Are tanks really that tough?

[Hugh Neilson]

We've focused a lot on Defenses, not without reason. However, it seems it's pretty rare for the tank to be damaged "just a bit". Is that 25 BOD also excessive?

[NuSoardGraphite]

We've focused a lot on Defenses, not without reason. However, it seems it's pretty rare for the tank to be damaged "just a bit". Is that 25 BOD also excessive?

Actually, for the Abrams thats probably fine. They are notoriously tough to completely destroy. On the wikipedia page for them, there is a report of an abrams being disabled and the crew scattering ammo inside it and detonating several WP grenades in an attempt to destroy it. It didnt work. Eventually and attack helicopter fired several missiles into the danged thing and while it was ruined for operational purposes, it was still relatively intact.

 

So it seems its not that difficult (relatively speaking) to disable an abrams....prevent it from moving or operating properly.....but destroying one is a whole other ballgame entirely.

 

This is why I use hit locations and internal damage from TUV. I even use a vehicle version of Impairing and Disabling attacks.

[Hugh Neilson]

So it seems its not that difficult (relatively speaking) to disable an abrams....prevent it from moving or operating properly.....but destroying one is a whole other ballgame entirely.

This opens the question of what various BOD levels actually mean. The tank is broken when it hits zero BOD. To destroy it completely requires twice that much 6ev2p170). It seems like the tank breaks a lot easier than 25 BOD, but is much tougher to entirely destroy. Maybe it needs extra BOD with the (large) limitation that it only increases the BOD required to completely destroy it, or maybe we chalk that up to SFX and consider a burned-out hulk of mostly intact tank shell "completely destroyed".

[massey]

This opens the question of what various BOD levels actually mean. The tank is broken when it hits zero BOD. To destroy it completely requires twice that much 6ev2p170). It seems like the tank breaks a lot easier than 25 BOD, but is much tougher to entirely destroy. Maybe it needs extra BOD with the (large) limitation that it only increases the BOD required to completely destroy it, or maybe we chalk that up to SFX and consider a burned-out hulk of mostly intact tank shell "completely destroyed".

 

I'd say that counts as "completely destroyed".  It doesn't have to be atomized.  I'd say tanks get a lower body score, for one, because there's a lot of really important, blow-uppy stuff inside a very small space.  If an attack gets through the armor, the tank is screwed.  

[Markdoc]

For me, the definition of "destroyed" is not "atomised" but "can no longer be readily repaired". The US attempts to destroy disabled tanks that could not be recovered, was not to render them useless (they already were), but to destroy them so thoroughly that that hostile actors could not obtain any useful information from the parts left behind.

 

In the context of the Abrams, some of the tanks disabled lost power (and thus became sitting ducks and were abandoned by their crew) but were able to be restored to active service after a few days. On the other hand, those which caught fire and burned out were "destroyed" - even though a substantial metal hulk was left behind. Those hulks were good for nothing and were simply abandoned by US forces. For "character" constructs, we have destroyed (dead) and disabled (KO'ed) concepts, but for vehicles, the disabling effects listed are rather weak. I think the basic concept is sound (when the vehicle takes damage, some functions are lost) but the implementation is weak.

 

An alternative approach, which I alluded to above is to simply drop the DEF levels significantly, and assume that BOD damage represents relatively superficial damage up to that point where you reach a total of BOD (which is actually how we handle BOD for characters). In that case the 25 BOD allows the tank to soak a great deal of damage (even with a much lower DEF) before things start to break. Once you take 26 BOD however, it starts to leak smoke, the engine stops, the turret can no longer rotate ... and the crew bails out. The tank is disabled - but can be repaired. If it takes 50 BOD through defences though, it's a smouldering hulk which is of no use whatsoever. At this point, I'm not arguing that 25 is the "right number" - just using it as an example. Personally I think we should have hit locations and a damage multiple for vehicles just as we do for hit locations on people, allowing you to combine damage-soaking ability and the ability to inflict one-shot kills or KOs.

 

cheers, Mark

[Chris Goodwin]

Personally I think we should have hit locations and a damage multiple for vehicles just as we do for hit locations on people, allowing you to combine damage-soaking ability and the ability to inflict one-shot kills or KOs.

 

 

I was just going to suggest this.  

 

Robot Warriors had the Penetration Table.  It was meant to give Battletech-like critical hit table results; if an attack penetrates armor, roll 3d6 plus the damage that got through and check this table.  The lowest range (3-15, and I just realized it should be 4-15) was "no effect"; the results were distributed through pretty randomly, but in general higher values on the table were more vital.  (Example:  29 was "Power Plant Hit, all movement modes halved, force field has -3 activation".)  Penetration Table locations could be separately armored, and attacks could be built with the Attack Versus Specific System (AVSS) Advantage.  Between Find Weakness, Armor Piercing, and AVSS, you could get some really interesting effects.

 

A similar effect could be had by giving each Hit Location maybe 6 sub-locations, with various components listed thereon, and a fourth die rolled.  Components could have their own DEF and BODY scores (I like BODY based on mass, myself), or they could just be treated as Impairing/Disabling using the standard rules, and if desired extra DEF would be bought with limited coverage as the standard rules.