Low Tech cannons mortars and shells

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Varyon

While it's true that they are jagged and cut and tear rather than crush their way through soft tissue like a bullet, they are also typically rather small and, by my understanding, tend to wound and kill by penetrating into flesh and disrupting organs (and causing bleeding) rather than slicing bits off.

I think it depends on which fragments: my understanding is that as others have said, simple cast-iron shells tend to produce a few big fragments which can slice things off, whereas balls from a Napoleonic shrapnel round or splinters from a modern shell are more bullet-like or arrow-like.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I think it depends on which fragments: my understanding is that as others have said, simple cast-iron shells tend to produce a few big fragments which can slice things off, whereas balls from a Napoleonic shrapnel round or splinters from a modern shell are more bullet-like or arrow-like.

Shrapnel does piercing, as it happens.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Shrapnel does piercing, as it happens.

I'm not sure if handling a 19th-century shrapnel round as a single RoF 1×78 attack is a great choice (High Tech pp. 138-140). My understanding is that the whole point is that the round bursts close to the other guy, thus avoiding the problem that canister (or shotshell) starts to scatter and lose energy as soon as it leaves the barrel. I would be inclined to treat "where does the shell burst?" as a skill roll then use something similar to the Fragmentation or Suppression Fire rules to decide who gets hit.

But the Explosion rules in the Basic Set are generic enough that if you see things differently than the designers did, you can usually adapt them.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

At low TL's, I don't think fragmentation is properly understood

It's not that it wasn't understood, it's that there was a tradeoff between having an inexpensive shell that was still tough enough to survive being fired out of a cannon.

Early low explosive shells were sometimes made from pottery, which would presumably produce more fragments, but is obviously less "soldier resistant."

One gunners figured out that you could shoot a cylinder-like round out of a gun and literally get more bang for your buck, there was a lot of effort put into shell design.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Hand mortars were a thing (with no stats in GURPS Low Tech!)

I think there were stats in GURPS 3E High Tech or a similar book, like Age of Napoleon.

They were useful for line-throwing, but as combat weapons they were distinctly unpopular because they compounded the inherent unreliability of black powder grenades and flintlock firearms. If you lit the grenade and then had a misfire with the grenade launcher, you were in deep trouble.

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Early gunpowder artillery is really complicated and could easily be a booklet by itself. Even GURPS High Tech has one gun (!) to represent all traditional muzzle-loading cannon of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Pre-cartridge BP weapons in general are complicated, although not as complicated as modern guns. There are a lot of little details that GURPS, even GURPS High Tech, simplifies and lots of stuff that hasn't been GURPSified.

The problem is that historical weapons of the era just aren't that popular. Nobody cares about the difference between a doglock and a miquelet lock or all the weird attempts to overcome the inherent technological limitations that gunsmiths and cannon founders tried.

If you're doing swashbucklers/pyrates* it's mostly about swordplay, maybe with a brace of pistols to open the action or a blunderbuss to intimidate the rabble.

If you're doing DF with gunpowder, you basically want a tech-themed wand of fireballs.

If you're doing Steampunk, you want variations on successful late 19th century designs with Steampunk analogs of late 20th or early 21st century gun accessories.

Heavy weapons have limited RPG use unless you're hunting foes who can only be taken down by cannon fire. (As an example, GURPS 3E High Tech had a fun vignette on WW1-era artillery vs. Nameless Horror.) If you're on the receiving end, you need to be tough enough that cannons hurt rather than being insta-kill.



*

Pyrates = The romanticized version of Baroque-era Caribbean sea-robbers, with 99% less senseless cruelty, 90% less alcoholism and 100% better personal hygiene than the historical versions.

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Dalillama

Apparently there were explosive musket bullets in the mid-19th century, which saw some use in the ACW.

Yes, but they were fantastically unreliable and carried such a small mass of explosive it wasn't worth it.

