Combat PhaseSpring 1952Turn 5The United Nations War Crimes CouncilThe UNWCC holds its first major trial since the end of WW2.
The trial concerns whether
Nogrania’s NAF-NMG-51 "Wictor" is a violation of
Protocol VI on
Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Automatic Weaponry, of the
Geneva Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious, Have Indiscriminate Effects, or Greatly Enable and Encourage the Pursuant of Armed Conflicts Between Nations.
Toskesh is prosecuting, claiming that the use of the
NAF-NMG-51 "Wictor" is a
War Crime and that the offending nation should bear the appropriate repercussions for their development and continued use of said weapon.
The article in question:
VI. Automatic Weaponry:
Protocol VI on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Automatic Weaponry prohibits the use of weaponry which fires greater than one projectile per activation of the device. This includes weapons which in the user is able to continue the firing of said weapon without further input or intervention. The reason is that such weaponry enables one user to rapidly cause the death of many in an indiscriminate fashion, needlessly accelerating the rate at which casualties are inflicted during the conflict.
The weapon in question:
NAF-NMG-51 "Wictor" – A modified variant of a copy of the famous Vickers Machine Gun, chambered for .303 caliber rounds. Uses a crank and a semi-auto limited to achieve rapid rates of fire. Frequently jams, terribly inaccurate, produces heated water for tea. Requires six men to move, or a horse. 2 Ore. [Cheap].
The trial begins with opening arguments from both sides.
Article six has two main points. The first, and most clear, the technicality of the violation, that there must be but a single action per projectile. The second, and somewhat vague, that it must be granted no further input between targets. The primary subject of this prohibition is the "machinegun" which I shall be citing as an example.
To address the first point, internally, the "machinegun" performs many actions. Pulling in ammunition, ejecting casings, detonating charges... it is not defined by internal processes, but instead the actions performed by the operator. Where is the "single action" of a wheel? A full rotation? Until it "clicks"? Dramatic hyperbole! There is no discreet action to define until it ceases to rotate. The difference between a "machinegun" and a permissible weapon with a self-loading mechanism, is that it comes to a complete rest between shots. The trigger must stop. So long as the trigger does not come to a complete stop between projectiles, forced by the very nature of the firing mechanism, the weapon can fire more than once per activation, and is clearly a violation of article six. I invite the judges to visit the firing range and operate the weapon as swiftly as they are able, and then to guess how many bullets it fired. It will immediately become clear that the correlation between activating the thing and firing it is completely incoherent.
As to the second point. While vague, it is quite brief to address. A "machinegun" will fire when it fires. Ending human lives just a matter of sweeping across them and watching them fall. A rifle requires that each victim be sited, then the trigger pulled. First the victim is identified, and then the choice to kill them is made. Or not! Separate actions mean a chance to identify civilians, surrenders, or helpless wounded. With this new weapon of slaughter, the rate of death is decided by the spin of the wheel, relegated to the unconscious mind by the incessant motion. I again invite the noble minds who shall pass judgement to try this weapon for themselves. Rotate this "wheel trigger" until the motion is even and steady, then look down at the targets and ask yourself: Are you choosing to fire, or waiting to fire? Choosing to end a single human life at a time, or watching as the inevitable slaughter takes place...
Our opponents will tell you that they must continue to apply force to this trigger of theirs, or that some internal mechanism separates the shots, and I tell you honestly that a "machinegun" is the same. They will say that they can choose each shot that they fire, and I tell you that they spin them like madmen with no such restraint. That only binding restraints have relevance here. To comply the ENTIRE weapon, convoluted triggers included, MUST come to a COMPLETE halt between discharges. No other state can be tolerated by a responsible society who wishes to avoid the mistakes of the past...
-RAM
Ladies and gentlemen, I shall endeavour to keep this brief.
Article six bans automatic weapons, defined as weapons which:
-fire greater than one projectile per activation of the device.
The Wictor fires one bullet per quarter rotation of the firing crank. Each quarter turn is a distinct activation of the device.
-which in the user is able to continue the firing of said weapon without further input or intervention.
The Wictor requires constant input (turning of the crank) in order to fire. Should the operator stop turning the crank, the device stops firing immediately.
