26 September 2015

Reality Testing

One of the things that drew me to GURPS was that it used real units for most everything.

That meant that you didn't need to convert those real-world units into the game's units.

Where I start to lose my hair is when I have sources that disagree about things like weight.

Take the XM177E2, for example.

The stats from GURPS: SEALs in Vietnam are:


The weights as given in POMM 9-1005-294-14/1 (July 1967) are:


And my XM177E2 clone on the scale:


Sabrina should be a little heavy because she's semi-auto and has a solid rather than baffled moderator.  But 6 lb. 14.0 oz. is 6.875 lb. rounding to 6.9 lb.

So we go with the weight I've measured when I run SEALs in Vietnam.

I was a playtester for GURPS: SEALs in Vietnam, and I frequently bumped heads with the author about things like weight.  Considering how he'd dismiss several authors out of hand for making stuff up, I'd press him on his sources...  It was often obscure, expensive and rare.

His source for the weight of the XM177E2 seems to be Kevin Dockery's Special Warfare Special Weapons.  There the XM177E2 is 6.77 lb. with a 30-rounder and sling.  A 30 rounder is 1.02 lb. loaded and the sling is 0.40 lb.  Dropping the empty weight to 5.35 lb.  Add a loaded 20 rounder back on (+ 0.71 lb.) and you're at 6.06 lb. which will round down to 6.

I occasionally wonder if Mr Dockery was weighing an XM177E2 that had its moderator replaced with a normal flash-hider and aluminum stock replaced with a fiberlite® one.  That's half a pound right there (0.33 for the stock and 0.2 for the muzzle device)!  Hmmmmm, still short some.

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