Are tanks really that tough?

[Lucius]

 

Then go start a topic. You can surely do better than some I've come up with.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

The palindromedary hastens to add that you can probably start threads MUCH better than the low bar Lucius Alexander has been known to set

[procyon]

I would say that even the tanks in the 4e rule book we use are a bit over the top in durability.

Not 30/20, but even 20/16 makes them fairly invulnerable to bricks.

 

(Now, what follows is based on the fact that I still use 4e, and have no idea what the numbers are for 5e or 6e.)

 

But where the weapons are generally (somewhat) well based in the "+1DC equals twice the power" thought, armor seems to just be completely arbitrary.

Otherwise, why would the PD of fantasy type plate mail (PD 8) be considered nearly as protective as the frontal armor of a M113 APC (PD 9) and better than it's side armor (PD 6)? 

Armor on the 113 is over an inch thick of hardened aluminum (nearly as hard as steel actually).  So plate mail is equal to 1/2" of that?

And some body armor is stronger than 30mm of hardened aluminum?

 

So the whole armor system has issues to me.

[Greywind]

Regardless of which version you use, there's a mental disconnect with a character's personal armor and the defense of a vehicle.

[Old Man]

Science Fiction weapons are also substantially inferior to modern military armaments using the standard Hero write-ups. This doesn't seem consistent with science fiction movies.

To go off on a tangent, most SF movie weapons are substantially inferior to modern military armaments. They're not full auto, or computer guided, or armor-piercing to the degree that modern weapons are.

[Old Man]

But in the game we don't use real world physics.

Touché.

[IndianaJoe3]

I think that exceptionally large and/or tough objects should be built with limited Damage Negation instead of simply increasing their defenses. This would let them be invulnerable to small attacks, without needing to increase defenses.

 

12 It's A Freakin' Tank!:  Damage Negation (-3 DCs Physical) (15 Active Points); Limited Power (Only vs attacks of 10 DC or less) (-1/4)

 

10 Size Matters:  Damage Negation (-6 DCs Physical, -6 DCs Energy) (60 Active Points); Limited Power (Only vs generalized damage) (-1/2), Limited Power (Not vs AoE Attacks) (-0)

[薔薇語]

Okay, after page seven I just completely skipped to the end. So if what I have to say is a re-hash of something, I am sorry. That said, there is on thing I think we need to keep in mind when we discuss this issue:
 

Who controls the tank

 

If the Tank is owned by a PC, he should be given the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the defense and damage. It is the GMs job to vet the build and make sure that the character is not breaking any campaign rules. If a Tank has 8d6 RKA, then that damage should be with in the reasonable reach of all PCs - not just the one with the tank. If the Tank has an effective 20rP/ED, then that should be reasonable for all characters. At 8d6 RKA, a character will deal crippling levels of damage to a tank on average (Crippling meaning about half its body, and likely to disable a system or passenger). That seems inherently balanced against itself. Perhaps on purpose since the Tank is designed to take out other similar or weaker tanks with a single shot or two. 

Now, if my other PCs only have the ability to pump out 6d6 HKA (equivalent of 90 STR), then they will only be able to scratch the tank's body each turn - something that does pose a risk but maybe not as severe of one). Now I have to look at my team of PCs and determine, is the fact that one PC is so much stronger than everyone else an issue? If so, then I should restrict his build to something lower OR bring everyone else up to match. I would error towards the former as it is less work and less likely to cause unforeseen complications. 

That said, if the owner of the Tank is an NPC / GM by proxy, then 'who really cares what the stats are'? I rarely really worry about the actual defenses of things outside of vague generalities in my games. If I think something should have done enough damage to destroy anther thing, then the other thing is destroyed. Why worry about all the math? Embrace the cinematic and ignore the hardened rules. 

But assuming you aren't as free-form with the rules as I am when it comes to such things, then just assume that as a world standard that all non PC equipment is naturally weaker when facing the PCs. This could be because the PCs are given a plus zero advantage on all powers (and such) that says "Armor Piercing vs non PCs / Main villains" or all NPC equipment gets "reduced defenses vs all PC attacks). Thus, while the Tank would have 20rPD vs a nPC punching it, it only has a 10rPD vs a similar PC punching it. Now the 6d6 RKA (90 str equiv) will deal crippling damage on average and potentially vaporize on a good roll. 

The above doesn't seek to unbalance the world's stuff vs other stuff in the world, rather boost the value of being the cinematic center of attention. 

