Airsoft Artillery

[dusseldorf101]

Hey amongst my sentry project ambitions that are pending final testing, i've already come up with my next project!! However im lacking in the idea department?? Theres many options i could go down but kinda undecided??

 

Basically idea hit me at GZ. Therewas the king arms tent that had the 40mm mortar, which got me thinking about all teh situations that any form of light or medium artillery would be!!

 

SO these are the reasonable/do able ideas that ive come up with that would still full fill the role of a light support weapon.

 

First up is ofc the 40mm mortar which would require very little effort, merely a 41mm steel tubing with a base plate and support legs and a pin at the bottom so that the rounds will be muzzle loaded just like the real 40mm mortar.

 

Second is the 81mm mortar which is the medium support mortar for the british army. Could be done no. of ways mainly with a very large spring that has a plate mounted on the top and a release mechanism, inside an 80mm steel tube. Its fired by simply compressing the spring into the firing mechanism and then pouring as many BB's down the barrel as you like then simply firing the mechanism.

 

Third and probably the best cos nobody will have done it for sure, the 75mm recoiless rifle!! Its a fairly average dia. very light artillery piece that was originally designed for soldiers operating in mountainous regions. And is man portable at a push . Plus for attack the hill attack and defend type scenarios it would destroy!!

 

Fourth a MK19 40mm auto grenade launcher. In essence its a fully automatic grenade launcher thats now been brought into issue into the british army. Could be difficult?? But fairly do able with some adapted parts. Would need to salvage an aeg motor and gears then manufacture a firing pin and then maybe use a gravity feed to simplify the loading procedure?? hmmm maybe a long shot but would be fun if it worked??

 

Fifth 115mm mortar?? Same as 81mm but BIGGER

 

105mm light artillery piece?? Definately a pipe dream but not in the realms of impossible?? Hardest part would be the gun carriage but not to difficult?? Would have to salvage an old car axle with tires and then manufacture the cradle, then using 105mm plastic piping with the flash eliminator made from seperate plastic components etc.then a very big spring and then same mechanism as the mortar.

 

So i wanna know what people think and if you got any other ideas im very open to hear them!!

[2dgreengiant]

Would require a custom grenade shell which would be hard tbh.

[dusseldorf101]

Would require a custom grenade shell which would be hard tbh.

 

For any of the 40mm firing ones it would take a standard shell however for any that require springs the hardest thing would be the firing mechanism. However the spring would have to be very big to make it A. worthwhile and B. powerful enough to project enough BB's to fulfill its role.

[2dgreengiant]

Nah like the 81mm one, you would have to build a custom 81mm shell for it unless you used 2 40mm ones or somerhing.

[Ion]

I built an airsoft bazooka that uses its own special shells. Quite easy to do if ya ask me. Mine is pretty much a potatoe gun without the expansion chamber.

Spray your propelent in the back,

take a piece of foil, and make it into a bowl, then fill it with bbs. Cover the bbs up with the excess foil until it resembles a ball. Shove it down the barrel (make sure its a tight fit) and fire! The foil will unwrap when its in the air or when it hits somthing, makes bbs fly everywhere giving a pretty cool look to it.

BTW: the pictures above are the ones before I installed the BBQ lighter and the rear part.

 

I've also toyed around with the idea of a mortar. And did it pretty much the same as you described, with the pin at the bottom. We use regular 40mm airsoft grenades and grind off the outside rim so the whole grenade is 40mm wide. This way it fits into the pipe with ease. Throw it in forcefully, and the pin at the bottom sets off the grenade and showers bbs in the air.

 

The 81mm mortar you described could just be a potatoe cannon with the expansion chamber at the back. Use a larger version of the foil shell that I described above.

[dusseldorf101]

Basically this is sorta how the mortar could work??

 

Basically theres a coiled spring that has a spring guide down the centre with a plate across the top and the BB's on top that have been simply poured down the barrel.

 

Makes custom shells not necessary.

[thewallhitme]

40mm mortar= yes. GMG= maybe. everything else= not really usable. airsoft games are far too dyniamic. they keep moving around and stuff. by the time your aimed the play will be off somewhere else. also, most sites arent really big enough to warrant indirect fire.

 

on the GMG thouhg, it might be easier to look into making it semi automatic (at least at first). or single shot and you cock it for each shot. the rate of fire on the real thing is quite slow anyway, this might balance the weapon in play.

[mattyw]

i like the the mortor idea but how far will it go and will it work

[Vercingetorix]

as EdtheBouncer about his creations... he has made a whole slew of effective airsoft artillery pieces....

[Dom S]

you could always try doing something like... making a custom "shell" out of a cardboard tube with a cardboard cone in one end to make it more aerodynamic

 

you could then put one of those medium sized firecrackers inside, big enough to rupture the tube and make a nice bang, but not enough to hurt anyone, even if it went off right next to them. the shell would then be filled with junk bbs, and a cardboard baseplate put on, with a small, 5mm hole put in it to allow the fuse out. Im assuming the fuse would last about 5 seconds.

