Re: [HoE] Vehicle Combat

[Doug Stalker <dougs@technologist.com>]

Paul Zichichi wrote:

> >How have others gone with vehicle combat?
>
> Yes, my group has, and your'e right, it is VERY lethal.
>
>   >And I guess a
> >real-life pickup being shot by a real-life machine gun >wouldn't last long
> >either.
>
> Nope, it wouldn't.  Assault rifles and HMG's are disturbingly good at
> turning ANY vehicle into an arm of swiss cheese in short order.  Lighter
> weapons, not so much; heavy weapons (re: Bushmaster Cannons) only need one
> hit to level the opposition.

Has anyone let their posse get one of these?  I'm regretting the 2 M2s
already... Lucky ammo is hard to find.
GM: "OK, fine, you finally get 100 rounds of .50 cal BMG rounds"
Players: "woohoo!"
GM: "Now how are you going to link them into a belt?  You dont have any of those
little ammo links"
Palyers: "Doh!"

I've seen video footage of a 20mm cannon at work... anything less than a tank
should go down almost instantly.  Anything bigger... well as I stated earlier, I
dont think the players shouldn't get weaponry that size.


Speaking of big guns, when playing the adventure in the back of roadwarriors the
parties junker made up the ultimate sniper rifle to take out teh big guy at the
end.  Named after Thors hammer, it is speed 2, Ammo capacity 1, and does 5d12
damage.  Fires custome made junker ammo (very hard to find prewar 12.5mm Magnum
rounds)

The gun hasn't been used since the adventure... I think there is a general
relisation that is the posse start using such powerful weapons, the enemy will
start using them too.  The GM always has a bigger stick...



> Vehicle combat in any RPG should be, and
> usually is, the fastest way to lose your incredibly cool characters in
> incredibly cool ways.
>

Hopefully the players will make  a great effort to avoid vehicle combat unless
they have the upper hand and a good plan of battle... otherwise it's likely to
end up new PC time.  Or at least "damn, where have all my fate chips gone?"
time.

>
> >Another thought is on fixed guns.  I see a problem with aiming them,
> >namly if the ground isn't perfectly flat your bullets may very well >go
> >over/under them, and there isn't anything you can do about it. (Anyone
> >remember playing Interstate '76?)
>
> Yes, I do, and once again, you are correct.  On a flat, two-dimensional
> plane, fixed-mount weapons are a great idea.  In the real, 3-D world we live
> in however, not so much.  I won't get into a diatribe about the actual
> physics of shooting a weapon right now, but leave it be said that the
> combination of weapon recoil/climb combined with the bouncing of a vehicle's
> suspension on rough terrain make eveything OTHER than fixed-mounts far
> preferrable to the discriminating Road Warrior.
>

I doubt recoil would be an issue, as the gun is firmly mounted to the
vehicle.... even a .50 BMg round hasn't got enough kickback to seriously affect
a car. (anyone who has ever tried this for real, let me know if I'm wrong) but
keeping an entire vehicle pointed at a moving target on less than optimal road
is very tricky.  I hadn't even thought of the bouncing/vibration of the vehicle
as well.  I might speak to the roadwarrior about remouting the gun somewhere
else on the vehicle.


>
> >Using shooting with your nimbleness die type seems a bit much to easy...is
> >there a penelty somewhere I'm missing?
>
> I haven't found any penalties in the books, Road Warriors included, but I
> tend to use Cognition/Artillery for the driver attempting to fire any
> mounted weapon that has a Fire Control System, and Shootin': (insert
> appropriate weapon here) for gunners, keeping their Deftness die type, as
> it's still all about hand eye coordination.  And if you don't have an
> appropriate skill, then the penalties DO stack up.  How many non-soldiers do
> you see in the Wasted West who can accurately fire an M2HB or NA SAW.  Most
> characters should probably never even have SEEN a fully-automatic heavy
> weapon (money and ammo preclude such things), much less have actually fired
> one.  And if a character is familiar with such things, it can be assumed
> they would be experienced enough to compensate for the motion of the
> vehicle.
>

Just how much training does it take to use an assult rifle?  Here in australia
guns are (thankfully) not very common except in rural areas.. the only real
weapon I've ever fired was several rounds from a .22 rifle.  When living oversea
a friend of mine got to fire a few rounds from an AK47 in the middle of the
desert... said the noise was incredable and he has no idea where the bullets
went.  And that was on semi auto.  Obviously training would eliminate that
problem, but you. you really need to practice a bit with it.  This means
expending ammo for it... anyone make their posses use ammo to learn a weapon?  I
might start doing that.

Doug.