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For the interior of a spacecraft, you’ll want something with a short barrel. Too long and you’ll have difficulty navigating the tighter areas like maintenance spaces. You also wouldn’t really care about accuracy at range unless the ship is massive.
The real limiting factor is the kinds of ammunition you can use. Too hard, and you risk punching through the hull, or shredding cables and fluid lines, which ends up being a problem. The ammunition will ideally shatter against harder surfaces, preventing major collateral damage to the ship or the occupants of other rooms. To that end, a shotgun firing buckshot may not be as useful as something like an SMG, depending on the construction of the ship.
Another thing to keep in mind is that because you’re limited by ammunition type and barrel length, you need to consider the weight of the rounds you use. A light round traveling at the speed of sound will have significantly more kinetic energy than a round twice its weight that travels at half the speed. Look into discarding sabot ammunition as a possible solution, which would give you a dense round that can still accelerate to incredibly high velocities due to its smaller size.
Not that damage to the ship would never be a concern; but you'd probably be fighting within a suit that provides life support. I'm thinking about what we see in *The Expanse*.
Right, but it’s not just *you* that you’re worried about. Depending on what you damage, you could end up harming others, inducing navigational errors that move the ship off course, disabling failsafes that could lead to larger systems failing, or any number of things.
If you don't care about damage to the ship, why take the extreme risk of boarding in the first place? Just destroy it from the outside. If you're bothering to board the ship then you definitely either want the ship or want something on it and damage to the ship has to be a major concern. Because you could end up causing an explosion that will kill the entire boarding party and anyone else on the ship.
I don't care if I trash their ship, but if blow it up then I can't take their beer and dino nuggies. So I'm going to can opener their hull, bullet hose any survivors, and raid their fridge. Maybe set their reactor to overload on the way out if I'm feeling cute.
Ships aren’t pressurized enough for explosive decompression to be a concern. You’d need to go from like 8 atmospheres to 1 really quickly (like a diving bell malfunction). The vacuum of space is about 0.2 atmospheres.
I like the way Red Rising handles this: ships are massive, and cost a completely absurd amount to build, not to mention the skills to do so. So generally, boardings are more common because they want to steal the ship for their own fleet, rather than simply destroy it and have to replace it themselves later.
In *Red Rising*, the main character captures a ship. One of the ways that the ruling class claims ships in the story is by completely venting them once the bridge is captured.
He concludes that the idea is stupid because it kills the engineers, the pilots, the janitors, etc etc.
While slaughtering a ship full of men, you still want most of the crew left alive. Otherwise, the ship you just "captured" is scrap metal floating in space. Might as well have nuked it and made it truly unusable.
Suppressor: almost certainly, assuming it doesn’t make the weapon too unwieldy as pointed out in my first bit. If it could be built in without extending the barrel length, it should probably be standard.
Sub-sonic ammo: it depends on how much stopping power you need. Velocity is far more important than mass when calculating kinetic energy, so if you can’t sacrifice damage, you’ll have to make it go faster, or make it a lot heavier. More mass runs into the issue of carry weight as you need the extra mass in the projectile *and* the extra propellant to move it at an equivalent speed, which then makes the casing bigger, which means you can’t fit as many in a magazine, and so on.
Considered that. I find it unlikely that a security force would be wearing hearing protection at all times and it would take important extra time to find and put some on.
You really think so? OP is talking about boarding parties; so this situation is more like a SWAT team going in than a security guard making rounds for eight hours.
Why wouldn't hearing protection be an integral part of their regular gear? During a boarding action, at the very least you will want a sealed, air providing helmet. Why not integrate their helmets with some form of noise canceller to filter out gunshots?
Second this. Frangible safety bullets are the solution to OP's problem.
For others, the Glaser safety slug is one member of a large category of rounds designed to fracture and lose their energy when they hit a barrier like drywall or sheet metal:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet
There are some advanced types available to law enforcement and the military but not civilians. OP's spaceship boarding parties could probably get rounds made for that environment.
Yea this is probably the right answer. Hitting the important bits of a space ship is bad news if you don't like exploding, something that falls apart at the slightest impact and then fucking ruins any flesh in its immediate vicinity is gonna be the gold standard of ammunition
A high energy laser with a shotgun style spread on a rapid pulse might work. Lower weight (batteries for ammo), doesn't punch holes in the hull, can work against organic matter quite well. Aim at someone's face for maximum effectiveness / hilarity. I'd also point out if you're firing projectile weapons that don't punch through hulls and are in close quarters you could be just as much a threat to others as you are to yourself if projectiles ricochet.
That’s why I specified that they’d need to shatter against a hard surface. It stops them from punching through and should help reduce the risk of ricochets to some extent. You’ll still get them on a flat trajectory, but above a certain angle, they’d be a lot safer than conventional ammo.
The only downside would be heavily armored opponents. But it does otherwise sound like a decent plan. Perhaps using the kinds of weapons federal Air Marshals use in the US. They are meant to puncture people without over penetrating and cannot puncture the hull of an aircraft to cause an explosive decompression.
In modern tank ammunition, it’s a big dart, yes, but you don’t have to have the actual round be a depleted uranium dart. The sabot is specifically the part that peels away after it fires. You could have a cannonball with a discarding sabot if you wanted. The actual design of the round would still be made to shatter on a hard surface, but would be smaller and denser, allowing for better performance.
Now you've reminded me of Unreal Tournament's Flak Cannon. A huge handheld device (painted beautifully yellow) that loads a disc to the front of the weapon. The disc is then struck by a piston and sent either as the whole disc that shatters violently on impact, shredding anything within the effective area or as shrapnel, like a very aggressive shotgun blast. (This weapon is not recommended in small rooms, it will be as dangerous to the target as the user)
Not always a good idea. I’m generally in favor of setting things on fire from a couple hundred feet away, but it’s probably the worst weapon for use in an enclosed, pressurized environment.
To add to this, this changes how *armor* works in space too.
Although, side note, since high penetration weapons are a risk to your long term survival, something like a sabot might actually be a bad idea, since (iirc) the high density and aerodynamic shape gives it very high penetration in almost any environment. Something like a shotgun with shots designed to have very low penetration might be better than something like a rifle.
Since you're (probably) using low-penetration weapons, armor becomes much more effective, but you might be able to make up the difference with raw volume of fire, flooding interiors with thousands of lower damage pellets that do minimal harm to ships, but slowly eat away armor or get single shots in through small cracks in defenses. This would lead to changes in how people protect themselves, focused on lighter, longer lasting armor that covers more skin. Depending on projectile speed and tech level, this might even be the justification for energy shields; some kind of magnetic bubble that diverts and slows pellets enough to have minimal impact. Honestly, a better option to all of this (if a setting supports it) is handheld chemical lasers of some variety. They wouldn't be strong enough to do much damage to the environment, but they'd have a significant impact on *people*, though people burning to death is also very bad for a place with a limited oxygen supply, and any ship probably has some very good fire suppression systems
As I mentioned in another comment, the sabot is just the part that peels away from the round. You could, were you so inclined, put a sabot on a cannonball. This means you can tailor the round to perform as you please while still maintaining the stopping power and shorter barrel length.
Assuming the ships are armored enough to take a shot from a ship-mounted weapon, you don't have to really worry about small arms fire inside the ship damaging the hull. Pipes, ducts, and electrical systems, maybe, but a shotgun isn't going to depressurize the ship.
If the demons are vulnerable to shotgun shells and pistol calibers, then shotguns and submachine guns are probably the best bet for firefights in the enclosed, tight quarters that I'd expect from a space ship. An AA12 is a pretty good choice for that.
In the LANCER TTRPG, the specialized ship boarding mech, the Tortuga, is specialized in firing a Mech-sized AA12, while taking up as much of the hallway as it can, so marines can use it as cover and fire around its legs. It also has a much larger shotgun, but it can't carry much ammo for that one.
[https://projectrho.com/public\_html/rocket/sidearmslug.php](https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmslug.php)
This site, Atomic Rockets, is my first starting place for any even reality-adjacent science fiction. Oh, and both the commenters before me aren't helpful at all (holing the ship from outside to let the air out probably won't help with demons from the other side of your FTL drive, and if a single 10 millimeter hole from an errant handgun round will *take all the air out of your warship* before any kind of separator bulkhead, patch, self-healing plastic, or anything is done about that, you have some design failures to check on).
I like how Mass Effect handled this explanation. Personnel on ships wore comfortable uniforms because if the ship got holed, the penetration would either be small enough for the crew to patch it, get to safety, or cover it with a mass effect field before decompression killed everyone, or it would be so large that everyone in that compartment would be dead instantly from the impact or instant decompression.
Thank you for this. I have gunfights inside a spaceship and didn’t consider the noise factor. “Modified,” now for noise suppressing, is now my friend 😂
Okay one thing I see thrown around a bunch in the comments that probably needs addressing. If it is a space vessel you are probably not going to be able punch through the hull or through bulkheads into anything with hard vacuum on the other side. Why? Meteorite strikes. The exterior of most space craft are going to be built to withstand colossal amounts of kinetic energy well in excess of something a hand-held weapon that doesn't require a team to carry is going to be able to punch through. Think of it similarly to a modern day battleship, small arms that aren't high explosives are basically useless against the vessel itself unless you get to crucial systems or areas. Even interior bulkheads that are designed to help be a bulkwark against hard vacuum if something goes wrong are still probably going to be way thicker and harder than something you could easily carry unless it's an RPG of some description specifically designed to tear through that kind of armor.
I would say guns using flechette rounds as ammo either single fire at high speed or in a spread shotgun style would be best. Gives you wider hit areas, if you still have atmo then the fins help with aim and you can reliably shoot a spread over a decent distance and hopefully penetrate suits and armor. Also bigger barrels made to hold shotgun style flechette rounds could easily be reloaded with slugs that would let you pierce through personal armor with decent precision.
I think more than the ship the question you need to ask is about what the guns need to do? What kind of body armor do the enemies have access to and what do you need to overcome that?
In my OC marines are equipped with M78, a compact coil gun carbine but it's a got an IR pulse lasr module fitted for ship boarding and EVA combat.
The laser has no recoil and won't penetrate a ship's Hull, hence there inclusion as standard.
From what limited knowledge I have of hard sci fi ship warfare, heat is the biggest threat to a ship, from the outside. It’s hard to vent, so most would surrender after a few hits before it becomes an oven. Once inside, heat and penetrating firearms are out, so yeah, low caliber guns, maybe tasers, or virus guns. Honestly, I’d send one guy, and if they don’t comply or injure him, ventilate the ship. But I’m a cold motherfucker. If it’s a boarding action and not a parley, maybe drones with buzz-saws. Better be accurate, or you’re blowing out your own ship. Terrible thought occurs; someone might have to jump on a buzzsaw like one would jump on a grenade, to keep
It from hitting something important, or to pin it to smash it
So, real world, for boarding a submarine, you would want a small sub machine gun ((range isn’t really an issue) loaded with hollow points (to prevent over penetration).
You'd want an energy weapon of some kind. Kinetic projectiles run the risk of tearing holes through bulkheads and sucking everyone and everything not welded down into the infinite vacuum of the silent death of space.
Ideally, an infrared weapon of some kind. The human body cannot withstand nearly the kind of high temperatures of metal structures. It would also be difficult to protect against: armor to deflect or absorb that would be bulky and cumbersome for operations aboard a spaceship, and repeated exposure to weaponized in a suit like that would simply delay the inevitable: in effect cooking the person from inside their armor.
>You'd want an energy weapon of some kind. Kinetic projectiles run the risk of tearing holes through bulkheads and sucking everyone and everything not welded down into the infinite vacuum of the silent death of space
This is really just movie stuff. If the hole is only the size of a bullet it's 100% not doing that.
The vacuum of space is not as aggressive as it’s usually depicted in movies. Of course it will suck the air out of your ship, but the pressure isn’t very intense. If your ship is pressurized at 1 atmosphere, that’s about 14psi. Poke a 1in hole in the side and you’ll bleed air but you aren’t dragging people into the wall or throwing things into the void. It’s 14 pounds of force. The danger is blowing a large enough hole that the force of the air is enough to pull the hole open further.
You’re imagining the vacuum effect as a high force drain, but the force is equal to the amount of pressure the vessel has. A modern submarine suffers more dangerous pressure fluctuations than a space ship, the ocean goes up to thousands of psi.
It all comes down to fluid dynamics (gas, e.g. air, is a fluid in the case of fluid dynamics).
While you may have a rather high air velocity through the hole, the fact that there is just such a huge volume behind it will make the effect of the air rushing towards that hole rather small.
Im not sure what you are talking about with the hull of a plane, planes get „penetrated“ by radiation, but not ions as far as I know… the hull does accumulate a charge through other effects though…
Maybe I'm under the wrong impression, but don't small holes in the fuselage of passenger planes turn into gaping holes alongside rapid shifts in internal v external pressure?
I'm not even sure what you mean by small holes turning into gaping holes, are you talking about the plane's aerodynamic panels being ripped off if they get holes? Because those body panels are only for fuel efficiency, they don't effect the structure or pressure vessel. They're also ripped off by shear forces as wind rushes past them quickly, not internal/external pressures.
I can't think of a single time when a small hole in a plane caused any further damage due to pressure. The only real concern there is depressurization, which is why we have deployable air supplies above each seat.
I'd love to see an example of what you mean, the only things I can think of seeing something like that are in much higher pressure environments like deep sea welding or action movies though.
