More Puck-Like

Added a sticker to the puck antenna to give it more resemblance to a hockey puck.

Go Bolts!

So That's It Then

 

I have survived another hurricane season!

Now to get the people I hired to fix the damage from last season to come by so I can get surveyed to keep my insurance.

Florida is shitty like that.

Bite Me Hank

Considering we're still dealing with one of Henry Kissinger's biggest mistakes, forgive me if I leave the flag at full mast tomorrow.

Never mind letting Rhodesia hang out to dry so fucking Communists could take the place over just to placate white guilt.

EDC Blades

I agree with Mr Chappell.

Knives are tools.

Kershaw Cyclone and Victorinox Explorer.

The Swiss knife rarely gets called on to cut with either blade.  It's more commonly employed as a screwdriver and bottle opener.

I don't carry either to have a fight.

Both lack anything to keep my hand from slipping forward over the blade.  The Swiss one doesn't even lock!

I'd much prefer a weapon for fighting.

Why would you bring a knife to a sword fight?

 

Subtly Different

A remix of ...And Justice For All with the bass tracks brought back up to audible.

It's very subtly different and a little better, I think.

Will Your FAL Make It To The End Of A Match

The common opinion is that an American made FAL will not make it to the end of many 2-gun matches.

I wonder why.

Willard suspects that following FN's directions on setting the gas regulator is the problem.

FN says you should start with the regulator wide open and fire single rounds until the bolt locks open on an empty magazine then close it two more clicks.

I go three.

This works great for a range toy.

Willard closes his all the way and, like a man, takes the increase in recoil.

There's something to his theory.  Using all the gas all the time means it's going to keep running until it just can't anymore.  That's a lot farther than if you use half the gas and it keeps getting dirty.

I also wonder if it's the proliferation of the short gas tube on American made guns.  As sloppy as the threads in the gas block are, I can see that thing being soldered in crooked.  Just enough that it balks when it gets dirty, but not so much that a casual range session sees it.

But I'm too darn old to enter a match to prove mine will make it.  Timing out on every phase because I can't run doesn't really test the rifle much.

How Many Again

The next thing that keeps coming up is the number of weapons you need to be packing with you.

Your main pistol.

A back up.

A fixed blade knife.

A locking folding knife.

Some add even more to this.

This is added to testing that makes a list of pistols which can fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning or maintenance.

So, which is it?

That gun the gunwriter is recommending is so reliable that I don't need a spare.

OR  

That gun is so sketchy that I'd better have two guns because it's going to fail.

PLUS

Those guns are so sketchy that I need to supplement them with melee weapons?

Again, are we preparing for a likely scenario or something that's akin to winning the lottery by the odds?

I've also noticed that the advocates of packing this much shit live someplace that has Florida spring temperatures for their summer.

You can wear a lot more clothes in that kind of weather than you can survive wearing in Florida summers.

The goal is still to survive, right?

Two pistols and a brace of knives to win the gun fight, but die from heat stroke seems a poor plan.

47?

Officer Gramins says he was carrying 47 rounds that fateful night.

10 of them in a Glock 26 (though I suspect that's 11 because 10+1 capacity).

That leaves us 36 rounds to account for.

His primary was a Glock 21.  13+1 capacity.

40 rounds for a loaded gun and two spares like the article says.

I'm getting 51 not 47.

I'm not saying he's mistaken or lying.

But I'd like to see how he came to 47.

It Keeps Coming Up

How much ammo are you packing?

Can your gun fire that many shots without malfunctioning?

If yes: then your gun is reliable enough.

Is that number of rounds smaller than the most shots ever fired in a gun fight?

Yes.

Is it more than the number of rounds fired in nearly all gun fights?

Yes.

"Wait!" you say, "Thag doesn't know how many rounds I'm packing."

That's because most gun fights use the ammo in the gun, no reloading.

Should you carry more ammo?

Maybe?

Should you insure your car for a thousand times its value?

Maybe.

It's playing the odds.

There's a cop who's carrying more than a hundred rounds every day.  More than triple the number of rounds he was carrying the day he had a gun fight.  He gets cited by gun writers all the time.

