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Hardware

Hellhound Paintball ATV 208

Posted by michael from the we-need-bigger-guns dept.
tuxtattoo writes: "I was talking to a buddy of mine tonight, and he told me about a paintball ATV made by Tippmann. it's called the Hellhound, and it's got everything you need for a nice day at the paintball field. Some of its features include a variable speed trigger which is attached to a high speed, 10 barrel, 50 rounds/second cannon. it also comes equipped with 2 side mounted tippmann model 98's (that would be 2 more paintball guns one on each side :), a 6,000 round hopper, heavy duty winch, and not to forget the what looks to be a self fed grenade launcher. there are many other features that come standard with this model, but NO floor mats or cup holders." I think this has been around for a while, but I played paintball yesterday (and I'm feeling it today) so this submission just seems apropos.
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Hellhound Paintball ATV More

Hellhound Paintball ATV

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  • What's that? It's not in my geek dictionary. ;)
  • ...that's OK, I'd just assume wear mine. More uncomfortable not to have it on when you need it
  • I just want to know if it's street legal. Let's all work hard to make 'drive-by shooting' a term only the folks in the thousand dollar suits fear. ;)
  • The hit toy of 2002:

    Programmer Joe's Mobile Paintball Command Post, now with realistic crimson red paint splatters and carpal tunnel grip!

  • Tippmann is great (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 04, 2001 @10:40AM (#2518606)
    Tippmann has to be the most 'hacker friendly' paintball company out there. How many companies would do free repair work after you have modified(with a dremel) like cutting off the trigger guard(to fit a double trigger) and milling the body?

    BTW, if you arn't familiar with current paintball technology, check out the equipment at a place like http://www.countypaintball.com or http://www.paintballgear.com . Some guns (the Angel) can be connected to and programed via a serial port.
    • Some guns (the Angel) can be connected to and programed via a serial port.

      Imagine a Beowulf clus...

      Note: the original author of this post has been incapacitated because of its intense lameness... but we still encourage you to imagine a Beowulf...

      Note: the original author of the first note has been incapacitated for being redundant, but we still invite you to imagine...

      Note: the author of the second note has been incapacitated, and this post will end here ->.

      Imagine a Beowulf cluster...
      SHUT UP!
    • Not only that, but before they made paintball stuff only they also made some REALLY cool guns. One on my want list would be a transferrable .22lr that is a COMPLETE working model of a belt-fed Browning machine gun (including a cute miniature ammo-box for your cloth belts of .22 ammo). These guns were awesome, slightly-expensive-at-the-time, and incredibly well made (just like the Brownings they were modeled on). They actually work, too (I've seen one run). Unfortunatly, they didn't make Tippmann much $$$ so they were discontinued. Now, they're all priced out-of-sight (but I still can *want* one).
      JMR

  • 10 barrels? (Score:4, Funny)

    by larien ( 5608 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @10:44AM (#2518619) Homepage Journal
    It's got a minigun attached. A minigun. A fscking minigun.

    All I want to know is "where can I get one?"

    • Well with enough money you could pay TIPPMAN to make you one. And like a previous poster said you can customize it to your liking and if/when you break it you can send it in and they will fix it for you. I recently bought a TIPPMANN CUSTOM 98 and I consider it the Linux of paintball guns. While not the perfect gun out of the box, it begs you to modify it to improve performance and practice those hacker like skills so many /.ers seem to possess.
      • The Custom 98 is a good starter gun, but I think the linux metaphor should be reserved for an Autococker. Finely tunable, many 'distros' (there are many many companies making custom cockers now), and very very accurate.

        (Brass Eagle guns are MS Windows, naturally)
    • did you notice the "variable speed trigger" is just a drill?
    • Anyone else notice that their "variable speed trigger" on their minigun is powered by what looks like a standard cordless power drill [tippmann.com]?

    • Damn you Trebeck!
      beat me to pointing that out.
    • I've never played a field that allowed fully auto or even bursts with guns that were capable of that. I honestly think 50 rounds/sec could send you to the hospital, or even kill you.

      The paintball story was a pleasant surprise.

    • Re:10 barrels? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Rogerborg ( 306625 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @12:18PM (#2518814) Homepage
      • It's got a minigun attached

      No! You fool! It's a "marker", not a "gun". You'll ruin years of our hard work in trying to persuade people that paintball is a sport for all, not some extreme para-military NRA freakshow, and besides...

