Edgewise
Posts: 34
Joined: 1/18/2009
Status: offline
|
quote:
Because it includes Dragunov, M-82, M-24. All pretty high-end weapons. Your statement included some rather high end gear, without any qualifier. "... a cheap but long range weapon - for example a M1 w. a scope" - would be fine. The term "sniper rifle" could be giving your hypothetical militia man a weapon worth more than he earns in a decade.
You really did not read my post. I will repost the 2 paragraphs in question and hopefully you will read them both completely which will put this to rest.
Repost:
Again I'll add a vote for better AI, the AI is really really awful. If they took cover or just went prone after firing/being fired at, this would make a huge difference. When one comes under fire, he should call his friends to his location so they don't sit spread all over the map allowing you to pick them off with a silenced weapon one at a time while they stand there stupidly. Give the soldiers wearing uniforms a camo bonus of 25 or so. For every 10 soldiers (not militia), have one with a sniper rifle and good accuracy who will try to shoot from far away, one with a machine gun and auto fire skill, one with a heavy weapon and heavy weapon skill. RPG's are as common as dirt in some parts of Africa, no reason the dictators troops shouldn't have a bunch. Additionally, one sarge with high stats and an assault rifle, one officer with good stats and a pistol, the other 5 troops with SMG's and assault rifles. All of the regular troops (soldiers) should have a grenade they can throw. Guards should be similar but better.
Weapon distribution: Militia should have a mix of low-end and old equipment, much as they do in the game. Pistols, rifles, cheap SMG's, rarely assault rifles. They should not have desert eagles or calico SMG's or calico AR's. I'd be surprised if there are ANY calico's in all of Africa outside the private collections or private security forces of a few wealthy people in South Africa. Possibly mercs would use these, but they should be rare, not 20% of all AR's dropped in the game. It is a very cool gun but seriously, you can buy an AK variant for a lot less money, and they're very common anyplace where there is war or dictators. Soldiers should use standard military weapons, but not the bleeding edge stuff imo. AKM's, AK-74's, RPK-74's, RPG's, the occasional western assault rifle, 9x18 pistols. Red dot sights should be reserved for the Elite troops, along with AK-100 series weapons, caseless ammo SMG's, 50 cal sniper rifles, uber heavy weapons, etc.
Incase this is still unclear I shall summarize the part pertaining to our dispute. I said Militia should have old and non-standardized weapons. I then laid out a weapon ratio for soldiers and specifically -excluded- malitia, in which I said they should have 1 sniper in 10 troops. In weapon distribution breakdown I laid out my desire for them to use typical military hardware for a decently equiped 3rd world army. I then pointed out that the super cool stuff like .50 cals should be reserved for the Elite troops. If you're still not clear on this, I dunno what else to say really.
quote:
... and? Wal-Mart is the biggest retailer - does that mean, "if you can't get it at Wal-Mart, you can't get it? Guess what? There's other stores around...
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/07/chinese-made-ar.html
Sorry, the Iraqui insurgents got their hands on AP ammo. Where'd it come from? Not the USA - China. Yep, some wild-eyed nutter in a turban can get AP ammo. So, why exactly can't professional mercenaries get it, then?
For AP ammo there really are not very many stores. I don't think you really understand. That picture you are showing is not meeting the qualification of AP as I explained it earlier. That picture actually isn't even a Chinese bullet. I can identify that cartridge as a US round and the dark grey pointy thing 3rd from the right is a tugsten carbide tip. That bullet actually has no better penetration than a normal high velocity round at close range. At longer ranges it has better penetration because the tip does not become soft. The AP rounds I was and am talking about are vastly better vs body armor, but cost a rediculous amount to make. Again, I am repeating myself here but it just isn't sinking in.
Lots of high velocity rounds are called AP. Infact all high velocity rounds are inately ap because they are high velocity rounds. But to make a small calibre round that will punch through an inch of steel at 300 yards... -That- is the AP I'm talking about, and the one you show in that picture which will do 0.3 inches of steel at 20 feet, (I was looking at the stats yesterday when I was talking about this with someone else) never mind 300 yards. Those carbide tips also cause a high likelyhood of richochet, an angle of 45 degrees to the impact surface and it won't even go through a window. One reason they have not become a standard round. Carbide is extremely hard, but also extremely brittle. Drop that bullet on the ground, and if it hits tip first, it will fracture. Press it gradually into steel and it will cut into it. Press it too fast or hard, it shatters. They are called ap by the manufacturer but what they really do is allow the bullet tip to maintain it's shape and hardness over a long distance so they penetrate softer materials better at extended range. That makes it a useful cartridge in the M249 which can toss rounds out 900 meters with nice accuracy, but it has only a small improvement over the base round in an M-16 at it's max effective range of 300 yards and no difference at 50 yards.
Steel core rounds is what I am talking about when I say AP. Police call anything that will cut through level 1 body armor (what they normally use) AP. That's would include many standard lead pistol rounds... but not what I am talking about when I say AP. The AP I am talking about will go through the cop car, the cop, his vest (twice) and out the other side of the car, and still have enough energy to crack a cinderblock.
