Fleet Action Aftermath

[Garnfellow]

Somewhere (and I'm pretty sure it was here) there was a nice analysis of High Guard breaking down the likely effect of a battle in terms of ships destroyed, damaged, unharmed, etc. I think it used two equal forces as the baseline. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

 

[McPerth]

Somewhere (and I'm pretty sure it was here) there was a nice analysis of High Guard breaking down the likely effect of a battle in terms of ships destroyed, damaged, unharmed, etc. I think it used two equal forces as the baseline. Does this ring a bell with anyone?

The only bell it chimes to me is this old post of mine (back when I was a newbee here), but this is a very rough estimate to illustrate another point, si Iguess that's not the "nice analysis" you're looking for:

(...)

Let's imagine the engagement among about 20 ships by side I used in exemple. It's rebellion and both sides are former imperials, so let's say we have 2 tenders and about 12-14 BR and half dozen escorts and swarms of fighters per side. The loser's tenders are likely to flee the system (let's suppose they were fueled) with some BR (let's say they recovered the first 4 to be crippled). Fighters whould be nearly all destroyed or recovered by the tenders. Escorts are all crippled by spinal messon guns. let's assume one escort and one BR destroyed by 'ship vaporized' criticals (due to low tonnage of them against bis spinal messons). That leaves about 5 escorts and 7-9 BRs to be taken.

Threatened with being left on their own at space, the ships wich still have crew (quite a few in HG, most of them in MT) don't scuttle and the crew are taken as prisioners (put in cold sleep in the tenders). The tenders reactivate their frozzen watch to have minimal crews to make damage control on the BRs as, if they can leave their own intact BRs in the system, take the captured crippled BRs to a base to be repaired. Even if computers where destroyed, they can be in reported for duty in 5-8 weeks (TCS repair time for a critical) after they arrive to the base.

If the combat was among battleships, the taking to the base is a little more difficult (remember in the same entry on the other tread I talked about recovery by 'space tugs'), but the lack of criticals (higher tonnage) will speed the repair time to 1-4 weeks (probably you'd need more to have crews ready that to repair them).

When you compare that with wet navy, you must remember that (as someone has already said) wet ships sink to the bottom, making recovery impractical at best (unless in port, where sometimes they can be salvaged), while spaceships just remain dead in space, for anyome to take.

Needless to say, the winners crippled ships (there will be some too) are even easier to recovery, due to their not destroyed (or reparaible) computers and de collaboration of their crews.

So this large battle (about 2-3 million dtons per side) ends with only about 100-200 kdton destroyed and another 250 kdtons captured by the winner (and I didn't assume any boarding taking place...). Just a 2-4% of dtons destroyed.

As you see, I cannot see it consistent with the tonnage losses reported by TASN in the rebellion.

Of course, in frontier wars, where ships come from different empires (Zho's, Varg's, Sword's and Imperial's) that may be a little more difficult, but hulls can still be recovered, letting to anyone's guess how many of them are refitted for own uses.

 

[Garnfellow]

The only bell it chimes to me is this old post of mine (back when I was a newbee here), but this is a very rough estimate to illustrate another point, si Iguess that's not the "nice analysis" you're looking for:

That wasn't the one I was thinking of, but it gets to the heart of my question: at the end of a fleet engagement, what is a typical distribution of losses? Some ships will be vaporized, some badly damaged and requiting months of repair, others damaged but serviceable, and others will be untouched.

How did you derive your estimates? And can you point me toward the source of the Rebellion losses? (I can only find commercial losses.)

 

[McPerth]

That wasn't the one I was thinking of, but it gets to the heart of my question: at the end of a fleet engagement, what is a typical distribution of losses? Some ships will be vaporized, some badly damaged and requiting months of repair, others damaged but serviceable, and others will be untouched.

As I said, this was a very rough estimate:

• vaporized: 1 in 36 criticals. See that one ship may receive more than one critical on a single shoot (battery size vs ship size, mostly for spinals). So I expect few of them (at least among capital ships).
• Crippled: mostly by fuel tanks shattered (if meson spinals are used), cummulative fuel damage or crippling criticals (PP out, etc). IIRC, repair times once at a starport ar 1-4 weeks (double for criticals), so in no case it will take months to repair. That will include most ships hit by a meson spinal or a spinal large enough to produce criticals.
• Damaged but serviceable: moslty weapons/fuel damage. Most capital ships will expect to be in this category at the end of the battle , to greater or lesser extent.
• Undamaged: self-explaining

So, I expect very few total loses (vaporized) ships after the battle, most of them being recoverable by the side that "keeps the field" and repairable in less than 2 months once taken to a base (that was the basis of my quoted post).