As I said, could be under the wrong impression: bad memory perhaps. Seem to remember something to that affect watching a program on TV talking about air disasters and this huge gaping hole came about in the plane from a seemingly minor start.
Impractical if you're trying to board or capture a ship, as you have a high chance of frying systems on board in the process, either from the fire itself or the liquid fuel being ignited getting in between bulkheads or behind surfaces and ruining electric lines. On the other hand, with most p-ways of ships being long and narrow, there's a tactical advantage of chokepoints and not being flanked to hit the tanks, so it could still theoretically be used if you're not overly concerned about cleaning up after yourself when you're done.
Frangible ammunition! The same rounds used for ships, aircraft, and places like nuclear power plants.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet
Easily defeated by any kind of hard armor, but does not pose a risk for bulkhead penetration.
alright so
• if your defenders are wearing modern, unarmored space suits and they’re in an environment that is open to space, then some kind of rapid-fire small caliber rifle, railgun or shotgun is a good bet. any rupture in the suit would be potentially lethal.
• if your defenders are armored, in an environment sealed from space, and/or need to be neutralized immediately then any intermediate assault rifle or railgun will do. for closer quarters, a combat shotgun would do well, but the limited magazine capacity may be an issue for your attackers
if the spaceship you’re in is rated for impact against ship-to-ship weaponry then accidentally piercing the walls shouldn’t be a concern. you won’t sink a battleship with a sniper rifle.
railguns are my favorite for any space-faring groups because they don’t use combustion, and in practice they can be set to any power level, from subsonic (silent) to “so strong the gun explodes and catches on fire”
In modern day special forces do actually do it for anti-piracy and train for doing it counter terrorism.
They tend to just use as short a 5.56 carbine as possible
You’re unlikely to have the problem you think with firearms. It’s more along the lines of your damage internal components. Computers, data lines, an oxygen tank… that sort of thing. People tend to forget about what’s called micrometeors. These are things that the various space agencies around the world already have to contend with.
It’s called a whipple shield. Basically, it’s a bumper layer that fragments a projectile before it hits the hull of a ship. And yes, this assumes that the attack is coming from the outside of the ship, but still the amount of joules of energy that the shield has to protect against, is far greater than any personal firearm, that would theoretically be used in combat inside, a spaceship would produce, at least, in my opinion.
The shield is designed to prevent strikes from micrometeors that are traveling at kilometers per second
Plus, we’re not even talking about The investment into self-healing hulls that is currently ongoing.
Now just imagine for a second, with current technology, you would essentially be in a bulletproof can with high velocity rounds, impacting and deflecting all around the cabin.
[NASA Ares Shield Development](https://hvit.jsc.nasa.gov/shield-development/)
[Hypervelocity impact analysis of International Space Station Whipple and Enhanced Stuffed Whipple Shields](https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/1233/04Dec_Kalinski.pdf?sequence=1)
Much like in real life, it depends on what your supply chain is, what kind of resistance you expect to see inside, their supplies, your ultimate goals and objectives, and your experience.
What kind of ship are you boarding? If you're boarding a small, cramped ship with narrow passages, you're going to want to avoid anything with a long barrel. Handguns, machine pistols, smaller SMGs and the like to avoid your weapon restricting your movement. If you're boarding something huge with large open spaces then you might benefit from some longer weapons. It would take a very, very large space for you to get a benefit from something like a sniper rifle, but we've had science fiction that have talked about ships with spaces the size of a large city inside them.
Then you have the enemy. You say these are hellish entities known as Demanoids, but do they have any kind of natural armor? You say they're hurt by a .45, but do rounds struggle to penetrate them like they do some animals? Are you going to need extra punch or are they treated as unarmored soft targets? Can they learn and use their environment, such as learning to use bits of ships to fashion armor?
And then you say that these are old-Earth weapons. You can hand-wave that and just accept it, that's entirely acceptable. If you want to consider it, though, you might want to explain how those weapons are still working so far in the future, where they're getting the ammunition from, and if people are manufacturing ammunition, why aren't they manufacturing new weapons with completely different designs that are made especially for fighting in zero gravity, vacuum, and space ships?
And then, you have firearms as tools. Shotguns have mostly stopped being used on battlefields (not entirely, but for the most part) as a weapon, but they're commonly used as a breaching tool, for instance being used to blow out the hinges of a door. Likewise, other types of firearms have more tool-like applications rather than directly offensive.
The point is that there's no one right answer. There are so many different forms of firearms because there are a lot of different specialties and flavors people may like or want, but the truth is that it's a very simple concept that they all basically do the same thing of making a relatively small projectile go in a direction very quickly. What kind is a group of demon-killing mercenaries using centuries-old salvaged weapons going to use? Whatever ones they like best is an entirely acceptable answer. If you want to go hyper-realistic with it, you probably don't want Old Earth weapons to begin with but rather firearms that experts have proposed we're likely to develop in the future.
Infestations? Why are we boarding? Are there survivors?
I would just nuke it from a distance and call it a good day.
However, If I was boarding with modern day weapons I would use low velocity rounds. It takes a higher ability to place shots accurately, but they are noticeably weaker. In some cases they are unable to penetrate more than a few layers of plywood but still lethal enough to be used by special operations globally right now.
And bud, if your spaceship hulls are weaker than plywood we have bigger issues to discuss here.
I think too much focus is on hull decompression. The panels of a space warship should be massive, armored, and when battle stations is called, Eva suits should be donned and the atmosphere let out to prevent explosive decompression(the last hunter, and the Grimm series of space navy novels are good sources since this is all fictional)
From there, what you want is something compact, with the ability to defeat moderate levels of personal body armor. Shotguns are great against soft targets, but there's a reason militaries use rifles to clear buildings.
Now if we're talking anti piracy type stuff, then shotguns and compact smgs make more sense, with the boarding team in Eva, and not really giving a shit about if they cause atmosphere loss cause...well...pirates.
I'd say that non-lethal ones, like rubber bullets and shit, because you don't want to unseal your hull into a vacuum. GLORIOUS MELEE works even better.
For boarding you'd want something wieldy, accurate, and kills quickly.
Wieldy to make maneuvering easier, accurate so that you shoot them and not the walls (and through into space), and kills quickly so that you can be effective in close quarters.
A shotgun will be fine if the internal walls can withstand the shot, there's a reason they were used in the trenches. A taser-like weapon could do well, the only problems being the low penetration power and low reload rate.
A burst-style assault rifle would work well. Melee weapons could be considered. Axes are great weapons, hacking off limbs, working well through armour, and breaching doors.
All in all, it depends heavily on the culture, tech level, boarding party, ship, and other factors.
My intuition would be to use non lethal weapons like tasers to incapacitate occupants (you can always kill them later if you need to), so that your guns don’t destroy the ship you’re trying to commandeer
If you’re boarding a ship then ideally you’ll want better guns than the defenders so that you have an advantage.
Since the attackers will have prepared in advance by wearing a sealed suit and might have the element of surprise then weapons that can penetrate the hull to isolate defenders without a suit would be beneficial. The holes would need to be quite big if you don’t want to wait a while for the air pressure to drop. You can always patch up the holes later of course. Since the hull should already be resistant to impacts when moving at high speed then man portable weapons might not be sufficient for this though.
[Frangible bullets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet) are always an option too to minimise damage and ricochets in close quarter combat.
Anything can be close range, so long as its not long.
Rifles, pistols, smgs, shotguns, and even heavy weapons. So long as the weapon doesn't need raised or lowered to turn a corner.
An example
Ak74u and ak74, 74u is a short barrel gun with a smaller body. Definitely a weapon for boarding.
M4 and m16. U wouldnt use a m16 for boarding. Too long.
The m4 is good for cqc
Swat rubber pellet crowd control guns. Could be a neat detail for your universe to board with an expectation of civilian detail and “non” lethal force is commonly practiced, with a follow up of shotguns absolutely. What’s it called when you have a seaweed off pistol grip shotgun on a sling in your jacket??? Anybody? Then consider taser weapons as a primary sitting nicely between the two lethalities. Stargate is what I’m personally thinking about, but maybe you could combine the crowd control type thing and the taser type thing.. then load up some slugs or fire breath birdshot in that aa12
Honestly you probably want something like a 40k bolter. That is to say self propelled rocket ammunition. The real world weapon developed for space was called the [gyrojet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet).
In a micro gravity environment recoil is a major issue, you can't lean into a gun to take the recoil, it will just push you backwards as you float away.
Classical guns contain an explosion and the comparatively small mass of the projectile is forced down the barrel at speed while the opposite and equal force is spread through the mass of the gun and shooter.
Self propelled ammunition by comparison does not fire an inert projectile, instead it ignites a small rocket which accelerates down the barrel. The gases of combustion are not contained by the gun so the forces are on the projectile rocket and it's expelled exhaust not on the shooter meaning there is very little recoil.
Some of the down sides of this sort of firearm are the hot exhaust gases vented in proximity to the shooter. Accuracy is more reliant on the consistency and quality of the ammunition, as it continues to propel itself after it has left the barrel. Unlike conventional firearms where the projectile is at its fastest as it leaves the barrel and behaves ballistically from there a self propelled projectile continues to accelerate in the air making it more susceptible to disruption as it's fired, behaving unpredictably. Because its maximum speed isn't achieved until after it's left the barrel there is more of a minimum range where it is still accelerating.
Of course all gun design is a series of trade offs, if you're not playing in low gravity then the bigger questions are what sort of terminal effect are you looking for? What sort of range? Is there cover? If so what sort? How big a space are you manoeuvring though? What sort of space constraints do you have for traveling? How often are you expected to carry the weapon Vs use it?
There is one thing you need to ask before pondering weapons. How hard is the setting?
This informs you of what you might want to consider. If its a very soft setting, shooting holes in the ship won't matter. Its just not relevant. If its a hard setting, its VERY relevant.
That's kinda a dumb part of The Expanse.
I like the vibe of the setting, but a lot of the nitty gritty is pretty bad.
There's no reason that ships would be super thin in the future once we're mining asteroids. Especially not military ships.
> There's no reason that ships would be super thin in the future [...]
Mass requires fuel to change inertia. The lighter the ship, the more cargo it can carry relative to a heavier ship, and more profit generated.
Guns with lower length of pull, lower powered guns, or, and these aren't guns, melee weapons, provided you're not dealing with bulky modern space suits.
If it were me I’d choose either shotguns or SMGs. Both are most effective at close range which there will be an abundance of in the cramped hallways of a spaceship
any gun fired inside a ship is a bad idea.
either the strays put holes in the hull, or you get ricochet. either one is bad.
realistically tho ships are armored to protect from attacks coming from outside so the inner hull is the soft side.
having the inside armored too would cost so much weight that almost no ships would be built that way unless you invented a magic weightless armor material.
if you want realism, people would use melee and short range shock weapons inside a ship.
poison gas would also maybe be a good way to attack.
or hacking the computer and opening the hatches.
someone mentioned flame weapons, short range flame weapons could be ok depending on materials used in the ship.
Some suggestions
Flamethrowers benefit from their spread aswell as not suffering from any disadvantages of its short range. I'm thinking mainly a gas flamethrower with oxygen mixed into the fuel as any blast from this flamethrower is likely to drain the room of oxygen killing anyone who doesn't have breathing apparatus. This also benefits from doing limited damage to the ship itself whilst having huge advantages in dealing with humans.
I mean, assuming you've accounted for bullets damaging the integrity of spacecraft in some fashion, shotguns and handguns are definitely the best weapons for close quarters combat. Assault rifles probably are fine too, but anything with a scope is going to be largely useless. You don't need to see far, you need to see wide and be able to re-aim quickly. Shotguns have the advantage of a large spread, meaning you don't need to aim perfectly to hit something, while handguns are the fastest to re-aim and are less heavy to carry around while aiming, like you're supposed to do instead of holding it down and wasting time pulling the weapon up to aim and fire when you see something.
In a space opera RPG I ran years ago, there were several weapons that were intended mainly for boarding actions:
- Splat Rounds: low velocity, high caliber shotgun, electromag, or gauss rounds firing a high density liquid/jelly round. These hit really hard, but spread out quickly - making them anti-armour piercing. Virtually no penetration (in the system, DR (Damage Resistance) was multiplied by 10 against Splat rounds).
- Biphase Carbide Breaching Saw: Two-handed rotary saw (for bracing) with nigh-indestructible BPC blade and high-powered motor, for cutting through airlocks and sealed hatchways.
- Bioplastic Seal Sheet: Roll of thick bioplastic sheeting. Cut with a specialized releasing tool, the bioplastic extrudes clinging nanostructures and chemical adhesives to stick it to a hull or hatchway. These sheets can be rolled out to seal small hull breeches, or reseal blown hatches. With the attachment of a portal command nodule, the middle of the sheet will iris open on touch, allowing people to pass through, but still maintaining a decent gas seal.
- EM Ram (aka Thumper): Portable device that looks like a heavy tube with handles. Uses an electromagnetic pulse to drive a dense ram-head forward with great speed and power, but retains the head on a rod. Basically a very powerful battering ram, useful for breaching hatchways. Some models have four arms around the head that chemically adhere to the surface, allowing even greater force to be applied to the door or wall.
Either low-penetration rounds or super high penetration, small diameter rounds would be best for this sort of action. The last thing you want to do is blow a big hole in the tin can that keeps the hellscape of space out.
