In Gurps, how powerful do you need to fight a tank?

[johndallman]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

This means that a very mobile super with a bag of grenades can probably take out a bunch of tanks.

Telekinesis is a good alternative to mobility, if you have adequate range. If you go that route, HEAT warheads with fuses that go off at low impact speeds are useful. For the occult WWII campaign, we got some PIAT rounds with softer fuses.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by DeadParrot

A well prepared tank crew might have liberated some Stinger type AA missiles and attached them to the turret as ad-hoc SH defense.

...How are you imagining that working? You have to point a Stinger system at the target for it to acquire. Tank turrets rotate in one plane. Something simply attached to the turret won't have variable elevation, so it's effectively impossible to track a flying target.

With some difficulty it would probably be possible to fire MANPADS while heads-up in the open commander's hatch, much like how you'd operate the flexible machine gun that tends to be near that hatch. I imagine handling such a weapon inside the tank would be incredibly awkward though.


(There's also the question of whether those weapons will even track a super.)

[Bathawk]

Sorry, Loving this discussion, and thank you all for replying.

How much strength does it take to "turtle" a tank? If a tank weighs say, 42 tons, is being able to lift, half? or a quarter of that weight sufficient?

[Bathawk]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

(There's also the question of whether those weapons will even track a super.)

I originally planned this thread to focus on other type of military vehicles, including jet fighters, but thought limiting it to "tanks" would be a large enough topic on it's own

But I wondered about the feasibility of supers vs. planes. fighting in WW II wouldn't be too difficult with unguided weapons and a speed of 300mph-400mph

But modern aircraft rarely engage in "dogfights" ("Top Gun" not withstanding)...I hear things that modern radar systems can track objects the size of a baseball...but just because they "can" dosen't mean they "should" right? Otherwise every seagull, Hawk and Blue Jay would be popping up right?

[DeadParrot]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

...How are you imagining that working? You have to point a Stinger system at the target for it to acquire. Tank turrets rotate in one plane. Something simply attached to the turret won't have variable elevation, so it's effectively impossible to track a flying target.

With some difficulty it would probably be possible to fire MANPADS while heads-up in the open commander's hatch, much like how you'd operate the flexible machine gun that tends to be near that hatch. I imagine handling such a weapon inside the tank would be incredibly awkward though.


(There's also the question of whether those weapons will even track a super.)

I didn't figure I had to provide a full bid ready blueprint. An inventive tank crew could well obtain a few servo motors, video camera, joy stick control unit and wire and weld the thing up to provide full 360 rotation independent of turret direction and include horizon to vertical rotation as well. Real world example is both Russian and Ukrainian tank crews adding overhead netting and armor to their tanks in an attempt to defend against drones.

Unless your SH is a new mostly unknown persona in your world, very possible scientists have been hard at work developing anti-SH weapons. Kryptonite vs Superman as the classic example.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

A modern tank turret weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 1/3 the weight of the entire tank. Typically nothing significant attaches the turret to the hull other than the turret's own weight. If you're strong enough to lift that ~20 ton weight, there's no additional "tearing" necessary. Grab it and fly away.

I was going to ask if that was the case. I knew it was with large naval turrets, as it's pretty normal to find wrecks without turrets, since they fell out when the ship capsized.