Can Worldbeaters beat the military?

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

The basic question, Worldbeaters vs Military, is interesting but I don’t think that you can ignore the context of a given battle in asking it.

 

Does the battle occur in the open? In a city? In a military base? Location will make *huge* difference in what kind of force the military can and will bring to bear and in what tactics they will use.

 

Is one side surprised or is this a confrontation where both sides have plenty of warning?

 

Is this a daytime or nighttime fight? Many heroes lack Nightvision and the sensory capability of the military in general.

 

At first I thought that you were asking about the worldbeaters as in the guys from the Worldbeaters... er, Worldbeaterbeaters thread. As far as those specific guys I see things working out like this….

 

The vast majority of the militaries attacks will be killing attacks of various sorts, NND gas attacks, and only the occasional EB. Many will be Explosion or AP attacks. KA are super dangerous as mentioned because of the lucky stun roll effects. Given the number of attackers the odds *will* catch up with heroes who have defenses that are too low.

 

Against the Worldbeaters gas attacks are not likely to do very much good given the prevalence of Life Support. Rifle rounds are also going to be pretty ineffective against this crew. The heavy vehicles and weapons are going to be what will decided this fight … and in a major city that could be a problem for the military.

 

Assault (as currently written) and Prometheus as written are in pretty good shape. Both have hardened resistant defenses of 40. That will make them all but immune to many of the military’s attacks. Assault will probably have to have some of his gadget pool allotted to some sort of flight pack or other movement gear to keep up with the tanks & helicopters but that’s doable. His pool also could be *very* useful for jamming, listening to communications, and the like.

 

Prometheus is a bit slow relatively speaking both in terms of speed and movement but at 22†of running and 20†of leaping might be OK. His 100 str will be tough on tanks. This brick’s thermo and telescopic sight have the potential to be huge especially in a nighttime fight.

 

Professor Polaris has force walls that will be extremely effective if used properly. His personal defenses aren’t quite up to the level of Prometheus and Assault but he can take a few heavy hits if it comes to that. His spatial awareness and TK are pretty strategic assets as well in this kind of fight.

 

Hyperman has the potential to fly with the jets or be effective vs Tanks like mentioned above but his biggest weaknesses will be lack of appropriate ranged senses (no mega senses or telescopic sight are a problem). His resistant defenses are also a bit low for this kind of battle. The 17 DCV will help but all it’s going to take is one lucky hit from a jet or LAW to take him down. Quick forays in and out of protection provided by Prof Polaris might be the way to go.

 

Golden Hunter is invisible to sight but radar is going to be a huge problem for him. If Assault isn’t jamming then he could be toast quick. His resistant defenses are also low for this kind of combat. On the plus side he has a nice no range modifier attack & UV vision … but without telescopic senses to back them up their use is not as great as they could be.

 

Silly Putty is going to be of *very* limited use in this fight. His major defense is Damage Reduction but odds are that a squad of ground pounders with assault rifles is going to be enough to blast him apart for good. His major role in this fight is going to be to seek cover & hide. If he is lucky he might be able to sneak around a bit and do some damage to the command structure.

 

Typhoon can do some nice offensive whop-**s but defensively can be taken out easily by the military. Only by working with Prof Polaris will this PC be able to positively affect the outcome of this battle.

 

Kunduna (as currently written) … I’m not really sure how she would do. At first I thought that her mind scan + ego blast could do some interesting things against the opposing command structure but then I realized that she could only do one or the other at one time the way her MP is built. Physically she is limited too in that she can either be tough [Force Field 30, 30] or use her attacks [EB & Ego Attack] but she can’t do both at once. Her Damage Reduction is large … but doesn’t work against killing attacks. So in the end she is like Typhoon. Hiding behind Prof Polaris’ force walls she can pick off soldiers and *maybe* the odd vehicle with her attacks but she isn’t going to contribute as much to this battle as you might think. The more I look at her the more I think she could benefit from a major re-write beyond what has already been suggested in that thread.

