New Option for Vehicle Combat

[Fox1]

I don't think it should come as a suprise to know that I've always considered vehicle combat in HERO to be... well screwed up due to some of the things in HERO that make it work so well for character based combat.

 

The highly random range of attacks for example cause inflated DEF values for vehicles in order to protected them from small arms and other weapons that they should logically be immune to. That inflation in turn drives up the damage dice of anti-tank weapons to high levels to do any BODY at all to their intended targets. BODY is then increase to represent some ability to withstand damage... and so on.

 

The final result is almost D&D like Hit Point system as Battle Tanks chip away at each others armor instead of launching a killing blow from a weakly defended angle. Even worse is the disconnect often spoken of on these boards and Superheroes that require all sorts of cute tricks and rule overrides to overcome.

 

So... I set out to fix all that. House Rules rock you know.

 

I may have be successful, haven't played tested it much yet. I'm mixed on it in a way because it is in part a new resolution method for HERO and frankly I like avoid that much change. It also seems a lot for something that I've learn to avoid in my games.

 

But in a choice of not using or using vehicles due to the current rules, a significant change can at least keep me from pulling out another game anytime someone steps into the driver's seat.

 

So I'm mixed on my effort at this point. I'll give it a spin and see how it goes.

 

 

The core idea actually is very much inspired by HERO. Forcewalls and Vehicles by their nature represent a different type of DEF, one that doesn't allow stun to pass unless it has been penetrated by BODY damage. Tagging this with the term Barrier Defense, and expanding some of my firearms work- I've put the 'beta' for the Barrier Defense, Vehicle Armor, and Heavy Weapons up on my website.

 

While intended for vehicles, it has other applications. It would be easy to use to better represent some comic genre Force Walls IMO, and doing a far more realistic build of personal bullet proof armor would be a snap.

 

 

The Key areas the website are as follows:

 

Hero System House Rules

 

-> Limits- New -> Barrier Defense

-> Real World Conversions -> Vehicle Armor

-> Real World Conversions -> Heavy Weapons

 

Anyone interested can look it over and pass along any comments they may have.

[prestidigitator]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Huh. I don't know. I don't see vehicle defenses as being all that different from normal defenses. The primary difference is not in the defense but in the nature of a vehicle, which like objects and some Automatons does not take Stun. As for damaging the occupants...I'm basically okay with their not taking damage until the vehicle is essentially destroyed unless there is a custom Limitation and/or Hit Location table for the vehicle. I do, however, apply any Knockback damage suffered by the vehicle to the occupants, possibly reduced some by restraint systems.

 

I'm also okay with the amount of damage done by heavy weapons and the amount of defense given to vehicles. If I weren't, I don't see why I couldn't use the standard Hero rules to simply build the weapons the way I wanted rather than using their examples.

 

So I guess I am, in general, in the, "It ain't broke," camp.

 

Aside from that, my general comments about your system are...I think I would base the amount of damage on Standard Effect (maybe Standard Effect for some of the dice and a roll for the rest, for example) rather than the literal number of DCs. I think your, "penetration," mechanic could then be simplified a bit (and maybe even done away with). The statement, "This method will result in more BODY damage penetrating these types of defenses..." would probably then not need to be true, and standard defense mechanics could be used again.

 

I'm really not clear on the Piercing mechanics (I've seen them before, but I never remember the details), so I can't comment much there. I do like your Armor Effect Limitation, as it can give the same results (minus a little stupid rounding ) as Reduced Penetration but with a lot more flexibility and granularity.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

I'm with P on this;

 

I've always assumed that since vehicles and buildings and the like take no Stun, they were pretty effective Stun barriers until their Body was run through. I didn't let the Stun just waft in through the vents if the Body was in tact.

 

Cool idea though; it may work well for other kinds of things.

[Fox1]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Aside from that' date=' my general comments about your system are...I think I would base the amount of damage on Standard Effect (maybe Standard Effect for some of the dice and a roll for the rest, for example) rather than the literal number of DCs. [/quote']

 

I gave that some thought, but I wanted a bell curve around the center line. That required one to throw at least two dice and that opened the result range too much.

 

The "penetration roll" method I settled on avoids those problems and are in practical terms just an activatation roll for some extra standard effect.

 

 

The statement, "This method will result in more BODY damage penetrating these types of defenses..." would probably then not need to be true, and standard defense mechanics could be used again.

 

Certainly wouldn't meet the goal I set.

 

I wanted to represent the reality of heavy weapon penetration. If it doesn't penetration it doesn't penetrate. But if it does, there's hell to pay- i.e. full damage is done.

 

There's no easy way to do that using the standard defense mechanics without using linked powers with complex limits and high total Active Points usage.

 

I'm really not clear on the Piercing mechanics (I've seen them before, but I never remember the details), so I can't comment much there.

 

Dark Champions or the old Champions III book.

