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Message no. 1
From: Frank Pelletier <jeanpell@****.IVIC.QC.CA>
Subject: Insane Armor values
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 18:24:12 +0000
Just a questions...

As anyone experimented with augmenting armor ratings for vehicules?
Does it mess up game-balance, or make it more fair for all?

I just found out the hard way how a Predator II could down an
Agullair-X chopper (worth 6 mil)...

Trinity
-----------------------------------------
Frank Pelletier
Trinity@********.com, jeanpell@****.qc.ca

"Life is a blur"
Message no. 2
From: Frank Pelletier <jeanpell@****.IVIC.QC.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 1997 20:16:06 +0000
Frank Pelletier <jeanpell@****.IVIC.QC.CA> once wrote,

> Just a questions...

That's "question"

> As anyone experimented with augmenting armor ratings for vehicules?

Has, dumbass...Has...and it's vehicles, not vehicules... drop that
stupid U...

> Does it mess up game-balance, or make it more fair for all?

More fair? What kind of word is that? Fairer, maybe?

Sorry for those ugly mistakes...

Trinity
-------------------------------------
Frank Pelletier
Trinity@********.com, jeanpell@****.qc.ca

"Life is a blur"
Message no. 3
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 11:49:55 +0100
Frank Pelletier said on 18:24/23 Oct 97...

> As anyone experimented with augmenting armor ratings for vehicules?
> Does it mess up game-balance, or make it more fair for all?

On one end of the scale, it probably would. On the other, increasing the
armor causes insane armor ratings of another kind -- quite likely no
weapon on earth would be able to kill a GMC Banshee, for example, even
though it's really just a light tank. That's also somehow not right. I
think leaving them at what they are works better, though I someday will
try my idea of doubling the vehicle's Body for resisting attacks; right
now I'm thinking of only doing this against attacks that cause only a
small amount of damage, such as firearm bullets, arrows, etc. The normal
value would be used against crashes, explosive weapons, and other things
that cause damage over a large area.

> I just found out the hard way how a Predator II could down an
> Agullair-X chopper (worth 6 mil)...

Looking at the stats (Body 5 Armor 5) that is a definite possibility, if
you have a fair amount of successes behind your shot. The Aguilar is about
as armored as a good flak jacket, except that attacks of low Power Levels
totally won't affect it (but there aren't many of those around).

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
The truth may be out there, but lies are inside you head.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 4
From: Tim Cooper <z-i-m@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 1997 19:37:38 EDT
On Fri, 24 Oct 1997 11:49:55 +0100 Gurth <gurth@******.NL> writes:
>Frank Pelletier said on 18:24/23 Oct 97...
>
>> As anyone experimented with augmenting armor ratings for vehicules?
>> Does it mess up game-balance, or make it more fair for all?
>
>On one end of the scale, it probably would. On the other, increasing the
>armor causes insane armor ratings of another kind -- quite likely no
>weapon on earth would be able to kill a GMC Banshee, for example, even
>though it's really just a light tank. That's also somehow not right. I
>think leaving them at what they are works better, though I someday will
>try my idea of doubling the vehicle's Body for resisting attacks; right
>now I'm thinking of only doing this against attacks that cause only a
>small amount of damage, such as firearm bullets, arrows, etc. The normal
>value would be used against crashes, explosive weapons, and other things
>that cause damage over a large area.

What about using something similar to the modifications that various
types of attacks get versus Barrier Ratings?... the rules try to consider
the overall effectiveness of the "mode" of damage against inanimate, and
usually solid, objects.

~Tim
Message no. 5
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 01:30:18 GMT
On Fri, 24 Oct 1997 11:49:55 +0100, Gurth wrote:

> Frank Pelletier said on 18:24/23 Oct 97...
>
> > I just found out the hard way how a Predator II could down an
> > Agullair-X chopper (worth 6 mil)...
>
> Looking at the stats (Body 5 Armor 5) that is a definite possibility, if
> you have a fair amount of successes behind your shot. The Aguilar is about
> as armored as a good flak jacket, except that attacks of low Power Levels
> totally won't affect it (but there aren't many of those around).

Unfortunately, these stats are far too inappropriate for an *attack
helicopter* ("Aztechnology's most advanced VTOL attack platform"). I'm
positive that if you asked an AH-64 pilot whether a skilled shooter using
an Uzi (III) could shoot down his Apache, he'd be laughing uncontrollably
on the ground. As the rules currently stand, an average troll wearing an
armoured jacket could probably shrug off such damage easier than the
Aguilar (even without the automatic drop in damage level)...

I also find it curious now that R2 treats all armour as barriers, yet most
vehicles have no armour rating at all. Isn't 1mm of steel or aluminum
sheeting, or 4mm of carbon fibre or plastic worth *anything*? Does anyone
have their BBB handy to tell me, for instance, what a barrier rating of
even "1" translates into?

I agree with Gurth that perhaps doubling Body for the purposes of resisting
damage is a bit more realistic (although +50% might be better). I might
even go a bit further and add one or two points to all armour values (if
you really do want tractor cabs to outlast trolls in a firefight).





James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 6
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 12:00:44 +0100
James Lindsay said on 1:30/26 Oct 97...

> Unfortunately, these stats are far too inappropriate for an *attack
> helicopter* ("Aztechnology's most advanced VTOL attack platform"). I'm
> positive that if you asked an AH-64 pilot whether a skilled shooter using
> an Uzi (III) could shoot down his Apache, he'd be laughing uncontrollably
> on the ground.

A machine that's supposed to survive 23 mm rounds in the vital areas
(engine, rotor head, etc.) won't be too troubled by a load of SMG rounds,
no. However in SR it won't...

> As the rules currently stand, an average troll wearing an armoured
> jacket could probably shrug off such damage easier than the Aguilar
> (even without the automatic drop in damage level)...

All the troll needs is two successes to achieve the same drop in damage
level.

> I also find it curious now that R2 treats all armour as barriers, yet most
> vehicles have no armour rating at all. Isn't 1mm of steel or aluminum
> sheeting, or 4mm of carbon fibre or plastic worth *anything*?

You are severely over-estimating the thickness of a typical car's
bodywork. A quarter of a millimeter is closer to the real thickness,
AFAIK, and that just won't stop bullets very well. A full millimeter would
naturally do a bit better, but not by much. (That is a reason why you
should try to hide behind the engine compartment of a car when someone
starts to shoot at you.)

> Does anyone have their BBB handy to tell me, for instance, what a
> barrier rating of even "1" translates into?

It doesn't say what exactly each BR equates to, except for very general
terms ("Standard glass" for BR 2, for example).

> I agree with Gurth that perhaps doubling Body for the purposes of resisting
> damage is a bit more realistic (although +50% might be better). I might
> even go a bit further and add one or two points to all armour values (if
> you really do want tractor cabs to outlast trolls in a firefight).

The core of the problem, IMHO, is that everything is fine as long as you
stick to character-vs-character or vehicle-vs-vehicle combat, but as soon
as you use an character weapon (pistol etc.) against a vehicle, or a
vehicle weapon (missile launcher) against a character, things start going
wrong.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Ten shades of beautiful for every disorder.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 7
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 07:59:31 +0000
In article <34532fba.3664945@****.direct.ca>, James Lindsay
<jlindsay@******.CA> writes
>Unfortunately, these stats are far too inappropriate for an *attack
>helicopter* ("Aztechnology's most advanced VTOL attack platform"). I'm
>positive that if you asked an AH-64 pilot whether a skilled shooter using
>an Uzi (III) could shoot down his Apache, he'd be laughing uncontrollably
>on the ground.

Well, he'd probably say "depends where it hit" before laughing, because
there almost certainly are a few improbably lucky ways to do it.

He'd be more worried about birdstrike than 9mm bullets, though,
basically the Apache is resistant to heavy machine gun fire and designed
to remain flyable for half an hour or so after hits from 23mm high-
explosive incendiary shells.

