That magic 100 meter zone of immunity

[Infojunky]

Any one else notice the 100 meter plus zone of target immunity that weapons mounted on "closed" vehicles grant?

 

[Belisknar]

Any one else notice the 100 meter plus zone of target immunity that weapons mounted on "closed" vehicles grant?

Care to expand with some example text/page reference numbers?

Maybe give a little bit more context or example to your statement.

 

[Infojunky]

Any one else notice the 100 meter plus zone of target immunity that weapons mounted on "closed" vehicles grant?

Care to expand with some example text/page reference numbers?

Maybe give a little bit more context or example to your statement.

Page 133, 3rd point under Vehicle Weapons header.

"All weapons mounted on a closed vehicle may not be used to attack targets within 10% of the weapon’s Range. They are simply not designed to engage close targets."

 

[-Daniel-]

Any one else notice the 100 meter plus zone of target immunity that weapons mounted on "closed" vehicles grant?

Care to expand with some example text/page reference numbers?

Maybe give a little bit more context or example to your statement.

Page 133, 3rd point under Vehicle Weapons header.

"All weapons mounted on a closed vehicle may not be used to attack targets within 10% of the weapon’s Range. They are simply not designed to engage close targets."

Isn't that the very reason Tanks without infantry support are at such a disadvantage in urban environments. It is too easy to get so close that the tank can't easily engage the enemy?

This seems to feel right to me. This is also why they have been working on things like tank mounted claymore style close protection devices and anti-RPG devices like the Israeli Trophy system. Using a fictional example as well, the tanks in Hammers Slammers had anti-personnel mines attached to their armor so they could counter the infantry that got too close with the "buzzbombs".

Is 10% the right answer? Not sure, bit having a zone does feel right.

Side note, wouldn't mounting a Machinegun reduce that zone down to 50 meters?

 

[Belisknar]

That number seems pretty fine to me. As -Daniel- has already pointed out with his examples, mounted weapons such as turrets don't have a full range of vertical movement so if something gets too close the weapon simply can't aim low enough.

 

[Infojunky]

Is 10% the right answer? Not sure, bit having a zone does feel right.

Side note, wouldn't mounting a Machinegun reduce that zone down to 50 meters?

The problem with the 10%, is the minimum is 100 Meters i.e. 20 car lengths. For the Light Autocannon....

If it had been 1% I probably wouldn't have said anything.

Note most turret mounted weapons depress, the figure that comes to mind is 7 to 9 degrees. A tactic I was told of is parking a tank hull down along a ridgeline overlooking a road, so they can fire at the top decks of vehicles coming down the road without their main hulls being exposed to return fire.

Also Note once you have popped your hatches to man the self defense weapons you realistically aren't a "closed" vehicle anymore or at least for the TC and Loader.....

 

[-Daniel-]

The problem with the 10%, is the minimum is 100 Meters i.e. 20 car lengths. For the Light Autocannon....

If it had been 1% I probably wouldn't have said anything.

So something between 10% and 1% would make sense. Just closer to 1%. :wink:

How about 5%? Would that make sense?

Also Note once you have popped your hatches to man the self defense weapons you realistically aren't a "closed" vehicle anymore or at least for the TC and Loader.....

Except I was not thinking of a system where you need to pop the hatch. Even today there are lots of examples of remote controlled self defense weapons. For example the US has their Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) system or the SWARM Remote Weapon System made in Scotland or the FLW 200 used by the German Army. They all allow the use of the MG (and in many cases Grenade Launchers as well) from an internal weapons station.

If we got them to drop it to 5% then this remote MG would be limited to 25 meters. And using your Auto Cannon would now be at 50 Meters. What do you think?

As for the tactics for using the terrain in your favor, I would allow for adjustments in those cases. :mrgreen:

 

[Infojunky]

The problem with the 10%, is the minimum is 100 Meters i.e. 20 car lengths. For the Light Autocannon....

If it had been 1% I probably wouldn't have said anything.

So something between 10% and 1% would make sense. Just closer to 1%. :wink:

How about 5%? Would that make sense?

Well at 5% said autocannon is limited to 50 meters (150ft, ot ten car lengths). With 1% that is down to 10 meters (30 feet, or two car lengths) which looks a lot more reasonable.

Also Note once you have popped your hatches to man the self defense weapons you realistically aren't a "closed" vehicle anymore or at least for the TC and Loader.....