 

La Rose. 

 

Also don't forget the "Real World Lim" for things. Apply it to everything the GM builds as a standard unless you have reason not to. 

[zslane]

...just assume that as a world standard that all non PC equipment is naturally weaker when facing the PCs. This could be because ... all NPC equipment gets "reduced defenses vs all PC attacks).

This is my preferred approach, what I call the Paper Scenery trope. For supers I think it is generally easier to make a blanket assumption about all non-Focii objects in the campaign world than it is to make characters add special attacks or special modifiers to existing attacks.

 

And rather than Damage Negation or Damage Reduction, which would apply only to "mundane" attacks, I would probably have a campaign-wide rule 0-pt Physical Disadvantage (Complication) "Half defenses against 'super' attacks." That way the GM can use all published objects as written and just mentally cut the defenses in half when defending against a "super" attack (the definition of which is up to the GM on a case by case basis, but it'll usually be fairly obvious to everyone).

[L. Marcus]

Just a little derail -- I'm slightly annoyed a the Falling Table; the distances are off. Under 1G, you don't fall ten meters the first second, you fall five. Was this addressed in CC or FHC?

[Hugh Neilson]

This is my preferred approach, what I call the Paper Scenery trope. For supers I think it is generally easier to make a blanket assumption about all non-Focii objects in the campaign world than it is to make characters add special attacks or special modifiers to existing attacks.

 

And rather than Damage Negation or Damage Reduction, which would apply only to "mundane" attacks, I would probably have a campaign-wide rule 0-pt Physical Disadvantage (Complication) "Half defenses against 'super' attacks." That way the GM can use all published objects as written and just mentally cut the defenses in half when defending against a "super" attack (the definition of which is up to the GM on a case by case basis, but it'll usually be fairly obvious to everyone).

Applying "half defenses against Supers attacks", we get a 60 STR Brick who still cannot damage the Abrams from the front, but can at least chisel away at it from the sides. However, he can tear through an armored wall (PD 13, halved is 6 or 7, with 7 BOD), and crush through a reinforced concrete wall. Vault doors are no problem (16 defense, halved to 8). They are, however, impervious to an acetylene torch(2d6 AP), with an OxyHydrogen torch 2 1/2d6 AP) taking a long time to get through their 24 Defenses. The comparative resistance of these objects still seems off. So does the substantial BOD of the tank - it doesn't seem like it should have the BOD of a 16 meter thick steel wall (but it does, extrapolating from the Wall Body table).

 

Someone above noted the discrepancy between Fantasy Hero armor (8 PD for Plate Mail) and defenses for objects. The materials defense tables suggest defenses for materials, with increased thickness contributing more BOD, not more Defense. Military equipment seems similarly off when compared against the rest of the "scenery stats".

 

Either everything else should be revised to scale accordingly from the tank (and other military gear) standards, or the tank (and other military gear) should be revised to scale accordingly with the rest of the scenery. After that, we can decide whether we want "a world of cardboard" by making Supers attacks halve the defense, or double their damage, against normal objects in general, but if I use the litmus test that a 60 STR Brick should be pretty effective against a Tank, whatever fix I adopt to make him very effective will, when applied to other real world stats, make him far too effective. He has to pound through vault doors (Haymaker with an above average damage roll to do BOD)? That's OK with me. But the same Haymaker should not ineffectually bounce off a tank.

 

A tank is an example of the BOD of a 50 ton vehicle, and suggests 19 BOD on the Object Body Table. This is ignored in the Abrams build, and it gets the BOD of a loaded freighter instead. Tanks get defenses in excess (for the Abrams, well in excess) of "Heavy Armor" - why?

 

The Materials Defense Tables also suggest metal should have a much better defense against energy than physical attacks, but this does not flow through to the vehicles.

 

Let's look at the gameplay aspect. In what types of games will a tank's stats be important? Will a Superspy or Police Drama game see a lot of "PC's fighting tanks" situations? I suspect not. Maybe the Jedi might fight tanks in a Star Wars game, and maybe Supers will fight them (and aren't Jedi a form of Sci Fi Super?). So the stats should be based on these being adversaries for Supers. That seems to suggest a 12 DC character ought not to be utterly ineffectual against a tank.

