Okay, how about this:-

This is a Blaster Pistol:-

This is a Blaster Rifle:-

This is a Heavy Blaster Rifle:-

So far so good.

But how about if this:-

is a Blaster Carbine .

Course, I say this purely because I have been buying a bunch of old WEG minis* recently, and most of the Rebel troopers available are armed with one of these, and it offends my sense of rightness that soldiers would go in to battle armed with pistols as their primary weapon. But the props are made from the same Sterling submachine guns as the Stormtrooper blasters above, and they are often weilded with two hands.

(Course, I'd have said a Blaster Carbine looks more like:-

and especially has a shoulder stock, and the gun the Stormtroopers have is a Blaster Carbine. but still.)

*Or, all to often, modern recasts

I would call that a carbine. It is too big to be a side-arm, and can be aimed in the same way as any other carbine.

As for E11s, I have never, and will never treat them as rifles in my games. They are carbines. It was a mistake in an early publication that has been perpetuated in publications ever since.

Short barrel, wie, it's a carbine. The fact that Storm Troopers in the movies are consistantly using their weapons in enviroments where they would use a carbine (NOT a rifle) cements it for me.

Actually, the second image you posted is the archetypal blaster carbine that stormtroopers carry. It's the E-11, seen carried by stormtroopers in all 3 of the original trilogy. The fourth image is the blaster pistol carried by the defenders on the Tantive IV. I don't believe it's considered a 'heavy' blaster pistol, either. The first looks like Leia's gun (IIRC), so that would likely be a light blaster pistol.

So, in order:

1. Light Blaster Pistol
2. Blaster Carbine
3. Blaster Rifle
4. Blaster Pistol
5. Blaster Carbine

An example of a heavy blaster pistol would probably be the 'BFGs' carried by the Sandtroopers as they went to try to stop Han from taking off with Luke & the droids.

Voice said:

1-4 spot on. 5… I guess I would call a carbine too, it were actually a star wars weapon, but its not so… does it mater?

-WJL

Voice said:

I'd mildly disagree.

First one is a blaster pistol, and is the one Luke snagged from a guard in RotJ before being dropped into the Rancor pit. Leia's pistol was much slimmer and had a longer barrel.

Second one is canonically called a rifle due to WEG first pegging it as such, but do agree that it really should be a carbine.

Third one agree that it's a blaster rifle.

Fourth image would be a heavy blaster pistol, thoughI think prior editions just called it a regular blaster pistol. It's not quite carbine size, and we see the Death Star prison guards that carry it using the weapon one-handed much like you would a pistol, but it's rather beefy for a standard blaster pistol.

Fifth image is coming up blank, so can't really tell one way or the other.

The first gun is what WEG called a sporting blaster pistol… basically a form of light blaster pistol.

Taking a second look at these, I can't tell if #3 is a Star Wars prop, some other prop, or an IRL firearm…

What's the image source?

-WJL

LethalDose said:

It's both, actually. The weapon in Image #3 is the blaster rifle used by the Rebel strike team on Endor, from Episode VI; however, the prop was made using the real-world M-16/AR-15.

Here's a better look at the prop , but the description is somewhat inaccurate- it says the "lower receiver" of the rifle was removed to make the gun inoperable, even though the lower receiver of the rifle is cleary in the picture.

It appears in Empire in the Hoth battle. It's the weapon the rebels in the snow trenches used.

As for #4…well in real life, not everything fits into neatly into categories. It's something in between a pistol and a carbine. Smaller than most carbines, bigger than most pistols. There are many guns like that in real life, and that's ok.

The issue comes the in game need to place things in a rules category for the sake of abstraction. SW:G, for example called it a carbine, WEG a pistol. A GM could safely place it in either category. It's not something one could really argue strongly either way.

I might be wrong here, because I have no way of verifying the source, but I think the rifles used by the Rebels at Hoth and the Rebels at Endor were slightly different. Here's a comparison photo:

You'll notice that the Endor rifle is clearly made using AR-15 parts, and the Hoth rifle looks more like it was molded.

