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Old 04-10-2018, 12:36 AM   #21
JimTullis
 
Join Date: Feb 2013
Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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Originally Posted by Blue Ghost View Post
I think the one thing the classic rules got right is that electric battery fuel cell cars tend to catch fire more often than their gasoline counterparts. Here locally in the Bay Area some guy died in last few days on one of the major arteries in a Tesla that caught fire. I'm not sure if it was the impact of the initial crash or the fire that got him, but the report stated that electric cars tended to catch fire and stay combustible. Not always, but there's your "6" result on the crash table.
I don't think that Electric Cars catch fire any more often that Gasoline Cars do.

I think that the Media deliberately pushes Electric Car news to the front page. And the more spectacular the news is the bigger their push. Normal Vehicle news gets put on page 10 or 12 if at all.

The National Fire Protection Association has the following information about vehicle fires...
https://www.nfpa.org/Public-Educatio...icles/Vehicles
Quick take away...
"U.S. fire departments responded to an estimated average of 152,300 automobile fires per year in 2006-2010" "On average, 17 automobile fires were reported per hour. These fires killed an average of four people every week."

I didn't see a breakdown of how many of those were electric, but I think it goes to show how little attention the media pays to car fires unless they are electric cars or spectacular fires.

I saw, but don't have the link, an article saying that the percentage of Chevy Volt Electric Cars that have caught fire is about the same as for gasoline powered cars.

I don't think there is a big difference in risk, I think that the Media just loves to say the word "Tesla" and "Elon Musk". ;)
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Old 04-10-2018, 02:21 AM   #22
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

Eh, maybe. The people reporting were KPIX channel 5 in San Francisco. I'm too lazy to provide a link, but you can cruise over to their site or to their YouTube site and search for it; Tesla auto accident should do. The fire chief has a different take on the volatility of electric cars when it comes to car fires.

Either way CW is supposed to be cinematic, so there you go :)

But, just as some online gaming communities tweak game engines with "realism patches", so too CW might benefit from a paper and pencil version of the same thing, and maybe new car designs would spring from that effort.
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Old 04-10-2018, 01:25 PM   #23
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

The big issue with electric cars and fires is that Lithium batteries don't like water, and water is the standard for putting out fires by most fire departments not at specialty locations. It is likely a blip until training and gear availability catches up to there being electric cars on the road. Of course damp, and rain will continue to be problems.
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Old 04-10-2018, 01:44 PM   #24
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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I mean, how much does an actual 50cal Browning weigh? How much does it's articulation mechanism weigh and cost? And how do you tweak plastic armor to reflect that it gets eaten away by big guns like the Browning, but is resilient to small arms or even LMG / minigun fire? That kind of thing.
Air-cooled Browning 0.50: 84 lbs. Water-cooled: 100 lbs.

Weight of ammo varies, but basic "ball" is 1/4 lb.; at a max RoF of ~600 rounds-per-minute, or 10 rounds per second, 20 sec of ammo would be 200 rounds total, or 50 lbs.

The tripod for the Army version is 44 lbs.; but a pivot mounted to a vehicle is probably lighter, as the recoil can be absorbed by the mass of the vehicle.

As to the armor issue: Had the game started with "metal armor" -- that is: Armor has a fixed value which one has to exceed in order to inflict damage -- there'd be fewer questions about this. The best system is something like _Space: 1889_, or _Dark Future_: Armor is a fixed number; weapons have Penetration as well as Damage values (it's possible for an "armor-piercing" weapon to have a high Penetration, but low Damage -- the shot punches straight through rather than "coming in one side and rattling around a bit"). This would lead to the problem of the poor soul who turns up in a vehicle whose weapon can never penetrate anyone's armor, and would focus attention on "hammer on an eggshell" designs, but....

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Originally Posted by adm View Post
The big issue with electric cars and fires is that Lithium batteries don't like water, and water is the standard for putting out fires by most fire departments not at specialty locations. It is likely a blip until training and gear availability catches up to there being electric cars on the road. Of course damp, and rain will continue to be problems.
It's become a Big Problem in European Auto Racing -- the FIA didn't anticipate the costs of having to equip all safety vehicles with separate FE systems for both fuel-burning *and* electric power, not to mention the equipment for safely discharging the batteries of a wrecked hybrid. Result: FIA has never been able to get a decent car-count for its Le Mans Prototype 1 class, and that class is collapsing under the weight of the cubic Euros required.
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Old 04-10-2018, 03:00 PM   #25
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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I don't think that Electric Cars catch fire any more often that Gasoline Cars do.
By their nature, batteries contain both fuel and oxidizer; gasoline engines only contain fuel and rely on atmospheric oxidizers. This is not a big deal for lead-acid batteries, as they don't contain enough energy to ignite themselves, but it's the nature of high performance batteries to be fire and explosion hazards. Of course, vehicles in general don't catch fire all that often.
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Old 04-10-2018, 07:07 PM   #26
JimTullis
 
