Akratek's 40mm Pistol Launcher
This compact weapon is capable of laying down high explosive charges at least 100 yards away, and is easily concealable to boot. When you order one of these you also get a mag-clip shoulder holster at no additional charge.
-Akratek advertisment
This small weapon started appearing on the streets and in the hands of gangsters and cops about the same time, with entirely different purposes in mind. Set up like a standard pistol, but firing 40mm grenades, this weapon was sold to the police primarily as a riot control weapon, loaded up with teargas and flash bombs, and saw action dealing with the street riots of '17.
But at the same time it was dealing with police and military forces, Akratek "accidentally" lost a large amount of their weapons and they ended up in the black and grey markets, fetching 5 and 6 times what they would have sold to the police for.
The weapon is standard semi-auto, with a ten round clip and a duraplex grip. But the firing mechanism is easy to file down to the point where it can be fired at full-auto, and because it uses 40mm, there was plenty of explosives lying around ready to be used. Due to these simple facts, this weapon has seen much more use than any of its IDC or Sigumund Arms counterparts.
Pretty soon it was seen as the weapon of the '20s much like the Thompson was seen as a weapon of the last '20s, and it saw use in bank robberies, armed assault, and various other domestic violence cases, as well as in the hands of various security "consultants."
"The weapon is small, I'll agree with that, but it sure ain't accurate. I mean, what me and my buds were using it for that was fine, it lays down excessively large amounts of its explosives in a lot less time than it take for the same amount in a traditional undergun setup, but it kicks like a mule and past 20 yards you get lucky if you can hit {a mule.}"
—Jynie Howards, merc.
"I swear by the thing. One time, just last week, I had to clear out a small warehouse full of goons. I loaded up two of these suckers with mil-grade tear gas and emptied them into the place. Took me about 3 seconds to get all twenty of the 40's off, but by the time the goon'd figured out where I was shooting from they were all down and out from the gas."
—Anonymous Security "Consultant"
Not Registered Yet? No problem.
Do you want Strolenati super powers? Registering. That's how you get super powers! These are just a couple powers you receive with more to come as you participate.
- Upvote and give XP to encourage useful comments.
- Work on submissions in private or flag them for assistance.
- Earn XP and gain levels that give you more site abilities (super powers).
- You should register. All your friends are doing it!
? Responses (7)
Short, sweet, I like it. (like the merc talk too!) looking forward to more Akratek goodies!
Boom!
How does one control a full-auto 40mm gernade launching pistol? Wouldn't the recoil be unmanageable?
Rather, but the recoil on the Tommygun was rather bad too. One could only assume, the vaguely cyberpunk-ness of most near-future settings, that advances had been made in artifical limbs and the like to allow more tolerance in the human arm for getting kicked by a mule some ten times in half a second.
Did a quick lookup. There is a pretty cool link on the subject:
www.inetres.com/gp/military/infantry/grenade/40mm_ammo.html
One cites the launching charge as being a standard .38 cal blank, so if this is true, the muzzle energy from firing would not be much worse then the cited Tommygun - in fact perhaps better.
(I don't know the difference in muzzle energy between .45 ACP and .38 cal - I'd assume that .45 would have more....)
So I take back my concern about recoil, but the accuracy as Wulf says may be an issue... :)
Oh, and the main site that contains the link has a wealth of modern weapon information:
'The overpressure from the 120mm cannon can kill a dismounted infantryman within a 90° arc extending from the muzzle of the gun tube out to 200 meters. '
Yeeks!
I once had a picture on the computer of a WWII German Tiger tank that had been hiding in a horse pasture. Most of the horses in the pasture were killed when the tank started firing it's gun.
Also tinkered with the tags on the link you had since it didn't work and it turned all of your comment text into a dead-end hotlink.
The recoil on such a grenade launcher would be lower than what you see from more common firearms, as the muzzle velocity of the grenades is a small fraction of a bullet's muzzle velocity: Much less kinetic energy is involved. Despite this, a fully automatic grenade launcher doesn't seem like a very practical weapon.
In the hands of security contractors, a small grenade launcher would be a very versatile weapon. Loaded with sublethal munitions like gas grenades, 'Muzzle blast' gas charges, 'Knee Knocker' rubber projectiles, 'flashbang' grenades and the like, such a weapon could effectively shut down entire crowds of disaffected proles. Of course, high explosive grenades or other lethal munitions could be used as easily, but with a weapon as clumsy as this, lethal munitions could involve a great deal of unwanted collateral damage.
I would be dubious about the concealability of any weapon that utilizing a clip capable of holding ten 40 mm munitions. (Lets see... perhaps 42 cm x 4.3 cm x 12 cm? Obviously the magazine would need to be placed in front of the hand grip.)