Nogun tourist with a /k/ inquiry here.
What is the role and purpose of a combat shotgun? In other words what does it accomplish that a regular rifle can't?
In more general terms, what practical differences might influence someone's choice, be it private owner, police force, or military, towards a shotgun rather than a rifle?
>combat shotgun
Destroying locks on doors. Also beanbag rounds
>Also beanbag rounds
speaking of which this thread is a good place to ask:
what cool expensive or unaccessible for civilian exotic shotgun shells exist out there? shotguns are such a versatile weapon assuming you can get your hands on or make cool shells Like frag shells or sabot shells.
>exotic shotgun shells exist out there?
Go watch Taufledermaus on Youtube. 99.99% of all the exotic stuff is meme garbage that's both very expensive and performs worse than a basic b***h 1oz foster slug or buckshot. Dragon's breath is an excellent example. It makes a brief flame that looks pretty cool if you manage to film it in low light and crank the shit out of the contrast in your photo, but IRL fireworks are a lot cooler to look at, and are more of an incendiary threat.
>and are more of an incendiary threat.
I thought dragons breath would be pretty good if you want to set something on fire from a few meters distance but i guess not...
Id love to try out picrel frag rounds though. I wonder if you can buy them...
pissing off germans
99% of the time a rifle is the preferable combat weapon. Historically there have been 3 niches for combat shotguns:
1) For guards, MPs etc. They need a weapon to supervise prisoners, but a shotgun is less dangerous if the prisoners should get their hands on it.
2) Breaching doors in urban combat
3) When there's not enough of the latest and greatest rifle to go around but more weapons are needed in times of war so shotguns get put into service where practical to free up more rifles for the men who need them. (i.e. trench guns in WWI and II) This often overlaps with giving arms to allies during a war where the goal is to give them guns to help out, but at the same time nobody wants to give them the latest and greatest. (i.e. the Stevens 77E from Vietnam)
4. Police use shotguns for firing less-lethal rounds like bean bags or tear gas. Also, a shotgun provides more firepower than a handgun but has a limited effective range making it safer than firing a rifle in an urban area.
>Private individual
Rifle/carbine is the superior combat weapon. Someone might choose a shotgun if they care more about flexibility than min-maxing a combat larp. Shotguns are also very affordable and are more cuckstate friendly which make them attractive. Shotguns are the meta for many kinds of hunting and are required equipment for clay sports like trap or skeet. They're also just plain cool, and many people buy them for that reason whether they'll admit it or not.
Excellent answer, thank you.
>When there's not enough of the latest and greatest rifle
>(i.e. trench guns in WWI and II)
I would argue that shotguns where a superior trench raiding weapon to rifles in WWI, prior to the invention of submachine guns. most of their shortcomings hadn't been manifested yet or weren't applicable in the situation. They had the same capacity to rifles of the time, armor penetration was a non issue, range was a non issue, and they could dump lead much faster than a bolt action.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that shotguns were bad for the trench role. As you said they were honestly ideally suited to it and in many ways were better than a rifle for that specific niche. But, the main reason why they were issuing shottys is there weren't enough guns to go around so they were running full production everywhere they could.
I don't think shotguns proved all that successful in Vietnam but there's no arguing their effectiveness in trenches.
>Shotguns are also very affordable
Not double barrel ones. A good O/U or S/S will bankrupt most people.
Mostly because they are hand built artisan guns with lots of embellishment. They are like luxury watches. They don't perform any better than a cheap one. They are more for looking at and finger fricking than for practical use. Some rich gay takes it pheasant hunting a couple times and it spends the other 99.999% of its time in a safe. It is not any more effective for hunting than the $100 scratched up shotgun at your nearest pawn shop.
>A good O/U or S/S will bankrupt most people.
You could say the same of a lot of firearms, depending on how you quantify "Good", and I suppose "bankrupt", since budgets can vary wildly.
You can always find decent or "Good enough" for a reasonable price.
That's completely artificial. It's because of eurotrash and fudds
Eh, I'm a double-gun nut in general but you can get a very nice O/U for around $2k (i.e. Browning Citori made by Miroku in Japan or Beretta Silver Pigeon), or a great SxS for around $4500 (Beretta Paralello). Yes the super-high-end stuff like a Holland & Holland, Purdey, Peter Hofer, etc, is going to be a better gun but you're far into diminishing returns at that point.
And as much as I like to fanboy over the great golden age double guns like rising-bite Rigbys, Dickson Round Actions, etc, the fact is that Mossbergs, 870s, and even the lowly Maverick 88 are honestly great value for money.
Not entirely. Fancier double guns absolutely do derive some of their price from brand name wankery, but there's also an amazing amount of labor which goes into making a good one, and I'm not talking about bling like engraving or gold inlay or whatever. The sad fact is that many people will never notice this since they write off all of them as "fudd guns", while never realizing how good they are for their respective niches, or how they're playing the same "stop liking what I don't like" whine game that the Fudds they claim to hate are doing.
All good points. On this in particular:
> Police use shotguns for firing less-lethal rounds like bean bags or tear gas. Also, a shotgun provides more firepower than a handgun but has a limited effective range making it safer than firing a rifle in an urban area.
Limited effective range can also be good in industrial environment with a high chance of ricochet. Less bouncing around and less penetration of pipes, compressed gas storage and similar. See: why jarheads and squids on boats used shotguns.
breaching, LTL and not much else.
Submachine guns, PDWs, and carbines made them obsolete
it is a barbaric weapon that should be forbidden because it is calculated to cause unnecessary suffering. According to the law of war (Kriegsrecht) every pow found to have in his possession such guns or ammunition belonging thereto forfeits his life.
CQB+ breaching also watch some Trench Grenade cause he likes combat shotguns
Having a breaching tool for the point man that will absolutely one shot disable an unarmored combatant, while giving a tool for mission flexibility. Most guys carried both a rifle and shotgun, but the ability to immediately keep firing after a breaching load is key in that very niche scenario. Also, like the other guy said, policing. Or back in the 'nam era, some farmboys just felt more comfortable with them in a jungle environment. If your squad is unloading, hopefully your friends are shooting point targets while you're clearing probable concealment.
Now those kinds of rounds would be cool to see tested. I've never seen anything like that for sale though. I have my doubts about it's effectiveness as well. Back in the days before smokeless powder people used huge "bore gauge" rifles for hunting dangerous game. I.e. 10-bore, 8-bore, 4-bore, etc, just like shotgun sizes. Explosive bullets were a thing, basically just a hollow slug packed with explosive compound and tipped with an impact-sensitive detonator. Picrel is from W. W. Greener's The Gun and Its Development, the next few pages discuss in more detail. Anyway, these things were often bigger than 12ga yet still still fell out of favor nearly instantly when smokeless powder and high velocity, but much smaller, express cartridges came on the market. I'm sure the same sort of thing is true with the FRAG-12, it's probably less effective than a .308.