1982, the Moon. A small force of armored troop transports crawl along the lunar surface.
The vehicles are limited to only two dozen miles an hour at maximum- any faster and the
next bump could send the vehicle and its crew flying hundreds of feet in the reduced gravity.
The lumbering APCs clear a crater and suddenly come in view of their objective:
a Soviet lunar outpost on the dark side of the moon. Immediately upon clearing the crater's rim,
the APCs come under fire from Soviet laser cannons, but the American vehicles are coated
in a highly reflective outer shell that reflects much of the incoming laser energy. The powerful
defensive lasers eventually burn through the protective shell, but it's been built in layers,
granting each vehicle a few minutes of protection from the withering laser energy.
The vehicles launch several dozen canisters into the air above the Soviet base.
Laser fire incinerates many of the canisters, but a dozen and a half survive. Lofted in a
high trajectory over the base, an explosive charge propels a shower of razor-sharp spikes
down onto the moon base, as the canister is knocked out into orbit by the force of the
explosion. The rain of deadly missiles does nothing to penetrate the Soviet base itself,
buried under a few feet of lunar soil, but for the Soviet troops and laser batteries
caught out in the open the attack is deadly. The small projectiles tear through equipment
and rip open men's suits, exposing them to the freezing vacuum of space.
As the vehicles near the lunar outpost though, it's time for payback. The first vehicle to hit
a landmine disappears in a massive plume of dust. A second and then a third quickly follow. These
aren't ordinary landmines though, here on the moon high explosives are extremely rare- in the
reduced lunar gravity even a moderately sized explosion could send lethal debris into orbit
or raining down dozens of miles away, killing and destroying friendly forces and installations.
Instead of a conventional explosive, these landmines are really nothing more than tiny rocket
motors. Attached to a stabilizing plate, the mines are triggered as a vehicle rolls over it,
which activates the rocket motor which in turn drives the plate into the vehicle from below.
With a sixth the gravity of earth, the small rocket motor at the bottom of the
plate has more than enough force to send an armored vehicle hundreds of feet upwards.
Since the mines rarely hit center mass, the vehicles are sent in wild,
parabolic trajectories that are inevitably lethal to the crews inside. One American
APC takes a Soviet mine in the front half of its body, sending it 300 feet upwards in a trajectory
that will see it smash into a crater wall at dozens of meters a second over three miles away.
Only half of the APCs make it through the minefield and laser fire,
and the troops inside quickly disembark. Instead of traditional EVA suits though,
these men are wearing special space suits that are still technically in the prototype phase.
Traditional EVA suits are filled with breathable gases and pressurized to something close to
earth-normal, making each individual look like a miniature Stay Puft marshmallow man.
This severely limits individual mobility, and is a massive liability as soldiers are vulnerable
to punctures and tears that would depressurize their suits and compromise their air supply.
Perhaps as frightening as losing one's air supply though is what would happen to the body in an
unpressurized environment. As the pressure of the gases inside the body exceeded exterior pressure,
the body would begin to swell and expand, causing severe pain and possibly rupturing organs. Water
inside the body would soon begin to boil, causing further disastrous consequences.
To aid in mobility and prevent the dangers of decompression, each American soldier is
equipped with a skin-tight suit that maintains a healthy pressure environment for the body
via mechanical pressure. The suits are custom-made for each individual,
as a tiny deviation in manufacture would mean disastrous consequences for that soldier,
and take a long time to don and doff, but offer incredibly increased mobility and survivability
over normal pressurized suits. They also allow for the wearing of additional armor plating
without too adversely affecting a soldier's mobility, while traditional 'blow-up' suits are
simply too rigid already to bother with adding much armor. The much lower gravity of the moon
also helps maintain mobility even with 24 pounds of ceramic armor plates over most of the body.
Today's US space soldier looks more like a futuristic knight than a modern infantryman.
The vulnerable air supply is worn as a backpack and it, along with the hoses connecting to the
helmet, are armored slightly more than the rest of the suit. But all this armor isn't to
protect from bullets, as the Americans quickly find out from the surviving Soviet defenders.
Each Soviet soldier is equipped with one of two variations of space guns.
The first looks like a typical submachine gun from back here on Earth, but is anything but. Firstly,
it doesn't use nearly as much gunpowder as a gun on earth would- with a sixth the
gravity that much recoil would send a soldier flying backwards with the first trigger pull.
Instead, each bullet has less than a tenth the gunpowder of a normal bullet,
and yet despite this still reaches velocities upwards of 3,000 to 4,000 feet per second,
as much as 1,000 feet per second faster than a 7.62 round here on Earth.
But that much power comes with a price, and automatic fire is impossible in such low gravity.
Instead, the firing soldier must carefully line up each individual shot before firing,
taking the time to re-steady themselves before each shot. The gun is best for long-range
engagements, and the Americans are rapidly closing the distance with their nimble combat suits.
At closer ranges, the Soviets switch to a different weapon. This one also has a long barrel,
but the magazines are actually attached directly to the sides of the barrel itself. The dual
magazines need to be physically manipulated to push a long, razor-sharp dart into the chamber.
Then, a gas cartridge inserted into the butt of the weapon is activated with a firing trigger,
causing it to propel the dart out of the weapon at several hundred feet a second. The weapon
resembles more a modern version of a crossbow than a Buck Rogers space gun, but is deadly effective
in the low gravity and zero atmosphere environment of the moon, giving it incredible range and
accuracy. Unlike on Earth, in space there is no atmospheric friction or other effects to
act on a projectile, so space guns are incredibly accurate- the only thing limiting the accuracy of
each weapon is the difficulty in taking a proper firing stance while bracing against the recoil,
and bringing the weapon's sights up to a shooter's eyes through the bulky space suit.