And while you stand spraying Uzi fire at the Apache (effective range
maybe 200 metres), it's returning the compliment with 30mm HEDP cannon
shells (effective range 1,500 metres). You are a lot more vulnerable to
a half-pound explosive shell or its fragmentation than the Apache is to
9mm bullets :)

>I also find it curious now that R2 treats all armour as barriers, yet most
>vehicles have no armour rating at all. Isn't 1mm of steel or aluminum
>sheeting, or 4mm of carbon fibre or plastic worth *anything*?

Against bullets of any calibre? Not really. For assault rifle bullets,
all it will do is tumble the bullet so it hits you keyholed: this will
_greatly_ increase the severity of the wound it inflicts. It would have
some effect on light rounds or birdshot or grenade shrapnel.

If you want to hide behind a car in a firefight, use either the engine
block for cover, or at the very least a wheel (the brake discs/drums
provide some protection). The bodywork provides almost no protection at
all.

>Does anyone
>have their BBB handy to tell me, for instance, what a barrier rating of
>even "1" translates into?

"Standard Glass" is 2.

The Barrier Rating system is a bit squiffy at low levels.
>
>I agree with Gurth that perhaps doubling Body for the purposes of resisting
>damage is a bit more realistic (although +50% might be better). I might
>even go a bit further and add one or two points to all armour values (if
>you really do want tractor cabs to outlast trolls in a firefight).

I think it's less that the armour is underrated - I could empty a L1A1
into the driver's side door of just about any car and have every round
penetrate clean through the passenger compartment and out the other
side.

The problem is, so what? By a literal interpretation of SR rules that
car should be wrecked: yet apart from twenty holes in the driver's and
passenger's doors, and maybe some chewed upholstery and broken glass,
what damage has it actually suffered? It's still drivable, its handling
and acceleration aren't affected. There aren't many places to hit a car
that will significantly affect its performance.

I think the idea of seperate damage scales for vehicles and people is a
good one. Vehicles take a lot more killing than most people realise: the
British Army issues 40mm rifle grenades (about 2lb of HE and steel) for
use against suspect vehicles crashing checkpoints in Northern Ireland.
YOu can put a lot of bullets into a car without stopping it, unless you
hit the driver.



--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 8
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 09:19:07 -0700
Paul J. Adam wrote:
|
| I think the idea of seperate damage scales for vehicles and people is a
| good one. Vehicles take a lot more killing than most people realise: the
| British Army issues 40mm rifle grenades (about 2lb of HE and steel) for
| use against suspect vehicles crashing checkpoints in Northern Ireland.
| YOu can put a lot of bullets into a car without stopping it, unless you
| hit the driver.

Here's a quick idea. Keep the Light, Moderate and Serious wound
levels on the damage track for vehicles. But, a vehicle isn't "dead"
until it's taken an amount of damage equal to 10 plus it's Body (plus
Armor?).

-David
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
--
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing
which ones to keep."
Message no. 9
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 18:19:22 GMT
On Sun, 26 Oct 1997 09:19:07 -0700, David Buehrer wrote:

> Paul J. Adam wrote:
> |
> | I think the idea of seperate damage scales for vehicles and people is a
> | good one. Vehicles take a lot more killing than most people realise: the
> | British Army issues 40mm rifle grenades (about 2lb of HE and steel) for
> | use against suspect vehicles crashing checkpoints in Northern Ireland.
> | YOu can put a lot of bullets into a car without stopping it, unless you
> | hit the driver.
>
> Here's a quick idea. Keep the Light, Moderate and Serious wound
> levels on the damage track for vehicles. But, a vehicle isn't "dead"
> until it's taken an amount of damage equal to 10 plus it's Body (plus
> Armor?).

How 'bout this:

Since we know that Shadowrun simplifies the way that "complicated" targets
such as living creatures and machinery take damage, we know that solving
this problem by adding numerous hit locations would only complicate things.
A solution we sometimes used in our gaming group for tough creatures or
large military vehicles was "multiple damage tracks". Since I don't ref SR
and haven't played in nearly a year, bear with me if this is a standard
rule /somewhere/ in the SR tome of rules :)

Vehicles can be given multiple condition monitors depending on their size
and complexity. Vehicles can therefore sustain more damage due to the
increased number of damage boxes available. A vehicle with three damage
tracks could take 30 "boxes" of damage, for instance. Damage is applied to
them as evenly as possible (ie: you do not move on to the next adjacent box
until all condition monitors have taken one point of damage in the previous
box). Wound categories inflict a number of boxes of damage as normal, so
such a vehicle would not suffer a Light Injury Penalty until it had
suffered at least three boxes of damage (either three Lights or one
Medium), but no more than nine. In essence, this allows particularly tough
objects to suffer fractional points of damage, without the complexity of
fractions themselves.

A vehicle with three tracks, having suffered five points of damage, would
record its condition as follows:

Condition Monitor #1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|X|X| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
^ ^ ^
Condition Monitor #2
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|X|X| | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
^ ^ ^
Condition Monitor #3
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|X| | | | | | | | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
^ ^ ^
-1 -2 -3

Special anti-vehicular weapons, for simplicity-sake, would damage _all_
damage tracks simultaneously. So if the above vehicle were to now be hit
by a missile that ended up inflicting a "serious injury", it would cross
off six boxes from each condition monitor:

Condition Monitor #1
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
^ ^ ^
Condition Monitor #2
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|X|X|X|X|X|X|X|X| | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
^ ^ ^
Condition Monitor #3
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
|X|X|X|X|X|X|X| | | |
+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
^ ^ ^
-1 -2 -3

The number of damage tracks can be taken from R2 by dividing the vehicle's
Body rating by two, rounding /up/. As for which weapons attack _all_
damage tracks simultaneously, an actual list may be needed.



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 10
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 18:19:27 GMT
On Sun, 26 Oct 1997 12:00:44 +0100, Gurth wrote:

> James Lindsay said on 1:30/26 Oct 97...
>
> > Unfortunately, these stats are far too inappropriate for an *attack
> > helicopter* ("Aztechnology's most advanced VTOL attack platform").
I'm
> > positive that if you asked an AH-64 pilot whether a skilled shooter using
> > an Uzi (III) could shoot down his Apache, he'd be laughing uncontrollably
> > on the ground.
>
> A machine that's supposed to survive 23 mm rounds in the vital areas
> (engine, rotor head, etc.) won't be too troubled by a load of SMG rounds,
> no. However in SR it won't...

Pity. If it was I that was refereeing the combat where a player shot down
an attack chopper with a heavy pistol, my entire game would grind to a halt
(followed by a few weeks of trying to come up with a solution to prevent
that kind of thing from happening again :)

> > As the rules currently stand, an average troll wearing an armoured
> > jacket could probably shrug off such damage easier than the Aguilar
> > (even without the automatic drop in damage level)...
>
> All the troll needs is two successes to achieve the same drop in damage
> level.

Yup. Sigh.

> > I also find it curious now that R2 treats all armour as barriers, yet most
> > vehicles have no armour rating at all. Isn't 1mm of steel or aluminum
> > sheeting, or 4mm of carbon fibre or plastic worth *anything*?
>
> You are severely over-estimating the thickness of a typical car's
> bodywork. A quarter of a millimeter is closer to the real thickness,
> AFAIK, and that just won't stop bullets very well. A full millimeter would
> naturally do a bit better, but not by much. (That is a reason why you
> should try to hide behind the engine compartment of a car when someone
> starts to shoot at you.)

1mm is pretty close... perhaps 0.5mm, but not 0.25mm. And as I replied in
another post, I'm not asking 1mm to stop bullets. I would just like it to
contribute to a slightly higher survivability for the occupants inside
(should they also be wearing armour).