 

The "shell" would then be put, lit, into a tube the same size as itself. the tube would need some substantial length (at least a metre). A coiled spring would be in the tube, with a circular piece of metal matching the diameter of the tube on the top. this would be pre compressed with a loading rod, and locked into place with some sort of firning mechanism. As the shell is dropped in the tube of the launcher (fuse now at 4 seconds), it is seated into place (fuse now at 3 seconds) and launched. Hopefully, with some practice, these shells can be aimed to go a fair distance (40 - 50 metres), either exploding some distance above the target, or on impact with the floor. If constructed correctly, and if a minimum elavation of 30 degrees or so was enforced, there shouldnt really be any safety concerns either, the biggest worry being a toilet roll with a fire cracker in landing on your head ( i dont know about you, but this doesnt unduly worry me)

 

Could work?

[Stealthbomber]

Mine is pretty much a potatoe gun without the...

Dan Quayle supporter?

 

Personally, I've never really stood how any indirect-fire gizmo can work in airsoft.

You might as well just fling a handful of BBs up in the air.

[AllGunzblazin]

to be honest if done right it would work. Say for A Mortar. I dont know how powerful the grenades are but if they pack like 300-350fps then it could be used . if you can volley the bbs over tall trees or throw then 45 degrees for around 30-40 meters then it be good

[QQexDERA]

you could always try doing something like... making a custom "shell" out of a cardboard tube with a cardboard cone in one end to make it more aerodynamic

 

you could then put one of those medium sized firecrackers inside, big enough to rupture the tube and make a nice bang, but not enough to hurt anyone, even if it went off right next to them. the shell would then be filled with junk bbs, and a cardboard baseplate put on, with a small, 5mm hole put in it to allow the fuse out. Im assuming the fuse would last about 5 seconds.

 

Illegal. Simple as that. I'm not being rude, but I've written on Arnies about such things before. Do a search, and i'm sure you will find them (and lots more besides!)

 

 

 

[renegadecow]

If you mean to lob half a bag of bbs across the length of a football field, then you'll just be wasting ammo. With bbs just falling from the sky, they'd be so weak it would be difficult to claim a proper hit. Just load them up with single foam projectiles like nerf footballs and a marshal would preside on taking the proximity hits if there are any. This way you can disregard ammo size; 40 through 81mm mortars will still use foam shells and a moscart shell for a power supply.

[nieb15]

Make a custom shell holder for the drop-in mortar. Make it hold a 40mm grenade and a nerf football. When you drop the shell in the football will go flying, but it will leave the 40mm shell behind (simply invert tube to get out, or make an access hatch on the bottom).

[Ion]

Dan Quayle supporter?

Not sure what ya mean there. Please explain.

Personally, I've never really stood how and indirect-fire gizmo can work in airsoft.

You might as well fling a handful of BBs up in the air.

Not quite sure what ya meant here either. Do you mean it will be so weak that you don't feel it? Please stand in front of one, say.... 30-50 yards away, you'll feel it. Without the expansion chamber its pretty low on power yeah, but thats not my only one.

And its not really for extreme sucess in the field, its just fun to use.

 

.12g are the best for using in the shells, they're real cheap to buy in excess. Once again, its just another added effect/thing to do in airsoft.

[LordElpus]

This might be possible when AI finish developing the Launchable 40mm grenade.

[AllGunzblazin]

if 5-10 bbs land on your head then i think you will notice it. not in pain but you will notice them bouncing off you

[Panzergraf]

.12g are the best for using in the shells, they're real cheap to buy in excess.

 

Dry peas are even cheaper

 

At least around here.

[Stealthbomber]

Not sure what ya mean there. Please explain.

Dan Quayle was an american politician who, famously, once visited a school and watched as a kid spelled potato and then "corrected" the kid by sticking an "e" on the end, thus proving Mark Twain right.

 

Please don't ask about mark Twain and, thus, prove yourself even more ignorant of your national history.

 

Not quite sure what ya meant here either. Do you mean it will be so weak that you don't feel it? Please stand in front of one, say.... 30-50 yards away, you'll feel it. Without the expansion chamber its pretty low on power yeah, but thats not my only one.

And its not really for extreme sucess in the field, its just fun to use.

 

I assume you don't shoot your bazooka up in the air?

I was referring to indirect fire weapons. That's kinda why I said "indirect weapons" as part of my post.

 

If somebody can tell me why an airsoft mortar is "better" than simply flinging a handful of BBs up in the air then I'd love to hear it.

 

Frankly, I'd go as far as to say it'd be the worst thing ever in airsoft.

At any game where mortars are allowed, a dodgy player can just scoop up a handful of BBs, toss em over a barricade and claim a kill.

