Well It's Official Anyway

For the most part, Gun Stats is giving me stats that are very close to the numbers I pulled out of my ass by comparing the gun I was making to a gun that was already published.

At least these new numbers have the sanctity of being created by an official publication.

One interesting change has been the FG.42.  Several sources say the Luftwaffe issued the steel-core S.m.K round, which is armor piercing.

That changes the, calculated, damage from 6d+2 pi with the s.S round to 4d+2(2) pi-.

The average hit from s.S will deal 23 points of damage.

S.m.K will roll 16 on average, but that will punch DR 32.  That's better than s.S, but the pi- means that anything that gets past the armor will be halved.  So it does just 8 points on an unarmored target; about a third what normal ball does! 

It Doesn't Seem Right

Doing the Gun Stats for the Royal Ordnance Quick-Fire 20-pounder.

I'm getting the penetration numbers I expected, but not the ranges.

I am accustomed to sabot rounds outranging the full-bore rounds.

This is not true for APDS vs AP.

APDS Mk.1 gets 6dx19(2) pi++ to 5,000/24,800.

Shot Mk. 1 an APCBC (AP in GURPS) gets 6dx11(2) pi++ to 11,600/38,000.

So I dug into it.  Turns out it's correct.  I did not expect that.

It repeats with the 105mm L7/M68 gun.

M392 APDS has a range of 4,300/19,000.  M456 HEAT has 7,900/23,200.

"Normalcy" is restored when I did the M735 APFSDS round and got 11,500/34,000 for range. 

It makes sense.  The penetrator on an APDS round is relatively short and it's very light compared to the full-bore rounds.  It has a poor ballistic coefficient, more drag means less range. 

Virtue

The best way to be virtuous is to simply be so.

Live it.

If someone notices, great!

If someone praises you for it, fine.

The problem with virtue signalling is the act of seeking praise by announcing you're doing virtuous things is, well, the opposite of virtue.

Steve Jackson Games added a full page of explanation about how they changed Eskimo to Yupik and that "slavery is bad, m'kay."

They could have just made those changes without mentioning why and I doubt that anyone would have started a thread demanding that the kidnappers of the rightful king of Fnordia be named, as they were in past editions.

Eskimo isn't even as controversial as they seem to think it is, but I think that change has a lot more to do with David Pulver and Sean Punch being Canadian than a general recognition that Eskimo is a slur.  Especially since it's not even certain where the word originated from!

Aside: Am I the only American who is dead sick and tired of Canadians telling us we're doing our culture wrong and demanding we change how we do things? 

They still use "slave" or "enslavement" 25 times in 4eR; down from 52 times in 4e.  12 of the reductions comes from replacing "slave mentality" with "heteronomy."

Many of the deletions are changing to a term like "subject" and the deletion makes me think they've done more to sanitize it than condemn.

The eliminated mentioning that slaves were low status under the rules for status.  How did that mention glorify slaving?  They left in that being a serf is a low status job.  Being a slave is worse than being a serf, how does mentioning that keep us from figuring out that slavery is wrong?

They had to spend extra time explaining slavery in historical context because of this. 

Taking it out of the minion enhancement for familiars didn't hurt or help.

Still, these changes could have been made silently to the same effect, they just wanted to make sure they got credit from... Whomever keeps score on this.

I do know that page of virtue signalling has cost them more than one sale.  That should matter to them more than it does. 

PS: They even mention cleaning up use of the word "Black" and capitalizing it when referring to a Black person, and the word was never used that way in the original 4e... 

Historical Problem

First Champions/Hero then GURPS share a problem.

They are point based systems with near-zero guidance for where you should put your points.

"The good news is that nothing is decided for you. The bad news is that nothing is decided for you." - FuzzyGeff.

In OG AD&D, the RPG I cut my teeth on, you got to make two decisions in character generation:  Race and class.  Even so, your choices could be limited by shitty die rolls.

Traveller, even more so.  Bad stats rolls could force you into the "Other" career path.

This problem was less obvious in Champions because most people had a comic book character they were trying to recreate and a clear vision of your character concept steers you through the process.

Providing you do some reading.

Which made me realize that I'd seen this kind of break before.

A player who makes a fighter in AD&D makes a few rolls and buy some gear and they're done making their character.  It's a bit more complex in later editions and Pathfinder, but the player doesn't need to do much reading to get their character done and be effective.

