Battle Dress

[opensent]

Just because a ship no longer moves does not mean it's own security forces are disabled or pinned. And trying to cut through a serious bulkhead or planting breaching charges while the enemy shoots at you is a baad job

Picking up the bits of Marines who blew themselves up with their PGMP is certainly not as dangerous as combat engineering, but a lot less glamerous as well...

Combat Engineering has been around for a long, long time. Fire power hasn't replaced it yet, and won't in the future.

 

[Ishmael]

for what its worth, in MT a fgmp-15 cannot penetrate standard hull armor, nor interior load-bearing pressure bulkheads even though it'd make short work of partition walls.

In AHL it'd take a fgmp-15 3 direct hits on the same spot at effective range to cause a pressure bilkhead to lose pressure integrity and some 28 direct hits on the same spot to create a breach large enough for a man to pass through.
I wouldn't worry overly much about random shots punching through bulkheads...equipment and conduits and the like...well...they'd probably be damaged even by small arms fire.

I figure boarding action procedures and risks and weapon deployments are left to the players and ref.


hey!
We've moved away from discussing battledress to discuss boarding actions and hi-energy weapons....
Maybe it'd be a good idea to start a new thread with an appropriate title.

 

[GypsyComet]

hey!
We've moved away from discussing battledress to discuss boarding actions and hi-energy weapons....
Maybe it'd be a good idea to start a new thread with an appropriate title.

Seconded, if only because that's the sort of topic you want to be able to find again later. As such, an appropriate topic title is a good thing.

 

[zozotroll]

So what happens to the cutlass swingers when the defenders are not in a mood to be cut up, and man the FGMPs? Dead is dead. If you get choped or you go in a blaze of glory taking the bastards with you, the only difference is the song they write afterwards.

As far as inappropriate use of weapons, troops do that all the time. A buddy of mine recently had a jammed M4, a loaded M203 and a badguy about 20 meters away. The grenade did not detonate, but it did penetrate. But it would not have mattered if it would have armed anyway, he still would have taken the shot.

I also met somebody that cleared a room he was in with 2 grenades. He wasnt sure he would survive, but was certain he would not have if he had not used them.

The ship may or may not go boom. That nasty looking support laser will end your carrer in the next 1.2 seconds. Sure know what I would use.

 

[opensent]

The Imperium is not Iraq (at least not until the Black War). Mercenaries are routinely ransomed; there are rules of war, etc. Starships are as often hijacked for ransom, as theft. There is honor in a valiant defense, but few sophonts will ‘go down in a blaze of glory’ as you describe.

One does not rise to the upper echelons of the Admiralty and Nobility by allowing crew and enlisted men to get out of hand with such 'antics'. Make sure your lieutenants and midshipmen keep the boys in line old chap. Losing a prize because you left the enemy no room for surrender is a career ender you know? Should you be captured, keep faith with your men Sir, as most prisoners are exchanged at the end of hostilities. You will of course stand before a court-martial upon your return...

All this changes around 1124, but until then, you can expect that most combatants won't engage in the practices you describe. Otherwise tactics will evolve to meet them (destroying the ship outright, pounding the ship with enhanced radiation weapons, etc).

Think Master and Commander, not Black Hawk Down.

 

[zozotroll]

depends on who you are fighting. Merc on merc, or on Imps sure no problem. After reading the pro pirate threads, nope, not surrendering to no pirate. At least it is quick.

Against another power, in a fleet engagement, sure, just give up. Against a black op, that doesnt want witrnesses, no way.

Besides, if dinky little hand held weapons are so likely to destroy a starship, how can they possibly survive hits from a 50 ton bay? Even the weakest turret laser is many times more powerful than the strongest MPA.

And yes there is armor, that 4-6 points that gets shaved off, but after that it is all enternal. And there are no boom results on the hit charts.

So sure kill all the PCs you want, but the starship combat rules dont seem to support that. and I know my players at least are smart enough to call me on it if I did that to them.

 

[opensent]

And yet somehow, just this year, 90 crews have surrendered to pirates off the coast of Somalia.