How did you derive your estimates? And can you point me toward the source of the Rebellion losses? (I can only find commercial losses.)

Estimates are very difficult to do withoput knowing the ships confronted, as many factors intervine (agility, armor, TL, etc...).

As for the source of the Rebellion losses, MT:HT has it quite implicit, though I cannot expllain it wiht HG/MT paradigm, unless scuttling ships that could be captured becomes the standard practice, something quite hard to accept for me when you can be left stranded in vacuum if you scuttle your ship...

 

[Whipsnade]

You're both forgetting about crew losses.

You're also applying repair rates from the "de-canonized for the OTU" TCS.

 

[McPerth]

You're both forgetting about crew losses.

In fact I was assuming that the ystem of crew sections were used. Otherwise, as the Meson Guns also do radiation damage (quite letal for crews), not only will any ship hit (and penetrated) by Meson Spinals be crippled, but no crew to scuttle it would remain.

You're also applying repair rates from the "de-canonized for the OTU" TCS.

I'm applying the only rules about how long take repairs to be done I know about. And, IIRC, only the economic part of TCS campaign game was so "de-canonized".

 

[Carlobrand]

I'd say there are too many variables for an answer. Two heavily armored TL15 fleets with meson weapons will have a very different profile from two heavily armored TL12 fleets facing off with particle beams.

I have a damage spreadsheet I use, calculates odds based on armor level, weapon rating, computer rating, agility and so forth. Given some parameters, I can generate some numbers. I think someone in here did up something similar to use when crashing large numbers of ships together in a fleet action, to replace die rolls with straightforward statistical results.

 

[Garnfellow]

I have a damage spreadsheet I use, calculates odds based on armor level, weapon rating, computer rating, agility and so forth. Given some parameters, I can generate some numbers. I think someone in here did up something similar to use when crashing large numbers of ships together in a fleet action, to replace die rolls with straightforward statistical results.

I thought for sure that I had seen just such an analysis, but I'll be darned if I can pull it out of search.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Fleets will not fight to the death, at some point someone will break off or surrender, so total damage cannot be easily calculated.

The damage (& cost of repair) from a single hit can easily be calculated (with some basic assumptions).


A Meson J that inflicts damage does 10 hits on Rad and Int tables presuming the target is large enough to avoid size crits. With statistical combat resolution that means 100% chance of a Fuel Tanks Shattered. With rolled damage that means 1 - (1 - 4/36)¹⁰ ≈ 69% chance of a Fuel Tanks Shattered. An average of 4.3 Crew hits will be achieved.

The rolls on the damage tables will lead to an average of 1.94 crits which will lead to 5% chance of Ship Vaporised plus a 51% chance of mission kill through loss of drives, control, or crew.

The target's chance of not being mission killed is about 16%.


For a Meson T there is about 89% chance of Fuel Tanks Shattered, 10% chance of Ship Vaporised, and 3% chance of remaining combat effective.

For a Meson T against a 50 kT ship (code P) the extra 4 crits leads to a total of 21% chance of Ship Vaporised and on average 2 mission kill hits.


Setting a price tag on each hit we can, with some work, calculate the average cost of repairs per ship class.



If we make some silly assumptions such as every battleship is in a battle twice a year, each ship fires 3 times in each battle we can estimate attrition rates. A 200 kT 6G Meson T battleship has a 42% chance of hitting itself, or 72% at short range. It has a 81% chance of penetrating, so each ship will produce something like 2 × 3 × (42%/2 + 72%/2) × 81% × 13% = 0.36 Ship Vaporised results each year. Under such conditions attrition rates for battleships will be in the region of 33% per year. To that we can add ships captured during repair and scuttled rather than transported to a distant enemy yard. The rebellion is supposed to be a bloody affair...

 

[kilemall]

Which HG are we talking about?

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm presuming HG'80.

 

[Garnfellow]

I'm presuming HG'80.