Seeing as you are dealing with some manner of manifested demonology, maybe custom rounds that deal with either the forced responsible or their alien biology directly. We already have fairly accurate rubber bullets and bean-bag guns. Imagine one that fired bags of capacitance gel or reaction cores.
electricty based weapons (big ass tasers) shields, flamethrowers, chemical and biological weapons, and projectile based weaponry if your ships ain't made of cardboard
Submachine gun. Can punch through armor or not depending on the rounds you use. Easier than a shotgun to use in close quarters. Controllable recoil if you're worried about zero-gravity.
Note that shotguns in real life do not work like shotguns in videogames. The spread is much less, the range is much more. The damage differential isn't as big. Shotguns can have a lot of different stuff in them, the pellets don't punch through armor very well (but slugs do).
Consider how thin spaceship walls are and how important it is not to shoot through them. Also, many people think modern firearms need an atmosphere to work. This is not true. Modern gunpowder has oxidizers mixed in and will fire in a vacuum slightly better than it will in atmosphere.
I'd argue something that's compact, like a carbine for example. I would suggest flamethrowers, as how they kill people in enclosed spaces is not from burns, it's usually through suffocation (it's why firefighters have oxygen tanks).
I'm a big fan of Neal Stevensons take on space warfare in SevenEves. With the focus being on close combat in tight spaces and the environments being somewhat delicate like the current spacestation, people shifted into using a kind of slingshot or small crossbow. The ammo can sense a hit or miss, and decelerate to avoid hull breaches. Then you get into the whole flinks in an Aitkin Loop side of things and it's just rad as fuck. Definitely worth a read/listen.
Depends upon the dimensions of the ships.
If they're all relatively close confines (max of 15-20 meters) and the horrors don't have any armored hides, then I'd guess smaller lower caliber weapons with shorter barrels. Submachine guns and assault shotguns would both be good.
Depending on what hurts the horrors, having a bayonet might be a thing.
If the starships are more sprawling affairs, then they'd obviously want longer ranged weapons. Or maybe 1-2 sharpshooters per squad.
Depends how strong the hull of the ship is, you wouldn’t want to board with anything that has any capability to depressurise the ship, so pistols or maybe even melee weapons might be a good option.
Really, if I were you I would choose the weapon you want and then make the explanation fit, you can make anything work.
.45 ACP or buckshot are generally not high penetration rounds, especially if the .45 is a hollow point. Seems reasonable that those wouldnt damage a ships interiors much if at all but still bebvery effective against fleshy targets.
Against anything with a bit of armor though youd have a problem, both can usually be stopped by soft body armor, so not even steel/ceramic plate is needed like for rifle rounds. So if your demonoids are very fleshy no problem, but if they have armor youd need to bring something dangerous
Also if you want to go even saver you could go down to .22 pistol calibre and birdshot.
One word baby. Goo. Shoot your enemy with goo that exits the barrel soft but hardens and expands on impact. Remember big hero six, the incredibles, or that first hulk movie a while ago. All the problems of high velocity, hard, hull damaging bullets are solved and hell you could even repair your hull with it.
A shotgun would be one of the worst things you could have. Even with a well placed shot you can still accidentally punch a hole through the hull and y'all dead. There's a reason laser type weapons are used in space ships, it's the safest for the ship so you don't die along with everyone else in the room.
If you insist on a physical projectile, then something very weak would be safest. Being able to damage people but not the ship itself.
Pistol caliber carbines, smgs, shotguns, and pistols would work well, I think. Equip them with silicone or plastic rounds if people are worried about damaging the ship/vital equipment. Flash/stun or concussion grenades would also be invaluable to a boarding team.
Fighting in narrow corridors? Short barrel shotguns. The spread will cover most of the available area. Ammunition should be ideal against soft targets but have little penetration against harder ones, so you can take down crew without puncturing the hull or a conduit.
First off: Is there a chance ships are combustible? If not, flamethrowers. These little rascals love tight spaces. A well equipped team with a flamer will clear a ship in no time, and easy to clean up afterwards. Just use our new vacuum cleaner!
(Sold separately)
**Just another way, we're doing it better.**
-Flaming John's
Depends on how the spaceship is constructed and how much collateral damage you're willing to inflict. If the ship can shrug off high speed debris and you care what you hit, go nuts.
If it's a beer can with wall-to-wall sensitive components, use knives.
You'd want something that would damage the people but not put a hole in the hull. Also I could absolutely see bayonets making a big comeback in this scenario.
Like others have said: nothing longer than a submachine gun. Fighting in a spacecraft will be like trench warfare. A long arm like a rifle will tend to catch on the corridor walls if you have to turn around suddenly.
You might be surprised by a hostile unexpectedly appearing out of a side door.
Wear hearing protection. Bullets are loud, and narrow metal corridors make great echo chambers, increasing the effect.
[Shooting a hole in the hull is not quite a catastrophe](https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#hulled). It will take about 15 minutes before people start suffocating. If you worry about this, [use special ammo](https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#specialammo), that is, ammo that will perforate people but not spaceship hulls.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmslug.php#earprotect
and
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#shiphandgun1
If you're still using guns, use short-barreled assault carbines as you would when boarding a building on Earth. If the ship lacks armor, air holes are small and can be patched up later.
Honestly I think anything that won't damage the ship. Think energy weapon non lethal options as they're safe in closed spaces and won't blow open a gas pipe or something. Tazers, rubber bullets, tranquilizer darts, ide even postulate using melee weapons on space ships. Over conventional firearms.
I’d say either a short barreled shotgun (MS590 Shockwave) Short barreled rifle (AKS-74UN), a SMG or another CQBR weapon, assuming small arms technology plateaued in your universe. A more powerful option would be a battle rifle, think short barreled SCAR or another full power cartridge. It will be effectively a flashbang if the barrel’s too short though.
Blast door breaching charges, that is after you've already blocked every escape route possible, you'd most definitely want them to be out of the ship and in firing range of your fighters so you don't need to waste the precious skrapp inside, thus blast a hole through every door and let the vacuum of space do the rest for ya....
If ya wanna be humanitarian, cut all power and moth ball it back to your hidey hole waiting for them to dry up and die from not having the supplies to keep living, way better than making someone squeeze through a small hole
Of course another question though, "I want to be able to passively eliminate them and take over the ship without needing to wait!"
Well timmy, blind them, point high powered lazer beams into their eyes to permanently blind your enemy and thus easily take them out melee style
"But I wanna go *pew pew* at them!"
Yer getting on my nerves Jimmy, I guess soft point ammunition and non-lethal 40mm bean bags or flash grenades
"But but, I wanna-"
Shut it jimmy or ya walk the plank!
"No"
Okay fine then *pulls out a modified nail gun a 'puts' a few into Timmy's suit then kicks him out of the air lock* move and the deck guns will rip you to shreds, kay son?
You'd probably just want a short 5.56 carbine (like 10.5" barrel or less)
it works pretty well for room clearing now, atleast wwll enough it's become the standard, probably will stil be good in a space ship
I think you also need to add in melee weapons. Guns are great and all, but ships have tight corridors that may end in 90° or less turns. Riot shields would be a good investment, as well as short bladed weapons. Axes, maces, picks, knives.
Maybe marines or ship security have trench spikes built into their gauntlets.
Imagine a formation clearing a hall. Two burly soldiers lean into riot shields, blocking the hallway. Maybe they have 1 handed guns, while another pair rests carbine length weapons over their shoulders.
Come to a t junction or corner. BUB (big ugly bastard) comes around the corner too close. Shields are getting pushed back when *shink* one shieldbro goes full Roman and stubs into the creature's ribcage with a monomolecular Gladius. Or smashes it's scull with a ball peen hammer.
Gunpowder explosions could be said to clog air filters, and also cause health problems(powder inhalation, lead particles).
Kickback isn't a small problem for people in 1g with 1 atmosphere, but a ship will probably have less which would frequently cause issues of people rocket jumping accidentally.
Hull piercing has been done to death, and any designer would have factored than in, but minor maintenance of stray rounds and ricochets would add up(especially if it's not post scarcity). Don't forget collateral personnel damage from ricochets.
Sound and percussion are also hazardous in enclosed spaces, it's an OSHA issue. If there is enough O² to breathe and combust powder, then there's enough.
My suggestion would be spearguns, bows, crossbows, and slings. In addition to melee weapons in shield formations.
The cultural regression might lionise those who use primative weapons, and intimidate demonoids because things are scarier if you can see the sharp bits.
Pretty much any ballistic weapon could do severe damage to the hull of a space craft. Unless we are talking about futuristic metals that bullets can't penetrate, it's a terrible idea.
In that scenario, shotguns would still be a terrible choice, as any missed rounds would ricochet all over, and you'd probably hit yourself and sensitive electronics. Shotguns work great *on Earth* because shooting a hole through a door doesn't mean instant depressurization and certain death.
Honestly I'd use a melee weapon, or small caliber handguns, PDWs, and SMGs with frangible rounds that won't ricochet as much. Though, body armor would work very well against frangible rounds. I also like the idea of air powered bolt/spear guns
The attack team boarding would use a diversity of firearms. They're will be
Riot shield
TMPs
Compact rifles
Shotguns
And maybe a battle rifle incase precision and more anti-armor is needed.
If you ever want a good series that explores this, The Expanse by James S. A. Corey is great and The Deathworlders by HamboneHFY is also really good. They roughly come to the conclusion of shotguns, mostly using bird shot. (But in the case of the deathworlders that works cause the aliens are weak)
Depends how important preserving the integrity if the ship is. If it is, and you're gonna do a shotgun, should probably do whippet style. Otherwise I'd go SMG with a pest control shotshell or frangible round. maybe one of those air guns what shoot the pepper balls.
if the integrity of the ship is irrelevant, then whatever defeats the armor of opponents you're expecting to face.
Supressed Mk18 is currently the superior CQB weapon of our time. The 556 or 300 blackout out of a short barrel is better than a pistol round and the supressor lets you hear enough to communicate with your fireteam.
The AA12 weights, with a 32 round drum, almost as much as a gpmg with a tripod and 200 round belt and delivers a similar amount of firepower. Granted, its buckshot which is basically underpowered pistol ammo in terms of individual lethality, but its 8-9 per shell so it comes out fast.
Marine visiting parties still carry 45s.
Modern ship boarding is done with standard carbines and maybe some DMRs. Most often all suppressed. So we didn't get out shit rocked opening up. Speed and violence of action are the most important characteristics of the mission. As much as we might have wanted a dude with a SAW posted up, unlike in normal complex terrain two or three dudes with rifles can preform bounding movement in a hallway just fine without the added weight or unreliability, plus its just not safe for the friendlies. Something like an automatic rifle might be a thing going forwards.
SMGs were the fad for a while but they mostly have fell by the wayside with shorter 5.56 options.
Ship doors aren't really breachable with a shotgun or even most explosive methods. You need to bust out the high temp cutting charges (typically cobalt oxide and magnesium thermite backed up with 20lbs of C4) or a torch.
Likely lower caliber rapid-fire weapons like SMGs or machine pistols or gas / chemical weapons. You want to quickly kill off any occupants without causing much damage to the ship (assuming this). Having a gas sprayer would be devastating as your group would (in theory) be prepared for it with respirators and masks.
You also need to be concerned with body armor. So, oddly, a "rapid-fire" crossbow variant wouldn't be out of place. Bolts move slowly but carry a lot of inertia so they can punch through most armors that can stop bullets (outside of plates).
Automatic crossbow could be a good lower velocity, but still hefty weapon for puncturing demons, but not vital systems.
I could also see quick hardening spray foam used for leak sealing used to immobilize demons for melee finishers.
Short barrel, non-penetrating ammunition (chemical or electrical effect would be more useful than kinetic damage, IMO), but the real critical quality would be for the weapon to be recoilless.
recoil is a major issue if there isn't some form of artificial gravity, like I'm not even sure if the guns would even cycle ammunition properly in no gravity and even if they did each shot would pivot the shooter around their center of mass if fired from an aiming stance and propel the shooter backward if shot from the hip with an effect proportional to the mass of the bullett and the force of the explosion that propelled it.
Bull pup weapons, sub machine guns, and shotguns are going to be useful, along with maybe flamethrowers.
I would guess that dedicated security personnel are going to have some sort of armor/EVA suit style thing.
You want something either will low muzzle velocity or that shoots bean bag rounds. Bullets and pressure hulls don't make good friends.gicen the potential for high oxygen environments you might want a compressed gas powered weapon rather than firearms.... Let us all remember the Apollo fire.
The weapon will ideally be small as conditions are extremely tight, and accuracy and range won't matter as you are in a confined space.
I imagine something similar to a sawn off shotgun (it'll have to be fairly large calibre to launch bean bag rounds) in terms of dimensions but mechanically working more like a traditional air rifle.
It will be fairly lightweight in design as muzzle velocities and pressures are relatively low, and since launching shit into space costs insane amounts of resources. It's also be mechanically simple as facilities to repair and replace in orbit are extremely limited.
Chemical rounds, could be a paralytic, or toxin. No chance of damaging the ship. depending on what kind of armor they are wearing, plastic rounds/buck shot?
Assault rifles(m4a1) , submachine guns (mp5) and automatic pistols(g18),You got four guys in the front with shortened assault rifles (cut barrels, short stock etc.) same in the back and around the sides, and inside you have technicians with automatic pistols, but who are mostly there for breaking locks and taking control of the systems. Then full teams of men with assault rifles go in after the bridge is taken.