 

Overall I think that the Worldbeaters, using proper tactics, could beat a small or maybe even a medium sized force … but are toast against a large one or even a small one if they don’t fight smart.

[Guest Champsguy]

Let's not even worry about using the Worldbeaters for a second. Let's use the Ultimates.

 

First, the Starbird, their team jet, travels at Mach 5. That'll allow them to escape any immediate threat by the military. No real world jet can fly fast enough to catch them.

 

But the Ultimates aren't worried about escape right now. That's because they have forewarning that the military is coming. How do they have that? They watch CNN.

 

That's right, the military has Watched by the news media on a 14-. Any out of the ordinary large scale troop movement is going to attract attention. That's because it'll take anywhere from all day to several weeks to get any sizable force deployed (depending on how close the point of attack is compared to where the troops and equipment are located). It's not easy to drive a dozen tanks down main street without being seen.

 

The Ultimates' base is in Millenium city. The military won't be able to use it's high-powered kill juice within a population center of that size. Heat seeking missiles? Forget about it. Nukes? HAHAHAHAHA!!! Definitely not within a city, and definitely not within Millenium City. The political backlash would be too great.

 

So the military is left with using plain, ordinary soldiers. This is where they get into real trouble. Blackstar is immune to their weaponry. After all, he's got an 18 Dex and a 4 Speed. He moves like lightning compared to most soldiers. He's not gonna hold still for somebody to shoot a wire-guided missile at him. Even if they do, he aborts to Desolid.

 

Suddenly, the soldiers slip and fall to the ground. They find it nearly impossible to stand, or to grip their weapons. It looks like Slick is in town.

 

Thunderbolt has 15D6 EBs that he can shoot. He'll spread that and drop big groups of guys. Normals don't hold up to that kind of damage.

 

--

 

But let's give the military the benefit of the doubt. Let's say that the Ultimates are travelling across open country. The Ultimates are on vacation, seeing the California coast They're driving from LA to San Fransisco (it's supposed to be a beautiful drive), and have stopped for a picnic (in costume). The military (somehow) gets the drop on them. They've got a dozen M1-A2s, half a mile away. They've got 4 F/A-22s coming in. They've got a ship at sea, ready with cruise missiles.

 

Phase 12: The Ultimates go first, because they have higher Dex scores than GI Joe. Binder and Radium (being without movement powers) take cover. Tanks and planes can't hit what they can't see. The California coast isn't flat terrain, so they'll be able to find cover.

 

Slick skates off to score with an ex-girlfriend or something. He's from California, you know. The guy can slide on his feet at 170 mph, even off-road.

 

Cyclone grabs Thunderbolt and Blackstar, and flies to the tanks, dropping them off (literally) on top of the tanks. He's got a 40 Str, so he can carry them both, easily. He's got megascaled movement, so he can get there easily.

 

The tank crews, limited by the fact that visibility completely blows inside a tank (even in modern tanks, the most visibility is afforded by having the tank commander stick his head out of the hatch), don't know that the Ultimates are literally at their door.

 

Thunderbolt, landing on top of one of the tanks in the rear of the formation, uses his electrical control power (Mind Control vs machines) to take command of that particular tank. The turret turns and points at the M1directly in front of it. Ka-blamm! Scratch one tank (sadly, American tanks don't have an auto-reloader, so Thunderbolt will only get one shot). While M1s can withstand our 125 mm depleted uranium shells from the front and sides, from the back they'll get penetrated like a Thai schoolgirl.

 

Blackstar, on top of a seperate tank, turns full density. He would then rip off the turret and throw it at a different tank, but he doesn't have to. You see, he now weighs 200 tons. His increased weight just crushed the treads and bent the frame of the tank he's riding on. Scratch tank #2. That doesn't stop Blackstar, of course, from ripping loose the turret and throwing it in the path of another tank. At 60 mph, it's hard to stop suddenly. Tank #3 loses it's treads.