> > Does anyone have their BBB handy to tell me, for instance, what a
> > barrier rating of even "1" translates into?
>
> It doesn't say what exactly each BR equates to, except for very general
> terms ("Standard glass" for BR 2, for example).
>
> > I agree with Gurth that perhaps doubling Body for the purposes of resisting
> > damage is a bit more realistic (although +50% might be better). I might
> > even go a bit further and add one or two points to all armour values (if
> > you really do want tractor cabs to outlast trolls in a firefight).
>
> The core of the problem, IMHO, is that everything is fine as long as you
> stick to character-vs-character or vehicle-vs-vehicle combat, but as soon
> as you use an character weapon (pistol etc.) against a vehicle, or a
> vehicle weapon (missile launcher) against a character, things start going
> wrong.

Well, an 18D rocket essentially penetrates twice as much armour as a 9M
pistol if you are considering barrier ratings (four times for armour
penetrators). This just isn't so. Part of the problem is that heavy
weapons simply do not do *enough* damage (if they did, armour ratings would
conversely be higher), but then you'd have people complaining that they
cannot possibly survive such weapons if they are used against
flesh-and-blood targets.

How bout this:

Quadruple a vehicle's Body rating versus natural (ie: fists & feet) and
melee attacks. Triple it versus small calibre projectiles. Double it
versus standard "small calibre" armour piercers or explosives. Use "as
is"
versus anti-vehicular weaponry. There will always be exceptions, of
course.



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 11
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 18:19:25 GMT
On Sun, 26 Oct 1997 07:59:31 +0000, Paul J. Adam wrote:

> In article <34532fba.3664945@****.direct.ca>, James Lindsay
> <jlindsay@******.CA> writes
> >Unfortunately, these stats are far too inappropriate for an *attack
> >helicopter* ("Aztechnology's most advanced VTOL attack platform"). I'm
> >positive that if you asked an AH-64 pilot whether a skilled shooter using
> >an Uzi (III) could shoot down his Apache, he'd be laughing uncontrollably
> >on the ground.
>
> Well, he'd probably say "depends where it hit" before laughing, because
> there almost certainly are a few improbably lucky ways to do it.
>
> He'd be more worried about birdstrike than 9mm bullets, though,
> basically the Apache is resistant to heavy machine gun fire and designed
> to remain flyable for half an hour or so after hits from 23mm high-
> explosive incendiary shells.

True, a few birds can ruin your day, but to an attack helicopter they would
probably be more of a visual problem (spat!-- now where's the windshield
wiper switch on this thing again?) than anything else (unless one got drawn
in to the tail rotor-- I would think NOTAR would be standard equipment on
choppers in 2058).

> And while you stand spraying Uzi fire at the Apache (effective range
> maybe 200 metres), it's returning the compliment with 30mm HEDP cannon
> shells (effective range 1,500 metres). You are a lot more vulnerable to
> a half-pound explosive shell or its fragmentation than the Apache is to
> 9mm bullets :)

Granted :)

> >I also find it curious now that R2 treats all armour as barriers, yet most
> >vehicles have no armour rating at all. Isn't 1mm of steel or aluminum
> >sheeting, or 4mm of carbon fibre or plastic worth *anything*?
>
> Against bullets of any calibre? Not really. For assault rifle bullets,
> all it will do is tumble the bullet so it hits you keyholed: this will
> _greatly_ increase the severity of the wound it inflicts. It would have
> some effect on light rounds or birdshot or grenade shrapnel.

Unfortunately, SR doesn't differentiate accurately between different
calibres anyways (hence the ability for heavy pistols to out penitrate
combat rifles). Of course, there are no specific rules governing melee
weapons or even fists, when used against a vehicle.

> If you want to hide behind a car in a firefight, use either the engine
> block for cover, or at the very least a wheel (the brake discs/drums
> provide some protection). The bodywork provides almost no protection at
> all.

I am well aware of that (I have eight years of mechanical background on my
side :) I'm not asking that the bodywork protect an individual hiding
behind it... just that the BR of sheet metal, carbon fibre, or fibreglass
offer *some* reduction to the damage level. Otherwise, most of the listed
vehicles might as well be open-bodied sand rails without *any* body
panelling period. One or two points of armour for "factory" vehicles
straight out of the showrooms of 2058 won't stop lunatics with rocket
launchers, but it will give passengers wearing body armour a slight edge in
survival if they were shot at by an SMG- or pistol-toating citizen :)

> >I agree with Gurth that perhaps doubling Body for the purposes of resisting
> >damage is a bit more realistic (although +50% might be better). I might
> >even go a bit further and add one or two points to all armour values (if
> >you really do want tractor cabs to outlast trolls in a firefight).
>
> I think it's less that the armour is underrated - I could empty a L1A1
> into the driver's side door of just about any car and have every round
> penetrate clean through the passenger compartment and out the other
> side.
>
> The problem is, so what? By a literal interpretation of SR rules that
> car should be wrecked: yet apart from twenty holes in the driver's and
> passenger's doors, and maybe some chewed upholstery and broken glass,
> what damage has it actually suffered? It's still drivable, its handling
> and acceleration aren't affected. There aren't many places to hit a car
> that will significantly affect its performance.

I whole-heartedly agree, but FASA just ain't gonna play that game. Worse
yet, not only is the car considered wrecked, but it must also make a crash
test (even if it was cruising around at 10km/h). Sure, one lucky shot
/could/ take out the fuel delivery system or damage one of the key engine
sensors which are monitored by the vehicle's on board computer, but it is
unlikely.

The only way to "tweak" vehicular combat in SR is to stick as closely to
the system in R2 as possible, and go from there...



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 12
From: Rune Fostervoll <runefo@***.UIO.NO>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 21:33:15 +0100
I've been thinking a bit more about the high - end vehicles..

Well, a lot of this can be used within the rules, even though it
assumes changes in the rules. I suspect it can be used simply by
using huge armor values and then have 'special ammos' only available to
70+MM weapons instead of changing the rules.. anyway, I don't want to
spend more time on it, so here goes: (Not adapted to R2 beyond what I have
heard on the list).



HVA works as a barrier against all weapons equal to its rating. It supplies
its rating in normal vehicle armor to the vehicle, which means its effective
barrier rating is double its rating. It also reduces damage by a further step.


MBW (main battle weapons) are the heaviest weapons in common military use.
Tank guns, rocket artillery, howitzers, and vehicle mounted ASM/ATGM's
is of this type. None of the current SR weapons fit this category.

These weapons commonly ignore or halve normal armor depending on its ammo
type. Further detail on ammo types:



Ammunition types:
Large caliber guns and other weapon systems:
HE (High Explosive) Anti - personnel and anti - soft vehicles, this round
explodes upon impact. Base power is reduced by -1 per meter radius.
It does not count as a MBW.

AP (Armor piercing) Normal round designed to punch through armor. Went out
of style in the early 20's, but is still in use against medium to lightly
armored targets. It halves normal armor value and negates the normal
armor damage reduction. It is usually shaped charge based.

HEAT (Chemical/explosive anti tank round, using directed explosive to
burn through the armor. A very ugly weapon to be hit by. If it penetrates
HVA and normal armor, everyone and everything inside the vehicle suffer
12D damage (Normal damage, not MBW damage.). It is not an armor piercing
class weapon, though. (That is, it does not reduce normal armor nor negate
damage level reductions.). It is usually so that it either can or
cannot take out a certain thickness of armor.

SABOT (French for 'shoe'. A rod, usually of depleted uranium or tungsten,
is pushed by a shoe in the barrel, which then drops off. It is currently
the best weapon for shooting through armor. HEAT rounds are
more devastating if it manages to penetrate, but the heaviest tanks are
impervious to all but SABOT rounds. May only be fired by smoothbore.
It negates normal armor completely.

MSL (Missile rounds.). Gun tube launched missiles, usually wire guided or
illumination guided. They can usually target weaker areas of tanks
(Top of turret, rear) and carry HEAT or similar warheads.

FLECHETTE (World's largest Shotgun rounds.). Designed to be effective in
a cone 90M long and 30M wide at its end, it gives base damage to everything
within this area. (with -1 power and damage at the outer half). This damage
is normal weapon damage.