 

What purpose do the existing stats serve? They don't make the tank useful in-game (unless the goal is to ensure the GM can rub the players' noses in how weak their characters are), and they don't match it up with the standards set elsewhere in the rules. The only purpose I can see is to make the military pre-eminent in power, which seems like it does not fit the source material in any genre where the PC's would actually face down a tank. But then, the stats also seem to suggest the PC's would have no chance if facing down a tank, unless they are built with very specific builds to circumvent the tank. Maybe the tank then needs very specific builds to circumvent Supers, since the goal seems clearly to make the tank easily crush the Standard Super.

[Hugh Neilson]

Just a little derail -- I'm slightly annoyed a the Falling Table; the distances are off. Under 1G, you don't fall ten meters the first second, you fall five. Was this addressed in CC or FHC?

The table doesn't really address acceleration in the distance fallen, does it? Maybe we just reduce total distance to be based on falling half the acceleration in the segment (so total distance goes 5m, 20m, 45m, 80m, 125m, 180m, +60m each segment after the 6th). The maximum discrepancy is 30 meters distance. Will it matter significantly in game?

[L. Marcus]

Not significantly, no, unless you want to know how far you've fallen in a certain Segment -- the purpose of the table. Damages from the fall itself shouldn't be affected.

[Hugh Neilson]

It's an easy fix, and "slows" the fall a little bit so the character has a better potential to take an action. Falling more than 5m will at least allow an Abort for any character under the adjusted table, allowing heroic characters a bit more opportunity to "catch themselves". It would make falls a bit more cinematic, and possibly a bit less lethal, which seems like a good thing on balance.

[Christopher R Taylor]

The falling tables in Hero have always been more about function and ease of use than exact gritty realism, and that's fine with me.

[L. Marcus]

And how would that change if the fallen distance was correct?

[Christopher R Taylor]

Making it an easy formula that you can work out in your head is always easier for me, even if its not 100% accurate.

[L. Marcus]

It's pretty simple -- assume that the acceleration is ten meters per second per second, then the distance fallen is 10 times [the number of segments fallen] squared, and the whole thing divided by two.

[zslane]

The comparative resistance of these objects still seems off. So does the substantial BOD of the tank - it doesn't seem like it should have the BOD of a 16 meter thick steel wall (but it does, extrapolating from the Wall Body table).

If this is a common perception among Hero players, then I suppose Mr. Long has some 'splainin' to do... it would be nice to hear his rationale behind these armor numbers. Just keep in mind that what "seems" right might not be right if you aren't an expert in such matters (or did a ton of research as part of, say, creating official writeups for published product).

 

As for your expectations of the performance of a 60 STR Brick, I think you may be thinking too abstractly. You, like most comic book writers who don't play RPGs, appear to think that 60 STR should destroy tanks regardless of what era the tanks come from, and I can't help but think this is a poor way to calibrate your expectations. 60 STR may have been enough when the The Thing first appeared in print, but I don't think it is anymore. Military hardware has improved dramatically since then, and either the active points in attacks have to go up to match, or you have to put your heroes against vintage hardware. Or you nerf the hardware so that it always performs like it did in the 1960s and you don't ever have to recalibrate your notion that the "standard Brick that can trash anything" ought to only have a 60 STR.

[Zephrosyne]

If this is a common perception among Hero players, then I suppose Mr. Long has some 'splainin' to do... it would be nice to hear his rationale behind these armor numbers. Just keep in mind that what "seems" right might not be right if you aren't an expert in such matters (or did a ton of research as part of, say, creating official writeups for published product).

 

As for your expectations of the performance of a 60 STR Brick, I think you may be thinking too abstractly. You, like most comic book writers who don't play RPGs, appear to think that 60 STR should destroy tanks regardless of what era the tanks come from, and I can't help but think this is a poor way to calibrate your expectations. 60 STR may have been enough when the The Thing first appeared in print, but I don't think it is anymore. Military hardware has improved dramatically since then, and either the active points in attacks have to go up to match, or you have to put your heroes against vintage hardware. Or you nerf the hardware so that it always performs like it did in the 1960s and you don't ever have to recalibrate your notion that the "standard Brick that can trash anything" ought to only have a 60 STR.

