Primitive cannon & artillery

[archhealer]

In the THB and in Against Gravity, cannon and artillery, as well as mortars, are listed as minimum TL 5. My question becomes, what of primitive cannon? TL3 or 4, at most, I'm thinking.

Now, that's the easy part. How about modifying the stats in Against Gravity to reflect a lower TL? Lowering the rate of fire is a given, as they were muzzle loaded, and packed with powder, wadding, ball or shot, etc.

I'm also wondering if I shold make them larger, spacewise, for the same size round/damage, etc. Also if I should shorten the range. I don't know nearly enough about this stuff.

I'm doing all this to build a galleon, complete with cannon, sails, built of wood, etc. Probably TL4ish.

 

[princelian]

Don't forget (with my house rules for primitive cannon in parentheses):

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• Considerable chance of misfire or barrel rupture. (TL4: Misfire on natural 1, second roll to confirm; if miss by 5 or more it's a critical misfire. TL3: Misfire on natural 1, threatens a critical misfire; roll again, if a miss, then critical misfire. Critical misfires could be slow-cooking in the barrel (dangerous for the crew), backblast, or damage to the weapon.)</font>
• Considerable inaccuracy. (TL4 cannon -2 attack bonus; TL3 cannon -4 attack bonus.)</font>
• Powder was highly variable in effectiveness. (This is subsumed into misfire and inaccuracy.)</font>

At TL3 you're probably safer, and possibly more accurate, using catapults, trebuchet, and ballistae.

 

[Whipsnade]

Archhealer,

Another thing to consider is whether the TL4 cannon are 'pure' TL4 artifacts.

Have they been made by people with only TL4 knowledge? Or have they been made by people with TL7 or 8 knowledge working with TL4 materials and techniques?

You can work some wonders in 'back step'technology. I often cite the TL0 refridgerator as an example. It's just two clay pots, some sand, and water but you need TL5 or 6 thermodynamics to know it's possible despite being manufactured with TL0 materials and techniques.


Have fun,
Bill

 

[Chaos]

Slightly OT, maybe... for a very good look of using higher TL knowledge to build lower TL weapons take a look at the novel "1632" and "1633" (available for free download from the Library at www.baen.com). Basically a US town from around 2000 AD gets deposited in Central Germany in the middle of the Thirty Years War. Very good reading, and lots of things to pilfer for low-tech Traveller stuff.


Archhealer:
You should also consider giving damage penalties for increasing range... those projectiles had a very muzzle low velocity and thus didn´t do too much damage at long ranges. I´d suggest using the same rules as for the PGMP/FGMP. Maybe increase the to-hit penalty per range increment to -3 or even -4, too.
Make rate of fire *very* low. At the times of TL3, very experienced gunnery crews could get a rate of fire of many 8 or 10 shots PER HOUR.

TL 3 guns, at least, aren´t really a decisive factor in battle; mostly they are just used to "soften up" the enemy in preparation for boarding.

 

[archhealer]

All great points! The situation I have in mind is a low-tech, developing balkanized world, so basicaly, true TL4 society (Some of the nations are TL3). The planet does have a starport, and trade for higher tech supplies occasionally occurs, but usually the planet is trading food stuff and livestock and natural materials (Wood, leather, fur, textiles) for medical supplies and the like. The Duke of that particular area has decreed that no weapons or millitary tech be traded to the natives until such time as a single nation comes out on top, as he doesn't approve of the civil war but the planet is not part of the Colonial Imperium (IMTU, Colonial Imperium is isolated from the Imperium and works very different), and therefore he doesn't want to get involved himself.

So, I need to build up a strong navy (Hydrographics 8) presence for the various countries, as well as infantry and artillery. The infantry is the easy part.

 

[archhealer]

These are the modifications I have come up with to cover lower tech artillery/cannon. They assume that the pieces are manufactured at 'true' TL 3 or 4, with the knowledge and processes typical to those TLs.

Artillery/Mortar: Using any listed piece in either the THB or the various TAS supplements, make the following modifications:

TL4
Range: Decrease range by 1/2
Rate of fire: Reduce by 1/2
Size: Increase by 10%
Attack: All attacks suffer a -2 due to the innate innacuracies of this type of weapon.
Damage: reduce damage by 1/2 at 4-5 range bands, and 3/4 at 6+ range bands.
Misfires: On any natural roll of 1 or 2 which misses and confirms as a critical failure, results in a misfire. Misfires consist of anything from failure to fire, to violent explosions, causing severe damage to the gunnery crew and possibly the vessel itself.

TL3
Range: Reduce by 3/4
Rate of fire: reduce by 3/4
Size: Increase by 25%
Attack: All attacks suffer a -3 due to the inherent innacuracies of these weapons.
Damage: Apply same damage penalties as the TL4 cannon.
Misfires: Critical misfires which miss and confirm as a critical failure cause a misfire, on a natural role of 1, 2, or 3.

These are just my current ideas, I haven't tested these yet. They may be too harsh. I'm unsure.

 

[tjoneslo]

I disagree with some of these suggestions. Here are my modifications:

At TL3 any cannon must use the indirect fire rules. The cannon can not be aimed fast/well enough to be used in direct fire role. But the suffer no inherent penalty beyond this. In TA6, all the artillery pieces are Vehicle Scale weapons (+5 dice against people). At TL3 you can not build personal scale guns. The cannon do not reduce damage at range, but do less damage to begin with (damage dice are d6) and there is no burst effect. Range is reduced 1/2. Rate of fire for artillery is listed as 1 shot per n rounds (where n varies between 1 and 10). At TL 3 multiply n by the number of dice of the weapon. (e.g. a TL3 75mm cannon fires once every two rounds times 5 dice or once every 10 rounds).