CANNISTER (Artillery round, spreads a large number of grenades in an area and
detonates. Has about 160M radius, -1 power and damage per 40M. Devastating
anti - infantry weapon as well as effective aganst soft vehicles.).

GMLRS (Guided multiple rockets). Self - seeking or laser guided AP
and HE pods, usually 4-12 per rocket. When in self seeker mode they
are not that dangerous but with laser or other illumination they are
deadly. (The rocket discharges the pods during descent, which then uses
minimal guidance systems to seek out its target. Most versions use the
'main rocket' as a platform for the selfseeker systems, which then
illuminates likely targets for the pods. Not recommended for use closer
than 500M to friendly positions. The AP pods do 16D damage (as AP) and
the HE pods do 16D as HE.


CARGO (Anti - vehicular cannister round). Disperses armor mines and limpets
in a area which both makes the area mined and is capable of
crippling even MBT's in its area. -1 power and damage per 10 meters.


Hellion ASM (Air to surface missile). These are the tankbuster missiles
carried by most helis. The mitsubishi Bandit is a soft-vehicle or
personnell killer, while this is the anti tank version. It carries
a directed explosive warhead, which ignores normal armor.


The 90MM has a base damage of 12D, while the 120MM has a base damage of 16D.
The 280MM rocket artillery has a base damage of 20D. (Pods are 15D.).
The Hellion ASM/ATGM) has a base damage of 15D.

Target\weapon 90MM 120MM ROCK Hellion
APC: 15 normal armor X XX XX XX
IFV: 6 HVA armor X XX XX XX
ARM: 8 HVA armor 0 X 0 X
MBT: 12 HVA armor - 0 - X

Legend:
- = Cannot destroy.
O = Can damage with special ammo. (Requires special ammo to damage).
X = Can damage with appropriate ammo. (Likely to kill with special ammo).
XX= Likely to kill.

APC: Armored personnell carrier (BRDM, I113).
IFV: Infantry fighting vehicle (APC designed for fighting - Bradley or BMP-3)
ARM: Light tank. Lightly armored, but usually about as heavily armed as a MBT.
MBT: Main Battle Tank: Heavily armored behemoth. (T-80 or M1A1)

Defensive options:
Reactive armor: This armor addition cosists of small 'bricks' of explosives.
They explode if hit, causing a 'counterexplosion' to deflect the explosive.
It is effective against HEAT, AP, and CARGO/CANNISTER rounds, and
reduces these weapons' armor negation by one step. (None=unchanged, halved=
none, ignore=halve). It is ineffective against SABOT rounds, and also has a
tendency to kill nearby exposed friendly infantry, unbuttoned tank commanders
and so on. (Count as (HVA rating *1.5)D with -1 power/M damage.).

SHIELD (Sensors detect incoming missiles, and an automated system launches
chaff and airburst grenades to try to destroy it. Same disadvantage as the
reactive armor.).


The system works as intended - each weapon type is failry balanced against
other wehicles of appropriate type.
Message no. 13
From: Spider Murphy <crickel@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 26 Oct 1997 16:32:41 -0600
James Lindsay wrote:

> > > I agree with Gurth that perhaps doubling Body for the purposes of resisting
> > > damage is a bit more realistic (although +50% might be better). I might
> > > even go a bit further and add one or two points to all armour values (if
> > > you really do want tractor cabs to outlast trolls in a firefight).
> >
> > The core of the problem, IMHO, is that everything is fine as long as you
> > stick to character-vs-character or vehicle-vs-vehicle combat, but as soon
> > as you use an character weapon (pistol etc.) against a vehicle, or a
> > vehicle weapon (missile launcher) against a character, things start going
> > wrong.
>
> Well, an 18D rocket essentially penetrates twice as much armour as a 9M
> pistol if you are considering barrier ratings (four times for armour
> penetrators). This just isn't so. Part of the problem is that heavy
> weapons simply do not do *enough* damage (if they did, armour ratings would
> conversely be higher), but then you'd have people complaining that they
> cannot possibly survive such weapons if they are used against
> flesh-and-blood targets.

Here's how I do vehiclular weapons versus characters:

GM: "Okay, you've just been hit with an Anti-Vehicle Rocket. Tell me, how much
armor are you wearing?"

Player: "Heavy Milspec. Gives me 14 armor. 4D - anyone can resist that!"
<clatter
of dice>

GM: "I wasn't asking you what the -rating- was. How many inches of armor are you
wearing?"

Player: "Huh? Well, I mean, it's personal armor... Maybe four inches, tops."

GM: "An AVM punches through half a foot of armor automatically. You get no armor.
Resist 18D."

Player: "?!?!?!"

I guarentee you, Even a troll with 15 body and tons of karma pool will have trouble
resisting 18D.

I mean, seriously, what happens in real life if you get hit by these things? I
don't CARE what kind of armor you're wearing, you're PASTE. A single missle can
blow an F-16 fighter clean out of the sky, and you think you can get hit with one
on your chest and live?

Spider Murphy
Message no. 14
From: David Hinkley <dhinkley@***.ORG>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 02:17:06 +0000
On 26 Oct 97 at 18:19, James Lindsay wrote:


> Well, an 18D rocket essentially penetrates twice as much armour as a
> 9M pistol if you are considering barrier ratings (four times for
> armour penetrators). This just isn't so. Part of the problem is
> that heavy weapons simply do not do *enough* damage (if they did,
> armour ratings would conversely be higher), but then you'd have
> people complaining that they cannot possibly survive such weapons if
> they are used against flesh-and-blood targets.
>
> How bout this:
>
> Quadruple a vehicle's Body rating versus natural (ie: fists & feet)
> and melee attacks. Triple it versus small calibre projectiles.
> Double it versus standard "small calibre" armour piercers or
> explosives. Use "as is" versus anti-vehicular weaponry. There will
> always be exceptions, of course.

Might work, but an easier way would be to give all Anti-vehicles
weapons a maximum value against people. This value should be high,
but still make survial possible. The rational is that while any
'body' hit by any of these weapons fatal, a human sized target is
relitvly hard to hit.




David Hinkley
dhinkley@***.org

====================================================
Those who are too intelligent to engage in politics
are punished by being governed by those who are not
--Plato
Message no. 15
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 12:05:24 +0100
Rune Fostervoll said on 21:33/26 Oct 97...

> AP (Armor piercing) Normal round designed to punch through armor. Went out
> of style in the early 20's, but is still in use against medium to lightly
> armored targets. It halves normal armor value and negates the normal
> armor damage reduction. It is usually shaped charge based.

AP rounds tend to be solid shot -- just a steel (or whatever) projectile
of the full caliber of the barrel. No shaped charges in sight.

> HEAT (Chemical/explosive anti tank round, using directed explosive to
> burn through the armor. A very ugly weapon to be hit by. If it penetrates
> HVA and normal armor, everyone and everything inside the vehicle suffer
> 12D damage (Normal damage, not MBW damage.). It is not an armor piercing
> class weapon, though. (That is, it does not reduce normal armor nor negate
> damage level reductions.). It is usually so that it either can or
> cannot take out a certain thickness of armor.
>
> SABOT (French for 'shoe'. A rod, usually of depleted uranium or tungsten,
> is pushed by a shoe in the barrel, which then drops off. It is currently
> the best weapon for shooting through armor. HEAT rounds are
> more devastating if it manages to penetrate, but the heaviest tanks are
> impervious to all but SABOT rounds. May only be fired by smoothbore.
> It negates normal armor completely.

"Sabot" (or APFSDS) rounds can be fired through rifled barrels by using
slip rings that negate the spin imparted on the round by the barrel. The
same goes for HEAT rounds, as these are much less effective when
spin-stablized.