      Ah, the hell with it.

      This thing is awesome! Look at the firepower! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA!

  • What's next?

    Battlemechs with paintball markers?

    I friggin hope so....
    (insert big smile here)
  • Just so long as they stay the fuck out of the woods with it. It's bad enough we are losing incredible trail systems in the state gamelands here in pennsylvania. Paint splaterrings on trees, rocks, vegetation = bad. Torn up trails due to this thing = much worse. Neither is welcome. Now if only we could ban horses. *sigh*.
    • hopefully paintballers in your area use biodigradable ammunition. If they don't they should be punished
    • Umm, it's not actually paint. It's colored vegetable oil, with a gelatin shell. Totally biodegradable, water-soluble and usually gone after the next good rain.

      As someone who has helped to set up and run paintball fields, I have to ask: how are state gamelands being ruined by paintball? To open a field, you need to obtain a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for paintball, which entails a crapload of licensing prerequisites. Your neighbors generally have to agree to the fact that you're planning to run a paintball field. Fields that run paintball tournaments are explicitly set aside for such a purpose, and never been hosted on anything except private property. So what are you talking about?

      I could go on further about paintball legal and environmental issues, but I gotta take my STO Autococker and light up a few people this morning. Ciao.

      Solomon
      • I'm totally guessing here, but I think the only danger paintballers pose to national parks are the ones who do it without the permits. I dunno how often this happens though.
  • Ive only played paint ball a couple of times and so this question goes out to any paintball experts.

    How could you use a beast like this in a game? At what point does it become "disabled." ? Obviously this ATV is pretty darn cool but I don't see how it could be used in a game situation without making the odds against "infantry" grossly unfair. Anyone care to elaborate?

    • Obviously this ATV is pretty darn cool but I don't see how it could be used in a game situation without making the odds against "infantry" grossly unfair.

      Well, the infantry can feel free to use their paint-filled, shoulder-launched missiles, not to mention their fully stocked paintball bombers with rainbow cluster bombs.
      • YEAH! You know that is sweet. Kinda takes any sort of strategy out of the game though :)
        • Now all we need are fighter aircraft with paintball guns, paintball mortars and spinfusors, and we have ourselves a colorful Tribes2! :)
          • We're way ahead of you.

            http://www.tippmannordnance.com/

          • This is geek news?!? (Score:3, Informative)

            by Skevin ( 16048 )
            I've been playing paintball for almost four years now, and I've known about the Hellhound for almost two. It's already pretty well known in my circles (most paintballers over 25 seem to work in the IT industry anyway). I'm pretty upset that I could have submitted this article two years ago, but I felt it had no place on Slashdot.

            Anyway, they do have paintball mortars - look at http://www.tippmannordnance.com/cgi-bin/store/secu reshop.cgi?action=now&now=mortar.htm&order_id=1318 19899. Keep in mind, this is not the same paintball company as Dennis Tippman Jr.'s page, different organization entirely. Quarter mile range. 75 foot blast diamter. This company also makes claymores (the curved "charges" that say "this side towards enemy") and landmines for paintball.

            Getting back to the original Dennis Tippman Jr., he also manufactures grenades. While the Hellhound launches them via a spring loaded arm (hard to aim, and blast diameter in only 10ft.), true grenade launcher afficionados should consider an I&I CO2-powered grenade launcher - http://www.iisports.com/iisports/paintballstore/ti pp98wgrenades.html. More accuracy, and it's a great finishing touch when you bunker someone point blank... if you don't mind taking yourself out in the process.

            While you guys are on Tippmans' page, take a gander at the Flatline - nice piece of engineering. In paintball, your shots are not allowed to go faster than 300 fps, 280 at some fields, even less on indoor fields. So, the designers at Tippmann created this barrel to put a backspin on the ball, giving it longer range without violating the velocity limit. We tend to call them "floaters", since the rounds seems to act like frisbees once they leave the gun (even to the point of occasionally moving off-course). Unfortunately, the act of putting a backspin on the ball places a lot of stress on it, so you'd better not be shooting the cheap thin-shelled crap that you can buy for $20/case.

            Solomon
            • The backspin also slows down the ball, so after the first 50 feet or so, you're significantly more likely to get a bounce.