 

Also on 12: The fighter pilots continue towards their target. They see an abandoned picnic area.

 

The guys in the tank now controlled by Thunderbolt say "Uh huh wha? Why did the gun fire? What's going on? Why aren't the controls responding?" This doesn't happen every day.

 

The guys in the tank shot by Thunderbolt don't do anything. They're dead.

 

The guys in the tank stepped on by Blackstar, and in the tank that has just de-treaded itself on a turret get tossed about inside the tank. They're really not going to matter anymore.

 

The guys in the other 8 tanks, sadly, don't even know this has happened. In the first Gulf War, American tank crews said that Iraqi cannon fire sounded like raindrops when it bounced off their hulls. In the second Gulf War, an M1-A1 Abrams tipped over and fell off a bridge, and no one else in their platoon even noticed. You can't hear a damn thing inside those tanks. You don't even get a Perception roll.

 

Phase 2: Cyclone flies up into the air, using his megascaled Flight, and engages the F/A 22s (his radar won't detect them, but he can see them with his eyes). A 10D6 x2 KB attack will tear into a lightly armored jet aircraft. Cyclone is faster, more maneuverable, and a much more difficult target than they are. He can play "tag" with the jets all day. Sadly, the jets lose that game.

 

Slick takes an ice cream cone from a little girl. Mmmm, chocolate!

 

Nobody else goes on 2.

 

Phase 3: Thunderbolt steers the tank he's driving towards another. He's gonna need to switch horses so he can shoot another gun. He pulls first tank alongside the second, and telemechanically orders the first to pop it's fire-retardant foam dispensers (all M1-A1s have them inside--you can even activate them from outside if you know where the lever is, or if you have telemechanics). The first crew will be forced to evacuate the tank. Scratch tank #4. Thunderbolt then hops over on top of tank #5. He uses his telemechanics and...

 

I think everyone can see where this is going.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Chuckg

> First, let's get one thing straight: Steve Long screwed up

> when it came to writing up military equipment. The stats he

> lists are far too high. Simply put, he doesn't know what an

> 8D6 RKA Explosion will do (I know it was changed in The

> Ultimate Vehicle, but he didn't make it right there, either).

 

If a 2d6 RKA is an M-16 -- and it is -- then you're going to have severe trouble convincing anyone that a 120mm DU hypervelocity round should only be 4-6d6, even /with/a logarithmic damage scale.

 

> The M1-A1 listed in the book will survive being dropped

> from orbit, no ifs, ands, or buts. It won't even be scratched

> if it lands on its nose.

 

The M1A1 Abrams can withstand a direct hit from its own main gun on its nose, at close range. The armor /has/ to be comparable with the damage rating for the tube.

 

As for "falls from orbit"... no, you're forgetting that the atmospheric friction damage is taken /every Phase/. Even at only 1 BODY or so per Phase, the thing will be half-molten slag by the time it hits.

 

[snip]

> You think it's soooo easy to find supers?

 

In an open-field battle, yes. Nobody yet has addressed the problem of how to find supers in a city, except me... and that was for me to admit that it would be very, very hard.

 

Edit -- and Supreme Serpent's post, to admit that it would be nigh-impossible.

 

> How easy was it for us to find Bin Laden?

 

About as easy as the superheroes have (not) found Doctor Destroyer -- and for many of the same reasons.

 

[snip]

> Those heat-seekers you shoot at Firewing won't work when

> he's within a city.

 

Yes, thank you, didn't I just already say this? Sheesh. If you're going to argue with someone, read him first.

 

[snip]

> Half (or more) of the members of a superhuman team will be

> able to fly. That removes tanks from the equation.

 

... and enters in the Air Defense Artillery boys.

