Reactive Armor

[cvannrederode]

High Tech has a few weapons that note having Dual Stage shape charge warheads -- notably the Javelin.

But I can not find any rules for how reactive Armor works. Reactive Armor blocks, as well as slat armor is becoming common place on the modern battlefield.

Does anyone know if Reactive Armor has been setup in 4e (I seem to remember it in Vehicles in 3e), and if so, where?

--C

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by cvannrederode

High Tech has a few weapons that note having Dual Stage shape charge warheads -- notably the Javelin.

But I can not find any rules for how reactive Armor works. Reactive Armor blocks, as well as slat armor is becoming common place on the modern battlefield.

Does anyone know if Reactive Armor has been setup in 4e (I seem to remember it in Vehicles in 3e), and if so, where?

--C

Reactive Armor is set up as adding DR to the base DR with an additional multiplier against HEAT. Multi-stage warheads may show two separate but sequential attacks but in practice you just add those together. It's simpler that way and it doesn't change any outcomes.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Reactive Armor is set up as adding DR to the base DR with an additional multiplier against HEAT. Multi-stage warheads may show two separate but sequential attacks but in practice you just add those together. It's simpler that way and it doesn't change any outcomes.

I'm pretty sure (from HT170) that the intent is that the first charge counters the reactive block (or the block counters the first charge, if you want to look at it that way), and the main charge then gets to attack the underlying armour. Thus how big the first charge is, or how good the DR of the reactive armour is, doesn't matter as they just cancel each other out.

Unfortunately while HT discusses MS-HEAT warheads it doesn't discuss reactive armour. UT has Reactive Armour Paste, but it doesn't behave quite the same way that reactive armour blocks should.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Reactive Armor is set up as adding DR to the base DR with an additional multiplier against HEAT. Multi-stage warheads may show two separate but sequential attacks but in practice you just add those together. It's simpler that way and it doesn't change any outcomes.

Set up where? I don't remember it in any 3e or 4e book.

A handy article on how slat, bar, and cage armours work is https://www.tanknology.co.uk/post/statistical-armour

GURPS tends to have trouble with armours which work on a principle other than imposing hard mass between projectile and target, such as Whipple Shields. For good reasons, its armour rules start with the kinds of armour which matter in a sword fight or gun fight, not X-ray lasers at 2 light seconds or shaped charges at 2 km. And the way shaped charges work, or ultra-high-speed impacts work, are estoeric and counterintuitive.

[Curmudgeon]

Originally Posted by Polydamas

Set up where? I don't remember it in any 3e or 4e book.
<snip>

GURPS Vehicles, 2nd Ed. for one, specifically p. VE92-93 under Reactive Armor (late TL7).

[The_Ryujin]

While not office, here's my current rules for handling reactive armor. However it is meant for TL 9+ settings.

http://gurb3d6.blogspot.com/2016/10/...ary-armor.html

Something more TL 8 like Kontact V would have DR 500 vs HEAT and piercing damage (with a level of hardened vs HEAT) and DR against everything else. Weighs ~ 60lbs and cost ~$100 per square foot of coverage.