Re: SG2 questions, mostly shooting from vehicles

Bell, Brian K wrote:

>>>Why wouldn't a HVC load anti infantry rounds? 
>> 
>> And fire with a burst radius as per artillery? Good question.
>>Because...  the rules don't mention it? You could use this as a
>>scenario based rule, or a house rule.

Um... isn't this exactly what the "Heavy Weapons Fire Against Infantry"
rule (SGII p.40) is saying?

"For IMPACT, trat the fire as though it was from a GPE artillery round,
... - thus a D8 is rolled against the Armour of whichever troops take
the potential hits."

Is there a restriction on which types of heavy weapons can fire at
infantry somewhere? I can't find any, but then I'm not exactly known
for being able to find rules in the SGII book :-/
 
'Course, you could argue that GPE is too weak an impact for a beehive
round or similar, but at least the basic mechanic is there.

>[Bri] HVCs are just what their name implies. A high velocity anti-tank
>round that relies on kinetic energy as much as explosives to inflict
>damage. It was the precursor of the HKP. It should work well against
>emplacements.

HVCs are "the final development of the conventional high-velocity tank
gun". Today's large-calibre high-pressure tank guns are quite capable
to fire anti-infantry rounds from their main guns, eg. bee-hives
(flechette rounds) for point-blank fighting and HE for longer ranges. 

Not all of today's armies have developed/bought HE ammo for their
tanks, but there's no technical reason why the tanks couldn't fire such
ammo if it were available.

>>>Why would a MDC be a bad anti infantry weapon? If the shell is of
>>>any size at all, the kinetic energy released upon impact of the
>>>ground near an infantry squad is going to be big enough to blow
>>>them so far in the afterlife they'd just be scratching their asses
>>>and wondering what happened. 

I don't think MDCs don't fire shell, only shot - effectively an MDC
shooting at infantry is a very large-calibre machinegun. At least I'd
be rather wary of exposing high explosives and their ignition systems
to the EM fields present inside an MDC barrel if I thought the ROF was
high enough to do without explosives <g>

In the demos I've seen, long-rod penetrators don't make much of a fuss
when they hit the ground. Nowhere near as much as a 120mm HE shell,
anyway :-/

>[Bri] DS2 states "All MDCs are very small calibre weapons with a very
>high rate of fire, using solid slugs propelled at incredibly high
>velocities." (p.8)  What is "very small calibre"? 

Probably about 1.5" for an MDC/5, down to maybe 0.4" or so for an MDC/2
and even less for an MDC/1.

>You may apply whatever PSB you like. They may throw slivers no >larger
than a needle, using the kinetic energy focused on an extremely >small
point to penetrate armor.

Unfortunately armour penetration isn't as simple as increasing the
kinetic energy :-( Slivers as small as needles simply don't have enough
material to do more than damage the outer layer of a
composite armour, even if you can give them the structural integrity
they need to not burn up during the flight or shatter on impact.

>Or they could be 50 calibre rounds fired at many times the speed of
>sound.

This is far more likely, at least for smaller MDCs. "Many" in this case
may well be 20+.

>Perhaps even larger (but then you run into the problem of ammo
>storage, as it also states that they have a "very high rate of fire").

If the calibre is 1.5" (MDC/5), each anti-tank round is a cylinder
about 1.5" in diameter and 3-4' long (the longer the better, but you
run into problems with structural integrity sooner or later). You can
carry quite a few of those in a small space - a couple hundred or so in
the space required to carry 40 of today's 120mm tank rounds (a fairly
normal loadout for modern MBTs). 

If you design your gun well it can use much shorter rounds (which take
much less space in the magazine) against infantry and other soft
targets; you could easily carry a couple thousand such shots.

>I would imagine that the Higher class size is due not to a larger
>projectile, but to increased velocity and faster rate of fire (i.e.
>more powerful/quicker cycling magnetic projector).

Increased velocity only gives better penetration up to a threshold 
(for
today's APFSDS rounds this is somewhere around 2200 m/s, but IIRC it
depends on the L/D ratio and mass of the penetrator. It's a rather
non-linear relationship even for simple armour materials like
homogenous steel :-( ). After this point you need a bigger projectile
if you want significantly increased penetration. Higher velocity always
means longer range and better accuracy though.

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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