 

There are /some/ high-powered supers who can laugh at even large, organized military forces -- we already conceded this. There are some other stealth masters who would be nigh-impossible to find in built-up terrain -- we already conceded that, as well. How did you manage to so thoroughly avoid reading any of this?

 

OTOH, there are many supers who are dead meat if the military goes after them with sufficient force, and that's what we were talking about as well.

 

 

 

PS -- as to how artilery hits fast-moving targets... same way you call in artillery strikes on truck convoys and advancing enemy formations. Unless the target in question is moving faster than 60 mph, it's no big diff. Unless the guy's in a city or something.

1) Champsguy didn't refer to you one single time so please don't berate him for not reading your post or referencing it.

 

2) Would it make it more difficult to target a fast-moving super who has no turn mode than a truck convoy moving at 60-70 mph on a road? I'm assuming the answer is yes. So, my real question is: Can the tanks compensate for this far more unpredictable type of movement from a smaller target?

[Guest Champsguy]

The problem, you see, is that supers have very erratic movement patterns, and they're not going to stand and trade fire. They're going to cheat.

 

The reason you can target a convoy with artillery is because it keeps moving in the same general direction. A super who can run at 60 mph is far harder to target because he doesn't have to: a) stick to roads, stay outside, or c) keep going the same direction. You can't predict where he's going to be when the shell lands.

 

Another problem is that the military is, in general, Speed 2. Tanks don't get to fire 5 times a turn. They can fire once, maybe twice a turn. They also have massive perception penalties.

 

The military fighting superhumans would be at a tremendous disadvantage because supers can appear completely without warning. Radar? Almost all supers can fly at NOE (nape of the Earth) levels. Firewing flies below radar if he feels like it.

[Guest Champsguy]

Originally posted by Chuckg

If a 2d6 RKA is an M-16 -- and it is -- then you're going to have severe trouble convincing anyone that a 120mm DU hypervelocity round should only be 4-6d6, even /with/a logarithmic damage scale.

 

 

The M1A1 Abrams can withstand a direct hit from its own main gun on its nose, at close range. The armor /has/ to be comparable with the damage rating for the tube.

 

Just last year, an M1-A1 Abrams shot a hotel room where the Army believed snipers were hiding. Television crews on the same floor survived. That means it wasn't too far above a 6D6 RKA. That 8D6 Explosion would have destroyed the entire top half of that hotel. I don't have TUV (the writeups are all similarly useless), but I believe the writeup of that gun as well is similarly overpowered. Tank guns don't do that much damage to real life structures.

 

As for "falls from orbit"... no, you're forgetting that the atmospheric friction damage is taken /every Phase/. Even at only 1 BODY or so per Phase, the thing will be half-molten slag by the time it hits.

 

Fine. Then they can fall from 2 miles up. As long as they don't take atmospheric re-entry damage, they'll survive. On average, they won't even take Body from hitting the ground.

 

 

> Half (or more) of the members of a superhuman team will be

> able to fly. That removes tanks from the equation.

 

... and enters in the Air Defense Artillery boys.

 

They won't fly high enough for that to ever enter into the equation. A tank can't shoot you when you're flying around 100 feet off the ground, and neither can anti-aircraft fire.

 

There are /some/ high-powered supers who can laugh at even large, organized military forces -- we already conceded this. There are some other stealth masters who would be nigh-impossible to find in built-up terrain -- we already conceded that, as well. How did you manage to so thoroughly avoid reading any of this?

 

I read it. The posts are all over the place. There's no organization. My point, however, is that most all supers would be able to fight against the military.

 

PS -- as to how artilery hits fast-moving targets... same way you call in artillery strikes on truck convoys and advancing enemy formations. Unless the target in question is moving faster than 60 mph, it's no big diff. Unless the guy's in a city or something.

 

It's easy to hit a convoy that's moving in a straight line.

[Hermit]

I've found that PRE attacks from Worldbeater types also work wonders for tipping odds towards their favor.