This actually touches on the point of my original question when I started this thread.  I don't really care about whether or not comic book reality is being simulated or not.  Frankly, I run games with people having super powers but I ignore a lot of comic book logic because I think it is completely idiotic.  While I enjoy reading comic books, I have very little interest in running a campaign where a lot of the illogical things in comic books happen.  I have a tendency to use a bit more realism and common sense in my campaigns mixed with a healthy dose of the cinematic.  I was just wondering if tanks are actually supposed to be able to withstand a direct punch to the front from someone with a Strength of 100.  I know that no one in the real world has that kind of strength.  I just thought someone with a working knowledge of physics could explain it.  If there is not a mathematical way to figure such a thing out then I guess we are all left to our own devices to decide what is in the best interest of our respective campaigns. I was just wondering from a purely physics point of view.  I was looking for something more objective than subjective.  I was not looking for anything from the perspective of whether or not characters starting with 60 APs of powers should or should not be able to face roll military forces.  All that being said, there are a lot of good points brought up in this thread about questionable numbers when comparing the stats of "real world" things (e.g. tank cannons versus bridges).  Once again, I would like to thank everyone for their input.  I actually did manage to find a workable albeit untested solution for me.

[massey]

If this is a common perception among Hero players, then I suppose Mr. Long has some 'splainin' to do... it would be nice to hear his rationale behind these armor numbers. Just keep in mind that what "seems" right might not be right if you aren't an expert in such matters (or did a ton of research as part of, say, creating official writeups for published product).

 

As for your expectations of the performance of a 60 STR Brick, I think you may be thinking too abstractly. You, like most comic book writers who don't play RPGs, appear to think that 60 STR should destroy tanks regardless of what era the tanks come from, and I can't help but think this is a poor way to calibrate your expectations. 60 STR may have been enough when the The Thing first appeared in print, but I don't think it is anymore. Military hardware has improved dramatically since then, and either the active points in attacks have to go up to match, or you have to put your heroes against vintage hardware. Or you nerf the hardware so that it always performs like it did in the 1960s and you don't ever have to recalibrate your notion that the "standard Brick that can trash anything" ought to only have a 60 STR.

 

Well I guess I do have more to say.

 

You appear to be working from a few assumptions that I disagree with:

 

#1)  That some of the characters who appeared in the comics in the 1960s had a Str score of somewhere around 60.

#2)  That these 60 Str characters destroyed tanks, but just barely.

#3)  That the improvements in military hardware since that point in time should have resulted in a very significant increase in tanks' durability vs superheroes.

 

I don't necessarily disagree with the first one, depending on the character.  Ben Grimm may have been around a 55 or 60 Str in his first appearances.  I don't know when the first time ol' Benji fought a tank was, but let's assume he had a 60 Str.  But I'm pretty sure that Thor was way way higher than that when he first appeared.

 

The second one I do disagree with.  I think the Thing could pretty easily handle 1960s tanks.  He didn't have to push his Str, haymaker, and hope he rolled well.  When he did fight them, he trashed them.  Thor as well could smash the military technology of the day with one thwack.  But that doesn't mean that is all the characters could do.  They might have been able to smash modern hardware back then as well.

 

The third one I also disagree with.  Just because tanks today are made out of materials that resist kinetic penetrators better than older tanks, that doesn't mean that they resist superhuman rending and tearing any better than their older counterparts.  It doesn't mean that they resist Optic Blast any better.

 

 

Here's a back of the napkin suggestion:

 

1960s tank:

 

Def 8 + 6 vs "real world" equipment

Body 15

Main Gun -- 4D6+1 Explosion

Vulnerability --  x 1.5 damage vs attacks that do 5+ Body through defenses

Optional Vulnerability -- x 1.5 damage vs superhuman attacks

 

2015 tank:

 

Def 10 + 12 hardened vs "real world" equipment

Body 19

Main Gun -- 5D6+1 AP

Vulnerability --  x 1.5 damage vs attacks that do 5+ Body through defenses

Optional Vulnerability -- x 1.5 damage vs superhuman attacks

 

 

So basically your Abrams can roll around, immune to the damage that most things can do to it.  It can shoot a 1960s tank, roll about 19 Body, and it penetrates enough to trigger the tank's Vulnerability (the sabot hits ammo, or a fuel tank, or whatever).  So the 19 Body becomes 30 Body, the tank is at zero, and is destroyed in one shot.  The 1960s tank could theoretically roll perfectly, do 25 Body, and the Abrams takes 3.  It's not enough damage to trigger the Vulnerability.  The Abrams takes some damage and maybe throws a track, but it's basically okay.