 

Basically for a 3 point adder you can have an attack ignore one point of resistant defense treating it as if it didn't exist.

 

 

 

I do like your Armor Effect Limitation, as it can give the same results (minus a little stupid rounding ) as Reduced Penetration but with a lot more flexibility and granularity.

 

Thanks. Did that for my old firearm rules. Couldn't do handguns right without it

 

Did it long before HERO put the Reduced Penetration limit in the game. Always wondered why they used such a clumsy and inflexible method.

[Trebuchet]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

The vehicle rules have always been the single weakest portion of Hero. Given the game's origins, that may have been unavoidable.

 

One of my biggest gripes with is there is no direct way to calculate damage to passengers from hits that penetrate the vehicle's defenses (without using some kind of chart), nor is there a way to show how the vehicle itself can be a danger to its passengers if it is hit hard enough for them to bounce off the bulkheads. Some kind of "knockback" rule would have been very useful in this context since this has been a staple of everything to Indiana Jones to Star Trek.

.

[Talon]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Haven't hit the website yet, but I agree that the vehicle rules are generally weak. I think the biggest reason is that they have never really been overhauled -- the rules now are pretty much the same as the original vehicle rules. It's definitely an area that deserves a lot of attention and change.

[Sean Waters]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

You little tinkerer, you.

 

Read the rules and they are interesting. Harks back to my old WWII tank wargames.

 

I was (as I mentioned elsewhere) at a tank museum last week. One of the interesting facts I picked up is that modern tanks hit their target with their first shot 98% of the time. Blimey.

 

A couple of things....

 

Rather than having seperate penetration rules I would like to see heavy weapons do penetration and damage seperately, so, for instance, you might buy a 5d6 or 4d6 AP attack or whatever for your main gun for penetration that does 2d6 AE (Hex) if it penetrates. You roll the 5d6 against the armour, and if it gets through the vehicle AND crew in a vehicle (unless it is a very large vehicle with lots of internal space) take the killing damage. I daresay the penetration part should take a limitation as it can only damage armour, and the other bit should have a linked limit. I'd also be inclined to drop the BODY values somewhat, and give tanks some sort of vulnerability/susceptibility on an activation roll following penetration - in case the fuesl or ammo get hit.

 

I appreciate your system is more accurate: penetration should not have such a range as I suggest (although I'd probably have a 3-6 and 15-18 bracket on your penetration chart for plus or minus 2), but I think that it would have more of a 'game' feel and would not require new rules, but could be done in the existing structure.

 

The other thing that I know but had forgotten is that range is really important for a lot of tank shells - anti tank solid projectiles slow and change angle over range, so penetration and damage can be effected by range. HEAT/HEAP and HESH (and any other shells relying on internal explosives for penetration rather than momentum) would not be so effected.

 

3d6 AP penetration only (-1/2) = 45 points and 2d6 (Hex) linked to BODY penetration of armour (30 points) = 75 point total seems fair enough to me.

[Sean Waters]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Sorry: re-read my post, and I completely forgot to say:

 

1. I think you have identified a real problem

2. Well done on doing something positive about it

3. I think the rules you suggest have a great deal of merit and your armour values are far more realistic than the current Hero system

4. Weird, isn't is, that tanks don't buy hardenned armour?

 

Actually, on that last point, if we assumed that all anti vehicle/heavy weapons should be bought armour piercing and that only vehicles that are specifically armoured for battle; mainly military vehicles, can buy armour hardenned, then we could scale down the proliferation of armour values quite easily. I'd let specific ammunition types (like heat etc, buy AP twice)

 

Sorry, again. Always about me, isn't it? I guess I like tinkering too

[Fox1]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Rather than having seperate penetration rules I would like to see heavy weapons do penetration and damage seperately, so, for instance, you might buy a 5d6 or 4d6 AP attack or whatever for your main gun for penetration that does 2d6 AE (Hex) if it penetrates.

 

I did just that as a stop gap method since the idea first was published in Golden Age of Champions back in the day. There it was only for shape charges, but the idea works.

 

I decide to change it because a) it's a complex build, .50 cal HMGs blow thru a suprising amount of armor and can't really be 'exploding' inside, and c) the problem with containing the random penetration range and still using a Bell curve to resolve it.

 

 

I appreciate your system is more accurate: penetration should not have such a range as I suggest (although I'd probably have a 3-6 and 15-18 bracket on your penetration chart for plus or minus 2), but I think that it would have more of a 'game' feel and would not require new rules, but could be done in the existing structure.

 

Well as I noted above, A Penetration 20 attack is nothing more than a standard effect on a 90 AP attack, plus 5 point standard effect Act 12-, plus 5 points standard effect Acts 8.

 

Edit: Or even better, look at a 20 point Barrier Defense being bought this way: Defense 18, +1 Def Acts on 9+, +2 Def Acts on 13+. All attacks are standard effect against it.

