From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2002 15:51:09 -0400
Subject: [SG] Another pass through heavy weapons
Let's briefly think about what weapons there are, and how effective they would be against infantry and point targets. We have the HEL. Now, how does it gain its effect? One big powerful blast? Good for armour penetration, not so good for getting hits on infantry. Accuracy would go up with more shots, but it is a speed of light weapon, so you aren't gonna miss often with that one shot. (Note that HEL in DS are phenomenally more accurate than other weapons at any significant range....). Can the weapon be switched to a low-power-per-pulse, rapid-pulse mode for engagement of infantry? Or is this just a distinction between the HEL/1 and HEL/2-5? Then we have HVC. You've got everything from the 57mm AT gun, the 76mm LPG, to the 130 mm Smoothbore, etc. covered here. Some of these have good HE rounds. Some have (gasp) Cannister. Cannister from a HVC/4 ought to be a real bad day (or Flechette) for infantry. As might various submunition carrying rounds or something like a huge ass Dragonsbreath round. Then we have the HKP. Don't see much of an anti-infantry option for this weapon. Seems to be a dedicated armour killer. If you get a contact hit on an infantry walker or PA (or god forbid, a poor soldier doggie) then they're gonna be goo. But it isn't a good anti-infantry weapon. Then we have the RFAC. This covers the slower firing anti-armour chain guns, the faster firing multi barrel gatling cannons, etc. So we have some that are anti-armour weapons (slower RoF) and some that are anti-air or anti-infantry weapons or even PDS weapons (I remember seeing a PIVAD firing on infantry and vehicle cutouts in training.... and I recall thinking "Note to self, never attack an ADA unit"). But even the slower firing versions probably have fragmenting rounds. And the ROF on the gatlings is gonna be enough that they don't even need fragmentation. They're gonna kill what they get solid hits on, soldierwise. We have the SLAM, but that is best considered as artillery. We have the MDC. Small version are like big gauss SAWs. (Traveller VRF Gauss Gun). Very very very bad for infantry, I'd think. Probably the best anti-infantry weapon out there. Larger versions can be viewed as firing large projectiles slower or more smaller ones faster. But I'm betting you could load them with some type of explosive or cannister round if they were big enough. So they strike me as deadly to infantry in any size. Then we have the DFFG. The "sun gun". Assuming that when this thing hits, there is a fusion reaction, probably that means that it vaporizes stuff. Land one in the middle of an infantry squad and its crispy critter city. The small DFFG/1 would be deployed (as on the NAC Phalanx) in a tribarrell rapid-fire version and would make up for smaller radius effects by rapid fire. Again, a very deadly weapon against infantry. GMS? People always want to use these against infantry and I don't see why it isn't possible. Just give the infantry D4 ECM. And treat the weapon as having D12 impact (for GMS/P). Not terribly effective, but it might kill someone and it will probably place a suppression. Waste of missiles if armour shows up later, though. APSW and HMG - not quite an RFAC. RFAC one is supposed to be 20-30mm. These are 10- 20mm weapons (if HMG) or 30-40mm GLs. They can execute autofire and have a variety of ammunition available, including possibly AP, HE, incendiary, and in the case of the GLs, HEDP, cannister, and lots of other loads. These aren't going to make infantry very happy. I think what we can see here is that most vehicle weapons should have an effective anti infantry attack mode. I think the least effectual would be the HKP and the GMS. The question then becomes how to make these weapons appropriately potent. And in doing so, what would the implications be? What balance would need to exist for the vehicles to not dominate the board? (I can supply some guesses: Appropriately strong anti-vehicle weapons, spotting (infantry often live by being below the radar of more obnoxious unit types), and a bias to be more concerned about other vehicular threats). I think this is an interesting discussion. I'm not suggesting "official" changes to things, I'm just trying to create an IMU solution that will make a vehicle feel a little more like a threat to the "insects" (infantry).;)