> Defensive options:
> Reactive armor: This armor addition cosists of small 'bricks' of explosives.
> They explode if hit, causing a 'counterexplosion' to deflect the explosive.
> It is effective against HEAT, AP, and CARGO/CANNISTER rounds,

Reactive armor works by shooting two steel plates into the path of the
HEAT attack, providing the jet with material to "eat" through without
being able to touch the main armor. They're only effective if the HEAT
round strikes the plate at an angle, so the plates are usually angled
themselves (look at recent pictures of Israeli M113s or USMC AAV-7A1s and
notice the weird sides). The plates might deflect AP or APFSDS rounds,
but don't count on it.

SR already has such a system, though: the ablative armor from FoF and R2
has always looked very much like ERA to me, and R2 has an active version
that senses the round before it strikes the armor. However that one sounds
a bit impractical to me because it requires a "fence" about a meter away
from the main armor to detect the incoming round. I doubt this array would
stay on an AFV for very long under combat conditions...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Ten shades of beautiful for every disorder.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 16
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 12:05:24 +0100
James Lindsay said on 18:19/26 Oct 97...

> 1mm is pretty close... perhaps 0.5mm, but not 0.25mm. And as I replied in
> another post, I'm not asking 1mm to stop bullets. I would just like it to
> contribute to a slightly higher survivability for the occupants inside
> (should they also be wearing armour).

In that case, IMHO the armor is just about all that stands between the
character and the bullet. Although... if the car door starts to tumble the
bullet, it will be easier to stop with body armor since it very likely has
a larger cross-section when it hits the armor than if it were to come in
straight.

> Well, an 18D rocket essentially penetrates twice as much armour as a 9M
> pistol if you are considering barrier ratings (four times for armour
> penetrators). This just isn't so. Part of the problem is that heavy
> weapons simply do not do *enough* damage (if they did, armour ratings would
> conversely be higher), but then you'd have people complaining that they
> cannot possibly survive such weapons if they are used against
> flesh-and-blood targets.

Which would be realistic, but not quite in the spirit of SR. Still, that
is already the case, since the shooter will generally have an easier TN
than the target when an assault cannon is fired (say TN 5 or 6 for the
shooter, 12 to 15 for the target. Who'll get more sucecsses? :)

> How bout this:
>
> Quadruple a vehicle's Body rating versus natural (ie: fists & feet) and
> melee attacks. Triple it versus small calibre projectiles. Double it
> versus standard "small calibre" armour piercers or explosives. Use
"as is"
> versus anti-vehicular weaponry. There will always be exceptions, of
> course.

This sounds like a relatively easy way to make attacks less powerful
against vehicles (not to mention an expansion of my own suggestion from
last week :) I think I'll give this a try. Now all I need is to put a
vehicle fight in the next adventure, which may be slightly problematic
because of the runners' current location...

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
Ten shades of beautiful for every disorder.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

-----BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-----
Version 3.1:
GAT/! d-(dpu) s:- !a>? C+(++)@ U P L E? W(++) N o? K- w+ O V? PS+ PE
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Message no. 17
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 07:31:02 -0700
Spider Murphy wrote:
|
| I mean, seriously, what happens in real life if you get hit by these
things? I | don't CARE what kind of armor you're wearing, you're PASTE.
A single missle can | blow an F-16 fighter clean out of the sky, and
you think you can get hit with one | on your chest and live?

I agree that anti-vehicle weapons should completely ignore personal
armor.

-David
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
--
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing
which ones to keep."
Message no. 18
From: Mike Hartmann <hartmann@***********.M.EUNET.DE>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:51:24 +0000
Am 27 Oct 97 um 7:31 hat David Buehrer geschrieben:

> Spider Murphy wrote:
> |
> | I mean, seriously, what happens in real life if you get hit by these
> things? I | don't CARE what kind of armor you're wearing, you're PASTE.
> A single missle can | blow an F-16 fighter clean out of the sky, and
> you think you can get hit with one | on your chest and live?
>
> I agree that anti-vehicle weapons should completely ignore personal
> armor.
>


although it might happen that the warhead doesnt explode if it hits a
human target. instead the missile would simply leave a large burned
hole in the victim and continue for a harder surface to hit and
explode You should apply an modifier for firing through barriers
then...-)
(OTOH most missile use proximity sensors so that they dont
need to actually hit the target directly but just need to come close.
but i doubt, if the sensor would react to a human target )

bye mike

---
Mike Hartmann, Munich
Message no. 19
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 17:05:41 GMT
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 12:05:24 +0100, Gurth wrote:

> James Lindsay said on 18:19/26 Oct 97...
>
> > Well, an 18D rocket essentially penetrates twice as much armour as a 9M
> > pistol if you are considering barrier ratings (four times for armour
> > penetrators). This just isn't so. Part of the problem is that heavy
> > weapons simply do not do *enough* damage (if they did, armour ratings would
> > conversely be higher), but then you'd have people complaining that they
> > cannot possibly survive such weapons if they are used against
> > flesh-and-blood targets.
>
> Which would be realistic, but not quite in the spirit of SR. Still, that
> is already the case, since the shooter will generally have an easier TN
> than the target when an assault cannon is fired (say TN 5 or 6 for the
> shooter, 12 to 15 for the target. Who'll get more sucecsses? :)

Hopefully the guy with the baseball bat sneaking up on the shooter from
behind :)





James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 20
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 17:05:47 GMT
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 02:17:06 +0000, David Hinkley wrote:

> On 26 Oct 97 at 18:19, James Lindsay wrote:
>
>
> > Well, an 18D rocket essentially penetrates twice as much armour as a
> > 9M pistol if you are considering barrier ratings (four times for
> > armour penetrators). This just isn't so. Part of the problem is
> > that heavy weapons simply do not do *enough* damage (if they did,
> > armour ratings would conversely be higher), but then you'd have
> > people complaining that they cannot possibly survive such weapons if
> > they are used against flesh-and-blood targets.
> >
> > How bout this:
> >
> > Quadruple a vehicle's Body rating versus natural (ie: fists & feet)
> > and melee attacks. Triple it versus small calibre projectiles.
> > Double it versus standard "small calibre" armour piercers or
> > explosives. Use "as is" versus anti-vehicular weaponry. There will
> > always be exceptions, of course.
>
> Might work, but an easier way would be to give all Anti-vehicles
> weapons a maximum value against people. This value should be high,
> but still make survial possible. The rational is that while any
> 'body' hit by any of these weapons fatal, a human sized target is
> relitvly hard to hit.

But this doesn't solve the problem that vehicles are too easy to "kill"
under the current R2 rules.

To understand your rationale, it would make more sense to apply target
number penalties when firing anti-vehicular weapons at flesh-and-blood
targets while using optical sighting. After all, a miss by a few feet (off
of your aiming point) still hits a large target such as a tank or APC, but
will totally miss a human being. Most anti-vehicular weapons simply
wouldn't need the kind of accuracy necessary to hit a small, agile target
like a person. Sensor-aimed weapons fire, OTOH, is handled in R2 nicely by
giving flesh-and-blood targets signature ratings.

But your idea of maximizing damage still has merit... for high velocity
armour-piercing projectiles. If a weapon has a high damage rating
*because* it penetrates armour well (like most sporting rifles), it makes a
certain amount of sense that you could never transfer all of the bullet's
kinetic energy into the target because of the problem of over-penitration.




James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 21
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 18:00:07 +0000
In article <199710262033.2040.hrotti.ifi.uio.no@***.uio.no>, Rune
Fostervoll <runefo@***.UIO.NO> writes
>Further detail on ammo types:
>
<Cue nits being picked...> :)
>
>Ammunition types:
>Large caliber guns and other weapon systems:
>AP (Armor piercing) Normal round designed to punch through armor. Went out
> of style in the early 20's, but is still in use against medium to lightly
> armored targets. It halves normal armor value and negates the normal
> armor damage reduction. It is usually shaped charge based.

AP is just a full-calibre metal slug. Maybe with a burster charge and
base fuse, more often just solid metal. Capped, ballistic-capped and
high-velocity types all exist, but in general AP is obsolescent.

