Bombs Away!!!

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

1) does have the caveat that the rule is for conventional High Explosives. Incendiaries, Thermobarics and Fuel Air Explosives use different rules.

I calculate the damage for CBU-55/B in High Tech , p. 194, using the formula and I get roughly the same result in there. (6d* sqrt[510*0.4*5*4] = 6d*64~)
Of course, it was a try-and-error thing, but was inside the 30-50% spread.

I could not, though, do the same for AIM-9 ABF warheads.

Undoubtedly, there is lack of understanding (of my part at least - I hope that it will change soon) of how to calculate damage for different warheads.

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

An 18 on a job roll can be a "disaster" without being a plane crash. It could just mean that the pilot is suspended or fined or something. It's a job roll, not a crash roll.

Originally Posted by RyanW

I think you mean a natural 18 (a natural 3 is really good), but you're right. If you assume a critical failure (or even just a natural 18) is always a disaster, you need to roll very rarely for routine tasks. Even a monthly job roll is problematic.

There are currently about 144,600 airline transport pilots in the US (pilots qualified to sit in an airliner's captain's chair). Assuming even a tenth of those are actually employed as pilots, and a natural 18 on the monthly job roll is a disaster, that should mean an average of 2 airline disasters per day in the US. It gets much, much worse if you require a roll for each take-off or landing, even with big routine bonuses.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That could be unpacked a little. Some of those statistical accidents have proximal causes that would be represented directly in GURPS but aren't necessarily available in the statistics (pilot sleep deprived, for instance).

For the rest, the chance of rolling a natural 3 is high enough that GURPS tends to make it too easy, not too hard, for nearly safe things to go badly wrong. Depending on how one adjudicates those failures.

A way to deal with that is the GM dramatical input, or fudge, or establish a roll before a session that some aerial activity would happen, so if a 17-18 is rolled something bad would happen for PC's that depends on Air. (Resuply miss, an unavailable CAS, or unavailable MEDVAC). I think that all will concur with me that no one would be satisfied if al PC's were lost in a aircraft mid-air collision near the LZ.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by General Lee

I calculate the damage for CBU-55/B in High Tech , p. 194, using the formula and I get roughly the same result in there. (6d* sqrt[510*0.4*5*4] = 6d*64~)
Of course, it was a try-and-error thing, but was inside the 30-50% spread.

Hrm, I could not ahve actually said wha the weight fraction for FAE bombs was. If it is in the same range it might be coincidence. Theyreally don't work in a similar fashion at all.

I was mostly thinking of the MOAB whcih appears to be c.90% filler by weight.

[General Lee]

How skilled are the homing bombs? How much Acc bonus they give for the base skill 10 for homing missiles?

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by General Lee

Undoubtedly, there is lack of understanding (of my part at least - I hope that it will change soon) of how to calculate damage for different warheads.

I'm pretty sure it is just based on the actual explosive payload mass. A warhead isn't all or even mostly payload. Warhead masses include detonators, safeties, casing and so on.

Originally Posted by General Lee

A way to deal with that is the GM dramatical input, or fudge, or establish a roll before a session that some aerial activity would happen, so if a 17-18 is rolled something bad would happen for PC's that depends on Air. (Resuply miss, an unavailable CAS, or unavailable MEDVAC). I think that all will concur with me that no one would be satisfied if al PC's were lost in a aircraft mid-air collision near the LZ.

A job roll critical failure for a military pilot doesn't even have to be a flying related disaster. He could have just as easily shown up to formation with a messed up haircut, gotten drunk while on liberty and puked on the CO, failed a written re-certification test, forgot some item on a pre-flight checklist that got noticed by a superior, miscounted an item in an inventory (officers often have to do armory inventories on a rota) that got noticed by a colleague, failed a PT test or whatever.

EDIT: Heck it could even be an injury from PT that puts him on Light Duty or even TMPQ, these happen all the time in the service.

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Hrm, I could not ahve actually said wha the weight fraction for FAE bombs was. If it is in the same range it might be coincidence. Theyreally don't work in a similar fashion at all.

I was mostly thinking of the MOAB whcih appears to be c.90% filler by weight.

Probably. CBU-55/b actually is a bomb that have three submunitions. So, this damage is for each of the submunitions. Oops.

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I'm pretty sure it is just based on the actual explosive payload mass. A warhead isn't all or even mostly payload. Warhead masses include detonators, safeties, casing and so on.

Sorry. When I said warhead, it is explosive payload, even though fuse, casing have influence on how the bomb/missile works.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

A job roll critical failure for a military pilot doesn't even have to be a flying related disaster. He could have just as easily shown up to formation with a messed up haircut, gotten drunk while on liberty and puked on the CO, failed a written re-certification test, forgot some item on a pre-flight checklist that got noticed by a superior, miscounted an item in an inventory (officers often have to do armory inventories on a rota) that got noticed by a colleague, failed a PT test or whatever.

The result would be the same. No aircraft on air.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by General Lee

The result would be the same. No aircraft on air.

If you are just worried about CAS from the grunt's perspective, I wouldn't worry about making job rolls for the pilots at all. Are you going to make job rolls for every NPC in the service? I'd just assign a chance that a given fire support asset will be available for the PC's unit during the operation and then modify by weather, operational phase, and so on. This is probably a base 12 or less for organic assets (mortars and MGs), 9 or less for attached assets (like Arty and naval guns), and 6 or less for ad hoc assets (like CAS often is).

[General Lee]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

If you are just worried about CAS from the grunt's perspective, I wouldn't worry about making job rolls for the pilots at all. Are you going to make job rolls for every NPC in the service? I'd just assign a chance that a given fire support asset will be available for the PC's unit during the operation and then modify by weather, operational phase, and so on. This is probably a base 12 or less for organic assets (mortars and MGs), 9 or less for attached assets (like Arty and naval guns), and 6 or less for ad hoc assets (like CAS often is).

Much better approach.

Never passed my mind make job rolls. Only that when it comes the issue of probabilities of something bad happens, it was identified that rolling all the time one aircraft is attacking is insuficient, or anormal. So, there it comes rolls before sessions, or something like that.