Nonsense.

 

As a couple of people have suggested, about the only way this might work would be (and I DO like the idea of this) would be to use some kind of launcher to shoot foam projectiles and allow a marshal to declare who took a hit.

 

I really like the idea of objective-based skirmishes where, for example, one "grenadier" is a VIP who needs to be protected and then, at some point, is required to shoot a foam tennis ball through a window to destroy the enemy HQ.

 

Given how far moscarts shoot, the idea of dropping one into a mortar and firing BBs about 20m up in the air and then allowing them to rain back down again is just gonna cause chaos.

[Ion]

Dan Quayle was an american politician who, famously, once visited a school and watched as a kid spelled potato and then "corrected" the kid by sticking an "e" on the end, thus proving Mark Twain right.

I see. Haha. I spelled potato wrong eh?

Please don't ask about mark Twain and, thus, prove yourself even more ignorant of your national history.

Haha.

I assume you don't shoot your bazooka up in the air?

I was referring to indirect fire weapons. That's kinda why I said "indirect weapons" as part of my post.

Ok, I misunderstood ya.

If somebody can tell me why an airsoft mortar is "better" than simply flinging a handful of BBs up in the air then I'd love to hear it.

I think its pretty fun. Like I said, the foil filled with bbs works well.

Frankly, I'd go as far as to say it'd be the worst thing ever in airsoft.

At any game where mortars are allowed, a dodgy player can just scoop up a handful of BBs, toss em over a barricade and claim a kill.

I guess so, but where's the fun in that?

I'll explain how we use ours. Normally we have a skirmish where its just one team, and one mortar on a hill, that one team has to stay on the hill and use that mortar if they want, while the opposing team fights up the hill. Its a lot of fun and I reccomend trying it.

Red.

 

Dry peas would work too.

[Relish]

Frankly, I'd go as far as to say it'd be the worst thing ever in airsoft.

At any game where mortars are allowed, a dodgy player can just scoop up a handful of BBs, toss em over a barricade and claim a kill.

Nonsense. waggle.gif

 

Not if you require them to use the little nerf rockets/footballs. One of my buddies and I are working on a mortar that uses those. We made one tube that uses a piece of aluminum rod to push the button on the bottom of a 203 shell, which powers the round. The issue is, we dont have any stock shells that have enough oomph to throw the rounds as far as we want.

 

We were also looking at a spring powered idea, and we may make one of those later this week.

 

I think the idea isn't bad, as its a great way to dislodge snipers from rooftops (Which is a pain when you are at any of the Lionclaws event's at any of the MOUT facilities they host at.)

[oliverlove]

An accurate artillery peice would be fantastic at the larger events being held at MOUT facilities in the US. I know having been at a number of Pine Plains Events it would be very helpful. Good Luck Builders!!!

[Panzergraf]

I've said it before in a similar thread, so I'll repeat it here:

 

The only way I can see mortars being effective in airsoft would be having some sort of ref/marshal ruling out players who aren't in cover in the beaten zone.

To make it more fun, add some pyro.

 

To make it less over-powered, have some limitations imposed on the artillery crew, like they have only so-and-so much ammo, and firing their tube for the first time will reveal their position or something like that. Or requiring eyes-on, or only having certain targets being legitimate for artillery fire.

 

It could even be made more abstract than that, like if side A calls in an airstrike or artillery, the target is side B's reinforcement assembly area, or their supply route or something like that.

The effect could then be that all their reinforcements died, so re-spawn is postponed by an hour or so, or that they can't re-load for X amount of time as they will have to wait for a new shipment of ammo or something.

 

 

Complex and not feasible for a normal Sunday game, sure, but at least it will have some sort of effect on the game, being a reward for the side that attained the option of using air strikes (destroying a sam site, maybe) or artillery (transporting a crate of shells), and at the same time it will promote some sort of response for the other side, like they have to destroy some relay station to prevent ground-air communication, or place some charges on an artillery piece.

 

 

 

In my mind, those kinds of game effects add more to the experience than a plastic tube pooping a handful of BB's into the air.

 

 

*that design with the striker at the bottom of a tube hitting the valve on some moscart shells still sounds sweet to me though, as it could add the effect of actual ammo for the mortar-prop, and filling the grenades with BB's isn't really needed.

[Stealthbomber]

It could even be made more abstract than that, like if side A calls in an airstrike or artillery, the target is side B's reinforcement assembly area, or their supply route or something like that.

Key issue, right there.

 

If, as Relish says, you're in a game where there are snipers on a roof and they're not accesible to regular players I'd suggest some kind of a system where the attackers could call in an "air strike" but, to do so, they'd have to, perhaps, laze the target or pop smoke etc.

 

That kind of mechanism is always gonna be more special than any kind of mortar (assuming the snipers actually call their hits) IMO.