>HEAT (Chemical/explosive anti tank round, using directed explosive to
> burn through the armor. A very ugly weapon to be hit by. If it penetrates
> HVA and normal armor, everyone and everything inside the vehicle suffer
> 12D damage (Normal damage, not MBW damage.).

Actually, HEAT rounds are very variable in effect. One Israeli Centurion
discovered three HEAT penetrations in their turret and hull after an
engagement: the crew had simply not noticed (the HEAT jet had almost
expended itself in penetrating armour). There's a near-linear tradeoff
between penetration and damage done on the inside of the vehicle, and
penetration scales linearly with warhead diameter.

>It is not an armor piercing
> class weapon, though. (That is, it does not reduce normal armor nor negate
> damage level reductions.).

Beg to differ on that, too, it's pretty good at punching holes. It's
also got a secondary blast effect: call it -1 Power per 1/2 metre.


>SABOT (French for 'shoe'. A rod, usually of depleted uranium or tungsten,
> is pushed by a shoe in the barrel, which then drops off. It is currently
> the best weapon for shooting through armor. HEAT rounds are
> more devastating if it manages to penetrate, but the heaviest tanks are
> impervious to all but SABOT rounds. May only be fired by smoothbore.
> It negates normal armor completely.

Sabot can be fired from rifled guns (otherwise the Royal Armoured Corps
will be very surprised, they've been firing it for years).

There are two types: APDS, which fires a short fat slug (length about
five times its diameter) and can only be fired from a rifled gun: and
APFSDS that fires a long, finned dart that cannot be spun and so is most
easily used from a smoothbore (length about fifteen times its diameter).
By using a slipping driving band, it can be fired from a rifled gun with
no degradation of performance (the slight spin aids in sabot
seperation).

APFSDS is notably more effective, but also requires much more precision
in manufacture and drops off in accuracy more at long ranges.

>CANNISTER (Artillery round, spreads a large number of grenades in an area and
> detonates. Has about 160M radius, -1 power and damage per 40M. Devastating
> anti - infantry weapon as well as effective aganst soft vehicles.).

Canister is a variation of the flechette round you mentioned (using BBs
instead of darts). This is a cargo or bomblet shell. Also, the grenades
are often hollow-charge, thus making them able to attack tanks' top
armour with considerable effect: the US DPICM (Dual-Purpose Improved
Conventional Munition) uses this.

>CARGO (Anti - vehicular cannister round). Disperses armor mines and limpets
> in a area which both makes the area mined and is capable of
> crippling even MBT's in its area. -1 power and damage per 10 meters.

Mines and various bomblets (including "smart" ones) are all possible
payloads for cargo shells.

You forgot one option:

HESH (High Explosive Squash Head), also known as HEP (High Explosive
Plastic). This is a shell with a thin nose packed with plastic
explosive, which on impact with armour deforms into a "pancake" on the
surface before detonating. Against steel armour, the explosion cracks a
"scab" of armour off the inside surface at very high speed with lethal
effect: against composite armour (far more common) the concussion
shatters optics, wrecks running gear, jams turrets on their rings, stuns
the crew, et cetera. More lightly-armed vehicles are often literally
blown open. The round has a useful secondary effect, with a blast effect
falling by -1 per metre.


--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 22
From: Tim Cooper <z-i-m@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Mon, 27 Oct 1997 22:02:56 EST
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:51:24 +0000 Mike Hartmann wrote:
>although it might happen that the warhead doesnt explode if it hits a
>human target. instead the missile would simply leave a large burned
>hole in the victim and continue for a harder surface to hit and
>explode ....

Oh Good! now we have a choice to give the PC's...
a) Paste, or b) Mere "large burned [missle sized] hole" in Chest.... IIRC
the Surgeon General listed both as being potentially hazardous to your
health.

>(OTOH most missile use proximity sensors so that they dont
>need to actually hit the target directly but just need to come close.
>but i doubt, if the sensor would react to a human target )

Well, didn't one of the books, either RBB or BBB give the signature
rating for humans targeted by vehicular/smart weapons?

~Tim
Message no. 23
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 20:36:51 GMT
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 22:02:56 EST, Tim Cooper wrote:

> On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 16:51:24 +0000 Mike Hartmann wrote:
> >although it might happen that the warhead doesnt explode if it hits a
> >human target. instead the missile would simply leave a large burned
> >hole in the victim and continue for a harder surface to hit and
> >explode ....
>
> Oh Good! now we have a choice to give the PC's...
> a) Paste, or b) Mere "large burned [missle sized] hole" in Chest.... IIRC
> the Surgeon General listed both as being potentially hazardous to your
> health.

Remember "True Lies"? That should give you a good idea as to the size of a
human being in relation to a Sidewinder missile (and don't forget the fins
:)

> >(OTOH most missile use proximity sensors so that they dont
> >need to actually hit the target directly but just need to come close.
> >but i doubt, if the sensor would react to a human target )
>
> Well, didn't one of the books, either RBB or BBB give the signature
> rating for humans targeted by vehicular/smart weapons?

R2 has signature ratings for flesh & blood targets, although I still don't
think that a human being radiates as much heat as the diesel engine of an
M113, or is made up of as much radar-reflective material as an F-14.
Therefore, IR and radar-guided guidance systems are out. As for image
recognition, I doubt even the latest AGM model would have "humanoid" in its
image database :)



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 24
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 20:36:49 GMT
On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 18:00:07 +0000, Paul J. Adam wrote:

> >HEAT (Chemical/explosive anti tank round, using directed explosive to
> > burn through the armor. A very ugly weapon to be hit by. If it penetrates
> > HVA and normal armor, everyone and everything inside the vehicle suffer
> > 12D damage (Normal damage, not MBW damage.).

> Actually, HEAT rounds are very variable in effect. One Israeli Centurion
> discovered three HEAT penetrations in their turret and hull after an
> engagement: the crew had simply not noticed (the HEAT jet had almost
> expended itself in penetrating armour). There's a near-linear tradeoff
> between penetration and damage done on the inside of the vehicle, and
> penetration scales linearly with warhead diameter.

A quick note: the molten stream of metal does not really "burn" its way
through the armour, since it isn't nearly hot enough to melt away all that
material at the speed it is striking the target. Instead, damage can be
calculated simply by determining the kinetic energy of the molten stream,
which has both a mass and a velocity. Being molten, however, it does have
other nasty effects to be feared.

<snippity, snip snip>

> You forgot one option:
>
> HESH (High Explosive Squash Head), also known as HEP (High Explosive
> Plastic). This is a shell with a thin nose packed with plastic
> explosive, which on impact with armour deforms into a "pancake" on the
> surface before detonating. Against steel armour, the explosion cracks a
> "scab" of armour off the inside surface at very high speed with lethal
> effect: against composite armour (far more common) the concussion
> shatters optics, wrecks running gear, jams turrets on their rings, stuns
> the crew, et cetera. More lightly-armed vehicles are often literally
> blown open. The round has a useful secondary effect, with a blast effect
> falling by -1 per metre.

Since you seem to know what you're talking about, Paul, might you be able
to shed some light on yet another armour penetrator-- the self-forging
penetrator (SEFOP) warhead?

From my sources, a SEFOP warhead functions as a combo AP & HEAP round,
"detonating" further away from the target than a HEAP round and producing a
much larger molten "penetrator"-- which hardens on the way to the target
due to atmospheric resistance. Due to the distances involved, the
"penetrator" isn't affected by reactive armour nearly as much as HEAP
rounds and the warhead does not have to strike the target in order to work.
They aren't as effective as similarly sized HEAP warheads, however.

For those of you that might not see the point of a SEFOP warhead, suspend
one from a parachute and outfit it with IR sensors. Now drop it over a
battlefield. The warhead will swing about under the parachute until it
spots a target within range (100 meters?). It then detonates, sending the
self-forging penetrator into the target from above.



