How to make classical firearms effective on space habitats despite the coriolis effect?

The direction of the force will always be perpendicular to velocity and pointing to the opposite side of the rotation direction. In plain terms, any object traveling in the rotation plane: up (toward the axis), down (from the axis), Westward (spinward) or Eastward (counter-spinward) will seem to be caught in unfelt tornado winds, one that its axis parallel to the ship or station rotation axis but reversed in direction. For upward movement the body will drift spinward, for downward movement a drift counter-spinward, for spinward it be downward and for counter-spinward it be upward. - Atomic Rockets

The Coriolis force is proportional to the rotation rate... The Coriolis force acts in a direction perpendicular to the rotation axis and to the velocity of the body in the rotating frame and is proportional to the object's speed in the rotating frame (more precisely, to the component of its velocity that is perpendicular to the axis of rotation). - Wikipedia

The Coriolis effect is pretty bad for classical firearms on reasonably sized spin-gravity space-stations (20m to 50 km (maximum for steel-based construction) with rotation rates between 0.1 and 6 rpm(go to SpinCalc for details). You shoot your handgun at someone and if they are:

• Spinward the bullet will experience massive bullet drop and slam into the ground

• Anti-spinward the bullet will curve up and fly in a circle around the habitat until it hits something or someone or is slowed down by air resistance

• Up or down the bullet will fly spinward or anti-spinward respectively

• Parallel to the axis of spin fly just as it should on Earth

• A combination of the other options go wherever the combined vectors take it

From you the bullet will go anywhere, but where you intended it to go.

While I know that the precise details will depend on the parameters of the station in question, does this make firearms almost useless for firefights on stations?

I thought about a few solutions which might help, but none of them seem to be amazing.

• Use training (effort and requires adaption to every new habitat)

• Use a computer and augmented reality so people know where their bullets will go (woundable to electronic warfare)

• Use smart bullets (smart bullets might not be maneuverable enough and there comes the point where you are effectively using a gyrojet and not a slugthrower anymore)

• Use other weapons like gyrojets, flamethrowers, heat-rays, blazers, ray-beams, particle weapons, e.c.t (those are only slightly inferior to slugthrowers in most aspects in my setting)(This is not an undesired outcome, I just want to make sure that it is the most plausible solution and that slugthrowers really can't be fixed easily.)

posted over 4 years ago

TheDyingOfLight‭

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