What Sort Of Weapons Would Troops Use In Battle On the Surface Of The Moon?

If the United States ever found itself in a "shooting war" in defense of it's "sovereignty" of the Moon against another power such as China, what weapons would the forces be equipped with? I doubt whether the standard issues of weaponry would be very appropriate. An M-16 , a 9mm sidearm or, for that matter, firing any oftodays' standard issue weapons on the surfacae of the Moon would be more likely to send troops into space. I know that there are tests of laser weapons for use against missiles, what sort of weapons could be used by individual GI's as personal weapons?

I don't think M-16, M-4, or anything like those guns will work too well on the moon. it has no gravity. if it does have battles, then it will probibily just be tank like kind of battle, or space ship-space ship type of batles. i would said we probibily nuke oursevles before we get to build bases on the moon and battles over who takes the moon

correction: the moon does have slight gravity, and guns would technically still work, its a chemical based reaction in the cartidge, however, due to newtons laws....it would be a equel force, you fire a bullet, and youd get the equel force pushing you back, youd go flying, sounds fun

Originally posted by M6D
correction: the moon does have slight gravity, and guns would technically still work, its a chemical based reaction in the cartidge, however, due to newtons laws....it would be a equel force, you fire a bullet, and youd get the equel force pushing you back, youd go flying, sounds fun

Hence the reason why all guns have recoil dampener mechanisms, look at the M16 it has virtually no kick at all.T echnically bullets would still work because the oxidizer is contained within the cartridge.
Due to the moons low gravity, bullets would travel a much father distance therefore the size of the propellant charge could be made considerably less. After all one astronaut did hit a golf ball with a 6-iron about 600m

Awesome thought! goes to show that there is no limit to the paranoid imagination.

I for one can PROMISE you that it will never come to that. The first thing any "moon base" would establish would be a moon-to-orbit rocket system of some kind, if the sattilite route proved to be out.

And as far as the US owning the moon... uhh i hate to say this, but that sweet creamy cheese they said it was made of, turns out it's just iron.

But heck, mabye in the future where all murderers are coralled up and sent to the moon to kill eachother off, you might have a need for something like this.

Right now though. a .22 cal pistol would work like a DE .50 so - really no need for any upgredes.

Favorite thred so far though!

Solar cells and nuclear power plants on the moon would provide plenty of power to fire rail guns on the moon. Without any air resistence, projectiles could cover large distances with no loss of velocity.

The only down side would be the lack of air for any type of stearing fins to work, but I'm sure some sort of stearing jets on the projectile could overcome this problem.

www.powerlabs.org...

Laser weapons might also be an option, with no air to distort the beam, they might work better on the moon than on earth.(or do they need to ionize the air to be an effective weapon? not sure)

Rockets, Gauss guns for heavy weaponry

Probly slug throwers propelled by high pressured gas for hand weapons.

Definatly self-sealing hard suits for protection

Tho if you read the book by Robert Hielien "The moon is a harsh mistress" you can come up with some great ideas on how to become a terrorist on the moon

Originally posted by anxietydisorder

Laser weapons might also be an option, with no air to distort the beam, they might work better on the moon than on earth.(or do they need to ionize the air to be an effective weapon? not sure)

The air saps the power of a laser, therefore you are correct in stating that a laser is far more efective in a vacuum environment.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

This thread also has a weapon in the prototype phase that sound like it would work very well on the moon with some devestating result against any space suit or anything as thin as the apollo era landers.

I don't see why most conventional weapons used on earth wouldn't also be used on the moon. The only trick is, due to the differing gravity between the two, hitting your intended target would require practice to get used to the difference.

Also, any weapon requiring oxygen to be in the atmosphere won't work, since the moon has virtually no atmosphere. Therefore, things relying on fire are going to have a problem. I'm not sure what would happen with bombs. I don't think most conventional bombs or explosives would work at all, but I could be wrong about that. Nukes, neutron bombs & EMP would work on the moon. Chemical/biological weapons that didn't rely on the atmosphere (and could penetrate a spacesuit) could still work.

Any weapon that could disrupt life support on a spacesuit could be used on the moon. It shouldn't take much imagination to come up with a whole bunch; anything that can poke a few holes in the suit would do the job. The only trouble with that is it would be relatively slow, i.e. the other guy could shoot back at you while he was suffocating.

well, im not sure about it, but a persons shoulder still takes a fair amount of the recoil, even if therye is the minutist amount, that well still translate in to a force back at you, which would mean youd still risk been pushed back

Originally posted by DragonsDemesne
I don't think most conventional bombs or explosives would work at all, but I could be wrong about that. Nukes, neutron bombs & EMP would work on the moon. Chemical/biological weapons that didn't rely on the atmosphere (and could penetrate a spacesuit) could still work

Most bombs will funtion except FAE's of course. This is because bombs carry their own oxidizing agents hence no need for oxygen. Just look at explosives detonating underwater, there is no free oxygen there.

heck even a spear gun or slingshot could be effective on the moon as any breach in a space suit or habitat could be leathal due to the lack of oxygen and vacume.

liked the mention of the moon is a harsh mistress dropping rocks on earth was a briliant thought about weapons to destroy earth targets.

Guns are pretty powerful though, and remember the Moon has less gravity. A gun with some powerful blowback here on Earth could send you flying like Will Smith in "Men in Black," when he fires that super pistol, on the Moon. And that is assuming the gun would fire (it'd need an oxygen supply). Which could then pose a problem because if your enemy put a bullet in your oxygen supply, you might blow-up.

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
And that is assuming the gun would fire (it'd need an oxygen supply). Which could then pose a problem because if your enemy put a bullet in your oxygen supply, you might blow-up.

As I said before ( read the posts ), most propellant has its own oxidizer, therefore no need for oxygen.

Vehicles and suits could have self sealing coatings. Al kinetic energy based weapons will become much more effective and accurate, cause lower gravity and lack of air. Rockets will travel much faster cause lack of air. A new weapon used on moon could be kinetic energy bombs, because lack of air makes no terminal vcelocity,. On earth a bomb can reach limited speed no matter what is height it falls of. On moon a bigger height will always give more force. This can be linked with dive bombings, to even increse this speed. A 25kg steel rod flying mach3 will definetly break top armor of any tank.

The best gun to be used on moon (or in space) would be shotgun. In low gravity there is much larger range and high probability of hit.

Why take war to the moon as well? Geez, it's like, wherever there's humans there's gotta be war.

"What the hell are you doing with a gun in space?" - quote from Armageddon

I've heard fires can be pretty wicked in low/zero grav..
although in this case you need an atmosphere to sustain it..
My guess would be particle/laser weapons and good ol' missile tech..

Hmm a rail gun on the moon?
You might need to bolt it to the ground, the recoil WILL be huge.
Mind you a one gram object hitting you at mach 47.05 would be deadly, mind you , you would need 6 metre rails for it.

Or a 1.6 kilogram object hitting you at mach 9.7 would be deadly as well, but you need this to fire it....