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 25
From: Mon goose <landsquid@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 12:44:44 PST
>>(OTOH most missile use proximity sensors so that they dont
>>need to actually hit the target directly but just need to come close.
but i doubt, if the sensor would react to a human target )
>

Near misses (area fire in R2) Are pretty survivable (if you assume
they don't stage up, as the resting caharacter is not the dirrect
target). One of the wildest scenes I've played was when Mongoose had to
fight off a spirit while in a crossfire of automatic rifle fire, with
the occasional incoming missle. He was on Kamikaze, and they were
trying to take him more or less alive.... At range, with no active
magical support. The riffle fire was a bigger threat, until th initial
4 "free" boxes were full and he ran outof combat pool. I thinkthe fianl
direct hit did an S wound, after I burned a karma pool point (the extra
4 boxes would have killed him). Of course, we make dodging a direct
missle hit (TN for combat pool dice) only 4, not power. That goes for
most weapons, but makes even more sense with a missle. The burst still
hurts, if your not real tough...

>Well, didn't one of the books, either RBB or BBB give the signature
>rating for humans targeted by vehicular/smart weapons?
>
>~Tim
>

Yeah, It was 8. The new number is 6, with a lot of modifiers for
various creature sizes and stuff.
I didn't notice a TN mod for targeting a character who has a
Suprathyroid gland- I guess the -1 (thermo sensor test TN's) when
targeting a Gland Freak is good enough, without making actually hitting
them easier once you have lock.

Mongoose

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Message no. 26
From: Mon goose <landsquid@*******.COM>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 12:57:21 PST
>Remember "True Lies"? That should give you a good idea as to the size
of a
>human being in relation to a Sidewinder missile (and don't forget the
fins

Shadowrun missles, in general, are launched from MAN PORTABLE
platforms, or at least are capable of such. R2 has some slightly larger
ones, but still, we're talking nearly an order of magnitude difference.
Although why they would have military planes and not military missiles,
I don't know.
Also, R2 doesn't have stats for 7and 14 CM rockets like the old BBB
rules. Those were NASTY- power was directly cumulative for salvos!

Mongoose

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Message no. 27
From: "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 22:41:12 +0000
In article <34582669.4485562@****.direct.ca>, James Lindsay
<jlindsay@******.CA> writes
>On Mon, 27 Oct 1997 18:00:07 +0000, Paul J. Adam wrote:
>> Actually, HEAT rounds are very variable in effect. One Israeli Centurion
>> discovered three HEAT penetrations in their turret and hull after an
>> engagement: the crew had simply not noticed (the HEAT jet had almost
>> expended itself in penetrating armour). There's a near-linear tradeoff
>> between penetration and damage done on the inside of the vehicle, and
>> penetration scales linearly with warhead diameter.
>
>A quick note: the molten stream of metal does not really "burn" its way
>through the armour, since it isn't nearly hot enough to melt away all that
>material at the speed it is striking the target. Instead, damage can be
>calculated simply by determining the kinetic energy of the molten stream,
>which has both a mass and a velocity. Being molten, however, it does have
>other nasty effects to be feared.

The real nasty is spalling off the interior face of the armour when the
jet penetrates: the jet can be nasty if it hits something delicate
before dissipating, but the spall is what does the real damage.

What's alarming is that both APFSDS and HEAT rounds are analysed using
fluid mechanics, because solid metal flows like liquid at these stress
levels. Flick a droplet of water into your bathtub and you're simulating
an APFSDS hitting armour :)

>> HESH (High Explosive Squash Head), also known as HEP (High Explosive
>> Plastic).

>Since you seem to know what you're talking about, Paul, might you be able
>to shed some light on yet another armour penetrator-- the self-forging
>penetrator (SEFOP) warhead?

Also known as Explosively Formed Penetrator (EFP).

>From my sources, a SEFOP warhead functions as a combo AP & HEAP round,
>"detonating" further away from the target than a HEAP round and producing a
>much larger molten "penetrator"-- which hardens on the way to the target
>due to atmospheric resistance. Due to the distances involved, the
>"penetrator" isn't affected by reactive armour nearly as much as HEAP
>rounds and the warhead does not have to strike the target in order to work.
>They aren't as effective as similarly sized HEAP warheads, however.

Correct. A EFP warhead will typically penetrate armour equivalent to its
diameter: a HEAT warhead, placed precisely, will penetrate (rule of
thumb) five to seven times its diameter.

The problem/advantage is, a EFP warhead can be five feet or fifty feet
away from its target, and it will still penetrate the same thickness of
armour. The HEAT warhead, on the other hand, will lose 50% of its
effectiveness if it detonates a few _inches_ long or short. Also, EFP is
all but unaffected by reactive armour, and a EFP munition in a 155mm
shell can be expected to handily defeat a tank's top armour.

>For those of you that might not see the point of a SEFOP warhead, suspend
>one from a parachute and outfit it with IR sensors. Now drop it over a
>battlefield. The warhead will swing about under the parachute until it
>spots a target within range (100 meters?). It then detonates, sending the
>self-forging penetrator into the target from above.

Now package these little beauties into MLRS rockets or artillery shells
and fire them over an enemy armoured force. ISTR the munition was at one
time nicknamed "Skeet"; I've seen cutaways and film of tests. Started
from the old "Assault Breaker" program, if memory serves, and forms part
of Phase III MLRS.

The reason for using EFP warheads is simple: it removes "get the warhead
to optimum distance from the tank" as a factor, as well as "and make the
warhead tandem to defeat reactive armour".

The other application - where I first met this warhead type - is the
off-route mine. Rather than dig a hole in the road, plant a mine, and
hope nobody notices, you put a big EFP warhead by the roadside. When a
vehicle crosses its line of fire, boom, and a big hole appears in the
side of the vehicle. Again, EFP is favoured because its effects aren't
affected by standoff range to any great degree.

--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...

Paul J. Adam paul@********.demon.co.uk
Message no. 28
From: Tobias Berghoff <Zixx@*****.TEUTO.DE>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 15:20:00 GMT
on 26.10.97 gurth@******.NL wrote:

g> You are severely over-estimating the thickness of a typical car's
g> bodywork. A quarter of a millimeter is closer to the real thickness,
g> AFAIK, and that just won't stop bullets very well.

It didn't stop a friend of mine from kicking half through it (no prob. It
was his car), so bullets won't mind...

g> > Does anyone have their BBB handy to tell me, for instance, what a
g> > barrier rating of even "1" translates into?
g>
g> It doesn't say what exactly each BR equates to, except for very general
g> terms ("Standard glass" for BR 2, for example).

Well, then the car *should* have a barrier rating of 2+ (The same friend,
who didn't quite managed to kick through his cars door (if you try to open
the window, the door will open, though) did kick through his window
(forgot his keys inside)....:)

g> The core of the problem, IMHO, is that everything is fine as long as you
g> stick to character-vs-character or vehicle-vs-vehicle combat, but as soon
g> as you use an character weapon (pistol etc.) against a vehicle, or a
g> vehicle weapon (missile launcher) against a character, things start going
g> wrong.

Then it's time for the GM to forget rules and stick to reality. A .45ACP
won't even scratch the finish of an AH (well, maybe scratch it, but not
down it...), so it won't. A 7.52cm missile will kill even your thoughest
troll (3D? What is this? A joke?!), nomatter what...

(What I really want are two damage ratings: One for humans and one for
vehicles...)



Tobias Berghoff a.k.a Zixx a.k.a. Charon, your friendly werepanther physad.