              On a related note, never, ever hook a up a flatline on a 98c with the rt installed. Eats paint like the newbie who thought I had a sack of "jawbreaker."
          • First, a little background on paintball...

            To qualify myself, I'll say that I played in the NEPL (new england paintball league) for two seasons, and various leagues/rec games before that.

            For those who don't know, there are two types of paintball: Recreational and tournament. Rec play is usually of the pick-up game variety. There is a wide range of objectives. And generally, it is done simply for fun.

            Tournament paintball is a completely different style of play. A "tournament" is an event where many teams show up to a host site and a single elimination style tournament is held. Games are extremely intense, and highly regulated. Most teams practice for weeks or even months leading up to an even (good teams have playbooks, hand signals, verbal code).

            Many tourament players own electric paintball markers (official term for paintball gun). Most electronic markers shoot at up to 13 balls per second (in semi-automatic mode). As you can see, tournament paintball is at a different level than rec paintball. The two factions don't mix well at all (rec players usually dislike tournament players etc)

            Back on topic... The hellhound is used in only in rec games (and usually only in scenario games). It is extremely expensive, and really detracts from the purpose of the game. It would be cool for about one game, then people would realize it's more fun without it. Basically its a novelty item used to promote the owner, Tippman co ("damn who made that cool thing? Their markers must be equally as cool").
    • I imagine that the players would require an even number of them per team, and you can't actually remove the machine - only the driver. If the driver gets shot, he must leave the field. Of course, watch that go to shit when they encase it in Lexan... It would be tough and unfair to disable it when it gets hit as the driver would have a hell of a time knowing if he got hit in the back. And it's too big a target...

      Fact is I'd never allow one in my games. Use it for marking cattle or painting a building... People get mad enough when you've got somebody w/ two guns and armor that hits as many people as he can by losing all cover and loosing all his rounds right off. *Promotional use only, not for sale* - a reason behind that.

    • I used to play large scale scenario games a few times a year. Hundreds of players per side, on hundreds of acres. Games would typically last 12 to 24 hours, with two "armys" and often with several smaller factions. Points were earned not for eliminating your opponents, but for holding key locations, capturing enemy forts, or capturing or eliminating an enemy officer or VIP. Being eliminated usually meant you sat out for 15 to 30 minutes, which can be a big deal duringa major offensive. Some games had a medic rule, where the medic could wipe off anything but a head hit. Usually you had one medic, and if they were eliminated, you lost them for an hour, or you had to spend earned points to buy a new one.

      Anyway, these are the kinds of games where you see guys riding ATVs, helicopters on loan from the military or the local news (helicoptor is not a legal target. You just have to run and hide until it's out of ammo.) Night vision goggles, retired Motorola techs with his 2 teenage sons running an outpost with radio scanners and jamming gear..

      If you're not a fan of tourney style paintball, you should check out scenario games. That tourney player who carrys a case of ammo on his back to fire during a ten minute game has to rethink his strategy or go broke (or more likely suffer a heat stroke) if he has to do it for 24 hours straight. There's just nothing like crawling across a field towards an enemy held fort in the pitch black of night, with your team in a ditch 20 yards behind, and the other team 20 yards ahead, trading insults, the occasional volly of paintballs, and million+ candle power spotlights.
  • i sure hope you Emacs users are reading today... while those vi-loving sops are gloating about saved keystrokes and small core memory footprints, we can spray them silly with more paintballs than they can count.
    • hmm... That reminds me, at one linux or unix convention, there was an emacs vs vi paintball conest. Vi outnumbered Emacs, and won. This is obviously the Emacs of paintball, as it is huge and well equiped, perhaps the next time team emacs could get one and prove that bigger is better.
  • What's next? Selling airplanes with paintball guns and paintball bombs? Paintball tanks? I think this ATV would make the game a little uneven for those who don't want to waste their money.

    • Several years ago, me and some military buddies of mine intended to buy Nieuport 17 ultralights (http://www.kcdawnpatrol.org/) and mount or carry a paintball gun on it.


      We didn't get too far and I imagine that some experimentation/testing would have definitely been called for...the aircraft is fabric-covered. It would behoove one to make SURE that paintball guns being used would not puncture the fabric.


      The idea still has a draw...WWI-style dogfights.