If a FGMP counts as a dinky hand weapon, I’d want to play in your game. I’m sure you won’t mind if my character has a crapy suit of armor (Battledress) to go along with his dinky hand weapon.

Do ‘black ops’ ships announce themselves in your game? Perhaps they might want to review the concept of cover.

You’re right about the hit charts. To bad they don’t tell the whole story. ‘MGT page 150: A ship that runs of structure breaks up and is completely destroyed.’

 

[zozotroll]

Somalia Pirates do not as a general rule kill the crews. And, the crews are not armed, so it doesnt much matter if they want to shoot back or not.

And in your game if an FGMP is a fiercsum shit killer, how weak are turret weapons?

Besides, unless you have mixed oxygen in with the H2 you are not going to get a boom, just a fire around the breach hole. And a fire that will go out soon anyway, as there is not enough volume of O2 in all the coridors to oxidize a full tank of fuel anyway.

I have a problem with players thinking they can go hunting ships with an FGMP and a grav belt. Which if an FGMP can kill a ship that easily, they will do.

I have shot real howitzers close enough that we got fragments back from our own shells, I hope the space marines are at least as brave as the US Army.

 

[opensent]

So why do you assume that OTU pirates, who are interested in money, would be any different? Why would they kill the crew when ransom would serve them better?

Yes, hunting a ship with a grav belt and FGMP is stupid. It should not be done. It's like throwing a hand grenade at a tank. Almost no effect.

But I'm talking about FGMPs fired inside of a ship. Armor, hull; these are designed to protect from primarly external damage. Imagine that hand grenade being thrown inside of a tank.

You realize that MGT rules allow for a ship to take up to 2d6 damage (same as a beam laser) during a boarding op (pg 148). And that's after they clarify that most boarding is done using cutlass and accelerators weapons (pg 137). :roll:

Also, the game makes it clear that ship weapons fired at a personal should be multiplied by 50 to compute damage (pg 151). So a 1d6 pulse laser does 50 to 300 points of damage to someone one. Well it's not too much of a strech to think that each 50 points of personal damage would equal 1 point of ship level damage. And with the FGMP dealing 16d6, the average damage roll is 56 points, which would be 1 hit.

 

[zozotroll]

somalia is a poor fit due to the UN. The 3I is under no such oversite. Any pirate base detected is most likely a crater in a very short time. World opinion will not stand for that in our world.

And yes I realize 50 points is one hit. But again, so what? Fuel tank hits from external weapons do not cause the ship to disintegrate, why shold they from an internal hit?

I just had my group go through a on the ground ship boarding. they wore thier BD, but carrried laser rifles and guass rifles as they wanted to be able to use the controls.Still had 2 PC KIA. Had they surged forwards with cutlasses I dont think any of them would have survived.

And that was against guys in combat armor with gauss rifles themselves. Even so, one of them finaly got fed up with the steady climbing wounds they where takeing, and blew through a baricade with a PGMP. Took out an internal bulkhead, and trashed part of the cargo. But he knew, or was pretty sure, that was what was behind them.

Sure it was a risk, but they felt the tradeoff was worth it. Besides, when I first enlisted in the Army, nobody issued me a certificate stating that it was a safe occupation. I very much doubt the 3I marines get one either. Stuff happens, and there is not that much you can do about it. I suspect hiting a missle with a laser rifle is a carrer ender as well. And so is charging down a corridor into a VRF gauss rifle when you only have a cutlass.

 

[Myrm]

Besides, unless you have mixed oxygen in with the H2 you are not going to get a boom, just a fire around the breach hole. And a fire that will go out soon anyway, as there is not enough volume of O2 in all the coridors to oxidize a full tank of fuel anyway.

You don't need to oxidise liquid H2 to get a boom. The change in temperature will do it by ensuring that the liquid hydrogen vaporises rapidly enough. I use liquid nitrogen on a regular basis and having plunged room temperature items in that liquid gas with spectacular results I shudder to think how much yield you would get from plasma hitting liquid gases and vaporising it.

