As far as technology differences and quality, I think the "this A battery is
as good as any other A battery" argument is a little weak. I think the issue
at hand is the current system can't show the small differences and assumes
that the user of the system compensates. I have no problem with that. It
probably saves a lot of die rolling and chart look up. We aren't
interested in the smaller details - we just want to resolve the battle.
Here are a few cases based on a Real Life (tm) experience I have had. On
Independence Day 2 years ago I found myself at a State Police (Massachusetts)
Barracks Firing Range. There I got to play with a wide assortment of toys
(read: guns). My first try was with a raced up.22 cal target gun. It had very
little bang, no kick and I could put the round in
the X-Ring every time. Boring. I didn't even need to change the paper
target because the.22 has no real stopping power and did not really harm the
paper much.
Then I got to use a Russian mass-produced, stamped metal .22 cal. That
thing was dangerous. It was a joke weapon for one of the officers (this guy
had a personal collection of 20-30 guns). It jammed on the third shot.
I was most unimpressed.
Then I got to try a Barretta 9mm with one magazine of American made ammo and 3
magazines of Chinese made ammo. The American ammo (expensive) gave quite a
kick but was manageable and was fairly accurate. I was getting 50% in the kill
ring and 25% on the body with the other 25% either hitting the target stand,
the dirt mound or other targets! The Chinese ammo was another story indeed.
Though it was inexpensive it was not high quality. The powder must have been
burning inconsistently. The kick increased over the course of the clips and I
assume it was because of the barrel getting dirty. My accuracy fell right off.
Finally, something you don't consider until you've done it, I noticed that
with the American ammo the casings were forming a nice pile to my left. The
Chinese stuff was ejecting all over the place! It was really weird. Again, I
assume it was because of inconsistent powder burn. Being the beginning of July
it was fairly hot out and I had an open shirt. For the last magazine I decided
to have fun and punched out all 16 rounds in double time. I felt like I was in
a John Woo movie, that is until two of the hot shells ejected straight up and
then down INTO MY SHIRT!!! Well, trust me, they don't cool down nearly as fast
as you'd hope. There I was dancing around like I had lost my mind, gun waving
about, and the entire line at the firing range dropped to the ground. It was
over in 3 seconds. I eventually put down the gun and untucked my shirt so that
the rounds would drop out. I looked to my left, saw glowering troopers and
said "sorry!" I then looked to my right and saw glowering sergeants and did
the same!
Luckily they all understood once I explained the fact that this didn't happen
with the American rounds. I guess that is one good use for Nationalism. ahem.
Anyway I got to finish the day with a.45 caliber Sig Sauer. It was a massive
and mighty weapon. It doesn't quite fit in your hand. It feels heavier than it
looks and it looks HEAVY. Everything about this gun said "professional." It is
a very fine piece of machinery. I used American made.45 cal. ammo (the
Sergeant insisted...) which costs about $0.60 a round for your basic ball ammo
and significantly more for the Hydroshok and Black Talon rounds. These other
rounds are special in that the first one is a hollow point filled with liquid
Teflon and a penetrator dart. If one doesn't get you the other will.
Apparently it is really good at going through body armor. The second round
breaks open into fangs which do a nasty job on flesh. I was informed that it's
stopping power went down drastically in winter because winter coats could
drastically slow it down. I asked why they needed such violent ammunition and
the straight response I got was "we're not sending Christmas Cards." That made
sense, I figure if I was ever going to pull a weapon on someone it would have
to be because I was convinced they needed to be stopped and I too would want
to maximize my chances.
OK, now onto the.45. It fired like a dream. Though it had substantially more
kick back the gun was always ready to fire when I had it back down on target.
It was incredibly smooth. The larger gun had a lot more built into it such as
better recoil absorption (it was easier to handle than the 9mm) and much
better feel. I don't think I would want to rapid fire it, but I
don't think I needed to. I was able to X-Ring the target 70-90% of the
time and the rounds were clearly tearing up a lot of paper, so much so that I
didn't really need to get the target to count the rounds.
So, in the realm of small arms at least, a lot can vary between the quality of
the weapon, the quality of the ammo, and together those are even more potent.
I would say that the high quality.22 cal was much more deadly than the 9mm
with the cheapass ammo. The high quality.45 with high quality ammo was like
Zeus. MA State Police use a 9mm gun in service by the way.
Again, in FT/MT we don't care about these differences in the current
system. I wonder if crew quality or weapon quality will vary at all in FT3?
--Pete
I think the "this A battery is as good as any other A battery" does hold up
pretty good. Look at what you just described. Sure the pistols you fired had
variances but they were all 'pistols'. If I were to take the generalization
further I could classify pistols, rifles and grenades as
anti-personal weapons.
I can relate to your hot casing story, I had the same thing happen on a range
once. The instructor wasn't to amused when I started squirming like a mad
snake.
> -----Original Message-----
> Peter Mancini wrote:
> As far as technology differences and quality, I think the "this A
(interesting Snipage!)
> Again, in FT/MT we don't care about these differences in the current
One way to vary things a little would be to randomly adjust the mass and cost
values up or down 1 point on every item.