  • The possibilities abound for instant roadrage gratification. Cut me off? *SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT* Talking on the cell phone and weaving around in front of me? Here lemme bring your attention back to the road *SPLAT SPLAT SPLAT* Now if they only had a rear facing gun for tailgaters......

  • I suppose if you can afford this, you can afford the massive amount of paint it will spray. I'm not sure how effective it would be in a game that is won with stealth.

    Unless the thing is quieter than a golf cart and doesn't cruss twigs under its tires, even a beginner would be able to snipe the drivers pretty easily.
    As for actually getting to the field, it's more efficient to just pile everyone and all the equipment into a few station wagons for the roads, and then walk onto the field.

    On a side note, it was a pleasant surprise to see a story about PAINTBALL of all things appear on slashdot. I thought I was the only geek into the game! :-)

  • Tippmann Hellbound (Score:3, Informative)

    by hkellogg ( 313973 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @11:13AM (#2518680)
    being an avid paintball player and what not I've seen this thing in action many a time and no its not for sale, mainly tippmann takes it to big games and tourneys and allows it to be used in free for all games(non tourney legal)

  • Possible uses (Score:5, Interesting)

    by whanau ( 315267 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @11:20AM (#2518693)
    While this may never make it past professional paintball leugues I would imagine that it would be snaped up by riot police the world over.


    Its got everything they could need if it was covered in plexi-glass. Not only is it fast for getting the hell out of dodge, but the fill the paintballs with a peppery liquid and you have the ultimate crowd repellent. Basically an awesome and mobile extention on current paintball based crowd control weapons. Coming to a WTO meeting near you!

  • Imagine a remote-controlled blimp or dirigible with a regular paintball gun mounted on it, and a video camera. Quiet enough for recon, packs a punch, wouldn't unbalence the game TOO much, and could also allow a VERY high level of tactical/strategic oversight by team commanders.

  • ...is it Windows compatible? ;-)

  • I wonder... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Omerna ( 241397 ) <clbrewer@gmail.com> on Sunday November 04, 2001 @11:30AM (#2518713) Homepage
    if it's street legal. THAT could be fun. I'm sure you'd have no problem with traffic sporting what looks like a practice tank for the army.

  • How did they get Janet Reno to pose as the driver?

  • Today's paintball game sucks. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by StudMuffin ( 167171 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @11:54AM (#2518767)
    Paintball today is all about how much ammo you can get downrange, not about skill, stealth or cunning. I know I'll sound like an oldtimer here, but when *I* played the game in the early 80's, we had Nelspot 007's, little hand held pistols. You carried three 10-round tubes onto the field and a couple of extra C02 cartridges. One cartridge would shoot about 15 rounds. At then end of the day, we would often have rounds left over. The game was about sneaking around, tactics, and the occasional firefight with a completely manual pistol that was innacurate as hell and had to be cocked by hand. EACH SHOT HAD TO COUNT.

    We also used oil based paint, since that's all that was available in those days. A hit on the skin was a mark for a couple of weeks. Right about 1984 was when the water-based stuff hit the market.

    Paintball ATV's like this are a continuing sign that the game is all about rounds per minute now.

    -sigh-

    Oh, and we had to walk five miles through the snow to get to a paintball game. Uphill. Both ways.
    • Well, it reflects the way how real warfare has developed, really.

      You could turn this to your advantage. Develop your stealth skills and become famous for your "special warfare" skills. Taking out your enemies by a well planned ambush sounds much better than "I sprayed them to death with my 10 barrel minigun".

    • Your talking about 2 different styles of paintball. Speedball and military out in the woods style. (I am not sure if there is a name for the 2nd). Speedball is fast past game usually in small areas, where people go insaine at each other for 10 minutes. This can be play just about anywhere, its a basic close quarters combat, it does require lost of skill. Becuase, you need to think and react VERY quick.

      The 2nd is my favorite, mainly becuase I am on old school paintballer. (Plus, full time wayko :) I like big 10 on 10 games, in the field, using everything from dummys, to 2 way radios, full camo, durring a nice game of CTF.

      If the ATV where to be for sale, I would think there tring to merge the 2 styles togther. Kind of a raid the other base and take over. But, this would be a bad idea. Alls it takes is a good snipper and the driver and pasenger are done for.