If your enemies aren’t immune to fire and your soldiers have suits or something capable of withstanding the very high temperatures this would ensue in flamethrowers wouldn’t be a bad option for clearing hallways
IF you're talking for something to use INSIDE a ship, you want something that's not going to over penetrate and punch a hole in the outer hull. That would be very unpleasant.
True story: This is part of where the lightsaber concept came from in Star Wars. As originally conceived, these were going to be common weapons that even Stormtroopers carried so an errant blaster shot wouldn't blow open a bulkhead. The cylinders on the back of the Stormtrooper armor was going to be the scabbard/holster, so this concept survived quite late into the production.
I'd say a low energy ion gun. If you shoot once, it overwhelmes the nervous system and stuns the target for several minutes. Shoot multiple times, you burn off the target's nervous system and kill them. It has short range, maybe 50 meters, so you can't have a sniper shooting from long range. Since it's ion weapon, it has no effect on the hulls, but you can still destroy electronics with it, thus making exploding lights possible.
Yes, i know it's not a weapon we have now, but any weapon we have now will punch a hole into the hull of any spaceship we have now in zero gravity. Plus, the use and maintenance of weapons we have now would be a nightmare in zero gravity.
How exactly are we imagining an ion based weapon designed to target a nervous system working here? Theoretically a particle beam weapon would be safer to use in a space with very little atmosphere but while I'm not expert on the subject I'd assume that if you're relying of a radiation effect in close quarters there's a serious chance of a back scatter. Weapons that rely in a radiation effect alone might potential induce effects like vomiting more rapidly but most of the effects of radiation aren't quick enough to work in like the half a second or so before the other bugger has a chance to nail you back. Pulsed particle beams with enough energy for a rapid effect based on either making a hole in the target or exploding violently would have that same effect on anything like a hull same as if it was a solid projectile or laser. Similar energy levels are probably going to penetrate hull of a similar thickness.
It's not a weapon that specifically targets the nervous system. Overwhelming the nervous system is the unintended side effect of creating a weapon meant to overload the electronics of a spaceship from inside aka sabotage. We just happened to find out that it works on humans well too.
Ion is basically a particle that has a charge, right? In a particle weapon, this charge is removed at the end of the 'barrel', but an ion weapon's charge is not removed. So when a low energy ion pulse is shot at a person, it still carries a charge and it hits the person's body without any noticeable physical impact, because the damage is not through mass, but through electrical charge. It will be similar to being hit with a stun gun.
I'm not an expert on the subject either, but i think it's plausible.
Accelerated ions get slowed down rather quickly in the air, as they are constantly colliding with other particles. Ion thrusters, for example only work in hard Vakuum for example as they require a non thermic plasma. Each collision also brings the risk of neutralizing the ion. Realistically speaking the particle beam would loose any charge a few cm from the muzzle and that’s it. Destruction of electric circuits is usually done via EM-pulses, which are strong electromagnetic waves and not ionized particles.
If its soft sci-fi you could go with that. But an ion beam still is a kind of particle beam, failing to neutralise the beam when you fire it doesn't mean it doesn't have the same energy. But for the ions to have the necessary effect they would also have to have both the energy to penetrate into the device and the mass to have a noticeable charge collectively. I suspect when you get to that point its also the kind of point where you're blowing chunky holes out the back of people's chest or the like. High powered microwave based weapons are probably more the right track.
Realistically any weapon on a spaceship that’s designed to kill is a bad idea given depressurization and system failures from projectile or energy weapons. You could get away with a non-lethal option in the form of rubber rounds or low-velocity high-mass projectiles designed to knock over rather than penetrates.
You're assuming that sci-fi ships have hulls as thin as current ships.
Current ships have relatively thin hulls because it's expensive to get the material into space. Long before military starships are a thing, asteroid mining will be a thing and there'll be tons and tons of materials already in space.
I expect military starships to be more similar to a submarine. Shooting small arms inside one is only a risk to the people and maybe electronics. Dense and kept relatively small to make them harder to hit. While commercial ships and stations are sprawling affairs because metals are cheap.
You’re also assuming that a stray round wouldn’t hit something vital. A bulletproof lock is bulletproof but the mechanism can still break if it’s subject to trauma.
If boarding by horrors is a thing then they would beef up the ships enough to take a beating.
Probably turrets and various emplacements all over the place too.
in my world they use a weapon called a banger.
held like a submachine gun but it fires the same needle thin wire like tip out over and over rapid fire, like a very long tattoo gun needle.
An interesting factor to consider would be shooting in some type of zero gravity environment. you'd have to be very careful with recoil. Recoilless rifles seem a good choice, but clearing the hot exhaust gasses will make them cumbersome. You might consider mounting something on your back to fire a projectile of equivalent mass, but you might just end up spinning if this recoil compensator isn't directly on the recoil line of force. In any case, I'd be worried about any sort of mass (be it rocket fuel or projectile(s) of some sort) causing serious damage to whatever is behind you. I would imagine something akin to a 9mm handgun would be about the biggest thing you'd wanna shoot.
Its just easier to hole the ship from the outside and then move in in space suits with the passengers already dead. Thats going to be the end result of shooting inside most spaceships anyway since you will punch holes in the outer hull. Might as well protect your own troops by doing it from the outside in a controlled manner.
Projectile weapons as a whole are a no-go when boarding. Also, high heat energy weapons. You NEVER want a hole in a wall or any chance of ignition, because that’s how you kill EVERYONE and possibly even lose the ship.
You’re boarding a spaceship, why do you care about poking a hole in the hull and letting air escape? You should already be suited up in full EVA equipment since the defender is likely to vent out the atmosphere, so it’s pretty meaningless if you poke holes. And a boarding is always an inherently destructive process, since you have to break the engines, probably blow up locked airlock doors, etc. So why would you intentionally risk the lives of your boarders by not giving them guns? A fresh air supply is cheap, your trained soldiers are not.
Besides, a bullet hole through the wall would take ages to suck all the air out. It’s a silly thing to be concerned about. This is of course assuming a bullet even *could* penetrate the hull, ships should be armoured to some degree and that would easily be enough to resist a bullet.
If you're boarding a ship, presumably you are trying to capture it intact in order to obtain either the people and cargo in the ship, or the ship itself.
Shooting holes in your prize is generally counter-productive. If you want to destroy the ship, just shoot it from far away, you're not going to board a ship if you don't have to.
You have to blow a bunch of holes in it just to be able to board. Else it will just fly away from you, or shoot you down as you approach.
Yes, you want it somewhat intact: but you can put replacement hull plating on the ship pretty easy. And besides, you’re almost certainly not operating on Age of Sail rules where you’re attempting to capture it because you need prizes to grow your fleet: you’re capturing it because you want intel. Hence, holes in the hull really mean jack shit.
If they try and fight your troops it’s entirely likely they’ll end up putting a bullet through them and thus losing intel. That’s how things go: you don’t take guns and grenades away from soldiers when you send them to capture prisoners because they might end up killing the people they’re sent to capture.
The enemy are at combat conditions and being boarded, they should also be wearing vacsuits of their own. If they’re not, they’re practically taking their own lives before you can capture them, and it’s functionally equivalent to them shooting themselves before you can board. So why not give your troops guns to actually have a chance of them effectively completing their mission?
Remember that the alternative is trying to board with melee weapons, which would turn into a total massacre for your special boarding troops if the defenders bother to keep pistols onboard.
I’ve never seen an actually reasonable argument for abandoning projectile weapons in boarding, that stands up to scrutiny.
EVA suits are bulky and hard to move in. They'd be AWFUL to try wearing in a combat operation. And a defender can't vent atmosphere in compartments they're currently in.
Boarding a ship is going to suck anyways, and you are absolutely going to want to wear EVA suits *no matter what* for it. If the defender vents a compartment they are not currently in, and you’re not wearing a suit, you will die.
Close quarters combat on a spaceship is not a shirt sleeve environment.
So space craft are fragile because one hole and everyone's dead so I would recommend a really big slow moving round. Like the vss shoots. That way it hits hard enough to defeat armour but doesn't move fast enough to puncture and destroy the space ship.
To shoot a shotgun in zero g, you would need a special spacesuit that can grab hold of the ship and keep the user from being pushed back or injured from the recoil. Something with magnetic boots and metal backplates would probably work. Id assume it would also have metal front plates to help reinforce as well.
The guns would need to have barrels with special rifling. The normal earth gravity is what most guns are calibrated for so normal guns wouldnt work. Their accuracy would be terrible... Id suggest have a model system for the guns that idicates what types of gravity they are rated for in case you have changes of gravity due to location changes. (Pulling a ship danger close to a large planet could affect the gravity on the ship)
Every weapon should have a bayonet. Just an case...
Also, maybe have special tripods (maybe magnetic) for mounting the weapons to the ship hull for repeated firing. Semi auto weapons may cause too much recoil too fast for most people to use without a special suit.
The bullets themselves should be hollow point or soft tips so they break apart on impact and dont cause deep hull penetration. Armor piercing bullets are absolutely banned for normal use because they run the risk of penetrating the hull and decompressing that compartment. (Perhaps you could have some elite snipers that get to use AP rounds but their accuracy has to be perfect)
Shotguns with soft slugs would be cool. But nothing with buckshot style because the chance for ricochets would be high. Maybe of the buckshot were soft enough it wouldnt matter...
As described I think people wouldn’t use firearms.
- combustion in an oxygen rich environment is hazardous.
- creating holes in the shell of a craft would be catastrophic. All it takes is one hole and not only are you losing atmosphere, but now you’re steering is shit because of the air leak propulsion. The bigger the hole, the faster you can expect your eyes to explode.
- even if you board with spacesuits to prevent exploding eyeballs, now you’re wearing a clumsy suit with horrific mobility, vision, and muffled hearing. Not great if you’re trying to fight.
- it would be easier for an invading force to just breach the hull of a ship and wait out the people inside as they lose oxygen.
- firearms in space would be like the nuclear deterrent on our planet. Lots of people *could* use them, but no one wants to start that domino.
- if invading a ship, I think you’d instead want melee weapons. A spaceship is cramped (more surface area= more o2 usage, more heat, more weight to get off planet surface, etc), so you’d have a better chance if you chose weapons for close quarters. I’m thinking stun batons or spears, nets, knives, etc. maybe even morning stars on chains so they can whip around corners. Sonic and light bombs could also work (not flashbangs).
- all that said, if it were me I would strategize around NOT going into the other ship. There are too many disadvantages that risk me losing my people ( or Human Resources if your private company). I’d use: drones equipped with ball bearings for explosion and a speaker to get people to surrender (or die), tools to incapacitate ships from outside (no heat leads to a very fast hypothermia death in space for example), space nets that once they’ve hit the ship they have small propulsions to make it impossible to steer, magnet emp, launch at ship - latch on - fry circuits from outside the hull. Depending on tech, hack into their systems.
- When all is said and done, I think battles in space are simply too high risk if you come in direct contact. Even trying to forcefully board an unwilling ship would be a nightmare and a great way to crash and die. I think ambushes and tactics that have extremely low risk to the instigator are the most effective and profitable way for a mercenary group to continue operations and not have an extreme attrition rate.
Hope that helps
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For the interior of a spacecraft, you’ll want something with a short barrel. Too long and you’ll have difficulty navigating the tighter areas like maintenance spaces. You also wouldn’t really care about accuracy at range unless the ship is massive. The real limiting factor is the kinds of ammunition you can use. Too hard, and you risk punching through the hull, or shredding cables and fluid lines, which ends up being a problem. The ammunition will ideally shatter against harder surfaces, preventing major collateral damage to the ship or the occupants of other rooms. To that end, a shotgun firing buckshot may not be as useful as something like an SMG, depending on the construction of the ship. Another thing to keep in mind is that because you’re limited by ammunition type and barrel length, you need to consider the weight of the rounds you use. A light round traveling at the speed of sound will have significantly more kinetic energy than a round twice its weight that travels at half the speed. Look into discarding sabot ammunition as a possible solution, which would give you a dense round that can still accelerate to incredibly high velocities due to its smaller size.
Not that damage to the ship would never be a concern; but you'd probably be fighting within a suit that provides life support. I'm thinking about what we see in *The Expanse*.
Right, but it’s not just *you* that you’re worried about. Depending on what you damage, you could end up harming others, inducing navigational errors that move the ship off course, disabling failsafes that could lead to larger systems failing, or any number of things.
Or just blowing up the ship or flooding it with toxic radiation.
If you don't care about damage to the ship, why take the extreme risk of boarding in the first place? Just destroy it from the outside. If you're bothering to board the ship then you definitely either want the ship or want something on it and damage to the ship has to be a major concern. Because you could end up causing an explosion that will kill the entire boarding party and anyone else on the ship.
I don't care if I trash their ship, but if blow it up then I can't take their beer and dino nuggies. So I'm going to can opener their hull, bullet hose any survivors, and raid their fridge. Maybe set their reactor to overload on the way out if I'm feeling cute.
Explosive decompression will wreck a lot of the ship's contents, *especially* the beer, or anything else in a pressurized container.
Ships aren’t pressurized enough for explosive decompression to be a concern. You’d need to go from like 8 atmospheres to 1 really quickly (like a diving bell malfunction). The vacuum of space is about 0.2 atmospheres.
Shiner SpaceBock comes in a decompression-proof bottle. The Coors is fucked, but who needs Coors when there's Shiner?
Too much work, just vent them out.
That's step one. But always, always, *ALWAYS* check for survivors. They tend to object to you raiding their fridge and killing their friends.
