Talk:Four-forty

Was the calibre size specifically in millimeters, or could it use the Imperial system? 440mm seems way too large for just a piece of artillery.  Specops306 ,  Kora 'Morhek  03:57, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

The Paris Gun from world war one use a 210 mm shell. So since this is 500+ years in the future I can't find it hard to have a gun like that. --KDP3 00:21, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

And upon examination, I notice that the Paris Gun was actually a failure. But that wasn't my only point. Was it a specific figure, or just an estimate? And which measurement system was it in, if it was specific?  Specops306 ,  Kora 'Morhek  03:55, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I just checked Ghosts of Onyx, and all I can find is a reference to "Four-Forties". No calibre. Is anyone going to hunt me down and disembowel me if I rename it to Four Forty Artillery?  Specops306 ,  Kora 'Morhek  04:01, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

Is it possible that when the Marines call it a Four-Forty, it's a direct translation to the size, making it 4.40mm. Still small for artilery, but again if the driver of the shot was powerful enough, it's possible. User:Merc 354

Merge
Should this article be merged with .440 Artillery?

Yeah I agree --66.229.35.146 07:04, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

from darkelf2x1

 * doesnt .440 seems a bit small for artillery
 * the explosions were big enough to make them wonder if it was an archer missile, either way it was a big explosion

Both are true. Unless it was a railgun, in which case it is the speed, rather than the size, of the projectile that gives it its force.  Specops306 ,  Kora 'Morhek  00:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Looking at this the wrong way?
Well, we're assuming that 440 refers to round size. What if it is the model number? PumasAreReal My PageMy EditsMy Movie

Is it really implausible to have 440mm artillery?
WWII era Iowa-class battleships used 406mm guns, and the Japanese Yamato-class battleship used 460mm.

The true caliber, out of the suggestions appearing above, is obvious to anyone with any real-world military history knowledge and experience, and a basic grounding in physics; the "440" no doubt refers to millimeters. While reading the previous conjecture, keep in mind that the .440mm projectile suggested, being a SUB-MILLIMETER projectile moving at a significant portion of the speed of light (compared to contemporary weapons), would be traveling LINEARLY if fired from a mass accelerator, not BALLISTICALLY. Field pieces - ALL field pieces - are, doctrinally and functionally, INDIRECT-fire weapons. As canon examples for your comparison, the MA5 series of rifles, the Gauss cannon, and most other projectile weapons in the series are DIRECT-fire weapons. Historically, weapons as large as a 440mm piece (17.5 inches, a little larger than the biggest guns conventionally fitted to battleships) were used as preparatory fire prior to ground invasions, in the destruction of hardened military installations, and in conjunction with and supplementary to air support and missile attacks. Weapons over twice this size were created during World War II as siege and assault weapons, and were capable of delivering multi-ton high-ex projectiles over distances of greater than 20 miles. These weapons also lack the weakness inherent to electronically targeted and guided systems; due to their mechanical nature, they are rather obviously unaffected by any form of electronic countermeasures and are exceedingly difficult to neutralize even with "point-defense" CIWS systems, due to the ballistic trajectory and the speed of the terminal approach. These concepts jibe well with the expeditionary nature of the UNSC Marine Corps, and with the engagement methods presented to us in series canon. With weapons such as these deployed planetside, it would be possible for a comparatively small, self-contained unit to provide for itself offensive and defensive fire to a substantial ground force over a wide area, much like their historical real-world usage. As an addendum, the author's suggestion to use a field piece as small as 440mm against an ORBITAL installation is absurd. A 440mm Linear Cannon (read: a futuristic MAC Gun that would have the necessary escape velocity to reach an orbital installation and then cause kinetic damage) would make sense in context, but once again, we're talking about future evolutions of modern-day indirect-fire artillery pieces, NOT linear cannons. Also, bear in mind that weapons of this general size were typically found mounted as railway cannons or on battleships, and would be ill-suited for use as anti-aircraft pieces bearing in mind the speed of of the target (however large) and the difficulty of laying the gun on target and bracing it to fire would be so considerable as to not be worth the effort (as an example, compare an attacker circling a strafing Ghost around a defender's slow-traversing Scorpion tank turret that happens to knock itself wildly off-target every time it fires. A Gauss turret, while smaller and less powerful, is easier to use and would make more sense in such a situation).