      Personally, I find it very funny how overboard people get with things. Next, people will try creating planes, adding guns on to motor cycles, <insert bizare military thing here>
      • Typically, we just call the hiding in the woods type rec ball. The best kind, mind you, but don't knock playing a quick game of speedball. Its just a differnt game. The values accuracy by volume, over hiding in the bushes.
    • I know what you mean. I've watched some paintball stuff on TV, and they go crazy with the amount of shots they fire. Having semi-automatic guns probably helps them. The one time I've been was with pump-action guns, which you could get a reasonable rate with, but nothing like the trigger-happy fusilade the TV players get! My biggest problem was that I got paint in the barrel and my accuracy sucked after that.

      It was great fun, though, and I'd love to do it again.

      • Actually, the pump guns can be convinced to go semi-auto. With a semi-auto gun, you pull the trigger once for each shot you fire. With the pump guns, you can hold the trigger down, and pump the gun once for every shot you want to fire. It has a somewhat higher chance of jamming, but it does make those stock pump guns a lot more useful when everyone else has their own souped up weapon


        • With the pump guns, you can hold the trigger down, and pump the gun once for every shot you want to fire.


          What you're referring to is an auto-trigger. At one time, they were quite the new thing to paintguns. Now, they're pretty standard on all pumpguns.


          You CAN sling some paint using one of those. But you're going to be highly erratic as pumping will move the gun around considerably. A true semi-auto will maintain a much tighter shot pattern.


          Having said that - I often play with my good 'ole PMI Piranha during scenario games. And its so old, it doesn't even have an auto-trigger.

    • Paintball today is all about how much ammo you can get downrange, not about skill, stealth or cunning

      I know what you mean. The last time I played, two players were sitting behind some logs with some sandbags and machine paint guns. We lost over 20,000 of our teammates before we realized that these frontal assaults were stupid. Instead we've dug miles of trenches and we're just sitting here. Both sides have started filling balloons with paint and using giant slingshots to try to chase us out of our trenches. The constant barrage of paint balloons is driving some guys nuts. One guy was literally rolling around in paint balls, hoping to be disqualified from the game. One of the smarter guys on my team is trying to rig up some cardboard around a bicycle. He says that we'll be protected from the paint bullets inside the thing, and we'll be able to roll right up to the machine guns and win the game. As for myself, I just sent an e-mail to another team (Team USA) inviting them to join up with us. So far they've only given us some extra paintballs, but I'm hoping that they send over a few players to help us out.
    • All about how much ammo you can downrange.... Ohh yeah.

      that's my kind of game :-)
      If I could rig up a pump and a sprayer I'd just run around pumping gallons of pain on everything and everyone....

      How about filling a helicopter water dump with paint.... paintball equiliviant of napalm???

      The possibilities are endless!
  • "PROMOTIONAL USE ONLY NOT FOR SALE"

    'nuff said.

    This a DMCA Violation to escape the Lameness filter encryption routine.
  • Up until a couple of months ago I enjoyed playing laser tag with my sons. After 9/11 I realized that (a) the Army uses this stuff in training (b) my boys only have a couple of years until they have to register for the draft.

    A little less fun for me after that...

    sPh

    • War Games (Score:3, Interesting)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )


      Up until a couple of months ago I enjoyed playing laser tag with my sons. After 9/11 I realized that (a) the Army uses this stuff in training (b) my boys only have a couple of years until they have to register for the draft.


      Most of my paintball experience has been around active duty military members. Military training and paintball have suprisingly little to do with each other.


      To begin with, I had a non-combatant role in the US Air Force. I fixed electronics systems on aircraft. I would get annual training on an M16 - probably so that I don't end up using it as a club if the unthinkable happens and I actually have to USE one (and then we're all in pretty serious trouble anyway). My entire team was, mostly, non-combatants. We took top positions in each tournament we played. These tournaments included teams consisting solely of combat-trained individuals.


      One of those teams were a great group of Army guys in K-Town (hey HAWGs). We would drive over for weekend pick-up games with their group on their paintball area. It was common to hear them complain about the previous weeks' field training and how they were glad to be playing some paintball to get away from all that.


      Lets go back over that point. Paintball was a break from military training. The game was a break from, as close as the Army could get, the real thing.


      Sure - military and police units do use paintball equipment for limited training. There's something psycologically distinct about solid projectiles flying around compared to laser light beams. But when paintball is used, it involves very specific scenarios and sometimes unique equipment.


