So… I don’t see that anyone’s brought this up yet so here goes:
If we are talking space space, you know, in orbit, transiting between planets…
You have to account for the recoil of each shot potentially sending your craft into a rotational spin, which can alter its trajectory.
Depending on the mass of your firing platform, you may have to expend a considerable amount of monoprop fuel, or energy in batteries to run multi axis centrifugal stabilizers…so that you maintain your desired trajectory.
Also, even if you are not in space, but on a moon or planet with significantly lower mass than earth… you’re gonna have to do extra work to keep your tripod from dislodging from the ground, even knocking you backward with a sustained burst.
It might not even be practical to do a sustained burst or sweep, it might end up making sense to mod a slower cyclic rate into the thing, jerry rig a Kriss Vector counter weight style contraption to lower recoil.
Basically, the weight of everything involved goes down as G goes down… but the recoil energy remains the same… if you are in 0.5 G, basically, the recoil is twice as intense, as its pushing against half as much weight.
Each single shot would be more precise and travel farther in a vacuum or thin atmosphere and lower G… but sustained fire would be less accurate.
…Or maybe I’m overstating this effect? I’m too tired and lazy to attempt the actual physics calculations for recoil force.
So… I don’t see that anyone’s brought this up yet so here goes:
If we are talking space space, you know, in orbit, transiting between planets…
You have to account for the recoil of each shot potentially sending your craft into a rotational spin, which can alter its trajectory.
Depending on the mass of your firing platform, you may have to expend a considerable amount of monoprop fuel, or energy in batteries to run multi axis centrifugal stabilizers…so that you maintain your desired trajectory.
Also, even if you are not in space, but on a moon or planet with significantly lower mass than earth… you’re gonna have to do extra work to keep your tripod from dislodging from the ground, even knocking you backward with a sustained burst.
It might not even be practical to do a sustained burst or sweep, it might end up making sense to mod a slower cyclic rate into the thing, jerry rig a Kriss Vector counter weight style contraption to lower recoil.
Basically, the weight of everything involved goes down as G goes down… but the recoil energy remains the same… if you are in 0.5 G, basically, the recoil is twice as intense, as its pushing against half as much weight.
Each single shot would be more precise and travel farther in a vacuum or thin atmosphere and lower G… but sustained fire would be less accurate.
…Or maybe I’m overstating this effect? I’m too tired and lazy to attempt the actual physics calculations for recoil force.
All these problems are solved by firing two M2’s in opposite directions, a net positive for everyone involved.
I like this idea better than the recoilless rifle conversion I was thinking about.
Well that is insanely stupid, but it would net the recoil out to 0, if they are perfectly aligned…
Brilliant!
Simple, effective.