GURPS Heavy Gear

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by cmac

In today's US Army the Bradley AFV uses a 25mm Bushmaster cannon. It's devistating vs troops and can destroy some Tanks. It accomplishes this by switching ammunition types. 25mm HE for those pesky troops and then AP for those nasty tanks.

During the events of 2003 in Iraq, US Army Bradley IFVs were recorded killing t-72s with their 25s.

Just attempting to bring a little Real World comparison.

I doubt the Brad killed the T72s from the frontal arc, though. When I say "kill tanks," that's usually shorthand for "penetrate the frontal arc," since that's where tanks are famous for being hard targets.

The T-62 is the only one I have data for, but it Hull Side is only 80mm (DR220). That's vs 6dx8(2) that's the DU round (penetrates DR336 or 122mm RHA).

[reb]

don't know what house rules you have,but here are some concepts i use:
-blow through for hyper velocity solid kenectic armor peircing rounds
-reactive armor
-sandwiched chobham armor
-angle of strike(incidence angle) the steeper the angle or tanget the less armor penetration you'll have for a given type of ordnance.i use a clock face or a 360 degree circumphrance circle to quickly conduct and compute easy firing angles.it's a commen tactic of armor to present not the front of the vehicle to the enemy.but the front corner so sharp incidence angles are presented to the enemy gunners.this was regularly used by ww-11 german armor units.
-target size modifiers
-defensive systems,chaff,smoke,diffusers,jamming,blow off armor,and so on.
-i balance out the battles where both forces have heavy assault vehicles by using dedicated scout cavalry units and forward edge battle area anti-tank/vehicular units that are trained to deal with the heavier units.also infantry hunter-killer teams armed with anti-armor weapons.
-scatterable artillery delivered mine systems.
-i have a integrated light,medium,heavy force structures that are trained to operate as a combined arms team.combined land air concept.
this usually balances out problems and makes the battlefield a very very dangerous place to be.a heavy armoured unit that advances w/o proper support will be dogmeat as they are targeted by specialized weapon systems designed to deal with just such a unit.
a modern 3-d assymetrical battlefield is a nasty place,even more so when you have t.l-9/9.1/9.2/9.3 and so on that have superior capabilities than what we have today.
also a unit can only carry so much ammunition and ordnance,they must have resupply and if the opfor targets the rear echelon supporting elements then those heavier units that need regular resupply & maintainance/repair will be in a bad way.when they run out of ammo/ordnance they are a liability.
just my thoughts.

[Langy]

Reb: I don't see how that post has anything to do with Heavy Gear. What are you replying to? How to make generic armored warfare eggshells armed with sledgehammers? If so, you should really realize that almost none of your advice is applicable here since we're talking about mechanics and the fluff is already taken care of.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Juca

Well, and what about unnarmed strikes? If I remeber well, in Heavy Gear there is some mechs with melee weapons and, in Gurps, they will be night invulnerable to these attacks...

The short answer is: you may be right. However, that's why we have the conversion. A Hunter's ST of 100 is good for an 11d thrust, which turns into a 1d thrust . . . plink. But, their weapons have a damage value, so we can convert it. Covered a little lower.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

In Heavy Gear, melee attacks were generally useless, except for the infamous "give a guy a grenade from behind" trick. Actually hitting someone with a vibroblade meant you were out of ranged weapons and grenades, which never happened in the games I played.

I ran into a number of duels that all ended with melee weapons. A lot of people never understood melee weapons, so didn't use them much.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

If you wanted to roughly eyeball it, I'd probably make the vibroblade an 8d weapon, so it carves up Cheetahs pretty well but is useless against real gears. Grenades would be a 5d (3) weapon. It'll wreck a Cheetah if it hits and put the hurt on most other Gears.

A Vibroblade is a x8 weapon so it would be 4d (2) cut (or 1d+1 (5) cut, depending on taste), according to my conversion. A Hand Grenade (a x15 weapon) would be a 15d cr ex attack (doesn't really have an armor divisor). It's a scary thing.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

Mark - I think the d-scale version works pretty well, though I'd probably base dHP on Heavy Gear scale Gear size and comments on toughness. ie, a Hunter might be 18 HP to a Cheetah's 14 and a Grizzly's 22 or more. I think Grizzlys should take a lot more damage than a Hunter, not 10%. But that's just a quibble, the rest looks good.

Here, I'm going to default to GURPS. I'd almost say that all size 6 Gears have 20 dHP and all size 7 Gears have 22, and leave their mass out of it. But, I also think it's kinda neat to have the Gear's dHP value differ slightly.

Keep in mind, the T-72A listed in High Tech only has 176 hit points, which would be dHP 18. A Cheetah is just as robust and both a Hunter and Grizzly are tougher.

Originally Posted by mlangsdorf

The other thing is I don't see an HGM as a heavily armor piercing weapon. I'd reserve that for the ATGM and AGM, at 5d (5) and 3d (5), respectively. The HGM is just a big hammer, so make it 6d+2 (3).

Again, the damage conversion is going for ease of conversion and play.