And for what it's worth, #4 lacks any kind of stock, and would most likely be classified as a pistol by the people who decide those things. A carbine is a rifle, and a rifle has a stock. (The E-11 has a folding stock, for example.) Of course, how a given Star Wars weapon is classified is still largely up to the GM and common sense.

Edit: For that matter, #4 has the same pistol grip, magazine well, and trigger assembly that the E-11 does, which means that both guns are most likely based on the real-world Sterling- itself a submachine gun.

Speaking of Carbine, my group decided to carry over a rule that SAGA used, allowing you to use Carbine with Ranged [Light] proficiency.

To make the compromise in EoE, if someone wants to do this, they will need an alternate shortened barrel weapon modification; allows user to fire Carbine using Ranged[Light] proficieny but reduces accuracy at medium range, increasing difficulty by 1.

Voice said:

There are actually two versions of the E-11: carbine and rifle.

The image of the E-11 shown is the rifle version, the visual tell is on the stock, the carbine is a just a barrel, whereas the rifle has an extendable stock.

Carbine

Rifle

Also #4 is a carbine - known as the CDEF carbine

Yoshiyahu said:

Oops, look s like you are right. The top rifle is indeed the Endor rifle (BlasTec A280) made from an AR-15. The second one is the Hoth blaster rifle (BlasTec A295) made from the WWII German Rifle the StG44.

Actually, number 4 is the DH-17 seen in use by the Rebels during the taking of the Tantive IV in the beginning of Star Wars.

The two versions of the Rebel rifle are only the result of using different realworld parts to make the props. They were probably still intended to be the same rifle. Of course, in your Star Wars universe, you could use this as justification for a newer model used on Endor. The Hoth rifle was the earlier weapon (think M16A1) while the later Endor rifle was newer and improved (think M4).

The same thing was done with the DLT-20 (Stormtrooper heavy blaster rifle or repeater, depending on who you talk to). A couple different versions were used in the movies, one with a different barrel and lacking a bipod. So, EU has two models.

My opinion on the Rebel blaster pistol is it is a heavy blaster pistol. WEG agreed. It is carried on the hip holstered and fired like a pistol. It doesn't have a stock, not even a collapsible one. How many carbines in the realworld are completely stockless and carried in a holster?

I think MouthyMerc is right, geekFro, but only by virtue of publication dates: That weapon was listed as the DH-17 by WEG (or maybe a source before that) around 1994-ish before it was the CDEF carbine in Galaxies in 200…3?

-WJL

LethalDose said:

Totally correct, my applogies, I was thinking DH-17, but that CDEF stuck in my memory must have been all those hours crafting in SWG. I also checked my books once I got home from work.

Yoshiyahu said:

Yes. So they are actually much the same sort of size:-

I would say a carbine really needs a stock, and the only reason I might consider classing this as one, is that the only Rebel Trooper miniatures made by West End Games are these:-

And even modern insurgents tend to have at least an AK-47 rather than just a pistol.

If I ran the world, all sci-fi longarms would have shoulder stocks (because they look cool, and let you pose with one in cooler ways!), but I don't, it isn't as if the Stormtroopers ever actually USE the stock on theirs, and it isn't as uncommon as it should be for a laser/ray/blaster rifle prop not to have a stock:-

And this video of a Star Wars mod for Call of Duty might show how one could justify it being something more than a pistol:-

And Uzi has to be that sort of size, and no one in movies ever fires one of those with the stock.

(Okay, so that second one isn't a movie (it is a secret service agent during the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan), and I think he does actually have the stock unfolded under his arm. But still.)

You can act all cool and fire two M16's rifles at once, one-handed, one in each hand. I've done it. But, you never do such a thing when actually trying to accurately shoot at something, you instead shoot two-handed with a stock. Being able to shoot it one-handed doesn't classify it as a pistol, it's still a rifle.

This is a rifle (or carbine):

This is a pistol:

Size doesn't always classify weapons. Stocks don't always classfiy weapons either. You can put a stock on a pistol and remove the stock from a rifle. You still have a pistol and rifle with or without an "attachment".

PS: Still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong with posting images.

ErikB said:

There's a reason these weapons resemble each other so much. They were both created using the Sterling SMG as a basis.