the XM-25

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM25_CDTE

Or the XM-29 which is probably closer to the Mauser 960 in role and equipment but nowhere near as heavy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XM29_OICW

I dunno what the standard rifle of the SLDF was but i'd assume there was a laser version of something like the XM8, a stripped down and compact laser rifle whilst the 960 was issued to special forces or dolled out as a squad support weapon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heckler_%26_Koch_XM8

[Daryk]

I did something like a stripped down version last month using an Intek as the base: https://bg.battletech.com/forums/index.php?topic=62761.msg1442218#msg1442218

[DOC_Agren]

The bayonette is handy but really its a bit extranious (especially the launching system for it :s ),

Nah it 1 of the cool touch to a real "neat" weapon
http://weaponsman.com/?p=24823
That I can see someone in the SLDF thinking Vibrating one even cooler

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

That was a painful read.