If you were using Guided Mortars as hammers you were doing it wrong. LGMs and HGMs are firing guided missiles, so they have armor divisors. Sneak an Iguanas over there and rain surgical hell-fire down upon your enemies. Field Mortars, with their AOE damage, would just have high damage and no armor divisor. Those were hammers. The ATM (a x25 weapon), I would probably go with 5d (5) cr ex and the HATM (a x30 weapon) as 6d (5) cr ex.

[cmac]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I doubt the Brad killed the T72s from the frontal arc, though. When I say "kill tanks," that's usually shorthand for "penetrate the frontal arc," since that's where tanks are famous for being hard targets.

The T-62 is the only one I have data for, but it Hull Side is only 80mm (DR220). That's vs 6dx8(2) that's the DU round (penetrates DR336 or 122mm RHA).

Not sure where the t-72s were hit. However it still remains that a 25mm bushmaster (w/ the right type of ammo) can kill a t-72.

Just a little background. I am a current active duty Abn Infantry Senior NCO. During one of my trips to the wonderful sandbox we linked up with some Brads and of course discussions occured. During the course of our discussions the PSG of the platoon we linked up with told me that his platoon had killed a couple of t-72s with their main gun. I remember this discussion becuase I was checking out their thermal sights and asking questions about the 25.

Anyway, no hijacking of threads.

Thanks

[shadowjack]

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr

You are, but I won't hold that against you ;-)

Well, that's good, then. :D


Though I hadn't realized Gears were indeed that tough.

Originally Posted by Mark Skarr;955611Once again, I’m trying too hard. Someone else has already done a double-butt-load of work in keeping [i

GURPS[/i] vehicles simple.

Ladies and Gentlemen: David L. Pulver. A round of applause, please.

Once again, looking at what he’s done, makes my life easier. Thank you, David, for GURPS Spaceships for a place to get inspiration from.

First of all, I’m going to make them Decade-scale constructs…

As a long-time convertor myself, I like the look of this system you've worked out. (As we've established, my Heavy Gear lore is currently quite weak, but I've done a few conversions of other systems before…)

The fact that it's fast while still being reasonably in-keeping with the feel is, I think, one of the best things in its favor. If something unexpected comes up in play, you can pull out your Heavy Gear book and do the basic conversion in your head, on the fly, rather than having to sit down and generate an entire set of stats! Being able to do that is very handy, I can say from experience.

…I'm not sure how to convert the weapon attack modifiers into GURPS Acc, though, other than simply picking something to be the zero-point and applying the modifiers. Does the zero-average bell curve map across well to GURPS's?

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by shadowjack

The fact that it's fast while still being reasonably in-keeping with the feel is, I think, one of the best things in its favor. If something unexpected comes up in play, you can pull out your Heavy Gear book and do the basic conversion in your head, on the fly, rather than having to sit down and generate an entire set of stats! Being able to do that is very handy, I can say from experience.

That's been very important to me. I want it to be, at worst, having to do a quick look-up on a chart. I want to keep the math as simple as possible. I want to spend time playing the game, not converting stuff while I’m playing.

Originally Posted by shadowjack

…I'm not sure how to convert the weapon attack modifiers into GURPS Acc, though, other than simply picking something to be the zero-point and applying the modifiers. Does the zero-average bell curve map across well to GURPS's?

I've been toying with an idea, so here's the rough draft:

First thing: a Heavy Gear hex is 50 meters. I’m not really going to quibble over the differences between a meter and a yard for weapon ranges. It’s just not worth it.

The weapons BR (base range) will be its 0 penalty. So, for a LAC, with a BR of 2 (100 meters), that's a -10 penalty in GURPS, so the ACC would be 10.

For each Accuracy bonus that a Gear or its weapon has is just a doubling of the value. So, a weapons ACC +1, would increase its GURPS Acc by 2.

So, a FC (Frag Cannon) with a BR of 1 and a ACC of +1, would have a GURPS Acc of 10.
That’s an Acc of 8 for the Base Range of 1 being 50 yards, and a +2 for the weapon’s Acc.

A weapons ½D would be its Extreme Range. It’s max would be, I don’t know, Gun Experts? What would be a good multiplier? I’m going to say x3, just for giggles.

So, a LAC would have a Range of 800/2400.

The Black Mamba, which has a Fire Control of +1, has a +2 targeting system in GURPS.

RoF is pretty simple, they state that, for simplicity sake, a non-missile weapon’s RoF is in increments of 10. So, a RoF of +1 would be RoF 10, RoF +2 = RoF 20. No need to re-invent the wheel. A missile weapon’s RoF is just a doubling, RoF is RoF 2, RoF 2 is RoF 4, 3 is 8, 4 is 16, et cetera.

Now, I’m going to try to tackle the Attenuating Damage for Energy Weapons. I think they’ll be a bit hinky.

