07-23-2013, 10:18 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
Scenario (originally inspired by Peter's blog):
A large block of old school heavy inf, one soldier per hex, 100 hexes wide 100 hexes deep. A time traveler on their far flank, with effective skill 9 over the entire range of the formation, and a ranged weapon that does 20d at ROF 100 and Rcl 1. She shoots at the first soldier in a line of 100. Depending on her roll, she gets 0 to 6 hits (call it X1) - the rest of the bullets continue onto the next hex. (Possibly some of the hits as well, if over-penetration is used or target is reduced to -11x HP). IIUC, these bullets perform a ROF (100-X1) attack at skill 9 on the occupant of that hex, and so on until the bullets run out or they reach the end of the line. In the end, ~1/3 of the guys in the line drop randomly, and the rest are unscathed. Am I doing something wrong here, or is this just a kinds niche GURPS Murphy? |
07-23-2013, 10:24 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: The Fine Line Between Black and White
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
If you set it up like a lab experiment then you'll hit them all in a straight line, dealing with over penetration or what have you. During a war, they wouldn't strictly be in the straightest possible line, and you likely would just drop them at random. More of them are likely to drop closer to the gun.
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07-23-2013, 10:44 AM | #3 | |
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
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07-23-2013, 10:47 AM | #4 |
Join Date: May 2009
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
This is a well known quirk of the RoF rules when shooting at large targets, I imagine you can find several threads if you google site:forums.sjgames.com rof large target
That in mind effective Skill of 9 and RoF 100 seem odd to me. You do get the bonus from RoF, up to +7, on the follow up shots as well as the first one. So your initial to hit roll should be higher and get worse as it makes it way through the target.
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07-23-2013, 11:14 AM | #5 | |
Join Date: Jan 2010
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
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Make a Group Performance (Choreography) roll to getting ten thousand people into position. Each of them needs to make a Will-based Soldier roll to stand at attention for a good length of them. Next an Applied Mathematics roll to make sure the lines are straight. Finally I'd have you make an attack roll at +10 for perfect conditions and -10 for the range to the farthest target, because you have to keep the attack traveling straight along the whole path. Once you do all that I check to be sure that you're using a laser or something because bullets don't just pass through human bodies without being deflected. |
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07-23-2013, 11:46 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
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More specifically, the last guys in the line effectively have a lot of cover from the guys earlier in the line, but in this case it doesn't matter - they are equally likely to be hit. In any case, my main concern was that I got the RAW right, which appears to be the case. I'm not really that worried about my contrived scenario happening. |
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07-23-2013, 12:25 PM | #7 |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Caxias do Sul, Brazil
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
An infantry block close packed has more than one guy per hex, if they're really packed you can even see 3 guys on the same hex.
Now, with a very close pack of infantry, you're gonna kill around 100 of them. |
07-23-2013, 12:40 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Austin, TX
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
Quote:
Or to make it a manageable example: 10 man sized targets are set up in line when someone shoots a bolt action rifle at them. Hitting a target causes it fall down. The shooter has 10 bullets and isn't a very good shot and never hits at better than a 9 (and for simplicity, he's shooting the first target from 50 yds away, so he never occurs an additional range penalty). Bullet #1 is a 6, and hits target #1, which falls over. Bullet #2 is a 12, misses target #2 and continues on to target #3, which it hits with a 9. Bullet #3 is a 7, hits target #2. Bullet #4 is a 12, misses target #4, but hits target #5 with a 6. Bullet #5 is an 8 and hits target #4. Bullet #6 is a 14 and misses target #6 but hits target #7 with a 7. Bullet #7 misses target #6 with an 11, #8 with a 16, #9 with a 12, and hits target #10 with a 6. Bullet #8 misses targets #6 with a 12 and hits target #8 with an 8. Bullet #9 hits target #6 with an 8. Bullet #10 misses target #9 with an 11 and target #10 with a 12. (all dice rolls taken from the d20 dice bag at http://www.d20srd.org/extras/d20dicebag/). So 10 targets, ten bullets, and only targets 9 and 10 weren't hit. Only 1 bullet missed more than 2 targets. Basically, firing into a large block like that, most bullets are going to hit something. This is probably not realistic. Alternately, I'm misreading the rules and there's a -4 penalty for each missed target ahead of the current potential target, but that makes my head hurt.
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07-23-2013, 12:53 PM | #9 |
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
If you fired at a moderate RoF, there would be basically no chance of not having every bullet stopped (or intercepted at least, as 20d bullets don't stop so easily) by somebody.
The trouble is RoF 100. Fire enough bullets in a second (100 might or might not cut it) and you'll overwhelm the bullet-sponging capacity of any set of targets, regardless of whether that makes any physical sense. The seams on the rapid fire system get really ugly when you use high values of RoF. That's really all I would draw from this, and it isn't a new discovery.
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07-23-2013, 01:06 PM | #10 | |
Join Date: Dec 2007
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Re: Shooting a LOT of Bullets Through a LOT of Folks
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Tags |
contrived, legionary abuse, murphy's rules, rof |
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