RE: [DS3] Dirtside Accelerator for Infantry

CS Renegade wrote:

> >That was Jon's first draft. It has undergone a few rounds of
> >development since, eg. this one:
>
> > <http://lists.firedrake.org/gzg/200110/msg00036.html>
>
>Thanks for the update, Oerjan. Everyone please disregard my
>original posting; I now have to read the latest version...
>
>Why is the proposed HEAT class restricted to missiles?
>Given the relative figures surely HVC should fire HEAT rounds at long
range?

Not if they want to hit moving targets at long range...

> >>[on the multiplied die concept] I'm having difficulty losing my
> >>"weapon X beats armour x" >> & "armour X is proof against weapon x"
> >>wargamer's mentality, where X > x.
>
> > Hm? The *accelerator* allows armour X to be proof against weapon x
and
> > vice versa (for large enough values of X and small enough values of
x);
> > the *chits* don't (thanks to those "0" and "BOOM" chits).  Why do
you
> > have to lose this particular mentality when you change *from* the
chits
> > *to* the accelerator...?
>
>I think our problems centred around large-die low-calibre weapons
against
>strong armour that had the misfortune to roll low. It just didn't seem 
>right somehow, so I ran some test cases and discovered that the chances

>worrying me were fairly low - for example 1xD10 vs 3xD8 has a 15%
chance 
>of success whereas 2xD10 vs 4xD8 has a 25% chance of success, but would
be 
>expected to be more lethal anyway. Under the chit system the worst a
>single chit could do would be to damage an armour/3 target, but the
chance 
>of two chits knocking out armour/3 rises to 28%.

Question: why are you comparing Size/2 weapons vs. Armour/*4* in the 
Accelerator against Size/2 weapons vs. Armour/*3* under the chits...?

>I realise I'm being blind to the possibility of a special chit here,
which 
>may go some way to explaining my original reaction.

Bingo :-/ With 16% of the chits being specials, the odds for drawing one
or 
more are fairly high.

Also, if you remove the "damage" results (including the specials) you'll

need to replace them with something - otherwise you reduce the overall 
lethality of the weapons. When updating the Accelerator I choose to
treat 
the "double damage" results (ie. DAM+MOB, MOB+SD:T and SD:T+DAM) and 
"triple damage" (DAM+MOB+SD:T) as "destroyed" - at best such vehicles
can 
fire at a DOWN1 FCS modifier but not move, or can move at half speed but

not fire - either way they're pretty much out of the fight - and to
treat 
"single damage" (DAM, MOB or SD:T) results as "worth" half a kill. Let's

see how your examples look when evaluated in this way:

D10 corresponds to "R&Y" validity, so the chit equivalent of 1xD10 vs
3xD8 
would give 4% chance of a BOOM plus 23% chance of some sort of damage 
(including the SD:T and MOB). With the above rule of thumb I valued 4%
kill 
+ 23% damage to be similar to (4+23/2)% kills = 15.5%; the Accelerator 
gives 15% of a kill + 6% damage for a "total" of 18% (15+6/2) - a little

high, but not too far out.

Two "R&Y" chits vs. Armour/3 gives a 27% chance of destroying the target

(either by drawing enough valid numerical chits or by BOOMs) and 32% of 
damaging it, for a "total" of 27+32/2 = 43. The Accelerator gives a 38% 
Pkill and 3% Pdamage, for a "total" of 38+3/2 = 39.5; a little low this 
time but still in the right ballpark.

Two "R&Y" chits vs. Armour/4 gives a 14% chance of destroying the target

(either by drawing enough valid numerical chits or by BOOMs) and 28% of 
damaging it, for a "total" of 14+28/2 = 28%; the Accelerator gives 25% 
Pkill and 5% Pdamage for a "total" of 25+5/2 = 27.5%, and so on.

> >> Am I correct in thinking that single opposed dice give a flatter
> >> distribution than drawing N chits against a fixed target total,
> >> when N > 2?
>
> > Yes. This is why most "simple" DS-FMA systems (the ones that try to
> > map weapon sizes/armour ratings directly to particular unmodified
die
> > types) tend to make all weapons very similar to each other,
>
><boggle> that wouldn't have enough range to handle DS properly...

Yet lots of people have tried...

> > and why the Accelerator concept *doesn't* use just "single opposed
> > dice" but "single opposed dice multiplied by the armour rating or
> > weapon size" - the multiplication gets you away from those narrow
> > distributions.
>
>But the distributions are still flat

Sounds like you have a different definition of "flat" than I do, then.
If 
you plot the Pkill and Pdamage for the various combinations of validity
and 
weapon Size against target armour rating, the Accelerator gives curves
that 
look quite similar to the ones you get from the chits - in fact, in many

cases they're *more* curved than the chit ones.