 

[zozotroll]

OK, I dont have a problen with that. But, once again, how is it worse, that a FGMP hits it, instead of a ships laser? A fuel hit is a fuel hit. Yes the laser, or Particle beam has to punch through the armor first, but it stall has way more energy left than any hand weapon.

It seems that any fuel hjit should be the end of the ship. So why is it only during boarding actions that ships blow up? Yes they fall apart when they run out of structure, but that is not the same as a single fuel hit, and the first one at that, and kaboom, because it was in a boarding action.

In ship to ship combat, the first hit causes a leak of 1-6 tons/hour. But somehow the same single hit by a pgmp causes a whole ship to go up.

Sound like instead of fighters or turrets we should be launching marines with PGMP to kill all the ships because they cause explosions that ships weapons do not.

Somehow this seems a big problem of believability to me. I can accept all the bad things MPA can cause in a boarding action, but if so, all of them should carry over into ship to shipcombat. And that is going to make for some might short combats.

 

[opensent]

Because the damage is directed outward into empty space, not inward into where you are standing.

If this is too hard to undestand, please do the following:

1) Find two large firecrackers.

2) Light one and place it in your empty hand. Let it explode. Observe as the effect is painful, yet it causes no lasting harm.

3) Light the second firework and close your hand around it.

4) Drive to the hospital with your missing digits and what remains of your hand.

 

[GJD]

Of course, punching a hole in a tank and spraying cryogenically cooled hydrogen (or methane or funky clathrate or whatever you want to use) around the inside of the ship has problems in and of itself. Supercooled liquids can react energetically and explosivley through rapid heating. Cinematic freezing and shatting of unlucky crewmembers optional.

G.

 

[zozotroll]

Because the damage is directed outward into empty space, not inward into where you are standing.

If this is too hard to undestand, please do the following:

1) Find two large firecrackers.

2) Light one and place it in your empty hand. Let it explode. Observe as the effect is painful, yet it causes no lasting harm.

3) Light the second firework and close your hand around it.

4) Drive to the hospital with your missing digits and what remains of your hand.

Oh I get it, when a boarder shoots the fuel tank, it is on the inside of the ship, but when another ship shoots the same fuel tank it is on the outside. Makes perfect sense that way.

Now try this. Close your hand on fire cracker (1 point MPA). Now open your hand and set off grenade (4D6 Particle bay). Of course the firecracker is worse becsue you closed your hand, thyat many times more powerful grenade is not going to blow your face off.

Besides, there is nothing to keep that bay from punching through both sides of that tank, after all it is so thin on the inside an MPA can punch it, so the bay goes off on the inside as well.

Look at the damage bands on the table. If ships are that fragile, the penetrating hit should turn them inside out. Doesnt seem to be a result for that, so again, explain why peneteating hits dont cause this tremendous damage, yet an MPA does.

Or is it just that you dont care about logic, just dont want PCs to use heavy guns in boarding action. Fine by me, its your game. But dont try to dress it up as if it isnt inconsistant for me.

 

[kristof65]

Some things no one has mentioned in regards to heavy weapons and ship boarding actions - briefings and the capabilites of Battle Dress.

Professionals, like the Imperial Marines, are most likely going to be briefed on the situation they're going into. Part of that briefing is going to include as much of the layout of the ship they're boarding as possible.

Considering that Battle Dress most likely has an onboard computer, this information can be downloaded to them, and after downloading, should be available to them in an instant - so if they want to fire an FGMP on board a ship, they'll be be able to ask the computer the advisability of such an action.

Layout information can be provided to the BD in four different ways, and it is likely that more than one means will be used in any given situation.
- for ships of a "standard" class, the standard plan information. It's also likely that Imperial ships, as a matter of course, will receive updated specs and registration numbers of every ship known to have operated in their region for a period of time. How accurate those are, of course, depends on many factors.
- intelligence operations. A prime piece of information spies will be seeking are the deck plans and layouts of "enemy" ships.
- scans before and during combat. Fuel tanks will probably be one of the easier areas to define from scans
- real time boarding data as the Marine's board, and their computers interface and update things.