      And then there's the danger of picking up bad habits. A piece of plywood or a bush makes adequate paintball cover. It offers little aid against a firearm.


      I'd like to point out that our paintball team in Germany used paintball tactics. Combat tactics (used by a lot of teams with combat-trained members) didn't fare well in paintball and I'm sure paintball tactics wouldn't work well on a battlefield.


      There have been a range of articles going over the "war" nature of paintball. Something about the simulated danger of the activity. Tapping our desire for adrenaline, conflict, and aggressive nature. I've pondered about it too. But in the end its all academic.


      Paintball is simply fun. Its a game. And while it may have some simularity to more martial issues, that comparison is simular to those that can be made of chess or risk. Heck. Sports such as kendo or fencing have truer ties to martial arts than paintball. And even those ties are shadows.

    • After 9/11 I realised that (a) it is possible that this war will see no end for a long time (b) we'll need help.

      So. In a few months, I'll be a network admin for the US Army. It's a nice ride.

      If you think your boys might eventually be drafted (which isn't terribly likely to happen), the last thing you want to do is keep them from the skills they'll need to stay alive. And, meanwhile, have fun with them.

      An out of sight, out of mind mentality doesn't work very well against something as blind as the draft.

  • I've considered this before... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mini me ( 132455 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @01:10PM (#2518934)
    I've often thought of bringing out the ATVs for paintball. (or snowmobiles for winter games)
    Just put two people on each machine, one driver and one shooter and fire away. We usually play paintball out in a gravel pit so the ATVs would be nice.

    By the way, for those of you who haven't played paintball in a gravel pit, it is definitly the best place I've ever played. There is a good mix of wide open space and sniper places as well as the gravel hills you can get up on.

  • Other Fine Paint Ball Hardware Ideas (Score:4, Funny)

    by CodingFiend ( 236675 ) on Sunday November 04, 2001 @01:12PM (#2518943)
    1. Paint Can Mortar. Take a can of your favorite brand of paint and drop it into the mortar. It launches it up to a mile away. Of course, the can hitting an opponent can leave a mark, but you KNOW you hit him.

    2. Paint Flame Thrower. Fill a tank with paint of your choice. Feed the paint into a high pressure washer. You get the idea. Just regulate the stream so that you don't cut someone in half.

    3. Paint Throwing Stars. Dip a paint brush into a can of paint and fling it at someone. Fast, effective.

    4. Paint Booby Traps. Dig a 6 foot deep pit, install sharp stakes at the bottom. Dip the tip of each sharpenned stake into paint (to keep it legal). Very effective.

    5. Paint Carpet Bombing. Fly a B-52 over the gaming area and drop 20,000 cans of paint. Sure to make your enemies sit up and take notice.

    Anyone think of others?
    • Special Delivery! Fill an envelope with paint and mail it to your enemy. If they happen to inhale the paint, GOTCHA!

      Jonny's Super-Duper Al-Qaeda Paintball Technique: Fill a 747 with paint and fly it into your enemy's base.

      Just a couple off the top of my head.

    • Re:Other Fine Paint Ball Hardware Ideas (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Don't forget the new paint ball cruise missle. Yes now you can claim victory on the paintball field from the comfort of your chair after launching one of these beauties.
    • Our crew signed up for a gadget tourney in Germany in the early '90s. It was pretty much the standard tourney, however, the rules allowed for non-standard devices with official approval. Sure, there would be radios, grenades, etc. But our group wanted something special. We wanted something absurd.


      One of the guys noted he had access to a retired water-based fire extinguisher. We gleefully hashed out some ideas on what kind of mixture could be used for our device and called the tournament officials. After explaining our plan, we got the OK. The paint-thrower was a go!


      Or rather - it would have been a go if we had ever gotten around to actually trying it out. We never did anything with the idea. But come tournament time, the rumors had spread. The Eifel Blitzkriegers had a paint thrower.


      We would deny its existance to all inquiring visits to our team's camp the night before, and during, the tournament. But this only changed the device's status from wild-card curiosity to obviously highly effective secret weapon. Each game, onlookers waiting for the unveiling.


      Well, we were lame. The most exciting thing we had was the standard consumer grade hands-free radios. Which we used to great effect.