More or less. I am playing with a system that adopts FFW mechanics, but the FFW squadron ratings are ultimately derived from HG 80/T20 stats. In FFW units are "eliminated," which presumably subsumes a tremendous range of conditions from vaporization of all capital ships to withdrawing due to loss of escorts/minor damage to capital ships/the Commodore panicking etc. and anything in between. Basically anything that takes a squadron out of a fight.

I'm looking to create a simple table that abstracts the after-action butcher's bill. Something like 1D, plus modifiers. 0 or less is total, complete annihilation, 6+ is -1 to all ratings, but repairable. Modifiers might be -1 if eliminated unit was part of the losing force, -1 for every TL difference between uneven units. So an eliminated TL 13 squadron defeated by a TL 14 squadron would have -2 modifier, or a 33% chance of annihilation.

I was hoping to calibrate the table based on expected results from HG.

 

[McPerth]

Fleets will not fight to the death, at some point someone will break off or surrender, so total damage cannot be easily calculated.

See that in my quoted rough example I assumed some of the losers flee the system...

The damage (& cost of repair) from a single hit can easily be calculated (with some basic assumptions).


A Meson J that inflicts damage does 10 hits on Rad and Int tables presuming the target is large enough to avoid size crits. With statistical combat resolution that means 100% chance of a Fuel Tanks Shattered. With rolled damage that means 1 - (1 - 4/36)¹⁰ ≈ 69% chance of a Fuel Tanks Shattered. An average of 4.3 Crew hits will be achieved.

The rolls on the damage tables will lead to an average of 1.94 crits which will lead to 5% chance of Ship Vaporised plus a 51% chance of mission kill through loss of drives, control, or crew.

The target's chance of not being mission killed is about 16%.


For a Meson T there is about 89% chance of Fuel Tanks Shattered, 10% chance of Ship Vaporised, and 3% chance of remaining combat effective.

For a Meson T against a 50 kT ship (code P) the extra 4 crits leads to a total of 21% chance of Ship Vaporised and on average 2 mission kill hits.


Setting a price tag on each hit we can, with some work, calculate the average cost of repairs per ship class.

Another factor that is usually ignored in most TCS like calculations is crew quality. In HG, having a CO with Ship Tactics 3 raises the computer rating by 1, seriously altering them foth in ofensive and defensive way, and a pilot with skill 3 raises Agility by one, making it harder to be hit. And if the skill is at level 5, the modifiers are +2.

While this will have limited effect in a battleship (or Battleriders) battle, against hamsters it may well be decisive.

If we make some silly assumptions such as every battleship is in a battle twice a year, each ship fires 3 times in each battle we can estimate attrition rates. A 200 kT 6G Meson T battleship has a 42% chance of hitting itself, or 72% at short range. It has a 81% chance of penetrating, so each ship will produce something like 2 × 3 × (42%/2 + 72%/2) × 81% × 13% = 0.36 Ship Vaporised results each year. Under such conditions attrition rates for battleships will be in the region of 33% per year. To that we can add ships captured during repair and scuttled rather than transported to a distant enemy yard. The rebellion is supposed to be a bloody affair...

Accepting your numbers, see that this would mean the BB fleet would son be attrited, but the BRs one probably less so, as they are very rarely so scuttled, being taken to repair shipyards by the Tenders, some of whichwil lbe left without their BRs by own losses.

And even the BBs can in most cases perform field repairs and go to the repair yards by their own powers, if they can be crewed...

OTOH, while not explicited on the rules (in fact, not even mentioned), I guess we can assume the tneders would have some repair capability, at least for their own BRs...

So, I'd say the fighter fleet (and probably escort one too) would quiclky be attrited, the BB one slowly so, and the BRs one very slowly so. OTOH, being smaller, criticals would be more numerous, but I guess the large BBs with larger Spinals would be the first ones targeted, so the first ones crippled, and soon the BRs would be all left to fight.

But the main point, following my reasoning that most loses are repairable, is that "keeping the field" is a critical factor in HG combat, as you can recover most of your "killed" ships (as most would in fact be crippled) and capture some of the enemy's, so even increasing your fleet instead of attriting it, while the loser really loses most of them. So, the victor can end the battle reinforced, while the loser heavily weakened.