But a player who makes a spell caster needs to select their spells.  That means they need to open the Player's Handbook and learn how the spells they've chosen work.  It takes a lot more effort.

People naturally gravitate towards either position.

GURPS rewards the player who cracks open the book and spends the time reading about all the skills, advantages and disadvantages.  It punishes the person that doesn't.  In effect, it's a game made for the person who naturally gravitates towards being a spell caster.

It's exasperating trying to get someone who just wants to play the game through the character generation process because you're constantly poking them for decisions that they don't feel, thanks to playing other games, they shouldn't have to be making.

It leads to some resentment, during play, when they cannot do something that they feel is obvious that their character should be able to do.

It's because they're unfamiliar with the choices and ended up not seeing the skill or advantage that would provide them with the ability to do the things they clearly should be able to do.  Since the GM cannot read their mind, we can't help realize their vision.

GURPS introduced templates to help with this, but they only take it so far and, too often, a player will make the template to the letter with little to no individualization.

All of this is a tall, thick wall barring entry into the hobby for a lot of people.  Especially people who're not interested in the fantasy genre. 

Do-Over

Marv and I went through his Twilight character and we made enough changes that I think it's fair we re-do the fight in Złoczew.

The reason the fight went the way it did was because Marv's character didn't know how to use the bayonet he was attempting to stab a guard with.

The problem with this is the character is supposed to BE Marv, if Marv was born about 30 years later.

Making yourself as a character is a time-honored way of learning the rules and we dropped the ball with his character by missing a couple of important skills that he has in real life.

Marv was trained on the bayonet when he was in the Army.

That means his character should know how to use one and that changes the outcome of the fight significantly. 

For Future Reference

 

I'm Not Pedantic YOU ARE!

Just in case you wanted to see, graphically, how complicated separate charge rounds can get in GURPS with Gun Stats...

This is just changing the charge and firing the same M107 HE round from an M198 howitzer.

To go with full detail, you'd need this many entries for EVERY 155mm round.  Fun, huh?

Revised

Got my pdf copy of GURPS 4e Revised, 4eR from now on, today.

The biggest change is the Basic Set is now a single volume.  This isn't too huge because there's several people who reformatted the two books into a single pdf a long time ago.

The big functional change is going from 3-columns to 2-columns.  I'm surprised at how much more readable some sections are.

The Combat Lite section has been replaced with Addendum 1 and the pages for the index from GURPS Basic Set: Characters have been given over to Addendum 2.

They're optional rules, and I think I like a couple of them.  Even if several characters will need reworked from it. 

Some of the new artwork is really meh.  Like throwback to OG AD&D meh.

I know there are changes to "make the game more accessible" to people looking to be offended at every turn by being "less offensive" for them.

These changes don't stand out to me because I'm not looking to be offended at every turn.  It ends up being mox nix and probably should have just been done without the fucking fanfare they applied to it.

It was the fucking fanfare that was pissing people off, not the changes.  People are sick of virtue signalling. 

Battle Of The Geeks

Having a discussion on a GURPS forum where someone asked how we'd stat out the Santa-Barbara Sistemas 106mm M-DN11 high explosive anti-personnel round.

I posted the description of the round here. 

I gave two ways of doing it.

First is to just treat it like it's an HE round and let it do 6dx7(0.5) pi++, linked 6dx3[5d+1] cr ex.

Second is to come up with a new round combining shrapnel and HE which has 1,000 1d-1 pi+ balls expanding from the detonation point with a linked 6dx3 cr ex.

Them: But what about X?

Me: I accounted for X.  You forgot a lot of things figuring out the weight of the projectile and your reply to that tells me you have a reading comprehension problem.

Them: But I don't like how you did it!

Me: OK, do it how you like it.  I don't think that matches the description of the round and I explained why when I gave stats for the new shrapnel HE round.

Them: But I don't like that way of doing it, what about Y?  This makes new rules that do a better job of describing the shape of the pattern that I'm getting wrong because I'm not accounting for the fact that the round is traveling down range at the same time it explodes.  Plus, let me compare it to a round I rejected as a model for this earlier.

Me: Don't care.  I've figured it out to my liking and it even "will it GURPS" OK with Argentinian and Chilean usage.

Them: But you didn't answer about Y!

Me: Not going to.  I explained my reasoning, said I was happy with what I came up with, and didn't need to write new rules.  There's no need for Y now that I'm done.

The thing that ticks me off the most about this is Chile and Argentina appear to be the only customers for this Spanish designed and made, German type designated round.  It's just not going to come up in anything I'm going to be playing.

