Puff the Magic Dragon... AC-47

[shadowcat1313]

I wanted to post this seperately


this wikipedia entry is a good start with a couple of nice photos
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC-47

[shadowcat1313]

and heres the AC-130 Spectre Gunship

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC-130

[Teflon Billy]

I love that you do so many convertions, but having a little flavor text in the character to describe its function/use and a little bit about the design's history would go a long way to making these write-ups more than just a pile of numbers.

TB

[shadowcat1313]

I came up with an idea on this, my research fu isnt what it probably should be, and i am using a lot of online sources for information, so with each design I use an online source for information on, I will post a link to my primary source, which has mostly been wikipedia,

thoughts?
objections?

I have used hero products just to keep to a roughly equal scale, or for baseline figures. the C-130 and C-47 variants are taken from the basic hero version, but considerably modified

[AmadanNaBriona]

I came up with an idea on this, my research fu isnt what it probably should be, and i am using a lot of online sources for information, so with each design I use an online source for information on, I will post a link to my primary source, which has mostly been wikipedia,

thoughts?
objections?

I have used hero products just to keep to a roughly equal scale, or for baseline figures. the C-130 and C-47 variants are taken from the basic hero version, but considerably modified

Posting a link would be nice, tho it's not like we can't google it.

tho I'm not sure about opening this can of worms (and possible threadjack), ole "Puff" here seems to have lost some of his roar in translation. Not your fault, as you've noted... you're building with stock write ups, and the stock write up of miniguns is a bit underwhelming.

[shadowcat1313]

singly yes, my thought is to use the rule from TUV or Star Hero and treat this as a multi-gun broadside, but yeah it does lose something

the new prototype Spectre 3 project looks really scary, there going to give it a standoff capability with underwing Hydra 70 rockets and Hellfires

another problem I have seen consistently with TUV and HSVS vehicles, is they are really weak on armor/defense. they give the Iowa 8 def overall... uhmm the M1 Abrams has considerably more... and that just isnt right

unless somebody has a better idea, my thought is to give 1 def per 10mm of steel armor, use the slope mods from Surbrooks site, with the modifiers I am using In Traveller for Hero for construction materials.

for instance
lets look at the T-54
Turret is rated at 240mm, Hull at 120
hardened steel construction

Turret slope? not sure
but its going to give it a Def of 24
and a Hull Def of 12

now say it has a 45 degree slope on the turret front
the 24 is going to get a +3 DEF with a 14- Act vs Physical Projectiles
Reactive Armor blocks would add another +8

now lets look at the 120mm gun on the M1 Abrams
which does 8+1

this seems more in line, and i know this is opening a big can of worms

again, Ideas, flames, .1c rocks?

[AmadanNaBriona]

singly yes, my thought is to use the rule from TUV or Star Hero and treat this as a multi-gun broadside, but yeah it does lose something

the new prototype Spectre 3 project looks really scary, there going to give it a standoff capability with underwing Hydra 70 rockets and Hellfires

another problem I have seen consistently with TUV and HSVS vehicles, is they are really weak on armor/defense. they give the Iowa 8 def overall... uhmm the M1 Abrams has considerably more... and that just isnt right

unless somebody has a better idea, my thought is to give 1 def per 10mm of steel armor, use the slope mods from Surbrooks site, with the modifiers I am using In Traveller for Hero for construction materials.

for instance
lets look at the T-54
Turret is rated at 240mm, Hull at 120
hardened steel construction

Turret slope? not sure
but its going to give it a Def of 24
and a Hull Def of 12

now say it has a 45 degree slope on the turret front
the 24 is going to get a +3 DEF with a 14- Act vs Physical Projectiles
Reactive Armor blocks would add another +8

now lets look at the 120mm gun on the M1 Abrams
which does 8+1

this seems more in line, and i know this is opening a big can of worms

again, Ideas, flames, .1c rocks?

Sounds good to me.
If you needd someones blessing... go right ahead and deviate from TUV benchmarks, tho when you do it might not hurt to include a couple of designers notesAbout whe you do... the formula you just gave is a perfect example.

Yeah, I figured Puff would use a MPA to get the most bag for its buck... not your fault, it's a systemic weakness of the autofire rules in conjunction wit the bell curve attack roll... theres no easy way to simulate the truely awe inspiring firepower of a multibarreled gun, much less a cluster of them.
Building in Rapid Fire, a lot of levels and perhaps a few Autofire skills would probably be the simpleset approach. Doubling (or more) the DC's of the Attack and adding RP to simulate each game terms "hit" actually being several bulets might work as wel without too much added complexty. After that we begn to get into Autofire AOE Non Selective builds, which are probably the most accurate (Puff is designed for area denial and devesatation, after all), but are nasty to build.

[shadowcat1313]

ok, not sure if this is fact, legend, sales hype or what
its been said but I dont remember where that Puff could in 1 firing pass put 1 round in every square yard of a football field

thats a bit of area affect, probably not a lot of damage in any one place, but your at least guaranteed to get somebodys attention

hmmm... lemme tinker with a couple of ideas on this

[AmadanNaBriona]

From the Wiki entry...