Article six does not ban weapons based on rate of fire, or any other criteria not mentioned. By any reasonable interpretation of the law, the Wictor is legal.
-Nuke9.13
Judicating the trials are representatives from the Soviet Union, the United States, China, France, and Britain.
A large portion of the trial consists of debating the finer points of what counts as an “activation” and where the line between semi-auto and full-auto lies. Centermost is the Wictor itself, an un-tampered copy of the weapon brought in (unloaded) for examination by all in attendance. The trials temporarily visit a shooting range for a practical demonstration during which the judging body could personally examine the weapon in action. Despite being a NATO country, France surprises everyone by shifting their stance against Nogrania at this point, with the French representative even going as far as to issue the statement, “The recoil bruised my shoulder, which can happen if you don't know what you're doing. The brass shell casings disoriented me as they flew past my face. The smell of sulfur and destruction made me sick. The explosions — loud like a bomb — gave me a temporary form of PTSD. For at least an hour after firing the gun just a few times, I was anxious and irritable.” It is around this point a fist-fight breaks out between the prosecution and defense, but the scuffle is quickly broken up by the U.N. security in attendance.
The crux of the argument comes down, ultimately, to whether the crank constitutes a single activation from the time it starts spinning to the time it finishes spinning, or whether parts of the rotation by themselves count as individual activations. Toskesh argues fervently that the delineation between fractions of the cranks rotation is arbitrary, and then go on to insist that a trigger must
stop between each round in order to provide a discrete method of activation. “The correlation between activating the thing and firing it,” argues Chief Prosecutor RAM, “is completely incoherent.”
Nogrania’s defense is remarkably concise in comparison. “The Wictor fires one bullet per quarter rotation of the firing crank. Each quarter turn is a distinct activation of the device,” Chief Defendant Nuke states. “The Wictor requires constant input (turning of the crank) in order to fire.”
After several weeks of debate and careful deliberation, the trials come to a close. China and Russia, predictably, openly side with the prosecution. The United States and Britain side with the defense with likewise predictability. France, who was one of the strongest advocates for the Geneva Conventions on Conventional Weaponry following WW2, is the deciding vote.
“After much deliberation,” the French representative says from his podium, “it has come down to this. If we are to be a fair and balanced council, we must judge each infraction by the letter of the law. In an ideal world we would go by the spirit, but when men are swayed by their own agendas and short-sighted desires the only security we have is that in the impartial judgement we make when the Articles are considered.
“With this in mind, France votes Nay – the Wictor is not in violation of Protocol VI. The nature of the crank is such that the user must apply force in four discrete, alternating directions in a conscious, continuous motion in order to operate the weapon.”
The crowd murmurs among itself as the French representative goes on to point out that despite the ruling, the Wictor is clearly a vile, evil weapon designed to replicate the mass-murder capabilities of World War II machineguns. He condemns Nogrania for using it, and despite admitting that Protocol VI has no limit on rate of fire he asks that the Geneva Conventions be amended to blanket this loophole. While the other state representatives nod along with his request, legal analysts later admit they are pessimistic about the possibility of such an amendment occurring any time soon - if at all.
It was a close case, but ultimately the Wictor is found to not be in violation of the Geneva Conventions. Due to the validity of their case, Toskesh is not guilty of filing a frivolous suit and has not hurt their standing with the UNWCC.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the United Nations.
As has come to our attentions that our fair nation has been accused of violating the Geneva Conventions on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious, Have Indiscriminate Effects, or Greatly Enable and Encourage the Pursuant of Armed Conflicts Between Nations , Protocol VI.
Nogrania rejects these accusations strongly and categorically. Nogrania seeks not to violate international law, and instead seeks to work with and within its confines. Nogrania has, and will continue, to uphold the conventions.
The argument laid by our detractors is of nature of a weapon system nicknamed Wictor, that is used by Nogranian Armed Forces. Claim is that this weapon violates the Protocol VI, by the virtue of firing rapidly. Yet, I shall call attention to the fact that rate of fire of weapon system is not defined within Protocol VI. Instead, Protocol VI defines automatic weapon as that which “fires greater than one projectile per activation of the device” without requiring active manual input.