The whole rest of the world is using clones of the US designs. 

Recoilless Difference

The 90mm M67 Recoilless Rifle is ST 15B†.

If you forget to apply the Rcl 1 for being recoilless it's ST 36B† and Rcl 29.

That's pretty dramatic.

That B in the ST stat means that you really only need 2/3 the ST requirement, or ST 10, to avoid penalties using the weapon...  Assuming you actually use the bipod.

The † means you've got to use both hands to wield it and there's a lot on p. B270 that goes with that. 

Stuff You Find

While calculating the stats for the rounds for the M67 90mm reckless ryetuful, I found an oddity.

The M591 HE round is an 81mm mortar round (looks like an M374 round) with a sabot to shim it up to 90mm stuffed into a 90x427mmR case for use in the recoilless rifle.  They even left the fins on!

That is relentlessly pragmatic.

The reference I have says it's XM591, so I am not even sure it went into service.

Update: Willard remembers there being HEAT rounds (M371A1) in the ammo bunkers when he was in 2-75 Rangers and heard from troops back from 'Nam using the multi-flechette APERS rounds (M590) but nary a mention of an HE round.

Found My Notes!

Marv and FuzzyGeff's T2K characters are in Złoczew, Poland three days after the battle of Kalisz, July 21, 2000, just before dawn.

Marv's character is wounded.

The NPC's have brought up their M240G and the tripod.

They are ready...  Maybe?

Aside:  Ubuntu has a handy way to make the 'ł', so did the Mac.  Windows made it a pain. 

GURPS Alts

Gun Stats vehemently disagrees with some of the published ranges.

But here we go anyway!

5.56x45mm M193 from an M16A1: 5d pi, 430/3,000; ST 8, Rcl 2.

5.56x45mm M193 from an XM177E2: 4d+1 pi, 360/2,500; ST 8, Rcl 2.

5.56x45mm M855 from an M16A2: 5d+1 pi, 530/3,700; ST 8, Rcl 2.

5.56x45mm M855 from an M4: 5d-1 pi, 490/3,400; ST 8, Rcl 2.

The Soviet opposition:

7.62x39mm M-43 from an AKM: 5d+1 pi, 520/2,200; ST 9, Rcl 3.

5.45x39mm 7N6 from an AK-74: 4d+2 pi, 480/3,400; ST 9, Rcl 2.

The Loyal Opposition: 

6.5 Grendel 123gr @ 2,457 from a 16" AR: 6d-1 pi, 670/4,700; ST 9, Rcl 3.

6.8 SPC II 115gr @ 2,550 from a 16" AR: 6d-1 pi, 760/3,200; ST 8, Rcl 2.

.300 Blackout 123gr @ 2,215 from a 16" AR: 5d pi, 500/2,100; ST 9, Rcl 3.

.300 Blackout 220gr @ 1,010 from a 16" AR: 3d pi, 570/2,400; ST 9, Rcl 3.

22 ARC 75gr @ 2,953 from a 16" AR: 5d+1 pi, 680/4,800; ST 8 Rcl 2.

6mm ARC 108gr @ 2,626 from a 16" AR: 5d+2 pi, 810/5,700; ST 8 Rcl 2. 

.30 Remington AR has been discontinued, so we're not going to show that with 125gr @ 2,800 fps from a 22" barrel R-15 did 6d+2 pi, 640/2,700; ST 9, Rcl 3.

For Comparison's Sake Gun Stats Update

Updated from this post. 

GURPS: World War II has stats for WW2 vehicles, surprisingly enough.

Since I've been mentioning the performance of Cold War stuff, and many people are more familiar with WW2 shit...

It's Front/Sides/Back/Top/Bottom (if needed)

Sherman M4A1 Hull: 300/150/150/75/50; Turret: 300/200/200/100

Gun Motor Carriage M10 Hull: 255/85/85/55/50; Turret: 275/100/100/0

Panzer IV Ausf H Hull: 315/120S/80/40/40; Turret: 200/120S/120S/40

Panther Ausf G Hull: 540/190S/160/60/120; Turret: 600/260/260/60

Tiger Ausf E Hull: 400/420/320/100/100; Turret: 425/310/310/100

Königstiger Ausf B Hull: 850/310/310/155/100; Turret: 700/310/310/170

T-34/76 1940 Hull: 350/250/175/75/75; Turret: 350/250/175/80

Guns!