Again in my quoted rough estimate aboe, see that the loser would loss all the escorts and msot its BRs, while the winner will end with one each destoryed, but capturing several of them (so ending with about 4-5 escorts and 7-8 BRs more than it began the battle, albeit crippled ones, but easy to repair...

In this sense, it is (again) like the Age of Sail, where wining a Naval battle used to mean prizes to be won, many times increasing your fleet numbers more tan what losses could reduce it.

And see that Rebellion was assumed on MT paradigm, where the lack of agility for most Battle fleets and different use of Ship Tactics skill make hits more likely (but again, most would be crippled, not outright kills)...

Which HG are we talking about?

I assume HG2, unless otherwise said.

 

[McPerth]

More or less. I am playing with a system that adopts FFW mechanics, but the FFW squadron ratings are ultimately derived from HG 80/T20 stats. In FFW units are "eliminated," which presumably subsumes a tremendous range of conditions from vaporization of all capital ships to withdrawing due to loss of escorts/minor damage to capital ships/the Commodore panicking etc. and anything in between. Basically anything that takes a squadron out of a fight.

I'm looking to create a simple table that abstracts the after-action butcher's bill. Something like 1D, plus modifiers. 0 or less is total, complete annihilation, 6+ is -1 to all ratings, but repairable. Modifiers might be -1 if eliminated unit was part of the losing force, -1 for every TL difference between uneven units. So an eliminated TL 13 squadron defeated by a TL 14 squadron would have -2 modifier, or a 33% chance of annihilation.

I was hoping to calibrate the table based on expected results from HG.

In this sense, I'd give the main modifier to "keeping the field", whith the one who does even being able to recover more than what it lost (represented probably as replacement points in FFW style game).

In my (never tested) rules about Rebellion, where fleets units where fleets with forcé points, each player recovered 2d6-2 x 10% of its losses after the battle as repairable damaged ones, with a +/- 3 modifier for the one keeping the field or not. If the +3 for the one "keeping hte field" raised it over 100%, he could even recover more than its losses.

 

[Garnfellow]

As for the source of the Rebellion losses, MT:HT has it quite implicit, though I cannot expllain it wiht HG/MT paradigm, unless scuttling ships that could be captured becomes the standard practice, something quite hard to accept for me when you can be left stranded in vacuum if you scuttle your ship...

Might this be the reference?

The Imperium started the war with 320 numbered fleets and an equal number of reserve fleets. By 1121, fewer than 95 numbered and 130 reserve fleets remained. Most had been reduced to 60% strength or less, with the heaviest losses in the BatRons and CruRons (Hard Times, 9).

So over 5 years of bloody fighting, it looks like an average attrition rate of 25% per year. There's no way of knowing how many engagements that represents, but if we assumed only 5-6% loss per engagement and only 5 engagements per year, we'd hit the HT numbers.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

I'm looking to create a simple table that abstracts the after-action butcher's bill.

OK, I see.

If we mock up a simple 200 kT 6G Meson T battleship and hit it with a large meson we get:
The ship cost GCr 150 in quantity.
Each Meson T hit has a 99.98% chance of disabling the target and a 13% chance of Ship Vaporised. The entire crew will be casualties.

The repair bill will be dominated by critical hits on the drives and will be on average about 45% of the total cost of the ship and two months in the yard.

If we simply add the cost of vaporised ships to the average repair bill we get something like 60% of the cost of a new ship.

Note: A stricken battleship will not be able to retreat since it will most likely have lost all fuel and/or power.

If we assume that it cost on average MCr 1 to train every crew member, the cost of the lost crew at GCr 1.8 is still incidental.


The cost of repairing escorts that have fought with lesser weapons is far smaller, perhaps 1% of new cost.


So, for a very simple system we might say that a damaged battle squadron has 50% of its ships damaged at a cost of 50% for each ship, so a total of 25% of the cost of the battle squadron and two months in the yard?
Escorts squadrons damaged by other escorts are repaired at negligible cost and 1 month in the yard.

 

[Garnfellow]

Your "reasoning" is fatally flawed because you insist on continuing to confuse the models with reality. Bleating that you're only using the rules which are available deliberately ignores the fact that the rules don't fully model the reality of the situation and were never meant to fully model the reality of the situation.

To the extent you have a point, it's certainly not decisive: would loss of personnel be significantly more debilitating than loss of materiel to a squadron?

