Hey what’s going on guys, this is Mike.
In Gears of War, the COG army outfits their soldiers with the Mark 2 Lancer.
The Mark 2 Lancer features a chainsaw bayonet as an upgrade from the Mark 1’s standard
bayonet to help get through the thick hide of the locust army.
Not only is this weapon system extremely cool looking, it’s also very effective.
With that said, could the lancer actually exist?
Aside from the chainsaw bayonet, there’s nothing really keeping the Lancer from existing
in the real world.
Aside from the somewhat awkward butt stock, the weapon can technically contain all the
moving parts required to be a fully functional automatic rifle...except oddly there’s no
discharge port for the spent casings.
Would it be a particularly effective system?
It’s kind of hard to tell.
The Lancer has a bulky metal construction and a somewhat short barrel length.
It might have been better suited as a bullpup design which would not only lengthen the barrel,
but could also introduce a more robust stock.
The reduction in weight with a composite shell could have assisted in making the weapon more
manageable due to the front heavy chainsaw system reducing vertical recoil.
To be fair though, this redesign would introduce a lot of flaws that could take probably years
to re-engineer.
Taking a look at the interior mechanism, it’s clear that some significant modifications
would need to be done to allow for a proper feed from the magazine.
To accommodate this, a dual sided split magazine was implemented to allow the rounds to pass
around the saw blades.
Because the saw teeth sit directly where the soldier would traditionally place their hand
to grip the front of the rifle, it would be very important to implement some sort of safety
feature.
Without it, the average number of fingers in the COG army would like be about six or
seven.
A simple solution of the problem could be a pressure plate on the front of the weapon
where you would normally grip and also a sensor on the pistol grip to validate both hands
are safely positioned.
To better understand the chainsaw bayonet, let’s take a deeper look into the guts of
the weapon.
The front grip would need to house all and any moving components responsible for the
main saw mechanism.
From an engineering standpoint, a coupled screw gear system would allow for the desired
motion to take place in a somewhat small package, though the torque and power requirements may
be too great for our current technology.
The rear gear would be a specially welded gear consisting of two smaller gears and a
single large gear.
The large gear would be sandwiched between the smaller gears which would be powered by
two parallel screw gears.
This motion would then cause the large gear to to run the chain.
Though this gear and screw system seems complicated, it’s actually used in many applications
including your car’s drive shaft, though in a slightly different configuration.
So now that the mechanics are somewhat proven as at least plausible, where would the fuel
be be stored?
In the game, Emulsion is a glowing substance dense with usable energy.
Could emulsion be the fuel used to power the chainsaw?
This is a hard question to answer since Emulsion is highly volatile compared to other fuel
sources, including gasoline.
In fact it’s 100% fantasy.
Other than the sound and smoke appearing when the chainsaw is reved, there’s no indication
that the Lancer even consumes fuel at all.
The only alternative would be electric, though the smoke still remains somewhat unexplained.
When you’re talking about future technology, it’s really easy to bound the discussion
on is known today or exists today.
As famously stated, “there are things you know, there are things you know you don’t
know, and then there are things you don’t even know that you don’t know”.
In the case of the Lancer, there’s a lot there that our technology could explain and
there are some things that come into question, but the solution to the questions may lie
within future technology we can’t even conceive yet.
Because of that, the Lancer Mark II is not only one of the coolest weapons in modern
video games, it’s also one of the most realistic near future weapon, even if it isn’t a practical
one.
Anyways guys, i hope you enjoyed that video.
Gears of War, out today.
I’m going to have more Gears of war videos.
If you have any suggestions for future gears of war science type videos, leave them in
the comments down below as well as liking this video and making sure you are subscribed
to this channel.
Anyways guys, this has been mike, thanks for watching.