 

Now we look at Orange Rock Guy.  Orange Rock Guy has a 60 Str.  He fights a 1960s tank.  He runs up and punches it, rolling 12D6.  If Orange Rock Guy rolls 12 Body, then he does 4 past the tank's non-military Def of 8 (without the optional superhero vulnerability).  He damages it and it loses a power.  He can roll again on his next phase.  If he rolls 13 Body, then the Vulnerability kicks in and he actually does like 20 Body.  The tank takes 12, has 3 remaining, and is almost destroyed.  If Orange Rock Guy shouts out his trademark cry "It's Crunching Stuff Time!" and haymakers, then he rolls 16 dice.  If he rolls 16 Body, then it gets increased to 24.  The tank takes 16 and is toast.

 

If Orange Rock Guy is transported into the distant future of 2015, he can fight an Abrams.  He's less likely to trigger its "massive damage" vulnerability, but he can still regularly put Body on it, and with a haymaker and a good roll, he can get darn close to one-shotting it.

 

 

NOW... I know that tanks aren't written up that way in the Hero system.  But I ask, why can't they be?  Is there anything wrong with the way I have written them up?  Modern tanks can still trash older tanks.  There's still been a lot of technological improvement.  But that improvement versus other vehicles doesn't necessarily correlate to improvement versus guys with crazy powers.

[Ndreare]

This actually touches on the point of my original question when I started this thread.  I don't really care about whether or not comic book reality is being simulated or not.  Frankly, I run games with people having super powers but I ignore a lot of comic book logic because I think it is completely idiotic.  While I enjoy reading comic books, I have very little interest in running a campaign where a lot of the illogical things in comic books happen.  I have a tendency to use a bit more realism and common sense in my campaigns mixed with a healthy dose of the cinematic.  I was just wondering if tanks are actually supposed to be able to withstand a direct punch to the front from someone with a Strength of 100.  I know that no one in the real world has that kind of strength.  I just thought someone with a working knowledge of physics could explain it.  If there is not a mathematical way to figure such a thing out then I guess we are all left to our own devices to decide what is in the best interest of our respective campaigns. I was just wondering from a purely physics point of view.  I was looking for something more objective than subjective.  I was not looking for anything from the perspective of whether or not characters starting with 60 APs of powers should or should not be able to face roll military forces.  All that being said, there are a lot of good points brought up in this thread about questionable numbers when comparing the stats of "real world" things (e.g. tank cannons versus bridges).  Once again, I would like to thank everyone for their input.  I actually did manage to find a workable albeit untested solution for me.

Here are some basic assumptions for consideration. No-one has to agree with them, I am not that invested.

 

An average person (Str 10) can exert about 325 pounds of force with a punch. (A martial artist can double that and sometimes more.)

I will assume the average joe can exert force over as little as 2 square inches (index and middle finder being the focus of his punch).

A nice low tensile strength for steel is ~ 100,000 psi (70,000 psi minimum tensile strength in a pull test and in real life it is usually about 50% higher depending on the pull test).

Layering alloys and mixing properties can drastically change these effects. For example corrugated steel is not very strong or explosive resistant normally, rubber is not either; however by combing layers of the two they are able to make blast/explosion resistant modules for deployment in high risk areas.

Some alloys are much harder and the case of the super resistant layer approach of a modern tanks armor I would say there is little to any chance of him getting through directly by punching if you are shooting for complete realism.

 

A 60 strength is 1024 times stronger than an average joe so let us call it 325*1,024/2=166,400.

So the 60 strength brick could punch and deform about 1.66” of steel and in a couple punches likely penetrate it.

 

I still do not think a 30 Defense is ideal, but as always I don’t really care because supernatural being in my games always have the penetrating +1/4 advantage.

 

This all assumes linier gain as well. Again in real life a person who has 20 or 30 times the strength would not necessarily be able to hit 20 and 30 times as hard respectively, because there are limit to speed and body mass, if the brick weighs 350 lbs and his punches speed is only 100 MPH (major league baseball speeds) he will reach the limits of his punch long before he reaches the 166,400 mark and would be pushing himself away from the tank with every hit while the tank remained unscathed. He would be forced to resort to rending (something a tank is vulnerable to) or finding another leverage angle.

 

But as we all know we do not game for realism, we game for fun.

[zslane]

I think it is useful to realize that what you read in the comics can't be counted on to make sense according to any reasonable definition of realism. When you say The Thing easily trashed tanks in the comics, that is not because The Thing's measured super strength correlated to an energy output calculated to trash tanks easily. It was simply because the writers wanted it to happen, and so it did.

