Non OTU: Armor Question

[Timerover51]

I have been looking at the armor data that appears in MegaTraveller Referee Manual, and have a couple of questions to toss out and maybe get some answers. As one of the questions involves a difference between Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller, I thought that it would be better to post it here.

1. How do the armor values for personal armor relate to the vehicle armor values given under the CPR weapons section of the MegaTraveller Referee Manual? If I am shooting at a person wearing Cloth Armor with a 20mm rifle also being used to hunt mammoths and mastodons, or a 3 kilogram solid steel projectile from a 60mm black powder quick-firing rifle, what happens? Based on the data from the following source, National Defense Research Committee report on WEAPON DATA: Fire, Impact, Explosion, Final Edition September 1945 OSRD NO. 6053, a German 20mm KwK38, firing an AP shell of 0.327 pounds at 2625 fps, could penetrate 1.7 inches or 43mm of homogeneous armor plate at 200 yards at 0 degrees or normal angle of impact, while the 20mm from the Hispano-Suiza aircraft cannon, a solid projectile at 2615 fps, could penetrate 1.5 inches or 38mm of homogeneous armor plate at 500 yards. In the 1886 Brassey Naval Annual, the Nordenfelt 57mm quick-firer, firing a 6 pound chilled steel shell, weighing 6 pounds and with a bursting charge of 320 grains black powder, was capable of perforating 3,375 inches of mild steel at 300 yards, with a velocity at 300 yards of 2010 feet per second. That 3.375 inches of mild steel would equate to 1.6875 inches or about 42mm of Krupp face-hardened plate or 49mm of good quality homogeneous armor plate.

Now, according to the MT Referee Manual, page 77, a high-velocity 20mm has a penetration of 8 at close range. A lower velocity 60mm howitzer round has a penetration of 16 at close range, per page 76, although the weight of the 60mm rounds is supposed to be 6 kilograms, which is about twice as heavy as it should be based on the real world. Cloth has a personal protection factor of 5, and is available at a Tech Level of 6. Now, it all of those armor values are on the same scale, then a suit of Tech Level 6 Cloth with a value of 5 equates to about 25mm or over an inch of homogeneous steel plates, assuming that a value of 8 is equivalent to about 40mm of armor plate. So, are all of those armor values on the same scale or not?

2. In Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats, to punch a hole large enough for a man to get through, presumably about 1 meter, takes 100 points of damage from a laser or other energy weapon, 100 points of explosion damage, or 1000 points of projectile-firing weapon damage. It takes 1000 points of damage from a laser or other energy weapon to put a meter hole in a bulkhead and apparently, the ship hull. In the Chamax Plague double adventure, the Chamax use their acid to burn through the hull of the Shaarin Challenger and also the bulkheads, opening up about 1 meter size holes, with the acid apparently inflicting damage equal to that of an energy weapon. In the “Annic Nova” adventure, the turrets have steel bases, presumably homogeneous armor steel bases (I see no need for face-hardened armor here), that are 200mm thick, and require 20,000 points of damage from a laser or other energy weapon to open up a 1 meter hole. Based on the assumption that damage from energy weapons proceeds on about a straight line, if 200mm of steel takes 20,000 points in damage, then 1000 points in damage should indicate a thickness of 10mm of steel plate, which seems too low. In the MegaTraveller CPR weapon table, a high velocity 20cm gun will penetrate an armor value of 41 at close range. I am looking at the 20cm gun based on the rule of thumb that a high velocity weapon will penetrate its own caliber of armor at short battle ranges. That would make that 200mm of armor equivalent to an armor value of about 40. The problem arises is that is what the thicknesses of the bulkheads in MegaTraveller in terms of armor value. Is there that great a difference between ships in Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller?

 

[aramis]

In MT, AV is AV. It's the same AV scale. Same for Pen. (This is inherited from Striker.)
Damage, which isn't inherited, is also the same scale, so you'll note the insane damages for ship weapons in the PM.

