Never Mind The Real World

Combat rifles and GURPS!  Weights and loadouts assume a loaded rifle; ammo weight is the spare ammo.

Let's start with the Civil War.

The M1861 Rifle Musket fires a .58 caliber minie ball round doing 3d+2 pi+; weighs 9.3 lb. and the basic load of 60 rounds added 5.2 lb.  Being a muzzle-loading caplock the RoF is a slow 1(20) giving us 3 shots per minute.  The average shot does 18 to the torso and a mere 54 per minute; 1,080 per loadout.

With the M1860 Spencer you sling a .56-56 rimfire round doing same damage from an 8.8 lb. gun.  With a 10 tube Blakeslee loader box you add 7.2 lb. for ammunition and get 70 rounds.  RoF is 1 and reloading with the Blakeslee loader takes 5 seconds so you can dump five magazines per minute, or 35 rounds.  Thats a minute average of 630!  Shooting all your ammo averages 1,386 points.

Now to The Indian Wars.

An M1873 trapdoor carbine firing .45-55 does 4d-1 pi+; the gun weighs 8 lb. and the 41 round basic load is 3.3 lb.  RoF is a typical for a single shot breechloader 1(3).  So you get 20 shots a minute.  A torso hit will, on average, do 19 points of damage; so 380 points per minute!  A basic load will do 798 points.

Heading up San Juan Kettle Hill...

...With our M1896 Krag-Jørgensen carbine firing .30-40 doing 5d+2 pi.  The gun is 7.8 lb. and 100 rounds are 6 lb.  RoF is 1 and the five round magazine takes 10 seconds to reload; so 20 shots a minute.  Average damage is 19 points to the torso and 380 per minute or 1,900 with what's on your belt.

To the trenches

The M1903 Springfield firing the .30-06 round does 7d+1 pi, weighs 8.8 lb. and the 105 rounds on five shot clips weigh 6.3 lbs.  RoF is still 1, but the five round magazine can be reloaded in 3 seconds so 37.5 shots can be fired per minute.  The average hit is 25 and the average minute deals 937 points of damage down-range.  Exhausting your ammo sends 2,750 points towards the Huns.

On D-Day.

The M1 Garand does the same damage as the M1903, because it's the same round.  The tubby M1 weighs 10.1 lb. and the basic load of 104 rounds is 6 lb.  RoF is 3 and the magazine can be loaded in 3 seconds: 80 shots per minute; 2,000 points of damage per minute for the average torso smack.  2,600 points of damage tends to spew out for the basic load.

An M1 Carbine fires .30 Carbine tritely enough doing a whopping 4d+1 pi.  The gun weighs 5.8 lb., a full load of ammo of just 75 rounds weighs an extra 2.4 lb.  RoF is 3 and the 15 round magazine can be replaced in just 3 seconds.  This load out doesn't support a minute's worth of shooting!  The whole loadout doing an average of 15 per shot does 1,125 points in 37 seconds.

Freezing at Chosin...

The Garand stays the same, but the M2 Carbine comes along.  Now the gun weighs 6.3 lb. and the 8 spare 30-round "banana clips" add 8.8 pounds.  If we fire semi-automatically we can send around 138 rounds (of 270 carried) towards the enemy in a minute for 2,070 points.  If we rock and roll we can can be rid of all the ammo in 51 seconds and do 4,050 points (assuming we hit with all of them which we won't)

Running through the jungle

The M14 firing 7.62x51mm from a 20 round detachable box magazine does 7d pi per bang.  The rifle is 10.9 pounds and four spare magazines are 6.4.  Semi-auto would send 120 rounds down-range, but we only have 100...  The average hit is 24 so 2,400 is what we get from a basic load and 50 seconds.  If we conned the armorer to leave the selector installed, we could be rid of all that ammo in a mere 22 seconds; and probably doing less damage because of more misses.

The M16A1 spits the 5.56x45mm M193 round from a 20 18 round magazine and does 5d pi per shot.  The gun is 7.2 lb. and 8 spare magazines are 5.6 lb.  With a RoF of 13 the entire 162 rounds carried can be discarded in 51 seconds.  Semi-automatically we run through 120 rounds in a minute.  A minute at RoF 3 does 2,040 points and the whole load does 2,754 from an average of 17 each.

Blood for oil.

The M16A2 fires a different 5.56x45mm round, M855, that does the same damage.  The magazines are now larger and hold 30 28 rounds.  A basic load of six spare magazines weighs 6 lb. and the weapon 8.9 lb.  Semi-automatically it's 129 rounds a minute for 2,193.  The RoF 9 bursts can dump the whole 196 rounds carried in 46 seconds for an average of 3,332.

Watch me while I endure this freedom!

The M4, being a shorter optic equipped M16A2 fires the same number of rounds, but only does 4d+2 pi for an average hit of 16 per shot.  It's lighter 7.3 pounds even adding the pound for the M68 CCO.  129 rounds in semi does 2,064 and tearing through the full load 3,136.

Spraying and praying with the RoF 15 M4A1 empties the pouches in 32 seconds and doesn't do even a pip more potential damage.

In the Zombie Apocalypse®.

An AR in 6.8x43mm SPC (like Dottie) does 6d pi.  It's 8.5 lb. plus 0.8 for the M4s optic and carrying 6 spare 25 round magazines for 7.8 lb. more (175 rounds total).  Semi-automatically it can shed 125 rounds a minute doing an average of 21 each for 2,625.  If it's really an apocalypse, then let's rock and roll baby!  RoF is 12 so the ammo only lasts 39 seconds but spits 3,675 points at the zombies.