READ: Manticore Arms Ripley Rail: The 1980’s Aliens Upgrade Your AR Needs

Contribution for RECOIL.

“For the younger readers who didn’t grow up during one of the greatest decades, Aliens, directed by James Cameron, was released in 1986.  It was a direct sequel to Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979).

Whereas Alien was more of a horror film set on a starship, Aliens was an action movie.  Intended by Cameron to be an allegory for the Vietnam War, Aliens’ story included the Colonial Marines, who are heavily armed with advanced weaponry.  Despite their firepower advantages, the Colonial Marines struggle and lose in combat against the titular aliens due to poor leadership, corporate subterfuge, and restrictive rules of engagement.

The Colonial Marines are equipped with helmet-mounted cameras that live stream to their command element.  They have smart weapons that auto-track movement: both man-portable and emplaced sentry guns.  Their personal equipment includes motion trackers, thermal imaging, and electronic warfare (hacking).  Much of this probably sounds like familiar real-world concepts today; science fiction often inspires the next generation of engineers to make that fiction a reality.

Alien and Aliens did a lot of world-building through the visual styling of the technology.  This style has since come to be known as “cassette futurism”: analog controls, simple LED electronic displays, hard industrial lines.  This visual design style carries over to the Colonial Marines weapons and equipment as well.

The M41A Pulse Rifle is the standard-issue small arm of the Colonial Marines.  The M41A is described in-universe as using 10x24mm caseless cartridges that are fired by an electric pulse (hence the term Pulse Rifle) with a muzzle energy equivalent to .300 Win Mag.  It is fed via a 100-round U-conveyer magazine, with most Marines downloading their mags to 95 for reliability. Read More…..