One of my players plans on getting himself a heavy stubber to carry around on a regular basis. He's a bit light on other weaponary (two autopistols, brass knuckles, and a knife), so I find it reasonable for him to be able to do so. The general idea is that he would carry the disassembled stubber either strapped on his back or in its own carrying case, assembling it for when the situation calls for some heavy firepower. Obviously, adding in the heavy stubber to the rest of his gear weight will definitely exceed his carrying limit, and since I haven't had to deal with somebody carrying a heavy weapon before, I'd like to clarify something I've been wondering about it:

Thus far, I've been assuming that the carrying limit consists of everything a character has strapped onto his body that would way him down, pretty much the entirety of his gear. If a character was to carry a heavy weapon in his hands all the time, would that count against his CARRYING limit or his LIFTING limit? I suppose this is a good opportunity to clarify how weight should be handled, in general.

Exceeding your carrying limits (p. 215)

"If you find yourself carrying more than your normal carrying limits and less than your lifting limits, you are encumbered."

Even if he doesn't have it strapped on his back he is still carrying it around. Your lifting limit only represents how much you can lift off the ground. Your carrying limit is what you can comfortably walk around with. If the added weight of the heavy stubber causes him to exceed his carrying limit, he will suffer from the effects of encumbrance cited on the same page just after the quoted line above.

Okay, I think I get it now. I suppose bringing along a heavy weapon pretty much requires frequent breaks to remain unfatigued?

Yup, pretty much. As the book says: he can keep walking a number of hours equal to his Toughness Bonus, then he has to pass a Toughness test or take 1 level of Fatigue.

But since your players seems to be a bit reasonable about his heavy stubber (not "ready on all occasions", but stashed away in pieces till a situation arises that really calls for a heavy weapon) you can "help" this pc with a small trick:

Give him a small chart he is able to pull along behind him. I do not know how to "handle" the weight then, but it should allow him to travel on foot with greater ease.

Even better: provide them with access to small vehicles (cars, horses..or a mule!) whenever they hid a planet.

If I stumble across a player that start to be reasonable in the heavy weapons deparment (which he seems to be) I normaly try to help him along. Good guys should be rewarded, after all ^^.

Gregorius21778 said:

If the stubber will be disassembled, the player could also coordinate with another player, and have the weight of the weapon divided between them. I know that, in some cases, modern infantry squads have a second infantryman assigned to carry ammunition for the soldier carrying the support weapon (an M-60, for example). That soldier serves as assistant and guard for the support weapon gunner when he sets up. If another character is willing to carry a quarter of the weight of the heavy stubber, that could be written off as the ammunition, the tripod, and other peripheral parts.

ebony14 said:

This is common practice in the Imperial Guard, so it's far from unprecedented in-setting.

Of course, ammo already has a weight - 10% of the weapon's weight per full clip - so if you want to be able to reload that heavy weapon you're lugging around, you start having to carry even more weight (4 spare magazines for a Heavy Stubber will collectively weigh 14kg). With some weapons, a bipod or tripod to allow you to brace the weapon anywhere (from the Inquisitor's Handbook) adds a further 2kg... so yeah, you'll want a friend to help you with the heavy load if they want to benefit from your firepower.

Also remember that heavy weapons are never "ready on all occasions". They need to be braced before firing, which takes a half action, or you suffer a -30 penalty to hit and can't use semi- or full-auto. The Bulging Biceps talent allows you to ignore the last part of that restriction (the talent means you can semi- or full-auto the weapon even if not braced), but it's still preferable to brace the weapon before firing if you want to get the most out of it. If you're carrying around a Heavy Stubber, it'll take a few seconds to set up before it's useable anyway...

To be honest, a 35 kilo weapon is not something that would be carried by just one man. It's just barely even man portable as it is. Of course it can be carried by one guy, but it's not practical - especially if he has to cover any kind of distance on foot. And as N0-1_H3r3 points out the weight of the ammunition starts adding up pretty quickly, and a stubber will eat through ammo like there's no tomorrow. Which leads me to another issue...spare barrels. Well, I guess the last one depends on just how many realistic nitty gritty details you want to inflict on your players.

