Mortar Cannons

[Preacher]

Lets clear this up:

'I meant to cut my toe off with an axe'

'I totally expected the hammer to miss and smash my thumb'

I meant to blow my hand off loading powder into my replica civil war cannon

etc etc. Get the picture?


Accidents happen when the 'unexpected happens'. No one has an accident that results in serious injury 'on purpose'. So forget planning for 'safe use', plan for unsafe use first: any new weapons designed for use at the field can not hurt anyone in any way or we simply wont allow them.

If you are designing something: plan for it all to go horribly wrong- if there is NO WAY someone can be hurt even when the worst happens, THEN we will consider it.


As for mortars, after staff discussion: THERE IS NO WAY WE WILL ALLOW PLAYERS TO MAKE AND USE MORTARS AT THIS TIME. We will allow the basic air cannons firing BB blasts similar to the MadBull grenades but even those will be restricted to players who demonstrate safe use as a face full of 200BBs at 10 feet traveling even 200fps is brutal.

Why the hard line?


Right now we have no less than 7 signs that tell people NOT to fire in the loading zone and every Sunday we have no less than 4 players fire from the loading zone. Over half of them stand by the damm signs when they fire! No offense, but our current player base isnt exactly inspiring us to ramp up the weapons when we cant even get people to use their airsoft guns safely in a no fire zone

[Protector]

understandable

[Preacher]

It is good that people want to take the game to new levels- so dont take this as anything more than it is. If you guys can find a safe way to work the problem then we will be more than happy to try it out as we want the meta-game to progress to more realistic levels as well.


The thing to remember that as cool as loud noises and bangs are they are nothing like an actual mortar... and trying to recreate that effect safely isnt possible. You are talking about a sub-sonic shockwave that mushes peoples innards, combined with spinning shrapnel wizzing around at lethal speeds. There is currently no safe way to have a BB 'explosion' in airsoft- if there was then airsoft grenades would be common. The 'best' airsoft grenades like the Tornado dont explode they spin (and they still suck harsh in game terms lol). The few that do 'explode' do so poorly or not at all.

The report from an actual firearm is in no way like an AEG, so think less about how a real mortar works and more about the effect it has.... a safe compromise must be found with any airsoft 'weapon'.


That said- we are looking at recreating the game effect of a mortar round. Think of a way of having a 'burst' of BBs land indirectly behind cover. The only safe way we have found so far is to launch a cluster of BBs in the air such that by the time they reach the ground they have spread out. Because BBs fired en mass out of an air cannon tend to disperse a safe method of keeping them together as a group has to be found- safe here being a relative term.

Regardless of how soft the actual shell may be any large group of BBs fired out of any air cannon at speed will hurt if you are too close to it when it goes off. Obviously we never intend for someone to be in the way of the tube when it is fired but accidents will happen. It isnt a case of getting hit by up to 200 .2g bbs at speed because it will feel like one solid shot when it first leaves that tube. We used the toilet paper roll much like a cup to get all the BBs up in the air and we quickly came to the conclusion that it could still conceivably KILL anyone who was unlucky enough to ever be in the way of it when it first went off. We realized this when one of our solid shot tests blew a hole through 1/2" plywood. The power of any aircannon that can launch a cluster of BBs high enough into the air to be a mortar is such that it can easily cripple or maim someone.

The reason why gun control is relevant is because right now we are trying to get players to be safe with a single .2g BB fired at less than 500fps and we are not having as much success as we would like. Although airsoft is a game and airsoft guns are 'mostly' harmless the potential for injury is there when due care isnt taken. We fully expect that by the end of this year those players who want to improve their gun control and skill will be able to do so (and those who like the spray and play mentality will always be at that 'basic' level of play)

So though we will look at adding them to the game, a lot has to be considered before we will allow players to use mortars.

[Kook]

Well, the M203 on my M16 works in the same way a mortar does. Perhaps the same principles of those launchers can be used for a Mortar? After all, there's no grenade to launch, just a "shower" of BB's, and it's purpose is to be fired up into the air and rained down on enemies. Mortars would be neat. Maybe make them crewed by two men so there's a slight loss in manpower at the expense of getting a weapon that can break defensive and entrenched positions.

[Preacher]

I agree- those madbull grenades simulate an impact grenade nicely, really any sort of explosive is as simple as 'how to fling' a handfull of BBs.

[Kook]

And your RPG idea works great. What needs to be worked on is getting the range out of them. Cause those are definitely some cool toys for being hand made.