Toadmaster

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Exactly bore and gauge can be interchanged sort of like box magazine and clip, technically not correct terminology but a common slang usage. Gauge is simply a bore measurement using lead balls. The bore diameter of a 12 gauge shotgun is the same as the diameter of lead ball 1/12 of a pound. English double rifles in the 19th century frequently used the term bore measuring like most shotguns do, so a 2 bore rifle has a bore diameter = to the diameter of a 1/2 pound lead ball.

Re: .50 cal Longarm and that is precisely why I suggested the .458 Winmag, it is about the biggest cartridge out there that could still be considered a "normal" round that can be safely fired from a standing position repeatedly as would be the case for a combat rifle. Sure there were examples of soldiers firing the .55 Boys and 14.5mm PTRS / PTRD rifles from a standing position, but they didn't usually try that twice.

Re: Heart Shot

Re: Area Bunneh Makes Good! Well knowing teh bunneh aren't you worried that you might have to release it in a plain brown wrapper? Congrats Bill, good job.

Re: Failure To Stop Drill That sounds more like walking your fire which can be done with automatic weapons. That would be a battlefield situation, not law enforcement, and would usually be done with a machinegun. That was basically how the hull machinegun in WW2 tanks aimed. The sights were not that great so they would aim low to see where they were hitting with the burst then walk it onto the target, of course they had several hundred rounds of ammunition and any stray rounds were most likely going to hit another enemy soldier or pass merrily on its way relatively harmlessly. That would not be the preferred method to clear soldiers out of a town full of friendlies.

Re: .50 cal Longarm Here you go, Winchester Model 70 chambered in .458 magnum, the rifle has been around since 1936, the cartridge since 1956 so should fit well within your tech level. The .458 was developed to provide a bolt action rifle comparable in power to the larger double rifles. It is for hunting African big game (elephant, rhino, cape buffalo) so giants should feel it. The rifle only holds 3 rounds, but a combat rifle could probably be designed with a box magazine holding 5-10 rounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Model_70 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.458_Winchester_Magnum In Hero terms I'd go with 2 1/2d6 +1 stnmod

Re: .50 cal Longarm It would be easier if you explained what you wanted from the gun. Sniper rifle, battle rifle, assault rifle, smg, hunting rifle? The .50 caliber sniper rifles are long, heavy and bulky weapons not much use for anything except killing things a long long way away, or for putting holes in vehicles and lightly armored targets. There are actually better (more accurate) weapons for killing things a very long way off. There have been smaller .50 rifles using the AR-15 (M16) and a much smaller cartridge, these are more appropriate as a general use personal weapon than the sniper rifles. So what do you want it to do.

Re: Failure To Stop Drill

Re: Failure To Stop Drill

Re: Cool Guns for your Games They do or at least did, 15.5mm as I recall. The neat thing with the South African 20mm is it uses the same round as the WW2 German 20mm aircraft gun.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Well it's not very interesting but realistically I think we have probably seen more change in the past 48 years than we will see in the next 22, at least regarding projectile weapons. There was a lot of development between 1960 and 1990, but since then mostly just fine tuning existing systems. I think a lot depends on if you want to be realistically accurate, or plausably accurate, the second certainly offers more options. I would not be at all surprised to see US forces still essentially using the same weapons we see today. I would expect to see more development of specialist weapons, sniper rifles, squad automatic weapons, suppressed weapons, entry weapons etc. Tactical law enforcement weapons may see some further development and adoption. If there are any changes it will probably be to larger caliber rounds. While caseless rounds have been pretty well perfected it seems to have become a solution looking for a problem, at least for a standard issue weapon. Similarly with the exception of the Steyr AUG, multi-function weapon systems (SMG, rifle, LMG, sniper rifle etc) have not been very popular, they generally compromise and end up being unsatisfactory compared to dedictaed weapons. The Stoner weapons system is the only other one I know of to see some acceptance. In reality the AUG has seen most of its success as a rifle and the Stoner was really only used as a light machinegun (SEALs in Vietnam), neither have been widely used as a weapons system. Non-lethal's have a lot of potential. Shock weapons (tasers, stun guns) and sound based weapons currently are being used, lots of others are showing promise. There is a pretty good selection of weapons that "could" be adopted so no reason to limit yourself to the mundane, particularly if you see an expansion of private security forces as is popular in most cyber punk settings.

Re: Failure To Stop Drill In fire arms training 2 shots into center mass followed by a head shot is called a failure to stop or Mozambique drill. The idea is that if the target takes two rounds in the chest and keeps coming, they are probably wearing body armor, so a round in the head should work. Good drill for possible undead as well. PGMFOX, I wouldn't get too hung up on specifics, HERO makes some concessions to reality, as you fix one you will find 3 more. The game does work well for modern "realistic" settings but you do need to look the other way in a few areas. Something like a failure to stop drill is getting a bit specific to find a workable and satisfactory result. This is not to say you shouldn't tweak, just don't get too hung up trying to tweak every little thing.

Re: What Have You Watched Recently? Untracable, I wish it had been. Bad SAW wannabe with an internet twist. The law enforcement charaters were idiots, it used all the cliche interagency obstruction and the bad guy was able to do insanely improbable things with computers and electronics. It had potential but missed by a lot. I'd like my 2 hours back please.