 

The only measured value for Ben Grimm's strength came, decades later, when it was decided to slap a specific value to it and publish it in the Handbook of the Marvel Universe. But those numbers were mostly pulled out of thin air and not meant to withstand much scrutiny. When it came time to define these characters for the Marvel Superhero RPG, similar numbers were pulled out of thin air and chosen largely for play balance reasons. If a FASERIP score of 50 happened to be enough to "trash" a tank, it was only because the designers thought about that scenario, rated a tank to be trashable by that degree of strength (or energy blast, or whatever) regardless of whether or not that tank resembled its real-world counterpart in terms of combat performance.

 

In my estimation, the Hero System is the only RPG that attempts to both approximate real-world performance for military hardware and simulate comic-book superhero action at the same time. Other RPGs probably don't run into this problem because players are typically willing to sacrifice one for the other. I understand that some here disagree with the published stats for the Abrams tank, and I think a discussion aimed at producing more accurate values could be quite valuable. But I still don't think that alone is the answer to the broader conundrum created by insisting that a superhero world should be governed by real-world physics.

[Ndreare]

I completely agree with you on this 10,000% [a comic book measurement if there ever was one]

[Hugh Neilson]

I still do not think a 30 Defense is ideal, but as always I don’t really care because supernatural being in my games always have the penetrating +1/4 advantage.

Which has no impact whatsoever on the ability of a normal damage attack to inflict BOD damage.

 

This all assumes linier gain as well. Again in real life a person who has 20 or 30 times the strength would not necessarily be able to hit 20 and 30 times as hard respectively, because there are limit to speed and body mass, if the brick weighs 350 lbs and his punches speed is only 100 MPH (major league baseball speeds) he will reach the limits of his punch long before he reaches the 166,400 mark and would be pushing himself away from the tank with every hit while the tank remained unscathed. He would be forced to resort to rending (something a tank is vulnerable to) or finding another leverage angle.

Here again, the tank is just as resistant to rending as it is to punching.

 

 

But as we all know we do not game for realism, we game for fun.

And is it fun that the tank is immune to damage from the PC's? Realism and most genres (Supers, Sci Fi, etc.) tend not to align anyway.

 

Is it realistic or fun that an attack which can destroy a large bridge only damages the tank?

 

I think it is useful to realize that what you read in the comics can't be counted on to make sense according to any reasonable definition of realism. When you say The Thing easily trashed tanks in the comics, that is not because The Thing's measured super strength correlated to an energy output calculated to trash tanks easily. It was simply because the writers wanted it to happen, and so it did.

This also means that the writers decided the Thing's super strength correlated to an energy output calculated to trash tanks easily.

 

In my estimation, the Hero System is the only RPG that attempts to both approximate real-world performance for military hardware and simulate comic-book superhero action at the same time.

So, in the real world, you believe that two blasts from the Abrams' main gun will destroy a large bridge, and three can take out the Golden Gate bridge? because that is the approximation of real world performance which is set by the Hero RPG stats.

 

Skimming those stats again, why do automobiles and aircraft have less defenses than sheet metal? A breakaway flagpole and railroad tracks have identical defenses (both superior to the car and the plane). So does a small tree (less than 2 meters high). At least the car has lots of BOD!

 

An armored car doesn't even have the defenses of light armor??

[zslane]

This also means that the writers decided the Thing's super strength correlated to an energy output calculated to trash tanks easily.

Well, I think it really only means the writers decided The Thing's super strength was enough to trash a tank because it made for a cool story that issue, not because they had any clue how much energy that actually required. The Thing would mysteriously have difficulty breaking through things less hardy than a tank if the plot required it as well. I just don't think we can look to the comics for any degree of consistency on the matter. Writers don't have to make these characters work in an RPG setting, whereas Hero System GMs do.

 

So, in the real world, you believe that two blasts from the Abrams' main gun will destroy a large bridge, and three can take out the Golden Gate bridge? because that is the approximation of real world performance which is set by the Hero RPG stats.

I've never seen an Abrams fire its main gun on a large bridge, so I don't know how many shots it would take to destroy one. I also don't know what is meant by "destroy" in this context, so it's hard to offer much of an opinion. I am nevertheless perfectly willing to entertain the notion that the Abrams main gun is over-powered in the game, or that large structures are under-specified (or both).