This actually brings up all sorts of tactically interesting situations during ship boardings. If a pirate crew knows the Marines will be boarding, then they may well hole up in that stateroom next to the fuel tank. Now the marines are left with the choice - use the FGMP that will end the combat instantly (and likely them with it) or use a lower firepower approach?

Overall, Marines will not only want to use every tool at their disposal, be it a cutlass or an FGMP, but will want to be able to make the decision of what tool should best be applied in any given situation. Their field equipment - AKA Battle Dress; their training and situational briefings will mostly likely be designed to give them the information they need to make the best battlefield decisions they can - including whether or not to blast out a bulkhead with a PGMP, or storm a corridor with cutlasses.

Now, with the wide lattitude that various Imperial commanders are given thanks to the communication lags, you may very well run across Naval and Marine commanders who will not allow their troops to use Plasma and Fusion weapons in boarding actions. But you'll probably run across as many that will. And regardless of the rules, you'll probably still have Marines that bring FGMPs to the party - it's their lives on the line, and they'll be damned if they'll let some Admiral dictate to them.

 

[Infojunky]

I am amused, looking for meta-game reasons to limit what weapons get used inside the hull.

It's ok for different people to have different vision of what it is supposed to look like. Really.

With that, consider this any opposed boarding is gonna trash the areas where combat takes place. Whether this damage is catastrophic or not is up to the combatants and the game master.

Use of PGMPs and FGMPs is gonna be a lot like using RPGs and other anti-tank weapons for room clearance. Translate using them will be as dangerous to the operators as the targets.

As for the entire puncturing a hydrogen fuel tank, that has a low probability out side of Engineering spaces as the tankage has bulkhead protection throughout the ship. And in the engineering space there is a very high probability of there being a suppression system in place. Couple these two facts with the fuel state of the ship in question, most likely the tanks are less than full, so any puncture/leak is less problematic as the internal pressure will be much lower.

 

[kristof65]

I am amused, looking for meta-game reasons to limit what weapons get used inside the hull.

I don't think it was that, so much as people have different visions of what shipboard combat and boarding actions will look like. Will they be swords and pistols? Or will they be BD and FGMPs? Two vastly different scenarios.

My answer to that, BTW? Well, it depends...
- who's fighting who.
- where they are fighting (region, not actual battlefield)
- what's at stake
- numerous other factors

It's ok for different people to have different vision of what it is supposed to look like. Really.

Yep.

With that, consider this any opposed boarding is gonna trash the areas where combat takes place. Whether this damage is catastrophic or not is up to the combatants and the game master.

Yep. As a GM, I tend to let the PCs do what they want, then apply the consequences. Only if they are going to do something really stupid - like knowingly shooting through a bulkhead into the fuel tank will I try and stop them - "Are you sure you want to shoot into the fuel tank witht hat fusion gun? The resulting explosion will likely kill you? Yes, you still do? Is your PC really that dumb? Make me a roll against your Int (or Wis)? Wow, you still do. Well, let's hope you get lucky. Roll me your damage."

So they storm that ship with FGMPs. By the time the fight's over, assuming the PCs survive, the ship probably isn't going any where any time soon until the combat damaged is repaired. It generally doesn't take long for PCs in my campaigns to learn to use discretion, that overwhelming firepower isn't always the appropriate solution.

And even if they choose that path, so what? It's not like a car will instantly explode EVERY TIME you shoot it (despite what TV says). There is no need to make a ships fuel tanks that volatile either. In the end, to me the ideal solution is for the PCs to be saying "Wow, we barely survived that. Let's try something different next time." rather than just saying they can't do it up front.

 

[AKAramis]

A slow Lhyd leak into an O2 containing atmo will be a likely fire.
A fast one will simply kill all it encounters by freezing them solid.

The Stuff is THAT dangerous.

 

[GJD]

Couple these two facts with the fuel state of the ship in question, most likely the tanks are less than full, so any puncture/leak is less problematic as the internal pressure will be much lower.

Leak lower, yes, but flashover not so. Partially, or totally, empty tanks allow the liquid/gas to expand, making ignition MORE likely.

G.