Their real effectiveness was as early hollow-point bullets, which potentially made injuries from minie' balls even more horrific.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I'm not sure if handling a 19th-century shrapnel round as a single RoF 1×78 attack is a great choice (High Tech pp. 138-140). My understanding is that the whole point is that the round bursts close to the other guy, thus avoiding the problem that canister (or shotshell) starts to scatter and lose energy as soon as it leaves the barrel. I would be inclined to treat "where does the shell burst?" as a skill roll then use something similar to the Fragmentation or Suppression Fire rules to decide who gets hit.

But the Explosion rules in the Basic Set are generic enough that if you see things differently than the designers did, you can usually adapt them.

It's probably beat treated as area attack, with a skill roll to place it correctly, and the Bombardment limitation.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Pursuivant

Heavy weapons have limited RPG use unless you're hunting foes who can only be taken down by cannon fire. (As an example, GURPS 3E High Tech had a fun vignette on WW1-era artillery vs. Nameless Horror.) If you're on the receiving end, you need to be tough enough that cannons hurt rather than being insta-kill.

That's for direct impacts (although note that targets that call for direct cannon fire aren't exactly uncommon in many campaigns - castle walls and ocean-going ships, for example). The thread is largely about explosive shells, and those are often useful against infantry - the overpressure and fragmentation/shrapnel can result in multiple casualties from a single shot into the center of a formation, making them often the go-to method for engaging large numbers of foes at once, absent readily-available magic. Mundane PC's could see themselves faced with such and have a decent chance of survival (typically by diving/staying behind cover, although unless the shell has fairly-heavy fragmentation damage, getting hit is unlikely to be immediately fatal, particularly if the PC's have their important bits armored).

[Pursuivant]

Originally Posted by Varyon

That's for direct impacts (although note that targets that call for direct cannon fire aren't exactly uncommon in many campaigns - castle walls and ocean-going ships, for example). The thread is largely about explosive shells, and those are often useful against infantry

True. While a hit by a TL7+ shell "in the general neighborhood" is likely to kill or seriously wound anyone nearby, until mid- to late-TL6 (post-WW1) shells were far less lethal.

Even better from a roleplaying point of view, in some cases you could actually see them coming, giving bonuses to Dodge. Solid cannonballs would bounce and then roll along the ground beyond their nominal Max range, carrying a significant amount of the ball's original energy - enough to badly injure or even kill people who got in the way.

Make a Fright Check to hold your position and not Dodge in a moving formation of troops when it's likely that you'll be in the way of an oncoming cannonball.

I can see other ways to get big guns into a game if the GM or players want them.

In a skirmish in urban terrain, bringing up cannons against the enemy was a fight ender as long as the gun crews could be protected. They were the weapon of choice when dealing with mobs protected by barricades or when forcing a barricaded force to surrender or give up a position. Shells would be more effective than solid shot against thin walls or light barricades.

Artillery batteries, especially batteries of rifled guns, often were in range of enemy artillery and might get into artillery duels. In such cases individual gunner skill and overall gun crew quality really mattered, as both sides tried to keep the guns fed and firing. The winner of the duel would dismount the enemy's guns or render them immobile by wrecking gun carriages or gun limbers and killing draft animals. Since artillery superiority gives bonuses to mass combat, this sort of fight would be an interesting roleplaying "vignette" in an otherwise mass combat situation.

Finally, cannons were used to batter down walls or pick off defending gun and sniper positions during sieges, so called shots on vital parts of a fortress to cause a breach or kill an annoying enemy would be another good roleplaying scene.

Even better, siege gunners tried to hit powder magazines within fortress complexes. They were well protected, so it took a lot of doing to hit them, but the results of that critical hit were worth it. In addition to producing a gratifyingly huge explosion, blowing up the magazine deprived the enemy of a significant amount of powder required to continue the defense. Gamers love their big explosions as long they're not on the receiving end.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

I'm not sure if handling a 19th-century shrapnel round as a single RoF 1×78 attack is a great choice (High Tech pp. 138-140).

It certainly shouldn't only attack one target, which seems to be a consequence of the rules as written. Canister, shrapnel, and beehive all seem to be missing anything about the size and shape of the sheaf. Although I would love to be proven wrong about this.