      Seems we had 2 frequencies available and one of those frequencies were in use by our opponents during the final playoff for the tournament. While setting up for the final showdown, we listened in on the opposition; spying on their plans. During the initial confrontation, we helped them redistribute their skirmish line by calling for reinforcements where none were needed. After a few rounds of beefing up one flank or the other (and trying to lessen their burdon with well-placed shots on their team), they finally caught on. Thats when we simply keyed mikes and chattered away - effectively jamming their comms system they had become amazingly dependant on.


      We won. I can't say that the non-existant paint thrower didn't help. Maybe there was a psycological effect. And our little stint in signal intel / electronic warefare gave us an edge.


      But in the end, just good 'ole solid paint slinging won the day.

  • that's at least two years old (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    how about some NEW news...
  • Its not the paint that hurts the most while paintballing. Its the kneeling/cowering behind a flimsy splinter of wood in frenzied dispair, with the knowledge that you have 1 paintball rattling around in your feeder.
    • Been there, done that. And the best part is hitting the psycho walking up to finish you off with the last round cause he thought you were out of ammo :)
  • Have they ever come out with clip-fed painball guns? Anything other than the gravity feed?

    My guess is that any kind of spring-feed mechanism would be a lot of hassle with regular paintballs, since they'd be prone to breaking. The one time I played the gravity feed system let to lots of jamming and breakage.

    What about rifled barrels? We used the low-budget range guns, but none had rifled barrels which made the guns accuracy proportional to how much CO2 you had in your gun. Even with the low-velocity rounds, a little spin might help..
    • ing feed mechanism, and I think the AT series uses some sort of clip. For step beyond, you'll want a warp feed [htt].

      The jury is still out on wether rifling paintball barels really helps any, being spherical and all, but you can certianly buy barrels tht are rifled.

    • As has been noted already, rifled barrels don't seem to help. There are barrels that are bent in a certain way in order to put backspin on the ball, which gives it increased range, and doesn't seem to effect accuracy. And there are electric loaders that have spinning paddles inside to keep the balls flowing quickly so they don't jam up.

      • Hey, I'm trying to find documentation on this for an unbeliever. Got a link to the bullet-photography experiment where they proved that rifling doesn't make the ball spin?
      • Why wouldn't rifled barrels help?

        I'm only a dilettante when it comes to firearms, but the Kentucky Long Rifle, one of the first widely-produced rifled guns used roundball ammo and was legendary for being accurate to 200-400 yards.

        Does rifling not help due to the low blast pressure? The flexibility of the ball?

        • See the links I posted in response to the other reply, they explain it pretty well. Short answer: The balls are too light, and since they have a liquid center, only the shell gets any real spin. Once it leaves the barrel, you lose a lot of speed and spin.

    • Clips (Score:3, Informative)

      by _Sprocket_ ( 42527 )
      One of the earliest clip-fed systems was Tippmann's SMG-60 [smgog.com]. It was a select-fire paintgun that used clips loaded with five-round stripper-clips. Third-party suppliers would sell catch-bags to collect the valuable stripper clips as they fed through the system. The possitive-feed system was needed to keep up with the full auto mechanism - gravity feed simply wasn't fast enough at the time. I won't go far in to the merrits of the SMG-60 beyond that it was an interesting paintgun and now a bit of a collector's item. Its tech was mostly abandoned.


      Another reasonably successful commercial gun using a, more or less, clip system was the ATS [adtacsys.com] TS1 (which has spawned a series of updated models). This paintgun has a forward hopper slung under the barrel and doubling as a grip. It feeds paintballs to a very obvious clip. The clip itself holds something like 25rnds and feeds the paintgun through a kind of converyer belt system. It is also available in select fire and semi-auto only models. Again - the technology is unique to this marker.


      There are also a series of trainer and "sidearm" paintguns out there. They tend to be limited to between 10 and 25 rnds and spring-fed. Usually semi-auto and often pistols (though I understand there are some M-16 replicas that are sold solely to training facilities).


      Modern feed systems these days are still gravity fed. The difference is that they use agitators and sensors to keep the well stocked with paintballs. These kinda-almost-positive feed systems are required by today's fast-paced semi-auto paintguns who boast rates of fire that meet full-auto paintguns... assuming the human trigger finger can keep it up.


      Semi-auto paintguns are found solely in the realm of scenario games... if even there.