M4A1 Sherman's M3 75mm firing the M61 APCBC or just AP does 6dx6(2) pi++.  That's good for a whopping 252 DR.

The "long 75mm" 76mm M7 cannon firing M62 APCBC delivers 6dx12(2) pi++ and a linked 6dx2[4d-1] cr ex.  This punches 504 DR.  M93 HVAP does 6dx12(2) pi++ without the linked explosion and punches the same 504 DR  This was considered HOT ammo!

The 7.5cm KwK40 L48 on the Pzkw IV-H firing a PzGr 40 APCR or APHC does 6dx12(2) pi++ that will penetrate DR 504 with most dice.

A KwK42 7.5cm on a Panther G lobbing a PzGr 40/42 does 6dx14(2) pi++.  That's good for punching holes in DR 588.

Tiger E's KwK36 8.8cm gun gets the most penetration with the PzGr 40 which is an APHC round doing 6dx13(2) pi++.  That'll punch 546 DR on average.

The heavier Tiger II's KwK43 8.8cm gun shooting a PzGr 40/43 round gets 6dx16(2) pi++ to routinely stab through 672 DR.

The pride of the Soviets 76mm L-11 gun firing BR-354P APHC does a mere 6dx9(2) pi++ for an average penetration of 378 DR.  And people were bagging on the M3 in the Sherman!

Update: The D-5T 85mm gun from the T-34/85 firing a BR-365 APHEX round will do 6dx13(2) pi++ with a linked 7d+1[4d+1] cr ex.  That will penetrate 546 DR on average.

As a reminder, the 90mm gunned M48A3 has Hull: 606/314/96/113/87; Turret 716/314/281/129; Cupola: 386/386/386/193.

The M41 gun firing M332A1HVAP APHC does 6dx12(2) pi++ for 504 DR penetration.  Not enough for a lot of the heavy Nazi armor.  Damn the Tiger II is tough!  The Patton is somewhat vulnerable to the King Tiger's gun, but it's even more mobile than the Sherman that maneuvered around it to get rear shots.  But HEAT is what we thought would be the real armor puncher.  The M348 HEAT round does 6dx4(10) cr ex with a linked 6dx 3 cr ex that will burn a hole in 840 DR.  The hull front of a Königstiger is still not penetrated!  But the more visible turret front is!

However its expected opponents the T-54/55 and T-62 aren't near so well protected, but they're a lot more mobile:

T-55: Hull 330/218/165/68/55; Turret 565/358/165/165

T-62: Hull 281/218/126/85/55; Turret 667/421/110/110

Good thing the Patton is mobile and reliable.

The 100mm D-10T firing a BR-421D APHEX round in 1953 does 6dx17(2) pi++with a linked 5d+1[5d] cr ex.  That will punch DR 714.

A 115mm U-5TS firing a 3BM4 APFSDS round in 1963 will do 6dx28(2) pi++.  That gets past 1,176 DR.  Yes, the Soviets were ahead of us on tank guns.

But what if we drag an M60 into the argument with its M68 cannon?

The 1959 issue M392 APDS does 6dx23(2) pi++ for 966 penetration.  The M456 HEAT will do 6dx5(10) cr ex with a linked 6dx3 cr ex and make a 1,050 DR deep hole.

 

Gaming The System

The feint rules in GURPS are pretty simple.

There's a quick contest of weapon/defense skill rolls and margin of success is the penalty to their defense next round.   See p.B365.

It doesn't get used much because, most of the time, the players are overpowering their opponents and they don't need the bonus to land hits.

But something I noticed a while back was when you announce that you're feinting, the opponent goes all-out-attack that same turn.

They KNOW they don't need to defend that round, because a feint isn't an actual attack, and they get a +4 to hit.  If they hit, the penalty from wounding the character doing the feint more that offsets the risk of a penalty to their defense next round.

That seems unclear to ME as I write it.

Turn 1:

NPC feints at Player.  Contest gets a -3 to the NPC's defense in turn 2.
Player all out attack (determined) the NPC scores 3 points of damage.

Turn 2:

NPC suffers effects of injuries, -3 to hit.  Misses.
Player has defenses again, at -3, but that doesn't matter because the NPC missed.

Thus nobody feints!

At least not when they have the initiative and move first.

If you go after the Player, then they have to decide to use all out attack BEFORE you announce your feint.

So to make this work, you have to take a wait maneuver to let them attack first.

If you've got good active defenses, like il Gatto, then this is a good plan. 