Roll 1d6:
> One way to vary things a little would be to randomly adjust the mass
Or adjust range:
Roll 2d6:
Roll Result
1 -1"
2 -2"
3 -3"
4-9 Normal
10 +1
11 +2
12 +3
This adjusts each range band. Roll for each type of weapon (A Beam, B Beam,
Pulse Torpedo, etc.) Modifications effect all weapons of that type for that
fleet (or ship type).
On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 01:40:09 -0700 Donald Hosford
> <Hosford.donald@acd.net> writes:
> I would put a lower limit of 1 on the results.
I did something similar, I think it was when I was doing Traveller ships many
years ago. Each time I did a new class of ship, I generated two modifiers. The
first was the "class" modifier. This represented how well the class as a whole
performed compared to the designers' plans. Some classes were real dogs, and
others exceeded expectations. The roll was heavily biased towards the class
performing as expected however. Then, for each ship in the class, I had a
similar roll, but instead of the baseline being the design specs, the baseline
was the actual result of the class as modified by the first roll.
I had some interesting results from this. Two examples I can think of: I had a
class of battleships (4 ships) that failed to achieve design speed. Then two
of these failed to even make it up to class standard! On the other hand (I had
rolls for separate systems, rather than one roll for the entire ship), they
were very stable gun platforms (bonuses to the gunnery).
Then there were the heavy cruisers that were faster than expected, but turned
out to be a bit fragile. One of the three, however, made up for the damage
point penalty with a bonus, so it actually got back to design spec. (I guess
she was the third one off the ways, and the designers
rectified the earlier problems with her sisters. :-)
> > I did something similar, I think it was when I was doing Traveller
Some
> > classes were real dogs, and others exceeded expectations. The roll
Then,
> > for each ship in the class, I had a similar roll, but instead of the
This is interesting too, because you could use this set of rolls to implement
some 'mass production' rules. That is to say, you could let the 'class design'
get off with saving some point cost (say shaving 5%) in exchange for taking a
die roll penalty (or contrariwise, by incrementing it 10% to get a die roll
bonus). This would in effect represent over or under engineering in the design
stage.
Similarly, you could represent over or undermanufacture (manufacture with
quality parts or cheap knock offs) by applying a modifier to the 'individual
ship' roll.
So not only can you reflect the variances of individual ships from the design,
or of two identical designs from each other, but you can also reflect the
effects of 'cheaping out' for mass production reasons or of building
'cadillac' ships with plenty of testing, design and top notch equipment.
Fascinating how such a simple suggestion can bring so much flavour
into the game. That's what I like about the GZG games - rules
simplicity (through the use of core rules) and intriguing complexities
(through the use of simple options) rolled into one package.
Tom.
/************************************************
> Carl J Parlagreco wrote:
> On Sat, 18 Apr 1998 01:40:09 -0700 Donald Hosford
Snippage!
> >
I
> had a class of battleships (4 ships) that failed to achieve design
VERY interesting! That would allow screwups, and opertunities for goverments
to attempt to "fix" problematic designs.
I like both of these ideas. My forte is American Civil War and my game, Bonnie
Blue Flag, is interesting because of all of the artillery data I researched.
An interesting example concerns the differences between the 10pdr Parrott
Field Rifle and the 3" Ordenance Rifle. Both were new, high tech weapons. Both
used the new rifling technology to achieve superior range. However there were
differences in approach that caused some trouble. The M1861 Parrott had a
steel tube with a band on it much like a ring goes on a finger. It's purpose
was to contain the mighty preasure of the 2lbs. powder charge. The Rodman 3"
Rifle had no such band, though there was a nice swell as it became thicker in
the rear. It was formed by forging over a cool rod. I believe it was cooled
quickly to prevent defects from forming. The Parrott had a tendency to burst
catestrophically just past the band, where as the 3" rifle never had a problem
in combat (though one did crack). In fact several M1861 Parrotts burst in
storage due to stress stored in the metal!
The M1863 "Prodoct Improved" Parrott had a better band and other features.
Unfortunately it still burst as often and had 200 yards LESS range!!! Oh, and
the 3" rifle had about 800 yards more range at maximum elevation. Also the 3"
rifle could fire Parrott shells in a pinch and the Parrott could not do the
same. So basically we have two guns that fire similar ammunition and serve a
similar purpose and yet one is vastly superior to the other.
---Pete
Brian Bell <brian.bell@axom.com>
04/18/98 07:15 PM
Please respond to FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
cc: (bcc: Peter Mancini/OneSource)
Subject: Re: This 'A' battery is as good as any other 'A' battery.
(LONG)
> One way to vary things a little would be to randomly adjust the mass
Or adjust range:
Roll 2d6:
Roll Result
1 -1"
2 -2"
3 -3"
4-9 Normal
10 +1
11 +2
12 +3
This adjusts each range band. Roll for each type of weapon (A Beam, B Beam,
Pulse Torpedo, etc.) Modifications effect all weapons of that type for that
fleet (or ship type).
Snip
> I did something similar, I think it was when I was doing Traveller
Snip
I don't suppose someone without the time to create new rules from scratch,
with thought processors obsessed with Uni and just damn curious could ask for
a copy of what you came up with? Thanks.