I know you can find 500 vague refferences to AP in 10 minutes online. I'm not talking about glass or teflon coated bullets or carbide tipped bullets... but you are. Now that (hopefully) you understand what I am talking about and why I say the bullets you are talking about are close enough to normal ball ammo that I wouldn't bother differentiating them, I will lay out why the ones I am talking about are very rare and expensive. You can't mass produce them. Well you could, but the quality would be too low to maintain any type of accuracy at long range. You have to have a great deal of precision in your manufacturing process. A marble is bigger in mass and volume than the CPU in your computer, but as you can immagine, the CPU is many orders of magnitude harder to make, and thus many orders of magnitude more expensive to produce. As for the rarity... Unlike the CPU in your computer, there is not a high demand for precision made high velocity Steel core AP small arms rounds. One reason is because they cost a ton to make (as detailed above).
The other is because I don't know any country where they are both A: made, and B: legal to purchace. Where they are made, they are made in very small quantities and for very special military use. Lots of large munitions are made with this type of precision, but it makes sense to spend a few hundred to a few thousand (in the case of the US) bucks on a round that might one day kill a much more expensive tank or hellicopter or jet fighter. The 20mm shells in US fighters or the 30mm rounds in an A-10 might seem rather mundane, but they can run a couple G or more per round... kinda crazy when you think of that 30mm throwing out 200 rounds in the time it takes you to blink your eye, but we like to do things the expesive way in the US, what can I say. Not many... really not any other countries that I know of will throw as much money into R+D and precision manufacturing for military hardware as we do.
Lots of people could in theory make some super wicked over the top expensive ammo, but who actually would and does? I can make a precision stapler that will accurately place a staple within 5 tenthousands of an inch for a few thousand dollars worth of labor... or I can settle for the 'good enough' and go buy one that was stamped on a punch press then bent into shape on a press brake and asembled by children in Taiwan and shipped here for 5 bucks at Office Depot that does the job. So you see, you can't go to a different store for these, they are only sold in 2 or 3 and as it happens none is a Wallmart, but infact all are high security armories where every round is tracked. Is it impossible? no... but for what someone would be risking to make some of this ammo vanish and show up on DJ's shelf, they'd want a very big chunk of cash beyond the actual value.
quote:
It was one example of DJ being able to get "restricted" goods. I don't think it's a major point. I brought it up with other items he supplies, to show that he has access to military supply channels. I'm not going to argue it, since it's off topic.
You have been and still are arguing it. You can't make an arguement in the first sentance then say you're not gonna argue it in the next sentance. Anyhow... 'Military channels' doesn't get you access to anything made by any military or any military supplier. And seriously, an AK is marginally harder to get than TNT, not that it's exactly hard. What I have been describing as explained at length now is not anything generically called AP by an ammo manufacturer.
quote:
As for your "hard to get, specialized ammo" - well, there's loads of vendors out there.
Find me ONE place that sells the ammo I'm talking about. You won't. Don't bother... I've tried many times to find it. You can find psuedo-versions of it for pistols, not what I'm talking about.
quote:
If that's your argument, back up your statement. Otherwise, it's irrelevant and only serves to cloud the issue.
Need I respond to this? As you're selectively picking at specific points, obviously different parts of the debate will go in different directions. Can you go to someplace like say... Russia on a business trip, stop to look at a tank factory, talk to the right people, pass the right amount of money, get some military equipment loaded onto a ship bound for home? Well the evidence I've seen strongly points to yes you could do this in the 90's. Can you now? I honestly have no idea, but I know you can start a 'company' in some African nations (Somalia comes to mind), quite easily bribe the right people locally to get the necessary paperwork to get the government to allow you to buy arms as if it was a nation to nation contract even though you plan to filter the weapons elsewhere.
The CIA does this sorta crap all the time, one reason we're so 'loved'. Why do you think AK's are so common everywhere? Russia doesn't have alot of exports other than fossil fuels. Really, military hardware is one of the few Rusian industries that does well without the government propping it up. Not to mention DPRK. Chinese arms exports have been falling dramatically in recent decades, as it's just much more lucrative to make junk of all types to sell to the US.
Anyhow, I think we're getting way off course. What I think you are saying here is that military gear in general is easy to get. For Soviet style equipment, this is true as a general rule. What I am saying is that some things are harder to get than others. You don't make something that costs more to make than customers will pay for it. Who will pay rediculous amounts for precision made bullets? The US military will. Could other people make them? Sure... but really you only got one major customer (that I know of... I'm sure other western nations might use them for small arms but that is conjecture on my part). Contracts are awarded via a pretty shadey process to people inside the good old boys network at the Pentagon. So you have a very small number of suppliers producing a small amount of very expensive ammo which is the type of ammo I am talking about.
Edit: I missed part of your post. As for what RPG stands for, it depends on what you read. And either 'RPG' still has 'grenade' involved. You can call a LAW or AT-4 a grenade... and nobody but you will agree with you reguardless of technicalities, definitions, etc. And I used RPG-7 as my example because it is by far the most common widely used version. You talk about me mincing words... you sir I think have no real point to prove, no real insight to add, no real ideas to put forward but just like to argue. I don't mind a good arguement myself tbh, but I really don't have the free time to continue, and as you've started to get a bit insulting I see this starting to go downhill at this point. I'll let you parce words and split hairs with Sarge and try to be careful in my wording so you don't find some method of phraising you feel you must argue about. :)
< Message edited by Edgewise -- 1/20/2009 5:27:36 PM >
|
Printable Version
RE: Next Patch ideas and suggestions (post yours) - 
New Messages
No New Messages
Hot Topic w/ New Messages
Hot Topic w/o New Messages
Locked w/ New Messages
Locked w/o New Messages
Post New Thread