 

[Carlobrand]

...1. How do the armor values for personal armor relate to the vehicle armor values given under the CPR weapons section of the MegaTraveller Referee Manual? If I am shooting at a person wearing Cloth Armor with a 20mm rifle also being used to hunt mammoths and mastodons, or a 3 kilogram solid steel projectile from a 60mm black powder quick-firing rifle, what happens? Based on the data from the following source, National Defense Research Committee report on WEAPON DATA: Fire, Impact, Explosion, Final Edition September 1945 OSRD NO. 6053, a German 20mm KwK38, firing an AP shell of 0.327 pounds at 2625 fps, could penetrate 1.7 inches or 43mm of homogeneous armor plate at 200 yards at 0 degrees or normal angle of impact, while the 20mm from the Hispano-Suiza aircraft cannon, a solid projectile at 2615 fps, could penetrate 1.5 inches or 38mm of homogeneous armor plate at 500 yards. In the 1886 Brassey Naval Annual, the Nordenfelt 57mm quick-firer, firing a 6 pound chilled steel shell, weighing 6 pounds and with a bursting charge of 320 grains black powder, was capable of perforating 3,375 inches of mild steel at 300 yards, with a velocity at 300 yards of 2010 feet per second. That 3.375 inches of mild steel would equate to 1.6875 inches or about 42mm of Krupp face-hardened plate or 49mm of good quality homogeneous armor plate.

Now, according to the MT Referee Manual, page 77, a high-velocity 20mm has a penetration of 8 at close range. A lower velocity 60mm howitzer round has a penetration of 16 at close range, per page 76, although the weight of the 60mm rounds is supposed to be 6 kilograms, which is about twice as heavy as it should be based on the real world. Cloth has a personal protection factor of 5, and is available at a Tech Level of 6. Now, it all of those armor values are on the same scale, then a suit of Tech Level 6 Cloth with a value of 5 equates to about 25mm or over an inch of homogeneous steel plates, assuming that a value of 8 is equivalent to about 40mm of armor plate. So, are all of those armor values on the same scale or not?

As Aramis says, armor is armor is armor in MT. However, what happens after penetration differs a bit between fleshie and machine. Much of MT borrows on Striker, so that can be helpful in trying to deduce how weapons not in the ordinary canon would interact with targets. It's not exact: MT added the concept of damage apart from penetration - i.e. it's not just about how much punch it has but what it does to your insides (or your vehicle) as it goes through. Much better than Striker in that regard, though it can be a bit cumbersome in play.

Working the system requires both the Referee's Manual and the Player's Manual, because there's a lot of information in the Player's Manual that isn't in the Referee's Manual.

Per the Player's Manual, the weapon's penetration must be at least twice the armor value to do the full rated damage. If it's at least equal to, but less than twice, it does half the rated damage. If it's less than the armor value, then it does 10% of the rated damage, "if the target is a character with exposed areas of less than the full armor value," otherwise none; in other words, if your hands or feet or face are exposed, you might take a bit of damage even from something that wouldn't usually be able to penetrate your armor.

There's also a provision that factors in how successful your roll was; it can halve the damage or double, quadruple, or even octuple it. So, a person in good armor who gets hit by a very well-placed shot from a low-penetration weapon could end up taking 80% of the usual damage (8 x 0.1) even though the shot wouldn't normally penetrate armor.

Vehicles differ from fleshies in that they don't take the 10% damage rule and there's a set of different rules to describe where they get hit and how much damage they can take. For combat purposes, the damage a fleshie takes is based on his strength plus dex plus endurance, compared against a table; the average character (7/7/7) can take three points of damage before being knocked unconscious, five before becoming KIA, while your F/F/F ubermensch can take twice that. (After the battle, damage is applied to the stats by rolling 1d6 for each point of damage; there's a remote chance you could survive the fight only to die in that roll.)

Vehicle hits are decided in the Referee's Manual design phase, and - no surprise - vehicles tend to absorb more damage than people, but the basic idea's the same: more than the first means that part of the vehicle ceases function, more than the second means it's destroyed. In the case of vehicles, damage tends to get spread among several distinct sections: power plant, locomotion system, hull/superstructure and discrete components like weapons and communications devices. So, John the human takes three one-point hits and is knocked out; John the bot takes three one-point hits to his tracks, power plant, and radio and is still a viable offensive threat. If the bot had taken three hits all to the tracks, and the tracks could take only three hits before becoming inoperative, the bot would be immobilized but still capable of offensive action. If the three hits had been to the power plant, the bot would be powered down and out of the fight.

In the case of your 20-mil, the cloth has, as you say, an armor value of 5 - that's equal to about a half inch of steel. Your 20-mil with the penetration of 8 (can penetrate 20 mm of steel) has a damage rating of around 4 (closest approximate out of the regular books is a Light Assault Gun). On a mediocre hit, you'll hurt the guy with 2 points of damage; on any decent hit, you'll take him out of the fight, maybe kill him.

On the other hand, the historical model that penetrates 43 mm of plate would actually have an MT penetration of 16, over triple the rating of the cloth armor and quite enough to kill the man in it rather handily.

 

[Enoki]

I really don't want to get into this but....

First, different penetration systems will effect armor differently. That is a kinetic energy round will penetrate differently than an HE round, or a HEAT round, or an energy weapon. This really is no different from even different types of KE penetrators.

So, a laser having to cut through 200 cm of steel may well be an expotential to cutting through 100cm of steel or 50cm or steel while a KE penetrator is more linear.

That is much of the problem with the systems presented in the game. They are designed to make play reasonalby quick rather than accurate. Avalon Hill's Tobruk game is an example of trying to manually make a totally accurate system of armor penetration. It failed as a game because of its complexity.

I suggest focusing on outcomes and personal events but then, that is me...

 

[Carlobrand]

...2. In Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats, to punch a hole large enough for a man to get through, presumably about 1 meter, takes 100 points of damage from a laser or other energy weapon, 100 points of explosion damage, or 1000 points of projectile-firing weapon damage. It takes 1000 points of damage from a laser or other energy weapon to put a meter hole in a bulkhead and apparently, the ship hull. In the Chamax Plague double adventure, the Chamax use their acid to burn through the hull of the Shaarin Challenger and also the bulkheads, opening up about 1 meter size holes, with the acid apparently inflicting damage equal to that of an energy weapon. In the “Annic Nova” adventure, the turrets have steel bases, presumably homogeneous armor steel bases (I see no need for face-hardened armor here), that are 200mm thick, and require 20,000 points of damage from a laser or other energy weapon to open up a 1 meter hole. Based on the assumption that damage from energy weapons proceeds on about a straight line, if 200mm of steel takes 20,000 points in damage, then 1000 points in damage should indicate a thickness of 10mm of steel plate, which seems too low. In the MegaTraveller CPR weapon table, a high velocity 20cm gun will penetrate an armor value of 41 at close range. I am looking at the 20cm gun based on the rule of thumb that a high velocity weapon will penetrate its own caliber of armor at short battle ranges. That would make that 200mm of armor equivalent to an armor value of about 40. The problem arises is that is what the thicknesses of the bulkheads in MegaTraveller in terms of armor value. Is there that great a difference between ships in Classic Traveller and MegaTraveller?

Supplement 7, Traders and Gunboats
"Interior Walls: Interior walls are partitions: non-load-bearing panels firmly fixed in place. They are not pressure-tight, and cannot withstand a concerted assault. Firing 100 hit points at such a wall with an energy weapon will burn a hole in the wall large enough for one person to pass through per turn; an explosion which produces 100 hit points will produce the same effect. Weapons firing bullets are less efficient in
doing this sort of damage; such a weapon must produce 1000 hit points before a person-sized hole is produced."

In CT, the laser rifle puts out 5d6 damage, about 17-18 hits per shot on average. So, about six shots leaves that meter-wide hole in an interior partition. You aren't punching through so much as carving lines in half-second or so laser bursts - or however long those bursts are. And, most likely, you aren't cutting the entire circle - just enough that you can kick or push out what's left. So, figure each laser blast is cutting about a 20 to 50 cm line. If the wall had any significant resistance to damage, you'd have ended up with six neatly drilled pinholes somewhat larger than the beam's diameter, instead of a meter-size hole to crawl through.

Traders and Gun boats defines the bulkhead as, "(t)he major structural components of a ship are the bulkheads, and they represent the compartmentalization of the ship for damage control and environment maintenance as well as the outer hull of the ship." A bulkhead is much stronger than a partition wall: 1000 points or about 60 blasts from the laser to cut that meter-size hole. Each laser blast is cutting a 2 to 5 cm line - either that or the beam's 2 to 5 cm wide. In Striker/MegaTrav, that same laser has a penetration of 9: it can penetrate 22.5 mm of steel. Ergo, the bulkhead is something less than 22.5 mm of steel - probably a good deal less. Your 10 mm guess is probably as good as any, but figure anything from 10 mm to 20 mm is acceptable.

Chamax is consistent with this view: Chamax describes the exterior hull of the alien lander as being, "... as resistant to damage as any starship bulkhead, with 1000 hit points being required for a breach."

I've looked through Annic Nova and I can't find mention of 200mm steel-based turrets. There is mention of, "steels door at the end of the corridor ... part of a cylinder set within a larger cylinder ... If some one attempts to force the door (or incorrect computer instructions are entered more than 3 times in a ten minute period), and power is on, an outlet valve will open, bleeding the air from this deck within thirty seconds. In any case, the door is nearly 200mm thick, and will require a long time to burn through (approximately 20000 hits administered by energy weapon, such as a laser, or by a cutting torch)." Each steel door leads into the lower level of a gun turret. Presumably the walls of the turret are at least as thick as the door - doesn't do to have an armored door stronger than the wall it's in - but they could be thicker. Striker/MegaTrav would call 200 mm of steel an armor rating of 34. So, Annic Nova, that early adventure, appears to contradict Traders and Gunboats - or else someone put a 200 mm door in a 20 mm wall.

Under Consolidated CT Errata 7, an unarmored High Guard ship hull has an armor rating of 40, equal to 336 mm of steel. Under MegaTrav Referee's Manual, the minimum hull rating for craft in space is 40 (330 mm of steel) "for protection against micrometeoroids and radiation." This is in roughly the same ballpark as that Annic Nova turret door.

In a nutshell, there are two views of the hull: a 10-20 mm plate, probably over a network of ribs and such to maintain strength under acceleration; or a 330 mm steel or equivalent plate (A TL10 Crystaliron hull would be about half that thickness for the same armor value; a TL14 bonded superdense hull would be about a quarter of that thickness).

So, yes, there is that great a difference between ships in Classic Traveller (Book-2/Supplement-7) and MegaTraveller.

 

[Carlobrand]

I really don't want to get into this but....

First, different penetration systems will effect armor differently. That is a kinetic energy round will penetrate differently than an HE round, or a HEAT round, or an energy weapon. This really is no different from even different types of KE penetrators.

So, a laser having to cut through 200 cm of steel may well be an expotential to cutting through 100cm of steel or 50cm or steel while a KE penetrator is more linear.

That is much of the problem with the systems presented in the game. They are designed to make play reasonalby quick rather than accurate. Avalon Hill's Tobruk game is an example of trying to manually make a totally accurate system of armor penetration. It failed as a game because of its complexity.

I suggest focusing on outcomes and personal events but then, that is me...

Traders and Gunboats deals with that to a very limited extent: kinetic weapons need to put out about ten times as much damage to achieve the effect of an energy weapon, presumably because an individual kinetic round hits, applies its energy, then continues on its way with much of its energy still in it after penetrating the wall, while energy weapons - if that burst's at least a quarter to a half second or so - can be "painted" back and forth to distribute the energy over a small line rather than concentrating it at a single point. That is, of course, speculative, but it does seem to fit the way they set things up.

 

[Timerover51]

In the case of your 20-mil, the cloth has, as you say, an armor value of 5 - that's equal to about a half inch of steel. Your 20-mil with the penetration of 8 (can penetrate 20 mm of steel) has a damage rating of around 4 (closest approximate out of the regular books is a Light Assault Gun). On a mediocre hit, you'll hurt the guy with 2 points of damage; on any decent hit, you'll take him out of the fight, maybe kill him.

On the other hand, the historical model that penetrates 43 mm of plate would actually have an MT penetration of 16, over triple the rating of the cloth armor and quite enough to kill the man in it rather handily.

Where are you getting your armor equivalents from, if I may ask? If Cloth is equivalent to a half inch of steel plate, then anything with a penetration of more than one inch will do full damage. The German KwK 20mm round was an explosive shell, to penetrating the Cloth would likely set it off inside of the person wearing the Cloth, to his/her serious physical detriment. The Nordenfelt 57mm gun would probably do likewise. I probably need to sit down and work up a penetration table from the data that I have.

 

[McPerth]

Per the Player's Manual, the weapon's penetration must be at least twice the armor value to do the full rated damage. If it's at least equal to, but less than twice, it does half the rated damage. If it's less than the armor value, then it does 10% of the rated damage, "if the target is a character with exposed areas of less than the full armor value," otherwise none; in other words, if your hands or feet or face are exposed, you might take a bit of damage even from something that wouldn't usually be able to penetrate your armor.

There's also a provision that factors in how successful your roll was; it can halve the damage or double, quadruple, or even octuple it. So, a person in good armor who gets hit by a very well-placed shot from a low-penetration weapon could end up taking 80% of the usual damage (8 x 0.1) even though the shot wouldn't normally penetrate armor.

I'm afraid you forgot about minimum damage. If you double damage, there's a minimum of 1 point of damage, if you quadruple it, 2 points and if you octuple it, 4 points, regardless of armor (PM page 71). Literal quote is:

Because of the minimums, it is possible for a weapon that ordinarily has zero penetration to inflict damage pointsupon achieving exceptiona success

So even a tiny derringer aainst a battledress armored person will do 4 damage points (and probably incapacite) if it rolls 8+ over what it needs to hit.

See that, if you push the limits on the letter of the rules, this could also apply to vehicles, so, if you fire this same tiny derringer against a Trepida tank and roll 4 over what you need, you inflict 2 superstructure points to the Trepida. As those hits (zero penetration) are told to be applied to superstructure, I understand you don't roll damage location, as, if you do, you could even destoy its turret with a lucky hit (but in any case, 6 such hits, giving 12 structure points, will incapacite the tank, whose hit capacity is 12/29).

I'd advise a minimum of common sense here...

 

[Dragoner]

I'd advise a minimum of common sense here...

Problems remain; how is one actually figuring AV? By material thickness? Which is not how armor is actually designed in real life, so it is pretty much GIGO from the start.

 

[Carlobrand]

Where are you getting your armor equivalents from, if I may ask? If Cloth is equivalent to a half inch of steel plate, then anything with a penetration of more than one inch will do full damage. ...

Straight out of the book. The Referee's Manual section on ship construction has a table of armor equivalents. As with any game, it has its share of peculiarities, but it's an improvement over some of the Striker bits - if you can tolerate the complexity.

I'm afraid you forgot about minimum damage. If you double damage, there's a minimum of 1 point of damage, if you quadruple it, 2 points and if you octuple it, 4 points, regardless of armor (PM page 71).

Oop, you're right. I did mention that complexity bit. Reminds me of Star Fleet Battles at times: "No, you forgot Rule 726B in the Fillindablank Guidebook!"

So even a tiny derringer aainst a battledress armored person will do 4 damage points (and probably incapacite) if it rolls 8+ over what it needs to hit.

MT Errata made some adjustments: "If a target is completely enclosed in armor, and if the penetration is less than one-tenth of the target’s 'lightest' armor value, ignore exceptional success. Your hit cannot do any damage to the target, regardless of the type of attack (hand-to-hand, direct, or indirect fire)." A tiny derringer is equivalent to a body pistol, so penetration 0. Battledress has an armor value of 10 or 18, depending on tech level; a weapon would need a penetration of at least 1 to have that effect on TL13 battledress, and 2 to have that effect on TL14 battledress. Ergo, derringer is no threat except maybe in a pinpoint attack - which if he pulls that off with a derringer, he deserves his reward - but your .38 revolver presents some slight danger.

8+ over required roll on 2d6 is a neat trick. Requires a base to-hit of 4, which means either a simple task or a routine task with some bonuses. The only simple gunfire task without fire control is handguns at close range (1 meter or less), and the only routine gunfire tasks short of something with a fire control system or gyrostabilization is handguns and rifles at short range (1 to 5 meters). So, short of waiting until the guy's within about 16 feet of you, you're talking about a character with both decent skill in the weapon and gyrostabilization, which lets him pull that trick out to 50 meters IF he gets very lucky.

