Posts
Micheal in the comments wondered about an M48 attacking a Type S.
The likely weapon in a scout's turret will be a 250MJ laser.
In beam mode it does 5dx20(2) burn with one shot a minute. In pulse mode, two shots a minute reduces that damage to 6dx11(2) burn, four shots a minute does 5dx10(2) burn and seven shots a minute will do 5dx7(2) burn.
Beam mode will punch 700 DR. This just barely doesn't penetrate the front turret armor of the M48's DR 716. The pulse modes aren't useful for attacking the frontal armor of a tank, but are still useful against ships. The 7 shots per minute rate of fire still penetrates 245 DR and gets 23 points of burning damage through the hull of a Type S; 73 through the thinner DR 100 skin of most merchant ships.
Seeing as it's burn damage, there should be something about it starting to melt the armor though. I can't find the rule, if it's there.
The Type S has DR 200.
The M48's 90mm gun will punch 882 DR with an M332 APHC round, doing 341 points inside the Sulieman. M431 HEAT will get 85 points inside with an incendiary effect.
All of this is well and good if the Type S is sitting on the apron and the local low-tech army is trying to keep it from taking off.
The scout ship can stand off well outside the tank's range. The 1/2 damage range for that 250MJ laser is 17,000 miles! The max range of the tank gun is 6,800 yards.
The smart captain will start shooting as soon as they can see the tanks.
Getting out of range is an interesting idea. However, on the apron waiting for the players to get on board that's an issue. That and except for the flattest of terrain a tank could get pretty close to that wayward starship.
ReplyDeleteThen there is that sad situation finding out of the penetrating round cripples something critical like the power plant or such.
GURPS
Remembering that scenario of the Type S vs the M48 I ruled (as for the game to continue) that the M48's first shot shattered much of the portside ceramic anti-laser armor (serious repairs but no penetration) and the ships LASER blasts destroyed one of the tanks tracks and blinded the gunner and TC allowing the players to sprint aboard before the jeeps with machine guns caught them.
ReplyDeleteSo, if GURPS puts a ships laser at 250 MJ what does an Imperial Jump Trooper's PGMP or FGMP do as a MJ?
What TL Infantry could do a tank without an anti-tank missile (TL 6 Arab Israeli war)?
If the ships laser is so wimpy maybe I should target the max 6 Gee Acceleration starships with some ship mounted railguns or such. What's the Gee Rating of a sabot round? A Q-Ship salvo of 90mm tank guns into a Imperial Star destroyer doing a boarding action would be interesting, eh?
The TL 10 250MJ is the standard laser. There are heavier ones. The TL 13 420MJ does 6dx100(2) burn to punch DR 4,200! Heavy lasers go up to the TL 13 1.3GJ for 5dx200(2) burn and punches DR 7,000.
DeleteThese lasers are BIG. The aperture is 1.5m in diameter. That should take out everything delicate on the front of the tank, like the sights.
The wee little FGMP didn't get a joule rating in the rules as written, unfortunately. The FGMP-14 carried by Imperial Marines does just 6dx12(2) burn ex and that will punch DR 504. <- That's a fix I just made from an earlier conversion, it used to be 6dx5(2) burn ex.
The M332 round is accelerated at approximately 33,800g to 1,249 m/s. Assuming the target has a matched vector when you fire it will only take 22 seconds of acceleration at 6g to outrun the cannon round. So range will have to be less than 27.5 km to have a chance of hitting at all, and the farther out you are, the less damage this KE round will inflict.
4 seconds at 1g will move you 157m from where you were, making it fairly easy to dodge a KE round... Even a second will shift you almost 10 meters!