[AtE] Wasteland vehicle improvised weaponry

[Luke Bunyip]

Went and rewatched Mad Max II aka The Road Warrior and one thing struck me; the lack of pintel or turret mounted automatic firearms.

If the setting doesn't have a glut of automatic weaponry and ammunition conveniently lying about, what other options does an aspiring warrior of the wasteland have for arming his minion's vehicles? Arbalests (possibly with a Polybolos type repeating action), pneumatically* powered harpoon guns and multi barrel dart guns? Could a black powder shaped charge be used as a warhead, rendering the above as a TL2-3 equivalent to the RPG?

What other options could there be?

Should I be delving into my back issues of the Pyramid?


*An air compressor, a tank that can still cope with high pressure, and Bob's your uncle...

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Could a black powder shaped charge be used as a warhead, rendering the above as a TL2-3 equivalent to the RPG?

Pretty sure you've got to have a high explosive to get the Monroe effect. Black powder can't produce a true shock wave.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by RyanW

Pretty sure you've got to have a high explosive to get the Monroe effect.

<Australian swearing> I had this naive hope for javelins with shaped charge warheads, sort of a Tiki torch, but with added BOOM.

[copeab]

I'm not sure if post-apocalyptic vehicles will have thick enough armor to require shaped charge warheads.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by copeab

I'm not sure if post-apocalyptic vehicles will have thick enough armor to require shaped charge warheads.

Warriors of the wasteland can aspire... But yeah, you're probably right.

[mlangsdorf]

You can use a small engine to spin a small wheel at very high RPM just above a second, freely rotating wheel. Then you can feed projectiles like bolts between the two wheels, and they get accelerated to the wheel's effective linear velocity. It's basically a baseball pitching machine, but it's sufficient to get crossbow bolts up to a couple hundred miles per hour, and it's almost an automatic weapon.

[Luke Bunyip]

Originally Posted by copeab

I'm not sure if post-apocalyptic vehicles will have thick enough armor to require shaped charge warheads.

Which, for me, then begs the question "How thick should the armour be?

Common cartridges in the setting are 22LR, .223R, and .308/7.62x51mm.
So... what would be the thickest armour an aspiring road warrior would require to protect themselves against 7d pi?

[mlangsdorf]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Which, for me, then begs the question "How thick should the armour be?

Common cartridges in the setting are 22LR, .223R, and .308/7.62x51mm.
So... what would be the thickest armour an aspiring road warrior would require to protect themselves against 7d pi?

.308 does 7d damage, or less than 28 points. Decent steel armor is 70 DR/in, so 4/10ths of inch or 10mm should be more than sufficient. Steel armor at that thickness weighs roughly 16 lbs per square foot.

Reality checking my work, the side armor an M8 Greyhound was supposed to stop 7.62mm bullets, and a Greyhound's side armor is 9.5mm thick <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M8_Greyhound>.

[copeab]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Which, for me, then begs the question "How thick should the armour be?

Common cartridges in the setting are 22LR, .223R, and .308/7.62x51mm.
So... what would be the thickest armour an aspiring road warrior would require to protect themselves against 7d pi?

The most likely "heavy armor" for vehicles is sections of cut boiler plate welded or otherwise affixed to the exterior of the vehicles.

You will need to do some research to determine the ballistic efficiency of boiler plate to steel armor (it is lower, possibly .45)) and the typical thickness range of the plate.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Common cartridges in the setting are 22LR, .223R, and .308/7.62x51mm.
So... what would be the thickest armour an aspiring road warrior would require to protect themselves against 7d pi?

If we assume 'protect' to mean the GURPS standard of 'stop the average damage roll', 7d requires DR24.

Assuming your standard mild steel, at DR56/inch (B558-559), this means about 0.43" (say 11mm) of plate. A half-inch plate (12.7mm) gives DR28 and is quite good protection from 7d, and near-complete protection from the 5d damage of .223/5.56mm rounds (or the 5d+1 of 7.62x39mm bullets).

As a rule of thumb, a plate one inch thick weighs 40 pounds per square foot - serious armour gets heavy very quickly.