[Langy]

Those GURPS Acc numbers are pretty extreme. The range numbers sound about right, but an Acc of 10 is really high for a ballistic weapon. I'd consider dropping those Acc figures by either 2 or 4 or so so that things built using the Heavy Gear rules aren't ridiculously overpowered compared to things built on the normal rules. As-is, your LAC is very nearly as accurate as a laser cannon.

The weapon damages seem about right, though. An M242 Bushmaster, which is probably roughly equivalent to an LAC or MAC, does 48 dice of damage with a (2) armor divisor when equipped with its most devestating ammunition, though its range is significantly longer than that LAC.

Wish I still had some Heavy Gear rulebooks lying around so I could actually look up some other stats and such. Ah well.

[Mark Skarr]

Originally Posted by Langy

Those GURPS Acc numbers are pretty extreme. The range numbers sound about right, but an Acc of 10 is really high for a ballistic weapon.

Again, as I said, it was a rough draft.

I hadn’t taken into account the fact that Gears are generally SM+2 (for size 6) and SM+3 (for size 7). That’ll drop the Acc by 2 right there. I could drop the Acc a further 3 by saying that the Gears targeting computer gives a base +3 for aimed shots. That means that, instead of an Acc 10, a LAC would have an Acc 5. A MAC/HAC would have an Acc 6.

[edit]
Upon further reflection, I'm going to reduce the Acc by a further 1. The answer will be that the Gear's targeting system is treated like a Scanning Sense with Targeting, and if they lock on a target, and make an aimed attack, they get a +3 bonus instead of +2.
[/edit]

So, a Sniper Laser cannon with a BR of 5 (250 meters) and an ACC of +1, would have an Acc of (13 +2 -5) 10. (There’ll be a quiz on this later)

Originally Posted by Langy

The weapon damages seem about right, though. An M242 Bushmaster, which is probably roughly equivalent to an LAC or MAC, does 48 dice of damage with a (2) armor divisor when equipped with its most devestating ammunition, though its range is significantly longer than that LAC.

If we need to explain it: the Bushmaster also has a longer barrel and is in a better mount. The LAC the Hunter carries is a rifle. Also, these numbers are just for a quick & dirty conversion that keeps the feel of Heavy Gear and has come out to be pretty darned effective (if I do say so myself). If you want an actual conversion, feel free to use the real-world numbers, but keep in mind you’ll be dealing with ridiculously high numbers (see previous posts).

Originally Posted by Langy

Wish I still had some Heavy Gear rulebooks lying around so I could actually look up some other stats and such. Ah well.

Well, you can get the PDFs from e23! (Hint, Hint, Nudge, Nudge)

My rough draft quick & dirty conversion for Range Diffusion for Beam Weapons:
A SLC (Sniper Laser Cannon) has a DAM of x12 with -1 per range band. So, at short range it’s x12, medium it’s x11, long is x10 and extreme is x9. It has an extreme range of 2,000 meters/yards.

So, base information the SLC is a 6d (2) weapon. Each point of range penalty not offset by a point of Acc counts as another dDR of 2x, where x is the absolute value of the –x per range band. So, at a maximum effective range of 2,000 yd, the SLC would be dealing with an additional dDR of 14 on the target (-18 for 2,000 yds + 11 from Acc = 7 * 2 = 14). (see, pop quiz!) The doubling is only important since it has the (2) on its damage. It’s functionally dealing with a dDR of 7. If you wanted to say that the dDR is hardened or isn’t subject to the armor divisor, I’m okay with that. Just the doubling is pretty easy.

Further comments, critiques, observations?

[Langy]

My rough draft quick & dirty conversion for Range Diffusion for Beam Weapons:
A SLC (Sniper Laser Cannon) has a DAM of x12 with -1 per range band. So, at short range it’s x12, medium it’s x11, long is x10 and extreme is x9. It has an extreme range of 2,000 meters/yards.

So, base information the SLC is a 6d (2) weapon. Each point of range penalty not offset by a point of Acc counts as another dDR of 2x, where x is the absolute value of the –x per range band. So, at a maximum effective range of 2,000 yd, the SLC would be dealing with an additional dDR of 14 on the target (-18 for 2,000 yds + 11 from Acc = 7 * 2 = 14). (see, pop quiz!) The doubling is only important since it has the (2) on its damage. It’s functionally dealing with a dDR of 7. If you wanted to say that the dDR is hardened or isn’t subject to the armor divisor, I’m okay with that. Just the doubling is pretty easy.

I wouldn't bother doing that. The damage loss you're talking about is there for the same exact reason a 1/2D range is there in GURPS - as range increases, damage decreases. The difference is that in GURPS, the damage decrease happens abruptly and at only two points (1/2D range, where it's half damage, and maximum range, where it's no damage at all), where in Heavy Gear it occurs gradually (like it should in real-life).

So, what I'm trying to say is just stick a 1/2D range on that laser and it'll work fine. I'd probably make it the Extreme range like you did with the ballistic weapons.

It won't have the same 'feel' as in Heavy Gear, but it won't involve complicated mechanics and will streamline it in relation to all other GURPS weapons.

Also: I rather like the way you handled the high-acc problem I pointed out.