Open Vehicle Armor Allocation

[Arkathan]

Looking at the vehicle construction rules, it looks like vehicles come with protection on six sides, distributed evenly. With each point of protection bought increasing each side by that amount.

Does an open vehicle have no top armor or would the floor (seat) of the passenger space(s) be considered top armor leaving the passenger exposed?

Would a WWII LCVP - Higgins boat (Landing craft at Normandy), with side protection to duck behind, be considered an open vehicle or a boat/amphibious craft with Zero for the top armor?

 

[Condottiere]

I've never watched it, and I should, but I'm told there's a scene in Apocalypse Now where a soldier in a helicopter mentions that the reason he sits on his helmet is to protect his testicles from ground fire.

And pilots tend to sit on their flak jackets.

As an ad hoc measure, you can always add on armour, in varying degrees of effectiveness, from draping across wooden logs, or welding armour plates from shot up tanks.


And speaking of Vietnam, sand bags on the floor of armoured personnel carriers in case of mines, to Korea with sand bags protecting gun crews on their technicals.

 

[Arkathan]

Thanks. I assumed the game considered a similar thing by halving effectiveness of top and bottom armor. Historically weaker.

The main thrust of the question is, does an open vehicle have top armor? If it does not, do the points that were there vanish or are they apportioned around the remaining armor?
Is an open topped APC an open vehicle, or can the side armor be used as cover, the extent of which would depend on whether the passenger is ducking, standing or firing from cover?

I'm trying to get the official way of calculating what to do with the top armor in both cases (although in an open topped APC, you'd assume you redistributed the armour.)
What about a Jeep?

 

[Condottiere]

If it's an open top, I kinda doubt that you could allocate armour there.

Don't recall if there's a convertible option.

 

[Arkathan]

If it's an open top, I kinda doubt that you could allocate armour there.

Don't recall if there's a convertible option.

Open top, to me, means you removed the top armor. Open Vehicle doesn't protect passengers.
The buggy in Flatlined has no roof, does not have the open vehicle trait, and does not specify that the top armor is different from the side armor.

 

[Condottiere]

So this is basically an alteration on an existing chassis?

Less weight, armour allocation for the other five sides would remain the same.

 

[Arkathan]

So this is basically an alteration on an existing chassis?

Less weight, armour allocation for the other five sides would remain the same.

No, more of a how does this work type of thing.
On an open vehicle, does it have top armor that does not protect people or not?
If not, do you move the armor that would have been on top, or does it just vanish?

Is a vehicle with no top armor an open vehicle? Or does that require an individual referee ruling to determine whether people can use side armor for cover while shooting out of the open top?
I gave the landing craft as an example. Do you take the top armor and redistribute it down to zero, or is it an open vehicle and do they even have top armor, or do you lose that sixth of protection points you are paying for?

 

[Condottiere]

The only thing that is protecting you from the top would be your helmet and shoulder pads.

In regard to side armour this would have to be clarified with the Dungeon Master, because I think this goes into the aspect of cover: and cover will disappear from a wall the higher the degree of incoming fire, so you could give it a percentage of either hit or damage.

If you're firing from a window, you could treat it as crenels and merlons like a battlement, the merlons giving greater cover; so if you really want to get the optimum use of cover, you'd have to establish how tall it is, and exactly where the fire is coming from. It's why so much emphasis is based on getting the high ground.

That would be direct fire; indirect fire is stuff loops over the obstacles to be above you, where no vehicle armour would intervene, and you'd get the full effect of damage.

One option is angled side armour; in theory, it's not a roof, but if you can squeeze under it, it could act like it.

 

[Arkathan]

Obviously. However...
The questions are:
Would a zero top armor make it an open vehicle;
Does an Open Vehicle have top armor;
Can you move top armor from an open vehicle, if it does not technically have top armor, in order to place it elsewhere?

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

I'm thinking an open vehicle can have top armour, even if it doesn't protect the passengers. The vehicle still has an overside, and even if passengers sit on top of it, any incoming damage from above would still hit the vehicle's top (after blowing up the passengers, in some cases!). So the passengers might sit on top of the top armour, but the top of the vehicle can still be protected, or simply strong enough to withstand some damage.

So, removing all armour from the top of a vehicle shouldn't make it open-topped, just weak-roofed (not sure that's a word, but...) and you wouldn't neccesarily get free armour to move around by flagging it as open-topped either, you'd just weaken the top of the hull.

 

[Condottiere]

I'm going to take this in three directions:

1. Altering a vehicle to have an armoured roof should be possible, but it needs to be structurally able to support it, and you add the weight to overall performance in speed and endurance.

2. You could remove the armoured top of a vehicle, and utilize it as additional armour or an armoured barrier elsewhere, if you have the right equipment and skill.

3. From a design aspect, if the vehicle template says you don't have a top, and you want a top, find a vehicle template that says you have a top where you can allocate armour; if you have an existing vehicle without a top, read point one.

4. If you want a double decker bus with an armoured roof on the first level, but just sufficient fixtures to act as secure transportation for the passengers on the second level, they are exposed in the sense that thin walls and roof offer no armoured protection.

 

[Arkathan]

Thanks for the input, everyone.