[Gary]

If "standard" supers appear in the midst of tank columns, all the tanks have to do is to fire HE at each other. Modern tanks are completely immune to HE attacks, and the multiple 6d6 or 8d6 killing explosions (depending on which version you believe) would grease any supers without desol or a gazillion defenses.

[Guest Champsguy]

American tanks don't carry HE rounds. At all. They only carry the DU AP round.

[Gary]

Originally posted by Champsguy

American tanks don't carry HE rounds. At all. They only carry the DU AP round.

 

I'm pretty sure that in a world with supers, the tanks would be armed with HE, or even worse; canister or flechettes.

[Vanderbilt_Grad]

The CU military has several important differences from our real world military.

 

1. They have experience with fighting superbeings starting with WW II & have had time to develop strategies and tactics specifically designed for dealing with them. Note that 100+ speed 2 soldiers are not all going to go on phases 6 & 12. Many will hold actions & stagger their fire. You can expect attacks from *someone* on just about every phase. They will also co-ordinate fire.

 

2. They have a super-soldier programs. They may not have tons of them but imagine special forces with near-superhuman and maybe slightly above superhuman stats.

 

3. They have power armor squads. Again they may not have many & the armor will probably not be as good as the heroes get but they have them & know how to use them both deployed individually in squads & supporting other troops.

 

4. They have a small amount of advanced tech. This isn’t ever really well defined but even a few things like ‘mind link’ based radios that can’t be jammed by ‘radio darkness’ could make a huge difference. They probably even have a few units with energy based weapons. A few ‘x-ray vision scanners,’ ‘stun guns,’ and non-lethal area attacks might even things out in the urban areas a bit. Their tanks might allow better perception too.

 

5. The CU military also has a small number of it’s own super being soldiers. Adding supers of their own to the mix changes things quite a bit.

 

6. The military probably has access to UNTIL and PRIMUS information on super beings and will generally know *exactly* what they are going against.

 

On top of all this many super beings will have no military training and no actual combat experience with fighting military units … i.e. they will be unfamiliar with their foes full capability and not necessarily know appropriate counter-tactics or the correct opening tactics.

 

While I agree that in urban environments the military will be at a disadvantage the heroes will not have quite as much of an edge as one might assume.

 

However as I stated above the military does have a huge edge against most supers at night and their killing attacks (with Hero rules) statistically take out most heroes with low resistant defenses fairly quickly.

[Chuckg]

> Just last year, an M1-A1 Abrams shot a hotel room where

> the Army believed snipers were hiding. Television crews on

> the same floor survived. That means it wasn't too far above

> a 6D6 RKA. That 8D6 Explosion would have destroyed the

> entire top half of that hotel. [snip]

 

How, in that 'vast knowledge' of real-world military hardware that you claimed, did you avoid noticing that said tank was not firing HE during that incident? I thought you wear supposed to be a military hardware gearhead?

 

Sheesh.

 

The only correction the 8d6 Explosion needs is (edit) nothing, because it doesn't actually exist in TUV.

[Chuckg]

*goes and looks at Ultimate Vehicle*

 

Wow. The Abrams' main gun is listed as 8d6 RKA -- no Explosion.

 

Champsguy, what the heck are you talking about?

[Enforcer84]

Sorry, genre rules state the guys in the colorful underware win going away.

[Fuzzy Gnome]

Originally posted by Champsguy

Fine. Then they can fall from 2 miles up. As long as they don't take atmospheric re-entry damage, they'll survive. On average, they won't even take Body from hitting the ground.

The bigger they are, the harder they fall. It's not in the rules, but it's common sense.

If Seeker falls from 2 miles up and hits a tank, he won't damage it if it's the over the top one from TUV and he hits the front armor. But a tank weighs 512 times what Seeker does. That's 9 doublings, If a tank fell 2 miles, it should take an extra 9 dice for a total of 39 IMNSHO.

