The Zeus assault rifle. What the hell's that thing made of?

[marauder648]

My friends and I were gibbering about Battletech last night when this curious rifle was brought up and it gave us all a case of the giggles.

The Zeus Heavy rifle https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Zeus_Heavy_Rifle is an 8kg assault rifle that looks like a AR-15/M-16.  The description says that it fires a 45 gram bullet and five times the speed of sound.  The .50 BMG fires a 42 gram bullet at 2.5 times the speed of sound. So this thing fires a round bigger than a .50cal machine gun at twice the velocity. 

The fluff mentions the recoil as being severe, but i'd say it would be more a case of 'Bullet leaves rifle at Mach 5. Firer is projected backwards at Mach 1.' We're going full Noisy Cricket Mode here. Also i've no idea what kind of materials this rifle's made out of, diamond is too weak, to contain the explosive force of such a cartridge on so small a rifle.

This thing wouldn't so much as inflict bruising or blunt force trauma on the firer rather than nail you in the chest and leave your body through the back. Meanwhile what ever you've hit is curiously unhurt by the round because its going so damn fast. Its the sonic boom and pressure wave following up behind the absurdly fast round that then turns the target into jam.

Maybe the rifles only made to be fired once, you fire it, take the magazine out, slap magazine into new rifle, rinse and repeat. :D

Are there any other bonkers weapons like this out there in the setting? One with stats or info that makes you go O_o

[AlphaMirage]

Allot of the small arms and personal equipment in battletech are absurd.  I mean the standard SLDF Rifle weighed 10 Kilos, of course it needs a harness or powered armor to operate properly. The heavy weapons are also just madness, I think the original designers decided to add more detail then necessary in most places; failing to realize that sometimes less is more when it comes to Sci-Fi descriptions.  It got slightly better in later editions but because we cannot obsolete anything the original stats remained the same.

[marauder648]

Yeah the Mauser's absurdly huge. The Mauser IIC's even heavier but that's okay as an Elemental would be running around with it rather than poor sod having to haul around a 12kg rifle. As a banana for scale that's heavier than most NATO standard 7.62 belt fed machine guns that usually have to be fired on a bipod or come on a tripod. Looking at the weight and fluff its quite obvious that folks who didn't know too much about guns wrote 'em, but as you said, we can't just obsolete everything.

[Talen5000]

Allot of the small arms and personal equipment in battletech are absurd.  I mean the standard SLDF Rifle weighed 10 Kilos, of course it needs a harness or powered armor to operate properly. The heavy weapons are also just madness, I think the original designers decided to add more detail then necessary in most places; failing to realize that sometimes less is more when it comes to Sci-Fi descriptions.  It got slightly better in later editions but because we cannot obsolete anything the original stats remained the same.

Way I deal with it?
The listed mass is the storage/transport mass and the mass of the weapon itself is about one third to one half that listed....aka man-portable.

[Empyrus]

The SLDF Mauser is idiotic because the extra equipment is carried on and in the weapon. If the description were "SLDF Soldier kit, contains a laser rifle and other stuff that is carried conventionally", it would not be an issue.

[grimlock1]

One of the Victor Milan novels mentions a teenage sniper from the 17th using a Zeus with a recoil absorbing mount. If we just ignore the art because it's a safe bet neither the devs, nor the artists knew much about firearms, I think we can make the stated stats work safely-ish. Based on that 10 kg SLDF rifle, I wonder how well they understood the metric system...  But with a large muzzle brake and a LONG recoil spring, and maybe a gas buffer system, you could bring it down to something that won't injure the shooter.  It will hurt, but nothing you couldn't walk off.  The big problem is that by the time you've managed to train out the flinch, you will almost certainly be looking at some chronic shoulder injury.

Yeah the Mauser's absurdly huge. The Mauser IIC's even heavier but that's okay as an Elemental would be running around with it rather than poor sod having to haul around a 12kg rifle. As a banana for scale that's heavier than most NATO standard 7.62 belt fed machine guns that usually have to be fired on a bipod or come on a tripod. Looking at the weight and fluff its quite obvious that folks who didn't know too much about guns wrote 'em, but as you said, we can't just obsolete everything.

It's not just the weight, it's the shape and balance.