> >Weapon:\Target:     Militia	       Line	       PA
> >Militia/Line/APFC   53/36/22/10     28/16/07/02     11/06/03/01
> >PA/APSW	       79/58/37/16     60/37/18/05     38/21/09/02
> >HEL etc.:		   10		   2		   1
> >DFFG:		   37		   18		   9
> >SLAM/3:		   16		   5		   2
> >SLAM/4:		   22		   9		   4
> >SLAM/5:		   29		   13		   7
>
>There appears to be something I'm not aware of regards chit validity
when
>shooting at infantry - these aren't the figures I would expect at all.
>For example SLAM vs infantry (I thought I'd discovered what SLAM was
good
>for) DS2, pg 36, col 1, final paragraph extending over next column, 
>paraphrased as "draws chits equal to class, valid as per infantry 
>fire-fight". Has there been a correction published?

No, it doesn't extend to over the next column. The bit at the top of the

right-hand column is a separate paragraph which applies to "all the
above 
cases", not just to SLAMs; and it has indeed been corrected: the
validity 
bit on p.36 directly contradicts the validity table on p.29, and when
asked 
about it Mike Elliott (one of the DS2 authors) stated that p.29 was
correct 
and p.36 was wrong.

> > "direct translation" system:
>
> > I couldn't see anything about increasing firepower in Close Assaults
>
>I must make a confession regards Close Assaults. I have basically
ignored
>this area of the rules because in the all the games of DS2 I've played,
>they never happen!

Not that surprising if you allow heavy weapons to fire at them with R&Y 
validity, mind you :-/

>Although I frequently arrange for both sides to field
>infantry, they generally stay in the transports and are never effective
>unless they can get to a worthwhile objective (such as a built-up area)
>before the enemy appear. APCs are seen as big, fat, undergunned
targets.

Sounds as if you need to use a lot more terrain! Infantry doesn't like 
wide-open plains; but if you play with terrain densities like those of 
northern Europe (where you're lucky to have a LOS of more than 1 mile,
and 
the average LOS is IIRC about half that) they're a lot more useful.

> > Below "alternative infantry" system:
>
>Regards my "alternative" figures, I nearly didn't post them as they
were
>completely untried and and did represent a departure from the
technology
>laid out by the quoted pages; for example, all MDCs are described as
>small-calibre rapid-fire weapons whereas I envision the larger class
guns
>throwing projectiles no smaller than those fired by comparable HVCs.

The projectiles fired by HVCs at vehicles are sub-calibre KE rounds with

large sabots, and the main reason the guns themselves are large-calibre
is 
that the gas pressure needs as big as possible an area to push against
to 
maximize the force on the projectile. With no gas pressure to worry
about, 
the MDCs can fire the same size of KE projectiles from a much 
smaller-calibre barrel - an MDC barrel designed to fire today's "120mm"
KE 
rounds (fired from the HVC's 120mm ancestors) would need to be a little 
over 1" in diameter, plus slits in the barrel walls for the fins.

(Note that DS2's description of HKPs is complete bunk - the weapons 
described by that blurb would find it extremely difficult to get up to
even 
HVC performance...)

>Possibly I'm just prejudiced by the number of models available in the 
>market with large-calibre guns looking for a role,

How do you know they're large-*calibre*? Calibre only refers to the
*inner* 
diameter of the barrel, and whereas a HVC barrel is essentially just a 
steel tube the MDC barrel is lined with a lot of equipment - magnets, 
electrical circuits, cooling gear etc. - which is likely to make it much

thicker (ie., with a larger *outer* diameter) than a HVC or RFAC of the 
same calibre.

>and I'm certainly not sticking HVC on a hovertank.

Because of the recoil? Then you shouldn't put big MDCs on them either - 
MDCs throw similarly-sized projectiles at significantly higher
velocities, 
so their recoil is even worse than the HVCs'...

>Although I didn't factor it in, I'd also favour replacing the current
>DFFG dynamic with one nearer to Drake's powerguns. Let's face it, even
>the name DFFG is a misnomer; what we really have is a rather soggy
plasma
>cannon which my group for one has forsworn ever to use again.

You really, *really* need to play with more terrain on the table.

> > Note that since each shot can potentially kill multiple targets...
>
>I recollect one of the innumerable "low vs high technology" threads
where
>there was a need to put down swarms of low-technology "militia" before
>they overran the high-technology forces. Logically, this is what APSWs
>were originally designed to do, but they need to be able to eliminate
>multiple stands in the time available.