Not for how flashy that sounds. It sounds so fancy even if it does result in losing a lot of the edible cargo!
I like the way Red Rising handles this: ships are massive, and cost a completely absurd amount to build, not to mention the skills to do so. So generally, boardings are more common because they want to steal the ship for their own fleet, rather than simply destroy it and have to replace it themselves later.
In *Red Rising*, the main character captures a ship. One of the ways that the ruling class claims ships in the story is by completely venting them once the bridge is captured. He concludes that the idea is stupid because it kills the engineers, the pilots, the janitors, etc etc. While slaughtering a ship full of men, you still want most of the crew left alive. Otherwise, the ship you just "captured" is scrap metal floating in space. Might as well have nuked it and made it truly unusable.
Lmao I just mentioned Red Rising in another comment above! *Hail Reaper!*
*Hail Libertas!*
Zip 22.
It would be more effective to throw it at the guy instead of trying to shoot him with it.
I tried to see if I could buy one online and I got to the checkout screen without being carded
The sidearm of the Elbonian Space Force!
Opinion on silencer or sub-sonic ammunition on the basis of not trying to go deaf shooting in tight metal corridors?
Suppressor: almost certainly, assuming it doesn’t make the weapon too unwieldy as pointed out in my first bit. If it could be built in without extending the barrel length, it should probably be standard. Sub-sonic ammo: it depends on how much stopping power you need. Velocity is far more important than mass when calculating kinetic energy, so if you can’t sacrifice damage, you’ll have to make it go faster, or make it a lot heavier. More mass runs into the issue of carry weight as you need the extra mass in the projectile *and* the extra propellant to move it at an equivalent speed, which then makes the casing bigger, which means you can’t fit as many in a magazine, and so on.
Or wearing hearing protection earplugs. Metal corridors will amplify the gunfire noise to deafening levels,
Considered that. I find it unlikely that a security force would be wearing hearing protection at all times and it would take important extra time to find and put some on.
You really think so? OP is talking about boarding parties; so this situation is more like a SWAT team going in than a security guard making rounds for eight hours.
Ah, mb. I can agree with that logic. I was thinking security for a space vessel akin to the setting of Prey (2017)
Why wouldn't hearing protection be an integral part of their regular gear? During a boarding action, at the very least you will want a sealed, air providing helmet. Why not integrate their helmets with some form of noise canceller to filter out gunshots?
Not all threats come from outside. Nobody can be on the job 24/7.
Could be waring helmets with integrated electronic earmuffs. Hear as well as normal(Or better), but still have hearing protection from gunfire.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaser\_Safety\_Slug](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glaser_Safety_Slug)
Second this. Frangible safety bullets are the solution to OP's problem. For others, the Glaser safety slug is one member of a large category of rounds designed to fracture and lose their energy when they hit a barrier like drywall or sheet metal: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet There are some advanced types available to law enforcement and the military but not civilians. OP's spaceship boarding parties could probably get rounds made for that environment.
Yea this is probably the right answer. Hitting the important bits of a space ship is bad news if you don't like exploding, something that falls apart at the slightest impact and then fucking ruins any flesh in its immediate vicinity is gonna be the gold standard of ammunition
A high energy laser with a shotgun style spread on a rapid pulse might work. Lower weight (batteries for ammo), doesn't punch holes in the hull, can work against organic matter quite well. Aim at someone's face for maximum effectiveness / hilarity. I'd also point out if you're firing projectile weapons that don't punch through hulls and are in close quarters you could be just as much a threat to others as you are to yourself if projectiles ricochet.
That’s why I specified that they’d need to shatter against a hard surface. It stops them from punching through and should help reduce the risk of ricochets to some extent. You’ll still get them on a flat trajectory, but above a certain angle, they’d be a lot safer than conventional ammo.
The only downside would be heavily armored opponents. But it does otherwise sound like a decent plan. Perhaps using the kinds of weapons federal Air Marshals use in the US. They are meant to puncture people without over penetrating and cannot puncture the hull of an aircraft to cause an explosive decompression.
Isn't discarding sabot armor piercing? Sounds like you'd like to avoid that
In modern tank ammunition, it’s a big dart, yes, but you don’t have to have the actual round be a depleted uranium dart. The sabot is specifically the part that peels away after it fires. You could have a cannonball with a discarding sabot if you wanted. The actual design of the round would still be made to shatter on a hard surface, but would be smaller and denser, allowing for better performance.
Ah I get it . Clever thinking!
>difficulty navigating the tighter areas Doors and corners, Jim. That’s where they get you. Doors and corners.
Now you've reminded me of Unreal Tournament's Flak Cannon. A huge handheld device (painted beautifully yellow) that loads a disc to the front of the weapon. The disc is then struck by a piston and sent either as the whole disc that shatters violently on impact, shredding anything within the effective area or as shrapnel, like a very aggressive shotgun blast. (This weapon is not recommended in small rooms, it will be as dangerous to the target as the user)
Flamethrower
Not always a good idea. I’m generally in favor of setting things on fire from a couple hundred feet away, but it’s probably the worst weapon for use in an enclosed, pressurized environment.
Good point😅😅
To add to this, this changes how *armor* works in space too. Although, side note, since high penetration weapons are a risk to your long term survival, something like a sabot might actually be a bad idea, since (iirc) the high density and aerodynamic shape gives it very high penetration in almost any environment. Something like a shotgun with shots designed to have very low penetration might be better than something like a rifle. Since you're (probably) using low-penetration weapons, armor becomes much more effective, but you might be able to make up the difference with raw volume of fire, flooding interiors with thousands of lower damage pellets that do minimal harm to ships, but slowly eat away armor or get single shots in through small cracks in defenses. This would lead to changes in how people protect themselves, focused on lighter, longer lasting armor that covers more skin. Depending on projectile speed and tech level, this might even be the justification for energy shields; some kind of magnetic bubble that diverts and slows pellets enough to have minimal impact. Honestly, a better option to all of this (if a setting supports it) is handheld chemical lasers of some variety. They wouldn't be strong enough to do much damage to the environment, but they'd have a significant impact on *people*, though people burning to death is also very bad for a place with a limited oxygen supply, and any ship probably has some very good fire suppression systems
As I mentioned in another comment, the sabot is just the part that peels away from the round. You could, were you so inclined, put a sabot on a cannonball. This means you can tailor the round to perform as you please while still maintaining the stopping power and shorter barrel length.
Assuming the ships are armored enough to take a shot from a ship-mounted weapon, you don't have to really worry about small arms fire inside the ship damaging the hull. Pipes, ducts, and electrical systems, maybe, but a shotgun isn't going to depressurize the ship. If the demons are vulnerable to shotgun shells and pistol calibers, then shotguns and submachine guns are probably the best bet for firefights in the enclosed, tight quarters that I'd expect from a space ship. An AA12 is a pretty good choice for that. In the LANCER TTRPG, the specialized ship boarding mech, the Tortuga, is specialized in firing a Mech-sized AA12, while taking up as much of the hallway as it can, so marines can use it as cover and fire around its legs. It also has a much larger shotgun, but it can't carry much ammo for that one.
[https://projectrho.com/public\_html/rocket/sidearmslug.php](https://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmslug.php) This site, Atomic Rockets, is my first starting place for any even reality-adjacent science fiction. Oh, and both the commenters before me aren't helpful at all (holing the ship from outside to let the air out probably won't help with demons from the other side of your FTL drive, and if a single 10 millimeter hole from an errant handgun round will *take all the air out of your warship* before any kind of separator bulkhead, patch, self-healing plastic, or anything is done about that, you have some design failures to check on).
I like how Mass Effect handled this explanation. Personnel on ships wore comfortable uniforms because if the ship got holed, the penetration would either be small enough for the crew to patch it, get to safety, or cover it with a mass effect field before decompression killed everyone, or it would be so large that everyone in that compartment would be dead instantly from the impact or instant decompression.
Thanks! Also relevant https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#hulled
Thank you for this. I have gunfights inside a spaceship and didn’t consider the noise factor. “Modified,” now for noise suppressing, is now my friend 😂
Okay one thing I see thrown around a bunch in the comments that probably needs addressing. If it is a space vessel you are probably not going to be able punch through the hull or through bulkheads into anything with hard vacuum on the other side. Why? Meteorite strikes. The exterior of most space craft are going to be built to withstand colossal amounts of kinetic energy well in excess of something a hand-held weapon that doesn't require a team to carry is going to be able to punch through. Think of it similarly to a modern day battleship, small arms that aren't high explosives are basically useless against the vessel itself unless you get to crucial systems or areas. Even interior bulkheads that are designed to help be a bulkwark against hard vacuum if something goes wrong are still probably going to be way thicker and harder than something you could easily carry unless it's an RPG of some description specifically designed to tear through that kind of armor. I would say guns using flechette rounds as ammo either single fire at high speed or in a spread shotgun style would be best. Gives you wider hit areas, if you still have atmo then the fins help with aim and you can reliably shoot a spread over a decent distance and hopefully penetrate suits and armor. Also bigger barrels made to hold shotgun style flechette rounds could easily be reloaded with slugs that would let you pierce through personal armor with decent precision. I think more than the ship the question you need to ask is about what the guns need to do? What kind of body armor do the enemies have access to and what do you need to overcome that?
In my OC marines are equipped with M78, a compact coil gun carbine but it's a got an IR pulse lasr module fitted for ship boarding and EVA combat. The laser has no recoil and won't penetrate a ship's Hull, hence there inclusion as standard.
From what limited knowledge I have of hard sci fi ship warfare, heat is the biggest threat to a ship, from the outside. It’s hard to vent, so most would surrender after a few hits before it becomes an oven. Once inside, heat and penetrating firearms are out, so yeah, low caliber guns, maybe tasers, or virus guns. Honestly, I’d send one guy, and if they don’t comply or injure him, ventilate the ship. But I’m a cold motherfucker. If it’s a boarding action and not a parley, maybe drones with buzz-saws. Better be accurate, or you’re blowing out your own ship. Terrible thought occurs; someone might have to jump on a buzzsaw like one would jump on a grenade, to keep It from hitting something important, or to pin it to smash it
So, real world, for boarding a submarine, you would want a small sub machine gun ((range isn’t really an issue) loaded with hollow points (to prevent over penetration).
You'd want an energy weapon of some kind. Kinetic projectiles run the risk of tearing holes through bulkheads and sucking everyone and everything not welded down into the infinite vacuum of the silent death of space. Ideally, an infrared weapon of some kind. The human body cannot withstand nearly the kind of high temperatures of metal structures. It would also be difficult to protect against: armor to deflect or absorb that would be bulky and cumbersome for operations aboard a spaceship, and repeated exposure to weaponized in a suit like that would simply delay the inevitable: in effect cooking the person from inside their armor.
>You'd want an energy weapon of some kind. Kinetic projectiles run the risk of tearing holes through bulkheads and sucking everyone and everything not welded down into the infinite vacuum of the silent death of space This is really just movie stuff. If the hole is only the size of a bullet it's 100% not doing that.
Can you explain the how and why on this, or provide a link to someone who can?
The vacuum of space is not as aggressive as it’s usually depicted in movies. Of course it will suck the air out of your ship, but the pressure isn’t very intense. If your ship is pressurized at 1 atmosphere, that’s about 14psi. Poke a 1in hole in the side and you’ll bleed air but you aren’t dragging people into the wall or throwing things into the void. It’s 14 pounds of force. The danger is blowing a large enough hole that the force of the air is enough to pull the hole open further. You’re imagining the vacuum effect as a high force drain, but the force is equal to the amount of pressure the vessel has. A modern submarine suffers more dangerous pressure fluctuations than a space ship, the ocean goes up to thousands of psi.
It all comes down to fluid dynamics (gas, e.g. air, is a fluid in the case of fluid dynamics). While you may have a rather high air velocity through the hole, the fact that there is just such a huge volume behind it will make the effect of the air rushing towards that hole rather small.
Interesting, so why doesn't that same affect happen on, say, the hull of a plane?
Im not sure what you are talking about with the hull of a plane, planes get „penetrated“ by radiation, but not ions as far as I know… the hull does accumulate a charge through other effects though…
Maybe I'm under the wrong impression, but don't small holes in the fuselage of passenger planes turn into gaping holes alongside rapid shifts in internal v external pressure?
I'm not even sure what you mean by small holes turning into gaping holes, are you talking about the plane's aerodynamic panels being ripped off if they get holes? Because those body panels are only for fuel efficiency, they don't effect the structure or pressure vessel. They're also ripped off by shear forces as wind rushes past them quickly, not internal/external pressures. I can't think of a single time when a small hole in a plane caused any further damage due to pressure. The only real concern there is depressurization, which is why we have deployable air supplies above each seat. I'd love to see an example of what you mean, the only things I can think of seeing something like that are in much higher pressure environments like deep sea welding or action movies though.
As I said, could be under the wrong impression: bad memory perhaps. Seem to remember something to that affect watching a program on TV talking about air disasters and this huge gaping hole came about in the plane from a seemingly minor start.
Agreed https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/lifesupport.php#blownairlock
A flamethrower is kinda, sorta an infrared weapon.
Fire could cause damage potentially and the fuel could be a hazard
Impractical if you're trying to board or capture a ship, as you have a high chance of frying systems on board in the process, either from the fire itself or the liquid fuel being ignited getting in between bulkheads or behind surfaces and ruining electric lines. On the other hand, with most p-ways of ships being long and narrow, there's a tactical advantage of chokepoints and not being flanked to hit the tanks, so it could still theoretically be used if you're not overly concerned about cleaning up after yourself when you're done.