[marauder648]

That could work Grimlock :) You'd have to engineer the bejasus out of it to get it to work, and if you gave it to someone who's not familiar with the Zeus heavy or how to fire the damn thing it pretty much still will be a case of "And you get a dislocated shoulder and you get a dislocated shoulder!"

[SteelRaven]

Assault Rifles and other small arms in BT have always had numbers that never matched the fluff and takes allot of mental gymnastics for any of it to make sense.

The TK Enforcer was a real sore spot for me. It's a auto pistol that can use the magazines from the TK Assault Rifle but the only picture looks closer to Glock 18 with some Auto 9 stylizing. The only way I can justify it is by thinking the TK Assault Rifle uses the same, very slender magazines as the caseless G11 rifle and ignore the one throw away line in Decision at Thunder Rift about the TK being a bullpup. Now this doesn't explain why the caseless 'bullpup' has a 5.5 KG mass. Chances are the TK was original suppose to be modeled after FN FAL and H&K G3 but no one told William H Keith. But we can also say the TK Rifle has the same features as the SA 80 which makes them both heavier than they should be.

Now, the Zeus Heavy Rifle. Yeah, that's a hefty boy. I guess it's suppose to be something like the H&K PSG1 (similar mass... if you round up, like every other rifle in the BTU) but I think it was originally meant to be something like a 50 BMG but they just told Steve Venture to draw a big rifle without any other context. For the Zues, I'm guessing a good amount of mass is to reduce the recoil of the insane ammo, like the AA-12 Automated Shotgun. I'm guess the Ammo was in part inspired by the High Velocity Rounds from the original Ghost in the Shell anime that was made to counter armor targets (thus, that blurb about some MD require multiple hits to take down) and uses similar compound as Auto Cannon propellant. 

Really, BTU does a more believable job with Gauss Rifles and Direct Energy Weapons. Anything firing actual bullets pre-Wikipidia requires handwaveium to be not give you a headache.     

[Cannonshop]

what's funnier is that when you go to the game stats for Zeus infantry and you end up with something that resembles a shotgun firing eight guage slugs, rather than a rifle.

an over-weight shotgun, at that.

8.8 times 2.15, because a Kilogram is heavier than a pound.

19.4 pounds (rounded down), which is the dry weight (No ammo or accessories), which is in BAR or Barrett territory, not FN-FAL territory.  (FAL dry weight is under ten pounds).

To get game performance from a cartridge that big, (45 grams. at mach 5) it almost needs to be a blunt cylinder with a little parachute to slow it down.

Made of Tungsten, or maybe Osmium.

the fundamental problem with a lot of the early weapons has already been discussed: Writers and creators who have no idea how firearms even work, trying to look like they know more than they do, then subsequent writers being stuck with a combination of stats and descriptions that are mechanically unlikely.  (That much weight, you're not looking at a heavy action and barrel anymore, you're looking at a massive recoil-management assembly and some kind of filtered vision so the muzzle blast doesn't both blind and deafen the user while the gun is breaking his shoulder and throwing him backward.  Mind that superstrength materials and science fiction explosives might manage both the fluff velocity, AND the bullet size, but you would still need a massive recoil management and massive muzzle device to make it possible to fire from 'the shoulder'.)

but then, there's the flip side, and the Gauss rifles firing "Hypersonic" slugs at merely mach 2.

which is NOT in the Hypersonic regime, but SOUNDS impressive as hell to someone who doesn't know that.

[Empyrus]

I wonder if the writers assumed "hypersonic" means just "faster than sound".

[marauder648]

Thank you Cannonshop, reading your comment made me snort my tea all over my monitor :D

[KuzeFanAcct]

That's hilarious, as someone relatively new to all the lore and never touched infantry. There's a similar style of rifle in real life called the Beowulf AR-15, also chambered in .50 caliber, but it's certainly not practical the way a standard AK/AR would be. I guess in the future the technology around arms manufacturing seriously improved.

Hopefully CGS does a whole refresh on infantry some time, it seems like they need it.

[grimlock1]

That's hilarious, as someone relatively new to all the lore and never touched infantry. There's a similar style of rifle in real life called the Beowulf AR-15, also chambered in .50 caliber, but it's certainly not practical the way a standard AK/AR would be. I guess in the future the technology around arms manufacturing seriously improved.

Hopefully CGS does a whole refresh on infantry some time, it seems like they need it.