Once called into action, it could loiter, orbiting the designated target, sometimes for hours, providing suppressing fire. A three second burst from all guns, according to Air Force reports, would put one round in every square foot of a football field sized target.

A 3 second burst of Supression Fire we can do in game terms, easy.
Now we just have to model volume of fire.
How many square feet in a hex? at 1 round per square foot, this gives us our volume of fire per hex. How many hexes in a Football feild? This gives us the total number of supressable hexes in a three segment period. Either the Volume of Fire or the Total Area is divided by 3 to find a single segments ROF for Suression Fire, then divided by 3 again to determine the stats for a single gunmount.I'm not up to the geometry at the moment, but if someone fills in the area blanks I can work out the Supression fire rates.

Edit: OK, I dug up the forumla for the Area of a Hexagon. I shouldn't have.
if someone wants to work it out, here's the link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagon).. my brain is not up to the math rght now...

[AmadanNaBriona]

Ok, so I have 5390 Meters as the area of an American Football Field (110M X 49M), or about 55,194 square feet. That comes to a volume of fire for 3 guns of
about 18,398 rounds per second, or 6,132 per gun.
As the cyclic ROF on an M-134 is about 4,000 rounds per minute, I'd have to say that the "One round every square foot" thing is an exageration, or I screwed up on the math.
Ok...reverse enginering from the ROF. 4000 RPM Cyclic/60 = 66.6 rounds per segment. If we gave the M-134 a 60 shot Autofire, it'd be utterly worthless at delivering its payload into a single target, but when 3 were used in combonation (with adequate built in Skill levels to negate hex-line penalties) it'd give puff the ability to supress 180 hex lines, or supress the same 60 hex lines with 3 seperate attack rolls, thus allowing anything in the area to potentialy be hit 3 times. This sounds workable.

[shadowcat1313]

ZSU-23/4 Shilka AA Tank

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZSU-23

[Major Tom]

About Puff: I thought that it had six miniguns, not just three.

About Spectre: I forget where I heard or read this, but the Spectre supposedly
has something called computer-assisted inferential mapping, which to the best
of my understanding enables the gunship to spot targets that are hidden in deep
woodlands cover.


Major Tom :cool:

[shadowcat1313]

I went by the Wiki page listed in the post, if theres a different source I will happily correct it.

the wiki page talks about using a MAD stinger like on the P3 to do what your talking about as far as finding vehicles under deep cover... again if you can find a better source I will happily correct.

Theres a Squadron/Signal book on the gunships, i just have to find somebody with a copy, those tend to have tons of details

[shadowcat1313]

T-62 MBT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-62

[shadowcat1313]

T-64 MBT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-64

[shadowcat1313]

T-34/76 and 85 models

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/t-34

[proditor]

another problem I have seen consistently with TUV and HSVS vehicles, is they are really weak on armor/defense. they give the Iowa 8 def overall... uhmm the M1 Abrams has considerably more... and that just isnt right


I agree. I can't come up with a non-snarky way of saying this, but I'm really stunned that somehow armor ranging from 191mm (decks) to 500mm (Turrets), with an immunity zone of 17700 to 30900 yards, against 16"/45 2240 lb AP shells equates to DEF 8.

That's not a ball dropped, that's a ball punted to the moon.

And honestly, the above info is in like every copy of Jane's as well as Conway's and Garzke's works. And the raw armor thickness info is on frikken wiki for pete's sake.

[AmadanNaBriona]

I agree. I can't come up with a non-snarky way of saying this, but I'm really stunned that somehow armor ranging from 191mm (decks) to 500mm (Turrets), with an immunity zone of 17700 to 30900 yards, against 16"/45 2240 lb AP shells equates to DEF 8.

That's not a ball dropped, that's a ball punted to the moon.

And honestly, the above info is in like every copy of Jane's as well as Conway's and Garzke's works. And the raw armor thickness info is on frikken wiki for pete's sake.

About 2 seconds with the "breaking things" chapter of the book suggests that the armor thicknesses you mentione above should probably be in the 19 DEF (Heavy Armor) & 12 (191mm)-15 (500mm) Body Range.

If we're not careful this is gonna turn into my favorite "scaling vechicles" discussion :P

[shadowcat1313]

and now for more WW2 vehicles
heres the M3 Stuart

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3_Stuart

[shadowcat1313]

M3 Grant/Lee

[shadowcat1313]

starting today, I am going to be moving all the vehicle files over to Michael Surbrooks site, he has setup a great page for this, if somebody needs a Hero designer file, contact me off list for the older stuff, but I will keep posting both to the boards initially

[shadowcat1313]

Japanese Type 89B medium Tank

[shadowcat1313]

Japanese Type 94 and 95 Tanks

[shadowcat1313]

WW2 German SDKFZ series Halftracks