[Low-Tech] Chinese Guns

[The_Ryujin]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

One other think I meant to mention earlier there doesn't seem to be stats for earlier gun powder weaposn firing arrows, could probably mash something up from teh Flechette rules in HT

I don't know if the flechette rules would be a good fit since the rules assume fairly high density projectiles... but for now it would be better then nothing, the ranges would probably reduced, maybe by around 65% or more based on the density of the wood used.

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

I did look at canister at first but something about the numbers seemed "buckshot" to me so I stated them up using those numbers. Maybe Bill thought the same way or just used the wrong formula.

As to if these numbers fit reality better, that I can't say yet but like you I do think stating them as canister shots does makes more sense.

Originally Posted by Icelander

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.

Yeah, Doug's sheet assumes modern guns so it doesn't take rifling into effect and is calibrated more towards rifles side of ballistics so the numbers it produces for smoothbore low velocity cannons is going to be off but it can at lest give us some rough ideas.

Actually I just re-read the rules for using lead shot and looks the the range for the Awe Inspiring Long Range Gun might be 123/1,124, assuming of course that the range for the Crouching Tiger Gun is correct. This is based on the fact the rules say that lead shot has twice the range and that the Long Range Gun does about 1.02× more damage. Under normal GURPS conventions, this should be rounded to two significance figures or a range of 120/1,100.

So this only muddles thing further for the lead shot figures... did Bill just round the range for the Long Range Gun up? Or did someone made copy paste error given that the ranges were so similar? Or was the range rounded up and it was also used for the lead shot ranges on accident?