Do you need to carry 147 rounds, like he does?

Probably not.

Cops, by the nature of their jobs are going to be encountering more people who want to shoot them than you or I.  At least, that's my goal.

Nostalgia Is Not Objective

There's a couple of guns in my pile that are there from pure nostalgia and not because they are the best gun ever made.

I might not even like them so much.

I might not even shoot them well.

They might not be suited to my home defense or daily carry.

Nostalgia does not care for utility.

An example that keeps coming up is someone on a forum asking if they should get a Beretta M9 or a model 92.

For me, the answer was simple.

M9.  I was issued one, briefly, and qualified on it.

Because of nostalgia the, small, differences between an M9 and a model 92FS matter.  I even replaced the grip screws to better match my issue gun.  You don't get more machts nichts than that.

But is the M9 actually any better than a model 92FS?

I don't think so.

Without the nostalgia fuel, I'd have gotten the cheaper one.

Actually, without the nostalgia, I wouldn't have gotten one.

I did not care for the M9 when I was in.

I have only come to appreciate them now that I have learned quite a but more about shooting than when I was in the Army.

The nostalgia urge is why I have a 2nd gen Glock 17.  It's as close as I can get to the first gun I ever owned.  And the first handgun I owned as a civilian.

Those were both Gen 1 Glock 17's.  I cannot afford those rare collectables now; nor the newer clones.

Do not be ashamed of making a nostalgia purchase.

Owning guns does not have to be grimly utilitarian, let it be enjoyable and fun!

It's Unnatural

I just figured out what's wrong with helicopters.

They're the only aircraft that counts on a flat spin to fly.

RIP Chuck

Way back in November 2011 I posted about a fund raising effort to bring a dog out of Afghanistan.

This dog:

2011 Pic

 

More recently

Chuck made it to the states and has spent the past 12 years with a loving family.

Sadly, it was cancer that got him.

I am assured that Chuck was a good dog.

No Plan

The Dumpster Fire Family has procured transportation so that the matriarch may get to her court date tomorrow.

She refuses to consider that she may found guilty and taken into custody to begin her sentence.

Admittedly, that's a worse-case scenario, but it's a possibility.

She's equating unlikely with impossible.

I'm putting it at probable because of her financial history and tomorrow being the very first day she's ever spoken to her attorney.

Near as we've been able to tell she called the public defender's office the one time and then sat back and waited for them to call her back.

If this is more than an arraignment, she could be in a world of shit.

Update: Today was just the arraignment.  I wonder what she pled.

Useless Adventuring Gear

The pike is a real weapon.

It was used on many battlefields for centuries.

It is not a useless piece of kit, but its use has a couple of caveats.

First, it's not a one on one weapon.

You need a bunch of friends for a pike to be useful.

Some of them should not have a pike, but a big shield and a shorter weapon.

En mass is how pikes are used.

But AD&D has stats for them.

GURPS has stats for them.

They are not close quarters weapons, like you're going to find in a dungeon environment.

The dungeon environment will not be found in a history book.  Nor will adventurers.

Even a spear is pushing the envelope for the typical dungeon.

Shame

Admitting you don't miss your manual transmission to the Hot Rod community is a bit like admitting your a pedophile to normal people.

But here I am, not missing the "fun" of rowing my own and having three pedals.

Slushbox forever!

Electric Cars

The first electric car designs that I paid any attention to at all were from the Steve Jackson Games' Car Wars.

Member of the AADA since 1985.

 Each wheel had its own pancake motor.

They had 200 mile ranges.

They could go as fast as you'd like.

They could be made to handle very well.

They mounted machine guns, spike droppers, oil slicks, flame throwers, rockets and other sundry social distancing enforcement systems.

There, that's what would make a 200 mile range electric car interesting.

It should also take care of a lot of the irritations of driving.

Drive offensively!

Car Shopping

Marv and I went to look at a '13 Caprice PPV this afternoon and discovered a hot rodder oddity.

The car was in bad enough shape that it was not worth the $5,000 the owner wanted.