Nope. In this situation you need to buy more APSWs, not to make the few 
APSWs you already have über-powerful; there's a reason why vehicles in 
Vietnam and Palestine tended to have up to one MG per crew member other 
than the driver (and in a few extreme cases even he got one).

> >I'm a bit confused by the distinction between "cannister" and
> >"flechette" here - today at least flechettes are usually used just in
> >cannister ("beehive") rounds.
>
>I was under the vague impression that a cannister round flew its fused
>distance then went bang, showering the immediate area downrange with
>irregular-shaped fragments moving at the cannister's velocity, whereas
>a flechette was a sabot round with multiple darts spreading from the
>muzzle in a fairly tight pattern,

There are two types of cannister (or "area-defence munitions", or any
other 
of a number of less meat-grinder-sounding names) - those which are 
essentially gigantic shotgun rounds and burst immediately after leaving
the 
muzzle, and those which are burst open by a small bursting charge at a 
gunner-selected distance down-range; but both of them can contain either

flechettes, relatively large "grapeshot" (usually spheres or cubes made
of 
some heavy metal like tungsten) or a mix of the two. Irregular-shaped 
fragments are far more likely to come from standard HE shells.

>A flechette dart wouldn't tumble

They don't *tumble* much (except the first flip-over for the ~50% of the

flechettes which are packed backwards in the round, both to use the 
available space more efficiently and to help disperse the swarm once the

round bursts), but they *yaw* quite a lot which has similar effects.

>and would therefore strike the target with greater penetration,

Against soft armour (fabric), yes - often so much greater that it passes

straight through leaving only a very narrow wound channel. (Still no fun

when you're hit by a lot of them at once, of course!) Hard armour (metal
or 
ceramic plates) is very good at stopping flechettes though, so PA would
be 
essentially invulnerable to flechettes and many Line troops (eg. NSL 
Armoured Infantry) would be mostly able to ignore them too.

>but there would be less chance of being struck by one because of the 
>smaller number and the closer grouping.

There's not much difference between flechettes and "grapeshot" (can't 
remember the English term for them at the moment :-( ) either in numbers

packed into a round or in dispersal. The flechettes go a bit further
before 
slowing down to much to do damage against unprotected targets, but OTOH 
they're easier to defeat with armour or hard cover and don't inflict as 
nasty wounds as the "grapeshot" do.

>I'm all in favour of giving powered armour a choice of weapons (spot
>the Heavy Gear fan) so "AP" power armour would have a low-calibre
weapon
>with a high cyclic rate for dealing with unarmoured infantry. A more
>typical PA would focus on knocking out vehicles or other powered
armour.

DS2 PA already *has* a choice of weapons: Basic "rifles" (what you call 
"AP") drawing 3 chits in firefights and Close Assaults, GMS/L (focussing
on 
knocking out vehicles but not much use against other PA), LAD 
(air-defence), and APSWs (heavier AP, increases their range to 12mu).
The 
only infantry specialist type they can't really use is Assault, and
that's 
only because Assault infantry are defined as drawing "3 chits" in Close 
Assaults rather than "1 chit more than the corresponding Rifle type"...

> >.. HELs and RFAC/2s firing at infantry in cover... end up with zero
> >dice if the target has any cover at all!
>
>I didn't mind knocking HEL & RFAC/2 down to zero effect as I couldn't
>really see them doing recon-by-fire, which is what shooting at infantry
>in soft cover can degenerate into.

HEL can fire effectively unlimited numbers of shots, which is exactly
what 
you want for recon-by-fire. RFAC/2 are more limited since they use ammo,

but OTOH their HE rounds have a considerably larger lethal radius than
the 
RFAC/1 rounds do so they don't *need* as much ammo to saturate the same
area.

> >>if some of the chances I propose seem a bit strange it's because
I've
> >>assumed that anything larger than RFAC-2 is mainly effective through
> >>blast or equivalent effect rather than a direct hit.
>
> >...whereas RFAC/1 is effective mainly through rate of fire, and the
> >RFAC/2 isn't effective at all if the target is in any kind of cover?
>
>Precisely. Rereading pg 8 I can see that I had mentally dropped 10mm
>from the calibres.

Re-read that page again - DS2 doesn't really *have* any category for 
10-15mm propellant-powered weapons. They're nominally included among the

APSWs, but they really should be more powerful than that - I prefer to 
treat them as "Size/0.5" weapons, but that's very much a house rule.

>I was reckoning 25-30mm to be too slow to be really effective against
infantry

25-30mm cannon can have rates of fire of several hundred rounds per
minute 
(that's where the "RF" in "RFAC" comes from!), and are large enough to
fire 
moderately powerful HE shells. Such cannon are *extremely* effective 
against infantry in the open or soft cover for as long as their ammo
lasts :-/

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry