[Low-Tech] Chinese Guns

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

...

In order to get the books number of 7d-1 or 6.85 dice the gun could only fire at 71m/s!

Given that the numbers I'm getting is roughly twice as high, I wonder if Bill accidentally halved the Long Range Cannon and left the Crouching Tiger one at full damage.

OK just going by comparisons to other guns* in the book (so not commenting on the maths).

That would make the 160lb awe inspiring gun 14d, considerably more efficient by weight than any other gun in the book. In terms of damage the nearest comparisons being the 15d Saker that weighs 1400lbs, the 14d+1 3lb cannon weighs 1000lbs

Now don't get me wrong these guns are not identical, but that's a massive improvement (which I don't think can just be covered by the fact the saker and 3lb cannon have wheels) with really a reduction in range to compensate?


If anything isn't it more likely that the crouching gun's stone shot damage didn't get halved?

As again if you look at it nearest direct comparison the swivel gun (which doesn't have a wheeled carriage) its doing the same damage with stone shot as the swivel gun does with metal and weighs a quarter of the swivel gun weight!

And if you compare it to the wall gun which is a bit lighter but does 5d+1, having the 6d+2 figure being for lead makes sense as well

Or maybe the Chinese once they got into TL4 just made absolutely amazing cannon compared to everyone else (but I don't think that's backed by history)


*which of course begs the obvious question were the discrepancy is.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

OK just going by comparison other guns* in the book (so not commenting on the maths).

That would make the 160lb awe inspiring gun 14d, considerably more efficient by weight than any other gun in the book. in terms of damage the nearest comparisons being the 15d Saker that weighs 1400lbs, the 14d+1 3lb cannon weighs 1000lbs

Now don't get me wrong these guns are not identical, but that's a massive improvement (which I don't think can just be covered by the fact the saker and 3lb cannon have wheels) with really a reduction in range to compensate?

If anything isn't it more likely that the crouching gun's stone shot damage didn't get halved?

Oh yeah, this all just blind guess atm. I was originally thinking that Awe Inspiring was accidentally halved and the Crouching Tiger wasn't but it is also possible that the Awe Inspiring is right and the Crouching Tiger is still a typo.

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

*which of course begs the obvious question were the discrepancy is.

And that is what's driving me nuts heh.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

Oh yeah, this all just blind guess atm. I was originally thinking that Awe Inspiring was accidentally halved and the Crouching Tiger wasn't but it is also possible that the Awe Inspiring is right and the Crouching Tiger is still a typo.



And that is what's driving me nuts heh.

Yeah, a lot of comparing variables against variables here!

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Yeah, a lot of comparing variables against variables here!

Yeah, but at lest we made some progress though it sucks that I didn't end up helping as much as I thought I was. Thought my model was getting really close but it seems that I made an error somewhere on my test sheet. Thank god I didn't use it for my GURPSday post!

This is one of the reason I don't like the "closed box" mind set that 4th editions has had. It's hard to have a generic system if I don't know how to play with it's numbers (though don't get me wrong, I do understand why they felt pressured to do so. I just don't like it heh).

But now that we're pretty sure that we've figured out what's going on with the Crouching Tiger Gun, it's time to move on to why the scattershot range is different from what High Tech suggests.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

But now that we're pretty sure that we've figured out what's going on with the Crouching Tiger Gun, it's time to move on to why the scattershot range is different from what High Tech suggests.

Not to mention why a full-caliber lead ball has the same range as 100 smaller sub-caliber shot from the Long-Range-Awe-Inspiring Gun.

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Not to mention why a full-caliber lead ball has the same range as 100 smaller sub-caliber shot from the Long-Range-Awe-Inspiring Gun.

Ok with the Long Range Awe Inspiring Gun, if we assume that your assumption that it's got a caliber of 58mm and that the damage of 7d-1 is correct then that means each scatter shot round is about 12.7mm which, if we treat it as shotshell, gives me a half damage range of 63.5 and max range of 1,270 and 0.67 die of damage. So it looks like everything adds up... except for the half damage range. So either Bill either accidentally use NP×10 for the half damage range or the Gun Design System rules for scatter shot had changed since High-Tech.

Now to figure out what's going one with the Long Range Gun's range with a full sized shot, I ran the numbers through Doug's spread sheet (I have the 2013 version). This got me a half damage range of 884 and a max range of 3,222. Doug's sheet does give different values for range then the formula used in house, but it is within the same ball park so I think it's safe to say that the range listed in Low-Tech is a copy past error.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

Yeah, but at lest we made some progress though it sucks that I didn't end up helping as much as I thought I was. Thought my model was getting really close but it seems that I made an error somewhere on my test sheet. Thank god I didn't use it for my GURPSday post!

This is one of the reason I don't like the "closed box" mind set that 4th editions has had. It's hard to have a generic system if I don't know how to play with it's numbers (though don't get me wrong, I do understand why they felt pressured to do so. I just don't like it heh).

Yeah, it would be nice to have both, as you an always use teh one you personally want. I knew at one point there was an armourer's book suggested (maybe as part of VDS) but I don't know of that still going ahead. It would have the similar commercial issues as VDS.

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

But now that we're pretty sure that we've figured out what's going on with the Crouching Tiger Gun, it's time to move on to why the scattershot range is different from what High Tech suggests.

Originally Posted by Icelander

Not to mention why a full-caliber lead ball has the same range as 100 smaller sub-caliber shot from the Long-Range-Awe-Inspiring Gun.

I always assumed that was a typo on the page as you basically have three sets of range stats repeated (but that doesn't actually answer the question I realise)

I think part of thr problem i not actually knowing what these guns are. Which would help with working backwards from reality.

So for sample I can look up a brown bess musket etc, but what's a crouching Tiger gun and what's a Long-Range Awe-Inspiring Gun (and more importantly what's the difference). Of course as has been pointed out this is not the era of standardisation and not only is there overlap of terms but terms were also nebulous and variable etc.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

Ok with the Long Range Awe Inspiring Gun, if we assume that your assumption that it's got a caliber of 58mm and that the damage of 7d-1 is correct then that means each scatter shot round is about 12.7mm which, if we treat it as shotshell, gives me a half damage range of 63.5 and max range of 1,270 and 0.67 die of damage. So it looks like everything adds up... except for the half damage range. So either Bill either accidentally use NP×10 for the half damage range or the Gun Design System rules for scatter shot had changed since High-Tech.

Note that we do not treat low-tech multiple projectile loads as 'Shotshell', we treat them as 'Canister' (TL4), which means that Max Range is 50 x diameter of shot. That means that the Range should probably be 65/650.*

*Though I have no objections to slightly altering the results of applying the High-Tech generic rule to match specific historical performance. If another Range statistic can be shown to represent reality better, I'm all for it.

Originally Posted by The_Ryujin

Now to figure out what's going one with the Long Range Gun's range with a full sized shot, I ran the numbers through Doug's spread sheet (I have the 2013 version). This got me a half damage range of 884 and a max range of 3,222. Doug's sheet does give different values for range then the formula used in house, but it is within the same ball park so I think it's safe to say that the range listed in Low-Tech is a copy past error.

Doug Cole's spreadsheet measures how far a given ball will fly whereas GURPS Max Range is supposed to be a range at which the weapon is still effective, albeit difficult to use. GURPS produces much shorter Max Range scores than the spreadsheet, but that's okay, as otherwise weapons could do half damage out to ranges where they are no more than mild hazards that sting when they hit.

Meanwhile, 1/2D Range in GURPS is not exactly the same as the range at which a given projectile has either half the velocity or energy it had at the muzzle. It seems to be a number meant to reflect differences in 'effective range' between weapons and one might even suspect that there's a lingering taint from where it was the range at which weapon Acc no longer counted. In any case, correcting GURPS rules is all well and good, but it has to happen with consistency. As long as all other weapons use these assumptions for the Range stat, it would create perverse incentives to use a different set of assumptions for one or two weapons.

Note that TL5 Napoleon twelve-pounder cannon is listed at Range 400/2,000* in GURPS. No smoothbore cannon firing round ball has a better range than this. It would be strange indeed if a much ligthter, smaller gun, with a fairly light powder charge for the TL, achieved much better Range than any other smoothbore.

*Artifact the position of the gun, theoretical Max Range 3,300, according to HT.