Taking Down the Big Monkey

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

916 yards
...
The Mayan cuiltist there was alleged to have used and elephant gun and we will presume that to be the H&H.600. PJF thought that unlikely and assuemd the 30-06 instead.

High Tech makes them both ACC 5 with the H&H being beyond its' 1/2D range but the 03 Springfield not. The .600 would still do more tissue damage.

Only on a generic torso hit.

The -16 for the distance is daunting but Kong does have a significant Size Mod.

Following numbers are Pessimistic/Optimistic
Assume a skilled sniper is guns 14/18.
Aims for 2 turns +2
AoA +1
Acc +5/+6
Size Mod +4
Scope 0/+2+2(precision aiming)
Torso: -
Vitals: -3/-1(maxxed TA)
Eye: -9/-4 (maxxed TA)
Range -17/-16
EDIT: forgot +1 for bracing

Final roll of 10/20 or better for a torso hit, 7/19 for a vitals hit, or -/16 for the eye. (Edit: using -5 for skull from behind, that's 5/18)

The damage is too low for any real sniping even if you can hit. Even v. just the HP65 of the DF Ape an eye/brain hit from the .30-06 would not even force a consciousness check.

Are you neglecting the wounding modifiers?

Assuming the .30-06...

Torso hit for (7d+1) averages 25-DR damage. Meh.
(The Elephant gun does better at 35-DR, but is worse on all targeted hits.)

Vitals hit for (7d+1)x3 averages 76.5
One flat HT roll to avoid stun.
HT roll each turn to stay conscious. Failure ~death in this scenario.
However, even 4 DR will nerf average damage below regular HT check level. Somewhere around 12 torso DR you lose the stun check, but even the scariest upthread models didn't give Kong's chest that much.

Brain hit for (7d+1)x4 averages 102 damage, HT-10 for stun, after which you fall prone (~death in this scenario)
Can do this through up to 9 DR in the eye (seems unlikely, but at least one poster disagrees).

I'd say in the optimistic scenario (say they got the best guy in New York, or a dedicated PC sniper) allows for the one hit take down of 65 HP Kong. (If you use the upthread "HossMonkey" assertion of 290 HP and DR 37 even on the eye sockets, Kong can't be killed even by an early WWII anti-tank rifle to the eye).

The pessimistic scenario (random army sniper guy) probably can't one shot the Ape, but if you're using generic sniper guys, send a battery - there's plenty of room on top of the Chrysler Building, and NYC should have a fair amount of WWI vets in the 30s, some of whom will be snipers, and many of whom will be itching to take the shot. Ten of them firing at the torso at once should suffice, and keep mayhem to a fairly low level.

Even HossMonkey with his DR 9 torso and 290 HP goes down before 20 hits, but at this point you've placed ~50 antsy reserve snipers on top of the Chrysler building, with 30 stray shots per volley, so you're solidly back into into reckless endangerment territory...

Through all of this I am assuming Kong doesn't get a dodge vs. the first volley, which seems reasonable given the scenario.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by martinl

Even HossMonkey with his DR 9 torso and 290 HP goes down before 20 hits.

Even for creatures that ignore the square/cube law, it takes a pretty large monster to be proof against small arms. Something that moves in a reasonably humanlike manner will have ST of around sqrt(weight)*0.8 (yeah, it's not the cube root), and DR for something not visibly armored should be around ST/20, but that still doesn't get pistol resistant until around 25T (SM +5 for a humanlike figure, might be as little as SM+4 for something bulky) and armor piercing rifles still do damage up to around SM +8. Cinematic giant stats:
SM +1: 500 lb, ST 18, DR 1 (D&D ogre or hill giant)
SM +2: 1,500 lb, ST 31, DR 2 (D&D stone, frost, or fire giant)
SM +3: 5,000 lb, ST 56, DR 3 (D&D cloud giant)
SM +4: 15,000 lb, ST 100, DR 5 (D&D storm giant or titan, King Kong being small)
SM +5: 25T, ST 180, DR 9 (King Kong, Attack of the 50' Woman, etc)
SM +6: 75T, ST 310, DR 15 (King Kong being big)
SM +7: 250T, ST 560, DR 28
SM +8: 750T, ST 1,000, DR 50
SM +9: 2,500T, ST 1,800, DR 90 (Early Godzilla movies, King Kong in Godzilla vs King Kong)
SM +10: 7,500T, ST 3,100, DR 155 (Later Godzilla movies)

Armored things might have more DR, but most of the time you're only talking twice that (Godzilla, etc, with scales), four times that in the extreme case (Gamera's shell). Even counting in the ignoring square/cube law stuff, it's typically necessary to give giant monsters a bit of bonus resistance to guns.

[Anders]

The King Kong equivalent of a sniper's bullet is a HEAT round to the head.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

The King Kong equivalent of a sniper's bullet is a HEAT round to the head.

I'm not sure that Kong's skull is hard enough really. HEDP might be a better choice.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Armored things might have more DR, but most of the time you're only talking twice that (Godzilla, etc, with scales), four times that in the extreme case (Gamera's shell). Even counting in the ignoring square/cube law stuff, it's typically necessary to give giant monsters a bit of bonus resistance to guns.

Those look pretty tough already, but to improve their resistance to projectile weapons you could use the revised Piercing & Impaling Damage rules from the Pyramid 3-34 "Extreme Damage" article. I know those rules are written for the purpose of Unliving vehicles and robots, but something similar could reasonably apply to gigantic (cinematic) monsters.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by martinl

Are you neglecting the wounding modifiers?

.

No, I was doing math too far into a long day. The .30-06 does cause a consciousness check on an hit but not a survival roll with the 65 HP slightly oversized ape.

I agree with Anthony largely about what the _real_ HP should be. Even for estimates without Super-ST, a 50-70ft Kong's blowthrough number ought to be at least 10x a normal human's simply-based on scaling.

[Maz]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

Those look pretty tough already, but to improve their resistance to projectile weapons you could use the revised Piercing & Impaling Damage rules from the Pyramid 3-34 "Extreme Damage" article. I know those rules are written for the purpose of Unliving vehicles and robots, but something similar could reasonably apply to gigantic (cinematic) monsters.

I don't know what that article is about, but it might be reasonable to say that your flesh (HP) act as a buffer before the damage reach deep enough to hit vitals. Someone else on here mentioned it earlier (in the Cat vs. commoner thread or somewhere else about small vs. big, I don't remember).

Anyway the idea is that in order to "reach" the vitals you have to do at least 1/4-HP base damage.

So, against a HP:65 creature you would need at least 17 base damage to "reach" the vitals. Against a HP:260 you would need a base damage of 65! So even with just DR:3-9 a sniper rifle using AP or HEAT would still not reach deep enough unless it really is high-powered.

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by kdtipa

So it sounds like the creator wanted it to be 50 feet, though as pointed out, it was inconsistent depending on the situation.

Years ago, I read an interview with an effects guy who worked on the 1933 movie, who indicated this was on purpose. That is, the director would tell them how big he thought Kong should be in a particular scene, and changed it from scene to scene for what he considered proper dramatic effect. This apparently seemed less weird in 1933 than now - symbolism trumping realism in a film, even one for a mass audience, wasn't all that strange.