And if it were, would not a TL 13/14/15 interstellar navy develop responses to such an obvious limiting factor? Robots, computers, wafers, frozen watches are all known technologies in the OTU. Why wouldn't the average TankRon also include ships loaded with replacement crew in low birth along with banks of skill wafers, ready to go? Maybe there are entire "FNGRons" attached to all the fleets. Or Bugs Bunny-style "autopilots" for all stations.

A single pop A world has more than enough population base to support several sector fleets without any real impact on the planetary economy.

I'm not saying personnel isn't important, I just don't see this as the ultimate show stopper for this discussion.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Another factor that is usually ignored in most TCS like calculations is crew quality. In HG, having a CO with Ship Tactics 3 raises the computer rating by 1, seriously altering them foth in ofensive and defensive way, and a pilot with skill 3 raises Agility by one, making it harder to be hit. And if the skill is at level 5, the modifiers are +2.

While this will have limited effect in a battleship (or Battleriders) battle, against hamsters it may well be decisive.

I agree that this is a devastating effect in a small combat, or in a large combat if one side is given a generally higher skill level.

Accepting your numbers, see that this would mean the BB fleet would son be attrited, but the BRs one probably less so, as they are very rarely so scuttled, being taken to repair shipyards by the Tenders, some of whichwil lbe left without their BRs by own losses.

I agree.

And even the BBs can in most cases perform field repairs and go to the repair yards by their own powers, if they can be crewed...

Not really. Criticals can only be repaired at a shipyard. Since ships cannot be refuelled during the battle IIRC, lack of fuel cannot be rectified even if the fuel tanks can be repaired. Fuel Tanks Shattered means the ship will be captured unless a tender can jump it out. A ship hit by a Meson T has about 60% chance of critical damage to PP or Jump Drive meaning it will have to be carried to a yard.

OTOH, while not explicited on the rules (in fact, not even mentioned), I guess we can assume the tneders would have some repair capability, at least for their own BRs...

I would guess very limited. Large tenders have no extra crew or equipment for this purpose.
If you want a mobile shipyard I would require larger hangars and more crew.

So, I'd say the fighter fleet (and probably escort one too) would quiclky be attrited, the BB one slowly so, and the BRs one very slowly so. OTOH, being smaller, criticals would be more numerous, but I guess the large BBs with larger Spinals would be the first ones targeted, so the first ones crippled, and soon the BRs would be all left to fight.

I agree for capital ships.
Escorts fighting each other would only cause superficial damage, and I'm assuming that capital ships will kill each other first, so escorts will hardly be attritioned.
I do not have a clear picture of fighters. They can generally only be hit by weapons that cause critical hits, but on the other hand why would those weapons be firing at a fighter when there are better targets around?

But the main point, following my reasoning that most loses are repairable, is that "keeping the field" is a critical factor in HG combat, as you can recover most of your "killed" ships (as most would in fact be crippled) and capture some of the enemy's, so even increasing your fleet instead of attriting it, while the loser really loses most of them. So, the victor can end the battle reinforced, while the loser heavily weakened.

I agree.

 

[McPerth]

Your "reasoning" is fatally flawed because you insist on continuing to confuse the models with reality. Bleating that you're only using the rules which are available deliberately ignores the fact that the rules don't fully model the reality of the situation and were never meant to fully model the reality of the situation.

I'd agree with you if the game tried to represent history, but in this case, the history is based on the game, so it should, IMHO, better represent it...

Of course, when you try to model historical facts with a game, you must forfeit some details for playability, but when you're trying to represent the history that wsa dveloped in a setting dominated by some game rules, I'd expect it to be more coherent with them.

HG2 is a deliberately imperfect model.

TCS is a deliberately imperfect model.

Any wargame is a deliberately imperfect model.

All ignore important issues like logistics and the training of personnel among others in name of speeding game play. HG2 isn't Harpoon, TCS isn't Rule the Waves, and even Harpoon and Rule the Waves ignore, evade, and otherwise obfuscate a myriad of real world factors in the name of game play.

Agreed, otherwise they probably would not be playable...

All of this began years ago when you noticed that the systems in HG2 and TCS couldn't "explain" the description of ship losses during the Rebellion. While you weren't the first to notice that, you were the first to blame the descriptions instead of the games. In that, your thinking in exactly backwards.

