Re: Well, too interesting to drop all of the posts in this thread...

Tony Francis wrote:

>Why not stick with the current idea (vehicle is designed with a single 
>armour value) but change the way that side and rear armour is derived
to 
>reflect current design trends ? Instead of side armour being (main
armour 
>- 1), just say that vehicles with front armour 4 or 5 have side armour
of 
>2 and rear of 1, vehicles with front armour of 1-3 have side and rear
of 1.

Because the current MBT armour trend with massive frontal armour and
weak 
sides/rear is by no means universal; it is only *one* of several
different 
real-world examples where the DS2 armour distributions are
inappropriate. 
Changing the DS2 rule to cover one of these examples means that it still

won't cover any of the others.

Examples of existing armour distributions are:

- MBTs: Main (expected) threat is long-range tank gun fire, so *very*
heavy 
frontal armour, much weaker sides/rear/top/bottom. DS2 can't handle
these; 
your (Tony's) suggestion can (since it is explicitly designed to handle
them).

- Vehicles designed specifically for FIBUA: Main threat is short-range
RPG 
fire which can come from just about any direction, so armour is heavy
but 
fairly evenly distributed. DS2's armour rules *can* handle at least some
of 
these reasonably well; Tony's can't.

- APCs, SPGs: Main threats are artillery, small arms and infantry
support 
weapons; again these can come from just about any direction. DS2's and 
Tony's armour rules can cover *some* of these (ie. the ones which are
only 
small-arms proof in the sides and rear), but can't really cover those
which 
are HMG-proof all around but don't have any significantly stronger front

armour (in DS2 terms armour/2 on front, sides and rear).

- Any vehicle designed with enhanced protection against mines: the
vehicle 
*bottom* is reinforced, sometimes at the expense of the front/side/rear 
armour. Neither DS2 nor Tony's rules can handle these unless you add 
special rules.

- Any vehicle designed with an eye towards surviving top-attack weapons:

the vehicle *roof* is reinforced, sometimes at the expense of the 
front/side/rear armour. Neither DS2 nor Tony's rules can handle these 
unless you add special rules.

In other words, real-world armour distributions do not fit into one
single 
rigid scheme - which means that any attempt to use a single rigid scheme
to 
describe them, like DS2 does, will fail for some of them. The more
rigid, 
the more vehicles it won't cover. If not even *today's* vehicles can fit

into one such rigid scheme, I'd be very surprised if all future vehicles
in 
all player-imagined futures would do it! (Binhan and KH have both given 
good examples to the contrary already, too :-) )

Of course you could add special rules for "mine protection", "evenly 
distributed armour" or "reinforced roofs" to DS2's or Tony's rules - but

then you lose the entire point of having a rigidly described armour
scheme 
in the first place, ie. making it easier to remember what armour the 
relevant side of the vehicle has; it'd be simpler to allow the different

faces to be armoured independently from the start instead of allowing it

subsequently by means of a bunch of special rules :-/

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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