Today Dicember says Ammo. So here we go.
One of the scifi tropes for ammunition is that it will be going caseless. No brass flying off as you fire it, everything is either the projectile or a solid fuel source that burns up when fired. Which is a neat idea and there have been some attempts at going that way in the real world with mixed results. But one thing that rings true is that caseless ammo would be less stable than standard brass jacketed ammunition. Easier to break or crumble, easier to contaminate with chemicals or oils on your fingertips. Don't forget about setting it all off by an electrical shock. Just overall something you wouldn't want to handle and maintain a high level of quality.
Therefore it would make sense to have it sealed at the factory inside a magazine. One that is resistant to chemicals, electrical shock and even sharp impacts. There would be no reloading yourself, just pull out another magazine from your pack and either toss the old one aside or into a pocket or pack.
The used magazines could then be returned for a deposit or as credit towards the purchase of more preloaded magazines. Say you pay 40 bucks for a ten round mag, then return it empty for a 5 dollar credit. If there were still rounds inside unused those can be safely recycled at the factory also so you get another 2 bucks per bullet.
Plus this lets you add to the setting flavor wise a bit. You would have folks scurrying out after a big gun fight aftermath to grab any spent and tossed magazines they could find to cash in. Homeless folks raking in everything they can get for some extra dollars to spend. Or maybe even stripping the bodies of mags and leaving all the weapons since they can be traced. Welcome to a new level of the bullet economy.
I like this so much I'll be making it part of Welcome to the City.
Now it's a Dicember entry so I need a quick way relate this to a die roll. So here we go scrounging through the aftermath for magazines to turn in.
When scrounging a recent area where a firefight has occurred you can roll to see how many tossed away magazines you have found. For a small skirmish roll a D4 and then scale it up to a D20 (or 4D6 if you are feeling generous) for the much larger conflicts. Then at the GM discretion you can roll a D6 to see how many still had rounds left inside. For each one of those roll a D4 for the amount of unspent rounds.
Caseless ammo in the real world is pretty much as you describe. The ammo for the 120mm smoothbore main gun of the M1 tank, for example, leaves only an "aft cap" commonly referred to as an ash tray.
ReplyDeleteGood post, with good ideas.