Engagement of Area Targets with Fully Automatic Fire

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Langy

How about the same exact example, but with a minigun firing 30 or 60 rounds per second rather than the 8 rounds per second you were using?

What's the firing platform? A helicopter? AC-130?

I have to say I find this idea very silly, since you can't hit a 'nonvital' area of the truck even if you aim for one - all penetrating hits come off of HP, after all - apparently unless you make all of those hits really, really quickly.

Those "missed" shots are missing the point target being fired at. They can still hit something, including another part of the same area target.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

You are going to have to quote it then. I don't recall anything that explicitly gives +4 for non-combat shooting. I do recall an explicit +3 for known distance, though. Again I'll remind you that there's no reason you can't just aim for the max time allowed for precision aiming as well.

...if no-rules range shooting were what I was worrying about, I'd see how all this was relevant...

The plinking box assesses a +4 for a 'typical' non-combat situation. Whether that means 'in the field, but not in any sort of combat' or 'on a shooting range' isn't clear, I see. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Kromm says:

I'm duly horrified by that.

Originally Posted by Langy

Then again, GURPS already has problems with large things dying too easily to small things (for example, an autocannon sinking an aircraft carrier) due to the way HP scales with size.

There was a thread that tried to fix that, in context of wooden warships and cannon broadsides.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Those "missed" shots are missing the point target being fired at. They can still hit something, including another part of the same area target.

That's not exactly what Kromm said...they can hit other features within the area of the target, potentially (though given how narrow the 'cone of fire' used by 'hitting the wrong thing' is, that's not going to cover much) but can't cost the actual target hitpoints.

So the 20mm shell that punched into the hull 15 feet away from the point of aim? Doesn't hurt a bit.

[Langy]

Those "missed" shots are missing the point target being fired at. They can still hit something, including another part of the same area target.

Yeah, but they don't come off the HP of the target, which is the problem, because if you were just firing one shot at a time at each of the points the bullets hit, they'd all come off the HP of the target.

What's the firing platform? A helicopter? AC-130?

No. A ground-based stabilized turret, just like in your previous example (it had a HMMWV, but it shouldn't matter if it's a ground vehicle or a turret physically attached to the ground).

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...if no-rules range shooting were what I was worrying about, I'd see how all this was relevant...

What does "can't hit the broadside of a barn" even mean as a metaphor then? I think that if one is shooting barns to see if one can even hit them, then one is in territory of purposeless shooting.

The plinking box assesses a +4 for a 'typical' non-combat situation. Whether that means 'in the field, but not in any sort of combat' or 'on a shooting range' isn't clear, I see. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the latter.

As I read that box (and forgive me, this is by memory, as that book is loaned out) that's a range from +4 to +10, including bonuses for known range, good lighting, no wind, and so on.

That's not exactly what Kromm said...they can hit other features within the area of the target, potentially (though given how narrow the 'cone of fire' used by 'hitting the wrong thing' is, that's not going to cover much) but can't cost the actual target hitpoints.

The target, or the specific hit location of the target that is the point of aim?

So the 20mm shell that punched into the hull 15 feet away from the point of aim? Doesn't hurt a bit.

Should it? It's a freakin' aircraft carrier!

Originally Posted by Langy

Yeah, but they don't come off the HP of the target, which is the problem, because if you were just firing one shot at a time at each of the points the bullets hit, they'd all come off the HP of the target.

Because those single shots are all hitting the same point target.

No. A ground-based stabilized turret, just like in your previous example (it had a HMMWV, but it shouldn't matter if it's a ground vehicle or a turret physically attached to the ground).

When Mickey Mouse flies the Space Shuttle into a walnut in GURPS... and therefore the rule is broken.

If you propose edge-case scenarios that aren't terribly plausible you are going to get occasionally improbable results. This is because the rules are optimized for realism.

However in that scenario I think it makes sense that a lot of rounds are going to strike short or impact the hull ineffectively outside of a tight group. Does anybody know the MOA of an M134 offhand?

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What does "can't hit the broadside of a barn" even mean as a metaphor then? I think that if one is shooting barns to see if one can even hit them, then one is in territory of purposeless shooting.

Well, hitting the broadside of a barn might be hard at extreme ranges, where the solid angle is equivalent to shooting a human sized target at 1km...

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Kuroshima

Well, hitting the broadside of a barn might be hard at extreme ranges, where the solid angle is equivalent to shooting a human sized target at 1km...

Sure, it's hard to hit barns from orbit. I'm fairly sure that the colloquialism is not describing Project Thor strikes.

[Langy]

And Langy, I really do not appreciate you quoting me without attribution. If you can't attribute your quotes, please don't use my words. Thank you.

Too bad. I'll continue to quote your exact words whenever I please. I will not change the way I've been writing on message boards for fifteen years just because you have some strange issue with the way I write.

The target, or the specific hit location of the target that is the point of aim?

The target. The specific hit location aimed at might be a 500,000 foot wide wall for all we know - if you miss by ten feet, you're still not going to incur HP damage.

Should it? It's a freakin' aircraft carrier!

Yes, but if you had aimed that 20mm shell at that point fifteen feet away from your original target point, you would do HP damage.

Because those single shots are all hitting the same point target.

No, they aren't. They're all hitting separate point targets, because I specified that all of the bullets were hitting in the same place they'd have hit if he had used rapid fire.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What does "can't hit the broadside of a barn" even mean as a metaphor then? I think that if one is shooting barns to see if one can even hit them, then one is in territory of purposeless shooting.

We're metagaming a shot at the broad side of a barn to see whether the game system allows it. That doesn't require the context of the in-game shot to be recreational.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

The target, or the specific hit location of the target that is the point of aim?

By my read the GM can describe the extra rounds impacting the target, but in terms of effect they're indistinguishable from misses.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Should it? It's a freakin' aircraft carrier!

Maybe, maybe not...but the first hit did, and it did even if it was the only hit so that's not somehow justified by being part of a tight group.

Whether or not a 20mm shell actually should cost a carrier HP is a reasonable question, but GURPS already has answered in the positive.

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Because those single shots are all hitting the same point target.

What, there's only one point target on the entire hull that you're allowed to fire at?

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

When Mickey Mouse flies the Space Shuttle into a walnut in GURPS... and therefore the rule is broken.

If you propose edge-case scenarios that aren't terribly plausible you are going to get occasionally improbable results. This is because the rules are optimized for realism.

Your position is that if you do something improbable, it doesn't matter if the rules produce a result that makes no sense?

Really? In an RPG where Mickey Mouse might in fact fly the Space Shuttle, and we probably don't want him flying it through a walnut?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

However in that scenario I think it makes sense that a lot of rounds are going to strike short or impact the hull ineffectively outside of a tight group. Does anybody know the MOA of an M134 offhand?

Not offhand, but: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4020136AA8b63I

Lists the dispersion on a hard mount as "6.5 mils, 80% circle."

I'm trying to find out if a mil is the equivalent of MoA or what.

There we go: 3.438mils per minute of angle. So about 22MoA.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

Not offhand, but: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...4020136AA8b63I

Lists the dispersion on a hard mount as "6.5 mils, 80% circle."

I'm trying to find out if a mil is the equivalent of MoA or what.

Edit: Oops!

There are 6400 mils in a circle. So that's about .4 degrees.