But we both noticed that $5,000 would have been a decent deal if you wanted a solid, running, LS engine and good 6L80E transmission.

Not worth it as a running, driving car; but worth it as a pile of parts going into a different project.

Neither of us has such a project, so this was a pass.

Oof

RIP Marty Krofft.

He and his brother, Sid, provided a lot of entertainment for me when I was growing up.

If You're Going To Be Stupid

You'd better be tough.

Harvey's friend who got evicted at the end of September...

She got pulled over today.

They impounded her car.  The cop didn't have a specific reason other than her plate came up in the "seize the plate" database.

This is normally an issue with unpaid moving violations, insurance or registration.

This is the family's only working vehicle.

Did I mention she's got a court date on Monday, and no vehicle to get her there?

Fun, huh?

I think her husband is about done with this shit.

Antenna Farm

All the roof holes have something in them with a seal.

L -> R Factory AM/FM, XM (not connected) and Commercial GPS (not wired).

That should keep the rain out and be more durable than the rubber plugs.

I have a Tampa Lightning sticker pack coming so we can make the GPS antenna look more like a hockey puck.

So They've Glued Themselves To The Road

 

Giving Thanks

I am thankful for so many things that I cannot make a list.

A list would imply an order to how thankful I am, and that's not how I feel about these things.

I'm going to go eat until I can't move, see you tomorrow!

Boom! Headshot

Let's all get maudlin about some dead president because it's been an even number of decades since he got his brains blown out.

He was dead before I was born, so I never really got a chance to buy into the aura of JFK.

Some of the shine was tarnished by the antics of his little brother.

The rest is corroded by the conspiracy theorists.

There are only two believable scenarios.

A.  Oswald did it alone.  This is our Occam's Razor theory.  It fits all the facts and is simplest.  His attempt on General Walker is an indicator.

B.  The mafia had him rubbed out.

Those are the only two cases where absolutely nobody would have come forward in the intervening sixty years spilling the truth and revealing other conspirators.

The fucking CIA does not, would not and cannot keep their mouths shut that long.

Nor can any other US government agency.

Plugging Away

Cops drill holes in their cars for things like antennas and lights.

I put an XM antenna in one of the roof holes back in June.

Now to attack the hole in the trunk lid!

What prompted this was the advanced state of decay the rubber plugs in the holes were showing.

The remaining roof hole is 1" and a new plug fit well.

The 3/4" hole in the trunk lid was loose, so I didn't trust its weather integrity.

So I got an NMO mount on Amazon from an early Black-Friday deal and saved $25 because $10 off the mount and free $15 rain cover.  You can get that rain cover for a lot less than $15 from other brands, but we'll take them at their word.

It installed easily:

 I coiled up the cable and tucked it under the lid's structure in case I ever wanna install a CB or something.

Then the rain cap screws on like an antenna would:

In this I discovered that the GPS canoe style antenna I'd gotten for the remaining roof hole has a significantly different contour than the roof.  Not sure I wanna pull the sheet metal up that much to conform to it.

I'll have to shop around for a different contour.

Terror Attack?

Someone went splody at the US-Canada border at Niagra.

Shockingly, the FBI has not ruled out terrorism OR blamed right wing white men. 

Update:

The FBI has ruled out terrorism.  Expect a description of someone with Mohammed somewhere in their name soon as the driver.

Observation

There are a whole lot of people who've never met a holocaust survivor, and it's fucking obvious.

Because Pi Equals Three

Not-Weaponsman compares .222 Remington to .223 Remington.

I plugged the numbers into Douglas Cole's interior and terminal ballistics spreadsheet.

GURPS cannot tell the difference between them.

They're both 5d pi rounds with the same range stats.

GURPS gun stats can be a bit boring because of the granularity of the system.  Often the only significant difference between two rifles is the weight and if the Bulk stat has an asterisks from a folding stock.  Bulk doesn't come up that often, so go with the lighter gun.

Wait For It

With several dancing monkeys being kicked to the curb for spewing their hateful bile, I wonder when the "Jews control Hollywood" meme will resurface.