Firing the slug isn't the problem.  Making the rifle survive(at least the first few shots) is certainly challenging.  It's finding a way to keep Issac Newton from looking at the One Inch Punch and saying, "Hold my beer!"

[SteelRaven]

Personally: I would ignore the fluff and use your best judgement regarding the personal weapons.

[Daryk]

Hmmm... upping the magazine size to 10 to remove the damage penalty for Reload Factor would yield a TW damage of:

PF: 5 / 4 = 1.25
DF: 5 x (3.5 + 0) = 17.5
Damage = 1.25 x 17.5 / 50 = 0.4375, rounds to 0.44

The bog standard Auto-Rifle does 0.52 (mostly due to a burst size of 15).

For truly ridiculous weapons, you should take a look at the clan "Heavy Auto Grenade Launcher".  That thing is supposed to fire Class D ordnance, with a 5 burst no less...  ::)

[beachhead1985]

BT Infantry weapons are generally salvagable; but suffer from being written by people who didn't know guns...or kilograms, I think...and all covered with a thick spread of future of the 1980s.

I think we're on the right track with the AR-15 Beowulf. There have been a few propreitary big-bore AR calibres; .499 Leitner-Wise and .458 SOCOM (I think?) come to mind and I always pictures something like that, but with better trajectory.

Further; If you are willing to twist your mind in knots to do it; you can force BT weapons to make more sense if you figure them as being designed specifically to kill well-protected enemy infantry and damage some kind of granular ablative vehicle armour. Which happens to mesh well with the tabletop.

Then the range bands even kinda work...better with 100m hexes, but still.

[Nebfer]

what's funnier is that when you go to the game stats for Zeus infantry and you end up with something that resembles a shotgun firing eight guage slugs, rather than a rifle.

an over-weight shotgun, at that.

8.8 times 2.15, because a Kilogram is heavier than a pound.

19.4 pounds (rounded down), which is the dry weight (No ammo or accessories), which is in BAR or Barrett territory, not FN-FAL territory.  (FAL dry weight is under ten pounds).

To get game performance from a cartridge that big, (45 grams. at mach 5) it almost needs to be a blunt cylinder with a little parachute to slow it down.

Made of Tungsten, or maybe Osmium.

the fundamental problem with a lot of the early weapons has already been discussed: Writers and creators who have no idea how firearms even work, trying to look like they know more than they do, then subsequent writers being stuck with a combination of stats and descriptions that are mechanically unlikely.  (That much weight, you're not looking at a heavy action and barrel anymore, you're looking at a massive recoil-management assembly and some kind of filtered vision so the muzzle blast doesn't both blind and deafen the user while the gun is breaking his shoulder and throwing him backward.  Mind that superstrength materials and science fiction explosives might manage both the fluff velocity, AND the bullet size, but you would still need a massive recoil management and massive muzzle device to make it possible to fire from 'the shoulder'.)

but then, there's the flip side, and the Gauss rifles firing "Hypersonic" slugs at merely mach 2.

which is NOT in the Hypersonic regime, but SOUNDS impressive as hell to someone who doesn't know that.

I would not use the games ranges as strictly their actual range, considering that the fluff it self indicates that they can fire at further ranges listed, for example the 3067 Laio House book has their sniper rifle with a 1.5km range (which also indicates that the Zeus is a 50 cal) but the fluff hints at snipers hitting targets at 3km ranges with it.
But fluff has no sway in game...

Their is a bit of a disconnect with the current in game Zeus Hvy Rifle and the Fluff.
The Fluff has it being a 12.7mm sniper rifle firing a 45g slug at hypersonic velocitys, further more their are examples of this weapon firing at 1km ranges. Their is mention of a counter recoil device being used with this weapon (said to make recoil feel more like a 7mm rifle).
The Game it self indicates that it's a 12.7mm rifle with a 400ish meter range...  it generally dose not present it as a sniper rifle as well...

By the way just to be pedantic a kilogram is 2.205 pounds so the Zeus is 17.64 pounds (8kg), personally I view that this is for a loaded weapon.

As for the Gauss rifle I never seen a quote that uses both hypersonic and super sonic velocity's at the same time, it's one or the other, and theirs roughly three times as many hypersonic quotes than supersonic ones. And I have looked at over 60 quotes for Gauss rifles which is most of the novels.

[KuzeFanAcct]

Personally: I would ignore the fluff and use your best judgement regarding the personal weapons.