It does not define rate of fire. A trained marksman can operate a semi-automatic rifle at extreme rate of fire, yet would this council ban such weapon based on individual soldier? Is the users personal skill and ability factor in defining whenever or not weapon is to be considered automatic? I say no. Individual soldiers skills are far too varied to be categorized into illegal or legal framework.
And this brings us to main point of contention. Wictor is a semi-automatic weapon, with a trigger that requires input to start an activation. Each activation fires once projectile. No more, no less. One projectile. Combined with this legal trigger is the hand crank with four spokes, that strike the trigger as crank is turned. Each 90 degrees turn requires different action to be carried out. user is constantly required to change the movement of their hand to maintain fire.
Wictor requires more action from the user than a semi-automatic rifle. User is required to turn the crank 90 degrees in order to activate the weapon, each activation requiring further 90 degrees turns. It is up to the user to run the crank, to run the weapon, fast enough to provide suppressive fire. If a soldier were to, for example, be able to empty a semi-automatic pistols 30 round magazine in 2 seconds, that would mean fire rate of 15 rounds per second, total of 450 rounds per minute. Would this tribuna declare such weapon illegal? Does this tribunal declare a human being illegal?
The rate of fire of the hypothetical weapon, as well as very concrete Wictor, comes not from the weapon itself, but from the ability of user to carry out rapid activations. The weapon fires only a single projectile per action. It is up to user to run the device fast enough to reach desired fire rate.
As such, based on logic and letter of the law, Wictor does not violate Protocol VI.
-Mandemon
The toskesh bring forward what they claim is a violation of the geneva conventions, specifically, they claim that we have broken and attempted to subvert the Tenants of article 6 of the conventions.
This is categorically False, my good sirs. Article 6 of the Geneva convention, prohibits weaponry which fires more than one projectile per activation of the device. Example of such weaponry includes Shotguns, Autocannons, select artillery systems and, of course, the much-vaunted Machine gun. The machine gun is an automatic weapon that is banned, because of its ability to fire more than one projectile with only a single press of the trigger. The Device fires more than one Bullet per activation.
This Violates Article 6.
An automatic weapon is defined as, and I quote my good sirs from the dictionary of Oxford
“An automatic firearm continuously fires rounds as long as the trigger is pressed or held and there is ammunition in the magazine/chamber.”
The Wickers Does not.
The Wickers does not fire more than one projectile per activation.
The Wickers Does not fit the definition by the dictionary definition of either a Machine Gun OR an Automatic weapon.
The Wickers Does Not Violate article 6 of the Geneva Convention.
The cranking motion is a defined activation, firing One projectile per predefined Rotation, and fully requires the constant input and conscious action of a human Being to fire.
The Wickers requires the constant input of its operator and as such does not violate the second prevision of articles 6's ban. Every bullet fired from the wickers, require the full conscious action of its operator.
The Wickers is not automatic.
Every bullet fired from the wickers requires an individual motion and action, in this case, operating the Crank.
As such we move to dismiss this Motion that has been brought before the council, as the wickers does not violate article 6 of the conventions, and the toskesh belief that it does represent either willing ignorance over the very rules that they bring before you, or willing Disdain for the intelligence of this council, and a belief that you would not know the very Conventions that you have been brought together to enforce.
Under Every definition of an automatic weapon, the Wickers is not an automatic weapon.
-Frostgiant
In considering this frivolous complaint, it is important to look towards the fundamentals, the internal actions of the device in question. Contrary to the banned machine guns, the Wiktor uses a semi-automatic action. These weapons reload automatically, but in an important contrast to the machine gun, require the pull of a trigger to fire each bullet.
The Wiktor is fundamentally equal in it's way of operation to M1 Garand, the SKS or even the Tokesian Zha-Buqiang. All these acquire their semi-automatic action in different ways, but the principle of automatically loading but not firing weapon does not change. We believe that given the UN has not sought to ban any of these aforementioned weapons (or any of the many similar ones), the Wiktor should not be banned either, to prevent inconsistencies from arising in the interpretation of the declaration.
Now, Tokesh may choose to concentrate on the crank to obfuscate this obvious conclusion. This is nonsense, firstly because the crank does not change the operation of the gun, anymore than that adding a string to a trigger would change it. Cranks are easily manufactured parts, and can be fitted to any gun without serious modification. Secondly, the inclusion of a crank itself does not violate UN rules. Cranks have no meaningful inertia, ensuring that further input or intervention is always required. In addition to that, the range of motion a user needs to exercise a crank is vastly greater than the mere repetitive twitching of a finger that is required to fire any other firearm.