Because it just can't be because being a hateful bigot got made you unemployable.  It has to be a vast Zionist conspiracy.

Dancing monkeys just aren't very smart, they're vulnerable to this sort of scam.

We should return them to the protective custody of the studio system.

In addition to keeping the monkeys from pushing their vapid half thoughts on us, the movies were better made under that system.

With One Eye Open

 Shadow has taken over the recliner and claimed Brenda.

Groan

Got a little bit of a groan out of the rear end of Moxie last night.

A groan could be a sign of something bad, but since it was only happening when I was in a low-speed wheel-lock turn, it was likely just old fluid in the differential.

All wheel drive is just an unneeded complication for a 2nd gen Equinox, but it's there, so we service it.

I happened to have a bottle of 75W-90 on the shelf and all the tools, so I decided to change the fluid.

Moxie reminded me that she's from Iowa again.

The fill and drain plugs both require a 10mm allen wrench to remove.  The hex-hole in both were caked with rusty crud.  That was a pain to get out.  But I endeavored to persevere and got a 10mm allen socket on there.

Whereupon the fill plug refused to move.

Add PB Blaster.  Wait a sec.  Try again.

No bueno.

BREAKER BAR!

¡Eso está mucho mejor!

Once broken loose, all went smoothly.

It gave one last groan turning left onto the road leading to the local grocery store to do some figure eights to get the fluid stirred up and coating the gears.

Smooth as butter now.

Just Too Inconvenient

Bass Pro in Tampa has decided that handgun ammo and .223 need to be behind the gun counter.

The very busy gun counter.

It defeats the idea of impulse buy, so I decided to let them keep their bullets and shop elsewhere for it.

If I want to wait to buy ammo, there's cheaper online places.  Like Widner's.  Bass Pro has never supported the blog.

Yes You Were

Just had a spat on Fecesbook.

Someone got accused of virtue signalling about the difference between crating a dog and abusively caging a dog.

The post they replied to was about how if you're going abuse your dog with that kind of caging, perhaps you'd be better served with a stuffed animal.

He indicated what a great person he was because he knew the difference between crate training and abusive caging.

A couple of people thanked him for his virtue signal and missing the point of the original post.

He then denied that he'd virtue signaled.

I tried to explain that he had.

He then proceeded to virtue signal harder to prove that he had not.

I pointed it out.

He deleted his responses and blocked me.

I call that a win.

There's Fireballs Then There's FIREBALLS

AD&D's Fireball is notorious.

It makes a sphere of fire 20 feet in radius.

If the room is smaller than the 33,000 cubic foot volume of that sphere, it will go down halls and holes until it's filled out that volume.

AD&D maps are made from 10' cubes.  Each of the squares on the map is 1,000 cubic feet, so a fireball will fill 33 of these squares and do the damage indicated by the spell level to everyone and everything in them.

I saw my first total party kill when a new player with mid-level magic user said, "I cast fireball on the kobolds."

The screams of, "NOOOOOOOOOOOO!" from the rest of the party were not heeded by the DM and everybody died.

The GURPS Fireball spell is a lot... um... more user friendly.

It's a fist sized globe of fire the mage lobs directly at a point target.

There's an Explosive Fireball too, but its effects are a lot more restrained than the AD&D one.

Rain of Fire comes closest to the AD&D spell, but the area can be closely tailored to the geography with GURPS that's not possible with the older game.

Bull

If you start a war and it suddenly doesn't go your way, in a big way, the time honored procedure is to surrender.

Because, "suddenly not going your way in a big way," is another way to phrase, "you done lost."

Demanding the other side stop kicking your ass so you can get your shit together and reverse the fortunes shouldn't be afforded to you; otherwise you're not going to learn to stop starting wars.

If you can't figure out you've lost, there's also a procedure hallowed by time.

It's called destruction in detail.

It makes you unable to start another war for a good long time.

I think the smarter people reading this can figure out the parties I'm referring to and which side has every right to proceed to the destruction in detail phase without pause.

