Re: DSII for the 2020s

In message <199912040132.CAA02891@d1o29.telia.com> "Oerjan Ohlson"
writes:
> David Brewer wrote:
[swathes of snipping]
> > > > Old Dirtside only had one, the mass driver cannon (as well as a
> > > > HEAT ammo rocket-assisted gun and the familiar DFFG and HEL).
> > > 
> > > Modern HVCs are able to fire HEAT, KE of various types (APDS,
> > > APFSDS, etc), HESH (poor vs vehicles, very good against buildings
etc),
> > > HE (ie, anti-personnel frag charges) etc. Restricting them to
> > > rocket-assisted HEAT only seems a bit too restrictive to me :-/
> > 
> > I didn't think of them as HVC-like guns (I no longer have a copy
> > of DS1 for reference) but as low-pressure guns, like the Russian
> > 73mm or 100mm guns used on the BMP-1 and -3 respectively... eg.
> > not a weapon capable of throwing KE penetrators about. 
> 
> The 73mm low-pressure rockets we modified the fuses on for the Swedish
> BMPs were unguided IIRC, but of course that'd work too. However, there
> are several types of guided missiles that are fired from high-pressure
> guns today

Ah, with the digressions (that I've cut out) we're getting
confused. I mean to say that DS1 had a gun, the RAC (?) much like
the unguided rocket-assisted shell fired from the 73mm gun on a
BMP-1.

The whole business of guidance comes in with the SMC from playtest
DS2.

[...]
> > The general lack of anti-personnel ammo is just one of those DS
> > things, I 'spose. Whether a tank-scale railgun is likely to be
> > able to throw a large-calibre HE-frag-type bomb is something I,
> > as yet, don't know.
> 
> Depends on the calibre of the gun. Railguns are unlikely to be very
> large-calibre - they don't need to if their main job is to throw
> long-rods. You can build reasonable HE rounds for 40mm and upwards
> though - just make sure the fuse isn't affected in the wrong way by
the
> electromagnetic fields -  so they should probably be able to fire HE
as
> well.

Sure, but not as big and effective as the HE bombs thrown by a
HVC-type weapon. So instead of having two KE guns with one clearly
superior to the other, we can posulate two KE guns with one
optimised for shooting tanks, the other having more effect against
personnel, this giving us a genuine non-points-cost-based
descision on what to fit in a tank. A more interesting choice.
  
> > > > Playtest Dirtside II had a smart-munition-firing gun, but I
> > > > 'spose that's too similar to a GMS.
> > > 
> > > ...which could be taken to represent the current Russian fashion
of
> > > launching missiles through the main gun of an MBT as well as the
> > > more common approach of carrying a separate missile launcher
somewhere.
> > 
> > Sure, although, again, you don't need an HVC for that. The BMP-3's
> > low-pressure 100mm gun also does this.
> 
> But the HVC can do so many more things than the low-pressure guns. If
> all you want to do is launch GMS and HE the low-pressure gun works
> fine, but it lacks flexibility.

Sure, but for an appreciable saving in size/mass for the same
calibre.

> > > > >   - Flechette rounds:
> > >
> > > Flechettes are 1-2 inches long and up to some mm in diameter;
solid
> > > metal, no explosives, several hundred (in some cases - 152mm
rounds
> > > IIRC - several thousand) in each shell. Think of them as
anti-infantry
> > > long rod penetrators. Nothing like them in DSII at the moment.
> > 
> > Actually, this is what the fluff text for MAK describes... "a
> > cloud of kinetic penetrators".
> 
> No, it isn't. A 2"-long flechette will not penetrate an armoured
> vehicle.

...I didn't say it was *good* fluff text...

[...]
> The current tactical use for flechette rounds is against enemy
infantry
> which has come in among your vehicles... or against enemy infantry
> positions you want to suppress while your battle taxis drive right up
> to the enemy position before the barrage stops and your own assault
infantry
> dismounts.
> 
> EFP warheads (such as those used in the MAK-ish rounds under
> development today) are virtually identical to long rod penetrators
from
> the viewpoint of the target - they inflict damage in exactly the same
> way. The only thing which differs is how the long rod is delivered.
> IOW, EFP subs fit the DSII PSB description of MAK very well.

Well, I disagree... 2 rounds per shell is no "cloud", but it's of
no great importance. It's enough that DS has anti-tank ammo and
anti-personnel ammo. The elegance of DS1's artillery rules was one
of the things that really attracted me to it. There was no pissing
about trying to simulate non-submunition arty or dumb iron bombs,
all arty/bombs were submunition-based just because it made for
much more elegant rules. Now (ten+ years later) it's all coming
true.

> > Wouldn't the KE of the penetrators depend very much on the tube 
> > launching them?
> 
> For anti-tank long rods and some shotgun flechette rounds for close
> defence, yes. For artillery-delivered flechettes and the ADM ammo the
> US Rangers use for the CG RR, the means by which the flechettes are
> expelled from the carrier shell is far more important.
> 
> > meaning a mortar has
> > a lower muzzle velocity than a gun, therefore the flechettes will
> > fall to earth much faster and with (as endless detailed of late)
> > more KE.
> 
> If the mortar has a lower muzzle velocity, the flechettes it delivers
> will fall to the ground *sooner* (or at a shorter range), but they
most
> likely won't go *faster*.

I apologise for mangling my paragraph. I meant to say that,
presumably flechettes dumped out of gun shells will fall faster
than flechettes dumped out of mortar shells, because they go up
faster and further. I see that I was anyway.

(BTW It took me a while to expand CG RR to Carl Gustav Recoiless
Rifle.)

-- 
David Brewer