4+ over required roll is more manageable, but you've still got have good skill to pull it off. Handguns can pull it off to about 50 meters, rifles without support to about 250 meters. Difficult task base roll is 11, you need to get that down to an 8 to have any chance, so a person with average dex and a skill of 2 can crack off a lucky shot like that once in 36 rolls.

See that, if you push the limits on the letter of the rules, this could also apply to vehicles, so, if you fire this same tiny derringer against a Trepida tank and roll 4 over what you need, you inflict 2 superstructure points to the Trepida. ...

See above about that 1/10th armor value rule. Trepida's lightly armored for a tank, IMHO, but it'd still require at least a penetration of 4 before that exceptional hit rule could be applied. That'd be the 9-mil+ rifles, gauss pistol/rifle, ACRs with a DS round, snubbies with HEAP, and so forth.

There's also this bit about penetration dropping off with range. You'd need to factor that in. That .38, for example, drops to half penetration after 50 meters, as do most firearms except gauss rifles, ACRs, ARLs, and LAGs. (Shotguns are worse, halving penetration after 5 meters, and their penetration is low to begin with.)

See what I mean about that "Star Fleet Battles" bit?

As those hits (zero penetration) are told to be applied to superstructure, I understand you don't roll damage location, as, if you do, you could even destoy its turret with a lucky hit (but in any case, 6 such hits, giving 12 structure points, will incapacite the tank, whose hit capacity is 12/29).

I'd advise a minimum of common sense here...

Agreed. As I mentioned, a person with an average dex and a skill of 2 can only pull it off on 1 in 36 rolls - but when the Trepida confronts the gauss rifle company, that's a heck of a lot of potential rolls and a statistical likelihood that the Trepida will be "nicked to death" inside of about 250 meters. I don't think Referee Sourcebook picks up those rules for large-scale combat, but I'm not real familiar with that book. I think this was intended only for player characters and NPCs on the small scale, to give them some slight chance in difficult circumstances. Still, when there's enough lead flying about for enough time, you get some odd results. On the large scale, say for your PCs in their ATV trying to escape the mob of angry farmers, it's an Epic Fail and should be ignored.

 

[Timerover51]

Straight out of the book. The Referee's Manual section on ship construction has a table of armor equivalents. As with any game, it has its share of peculiarities, but it's an improvement over some of the Striker bits - if you can tolerate the complexity.

I am assuming that you are referring to Table 9 on page 63, which does not give any indication as to what the "Mod" stands for? Based on your answer, it stands for centimeter of armor thickness.

As for penetration being halved in 50 meters for "most firearms except gauss rifles, ACRs, ARLs, and LAGs", that, put very simply, is ridiculous. Has anyone ever looked at a ballistic table showing remaining velocity at specified ranges? Likewise, having Cloth equal to 1/2 inch of armor plate at Tech Level 6 is also ridiculous. The following website gives the current standards of protection for body armor. Note, that for protection against rifle rounds, you are no longer using just Cloth, but "hard armor plates".

http://www.safeguardarmor.com/body-armor-levels/

A full power .30-06 AP round will penetrate 5/8 inch of armor plate at 100 yards. According to the Players Manual, at 50 meters, the best that is can do is 7.5 mm or 0.3 inches.

A 13mm hunting rifle can no longer penetrate Cloth after 50 meters? Again, has anyone ever looked at a ballistic table for a large caliber, say .45 inch/11.5mm rifle, and checked velocity loss?

A heavy machine gun, presumably of 0.50 inch caliber, according to the Player Manual has a maximum penetration at 50 meters of 15mm of armor, and then beyond that is halved to 7.5mm? The US World War 2 0.50 inch AP round could penetrate 1.1 inches or 28mm of armor at 200 yards, and still penetrate 0.5 inch or 12.7mm of armor at 1,000 yards. Modern ammo will do better. But per the manual, someone in Cloth Armor can just about laugh at it?

Just about every armor penetration formula that I know of uses velocity squared for penetration. What the Players Manual is saying is that a projective from a high-powered rifle is going to loose 30% of its velocity in the first 50 meters of travel. That is most definitely NOT the case.

 

[Dragoner]

Yes, in mechanics it is E_k=1/2mv², where penetration is often measured in joules as energy vs the normal force of the projectile against penetrating the armor; in solid mechanics.