Except I was not thinking of a system where you need to pop the hatch. Even today there are lots of examples of remote controlled self defense weapons. For example the US has their Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS) system or the SWARM Remote Weapon System made in Scotland or the FLW 200 used by the German Army. They all allow the use of the MG (and in many cases Grenade Launchers as well) from an internal weapons station.

If we got them to drop it to 5% then this remote MG would be limited to 25 meters. And using your Auto Cannon would now be at 50 Meters. What do you think?

As for the tactics for using the terrain in your favor, I would allow for adjustments in those cases. :mrgreen:

Well a brief perusal of of the CROWS system, it looks like its blind zone is down into single digit meters.

Use of close terrain has always been the tactic with infantry assaults of armor. and generally it is surprise that is the key factor.

 

[-Daniel-]

Well at 5% said autocannon is limited to 50 meters (150ft, ot ten car lengths). With 1% that is down to 10 meters (30 feet, or two car lengths) which looks a lot more reasonable.

Well then let's put it out to them and see what the rest of the folks think. 8)

Anyone else want to sound off how they see it?

 

[Infojunky]

I agree with what he said.....

 

[Wizard]

Lets take the stats for the M1A1 (http://www.military-today.com/tanks/m1a1_abrams.htm). It gives an elevation range of -9 to +20 degrees. The tank itself is 2.44 meters high.

A little bit of maths (wow, I'm rusty) gives us:

tan(81) x 2.44 = 15.4 meters minimum range to hit the ground.

tan(81) x 1.44 = 9.1 meters to hit a target 1 meter above the ground.

tan(81) x 0.44 = 2.8 meters to hit a target 2 meters above the ground.

Of course the above only takes elevation of the gun into effect, but there may be other things to consider such as the turret traverse speed, the range finder and visibility. Having no real life experience in this I watched a few videos on YouTube and from what I saw it seems the visibility of a modern tank is way better than I would had thought.

So from the above I would think 1% would be more appropriate.

Also a quick thought while I was writing this post. Traveller is a fairly abstract set of rules, do we need a minimum range?

 

[Vile]

Also a quick thought while I was writing this post. Traveller is a fairly abstract set of rules, do we need a minimum range?

That's true, but in my experience a lot of situations involving vehicles include pedestrians trying to pop hatches, plant mines, etc. In other words, a disproportionate number of roleplaying (as opposed to wargaming) vehicle encounters would involve trying to get below minimum range.

1% sounds much more likely. As a practicing landscape architect I can tell you that 50 metres is a huge distance at the human scale.

 

[phavoc]

Page 133, 3rd point under Vehicle Weapons header.

"All weapons mounted on a closed vehicle may not be used to attack targets within 10% of the weapon’s Range. They are simply not designed to engage close targets."

It's an abstract rule trying to come up with a blanket rule. Two things might fix that. First drop that to 1%. Weapons engaging are more dependent upon firing arcs than anything else. 10% seems extreme.

And secondly, add one word - effective. If you have say a 40mm autocannon mounted on your AFV, it's not really meant to engage something 10m away. But it, however, can, without issue. Any weapon is more effective at the range(s) it's meant to target something. Using the M1 example, it's got an effective range of 1000s of meters. But it does quite well engaging an enemy tank at 50m. The difference is with some weapons their characteristics aren't the same at 50m vs 1,500m. So it's effectiveness may be quite different.

I might also suggest adding another sentence indicating that referee's should use judgement for specific situations (maybe put that in big, bold letters on the first dozen or so pages...?)

 

[Meeko100]

Perhaps grant a exception to that rule for guns that reasonably be fired at close ranges. The 10% rule for 120mm tank guns seems reasonable, but for the commanders machinegun it reasonably be shot until the person was almost inside the tank.

 

[Tenacious-Techhunter]

Miniscule cameras of ridiculous resolution can be obtained at insanely low cost; so low that you can afford to have a few for redundancy, even on the tip of the gun itself; so situational awareness is a non-issue.

Elevation limits on a gun are a factor that should not be ignored.

The ability of a tank cannon to fire should not be limited by range... however, the ammunition may have a delay fuse, which would present it from exploding at too short a range. Within that range, the relevant ammo should be treated as a dumb round; just a great big bullet. The extent to which that might damage personnel with armor... not sure. ^_^;