Weapons

Machine Pistols
]]
 * [[MPN-45|MPN-45
 * MPN-45S

Rifles

 * Mosok 41
 * Mosok 41S
 * MX-5
 * MXS-5
 * ZR68C
 * ZR68S

Shotguns

 * AA13


 * SUPA7

Sub-Machine Guns

 * NP-721J &quot;Jitte&quot;


 * NP-721S &quot;S-Jitte&quot;


 * SRM-7


 * SRMS-7

Sniper Rifles
]]
 * [[ZR68L|ZR68L
 * Mosok 41L
 * BP 308

Light Machine Guns

 * PZ-252

The Future of Small Arms
In 2042, the cutting edge of small arms is dominated by two technical principles: Superposed Load and Caseless Ammunition. Caseless ammunition refers to a setup where the 'magazine' is a solid block of propellant that the rounds are embedded inside prior to firing. One of the first prototypes of such a system was the H&K G-11, a bullpup caseless assault rifle that never reached production. Caseless ammunition is useful because it does not eject spent shells, which is a significant feature in undercover operations where the presence of a particular round would prove incriminating.

Superposed Load technology is a system where all the rounds are present inside the barrel instead of a seperate magazine. Superposed Load technology was pioneered by the Australian-based company Metal Storm in the early 21st century. With Superposed Load technology, the rounds are fired electrically, leading to the curious result that the firearm contains no moving parts, with the exception of the fired round. This means that Superposed Load firearms can support incredibly high rates of fire.

However, were you to look around a military base, you'd find relatively few examples of the aforementioned weapons. In fact, most of the weapons you would find would be functionally similar to the weapons of 60 years previously. The reason for this is that the cutting edge of firearms require numerous electronic components to function, and indeed in the case of Superposed Load weapons, the entire firing mechanism is electrically driven. On the battlefield, a single EMP could render those weapons useless. And given that a powerful enough Flux Compression Generator can be built with a large electromagnet, a small power supply and a wad of plastic explosive, this presents a significant liability. That's why you'll mainly find these systems present in crew-served weapons or close-in weapons systems: because the RF-hardening they need to operate reliably in the face of EMP weapons is rather heavy.

Caseless ammunition is less affected by EMPs than Superposed Load weaponry, so it is much more common, but still a drop in the bucket compared to the conventional weapons that exist. Small-arms proliferation is still a problem. Universal nano-fabricators are not household appliances (given that they tend to weigh about 5 tonnes and have a 4:1 feedstock to product ratio), but hijacking one and using it to manufacture weapons and ammunition out of scrap materials is not an impossible task. In 2039, a fabricator at the Singapore Institute of Technology was used to manufacture at least 20 HK417 assault rifles after being remotely compromised by Sumatran rebels. The necessary blueprints for making weapons with nanotechnology are just lying around on the Internet, on anarchist sites, on WikiLeaks, even on PirateBay2 (back up and running in 2016, now based in Murmansk).

And nanotech isn't even the biggest supplier of weapons. The bulk of illegal weaponry is manufactured the same way it has been for decades, except nowadays the unlicensed factories in the Balkans are churning out clones of FN's finest instead of poor-quality AK models. Biomechanical implants took off in the late 2010s, and by 2025 were one of the largest industries in the EU. They do all manner of things, from increasing dendrite density in the brain to reinforcing bones with carbon composites. They comprise around 85% of consumer MEMS (Micro-electromechanical systems) production.

What is of interest to the weapons trade, however, are implants for increasing physical strength. With the increasing proliferation of high-quality body armour in recent years, gun manufacturers had reached an impasse: Soldiers needed rounds that could penetrate body armour. More penetration meant a higher-velocity or larger round. But those factors lead to an increase in recoil, making the weapons uncontrollable in automatic fire. By the time the possibilities of intermediate cartridges had just about been exhausted, physical strength implants came out of left field and solved the problem overnight.

By increasing the strength of the soldier, the manufacturers could supply larger rounds with impunity, because rifle cartridges like the 7.62x51mm NATO which once produced too much recoil to manage could now be fired in an accurate and controlled manner. As the prices of implants plummeted over the years, militaries, PMCs and insurgents everywhere turned their attention to weapons projected that had previously been shelved due to their supposed 'lack of controllability'. The weapons that turned up on the battlefields of North Korea in 2035 would, to a soldier of three decades prior, seemed completely ridiculous and overpowered.

The age of the super-soldier had begun.