Explain Sandcasters to me?

[Dragoner]

I am looking at a sandcasters like the 20th-century version of a smoke missions which was basically oil with a reflective obscurant poured on a hot plate to cover a battlefield. It defeats or degrades enemy electro-optical (EO) systems. In general, use screening smoke to attack enemy target acquisition and guidance systems by placing smoke between the friendly unit and the sensors. FM 3-101-1 provides the guidelines of a smoke platoon in a chemical company.

Yes, that is good too, similar as to how smoke is used to cover movement, which also gives a negative in the personal combat section. Turns every shot into area fire.

 

[kilemall]

This is what a sandcaster does according to Striker.

It fires a conical blast that has the effect of a giant shotgun.
At 500m the shrapnel is 40m wide and has a pen/auto bonus of 20/+8 - that is nearly the equivalent of a VRF gauss gun (21/+8)
Out to 1000m the shrapnel is now 80m wide and is 10/+6 - about twice as effective as a gauss rifle (7/+3)
At 2000m the shrapnel is now 120m wide with 5/+4 - which is a better autofire bonus than a HMG at long range (5/+3)

Which should translate to rapid dispersal to the point of little effectiveness very quickly.

 

[kilemall]

Depends on how you want to describe it.

Is it a big shotgun shell that fires a cloud of shrapnel, each piece of which can diffuse/reflect/difract the incident laser light, turning into a plasma while doing so which then also hinders the laser
or
is it a multi-barreled vrf gun system that fires exploding rounds that have the effect of the above

The former according to the form factor of the sandcaster barrels. Loads like missiles in a specialized rack.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Canister shot is rather close range, within an atmosphere and standard gravity; ours, to be precise.

2. One difference between a gauss bullet and let's assume kaleidoscopic crystals, is that all that propulsion is focussed on one mass.

3. So what's accelerated is a bucket full of let's say pellet sized crystals.

4. So either the canister falls apart like a sabot.

5. Or the crystals are accelerated out of the canister.

6. In space the crystals will continue to move until they hit something, but continuous wider dispersal.

7. Dirtside, there should be a rather rapid drop off.

 

[mike wightman]

2km range HMG in Earth like conditions... I repeat it is akin to a VRF gauss gun out to 500m.

 

[Condottiere]

I think that the gauss variant of the shotgun uses fletchettes, which I believe are aerodynamic darts.

I'm not even sure that the crystals are spheres.

 

[mike wightman]

The Striker rules only make sense if lots of projectiles are fired from the ship, and by lots I mean lots lots. The penetration value shows these projectiles have a very high penetration. Since it has stats similar to a HMG at extreme range so I would estimate a projectile velocity in the order of 1 to 2 km/s yet to get VRF gauss gun performance you need 4.5km/s

I am thinking along the lines of a claymore mine like cannister fired from the ship.

 

[whartung]

Apparently the terrestrial mechanics of the sandcaster didn't make it in to TNE and FF&S. Not sure about MT.

 

[Condottiere]

Mongoose First allowed hull damage, while Mongoose Second removed that option.

My guess is that while on the personnel scale a sand blast can be devastating, it looks like that the weapon system as a whole has been powered down.

I'm not going to dispute that about six hundred litres of fast moving sand is going to be nasty, I rather doubt that the effect on a Terran norm world is going to have that range.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

8 inch Artillery shell using flechettes has a 1,000m or 1 kilometer range. With a blast radius of 100 m. the flechettes created a 12 degree cone and carry over 2,000 of them.

This is what I base them on in my game.

 

[mike wightman]

Rules as written for CT and MT - use them or not it is up to you as the ref.

 

[Drew]

So in reality, a sandcaster is a poor man's kinetic energy weapon. I would like to see a CWIS or a Metal Storm as an option. Too bad chaff isn't a reliable weapon in a space combat scenario to blind or confuse a weapon system or the sensors.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

You even can use the concept of an airburst round, which replaced the Vietam era Beehive round. Canister is fired, explosions, sharpnal everywhere. One other thing, that 1,000m range I gave was the maxium effect range, which in reality doesn't mean much. Example: 50 caliber machine gun has a maxium range of 1800 meters but, the 50 cal sniper rifle record is well over 2000m. So there is a +/- effective area to every weapon.

 

[Condottiere]

Going by the current rules set, there is a specific munition against boarders, termed pebbles.

Presumably, spherical.

So that's a double dee damage, with the usual sand doing a normal eight dice on the personnel scale.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

You don't need a Sandcaster canister to wipe out boarders. Just an armored box mounted in the airlock door and a Claymore mine type munition placed inside. Once they get close enough, pull the trigger, no more pirates, angry native or mobs to worry about. Sandcasters are a range weapon like artillery.

 

[Condottiere]

With a plasma torch, you can cut out your own doorway in the hull.

Claymore mines are rather short ranged.

 

[Rigel Stardin]

true, did think about that. Claymore is space would have a greater range than the 75m range planetside.

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, sand casted in space is going to continue eternally, until it hits something.

 

[whartung]

In theory, sand casted in space is going to continue eternally, until it hits something.

But it's not going to hit anything of interest because the ranges are so big.

At best, an incoming missile may hit the cloud on its way in, then you start having all sorts of interesting potential kinetic energy collision issues. But I have a low opinion of "impact" missiles in space combat anyway.

It would be a curious analysis of how dense a cloud (of anything) would have to be to be at all effective at draining energy from an incoming laser barrage.

Why not just blast out droplets of LH, for example?

 

[Rigel Stardin]

In order to keep out of the pesky merchant's hand (pirate), I tend do the following.

1. Turn and burn. Run like hell.
2. Play dead. Hopefully, I can catch them napping.
3. Slash and burn. Use my fixed weapons to fire at them while charging down their throats, while playing a game of chicken
4. Crazy Ivan: Think Bab 5 fighters doing a flip then, firing on them without losing forward momentum.
5. Hide and seek.
6. Shock and Awe. Unload everything at them at once.
finally, do something stupid...