But the Americans have their own answer to the lack of accuracy,
and it's not just their much sleeker, ergonomic spacesuits. As an American
soldier vaults into a Soviet trench in the lunar gravity, he flips forward a
strange tube mounted on his shoulder and presses a lever on the side (use image
https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/warisboring.com/images/0-OFKb6Wx0MV7NpHNe-1024x747.jpg).
This shoulder-mounted weapon is, like most other space weapons, made out of plastic and various
composites, as regular metal or wood would be impossible to operate on the moon. For starters
the extreme temperatures, ranging from 260 degrees Fahrenheit (127 C) to -280 degrees (-173 C), wreak
havoc on normal weapon materials, and the intense heating could cause ammunition to simply explode.
Even if a metal weapon survived the extreme temperatures, the metal components would
inevitably fuse together in the vacuum of space. This is known as cold welding,
and happens when two similar metals are brought into contact with each other and their molecules
mix together. Here on earth a layer of oxidization prevents it from happening, but in space that
layer eventually wears off. If these weren't enough challenges for a gunsmith to overcome,
there's also the fact that lubricants in space tend to evaporate in the absence of an atmosphere.
That means that the American's shoulder-mounted weapon, just like any other space weapon,
is made up of plastic and other composites, and operates via recoil rather than gas like on
earth. But this weapon is slightly different from others the Soviets have faced so far.
As soon as the American astro-soldier presses the firing mechanism on the side of the strange
cylinder, a tiny charge of gas expels three dozen darts about an inch long. The darts are expelled
at a modest six meters a second, but upon firing a charge at the rear of each dart is ignited.
Exactly half a second later, with the darts now three meters away from the shooter,
each charge explodes, propelling the darts forward with terrible velocity.
This weapon is the equivalent of a space shotgun,
and meant to shower a small area with high-speed flechettes. To avoid sending the
firing soldier flying backwards and possibly into lunar orbit from the explosive recoil,
each round is designed to be accelerated out of the barrel of the gun with a small gas charge,
while the actual propellant charge is ignited and calculated to burn for half a second before
exploding well clear of the shooter. The gun isn't very accurate, but it doesn't need to
be- the lethal shower of flechettes means instant death out to a range of a hundred or
more meters... one reason why the weapon cannot be fired with any friendlies in line of sight.
Now that the fighting is in the lunar trenches though, the Soviets bring out their own close
quarter weapons. A Soviet soldier lifts up his personal side arm to defend himself,
and the weapon looks almost ridiculously dainty and fragile. The weapon has a long,
very thin barrel, slightly longer than a revolver's, and a top-mounted magazine.
The magazine feeds the weapon with a dozen razor-sharp darts just over two inches long,
and these are propelled by a gas canister housed within the grip of the strange
pistol itself. The gas operated weapon suffers from the same recoil issues as any space gun,
but its smaller size means the Soviet soldier is able to reacquire his target much faster.
Even with just a modest blast of gas, the lack of atmospheric friction and low gravity means
that each dart is still sped up to velocities similar to those of normal bullets back on earth.
Some of the small weapons don't even use gas at all, but are operated by a
spring which is cocked manually before each firing. Instead of darts they fire
ceramic pellets, and reach the same speed and lethality as a .22 back here on earth.
In space though, the best close quarters weapon is the same as it's been back on earth for thousands
of years, and as the fighting drags on the fancy space guns are quickly discarded after running out
of darts, pellets, flechettes, or gas. Now the fighting is done hand-to-hand with razor sharp
knives made out of tough ceramic, but here on the moon even a tiny cut can be immediately lethal.
The American suits with their mechanical pressure are better able to handle punctures and tears, but
first aid in a space environment is practically non-existent. If a wounded individual doesn't have
their wound immediately and thoroughly sealed, it doesn't matter if the rest of their suit maintains
integrity- the vacuum of space will draw out all liquids it can through the wound very rapidly,
turning even a minor stab into a critical injury. At last the fighting draws to a close,
the American troops stand victorious. They have lost over half their number, but they
have succeeded in eliminating the Soviet position and securing the lunar outpost. Any remaining
troops left inside the outpost's buildings will either surrender or simply be left to
asphyxiate as the outer shell of each building is purposefully breached and the atmosphere vented.
But victory is short lived, as suddenly on the horizon is the tell-tale plume of
decelerating spacecraft. The Americans quickly rush to take up their own defensive positions-
Soviet reinforcements are on the way. Thanks to the low gravity, it's easy and fast to
move troops around via pod-like craft that detach from an orbiting ship's main body-
and with a low enough orbit a ship can orbit the moon every two and a half hours.
That time frame can be shrunk even further for faster orbits, and thus faster response,
but comes at the risk of flying at a lower, faster orbit and being more vulnerable to ground fire.
Orbital mechanics are very much in the minds of the surviving American troops as they watch
the deceleration plumes of the incoming drop pods, as calculating altitude and speed will
not just let them know how long until they're once more under fire, but exactly where each
drop pod will land. Maybe, just maybe, if they manage to ambush one or two of the incoming
pods they may have a chance of seeing home again and breathing in real air once more.
Now go check out What If There Was War In Space,
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