(I really like the new sup/sub code)

 

[Carlobrand]

I am assuming that you are referring to Table 9 on page 63, which does not give any indication as to what the "Mod" stands for? Based on your answer, it stands for centimeter of armor thickness.

As for penetration being halved in 50 meters for "most firearms except gauss rifles, ACRs, ARLs, and LAGs", that, put very simply, is ridiculous. Has anyone ever looked at a ballistic table showing remaining velocity at specified ranges? Likewise, having Cloth equal to 1/2 inch of armor plate at Tech Level 6 is also ridiculous. The following website gives the current standards of protection for body armor. Note, that for protection against rifle rounds, you are no longer using just Cloth, but "hard armor plates".

http://www.safeguardarmor.com/body-armor-levels/

A full power .30-06 AP round will penetrate 5/8 inch of armor plate at 100 yards. According to the Players Manual, at 50 meters, the best that is can do is 7.5 mm or 0.3 inches.

A 13mm hunting rifle can no longer penetrate Cloth after 50 meters? Again, has anyone ever looked at a ballistic table for a large caliber, say .45 inch/11.5mm rifle, and checked velocity loss?

A heavy machine gun, presumably of 0.50 inch caliber, according to the Player Manual has a maximum penetration at 50 meters of 15mm of armor, and then beyond that is halved to 7.5mm? The US World War 2 0.50 inch AP round could penetrate 1.1 inches or 28mm of armor at 200 yards, and still penetrate 0.5 inch or 12.7mm of armor at 1,000 yards. Modern ammo will do better. But per the manual, someone in Cloth Armor can just about laugh at it?

Just about every armor penetration formula that I know of uses velocity squared for penetration. What the Players Manual is saying is that a projective from a high-powered rifle is going to loose 30% of its velocity in the first 50 meters of travel. That is most definitely NOT the case.

Yeah, some of it gets pretty absurd - TL8 Light Assault Guns that don't have the power of your grandfather's elephant gun being a prime example. The historical .50 cal was a deadly beast; the Trav .50's a comparative wimp, just able to punch through 15mm. A lot of Trav rifles and even pistols are underpowered. And, yes, cloth is overpowered.

A lot of Traveller ends up being a weird mix of things that people clearly put a lot of research into and things that they appeared to snatch out of the air with little research. A fair chunk of this falls into that latter category - no worse perhaps than ships in space being difficult to detect despite putting out as much power as a small city. Unfortunately, more players are knowledgeable about weapons than about physics, so these bits of weirdness tend to stick out. Our choices, as with many Traveller oddities, boil down to holding our noses and playing through or coming up with our own IMTU adaptions to correct the more egregious errors.

 

[Timerover51]

Yeah, some of it gets pretty absurd - TL8 Light Assault Guns that don't have the power of your grandfather's elephant gun being a prime example. The historical .50 cal was a deadly beast; the Trav .50's a comparative wimp, just able to punch through 15mm. A lot of Trav rifles and even pistols are underpowered. And, yes, cloth is overpowered.

A lot of Traveller ends up being a weird mix of things that people clearly put a lot of research into and things that they appeared to snatch out of the air with little research. A fair chunk of this falls into that latter category - no worse perhaps than ships in space being difficult to detect despite putting out as much power as a small city. Unfortunately, more players are knowledgeable about weapons than about physics, so these bits of weirdness tend to stick out. Our choices, as with many Traveller oddities, boil down to holding our noses and playing through or coming up with our own IMTU adaptions to correct the more egregious errors.

I am seriously thinking about putting out a hard data book for the guys interested in what weapons actually do.

 

[Carlobrand]

I am seriously thinking about putting out a hard data book for the guys interested in what weapons actually do.

That would be awesome.

 

[DangerousThing]

I am seriously thinking about putting out a hard data book for the guys interested in what weapons actually do.

Please do.

 

[Timerover51]

Please do.

That would be awesome.

I have sent off a message to Robject on the subject, and I will see what happens. What I am thinking about is extracting a lot of data from my weapons effects library, also with data on Real World ships and aircraft, along with historical weapons going back a ways, like early gunpowder, and adding some of my manning data as well. Basically a source book that just about any gamer could use in one way or another, and then have each Real World data block adapt to Traveller.