Needlegun
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A needlegun, also known as a needler, flechette gun or fletcher, is a firearm that fires small, sometimes fin-stabilized, metal darts.
History
The first projectiles in early gun systems dating from the 14th century were typically hand wrought iron flechettes wrapped in a leather sabot. However, due to the expense and trouble of making these darts in a pre-industrial society, they were soon replaced with the less accurate stone cannon ball.
Flechettes again came into mass use in World War I, when they were dropped from airplanes. More recently, several flechette weapon systems have been developed, but none appear to be in mass production.
Flechette ammunition encased in a sabot is available for the M-16, shotguns, and other weapons.
There are some makes of underwater firearms which fire a steel bolt just over 4 inches long (but without fins).
Advantages
Theoretically, the advantages of a needlegun over other projectile weapons are its compact size, high rate of fire, and ultra-high muzzle velocity. A needlegun takes advantage of the principles of kinetic energy and conservation of momentum, allowing a low-recoil delivery system to inflict significant damage to a target. Recoil is governed by momentum, which is the product of velocity and mass. By conservation of momentum, the change in momentum of the gun must equal the change in momentum of the projectile. The needle projectile has a very small mass, so its large change in velocity does not result in much recoil (change in velocity of the gun itself) since the gun has a mass much larger than the mass of the needle. Damage inflicted is related to the kinetic energy imparted by the projectile on the target, which is 1/2 the projectile's mass multiplied by its velocity squared. Since the needle has a very high velocity and a negligible mass, recoil is minimized at little cost to the kinetic energy of the projectile and its damage potential. The high rate of fire allows the user to fire many needles quickly with a minimal loss of accuracy due to recoil effects, giving the needlegun supposedly large damage potential and precision in combat.
Most hypothetical needlegun designs are solid state, meaning that the delivery system has no moving parts other than the projectile itself. For instance, see coilgun and railgun.
In fiction
This weapon appears frequently in Science Fiction. For example it is featured in:
- Gene Wolfe's The Book of the Long Sun and The Book of the Short Sun
- Frank Herbert's Dune universe (variously referred to as needleguns, flechette guns, "Chandler" guns, and "maula" guns)
- Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius stories (after which it is also the title of a Hawkwind song)
- William Gibson's Neuromancer et seq.
- The BattleTech universe
- Harry Harrison's Stainless Steel Rat stories
- Terry Pratchett's Strata
- Marvel Comics' Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD
- Larry Niven's A Gift From Earth
- The Warhammer 40,000 universe, notably by the Inquisition.
- Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai series
- Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash, in the form of Reason
- Dan Simmons's Hyperion and Endymion, as flechette rifles
- The AM-280, from The War Against the Chtorr by David Gerrold.
- Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Universe.
- David Weber's Honor Harrington series, in which they are referred to as "pulsers".
- In Code Geass, Zero threatens Princess Euphemia with a ceramic needlegun.
In computer games
- Messiah featured a weapon named "Pak Gun", or, simply, "The Pak", which fired small ice shards at high rate; the shards had a tranquilizer-like effect, freezing the foe and causing good damage.
- A Nailgun and Super-Nailgun were prominently featured as weapons in Quake. They were the equivalent of machine-gun style weapons that were able to fire rapidly by holding down the trigger. Quake II mission pack 1 featured a Flechette Rifle that functioned much like Quake's Nailgun. Quake III: Revolution contains a nailgun, but it fires only a single barrage before pausing to recharge. Quake 4 features a rotary nailgun that functions much like the Super-Nailgun, but has a secondary homing function.
- Fallout 2 included a Needler weapon, which shot poisoned darts.
- A Tiberium-based Flechette Gun was also usable in Command & Conquer: Renegade.
- System Shock features a Flechette machine pistol.
- A needle gun is available for Regina in Dino Crisis 2. It is only used underwater, however.
- Bungie Studios's Marathon Infinity featured the KKV-7 submachine gun, which fired 4 mm flechettes from a 10 mm cartridge and was usable underwater.
- Bungie Studios's Halo series features a Covenant weapon called the "Needler" that fires explosive crystal shards that home in on targets.
- Also, in Devil May Cry, the main character Dante has a weapon called a needle gun. It is the only weapon he can use underwater.
- In F.E.A.R. there is a rapid fire weapon known as the 10 mm HV Penetrator that fires nails that can be used to stick enemies to walls.
- The Medic class in Team Fortress 2 is armed with a Syringe Gun which fires needled syringes.
- The Engineer class in Star Wars Battlefront 2 can earn an upgraded shotgun called a "Flechette shotgun" and can only be used by a player controlled character.
In role-playing games
Drawing their inspiration largely from similarly-themed literature, science-fiction role-playing games frequently include needle-guns in some form. For example:
- Traveller, in the form of gauss-pistols and gauss-rifles firing 4mm darts.