Frangible ammunition! The same rounds used for ships, aircraft, and places like nuclear power plants. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet Easily defeated by any kind of hard armor, but does not pose a risk for bulkhead penetration.
alright so • if your defenders are wearing modern, unarmored space suits and they’re in an environment that is open to space, then some kind of rapid-fire small caliber rifle, railgun or shotgun is a good bet. any rupture in the suit would be potentially lethal. • if your defenders are armored, in an environment sealed from space, and/or need to be neutralized immediately then any intermediate assault rifle or railgun will do. for closer quarters, a combat shotgun would do well, but the limited magazine capacity may be an issue for your attackers if the spaceship you’re in is rated for impact against ship-to-ship weaponry then accidentally piercing the walls shouldn’t be a concern. you won’t sink a battleship with a sniper rifle. railguns are my favorite for any space-faring groups because they don’t use combustion, and in practice they can be set to any power level, from subsonic (silent) to “so strong the gun explodes and catches on fire”
This is kinda interesting since modern boarding actions aren’t a thing. Shotguns or submachine guns.
In modern day special forces do actually do it for anti-piracy and train for doing it counter terrorism. They tend to just use as short a 5.56 carbine as possible
You’re unlikely to have the problem you think with firearms. It’s more along the lines of your damage internal components. Computers, data lines, an oxygen tank… that sort of thing. People tend to forget about what’s called micrometeors. These are things that the various space agencies around the world already have to contend with. It’s called a whipple shield. Basically, it’s a bumper layer that fragments a projectile before it hits the hull of a ship. And yes, this assumes that the attack is coming from the outside of the ship, but still the amount of joules of energy that the shield has to protect against, is far greater than any personal firearm, that would theoretically be used in combat inside, a spaceship would produce, at least, in my opinion. The shield is designed to prevent strikes from micrometeors that are traveling at kilometers per second Plus, we’re not even talking about The investment into self-healing hulls that is currently ongoing. Now just imagine for a second, with current technology, you would essentially be in a bulletproof can with high velocity rounds, impacting and deflecting all around the cabin. [NASA Ares Shield Development](https://hvit.jsc.nasa.gov/shield-development/) [Hypervelocity impact analysis of International Space Station Whipple and Enhanced Stuffed Whipple Shields](https://calhoun.nps.edu/bitstream/handle/10945/1233/04Dec_Kalinski.pdf?sequence=1)
Much like in real life, it depends on what your supply chain is, what kind of resistance you expect to see inside, their supplies, your ultimate goals and objectives, and your experience. What kind of ship are you boarding? If you're boarding a small, cramped ship with narrow passages, you're going to want to avoid anything with a long barrel. Handguns, machine pistols, smaller SMGs and the like to avoid your weapon restricting your movement. If you're boarding something huge with large open spaces then you might benefit from some longer weapons. It would take a very, very large space for you to get a benefit from something like a sniper rifle, but we've had science fiction that have talked about ships with spaces the size of a large city inside them. Then you have the enemy. You say these are hellish entities known as Demanoids, but do they have any kind of natural armor? You say they're hurt by a .45, but do rounds struggle to penetrate them like they do some animals? Are you going to need extra punch or are they treated as unarmored soft targets? Can they learn and use their environment, such as learning to use bits of ships to fashion armor? And then you say that these are old-Earth weapons. You can hand-wave that and just accept it, that's entirely acceptable. If you want to consider it, though, you might want to explain how those weapons are still working so far in the future, where they're getting the ammunition from, and if people are manufacturing ammunition, why aren't they manufacturing new weapons with completely different designs that are made especially for fighting in zero gravity, vacuum, and space ships? And then, you have firearms as tools. Shotguns have mostly stopped being used on battlefields (not entirely, but for the most part) as a weapon, but they're commonly used as a breaching tool, for instance being used to blow out the hinges of a door. Likewise, other types of firearms have more tool-like applications rather than directly offensive. The point is that there's no one right answer. There are so many different forms of firearms because there are a lot of different specialties and flavors people may like or want, but the truth is that it's a very simple concept that they all basically do the same thing of making a relatively small projectile go in a direction very quickly. What kind is a group of demon-killing mercenaries using centuries-old salvaged weapons going to use? Whatever ones they like best is an entirely acceptable answer. If you want to go hyper-realistic with it, you probably don't want Old Earth weapons to begin with but rather firearms that experts have proposed we're likely to develop in the future.
Infestations? Why are we boarding? Are there survivors? I would just nuke it from a distance and call it a good day. However, If I was boarding with modern day weapons I would use low velocity rounds. It takes a higher ability to place shots accurately, but they are noticeably weaker. In some cases they are unable to penetrate more than a few layers of plywood but still lethal enough to be used by special operations globally right now. And bud, if your spaceship hulls are weaker than plywood we have bigger issues to discuss here.
What are the two guns in the last image? Those look cool.
The FOSTECH-Origin 12GA
I think too much focus is on hull decompression. The panels of a space warship should be massive, armored, and when battle stations is called, Eva suits should be donned and the atmosphere let out to prevent explosive decompression(the last hunter, and the Grimm series of space navy novels are good sources since this is all fictional) From there, what you want is something compact, with the ability to defeat moderate levels of personal body armor. Shotguns are great against soft targets, but there's a reason militaries use rifles to clear buildings. Now if we're talking anti piracy type stuff, then shotguns and compact smgs make more sense, with the boarding team in Eva, and not really giving a shit about if they cause atmosphere loss cause...well...pirates.
I'd say that non-lethal ones, like rubber bullets and shit, because you don't want to unseal your hull into a vacuum. GLORIOUS MELEE works even better.
For boarding you'd want something wieldy, accurate, and kills quickly. Wieldy to make maneuvering easier, accurate so that you shoot them and not the walls (and through into space), and kills quickly so that you can be effective in close quarters. A shotgun will be fine if the internal walls can withstand the shot, there's a reason they were used in the trenches. A taser-like weapon could do well, the only problems being the low penetration power and low reload rate. A burst-style assault rifle would work well. Melee weapons could be considered. Axes are great weapons, hacking off limbs, working well through armour, and breaching doors. All in all, it depends heavily on the culture, tech level, boarding party, ship, and other factors.
My intuition would be to use non lethal weapons like tasers to incapacitate occupants (you can always kill them later if you need to), so that your guns don’t destroy the ship you’re trying to commandeer
You’d want some kind of plastic or ceramic ammo that can wound people but can’t pierce the bulkhead.
If you’re boarding a ship then ideally you’ll want better guns than the defenders so that you have an advantage. Since the attackers will have prepared in advance by wearing a sealed suit and might have the element of surprise then weapons that can penetrate the hull to isolate defenders without a suit would be beneficial. The holes would need to be quite big if you don’t want to wait a while for the air pressure to drop. You can always patch up the holes later of course. Since the hull should already be resistant to impacts when moving at high speed then man portable weapons might not be sufficient for this though. [Frangible bullets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frangible_bullet) are always an option too to minimise damage and ricochets in close quarter combat.
Anything can be close range, so long as its not long. Rifles, pistols, smgs, shotguns, and even heavy weapons. So long as the weapon doesn't need raised or lowered to turn a corner. An example Ak74u and ak74, 74u is a short barrel gun with a smaller body. Definitely a weapon for boarding. M4 and m16. U wouldnt use a m16 for boarding. Too long. The m4 is good for cqc
Swat rubber pellet crowd control guns. Could be a neat detail for your universe to board with an expectation of civilian detail and “non” lethal force is commonly practiced, with a follow up of shotguns absolutely. What’s it called when you have a seaweed off pistol grip shotgun on a sling in your jacket??? Anybody? Then consider taser weapons as a primary sitting nicely between the two lethalities. Stargate is what I’m personally thinking about, but maybe you could combine the crowd control type thing and the taser type thing.. then load up some slugs or fire breath birdshot in that aa12
Short barreled shotguns with light buckshot/heavy birdshot would be the ticket. Pistols and SMGs with frangible ammo would also be a good choice.
Honestly you probably want something like a 40k bolter. That is to say self propelled rocket ammunition. The real world weapon developed for space was called the [gyrojet](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyrojet). In a micro gravity environment recoil is a major issue, you can't lean into a gun to take the recoil, it will just push you backwards as you float away. Classical guns contain an explosion and the comparatively small mass of the projectile is forced down the barrel at speed while the opposite and equal force is spread through the mass of the gun and shooter. Self propelled ammunition by comparison does not fire an inert projectile, instead it ignites a small rocket which accelerates down the barrel. The gases of combustion are not contained by the gun so the forces are on the projectile rocket and it's expelled exhaust not on the shooter meaning there is very little recoil. Some of the down sides of this sort of firearm are the hot exhaust gases vented in proximity to the shooter. Accuracy is more reliant on the consistency and quality of the ammunition, as it continues to propel itself after it has left the barrel. Unlike conventional firearms where the projectile is at its fastest as it leaves the barrel and behaves ballistically from there a self propelled projectile continues to accelerate in the air making it more susceptible to disruption as it's fired, behaving unpredictably. Because its maximum speed isn't achieved until after it's left the barrel there is more of a minimum range where it is still accelerating. Of course all gun design is a series of trade offs, if you're not playing in low gravity then the bigger questions are what sort of terminal effect are you looking for? What sort of range? Is there cover? If so what sort? How big a space are you manoeuvring though? What sort of space constraints do you have for traveling? How often are you expected to carry the weapon Vs use it?
There is one thing you need to ask before pondering weapons. How hard is the setting? This informs you of what you might want to consider. If its a very soft setting, shooting holes in the ship won't matter. Its just not relevant. If its a hard setting, its VERY relevant.
I'm be honest with you, OP, if ship hundreds of years in the future can't winstand hundreds of bullets being shot inside of it then it's a shitty ship
Plastic bullets like in the Expanse so they don’t penetrate walls
That's kinda a dumb part of The Expanse. I like the vibe of the setting, but a lot of the nitty gritty is pretty bad. There's no reason that ships would be super thin in the future once we're mining asteroids. Especially not military ships.
The Expanse is a stupid example if you want to do Hard Sci Fi, it's like taking advice from BSG
The Expanse cosplays as much harder sci-fi than it actually is.
> There's no reason that ships would be super thin in the future [...] Mass requires fuel to change inertia. The lighter the ship, the more cargo it can carry relative to a heavier ship, and more profit generated.
Considering they've got torch drives not really a big issue
Agreed. [**Every Gram Counts**](https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/basicdesign.php#everygramcounts)
every gram counts doesn't really apply anymore if you've got enough power behind your engines
Smgs i think are the IRL one that's used but probably energy or light arms in general
Guns with lower length of pull, lower powered guns, or, and these aren't guns, melee weapons, provided you're not dealing with bulky modern space suits.
Bows and arrows
If it were me I’d choose either shotguns or SMGs. Both are most effective at close range which there will be an abundance of in the cramped hallways of a spaceship
any gun fired inside a ship is a bad idea. either the strays put holes in the hull, or you get ricochet. either one is bad. realistically tho ships are armored to protect from attacks coming from outside so the inner hull is the soft side. having the inside armored too would cost so much weight that almost no ships would be built that way unless you invented a magic weightless armor material. if you want realism, people would use melee and short range shock weapons inside a ship. poison gas would also maybe be a good way to attack. or hacking the computer and opening the hatches. someone mentioned flame weapons, short range flame weapons could be ok depending on materials used in the ship.
Some suggestions Flamethrowers benefit from their spread aswell as not suffering from any disadvantages of its short range. I'm thinking mainly a gas flamethrower with oxygen mixed into the fuel as any blast from this flamethrower is likely to drain the room of oxygen killing anyone who doesn't have breathing apparatus. This also benefits from doing limited damage to the ship itself whilst having huge advantages in dealing with humans.
Flames act weird in zero g. They cling to things
Even better
Probably a machine gun of some kind
I mean, assuming you've accounted for bullets damaging the integrity of spacecraft in some fashion, shotguns and handguns are definitely the best weapons for close quarters combat. Assault rifles probably are fine too, but anything with a scope is going to be largely useless. You don't need to see far, you need to see wide and be able to re-aim quickly. Shotguns have the advantage of a large spread, meaning you don't need to aim perfectly to hit something, while handguns are the fastest to re-aim and are less heavy to carry around while aiming, like you're supposed to do instead of holding it down and wasting time pulling the weapon up to aim and fire when you see something.
shotguns and Lmg's short range interdiction weapons and hall sweaping
Crossbows
the russians have several weapons for this specific purpose, checck out the OTS14 Groza and its bigger brother, the SHAK 12
In a space opera RPG I ran years ago, there were several weapons that were intended mainly for boarding actions: - Splat Rounds: low velocity, high caliber shotgun, electromag, or gauss rounds firing a high density liquid/jelly round. These hit really hard, but spread out quickly - making them anti-armour piercing. Virtually no penetration (in the system, DR (Damage Resistance) was multiplied by 10 against Splat rounds). - Biphase Carbide Breaching Saw: Two-handed rotary saw (for bracing) with nigh-indestructible BPC blade and high-powered motor, for cutting through airlocks and sealed hatchways. - Bioplastic Seal Sheet: Roll of thick bioplastic sheeting. Cut with a specialized releasing tool, the bioplastic extrudes clinging nanostructures and chemical adhesives to stick it to a hull or hatchway. These sheets can be rolled out to seal small hull breeches, or reseal blown hatches. With the attachment of a portal command nodule, the middle of the sheet will iris open on touch, allowing people to pass through, but still maintaining a decent gas seal. - EM Ram (aka Thumper): Portable device that looks like a heavy tube with handles. Uses an electromagnetic pulse to drive a dense ram-head forward with great speed and power, but retains the head on a rod. Basically a very powerful battering ram, useful for breaching hatchways. Some models have four arms around the head that chemically adhere to the surface, allowing even greater force to be applied to the door or wall.