Given the obvious precedents that legalize not only the Wiktor but also other semi-automatics, and the fact that Tokesh themselves operates weapons that require less user action to fire than the Wiktor, we advise the court to dismiss this clearly frivolous case.
-10Ebbor10
Gentlemen and women of this UN War Crimes Council, I, representing the proud nation of Toskesh, am horrified to inform you that a heinous act that has been performed at Serouda, during the Toskeshian Liberation War against the Nogranian oppressors. Few months ago, in the area commonly known as the Badlands, the Corporal Lin Na was raiding enemy positions alongside her squad. There she encountered a NAF-AFW-51 Hexapod, aka "Hippo", and prepared to fight it in accord with the Geneva Conventions, as she has been instructed to do. Suddenly, a hail of bullets from the top of the Hippo quickly slaughtered her unit, leaving the bullet-ridden corpses for the vultures. Only one man survived for enough time to tell what he had seen.
Similar incidents started to appear in all the open fronts of the war, causing hundreds of casualties. The Nogranian Army has put a crank-operated machine gun on top of their Hippos, violating the Geneva Conventions. The NAF-NMG-51 "Wictor", while suffering from numerous technical bugs, is capable of unleashing a rain of fire upon unsuspecting troops. While the internal mechanisms has been slightly altered in order to resemble semi-auto fire, the actual rate of fire isn´t, making it a de facto machine gun.
Article VI forbids weapons which are able to shoot “greater than one projectile per activation of the device” or “weapons which the user is capable of continued firing of said weapon without further input or intervention”. Both definitions are addressed if the operator of the Wictor doesn´t stop cranking the lever for every bullet fired, an attitude they are not keen to indulge in.
Not only have the Nogranians tried to use inhumane tactics on our dear island, but they have the nerve to copy the design of an existing outlawed weapon, the Vickers machine gun, shamelessly imitating it, as if challenging this very chamber to clench his teeth and grudgingly admit this Not-A-Machine-Gun weapon because of a minor technical detail that is irrelevant to the definition written in the conventions. Not only does it fire and kill like a machine gun, but it looks like one as well. Yet Nogranian engineers act like all that has emerged from their drawing boards is a tea kettle.
I cannot stress enough how important is for this chamber to make an example out of Nogrania to show other nations the resolve of the U.N. to not let clear violations of the Conventions go unpunished. Can´t you see the future that awaits us if you let this go unpunished? Planes with hydraulic mechanisms that subtly move their wings up and down, countries marking all territory as “minefields” so they can deploy devices wherever they want or giant naval “hospitals” loaded to the brim with artillery. For all the widows who will nerve see their husbands again, for all the orphaned children, for all the empty chairs at the bar, I plead you to crack down on those who try to revive the hell of past wars.
-Wizgrot
The United Nations War Crimes CouncilToskesh, not easily deterred, has brought the UNWCC's attention to another one of Nogrania's latest inventions: the
NAF-BC-51 "Rabid". They claim it is a violation of Protocol VI on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Automatic Weaponry, of the Geneva Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed to Be Excessively Injurious, Have Indiscriminate Effects, or Greatly Enable and Encourage the Pursuant of Armed Conflicts Between Nations. The UNWCC has taken this claim very seriously and called both Nogranian and Toskesh officials to the War Crimes Tribunal to determine whether or not a violation has occurred.
Both sides have until the Strategy Phase of next turn to submit a 500 word argument explaining why the
NAF-BC-51 "Rabid" does or does not violate Protocol VI of the Geneva Conventions. The UNWCC will listen to both sides, examine the accused instrument, and come to a just ruling. Should the ruling be to find the instrument in violation, the offending side will receive a fair sentence proportional to their violation. Should the ruling be to find the instrument not a violation, then the case will be dismissed; depending on how frivolous the accusation was, this may hurt future cases! Limit of 1 submission per player. Best submissions from each side will be used.
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Topic: Arms Race: Iron Behemoths - Toskesh - GAME OVER (Read 47287 times)