I've Got The Perfect Vanity Plate For It

Sarah N Tuned has a video up where she finds an old Kaiser (looks to be a '46 to '51 Frazer Vagabond) in a salvage yard.

I agree with her that someone should save that car.  It's got all the makings to be a killer hot-rod.

I'm not the person to do it.  I'm a poor.

But I have the perfect license plate for it.

Söze.

What About Crossbows You Ask

The ST 14 adventurer we mentioned earlier could use a ST 14 crossbow every 4 seconds.

6 lb. $150.

2d imp to 280/350, Acc 4.

If, as is typical, the crossbow has a stirrup on the front a ST 14 crossbowman can use a ST 16 (using one leg) or a ST 18 (using both legs).

2d+1 imp to 320/400 for ST 16 and 2d+2 imp to 360/450 for ST 18.

But wait!  There's MORE!

Slowing the rate of fire to once every 20 seconds a goat's foot will let them use a ST 20 crossbow.

3d-1 imp to 400/500.

Slowing the rate of fire to once every 36 seconds with a windlass lets them use a ST 42 crossbow!

5d+1 imp to 840/1,050.

A ST 14 crossbow does 2-12 raw damage, 0-8 will penetrate doing 0-16 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 7 which gets 3 to penetrate for 6 damage. 

A ST 16 crossbow does 3-13 raw damage, 0-9 will penetrate doing 0-18 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 8 which gets 4 to penetrate for 8 damage.  

A ST 18 crossbow does 4-14 raw damage, 0-10 will penetrate doing 0-20 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 9 which gets 5 to penetrate for 10 damage. 

A ST 20 crossbow does 2-17 raw damage, 0-13 will penetrate doing 0-26 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 9 which gets 5 to penetrate for 10 damage.  

A ST 42 crossbow does 6-31 raw damage, 2-27 will penetrate doing 4-54 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 18 which gets 14 to penetrate for 28 damage. 

If you're only shooting twice a minute...  Maybe the stupid strong crossbow is the way to go.

GUNgeons And Dragons

First, I have to mention that there are firearms at TL3.

The gonne is TL3.  It's a cannon lock mini cannon stuck to the end of a pole.  They're dreadfully inaccurate and difficult to use, but it IS technically a firearm in the classic fantasy technology range.

Not that classic fantasy has black powder at all, but...  Didn't Saruman use a bomb?

A gonne can use lead bullets and a bolt similar to a crossbow's.

Bullets do 2d+1 pi++, bolts do 1d imp.  Ranges are 55/550 and 75/1,200 respectively.

It's 6.9 lb. and costs $240.

How does that compare to a longbow?

A REAL English longbow has a ST of about 17 (real men those archers). 

It's 3 lb. and costs $200.  It will do 2d imp out to 255/340.

The bow is more accurate; 3 vs 1 Acc.

The bow fires a lot more often, firing every other round instead of once every 30.

But most adventurers aren't going to drop 70 points on ST.

ST 14 is more likely for an adventurer.  While a ST 14 longbow isn't any lighter or cheaper, it does do less damage and has less range.  1d+2 imp and 210/280.

Against someone wearing everyday medium scale armor (DR 4) they will do:

A gonne bullet does 3-13 raw damage, 0-9 will penetrate doing 0-18 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 8 which gets 4 to penetrate for 8 damage.

A gonne bolt does 1-6 raw damage, 0-2 will penetrate doing 0-4 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll a 3 and fail to penetrate.

ST 17 Longbow does 2-12 raw damage, 0-8 will penetrate doing 0-16 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll a 7 which gets 3 to penetrate for 6 damage.

A ST 14 Longbow does 3-8 raw damage, 0-4 will penetrate doing 0-8 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll a 5 which gets 1 to penetrate for 2 damage.

A gonne isn't looking too bad here, is it?

But it's the rate of fire that adds up fast...  Except.  Arrows are bulky.  A quiver will only hold 20 of them (2.5 lb).  Skill will matter, but even if every arrow hits a ST 14 archer can only expect to do 40 points of damage before running out of ammo.  Recovering arrows is chancy.