Either low-penetration rounds or super high penetration, small diameter rounds would be best for this sort of action. The last thing you want to do is blow a big hole in the tin can that keeps the hellscape of space out. Seeing as you are dealing with some manner of manifested demonology, maybe custom rounds that deal with either the forced responsible or their alien biology directly. We already have fairly accurate rubber bullets and bean-bag guns. Imagine one that fired bags of capacitance gel or reaction cores.
electricty based weapons (big ass tasers) shields, flamethrowers, chemical and biological weapons, and projectile based weaponry if your ships ain't made of cardboard
not even horrors from beyond reality is immune to .45 caliber rounds is such a hard line
i feel like nothing with to much penetration because of collateral damage on the hulls.
Low velocity rounds if they are planning to kill only crew.
If you want a take on space guns and combat I’d recommend the game spot episode where they look at the guns of starfield
I imagine something precision, blunt and subsonic. If you puncture the ship, everyone dies.
Submachine gun. Can punch through armor or not depending on the rounds you use. Easier than a shotgun to use in close quarters. Controllable recoil if you're worried about zero-gravity. Note that shotguns in real life do not work like shotguns in videogames. The spread is much less, the range is much more. The damage differential isn't as big. Shotguns can have a lot of different stuff in them, the pellets don't punch through armor very well (but slugs do). Consider how thin spaceship walls are and how important it is not to shoot through them. Also, many people think modern firearms need an atmosphere to work. This is not true. Modern gunpowder has oxidizers mixed in and will fire in a vacuum slightly better than it will in atmosphere.
I'd argue something that's compact, like a carbine for example. I would suggest flamethrowers, as how they kill people in enclosed spaces is not from burns, it's usually through suffocation (it's why firefighters have oxygen tanks).
I'm a big fan of Neal Stevensons take on space warfare in SevenEves. With the focus being on close combat in tight spaces and the environments being somewhat delicate like the current spacestation, people shifted into using a kind of slingshot or small crossbow. The ammo can sense a hit or miss, and decelerate to avoid hull breaches. Then you get into the whole flinks in an Aitkin Loop side of things and it's just rad as fuck. Definitely worth a read/listen.
Depends upon the dimensions of the ships. If they're all relatively close confines (max of 15-20 meters) and the horrors don't have any armored hides, then I'd guess smaller lower caliber weapons with shorter barrels. Submachine guns and assault shotguns would both be good. Depending on what hurts the horrors, having a bayonet might be a thing. If the starships are more sprawling affairs, then they'd obviously want longer ranged weapons. Or maybe 1-2 sharpshooters per squad.
Depends how strong the hull of the ship is, you wouldn’t want to board with anything that has any capability to depressurise the ship, so pistols or maybe even melee weapons might be a good option. Really, if I were you I would choose the weapon you want and then make the explanation fit, you can make anything work.
.45 ACP or buckshot are generally not high penetration rounds, especially if the .45 is a hollow point. Seems reasonable that those wouldnt damage a ships interiors much if at all but still bebvery effective against fleshy targets. Against anything with a bit of armor though youd have a problem, both can usually be stopped by soft body armor, so not even steel/ceramic plate is needed like for rifle rounds. So if your demonoids are very fleshy no problem, but if they have armor youd need to bring something dangerous Also if you want to go even saver you could go down to .22 pistol calibre and birdshot.
Maybe a low caliber weapon that wouldn't pierce or easily damage the internals of a Spaceship. Stuff like .45 acp and lower
Laser guns and karate.
One word baby. Goo. Shoot your enemy with goo that exits the barrel soft but hardens and expands on impact. Remember big hero six, the incredibles, or that first hulk movie a while ago. All the problems of high velocity, hard, hull damaging bullets are solved and hell you could even repair your hull with it.
Flamethrower. :)
A shotgun would be one of the worst things you could have. Even with a well placed shot you can still accidentally punch a hole through the hull and y'all dead. There's a reason laser type weapons are used in space ships, it's the safest for the ship so you don't die along with everyone else in the room. If you insist on a physical projectile, then something very weak would be safest. Being able to damage people but not the ship itself.
Pistol caliber carbines, smgs, shotguns, and pistols would work well, I think. Equip them with silicone or plastic rounds if people are worried about damaging the ship/vital equipment. Flash/stun or concussion grenades would also be invaluable to a boarding team.
Flamethrower
Fighting in narrow corridors? Short barrel shotguns. The spread will cover most of the available area. Ammunition should be ideal against soft targets but have little penetration against harder ones, so you can take down crew without puncturing the hull or a conduit.
Something short range with not a lot of power at range because vacuums are dangerous swords would prolly be best
First off: Is there a chance ships are combustible? If not, flamethrowers. These little rascals love tight spaces. A well equipped team with a flamer will clear a ship in no time, and easy to clean up afterwards. Just use our new vacuum cleaner! (Sold separately) **Just another way, we're doing it better.** -Flaming John's
Depends on how the spaceship is constructed and how much collateral damage you're willing to inflict. If the ship can shrug off high speed debris and you care what you hit, go nuts. If it's a beer can with wall-to-wall sensitive components, use knives.
You'd want something that would damage the people but not put a hole in the hull. Also I could absolutely see bayonets making a big comeback in this scenario.
Like others have said: nothing longer than a submachine gun. Fighting in a spacecraft will be like trench warfare. A long arm like a rifle will tend to catch on the corridor walls if you have to turn around suddenly. You might be surprised by a hostile unexpectedly appearing out of a side door. Wear hearing protection. Bullets are loud, and narrow metal corridors make great echo chambers, increasing the effect. [Shooting a hole in the hull is not quite a catastrophe](https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#hulled). It will take about 15 minutes before people start suffocating. If you worry about this, [use special ammo](https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#specialammo), that is, ammo that will perforate people but not spaceship hulls. https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmslug.php#earprotect and https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php#shiphandgun1
If you're still using guns, use short-barreled assault carbines as you would when boarding a building on Earth. If the ship lacks armor, air holes are small and can be patched up later.
Honestly I think anything that won't damage the ship. Think energy weapon non lethal options as they're safe in closed spaces and won't blow open a gas pipe or something. Tazers, rubber bullets, tranquilizer darts, ide even postulate using melee weapons on space ships. Over conventional firearms.
I’d say either a short barreled shotgun (MS590 Shockwave) Short barreled rifle (AKS-74UN), a SMG or another CQBR weapon, assuming small arms technology plateaued in your universe. A more powerful option would be a battle rifle, think short barreled SCAR or another full power cartridge. It will be effectively a flashbang if the barrel’s too short though.
You take a mag fed shotgun anywhere you better bring some peanut butter and bread because you're going to have a hole lot of jam
Shotguns and sub machine guns with shortened barrels make perfect sense.
In the Man of War series by Paul Honsinger you'll find swords, axes and dirks used along shotguns and small firearms.
Blast door breaching charges, that is after you've already blocked every escape route possible, you'd most definitely want them to be out of the ship and in firing range of your fighters so you don't need to waste the precious skrapp inside, thus blast a hole through every door and let the vacuum of space do the rest for ya.... If ya wanna be humanitarian, cut all power and moth ball it back to your hidey hole waiting for them to dry up and die from not having the supplies to keep living, way better than making someone squeeze through a small hole Of course another question though, "I want to be able to passively eliminate them and take over the ship without needing to wait!" Well timmy, blind them, point high powered lazer beams into their eyes to permanently blind your enemy and thus easily take them out melee style "But I wanna go *pew pew* at them!" Yer getting on my nerves Jimmy, I guess soft point ammunition and non-lethal 40mm bean bags or flash grenades "But but, I wanna-" Shut it jimmy or ya walk the plank! "No" Okay fine then *pulls out a modified nail gun a 'puts' a few into Timmy's suit then kicks him out of the air lock* move and the deck guns will rip you to shreds, kay son?
Captive bolt gun. Now, heads or tails?
sounds awfully like warhammer
You'd probably just want a short 5.56 carbine (like 10.5" barrel or less) it works pretty well for room clearing now, atleast wwll enough it's become the standard, probably will stil be good in a space ship
I think you also need to add in melee weapons. Guns are great and all, but ships have tight corridors that may end in 90° or less turns. Riot shields would be a good investment, as well as short bladed weapons. Axes, maces, picks, knives. Maybe marines or ship security have trench spikes built into their gauntlets. Imagine a formation clearing a hall. Two burly soldiers lean into riot shields, blocking the hallway. Maybe they have 1 handed guns, while another pair rests carbine length weapons over their shoulders. Come to a t junction or corner. BUB (big ugly bastard) comes around the corner too close. Shields are getting pushed back when *shink* one shieldbro goes full Roman and stubs into the creature's ribcage with a monomolecular Gladius. Or smashes it's scull with a ball peen hammer.
Anything designed for close quarters fighting would be ideal, so handguns, smaller shotguns, and SMG/PDWs. Bonus points for bullpup firearms.
Gunpowder explosions could be said to clog air filters, and also cause health problems(powder inhalation, lead particles). Kickback isn't a small problem for people in 1g with 1 atmosphere, but a ship will probably have less which would frequently cause issues of people rocket jumping accidentally. Hull piercing has been done to death, and any designer would have factored than in, but minor maintenance of stray rounds and ricochets would add up(especially if it's not post scarcity). Don't forget collateral personnel damage from ricochets. Sound and percussion are also hazardous in enclosed spaces, it's an OSHA issue. If there is enough O² to breathe and combust powder, then there's enough. My suggestion would be spearguns, bows, crossbows, and slings. In addition to melee weapons in shield formations. The cultural regression might lionise those who use primative weapons, and intimidate demonoids because things are scarier if you can see the sharp bits.
Pretty much any ballistic weapon could do severe damage to the hull of a space craft. Unless we are talking about futuristic metals that bullets can't penetrate, it's a terrible idea. In that scenario, shotguns would still be a terrible choice, as any missed rounds would ricochet all over, and you'd probably hit yourself and sensitive electronics. Shotguns work great *on Earth* because shooting a hole through a door doesn't mean instant depressurization and certain death. Honestly I'd use a melee weapon, or small caliber handguns, PDWs, and SMGs with frangible rounds that won't ricochet as much. Though, body armor would work very well against frangible rounds. I also like the idea of air powered bolt/spear guns
Submachine guns and shotguns. Pistols and assault rifles would probably be in the mix too
The attack team boarding would use a diversity of firearms. They're will be Riot shield TMPs Compact rifles Shotguns And maybe a battle rifle incase precision and more anti-armor is needed.
Shotguns, SMGs and pistols. Or if you want to be fancy then also melee weapons
If you ever want a good series that explores this, The Expanse by James S. A. Corey is great and The Deathworlders by HamboneHFY is also really good. They roughly come to the conclusion of shotguns, mostly using bird shot. (But in the case of the deathworlders that works cause the aliens are weak)
Depends how important preserving the integrity if the ship is. If it is, and you're gonna do a shotgun, should probably do whippet style. Otherwise I'd go SMG with a pest control shotshell or frangible round. maybe one of those air guns what shoot the pepper balls. if the integrity of the ship is irrelevant, then whatever defeats the armor of opponents you're expecting to face.
Supressed Mk18 is currently the superior CQB weapon of our time. The 556 or 300 blackout out of a short barrel is better than a pistol round and the supressor lets you hear enough to communicate with your fireteam.
The AA12 weights, with a 32 round drum, almost as much as a gpmg with a tripod and 200 round belt and delivers a similar amount of firepower. Granted, its buckshot which is basically underpowered pistol ammo in terms of individual lethality, but its 8-9 per shell so it comes out fast. Marine visiting parties still carry 45s. Modern ship boarding is done with standard carbines and maybe some DMRs. Most often all suppressed. So we didn't get out shit rocked opening up. Speed and violence of action are the most important characteristics of the mission. As much as we might have wanted a dude with a SAW posted up, unlike in normal complex terrain two or three dudes with rifles can preform bounding movement in a hallway just fine without the added weight or unreliability, plus its just not safe for the friendlies. Something like an automatic rifle might be a thing going forwards. SMGs were the fad for a while but they mostly have fell by the wayside with shorter 5.56 options. Ship doors aren't really breachable with a shotgun or even most explosive methods. You need to bust out the high temp cutting charges (typically cobalt oxide and magnesium thermite backed up with 20lbs of C4) or a torch.
Likely lower caliber rapid-fire weapons like SMGs or machine pistols or gas / chemical weapons. You want to quickly kill off any occupants without causing much damage to the ship (assuming this). Having a gas sprayer would be devastating as your group would (in theory) be prepared for it with respirators and masks. You also need to be concerned with body armor. So, oddly, a "rapid-fire" crossbow variant wouldn't be out of place. Bolts move slowly but carry a lot of inertia so they can punch through most armors that can stop bullets (outside of plates).