      When it comes down to it, clip fed systems are not really required. Paintballs are round; they don't need to be chambered in any particular way. Gravity feed works rather well assuming the paintgun is being held more or less upright and the feed system has been appropriately designed (which is a given in most modern paintguns). Agitated feeders help keep those feeds going. And finally, gravity fed hoppers are able to hold considerably more rounds than any clip system - unless you get in to drums which I understand induce considerable problems of their own.

  • Its not a new toy, they have had it for at least 4 years. They drag it out to all the competitions and set it up net to their tent. I have only seen it fired once but must have seen it displayed two or three dozen times. The cannon they drag along on the back shoots tee-shirts out at the crowd.
    What is really cool is Tipman's Granade Launcher [paintball-online.com]


    TheStruuus
  • Hell, I think I'd be tired of playing after getting hit with 50 or more rounds from some jackass with a gatling gun. Not to mention, a heart condition probably wouldn't do well for an opponent to have.
    I'd have to say this is in a league of its own. You need some kind of protection, and everyone should have comparably destructive weapons.
    Of course, for the underdogs (or crazy), it would be cool to fight against someone with this kind of firepower. The description reminds me of the HW Guy in Half-Life/Team Fortress. :)

  • The "minigun" in more detail... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by No Such Agency ( 136681 ) <abmackay AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday November 04, 2001 @03:29PM (#2519440)
    It looks from the photos that the minigun is powered ENTIRELY by a commercially available electric hand drill. The drill chuck turns the mechanism and it looks like there's some sort of chain drive connecting the mechanism to the ammo feeders. Most of this is probably obvious to those of us with rudimentary meatspace-hacking (aka. mechanical) ability. So... how long before others start building with this design? :-)

    At 50 rounds/second and a 6000-round hopper, the minigun runs out of ammo after only, um, 2 WHOLE MINUTES of sustained fire :-) Wow. If you made it with only 3 barrels (or 2 like some helicopter cannon) and stepped the rate down to maybe 3-5 rounds/s, you'd still have a formidable (but human-luggable) weapon ^H^H^H^H^H... marker which wouldn't break the bank on ammo :-)

    • Sorry, but you can't power one of those with soley mechanical parts. Needs an air source to actually fire. Anways, There's real no point in doing that with only 3 barels. That would take it down to 15 bps (balls per second), which can be done by quite a few of the higher end guns already. For lots less wieght, better mechanical advantage in carying (you'd need a back hoist to cary s 3 barrel around, since you have the wieght of the gun to begin with, plus the cycling motor, plus extra sized hopper.) Besides, its not designed to be fired constantly for 2 minuites. And if you did, tht why you'd reload it by dumping in a new case of paint.
  • Hate to sound like a scaremongerer, but this story [bbc.co.uk] on bbc seemed appropriate.


    Basically, a couple of weeks back this guy was playing paintball and got shot in the back of the head. 10 days later he died from a stroke. He had a history of migraines & high blood pressure.


    Anyway, I can think of far more dangerous hobbies (apparantly, the most dangerous past-times in the uk are horse-riding followed by fishing!), but if you are paranoid and/or think you may be susceptible to this kind of thing you might want to think about staying at home instead... or at least use adequate protection.


    ...Sorry about the lecture - but can't help feeling for the guys family..

    • I got shot at damn near point-blank range, in the forehead, from a paintball marker that was overspeed for that field, without head protection on. Apparently the guy didn't like that I shot him out, and was going to play nasty with me. I'll be damned if it didn't crack something, could barely walk off the field, but a few days later everything was fine. Five months later, no lasting effects...*shrug* Maybe they were related - maybe they weren't.
    • (apparantly, the most dangerous past-times in the uk are horse-riding followed by fishing!),

      I don't know about fishing, but I've fallen off horses and I've fallen off motorbikes (on and off road), and I would definitely say that if you *really* want to hurt yourself very badly, go horse-riding.

  • Reminds me of... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Powercntrl ( 458442 )
    The hairspray-powered paintball gun I *built*. I decided to scale down the typical spud gun and sized the barrel for paintballs. Loading is a pain in the ass, so I wouldn't ever use it for an actual game of paintball (not that I play or anything) but it outshoots CO2 guns by a large margin.

    I was planning on making a website for this thing (as well as its golfball-firing big brother) but never got around to it... Check out the image at:

    pballgun.jpg [aol.com]

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