Black powder ammunition is a lot more compact but a bit heavier.  20 shots is 3.4 lb. plus what you carry the powder in.  On top of an already heavier weapon.

But what if we let the TL advance a little bit?

A matchlock Caliver does 3d+1 pi+ out to 85/870 and has an Acc of 2 at 6.6 lb. for $135.

A caliver bullet does 4-19 raw damage, 0-15 will penetrate doing 0-22 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll an 11 which gets 7 to penetrate for 10 damage.  Once.  A.  Minute.  Half the rate of fire for the gonne!

I figure the Dwarves will have figured out wheellocks.

A wheellock carbine does 3d pi++ out to 80/800 and has an Acc of 2 at 6.5 lb. for $290.

A carbine bullet does 3-18 raw damage, 0-14 will penetrate doing 0-28 damage to the body.  Average hit will roll a 10 which gets 6 to penetrate for 12 damage.  Rate of fire is a bit better than the matchlock with one shot every 40 seconds.

What this means is, in a dungeon melee the gunner will get to fire once and be reloading for the entire rest of the fight in all likelihood.  That also means that it's unlikely that guns will much supplant archery in a typical adventuring setting.

It's actually the same problem with using a very high ST crossbow and any of several mechanical devices to draw the bow.

It's A Problem

I've been observing things and noticing that most calls of sexism, racism and homophobia stem from how the "wronged" person takes the remark than how the remark was intended.

I am coming to believe this is deliberate because you cannot account for how a message is received regardless of your intent when delivering it.

When the recipient gets to decide if it's offensive, anything can be.

"I'm sorry, I did not mean it that way," should be a positive defense when someone has unintentionally offended.  It should be noted that it was a legitimate defense during a time when you could be challenged to a duel for your slights!

Those dueling societies also made note of people who took offense at the slightest and provoked duels by refusing the apology.  They often found themselves shunned and not able to be out in polite society.

Everyone Experiences The Upgrade Differently

If the armor the players are expecting the knight/paladin to be wearing is TL4, why not just make the campaign TL4?

A weapon that becomes preeminent about the same time:  The gun.

While I don't think they would cause too much of a problem in the game, they don't match expectations.

Matching those expectations is how we ended up having Henry the VIII's jousting armor worn on foot in a dungeon.  Page 39-40 of GURPS Loadouts Low-Tech Armor has the suit that everyone thinks of when they "full plate".

The 15th Century German Ritter full suit is 46.7 lb. and runs $21,860.

The French 14th Century Chevalier is prolly what a TL3 dude would wear.  110.7 lb.  $6,610.

Higher TL is better.

There's a trite solution.

Dwarves or Elves figured out a way to make steel in larger quantities.  Typically I decide the Elves figured out magic and the Dwarves the blast furnace (perhaps with magic too).

But nobody advances to TL4 in chemistry and there's simply no gunpowder.

Elven and Dwarven plate is TL4 and available, and it's double cost because the base campaign is TL3.

Easy peasy.

Why Swords And Not Plate

Using bloomery iron to make steel makes exceedingly small amounts of steel.  A couple of pounds for a week's labor on top of about a week of smelting.

Crucible steel makes, on average, five days to get three pounds of steel.  This steel can then be hammered into the shape you want.  Going for more output increases the chances that your heat fails and you are left with something worse than bloomery iron.

You needed about 10 pounds of steel to make a breast plate and that's difficult to get in one go from a crucible furnace of the day.

Risk management.

But in the grand scheme of things...

If you get strict about holding the players to TL3 stuff they have a wealth of choices in armor.

Scale armor is common historically and offers decent protection.  Medium Scale is DR 4 and torso coverage is 28 lb.

Heavy Mail is also common historically and is DR 5* and just 18 lb. for the torso.  You should be wearing something under the armor too.  This is normally something like DR 1* Padded Cloth and will add 6 lb.  24 lb total and an effective DR 6*.

* means it's flexible armor.  That means that hits that it stops can still do some blunt trauma damage...

Plus you can add magic if it's available.  It's almost a no-brainer to cast the first level of Fortify for a +1 DR because it's VERY affordable.