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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By their nature, batteries contain both fuel and oxidizer; gasoline engines only contain fuel and rely on atmospheric oxidizers. This is not a big deal for lead-acid batteries, as they don't contain enough energy to ignite themselves, but it's the nature of high performance batteries to be fire and explosion hazards. Of course, vehicles in general don't catch fire all that often.
The National Fire Protection Association seems to think that...
"On average, 17 automobile fires were reported per hour. These fires killed an average of four people every week."

17 an hour seems like a High Number to me, but that is across an entire nation.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Blue Ghost
Eh, maybe. The people reporting were KPIX channel 5 in San Francisco. I'm too lazy to provide a link, but you can cruise over to their site or to their YouTube site and search for it; Tesla auto accident should do. The fire chief has a different take on the volatility of electric cars when it comes to car fires.
My point was that Electric Vehicles don't seem to be catching fire any more often than Gasoline Vehicles.

I do believe that Electric Vehicle Fires are more difficult to extinguish and do more damage, and will remain that way until there are enough Electric Vehicles to make it worth while for firefighters to cary the specialized equipment to put them out.
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Old 04-10-2018, 07:26 PM   #27
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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Originally Posted by 43Supporter View Post
Air-cooled Browning 0.50: 84 lbs. Water-cooled: 100 lbs.

Weight of ammo varies, but basic "ball" is 1/4 lb.; at a max RoF of ~600 rounds-per-minute, or 10 rounds per second, 20 sec of ammo would be 200 rounds total, or 50 lbs.

The tripod for the Army version is 44 lbs.; but a pivot mounted to a vehicle is probably lighter, as the recoil can be absorbed by the mass of the vehicle.

As to the armor issue: Had the game started with "metal armor" -- that is: Armor has a fixed value which one has to exceed in order to inflict damage -- there'd be fewer questions about this. The best system is something like _Space: 1889_, or _Dark Future_: Armor is a fixed number; weapons have Penetration as well as Damage values (it's possible for an "armor-piercing" weapon to have a high Penetration, but low Damage -- the shot punches straight through rather than "coming in one side and rattling around a bit"). This would lead to the problem of the poor soul who turns up in a vehicle whose weapon can never penetrate anyone's armor, and would focus attention on "hammer on an eggshell" designs, but....
Well, SJGames is more generous then, because weapon and articulated mount (which assumes a motor of some kind to move the barrel up/down and side to side) is only 65lbs which includes ten trigger pulls (however many rounds that is in CW speak).

Having said that, I think current material science has surpassed what CW projected into the mid 21st century, and it might be worth exploring (for those inclined) to examine kinds of force is needed to penetrate what kind of armor, and come up for rules that reflect that.

That might, though might not, innovate new car designs. I'm not really sure. I tend to be "old school" with the standard twin linked MGs up front, maybe a turret or dropped weapon depending on weight and space.

Just some thoughts.
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Old 04-11-2018, 03:54 PM   #28
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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Well, SJGames is more generous then, because weapon and articulated mount (which assumes a motor of some kind to move the barrel up/down and side to side) is only 65lbs which includes ten trigger pulls (however many rounds that is in CW speak).
Not sure about that -- _Mythbusters_ actually did an episode featuring a car with a full-traverse forward-firing gun (paintball, to be sure); it wasn't mentioned how much the rig actually weighed.

And there's the Obvious Problems of trying to build an example one's-self.... :)
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Old 04-11-2018, 05:48 PM   #29
Blue Ghost
 
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

Well, I'm not an expert. Just putting some ideas out there.
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Old 04-11-2018, 05:57 PM   #30
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Default Re: Stagnation in Road Combat Designs .

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The National Fire Protection Association seems to think that...
"On average, 17 automobile fires were reported per hour. These fires killed an average of four people every week."
Of which, 2/3 were caused by malfunctions, and only 4% were caused by accidents. As the auto accident rate is about 700 per hour, this implies somewhere around a 0.1% chance of a car catching fire in an accident.
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