On top of that, the GM would be completely justified in upping terminal velocity for such a dense object. OK, it has a lot of surface area, but it's denser than human flesh. It probably keeps accelerating even past 30 hexes per segment.

So even the tank from TUV is hurting if it falls from 2 miles up.

[Chuckg]

> If Seeker falls from 2 miles up and hits a tank, he won't

> damage it if it's the over the top one from TUV and he hits

> the front armor.

 

Fortunately for even our vague sense of reality, Seeker would hit the /top/ armor, which is thinner

 

> But a tank weighs 512 times what Seeker does. That's 9

> doublings, If a tank fell 2 miles, it should take an extra 9

> dice for a total of 39 IMNSHO.

 

Which means that it's taken severe suspension damage and smashed most of the internal electronics to mush, and you'll need to take the hull back to the body shop and have what's left of it straightened out and given a new interior before it's a usable tank again.

 

Which is about what 70-80 tons of advanced composite armor /should/ look like after falling 2 miles.

[Lord Liaden]

Originally posted by Chuckg

*goes and looks at Ultimate Vehicle*

 

Wow. The Abrams' main gun is listed as 8d6 RKA -- no Explosion.

 

Now there's an interesting point. 8D6 RKA is 120 Active Points, and I'm quite willing to allow that for the primary weapon of a main battle tank. If it's not Explosive, though, the tank is going to have difficulty targetting a lot of fast, erratically-moving supers. I could certainly see armored vehicles swapping that munition for HE if they know they're going up against supers, which would of course have a much better chance of hitting human-sized targets; but if we were to keep that 120 AP cap, then the Explosion will come at the cost of a reduced Damage Class (5D6+1), which the toughest CU supers written up certainly can absorb without too much grief.

[Chuckg]

Use an HE round so that the Knockback temporarily knocks 'em off their feets, then follow up with a DU sabot round?

 

Remember, even Invulnerable Boy takes Knockback.

 

True, DU penetrators are mostly for ground-bound brick-busting... vs. the martial artists, you're going to need beehive rounds and suchlike. (The 4d6 RKA AE Cone, 120 active).

 

Don't forget the smoke dischargers as well -- pop smoke, then use your thermo to see through it. He's at 1/2 DCV 'cause he's blind to you, you're at full OCV. *WHAM*

[Rune]

A character like Firewing, who I can't imagine hiding in a cave to avoid detection, should beat any military force sent against him, even if they have some modest anti-super tech. If he doesn't, he should be rewritten. In a super hero-based universe, he is one example of why the world needs superheroes. There are some menaces that the military just can't deal with. This isn't selling military firepower short; they are just running squarely into a genre convention.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Chuckg

> Just last year, an M1-A1 Abrams shot a hotel room where

> the Army believed snipers were hiding. Television crews on

> the same floor survived. That means it wasn't too far above

> a 6D6 RKA. That 8D6 Explosion would have destroyed the

> entire top half of that hotel. [snip]

 

How, in that 'vast knowledge' of real-world military hardware that you claimed, did you avoid noticing that said tank was not firing HE during that incident? I thought you wear supposed to be a military hardware gearhead?

 

Sheesh.

 

The only correction the 8d6 Explosion needs is (edit) nothing, because it doesn't actually exist in TUV.

Do you always feel you have to be this condescending?

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Chuckg

> If Seeker falls from 2 miles up and hits a tank, he won't

> damage it if it's the over the top one from TUV and he hits

> the front armor.

 

Fortunately for even our vague sense of reality, Seeker would hit the /top/ armor, which is thinner

 

> But a tank weighs 512 times what Seeker does. That's 9

> doublings, If a tank fell 2 miles, it should take an extra 9

> dice for a total of 39 IMNSHO.

 

Which means that it's taken severe suspension damage and smashed most of the internal electronics to mush, and you'll need to take the hull back to the body shop and have what's left of it straightened out and given a new interior before it's a usable tank again.

