great-war era cannons question

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by SteampengMK-1

This I will have to keep in mind
generally, I thought that "normal" small arms can't generally get though the armor, and if they do, with no real harm; but with what your saying, that might not be in the rules...

Also, The PC will eventually get there own panic clausing land crawler(s)

You can't do a lot of damage to an Unliving/Machine target with small arms but as long as you penetrate you can't do less than one point either.

Then you come to the important point of how unfavorable the rati0o of HP to weight is for vehicles. A car that weighs 20x as much as a man will have no more than 5x as many HP and it gets worse as you go larger. The T-72 in HT has 450x the weight 0f a man but less than 18x the HP.

So once you get even a little penetration the lifespan of a v3ehicle is measured in clips of ammo. Generally less than a single soldier might e carrying.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by SteampengMK-1

This I will have to keep in mind
generally, I thought that "normal" small arms can't generally get though the armor, and if they do, with no real harm; but with what your saying, that might not be in the rules...

Well, obviously you need to be using enough gun to get through the target's DR, or you won't accomplish anything.

However, even small penetrating hits will do real harm. Unliving vehicles have lower wounding factors for piercing than living things do, but giant vehicles take just as much damage as little ones, and as Fred Brackin notes they don't actually have that much more HP.

Originally Posted by SteampengMK-1

Also, The PC will eventually get there own panic clausing land crawler(s), which could help them to not be so tigger happy with the light weapons.

Depending on how your player thinks, that could be taken as simply an opportunity to use more light weapons.

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by SteampengMK-1

This I will have to keep in mind
generally, I thought that "normal" small arms can't generally get though the armor, and if they do, with no real harm; but with what your saying, that might not be in the rules...

Also, The PC will eventually get there own panic clausing land crawler(s), which could help them to not be so tigger happy with the light weapons.

For an authentic Great War feel, remember that early tanks (in some cases including designs still in service in 1940) were not entirely bullet-proof. At the very least, ordinary small-arms fire could spall the insides of the plate, creating annoying and debilitating fragments in the fighting compartment (hence the mail facemasks worn by early tank crews), plates could deform, tear or shatter under prolonged fire (such as concentrated MMG attack) and lucky hits could dislodge rivets into the fighting compartment or penetrate seams, leading to substantial ricochet problems. Even hot-loaded rifle bullets could achieve useful degrees of penetration.

[SteampengMK-1]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Well, obviously you need to be using enough gun to get through the target's DR, or you won't accomplish anything.

However, even small penetrating hits will do real harm. Unliving vehicles have lower wounding factors for piercing than living things do, but giant vehicles take just as much damage as little ones, and as Fred Brackin notes they don't actually have that much more HP.

Depending on how your player thinks, that could be taken as simply an opportunity to use more light weapons.

what your saying is...is that DR get remove the more times you hit it?

Originally Posted by The Colonel

For an authentic Great War feel, remember that early tanks (in some cases including designs still in service in 1940) were not entirely bullet-proof. At the very least, ordinary small-arms fire could spall the insides of the plate, creating annoying and debilitating fragments in the fighting compartment (hence the mail facemasks worn by early tank crews), plates could deform, tear or shatter under prolonged fire (such as concentrated MMG attack) and lucky hits could dislodge rivets into the fighting compartment or penetrate seams, leading to substantial ricochet problems. Even hot-loaded rifle bullets could achieve useful degrees of penetration.

I will have to also keep this in Mind. Spalling was a problem for early tank crews.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

For an authentic Great War feel, remember that early tanks (in some cases including designs still in service in 1940) were not entirely bullet-proof.

And heavy machine guns were developed to kill such tanks. A barely rifle-proof tank is a death trap when attacked by a Browning M2.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by SteampengMK-1

what your saying is...is that DR get remove the more times you hit it?

No, nothing like that. Unless for some reason you made the DR ablative/semi-ablative, or they're using Corrosive damage. Bouncing 100 pistol bullets off the belt armor of a battleship won't do anything in GURPS.

The thing is that you can hit a target with a bunch of small projectiles compared to the number of big ones you could deliver. Particularly if you're using a lot of independent weapons, since RoF isn't so good for large numbers of hits. And that bunch of small projectiles add up really well.


How big a problem this is depends on how you're expecting HP and DR to relate. If your vehicles have significantly more DR than HP (adjusting for armor penetration and wounding factors!), then the most economical shot to hit them with is likely to be one that pretty much one-shots them. But if actually killing the thing is an issue, rather than getting through the shell, then a lot of weapons that have a penetration of around twice the target's DR will do that better than one huge cannon would.

[SteampengMK-1]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

No, nothing like that. Unless for some reason you made the DR ablative/semi-ablative, or they're using Corrosive damage. Bouncing 100 pistol bullets off the belt armor of a battleship won't do anything in GURPS.

The thing is that you can hit a target with a bunch of small projectiles compared to the number of big ones you could deliver. Particularly if you're using a lot of independent weapons, since RoF isn't so good for large numbers of hits. And that bunch of small projectiles add up really well.


How big a problem this is depends on how you're expecting HP and DR to relate. If your vehicles have significantly more DR than HP (adjusting for armor penetration and wounding factors!), then the most economical shot to hit them with is likely to be one that pretty much one-shots them. But if actually killing the thing is an issue, rather than getting through the shell, then a lot of weapons that have a penetration of around twice the target's DR will do that better than one huge cannon would.

Ah, now see where your getting at (I think)

Will I don't think I need to worry to much...due to the fact that must first get to the weak points, after fighting through a crap load of supports. and likely after that, then they might as well use some explosives then.

That stated, they might as well hijack the tank.(thinking it, the tank, going to have buddies, that would be the smart thing to do.)

[The Colonel]

Originally Posted by johndallman

And heavy machine guns were developed to kill such tanks. A barely rifle-proof tank is a death trap when attacked by a Browning M2.

It's not much fun when attacked with a Maxim 08 either ...

[SteampengMK-1]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

It's not much fun when attacked with a Maxim 08 either ...

That right, they did developed armor piercing rounds for it...

Also, I'm just wondering, what would the stats be for a Mark 4, Mark C hornet, and the mark 7 (Standard and "indy-ed").

Also the stats for an AV7 and der K-wagon, we can't forget those can we?

[mlangsdorf]

Eyballing the Mark IV (from the wikipedia article) and comparing it to the Renault FT-17 (from High Tech p234).

TL 6
ST/HP 150
Hnd/SR -3/5
HT 8 fx
Move 1/2
LWt 27 or 29 tons
Load 1
SM +4
Occ 8
DR 34/12
Range 35
Cost ?
Locations 2C

Armed with either 2x QF 6-pdrs (Adventure Guns p43) and 3 Lewis Guns (HT p131) or 5 Lewis Guns. One Lewis Gun is mounted on the front hull, and the others are mounted in pairs in the sponsons or mounted with a 6-pdr in a sponson.

180 rounds of HE and 152 rounds of case are carried for the QF guns. I can't find a specific number, but 3000-5000 rounds for each Lewis gun wouldn't be unreasonable, all preloaded into 96 round drum magazines.

You can do your own research for the others. It's not very hard to stat them up.