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica Thanks, looks like it will be PC then.

Re: Fallout 3: Postapocalyptica Since FO3 is available for the PS3, XBox and PC do any of you have a recommendation for which version to get? I typically prefer the PS2 for shooters and the PC for tactical and turn based games when there was an option. Not sure if this will change with the PS3 and 360.

Re: Best genre to learn HERO system? That is a legitimate concern, I was just thinking of the rules and finding players. That would work too. I played a little Bushido in high school and would love to get into a Ninja Hero game someday.

Re: Best genre to learn HERO system? Personally I'd go for a low magic fantasy hero game, something like the Conan setting, powerful magic is out there but very unusual. The advantage of a setting like this is it sticks to the basic rules. People expect durable heroes so you should not get pressure to use the optional (more lethal) combat rules and fantasy is by far the most popular genre to find players for. By allowing for the possibility of magic, but relative rarity you can start to work in the use of powers and magic items as players get more comfortable, but you will not have D&D style parties with multiple magic users. A second choice would be a modern setting, for many of the same reasons, but that has some drawbacks fantasy doesn't. It is a much less popular genre, and you will likely be pressured to use many of the optional rules, rapid fire, explosives, more lethality, vehicles etc. A 4 color Supers game would actually be pretty low on my list, and not just because it is not a genre I get into. The big problem with 4 color supers is you will be biting off the whole game in one bite. Creating super heroes is considerably more complicated than creating heroic level characters.

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? Since a lot of what if's are being thrown out there, there are two factors that would have made Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union a complete and utter failure instead of the close thing it was. The Soviet Union had vastly superior tanks in 1941, however due to intelligence that Germany had better tanks than it actually had, production of new tanks and more critically ammunition was halted while evalation of new tanks proceeded. By the time the Soviets realised their mistake there was not time to make up the lost time and many Soviet tanks went into battle desperately short on ammunition. There were two critical decisions that could have made a major change. #1 If Hitler had held off attacking the USSR until 1942 as some suggest would have been a good idea, it would have been disasterous. The nearly invulnerable KV 1 & 2 (many KV tanks held off the Germans for hours with no ammunition, in some cases ramming or running over German tanks) would have been well supplied with ammunition. They also would have had the T-34 in service. The Tiger only began to enter service in 1942 so the Germans would have had nothing to counter the Soviet Armor. Without the collapse of the Red Army, Germany may not have had the breathing space to upgun their outdated tanks. #2 If Stalin had decided against halting production in preparation for re-tooling of new tanks, the Germans would have rolled into poorly organized but well armed Soviet Heavy tanks. This very nearly happend but Stalin finally was won over by those recommending a drastic change in tank design.

Re: Who was WWII's most important leader? Lots of good reasons given for the various leaders, but I think I would have to go with Churchill prior to 1942, as he held the line until the US entered the war and Eisenhower afterwards. Eisenhower provided the neccessary competance, tact and low key ego to keep all the primadonnas in line.

Re: Cool Guns for your Games The Automag V was chambered for .50 AE. I don't recall any of them being chambered for the .475, but that does bring up another cool gun that I don't remember being posted yet, the Wildey magnum. http://www.wildeyguns.com/index.html If you prefer a wheelgun the Linebaugh revolvers offer some monster rounds too. http://www.customsixguns.com/sixguns.htm

Re: Cool Guns for your Games Dan Wesson revolvers were sold for silouette shooting and were available in most of the popular big bore revolver cartrides .357 mag, .44 mag, .45 Colt, as well as several semi custom high power cartridges .357 Supermag, .375 Supermag, .414 Supermag and .445 Supermag. They also have an unusual interchangable barrel system allowing the gun to switch between several barrel lengths. Dan Wesson has come and gone over the years but is currently in buisness. http://danwesson.sectordevelopment.com/

Re: 1970s-era Police Camaro and from the 80's. Nice looking car though, I remember reading a Motor trend or Road & track comparing the Mustang and Camaro when CHP was testing them. The Mustang of course won, and went on to be used for almost 20 years. The CHP did use some Camaros in the 70's and again in the late 90s. Thanks for the pic.

Re: 1970s-era Police Campaign Body armor would be available but not widely used by the police in the 70's. Much like breathing apparatus with firefighters it took a good 10-15 years for the idea to really catch on for regular use.

Re: 1970s-era Police Campaign Polce Story is another good one, Joseph Wambaugh was one of the creators of the show. He worked for the LAPD in the 60-70s. He has also written quite a few fiction and non fiction police oriented books (The Onion Field is probably his best known). One of the neat things about police story is each episode was largey removed from the rest, there were a few repeat characters but essentially each episode was like a mini movie and the writers were going for a realistic depiction. The first three Dirty Harry movies (Dirty Harry, The Enforcer, Magnum Force)do a pretty good job of rounding up all the popular genre conventions popular in the 70's. Bullett, Serpico, The French Connection, The Seven ups, In the Heat of the night, Walking Tall (Joe Don Baker, not the Rock), and Death Wish are definately good for ideas.

Re: Foods for those that just don't care anymore Caffeine is not a tasty food group, its more like a vitamin, something good for you but you don't taste it.