| From: | lordmountainlion@***.rr.com (Scott Peterson) |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Mortars on drones (was Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery) LONG |
| Date: | Mon, 24 Feb 2003 08:37:04 -0700 |
snip
>> In the case of a mortar, you could bolt
> > a tube down on a steel lynx and it could quite easily drive around but
when
> > it came time to fire it would launch mortar rounds into the air and drop
> > them randomly around it's location.
My GODs we got a subject i can actualy claim to be an expert on. Gurth Mark
this one down. Sorry for the delay in responses but I was dieing in a VA
Hospital and got back with tons of emails to slog through. I Was for many
years what the United States Army calls an 11c10 Indiret Fire Infantryman.
Read Mortarman. Without going into massive ammounts of non game critical
info, the first and formost issue of the implementtation of a mortar is it
is not fireing randomly. Even a so called 'Hip Shot, or even a direct
Lay/Alignment shot (you want the details of those terms ask) your still
droping shells 'accurately'. The initail reason for developing mortars was
to bridge the gap betrween the massive fire capabilities of Artilery with a
faster response time. You do NOT want HE Proxinty shells landing randomly.
As with every so call hard set of rules there are one or two exceptions. A
'travers and search' fire mission, where you drop a shell traveres a few
turns, drop another and so on is not so much a random shelling of an area as
it is a area supression (armored vehicles and wired guided at missle
crews-and slaughtering of infantry) tactic. The secoond exception is was my
4.2" Heavy Mortar Section called the 'Budwiser' The final protective fire
or FPF is ued when frinedly troops are dug in on the defnseive for a
prepared attack. Think Europe, Cold War Russian Armored Thrust, and the
enemy is bearing down on you. You have all your crew served weapons firing,
your line units are doing 'frag and bags' and then dragon and tow and now
the Javalin (I did work on the optical sight train up in 1987!!!!) Missel
systems are fireing and displaceing and over and over tille they run out of
ammo or are routed. When it hits the fan like this the artilery and mortars
are preset to targets. The LAST target lays all the remaing rounds (I mean
every damn one of them-he smoke-wp-lume-leaflet-whatever you got) anywhere
from 50-100 meters infront of your forward positions in a hope to make a
final stop. Again not random to the trained eye.
Ok so Scotts ramblin on showing off. How does this applie to shadow run?
The massive advances in technology today in the ways of mortars allows for
some interesting uses. The Brits have the Merlin I believe its called, a
medium mortar shell capable of a top attack on a tank. The have rounds
developed for deploying sensors, the knew mini sling shot mines, and thats
just a start. When I saw the way shadowrun developed the heavy weapons and
ammunition i was sorely unimpressed. Haveing Made tarot FireArms for the
net, anyone who has read it can see Im a frikken gun/ammo nut. The biggest
thing that they failed to stress was the fact that mortras are HIGH angel
fire weapons(can you say up over and between buildings in and urban
environ), can be preset for fire missions, with a glid-radio-encry-dcry-comp
system (glid- artilery laser desinator) one man can laze a target and inside
12-18 seconds (depending on how well your gun crew has its ammo prepared)
you have steel flying down range, and finaly have box or rotary magazines
(Russian Vasilik is an example-cant say good its a pos but....). This all
adds up to one thing. WONDERFULL area denial weapon for perimeter
securoty. With all the various forms of ammunition you could creat the
capabilities are endless. This would and does scare me far more than canned
sentry guns any day.
> Except that a hardpoint DOES have an aiming mechanism. I believe it has
> something like 15 degrees of variance, which should probably be more
> than enough if the mortar is set up correctly.
Lesson #2 Mills versus Degrees.
Ok becuase of the exact nature of the way the math is computed for mortars
the standard 360 degrees is not accurate enough for mortar fire. they
developed somethng call Mills. 17. somthing (i cant recall its been 12
years) mills to a degree. Using 17 as a base your looking at just over 250
mills to work with. Thats left to right. I dont have the books or any
ideas since its been while that I looked but you also have to figur ein
elevation and propelent charges. I suppose using the lynxs superio mobility
coupled with the other factors you could get reasnable use for a mortar.
> > In order for a mortar to have any hope of accuracy and dropping rounds
> > within 100 yrds of a target it requires a stable firing platform. If
the
> > base is pushed around every time it launches you can't achieve an
accurate
> > firing solution.
True. Key point, the first round always 'settles the baseplate. Even with
the 4.2" ground mount you cant start super accurate fire untill the bridge
and baseplate are seated. in Built Up Terrain, they teach us to use sand
bags or mechanised carriers. Any vehicle mounted mortas base plate is
usualy on whats called a turntable (commonly referd to that effing pos-cause
it NEVER lines up on a notch you want). And the accuracy you quote may be
by game terms, but a good crew and proper set time can get it down to 50 or
less. Recall the 'Budwiser'
So in summery, a morat on a drone is an excelent capable weapon system that
is highly effect and easily employed. Just make sure your electroics are
shielded.
Scott 'Edge' Peterson
'Why fight when you can hide, why walk when you can ride, go 11 C Go!!!!!!'