Yes, I blame the descriptions because they try to represent the universe created by Traveller rules, so the results should be achievable with them.

If the setting you create with your rules is one like Age of Sail, where a battle would end with more repairable cripples than outright killings (as are HG and MT, not so other Traveller versions), then I expect the results given in the setting history to conform with them.

Unlike historical games, where history was first and game tries to represent it, here game was first and fictional history tries to represent its effects, and I don't see it as thinking backwards.

Chargen is not demographics. Sysgen is not planetology. The various trade systems are not economics macro or otherwise. And HG2 and TCS do not accurately model 57th Century space combat or the infrastructure which supports it.

Agreed in all of this, but while HG and TCS are not accurate models of 57^th century space combat, the final results should model the ones expected on it.

Of course, YMMV, ut that probably would not make any of us right nor wrong, just having diferent visions of it.

 

[McPerth]

To the extent you have a point, it's certainly not decisive: would loss of personnel be significantly more debilitating than loss of materiel to a squadron?

And if it were, would not a TL 13/14/15 interstellar navy develop responses to such an obvious limiting factor? Robots, computers, wafers, frozen watches are all known technologies in the OTU. Why wouldn't the average TankRon also include ships loaded with replacement crew in low birth along with banks of skill wafers, ready to go? Maybe there are entire "FNGRons" attached to all the fleets. Or Bugs Bunny-style "autopilots" for all stations.

A single pop A world has more than enough population base to support several sector fleets without any real impact on the planetary economy.

I'm not saying personnel isn't important, I just don't see this as the ultimate show stopper for this discussion.

Yes, personnel can be easily repaired if we talk about numbers, but trained personnel not so easily.

HG assumes skill level 2 for most personnel (or so I've been told several times in this board), and that represents several years training. So, if you took heavy losses in personnel, you're likely to be able to replace them, but at a cost on crew quailty...

I agree that this is a devastating effect in a small combat, or in a large combat if one side is given a generally higher skill level.

Or in assimetric combats....

Let's imagine a single battleship confronts a miriad of gunboats (hamsters vs BB situation so discussed for TCS). If we asume the BBs are crewed by the best personnel and they have a +1 advantage in pilot and OC over most of the hamsters, the situation changes drastically, as the BB will always benefit of it, while the hamsters almost never.

Not really. Criticals can only be repaired at a shipyard. Since ships cannot be refuelled during the battle IIRC, lack of fuel cannot be rectified even if the fuel tanks can be repaired. Fuel Tanks Shattered means the ship will be captured unless a tender can jump it out. A ship hit by a Meson T has about 60% chance of critical damage to PP or Jump Drive meaning it will have to be carried to a yard.

Agreed, those crippled by criticals yould have to be taken to repair base (unless you're defending one, so having it already in hand, off course).

About the refuelling, see that we're talking about hte battle aftermath, not the battle itself. So, if you cna repair the fuel tanks, you can also fill them.

I would guess very limited. Large tenders have no extra crew or equipment for this purpose.
If you want a mobile shipyard I would require larger hangars and more crew.

Probably limited for BBs, but less so for their BRs.

And about mobile shipyards (or repair ships), unfortunately little is told about the auxiliaries in Traveller setting (except tankers).

I agree for capital ships.
Escorts fighting each other would only cause superficial damage, and I'm assuming that capital ships will kill each other first, so escorts will hardly be attritioned.
I do not have a clear picture of fighters. They can generally only be hit by weapons that cause critical hits, but on the other hand why would those weapons be firing at a fighter when there are better targets around?

That would depend on strategies and situations. If escorts confront themselves while larger ships trade blows, I agree, if they are used to cover the deploying (or recovering) of the riders, they are likely to be targeted by large spinals in the process...

About fighters, it would depend on TL. At higher ones, and against heavily armored ships, they would be little more than a nuisance, so probably ignored, as you say, but at lower TLs, they are a true thread, and so never ignored.

And see that this is due to the simplifications rules impose (as Whipsande said, no rules are prefect nor do represent accurately combat), where your ships in reserve are safe. In a more realistic situations, if fighters are ignored, they would go after your reserve ships, and this would include your Tenders, that, being usually congif 7, and so unarmored, would be in true risk...