Forgive me for not being anal with my choice of words. But you're missing my point. When you're looking at two objects with different mass, even in zero-G, the one with the higher mass will need stronger forces to be accelerated (speed/direction) in the same manner as the lighter one.
You are correct about the contemporary weight issues of ammunition, of course.
I would apologize, since I didn't mean to be nitpicky, but I can't think of a way to wittily approach the word "anal" without threatening the ToS somehow.
It's actually a common issue in firearms design, though, about force and mass. You don't necessarily need a ton of force to make a larger bullet hurt more, but it helps. The formula for kinetic energy is KE=1/2mv2. Essentially, it means that doubling the mass at the same velocity doubles the kinetic energy, but doubling velocity quadruples the kinetic energy. Ammunition is essentially a giant balancing act to see how mass and propellant produce different kinetic energy. Very often, a small round with a lot of propellant can pack more kinetic energy than replacing the propellant space with more bullet.
I need to stop and take a nerd-breath, or I'm going to go on forever. I like force mechanics, especially ballistics.
So the larger calibres pack more propellant and has greater muzzle velocity, as was suggested earlier by Esna?
Not necessarily, and in fact I'd almost be tempted to say that's uncommonly the case. Rifle rounds, despite their larger cartridges, don't tend to have larger bullets. While some rifle rounds are larger, as I said, mass isn't as effective at increasing kinetic energy as velocity is. For example, a shotgun slug is a massive piece of ammunition, but it moves incredibly slow. However, there are rifle rounds that use as much or more propellant, only for smaller rounds. The effect increases the kinetic energy, but it tends to drastically overpenetrate at close ranges.
A more technical comparison might be between an extremely common rifle and pistol round. A common 5.56mm NATO rifle round uses a bullet weighing between 62 and 63 grains, but has a larger casing that contains enough propellant to accelerate that bullet to a general muzzle velocity of well over 900 m/s. Compare that to the 9mm Parabellum, the world's most common handgun round. That uses a round between 115 and 125 grains, which can be almost twice as heavy as that rifle round, but its muzzle velocity is between 360 and 435 m/s. Throw that through the formula, and a rifle round, though smaller, still has far more killing power because of the propellant behind the smaller bullet.
So rifle rounds tend to be smaller compared to the amount of propellant they have, at least as compared to handgun rounds. A smaller round with more force behind it drastically increases muzzle velocity. It's true you need more propellant to make a larger round move as quickly, but odds are that if you're using a larger round, you aren't necessarily using it for speed. Mass has the added effect, on soft targets, of spreading their kinetic energy more effectively when the bullet mushrooms. Remember that a bullet's purpose isn't to put a little hole in something, it's to twist, turn, and deform inside its target. Overpenetration is energy wasted.
So while there are certainly rounds out there that pack both a lot of propellant and a large caliber bullet (.460 Weatherby comes to mind), it's a lot more complicated than that. If anything, the actual bullet in a Minmatar projectile weapon would be almost insignificant compared to how much velocity they can squeeze out of it. Mass considered, they might be better off using a smaller round with more propellant, if these things are operating the same as they would on Earth. One of the major advantages of a spaceship is that it can handle more recoil than a human body, so everything would be scaled up. All things being equal, it is nicer to have a very large projectile moving at an insanely high speed. In reality, making a larger round tends to detract from the velocity, which is the more important factor in terms of kinetic energy.
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Topic: Minmatar Projectile Weapons - Caseless or Conventional? (Read 9353 times)