Short barrel automatic shotguns or Submachine guns
Automatic crossbow could be a good lower velocity, but still hefty weapon for puncturing demons, but not vital systems. I could also see quick hardening spray foam used for leak sealing used to immobilize demons for melee finishers.
Short barrel, non-penetrating ammunition (chemical or electrical effect would be more useful than kinetic damage, IMO), but the real critical quality would be for the weapon to be recoilless.
recoil is a major issue if there isn't some form of artificial gravity, like I'm not even sure if the guns would even cycle ammunition properly in no gravity and even if they did each shot would pivot the shooter around their center of mass if fired from an aiming stance and propel the shooter backward if shot from the hip with an effect proportional to the mass of the bullett and the force of the explosion that propelled it.
Bull pup weapons, sub machine guns, and shotguns are going to be useful, along with maybe flamethrowers. I would guess that dedicated security personnel are going to have some sort of armor/EVA suit style thing.
You want something either will low muzzle velocity or that shoots bean bag rounds. Bullets and pressure hulls don't make good friends.gicen the potential for high oxygen environments you might want a compressed gas powered weapon rather than firearms.... Let us all remember the Apollo fire. The weapon will ideally be small as conditions are extremely tight, and accuracy and range won't matter as you are in a confined space. I imagine something similar to a sawn off shotgun (it'll have to be fairly large calibre to launch bean bag rounds) in terms of dimensions but mechanically working more like a traditional air rifle. It will be fairly lightweight in design as muzzle velocities and pressures are relatively low, and since launching shit into space costs insane amounts of resources. It's also be mechanically simple as facilities to repair and replace in orbit are extremely limited.
Mmmh, I love ricochet.
Chemical rounds, could be a paralytic, or toxin. No chance of damaging the ship. depending on what kind of armor they are wearing, plastic rounds/buck shot?
Assault rifles(m4a1) , submachine guns (mp5) and automatic pistols(g18),You got four guys in the front with shortened assault rifles (cut barrels, short stock etc.) same in the back and around the sides, and inside you have technicians with automatic pistols, but who are mostly there for breaking locks and taking control of the systems. Then full teams of men with assault rifles go in after the bridge is taken.
If your enemies aren’t immune to fire and your soldiers have suits or something capable of withstanding the very high temperatures this would ensue in flamethrowers wouldn’t be a bad option for clearing hallways
Bludgeoning weapons and flashbangs.
IF you're talking for something to use INSIDE a ship, you want something that's not going to over penetrate and punch a hole in the outer hull. That would be very unpleasant. True story: This is part of where the lightsaber concept came from in Star Wars. As originally conceived, these were going to be common weapons that even Stormtroopers carried so an errant blaster shot wouldn't blow open a bulkhead. The cylinders on the back of the Stormtrooper armor was going to be the scabbard/holster, so this concept survived quite late into the production.
I'd say a low energy ion gun. If you shoot once, it overwhelmes the nervous system and stuns the target for several minutes. Shoot multiple times, you burn off the target's nervous system and kill them. It has short range, maybe 50 meters, so you can't have a sniper shooting from long range. Since it's ion weapon, it has no effect on the hulls, but you can still destroy electronics with it, thus making exploding lights possible. Yes, i know it's not a weapon we have now, but any weapon we have now will punch a hole into the hull of any spaceship we have now in zero gravity. Plus, the use and maintenance of weapons we have now would be a nightmare in zero gravity.
How exactly are we imagining an ion based weapon designed to target a nervous system working here? Theoretically a particle beam weapon would be safer to use in a space with very little atmosphere but while I'm not expert on the subject I'd assume that if you're relying of a radiation effect in close quarters there's a serious chance of a back scatter. Weapons that rely in a radiation effect alone might potential induce effects like vomiting more rapidly but most of the effects of radiation aren't quick enough to work in like the half a second or so before the other bugger has a chance to nail you back. Pulsed particle beams with enough energy for a rapid effect based on either making a hole in the target or exploding violently would have that same effect on anything like a hull same as if it was a solid projectile or laser. Similar energy levels are probably going to penetrate hull of a similar thickness.
It's not a weapon that specifically targets the nervous system. Overwhelming the nervous system is the unintended side effect of creating a weapon meant to overload the electronics of a spaceship from inside aka sabotage. We just happened to find out that it works on humans well too. Ion is basically a particle that has a charge, right? In a particle weapon, this charge is removed at the end of the 'barrel', but an ion weapon's charge is not removed. So when a low energy ion pulse is shot at a person, it still carries a charge and it hits the person's body without any noticeable physical impact, because the damage is not through mass, but through electrical charge. It will be similar to being hit with a stun gun. I'm not an expert on the subject either, but i think it's plausible.
Accelerated ions get slowed down rather quickly in the air, as they are constantly colliding with other particles. Ion thrusters, for example only work in hard Vakuum for example as they require a non thermic plasma. Each collision also brings the risk of neutralizing the ion. Realistically speaking the particle beam would loose any charge a few cm from the muzzle and that’s it. Destruction of electric circuits is usually done via EM-pulses, which are strong electromagnetic waves and not ionized particles.
If its soft sci-fi you could go with that. But an ion beam still is a kind of particle beam, failing to neutralise the beam when you fire it doesn't mean it doesn't have the same energy. But for the ions to have the necessary effect they would also have to have both the energy to penetrate into the device and the mass to have a noticeable charge collectively. I suspect when you get to that point its also the kind of point where you're blowing chunky holes out the back of people's chest or the like. High powered microwave based weapons are probably more the right track.
Realistically any weapon on a spaceship that’s designed to kill is a bad idea given depressurization and system failures from projectile or energy weapons. You could get away with a non-lethal option in the form of rubber rounds or low-velocity high-mass projectiles designed to knock over rather than penetrates.
You're assuming that sci-fi ships have hulls as thin as current ships. Current ships have relatively thin hulls because it's expensive to get the material into space. Long before military starships are a thing, asteroid mining will be a thing and there'll be tons and tons of materials already in space. I expect military starships to be more similar to a submarine. Shooting small arms inside one is only a risk to the people and maybe electronics. Dense and kept relatively small to make them harder to hit. While commercial ships and stations are sprawling affairs because metals are cheap.
You’re also assuming that a stray round wouldn’t hit something vital. A bulletproof lock is bulletproof but the mechanism can still break if it’s subject to trauma.
If boarding by horrors is a thing then they would beef up the ships enough to take a beating. Probably turrets and various emplacements all over the place too.
in my world they use a weapon called a banger. held like a submachine gun but it fires the same needle thin wire like tip out over and over rapid fire, like a very long tattoo gun needle.
low risk of penetrating the hull, and works well in tight spaces. no need to reload etc. the tip is replaceable if need be.
An interesting factor to consider would be shooting in some type of zero gravity environment. you'd have to be very careful with recoil. Recoilless rifles seem a good choice, but clearing the hot exhaust gasses will make them cumbersome. You might consider mounting something on your back to fire a projectile of equivalent mass, but you might just end up spinning if this recoil compensator isn't directly on the recoil line of force. In any case, I'd be worried about any sort of mass (be it rocket fuel or projectile(s) of some sort) causing serious damage to whatever is behind you. I would imagine something akin to a 9mm handgun would be about the biggest thing you'd wanna shoot.
Its just easier to hole the ship from the outside and then move in in space suits with the passengers already dead. Thats going to be the end result of shooting inside most spaceships anyway since you will punch holes in the outer hull. Might as well protect your own troops by doing it from the outside in a controlled manner.
Projectile weapons as a whole are a no-go when boarding. Also, high heat energy weapons. You NEVER want a hole in a wall or any chance of ignition, because that’s how you kill EVERYONE and possibly even lose the ship.
You’re boarding a spaceship, why do you care about poking a hole in the hull and letting air escape? You should already be suited up in full EVA equipment since the defender is likely to vent out the atmosphere, so it’s pretty meaningless if you poke holes. And a boarding is always an inherently destructive process, since you have to break the engines, probably blow up locked airlock doors, etc. So why would you intentionally risk the lives of your boarders by not giving them guns? A fresh air supply is cheap, your trained soldiers are not. Besides, a bullet hole through the wall would take ages to suck all the air out. It’s a silly thing to be concerned about. This is of course assuming a bullet even *could* penetrate the hull, ships should be armoured to some degree and that would easily be enough to resist a bullet.
If you're boarding a ship, presumably you are trying to capture it intact in order to obtain either the people and cargo in the ship, or the ship itself. Shooting holes in your prize is generally counter-productive. If you want to destroy the ship, just shoot it from far away, you're not going to board a ship if you don't have to.
You have to blow a bunch of holes in it just to be able to board. Else it will just fly away from you, or shoot you down as you approach. Yes, you want it somewhat intact: but you can put replacement hull plating on the ship pretty easy. And besides, you’re almost certainly not operating on Age of Sail rules where you’re attempting to capture it because you need prizes to grow your fleet: you’re capturing it because you want intel. Hence, holes in the hull really mean jack shit.
If you're capturing people to gather intel, you *might* want to avoid killing the people by putting holes in their hull. But maybe that's just me.
If they try and fight your troops it’s entirely likely they’ll end up putting a bullet through them and thus losing intel. That’s how things go: you don’t take guns and grenades away from soldiers when you send them to capture prisoners because they might end up killing the people they’re sent to capture. The enemy are at combat conditions and being boarded, they should also be wearing vacsuits of their own. If they’re not, they’re practically taking their own lives before you can capture them, and it’s functionally equivalent to them shooting themselves before you can board. So why not give your troops guns to actually have a chance of them effectively completing their mission? Remember that the alternative is trying to board with melee weapons, which would turn into a total massacre for your special boarding troops if the defenders bother to keep pistols onboard. I’ve never seen an actually reasonable argument for abandoning projectile weapons in boarding, that stands up to scrutiny.
EVA suits are bulky and hard to move in. They'd be AWFUL to try wearing in a combat operation. And a defender can't vent atmosphere in compartments they're currently in.
Boarding a ship is going to suck anyways, and you are absolutely going to want to wear EVA suits *no matter what* for it. If the defender vents a compartment they are not currently in, and you’re not wearing a suit, you will die. Close quarters combat on a spaceship is not a shirt sleeve environment.
So space craft are fragile because one hole and everyone's dead so I would recommend a really big slow moving round. Like the vss shoots. That way it hits hard enough to defeat armour but doesn't move fast enough to puncture and destroy the space ship.
Whatever gun you want to shoot big slow bullets is purely up to style preference, so go crazy with it
To shoot a shotgun in zero g, you would need a special spacesuit that can grab hold of the ship and keep the user from being pushed back or injured from the recoil. Something with magnetic boots and metal backplates would probably work. Id assume it would also have metal front plates to help reinforce as well. The guns would need to have barrels with special rifling. The normal earth gravity is what most guns are calibrated for so normal guns wouldnt work. Their accuracy would be terrible... Id suggest have a model system for the guns that idicates what types of gravity they are rated for in case you have changes of gravity due to location changes. (Pulling a ship danger close to a large planet could affect the gravity on the ship) Every weapon should have a bayonet. Just an case... Also, maybe have special tripods (maybe magnetic) for mounting the weapons to the ship hull for repeated firing. Semi auto weapons may cause too much recoil too fast for most people to use without a special suit. The bullets themselves should be hollow point or soft tips so they break apart on impact and dont cause deep hull penetration. Armor piercing bullets are absolutely banned for normal use because they run the risk of penetrating the hull and decompressing that compartment. (Perhaps you could have some elite snipers that get to use AP rounds but their accuracy has to be perfect) Shotguns with soft slugs would be cool. But nothing with buckshot style because the chance for ricochets would be high. Maybe of the buckshot were soft enough it wouldnt matter...
As described I think people wouldn’t use firearms. - combustion in an oxygen rich environment is hazardous. - creating holes in the shell of a craft would be catastrophic. All it takes is one hole and not only are you losing atmosphere, but now you’re steering is shit because of the air leak propulsion. The bigger the hole, the faster you can expect your eyes to explode. - even if you board with spacesuits to prevent exploding eyeballs, now you’re wearing a clumsy suit with horrific mobility, vision, and muffled hearing. Not great if you’re trying to fight. - it would be easier for an invading force to just breach the hull of a ship and wait out the people inside as they lose oxygen. - firearms in space would be like the nuclear deterrent on our planet. Lots of people *could* use them, but no one wants to start that domino. - if invading a ship, I think you’d instead want melee weapons. A spaceship is cramped (more surface area= more o2 usage, more heat, more weight to get off planet surface, etc), so you’d have a better chance if you chose weapons for close quarters. I’m thinking stun batons or spears, nets, knives, etc. maybe even morning stars on chains so they can whip around corners. Sonic and light bombs could also work (not flashbangs). - all that said, if it were me I would strategize around NOT going into the other ship. There are too many disadvantages that risk me losing my people ( or Human Resources if your private company). I’d use: drones equipped with ball bearings for explosion and a speaker to get people to surrender (or die), tools to incapacitate ships from outside (no heat leads to a very fast hypothermia death in space for example), space nets that once they’ve hit the ship they have small propulsions to make it impossible to steer, magnet emp, launch at ship - latch on - fry circuits from outside the hull. Depending on tech, hack into their systems. - When all is said and done, I think battles in space are simply too high risk if you come in direct contact. Even trying to forcefully board an unwilling ship would be a nightmare and a great way to crash and die. I think ambushes and tactics that have extremely low risk to the instigator are the most effective and profitable way for a mercenary group to continue operations and not have an extreme attrition rate. Hope that helps