| From: | Gurth <gurth@******.NL> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | White phosphorus (Re: [SR3] Things that always annoyed you in SR |
| Date: | Sun, 20 Jul 1997 10:56:13 +0100 |
> "Paul J. Adam" <shadowrn@********.DEMON.CO.UK> writes:
> > It's nasty, but far from being utterly and totally fatal. WP casualties
> > survive quite nicely today.
>
> Uhm - I find this pretty hard to believe, I have to admit. As far as I
> know having about 40% of your skin burned to third degree is already
> lethal
80%, I thought it was. At any rate I'd rather not find out :)
> and even hot water can cause third degree burns without any problems. So
> something that is sticky and burns a few hundred degrees (what IS the
> exact temperature, btw.)
Not sure. Thermite burns at about 2000 degrees, but WP is a lot cooler
IIRC.
> is causing third degree burns within fractions of a second... someone
> surviving being splashed with that stuff (without any special equipment,
> of course). Maybe if you only got a few drops... but whatever has been
> hit got a third degree burn, so if more than 40% of the body has been
> hit you are dead.
Maybe the way to find out who is right is to do some research into RL WP
wounds. My guess (based partly on what I read in Phoenix Command Special
Weapon supplement, and partly on my own reasoning) is that people close to
the blast get covered in lots of small particles that don't burn all that
long (small particle = large surface:volume ratio = short burn time), plus
a reasonably large number or bigger particles similar to normal grenade
fragments. Those further away only get to deal with the larger particles,
because they can travel further than the small, light ones.
From that, it looks to me like people close to the blast will get large
amounts of burns which will likely kill even with treatment, while those
further away get only a few burns that will only be life-threatening if
not treated soon.
SR actually simulates this: closeby you get to deal with a 14M explosion,
and with 7 dice behind it (per the Companion's optional rule) that isn't
very healthy. Anyone who survives that -- which are those targets away
from the center of the blast -- take 10L each turn for 15 turns, reduced
by impact armor and resisted _only_ with Body. Not many people can do
that, but if they get treatment soon it'll only give a few Light wounds.
> Yeah - but there is hardly anything you can do once a certain amount
> of skin has been burned... at least not nowadays. I could imagine,
> though, that in the future you'd have tanks with some special liquid
> that could take over the functions of the skin until the body had a
> chance to regenerate.
Bacta tanks :)
> Uhm. So what happens to the electronics and the rubber & plastic parts
> of the engine when they get exposed to flames that burn at several
> hundret degrees... my experience is that plastic, rubber and
> electronics don't really like this.
It'd have to be hit by burning particles, and the particles would have to
stick onto the wiring long enough to melt the plastic off large sections
of the wires. If it's just a glance then there'd probably be some melting
on some individual wires, but nothing serious unless they happen to touch
each other.
--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
All these worthless nights, all these wasted days
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-
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