 

All covered in the -1/4 limit: Barrier Defense

 

 

The only change from the system is that its applied to everything as a default and thus explictly built out that way.

 

 

 

The other thing that I know but had forgotten is that range is really important for a lot of tank shells

 

Very true.

 

The effect of Range (defining it and the impact on penetration) and rate of fire is work I still have to do. This is just the down range damage part of the question.

[Fox1]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Sorry: re-read my post, and I completely forgot to say:

 

1. I think you have identified a real problem

2. Well done on doing something positive about it

3. I think the rules you suggest have a great deal of merit and your armour values are far more realistic than the current Hero system

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

4. Weird, isn't is, that tanks don't buy hardenned armour?

 

As the Barrier Defense rules noted, such defenses do typically buy one level of hardened armor. It was needed to avoid the common firearm based piercing effects that my house rules have.

 

I've updated the ammunitions page on my website to reflect the change, with AP ammo now doing 3 points of Resistant Piercing + 1 point resistant Piercing with Armor Piercing (+1/4). It now matches the Heavy Weapon and Armor Rules modeling various AP ammon coming into service now.

 

Example: A .308 (2d6+1K) would have a Penetration value of 7 points. If it was using AP ammo that would increase by 1 to 8 points due to the single point of Piercing with the AP advantage that such ammo comes with.

 

 

This is way the same rules can be used to more realistically model today's body armor. Class III armor can be pointed to stop exactly the weapons it's rated in real life to stop, but not the next weapon up from there.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

with the new ideas, where does reactive armor fit in?

[Fox1]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

with the new ideas' date=' where does reactive armor fit in?[/quote']

 

The easiest approach would to have it apply a bonus to the Armor Value with the ablative limitation. Two points would be typical I think.

 

Thus a M60A3 Battle Tank with EAP would have a Turrent Front Armor of 18, +2 vs HEAT/Shape Charges (ablative).

 

Remember that some weapons (like the newest TOW) have a probe designed to overcome the extra protection of reactive armor. These can be brought like so: Resistant Piercing 2 Points with Armor Piercing +1/4 (to avoid the standard one level of hardening Barrier Defense commonly have): only to overcome reactive armor (-1/2)

[shadowcat1313]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

I really like the armor thickness/GDef/HeroDef table, can I get your permission to work up something similar for Star Hero, I want to extrapolate for some of the advanced armor types from Striker and Fire Fusion and Steel, which use hardened steel as the baseline armor value

 

 

Also where are you getting the real world armor values from? the one book I have just gives one overall armor value

[Fox1]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

I really like the armor thickness/GDef/HeroDef table' date=' can I get your permission to work up something similar for Star Hero, I want to extrapolate for some of the advanced armor types from Striker and Fire Fusion and Steel, which use hardened steel as the baseline armor value[/quote']

 

By all means go right ahead. The stuff on my website is intended to be used by anybody for their own gaming group.

 

If you ever publish something based on it, I'd like a credit note somewhere.

 

 

Also where are you getting the real world armor values from? the one book I have just gives one overall armor value

 

Here's a link for a number of frontal armor values:

 

http://members.tripod.com/collinsj/protect.htm

 

Flank/rear/top/bottom values are much harder to come by and I don't have a good online source. I based the conversions on my site off an old copy of Tractics (old style wargame minis system) I had and some guesswork.

 

Due to the Exponential nature of HERO (and as a result the conversion chart), small differences are generally lost. So close works here just as it does in hand grenades.

[shadowcat1313]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

I have a book here called The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles edite by Christopher F Foss, it just gives one armor value and the type of armor used.

[Fox1]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

I have a book here called The Encyclopedia of Tanks and Armored Fighting Vehicles edite by Christopher F Foss' date=' it just gives one armor value and the type of armor used.[/quote']

 

Rather typical I'm afraid.

 

You're best bet is to get ahold of one of Jane's books on the subject. For example:

 

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0007127596/qid=1125013831/sr=8-5/ref=pd_bbs_5/103-1273069-0475849?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

 

They come in various editions. I have one for APCs in front of me that gives rather detailed armor breakdowns for *some* vehicles. But even here, there are significant gaps. The bigger Jane volumes tend to have more complete data (I referenced one of the smaller ones above), they can be found used and are best bought that way as the price is... significant.

 

 

 

 

Beyond that you can start making guesses based upon the frontal armor.

 

The front will always be the thickest, covert that to a DEF value using the chart. Back off a 2-3 points on the side. If there's a Turret and Hull, drop a point on the front and sides for the hull.

 

The top armor will normally be around 25mm or half the front- whicherever is less. The rear armor often is equal to the side on the Turret.

 

Rear hull armor tends to be 3 points or so less than the side.

 

This won't always be accurate, but it's better than nothing if nothing is all you have.

[zornwil]

Re: New Option for Vehicle Combat

 

Fox1, at a glance that's nice work,thanks for sharing it.