Basically, yeah. Whatever is the most fun/hilarious outcome is what matters most.

In about 16 hours I have to host the sequel to a session where a Kell Hounds pilot watched his entire lance get shredded right in front of his face and decided his best option was to jump into the bottom of a recently emptied nuclear missile silo - only to have his Jump Jets malfunction and eat absolute shit as he hit rock bottom - literally!

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

So everybody's rolling up a new character?

[KuzeFanAcct]

Hah, no. Let's just say they're about to embark on a totally normal and nothing surprising going to happen here supply convoy escort mission against Clan Smoke Jaguar... until this last remaining Kell Hounds pilot seizes the opportunity to avenge their comrades.

Except one of my key players is out sick and I have to reschedule  :'(

[Simon Landmine]

In about 16 hours I have to host the sequel to a session where a Kell Hounds pilot watched his entire lance get shredded right in front of his face and decided his best option was to jump into the bottom of a recently emptied nuclear missile silo - only to have his Jump Jets malfunction and eat absolute shit as he hit rock bottom - literally!

And now you've given me a yearning to pepper a map with 90m+ pits. :-)

[Kovax]

To achieve the "hypersonic" speeds with a .50 caliber projectile would either require a recoilless rifle design of some sort to mitigate the shoulder-amputation effect, or else some kind of simultaneous counter-explosion that pushes the weapon forward to cancel out part of the recoil.  Absent those, an additional heavy tripod, bipod, or wheeled carriage to mount the weapon on during firing would be mandatory, if you want to be physically able to take a second shot without surgery in the interim.

I'm also reminded of the gyrojet rifles, but the Zeus is specifically differentiated from those.

The barrel is apparently based on the same order of advanced technology as the damage-ablation capacity of 'Mech armor, but entirely different in its properties, requiring materials which we are currently incapable of duplicating in order to handle the extreme stresses.

A lot of that becomes considerably less magical if you reinterpret "hypersonic" as actually no more than about twice "supersonic" speed.  It would still be a rather exotic piece of gear, and I wouldn't want to have to haul it around at that weight.

[Cannonshop]

I would not use the games ranges as strictly their actual range, considering that the fluff it self indicates that they can fire at further ranges listed, for example the 3067 Laio House book has their sniper rifle with a 1.5km range (which also indicates that the Zeus is a 50 cal) but the fluff hints at snipers hitting targets at 3km ranges with it.
But fluff has no sway in game...

Their is a bit of a disconnect with the current in game Zeus Hvy Rifle and the Fluff.
The Fluff has it being a 12.7mm sniper rifle firing a 45g slug at hypersonic velocitys, further more their are examples of this weapon firing at 1km ranges. Their is mention of a counter recoil device being used with this weapon (said to make recoil feel more like a 7mm rifle).
The Game it self indicates that it's a 12.7mm rifle with a 400ish meter range...  it generally dose not present it as a sniper rifle as well...

By the way just to be pedantic a kilogram is 2.205 pounds so the Zeus is 17.64 pounds (8kg), personally I view that this is for a loaded weapon.

As for the Gauss rifle I never seen a quote that uses both hypersonic and super sonic velocity's at the same time, it's one or the other, and theirs roughly three times as many hypersonic quotes than supersonic ones. And I have looked at over 60 quotes for Gauss rifles which is most of the novels.

Thing is, only in hollywood, gun press, and Clancy Novels are .50 caliber rifles 'sniper rifles' instead of 'anti-materiel rifles'.  A sniper rifle is a precision weapon, where fractions of an inch groups are needed, intended to deprive a target of life at extreme ranges.  an anti-materiel rifle is designed to deprive light vehicles, thin-skinned armored vehicles and similar large items of function at moderate ranges.  While this might also involve depriving a person of further existence, it's a bit more like unto a mallet, than a scalpel.

the Game-stats of the Zeus work pretty well for a Mallet, they don't work so well for a scalpel, otoh, the fluff/story describes what amounts to a scalpel on the end of a mallet.

what's more amusing though, is that EVERYBODY comes to the exact same approach to problems in the BTU.

everybody.

In 'the world of reality' different nations with weapons programs often do NOT come up with the same, identical, (albeit significantly heavier and bulkier) answer to the same questions-because they don't necessarily ask the same exact questions.

but in Battletech, they do.