PS: Suddenly a lot of cinematic and SCA fights I've seen make more sense in gaming terms.  If there are numerous wait and feint maneuvers going on, that explains the circling each other slinging soliloquies! 

The Very Butcher Of A Silk Button

Cirilo di Faenza has the highest skill I've ever given a character with a sword.

A skill of 17 with a rapier gives a 14 or less to hit the vitals.

He then delivers 1d+1 imp.  On average that's 4 points, and typically without DR so that becomes a 12 and his opponent is looking to make a consciousness roll to keep fighting.

It's -9 to hit the eye, but you get x4 damage to hit there.  That wouldn't change if they die in one shot or not, but 16 is closer to dead than 12.  Even if they live, they're down an eye.

All out attack (determined) would give a +4 to hit that eye so 12 or less net.

All out attack (strong) would give a +2 to damage.  That'd be 6 points on average to the vitals and 18 delivered.

All out attack robs you of your defense and he's not stupid enough to do that.

What is the best course, with his skill is the seldom used feint.

That might even get a good roll at that eye without needing to all out attack. 

 

Hit The Ballpark

I decided that artillery rounds would get a base cost calculated from 1/1000 of the starting wealth for the TL times the weight in pounds.

Then you multiply that by the cost factors in Gun Stats.

The TL7 M107 round is $15 times 116.3 lb. (Shell, PD fuse and powder bags) to get a base of $1,744.50 and x2 for HE rounds...  $3,490.

An actual M107 runs $2,860.  I'm acceptably close.

Especially since my price is in $GURPS not USD. 

Generic

Rather than have five HE rounds for the 155mm and four APFSDSDU rounds for the 105mm...

I decided to go generic and just use the best APFSDSDU-T round for every tank gun.

I found out that the older rounds would go back to the factory and the uranium would be melted down and re-alloyed into more advanced rounds.  Even the Russkies!

For the 155mm because the M107 HE and M795 HE have such different performance, I called them TL7 HE and TL8 HE.  Some nations never updated to the later rounds like the US and UK, so lots would still be around...

One could make the argument that the newer stuff is the scarcest because it got fired first.

T2K is, in a lot of ways, a fantasy setting. 

PDMTSQEIEIO

Nearly every cannon round fuse is built in and goes off when it hits something hard.

Howitzers and mortars call this a PD fuse for Point Detonation.  It's an impact fuse.

This is the default fuse for GURPS: Gun Stats.

But there are others!

Most common is the Mechanical Timer Super Quick or MTSQ.  This is a fuse that has a clockwork timer in it the gunner can set to go of before impact, if they time it right, it creates an airburst over the target and more things get attacked by fragments.

Proximity fuses do the airburst thing too, but at a fixed altitude rather than selected time from firing.

MOFA are Multi-Option Fuse, Artillery.  This is everything all in one.  Impact, timer, and proximity.

Just to be confusing, there's also an anti-aircraft proximity fuse, but the sensors look sideways instead of forward.

All of the timed and proximity fuses I've found have an impact mode too.

Where this gets sticky for GURPS terms is your basic M107 HE round can take any type of fuse changing it from a PD to an MTSQ to a Proximity round with a spin.

The entry for all of the timed and proximity rounds is "Airburst".  +2 cost factor to any round.  Which makes it a little awkward because the various base rounds will have different prices.  One would think that the price increase would be the same for all rounds of the same chambering.

Worse, some rounds have to be timed fuses or they just don't work right.  DPICM, for example. 

NBC Notes Updated

Twilight: 2000 has five chemical round categories:  HC Smoke, Irritant Gas, Blood Agent, Blister Agent and Nerve Gas.

Irritant is easy, that's tear gas.

Nerve is also easy, that's nerve gas.

What differentiates blister and blood in their effects is whether you can get by with just a gas mask or if you need an NBC suit.

Blister agents include mustard gas and you need a suit.

Blood agents include chlorine gas and you don't.

What's interesting about researching chem rounds is how the blood agent rounds disappear after WW2.  Mustard and nerve keep going and the US added tear gas to the 4.2" mortars and 40mm grenade launchers. 

Update:

Poisons on p. B439 will give us our game effects:

HC Smoke will be treated as Smoke. 

Irritant Gas will be treated as Tear Gas.

Blood Agent will be treated as Chlorine Gas.

Blister Agent will be treated as Mustard Gas.

Nerve Gas will be treated as Nerve Gas.