 

Which is about what 70-80 tons of advanced composite armor /should/ look like after falling 2 miles.

I think it would do more damage than that.

[Agent X]

Originally posted by Vanderbilt_Grad

The CU military has several important differences from our real world military.

 

1. They have experience with fighting superbeings starting with WW II & have had time to develop strategies and tactics specifically designed for dealing with them. Note that 100+ speed 2 soldiers are not all going to go on phases 6 & 12. Many will hold actions & stagger their fire. You can expect attacks from *someone* on just about every phase. They will also co-ordinate fire.

 

2. They have a super-soldier programs. They may not have tons of them but imagine special forces with near-superhuman and maybe slightly above superhuman stats.

 

3. They have power armor squads. Again they may not have many & the armor will probably not be as good as the heroes get but they have them & know how to use them both deployed individually in squads & supporting other troops.

 

4. They have a small amount of advanced tech. This isn’t ever really well defined but even a few things like ‘mind link’ based radios that can’t be jammed by ‘radio darkness’ could make a huge difference. They probably even have a few units with energy based weapons. A few ‘x-ray vision scanners,’ ‘stun guns,’ and non-lethal area attacks might even things out in the urban areas a bit. Their tanks might allow better perception too.

 

5. The CU military also has a small number of it’s own super being soldiers. Adding supers of their own to the mix changes things quite a bit.

 

6. The military probably has access to UNTIL and PRIMUS information on super beings and will generally know *exactly* what they are going against.

 

On top of all this many super beings will have no military training and no actual combat experience with fighting military units … i.e. they will be unfamiliar with their foes full capability and not necessarily know appropriate counter-tactics or the correct opening tactics.

 

While I agree that in urban environments the military will be at a disadvantage the heroes will not have quite as much of an edge as one might assume.

 

However as I stated above the military does have a huge edge against most supers at night and their killing attacks (with Hero rules) statistically take out most heroes with low resistant defenses fairly quickly.

Let's not go overboard on what the military would be doing. At some point, there isn't anything to ground the game in to some likeness to "real Earth" - The military in this comparison, I sincerely doubt, refers to such measures.

[Chuckg]

The Rule of P's, aka "Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance", was invented by the military.

 

If you want to ground a military in 'the real world', then assume that it has a high level of contingency planning. Or at least, ours does, and so do those of our several most useful allies.

 

There are indeed many military forces in the world that are poorly trained or complacent. But they're not in the US.

[Chuckg]

> A character like Firewing, who I can't imagine hiding in a

> cave to avoid detection, should beat any military force sent

> against him, even if they have some modest anti-super

> tech. If he doesn't, he should be rewritten. In a super

> hero-based universe, he is one example of why the world

> needs superheroes.

 

Actually, no.

 

GRAB is an example of why the world needs superheroes -- you can't beat them with normal police, and even MARS units would find it tough sledding. And it's not even close to the military's mission to handle those kinds of people. Sure, you could rip them apart with tanks... except that you will never find them where tanks are. It's not their gig.

 

On the other extreme of the spectrum, you have things like Doctor Destroyer... whose organization *IS* a major military force, demonstrably capable of taking on the entire US Pacific Fleet and sending it home with lumps... and things like Takofanes or Gravitar, who can take the heaviest artillery and laugh, and then lash out with devastating force.

 

Firewing, OTOH, is there to be a threat just to superheroes, not to the entire world.

[Guest WhammeWhamme]

Originally posted by Agent X

I think it would do more damage than that.

 

More than 39d6?

 

DD does less than that...

 

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!

[Agent X]

Originally posted by WhammeWhamme

More than 39d6?

 

DD does less than that...

 

AAAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHH!

This is one of those areas where the game breaks down. The structural nature of the tank itself makes me think that it would not have its full defensive capacity for such a fall, WhammeWhame