Thus, everyone is copying the Clanner Heavy Machinegun and Light Machinegun at improbably heavy weights, even though it's not an answer to a question anyone is asking.

"Oh hey, let's waste the mass of a Medium Laser for slightly better anti-infantry performance at pistol caliber ranges!!"

Why? because the Clanners are doing it.  (Difference being, the clanners are only wasting the mass of a SMALL laser, and Trial zones are confined spaces).

nobody, apparently, is capable of saying, "Hey, why not try to get better RANGE with the same rate of fire and same mass of projectile for that extra weight!"

which would be the workaround you'd expect, if people were actually asking for a heavier Machine Gun in, say, the Periphery.

generally when setting up a game/campaign, you have to lean on the stats-and in the case of the Zeus, stats-don't-match-fluff.  as a GM, your best bet is to dump the fluff and go with explaining the stats in your own, internal, campaign fluff.

[grimlock1]

Thing is, only in hollywood, gun press, and Clancy Novels are .50 caliber rifles 'sniper rifles' instead of 'anti-materiel rifles'.  A sniper rifle is a precision weapon, where fractions of an inch groups are needed, intended to deprive a target of life at extreme ranges.  an anti-materiel rifle is designed to deprive light vehicles, thin-skinned armored vehicles and similar large items of function at moderate ranges.  While this might also involve depriving a person of further existence, it's a bit more like unto a mallet, than a scalpel.

If anyone was really asking for big bore sniper rifles, it's certainly doable. All you need for a precise rifle is a good barrel and good, consistent ammo.  Good ergonomics, trigger and sights will let you be accurate.

[Cannonshop]

If anyone was really asking for big bore sniper rifles, it's certainly doable. All you need for a precise rifle is a good barrel and good, consistent ammo.  Good ergonomics, trigger and sights will let you be accurate.

OH, people HAVE asked for big-bore precision rifles.  and there is even a market for them, but it's a matter of how 'big' your big-bore rifle ends up being.  (.416 Barrett, which has superior ballistic coeffiicient and equivalent hitting power to target load .50 BMG being an example, or the .338 Lapua, which has eclipsed both .300 win mag and 7mm win mag for long range precision people-erasing).

The basic problem in Battletech, is that stats don't line up with description when it comes to the Zeus, and the stats that you get?

well, they just don't make sense for a precision rifle.  They fit pretty well, for what amounts to a small-bore grenade launcher-but only if the slug is made of based fused high explosive.

(which does not match the fluff description at all.)

but, this is not unusual in games from that generation.  For every game with a significant amount of realism, there are games so far off the needle they constitute a truly fantasy experience.  Bipedal walking tanks tends to already fall into that side of the ledger, somewhere in line with constant thrust=constant velocity or sonic weapons being effective in space.

The designers got the big parts mostly right; an FTL system that doesn't automatically result in universal extinction or peacetech, a political map that keeps things (relatively) balanced enough to give the setting longevity, and a plausible explanation for how those come about.

It's these little detail bits, however, where the grand thinking kind of...misses it-a bit like fighting over battlemech fuel.  (Those familiar with the older versions of the property and the older magazine articles know what I'm talking about there.)

It isn't a big thing.  One of the beauties of tabletop games, is that your group doesn't have to rely on the developers getting everything in the fluff consistent with the things in the rules.

Until you have to play a pickup game with strangers equally familiar with the fluff and rules, because THAT is the point where it becomes  a problem.

[Daryk]

Just did the math... giving the Zeus a 3 round burst (and a 30 round magazine) would get it over the magic 0.5 (to 0.51, to be precise).

[SteelRaven]

For what it's worth, Sarna doesn't call it a precision rifle and it's not treated as such in the short fiction in AToW. More like a automatic elephant gun like the AR Beowulf mentioned above. The rounds are still insane but so are many war game weapons *glares at 40K*   

[Retry]

From the descriptions I've read, I've always thought the Zeus was an AMR, not a sniper rifle.

I'd figure such a thing would need a really good muzzle break by standard to help with recoil, though it doesn't seem to have one in the artwork.

[mbear]

Also i've no idea what kind of materials this rifle's made out of, diamond is too weak, to contain the explosive force of such a cartridge on so small a rifle.

That's easy: The rifles are made of WarShip armor.

[grimlock1]

magic 0.5 (to 0.51, to be precise).

ballistic coefficient?