At TL4, the restriction against building personal scale cannon is removed, as is the requirement to use indirect fire only. TL4 weapns have full range of the TL5 weapons. In most cases vehicle scale weapons can not be mounted on mounts capable of tracking targets well enough to be used in this role and should be limited to indirect fire only. Damage done by the TL4 cannon is d10. TL 4 continues the penalty for rate of fire.

TL5+ gets the bonus for ROF due to several changes in the weapons, including but not limited to: Breechloading weapons, smokeless powder (no more cleaning the weapon between each shot), packaging of the shell and powder, ability to use mechanical assist in shell and powder handling.

 

[archhealer]

Hmm. I like most of that. The one place I'm not sure of is the indirect fire; for example, on sailing ships (Which is where i"m using them) most of the attacks I would consider fixed-mount, and in a broadside attack, they more or less just have to be pointed in the right general direction to hit. Neither target is moving particularly fast.

 

[tjoneslo]

I would use the indirect fire rules because the gunner has no direct control over the weapon. Their dexterity (or strength) bonus do not apply. The skill used is an observation skill: Forward Observer. I would let the guns down the side of the ship count as 1 weapon, that is each one firing gets a -2DC to the Forward Observer check to see if it hits the target. And a close range, the miss of the shot may hit the ship anyway.

 

[Chaos]

Since (IIRC) broadside cannons can´t traverse all that much, if at all, I´d treat them as fixed weapons, using the rules for cupolas in the vehicle design sequence.

Gunnery skill doesn´t have much effect on accuracy, but should give bonuses on rate of fire, and on the rolls to confirm critical failures which were previously suggested (experienced crews are less likely to mishandle gunpowder and fire).

 

[fredofmars]

One source of information that may be helpful is an article in Challenge 61 called "Wood and Wind, Steel and Steam" that starts on page 26. This is aimed at the MT ruleset, but you could at least get ideas from it.

Another article of possible use is in Challenge 74 in an article called "Black Powder Firearm Design" that starts on page 22. This is aimed at the TNE ruleset.

 

[archhealer]

Originally posted by Chaos:
*Snip*
Gunnery skill doesn´t have much effect on accuracy, but should give bonuses on rate of fire, and on the rolls to confirm critical failures which were previously suggested (experienced crews are less likely to mishandle gunpowder and fire).

I like that idea. It works well with how I confirm critical failures/successes anyhow

 

[princelian]

Having been at sea as well as managing science operations aboard a research vessel, I am forced to disagree with some of you on gunnery skill not being an issue for the relatively fixed batteries aboard a sailing ship.

A ship at sea has six degrees of freedom on its motion - it is moving up, down, left, right, forward, and back (positive and negative motion on the three axes) and can rotate along those axes. (We see this on our ship in the difficulty in weighing samples on analytical balances. We have a solution; it works, but it's not just "put the sample on the zeroed (tared) balance and wait a few seconds for the reading to stabilize" you have in a shore laboratory.)

Anyhow, the gunner must time his shot precisely once the order to fire is given, or the shot will go high/low/left/right, and in general, miss. Does he have the fine control a WWII-era German artillery emplacement has? No, and that's represented in the TL-based DC and range modifiers proposed earlier.

His timing has to be VERY careful, because there's a fuse, which if it's damp might burn at a different rate, and the powder itself doesn't burn near-instantaneously like modern naval guns, but instead there's a delay between firing the powder and when the ball/shell actually comes OUT.

To sum up: the skill of the crew is still a factor, even in the fixed emplacements aboard a sailing vessel.

 

[archhealer]

Yeah, that's what I was thinking. Yes, the pilot/navigator/driver/captain has to point the guns in the right general direction, which would be a pilot/Sailcraft skill check, and then the gunners would have to do the actual firing.

Like a fixed mount or cupola on any other vehicle; the driver points it in the right direction, but it's still a gunnery check (Unless the target is actually unseen, of course)

As a side note, when using ships cannon to bombard shore emplacements and such, a forward observer using a telescope and/or similiar apparatus would of course use the Forward Observer skill to direct the gunners.

 

[mike wightman]

I'd use the direct fire rules too - back in the age of sail the Royal Navy practiced gunnery, including aiming at targets - but give the cannon a pretty poor range increment and a hefty penalty to hit a moving target.

 

[parmasson]

Grapeshot, or chainshot. . . . Ooooo that's gonna hurt!

 

[archhealer]

Heh heh heh. Yeah, I'm toying with how to do damage to infantry when using grapeshot, also. Filling the barrels with gravel and such was a timehonored tradition, as well.

I don't think I'll bother with the damage done by cheese rounds. I'm not kidding! The French Navy actually did it, and won the engagement, because both sides were pretty mcuh out of ammo by that time.

But yeah. I'm thinking of just taking the shotgun rules for shot, and making it vehicle damage, changing the area of effect a touch, and leaving it as is. Actually, maybe not even make it vehicle damage; just increase the damage abit. It was, after all, meant for use vs. ships crews, rather than the ship itself.