A more practical solution would be to give him a beltfed autogun with a bipod, essentialy a 40Kish SAW.

Demo said:

About the spare barrels you could make the make the user roll a 1d10 when jamming, to see if the barrel is degrading and give a stacking -10BS to shoot with, if the 1d10 came up 9 (8,9,10 for assualt cannons).

For what spare barrels? Exspecially on the Assault cannon.... the reason for inventing a multibarreled gun was not the higher rate of fire, but the increased reliability... And normally a Wepon don´t wear out this fast.

You could offer him a modified verion:

The Armageddon Pattern Autogun also has a damage of 1d10+4 (errata) and weighs 8.5 kg

So an Assault Stubber could be something like the following:

Orthlack Pattern Assault Stubber
Heavy Weapon (SP)
Range: 80
RoF: -/-/8
Dam.: 1d10+4 I
Pen: 3
Clip: 40
Rld: 1 Full
Special: Inaccurate
Wt.: 24kg
Availability: Scarce
Cost: 800

This version of the tried and trusted Heavy Stubber has been cut down and stripped of all but the bare essentials, the barrell has been shortened making it somewhat inaccurate and instead of being belt fed it now uses top-fed banana shaped magazines, the advantage, one man can carry it by himself along with a reasonable amount of ammo.

Another option would be allowing the "Compact" upgrade, this would result in the following:

Heavy Weapon (SP)
Range: 60
RoF: -/-/10
Dam.: 1d10+3 I
Pen: 3
Clip: 100
Rld: 2 Full
Special: -
Wt.: 17.5 kg
Availability: Scarce
Cost: 800



Personally I like the first option better, it has more flavour.

Schwarzie said:

Normally, they don't... but Assault Cannons do. The immense rate of fire and the resultant heat generated (up to three hundred degrees celsius) causes considerable wear on the barrels (in spite of the fact that they're specially made, heat-resistant ceramic barrels), forcing them to be replaced regularly (after ever mission, in fact), and often results in malfunctions, the worst of which can destroy the weapon entirely.

Between the recoil, maintenance requirements, ammunition consumption and sheer weight of Assault Cannons, it swiftly becomes obvious why they're used primarily by Terminators and vehicles, not conventional infantry...

You are talking fluff wise, not from ral world weapons, do you? since the main part for inventing multibarelled weapons was the increased reliability and the easyness by which you can cool such weapons. So the exact opposite of what you posted.

And for a good metal, or even ceramics 300 degrees are nothing. (Irrelevant if Celsius or Farenheit)

Schwarzie said:

Yeah, I'm referring to the background of the Assault Cannon.

Consider, though, that the 300 degrees celsius might be residual heat left over after cooling... which makes it a much more significant issue. And, while it won't melt the barrels, it will cause expansion and grain structure deformation, both as the barrels expand when heated and as they contract while cooling (and in the latter case, non-uniform cooling will cause internal stresses as the material contracts at different speeds in different places).

Think of it as a multibarreled weapon that, in spite of all the reasons for it to be multibarreled, is still prone to overheating and jamming, a weapon that, if it wasn't multibarrelled, would be far, far more prone to those things...

from france

the more i read the hevay stuber statistics the more i wandering why is it employed. i may have miss the entry but 40 bullets packs rather than the 200 one change the weight by half?

if it this for the lack of other qualities i think they are better and les trouble some weapons. another example with this heavystubber is for my arbitrator. his first heavy weapons is solid projectile so the heavy stubber but it has access to bulging biceps talent very late in his career. so for me i prefer to use another wepon than heavy one especially if it is a stubber even if i can get one without the talent it is too troublesome dh is not necromunda where an arbites can use one alone.

The first one is a stripped down version hence the inaccurate.

The 2nd on has the compact template, normally I can't have one but we are thinking up solutions