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Message no. 29
From: Tobias Berghoff <Zixx@*****.TEUTO.DE>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Tue, 28 Oct 1997 16:20:00 GMT
on 27.10.97 hartmann@***********.M.EUNET.DE wrote:

h> > I agree that anti-vehicle weapons should completely ignore personal
h> > armor.
h> >
h>
h>
h> although it might happen that the warhead doesnt explode if it hits a
h> human target. instead the missile would simply leave a large burned
h> hole in the victim and continue for a harder surface to hit and
h> explode You should apply an modifier for firing through barriers
h> then...-)

Ermmm? If I've got a 30cm wide hole in my chest, I will be no less dead
then if I got blown into chunky pieces....It really doesn't matter what
armor you wear, if the weapons explodes or where the weapon hits (ok, a
hit to a hand won't cause that many problems). A vehicle weapon kills a
PC. Period. And if the player start bitchin' about them having no chance
to survive....well, in my game you don't run into that kind of weapon
until you really, really asked for it. So if the gauss-cannon starts
punching holes into PCs they're dead because I want them dead, otherwise
there wouldn't be a gauss-cannon....
(The Good Thing is that my players know that. And they know what they
mustn't do, if they want to survive.)

P.S.: No I don't like killing PCs. I never did. Usually the players tell
me that they give the PCs up. They don't want to see them die.

Tobias Berghoff a.k.a Zixx a.k.a. Charon, your friendly werepanther physad.

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Message no. 30
From: losthalo <losthalo@********.COM>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 00:59:20 -0500
>It didn't stop a friend of mine from kicking half through it (no prob. It
>was his car), so bullets won't mind...
Think: Bonnie and Clyde. Gunned down in their car, shot full of holes, and
these were old cars, the kind with *real*metal* to them. :)

>(What I really want are two damage ratings: One for humans and one for
>vehicles...)

First edition. It may have had some problems, but it definitely had some
things right, and some of them were lost in the shuffle. Vehicle scale
damage separate from character damage makes too much sense to not show up
in 3rd ed, I think.

losthalo
Message no. 31
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 07:03:52 GMT
On Tue, 28 Oct 1997 16:20:00 GMT, Tobias Berghoff wrote:

> It really doesn't matter what
> armor you wear, if the weapons explodes or where the weapon hits (ok, a
> hit to a hand won't cause that many problems).

It will still cause problems. Imagine holding your hand out on a freeway
and having a car come along at 60 mph and hit it. Now increase the speed
by a factor of *20* (minimum). Oww! :)



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 32
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 12:11:58 +0100
James Lindsay said on 20:36/28 Oct 97...

> A quick note: the molten stream of metal does not really "burn" its way
> through the armour, since it isn't nearly hot enough to melt away all that
> material at the speed it is striking the target. Instead, damage can be
> calculated simply by determining the kinetic energy of the molten stream,
> which has both a mass and a velocity. Being molten, however, it does have
> other nasty effects to be feared.

An even quicker note: HEAT rounds are not molten or liquid at all, they
just behave like that.

> Since you seem to know what you're talking about, Paul, might you be able
> to shed some light on yet another armour penetrator-- the self-forging
> penetrator (SEFOP) warhead?
>
> From my sources, a SEFOP warhead functions as a combo AP & HEAP round,
> "detonating" further away from the target than a HEAP round and producing a
> much larger molten "penetrator"-- which hardens on the way to the target
> due to atmospheric resistance. Due to the distances involved, the
> "penetrator" isn't affected by reactive armour nearly as much as HEAP
> rounds and the warhead does not have to strike the target in order to work.
> They aren't as effective as similarly sized HEAP warheads, however.

IIRC one of the best reasons for using such warheads is because they
create a much larger hole in the armor than HEAT will, but because of that
they also have much lower penetration. That means that if they penetrate,
they'll cause more damage to the insides and the crew, but you have to get
them in a position where they can do that -- as James said, hanging them
from a parachute will do the trick.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
'K moest kloppen want de bel doet het niet.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 33
From: Spider Murphy <crickel@***.EDU>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:49:26 -0600
James Lindsay wrote:

> On Tue, 28 Oct 1997 16:20:00 GMT, Tobias Berghoff wrote:
>
> > It really doesn't matter what
> > armor you wear, if the weapons explodes or where the weapon hits (ok, a
> > hit to a hand won't cause that many problems).
>
> It will still cause problems. Imagine holding your hand out on a freeway
> and having a car come along at 60 mph and hit it. Now increase the speed
> by a factor of *20* (minimum). Oww! :)

On the bright side, you can always buy a new hand.

I kept a guy from killing himself this way once. He had a gun to his head,
and my character decided to cut off the guy's hand with the katana he still
had out and ready. All the other players looked at me like I was crazy... go
figure. :)

Spider Murphy
Message no. 34
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@******.CARL.ORG>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:17:35 -0700
Tobias Berghoff wrote:
|
| on 26.10.97 gurth@******.NL wrote:
|
| g> > Does anyone have their BBB handy to tell me, for instance, what a
| g> > barrier rating of even "1" translates into?
| g>
| g> It doesn't say what exactly each BR equates to, except for very general
| g> terms ("Standard glass" for BR 2, for example).
|
| Well, then the car *should* have a barrier rating of 2+ (The same friend,
| who didn't quite managed to kick through his cars door (if you try to open
| the window, the door will open, though) did kick through his window
| (forgot his keys inside)....:)

Try this for a quick fix. Add the BR of the vehicle (GM call) to
it's Body(Size) to figure out it's rating to resist damage.

-David
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm
--
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing
which ones to keep."
Message no. 35
From: James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 17:21:03 GMT
On Wed, 29 Oct 1997 08:49:26 -0600, Spider Murphy wrote:

> James Lindsay wrote:
>
> > On Tue, 28 Oct 1997 16:20:00 GMT, Tobias Berghoff wrote:
> >
> > > It really doesn't matter what
> > > armor you wear, if the weapons explodes or where the weapon hits (ok, a
> > > hit to a hand won't cause that many problems).
> >
> > It will still cause problems. Imagine holding your hand out on a freeway
> > and having a car come along at 60 mph and hit it. Now increase the speed
> > by a factor of *20* (minimum). Oww! :)
>
> On the bright side, you can always buy a new hand.

And a new arm... and a new shoulder... and a new torso... :)

> I kept a guy from killing himself this way once. He had a gun to his head,
> and my character decided to cut off the guy's hand with the katana he still
> had out and ready. All the other players looked at me like I was crazy... go
> figure. :)

Did something similar during a game of C of C. A fellow character's hand
was possessed (this was long before Bruce Campbell's "The Evil Dead") and I
non-chalauntly wandered out of the room-- only to come running inside in a
frenzy wielding a fire axe. The other PCs stopped me, however :(



James W. Lindsay Vancouver, British Columbia
"http://www.prosperoimaging.com/ground_zero";

Money talks... it usually says "bend over"...
Message no. 36
From: Tim Cooper <z-i-m@****.COM>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Wed, 29 Oct 1997 21:19:11 EST
On Wed, 29 Oct 1997 07:03:52 GMT James Lindsay <jlindsay@******.CA>
writes:
>On Tue, 28 Oct 1997 16:20:00 GMT, Tobias Berghoff wrote:
>
>> It really doesn't matter what
>> armor you wear, if the weapons explodes or where the weapon hits (ok,
a
>> hit to a hand won't cause that many problems).
>
>It will still cause problems. Imagine holding your hand out on a
freeway
>and having a car come along at 60 mph and hit it. Now increase the
speed
>by a factor of *20* (minimum). Oww! :)

Yes, but it's not immediatly fatal.... where as the same hit to, oh, say
dead (no pun intended.. really) center of your chest would be quite
different.

~Tim
Message no. 37
From: Tobias Berghoff <Zixx@*****.TEUTO.DE>
Subject: Re: Insane Armor values
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 1997 02:27:00 GMT
on 29.10.97 jlindsay@******.CA wrote:

j> > It really doesn't matter what
j> > armor you wear, if the weapons explodes or where the weapon hits (ok, a
j> > hit to a hand won't cause that many problems).
j>
j> It will still cause problems. Imagine holding your hand out on a freeway
j> and having a car come along at 60 mph and hit it. Now increase the speed
j> by a factor of *20* (minimum). Oww! :)

It's gonna rip the hand off, no question. I just wouldn't make that
deadly. Serious, ok...



Tobias Berghoff a.k.a Zixx a.k.a. Charon, your friendly werepanther physad.

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