[HoE] Some Thoughts on Ammo

[DarrinBrig@aol.com]

Ok, I've just recently added HOE, so forgive me if any of this has been asked
before.  Hopefully most of this will be answered when the Wasted West comes
out.  

I guess I can live with 7.62 (AK-47, right?) doing 4d8 damage, though this
seems a little much to me.  But how on earth does a 5.56 round (M-16) do 3d8
damage?  Those bullets aren't THAT big, are they?  The 7.62 is at least close
to a 9mm with a bit more powder behind it, but the 5.56 is almost half the
size of a 9mm slug, right?  I was under the impression that most assault
weapon bullets tended to be a little smaller than standard rifle rounds, or at
least didn't have as much powder, as they were designed with the idea that you
wouldn't be shooting at anything past 300 ft. or so.  

Also, I'm assuming that in the Wasted West, most of the ammo has been
standardized?  Currently (real life) there are about 4 or 5 major different
types of 9mm pistol ammo, with the german made Parabellum/Luger being one of
the more popular ones, but in general none of the different ammo are supposed
to be interchangeable.  It looks like steps have been taken to give each side
(SA/NA) different types of ammo, with the NA favoring 9mm for pistols and 5.56
for automatic weapons, and the SA favoring .50 for pistols/SMGs (good god, .50
cal SMG?  OUCH) and 7.62 for rifles/MGs.  This is fine, but in RL there is a
lot of different kinds of ammo... for example, 7.62 Russian rounds are NOT
interchangeable with 7.62 NATO rounds.  I'm assuming for simplicity's sake
that this wasn't a major concern with the game rules.

That SA Sidearm, though... is that a revolver or is that a semi-auto knockoff
of a Desert Eagle or Automag V with a clip?