High-Tech Ammo

[McAllister]

I'm pretty frustrated by how difficult High-Tech's ammo variants are to use. Am I missing something? Should I be able to figure out what Low Explosive (p.169) ammo does for any given gun? Are the guidelines, even, for what it would do in a .56 rifle like the Spencer M1860 (p. 120)?

I'm really interested, and I'm willing to do math: if I have to find the weight of the round the Spencer fired and put that through some formula to find the linked crushing explosion and cutting fragmentation damage, I'll do it. I just don't know where to start.

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by High-Tech p169

No formulas are given for calculating explosive damage for all possible projectiles; such detailed rules are beyond the scope of this book. Many examples of explosive ammo appear in the weapon descriptions, however (see Firearms, pp. 28-153).

The closest example is under the Enfield P/1853, .577 Caplock entry. That weapon normally does 3d+2 pi+, and the SAPLE round does 3d+2 pi+ (same) with a 1d-2 [1d-1] cr ex follow-up. That round weighs 0.086lb, and the Spencer round weighs 0.073, and normally does 3d+2 pi+.

These are close enough that an SAPLE round for the slightly higher-tech Spencer probably does the same damage as for the Enfield. If you want an LE round that has more explosive, trim down the projectile damage, because the bullet gets lighter and thus penetrates worse, and add to the explosive damage. The overall damage probably gets worse - explosive bullets for small arms haven't been widely used - but remember that explosion within a living target do 3x damage (as per B415), but aren't reliable at TL5-6 (See SAPLE on High-Tech p169).