Heavy Tri-barrels

I realize this may seem like a pedantic question, but is there anywhere that indicates what the caliber of a 'Heavy Tri-Barrel' is?

The standard tribarrel is 4-5 mm, There is also a 10 mm and a 25 mm version from what I can find from my research.

I'm trying to figure out of the 10 mm is the man-portable version they talk about in Cauldron of Ghosts.

At a guess (for mounting in armored vehicles and assault landing ships), I would thing the 2000-year granddaddy of this bad boy would be used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger

Hutch wrote:At a guess (for mounting in armored vehicles and assault landing ships), I would thing the 2000-year granddaddy of this bad boy would be used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GAU-8_Avenger

Very good guess.

The twin tribarrels carried on the Condor pinnace do, in fact, use 30mm rounds, although since there's no casing - grav accelerated, not chemical - you can fit *a lot* more rounds into a given volume.

But obviously, that size is not what the OP was asking about. He was specifying "man-portable", in which case, yeah, 10mm sounds about right.

MaxxQ wrote:

Hutch wrote:But obviously, that size is not what the OP was asking about. He was specifying "man-portable", in which case, yeah, 10mm sounds about right.

The OP was asking about something like this:



As featured in the movie Predator. The GE M134 is chambered for 7.62x51 NATO.

From: http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/GE_M134_Minigun

A distinctive invention of fiction is the hand-held M134 minigun, a concept which was popularized by the film Predator. Physically demanding even for a slowed-down minigun firing blanks, such a weapon would be impossible for a human being to either carry or operate. This fact has not stopped it appearing frequently in other works, especially in video games. Generally such depictions will totally ignore the weapon's need for external power, and sometimes even forget it requires a source of ammunition.

There is a version of the minigun that fires BBs with compressed air.

I don't know of any version chambered for 5.56.

Honorverse grav accelerators don't have the kind of recoil problems 7.62x51 produces, but the physical size of a "Heavy Tribarrel" in 10mm would probably require contra-grav to make it man-portable. The 25mm version would require even more contra-grav and recoil suppression to be man portable.

All that aside, with three calibers available, and contra-grav to make them man portable, I would expect the designations to be Light, Medium, and Heavy for 5mm, 10mm and 25mm respectively.

Weird Harold wrote:
The OP was asking about something like this:



As featured in the movie Predator. The GE M134 is chambered for 7.62x51 NATO.

From: http://www.imfdb.org/wiki/GE_M134_Minigun

A distinctive invention of fiction is the hand-held M134 minigun, a concept which was popularized by the film Predator. Physically demanding even for a slowed-down minigun firing blanks, such a weapon would be impossible for a human being to either carry or operate. This fact has not stopped it appearing frequently in other works, especially in video games. Generally such depictions will totally ignore the weapon's need for external power, and sometimes even forget it requires a source of ammunition.

There is a version of the minigun that fires BBs with compressed air.

I don't know of any version chambered for 5.56.

Honorverse grav accelerators don't have the kind of recoil problems 7.62x51 produces, but the physical size of a "Heavy Tribarrel" in 10mm would probably require contra-grav to make it man-portable. The 25mm version would require even more contra-grav and recoil suppression to be man portable.

All that aside, with three calibers available, and contra-grav to make them man portable, I would expect the designations to be Light, Medium, and Heavy for 5mm, 10mm and 25mm respectively.

Hmmm... maybe it's just me, but when I hear "man-portable" in the Honorverse, referring to heavy weapons like this, I'm thinking the "man" is in battle armor, which textev says increases his strength.

I don't recall Ah-nold wearing battle armor.

Edit: On further thinking, since one doesn't have to worry about tiny little things like Pyrodex exploding in the casing/chamber, the barrels and other parts do not necessarily need to be made of metal - high-strength and lightweight composites should be sufficient, so the weapon may be lighter than you might think. I still think you'd need to be in battle armor (or the civilian equivalent) to handle one though. I suppose the battery pack probably weighs a hell of a lot... but that's just a guess on my part.

Of course, there's also the possibility that the rounds may be *less* than 10mm. Anthing above what the OP quoted as 4-5mm would likely be considered "heavy", so maybe 7.5mm?

Also, there's nothing that says countergrav *isn't* used, and there's textev all over the Stephanie Harrington books about portable countergrav units for people and objects (the treecat cages have them), so yeah, there may be a CG unit on the weapon as well.

MaxxQ wrote:Hmmm... maybe it's just me, but when I hear "man-portable" in the Honorverse, referring to heavy weapons like this, I'm thinking the "man" is in battle armor, which textev says increases his strength.

I seem to recall "Shoulder mounted tri-barrels" as an option for marines in battle armor but also tri-barrels carried by unarmored people as well (San Martinos, IIRC, so your thought about battle armor isn't that far off. )

MaxxQ wrote:Of course, there's also the possibility that the rounds may be *less* than 10mm. Anthing above what the OP quoted as 4-5mm would likely be considered "heavy", so maybe 7.5mm?

With recoil suppression and contra-grav, I'd expect a caliber higher than 10mm rather than lower. With Honorverse materials and Honorverse tech even the 30mm pinnance tribarrels could be an option.

Weird Harold wrote:With recoil suppression and contra-grav, I'd expect a caliber higher than 10mm rather than lower. With Honorverse materials and Honorverse tech even the 30mm pinnance tribarrels could be an option.

Sure, as long as you don't mind swinging around 3.5 meter barrels and the loading/launching/rotation mechanism, and carrying a 4 meter x .8 meter ammo drum on your back.

Edit: Don't forget that countergrav gets rid of weight, but not mass, although I'm sure you already know that

MaxxQ wrote:Sure, as long as you don't mind swinging around 3.5 meter barrels and the loading/launching/rotation mechanism, and carrying a 4 meter x .8 meter ammo drum on your back.

Oh, I'm sure a man portable version would have shorter barrels and a smaller magazine than the Pinnace installation.

MaxxQ wrote:Edit: Don't forget that countergrav gets rid of weight, but not mass, although I'm sure you already know that

We really need a tongue in cheek smilie.

Well look at the weapons we have now.

M249 SAW LMG fires a 5.56mm round

M60/240 GPMG fires a 7.62mm round

M2HB HMG fires a 12.7mm round

Then you get into the cannon area with

20mm
25mm
30mm

There is a man portable 14 (14.5?) mm Gatling gun. It needs a tripod to fire it but it is very devastating. There is also a single barrel light 30mm. Canon not grenade. Again man portable but requires a small tripod to fire. Either could be used with powered assault armour. They had a competition of these in IDR years ago. The 14mm Gatling gun won.

There is also the Austrian Steyr (pronounced Stir) AMR( Anti Material Rifle). It too was a 14.5mm but with a high velocity 5.56 mm solid tungsten fin stabilised dart / sabot. Capable of penetrating 40mm of rolled homogenous Armour. It fired a three shot burst which fired fast enough that it fired all three shots before the recoil affected the shooter.

It was called the AMR 5075, the current version is the 15.2mm IWS 2000.

http://www.steyr-aug.com/amr.htm