Military Stratedgies against a 300 Foot Snake/Worm

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

If a creature 2 yards long has natural armor that's 0.2 inches thick, then scaling it up to 100 yards long (x50 to length; +8 SSR) results in natural armor that's 10 inches thick e.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1201901...ather-dark-red

Thickness of snakeskin appears to be too esoteric a subject for easy googling but the link above has the snake leather they're trying to sell be between 1.1 and 1.3 mm.

Make that 50x thicker and you've got 60 mm or less than 2.5 inches. This is thinner than the thickest skinned creatures known and would be far short of DR20.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1201901...ather-dark-red

Thickness of snakeskin appears to be too esoteric a subject for easy googling but the link above has the snake leather they're trying to sell be between 1.1 and 1.3 mm.

Make that 50x thicker and you've got 60 mm or less than 2.5 inches. This is thinner than the thickest skinned creatures known and would be far short of DR20.

Check the description; this is calfskin, with a "snake skin" print, not actually snake skin.

EDIT: There appear to be some actual snake leather products on Etsy, but thickness (for those that say it) appears to range from 0.3 to 1 mm, with no indication of how large the original snake was, which renders things not terribly useful, honestly (also... can't leather be stretched out thin while curing it? that means you can't really go off of how thick leather is anyway, as it's entire possible it was simply stretched thin for any number of reasons). The way I look at it, a 100 yard long snake with DR 20 is (in terms of its DR, saying nothing of actual size) comparable to a 5 yard long snake with DR 1. Does the latter break my sense of disbelief? Not really; that's probably a bit high of DR for a typical snake of such size, but doesn't seem unfeasible. DR 1 for a 2 yard long snake (roughly where you'd need to be to scale up to DR 40, although really that would scale up to DR 50 instead) is a harder sell, but still doesn't seem unfeasible.

A giant snake without any natural predators (or even competition beyond other Dire Sneks, or whatever you ultimately call them) having such thick natural armor seems like a clear case of "a wizard did it" rather than anything that would evolve naturally (even with something in play that allows such a massive creature to exist in the first place), however.

[Eric Funk]

Originally Posted by Witchking

At TL 3 I do not believe you have ANY fast, heavy wagons.

p.LT88 TL3 has a 1500lb bombard that could be on a cart that inflicts 13d+2 pi++ damage so against OP DR30 , 91 raw damage, less 30 from DR = 61 then doubled for pi++ 122 . If you hit it in the vitals it could be stunned B420)

LT136 has TL3 war wagons that hold 18 200-lb men so could instead hold one 1500 plus crew and munitions. (ok, not "fast").

Also, against an SM+8 target consider aiming at Chinks in Armour (B400) for only -8 to hit to HALVE foe DR, so the above calculation would change from 122 net organ damage to 152 !

[Eric Funk]

Originally Posted by tbone

Now, about that 300-foot worm... Well, a "real" one would presumably just about explode in the slightest of falls, but a "real" one shouldn't move or even live to begin with. Giant monsters get to ignore fiddly reality, so anything goes.

My first thought was how much of a fall to kill or cripple it. (B431)
Say 40 yard fall, ST200 against the ground: (200 x 30 ) /100 = 60d damage,or about 210, less OP DR30 = 180... a Major Wound roll required... (possibly with stunning if it lands on its head B420).

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Eric Funk

My first thought was how much of a fall to kill or cripple it. (B431)
Say 40 yard fall, ST200 against the ground: (200 x 30 ) /100 = 60d damage,or about 210, less OP DR30 = 180... a Major Wound roll required... (possibly with stunning if it lands on its head B420).

Fun fact - so long as you don't get high enough for terminal velocity to come into play, the falling height (and thus velocity) necessary to cause a Major Wound, drop the target to 0 HP, drop the target to -1xHP, or drop the target to -5xHP, are each roughly the same for any target. DR throws things off a bit, although I think it's less effective in a fall (I believe at least that rigid armor is treated as though it were flexible, increasing blunt trauma, but I think it may go further than that).

As I noted above, average damage is roughly (HP*Velocity)/30, so any fall over 15 yards/second (over ~10 yards high) will result in a Major Wound, a fall of 30 yards/second (~42 yards high) will drop them to 0 HP, a fall of 60 yards/second will drop them to -1xHP (~168 yards high), and a fall of 330 yards/second (~4200 yards high - that's over 2 miles) will drop them to -5xHP (instant death). Note for humans terminal velocity is between 60 yards/second (belly-first) and 90 yards/second (face-first). No clue about the snake, but it's likely to be markedly higher (particularly if it goes face-first), I suspect enough to hit the 330 yard/second mark... if you can make/find a deep enough hole, and figure out a way to get the snake to fall down it.

[Witchking]

Originally Posted by Eric Funk

LT136 has TL3 war wagons that hold 18 200-lb men so could instead hold one 1500 plus crew and munitions. (ok, not "fast").

In addition to not being fast...10 gets you 20 that the shock of firing the bombard would wreck the wagon within 5-10 shots absolute max.

1910ish The French 75mm is the first artillery piece that fires with minimal recoil (mostly taken up by the carriage) allowing it to be fired, served and fired again without awkwardly moving the gun back into place and laying it again. (A wonder weapon in its time).

1750-1910 Artillery on specifically designed carriages dealt with the recoil/shock of firing by rolling backwards, a goodly bit.

1200-1300 jumped up oxcart is not going to do that. Not as one piece anyhoo.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Varyon

Fun fact - so long as you don't get high enough for terminal velocity to come into play, the falling height (and thus velocity) necessary to cause a Major Wound, drop the target to 0 HP, drop the target to -1xHP, or drop the target to -5xHP, are each roughly the same for any target. DR throws things off a bit, although I think it's less effective in a fall (I believe at least that rigid armor is treated as though it were flexible, increasing blunt trauma, but I think it may go further than that).

Note that the damage is doubled if the object landed on is "Hard"... that effects things a good deal.

[sir_pudding]

If you are going the pit trap angle sharpened logs are pretty easy to do relative to digging the thing in the first place.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If you are going the pit trap angle sharpened logs are pretty easy to do relative to digging the thing in the first place.

The pit trap isn't all that practical and DR 20 would probably just blunt those sharpened logs.

[Eric Funk]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If you are going the pit trap angle sharpened logs are pretty easy to do relative to digging the thing in the first place.

Hmm, good point. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2 p. 20 has a spiked pit cause impaling damage, and for 10HP target hitting a hard obstacle from 30' the math plays out at 3d imp...