jtar7242 06-21-2004, 05:01 AM Obviously, the game, not able to predict the future, wouldn't have known about the future of combat armors, namely the Ranger Body Armor and its successor the Interceptor Vest. I hadn't seen this idea discussed, so I figured I'd toss in the house rules we came up with.
This applies for Version 2, but I'm sure will translate to 1 or 2.2 with little difficulty.
Now, obviously, it's up to you to decide how this would intergrate. Even today, units have trouble equpping everyone with the new armor and plates, and they'd be even more rare or scarce in the T2K setting. Obviously, the Interceptor Vest came into being in 1999, so it's existence in the T2K timeline is dubious, though certainly it's development could have been rushed because of wartime demands while at the same time one could easily argue that the war would have the opposite effect. However, the RBA came into being in the early nineties (not been able to find the exact year, but it was certainly by 1994). These armor systems contain ceramic ballistic plates designed to defeat most small arms fire. However, they do not provide 100% protection by any means, and have limited ability to protect against multiple hits. Thus why they'd be even more rare in the world of T2K. However, they are a step above and beyond the flak jackets of Vietnam and the eighties.
The vest would have a base armor value of 1. This makes it ruleswise identical to the standard Kevlar vest. However, on hits from the front and rear chest/abdomen, they would provide and armor of 4 on a D10 roll of 8+. The plate takes up a significant portion of the vital areas of the body, but not perfect. However, a strike to the plate would defeat most rounds up to and including a 7.62N round. A roll of 9-10 would indicate the round struck somewhere else than the plate, inflicting normal damage on the unfortunate recipient.
However, the the plate will crack on impact, and therefore distribute the energy of the impact across a wider area and diffuse it. Thus any bullet impact would permanantly reduce the plates protection range by 2. Thus after the first hit, it would only protect on a 6+ for the next hit, 4+ for the 3rd, 2+ for the 4th, and being useless after the 5th (serves you right for being shot five times!). The plate is not useless after one hit, and subsequent hits on different parts of the plates surface could very well be stopped. The plates are rated to stop a single hit, but have been known to stop multiple hits. If you really want to nitpick, you could go deeped into explorng the effects of the shattered plate, but this method seems to cause the least trouble. Hits from the side would only offer AR 4 on a 4+ because there are no plates on the side of the armor, unless you get lucky, you're up the proverbial foul smelling creek. Hey, hopefully it wasn't anything powerful.
Of course, due to the clumsy damage and penetration system (the game didn't take into account a body armor that could stop 7.62S but not .50 BMG. Thus the plate will only stop up to a certain size round. You can work this out as you wish, because all sorts of factors come into play, like low velocity shotgun slugs, or the impacts from buckshot rounds (which would be stopped but not neccessarily break the plate). We assumed that 12.7mm or .50 would laugh at the plate (much as it would in real life), offering no extra protection though being reduced in protection by 2(or more) on an 8+.
In addition, certain attacks would not diminish their protection, including low velocity missile weapons like crossbows, bows, rocks, etc. Melee combat attacks, fragmentation weapons, buckshot, etc. In fact, an unarmed attack striking the plate could very well cause some extreme discomfort to the attacker, I mean, you go punch a solid steel door and let me know how it feels. Also, it could be decided that low caliber pistol ammo (that pathetically weak 9mmP for example) wouldn't crackthe plate either.
Now, bear in mind when we've played T2K, there has been far more emphasis on using ingenuity and smarts to overcome obstacles rather than force. Players that fight a lot will soon find themselves with fancy modern body armor but no ballistic plates to use with them. Certainly the ability to manufacture them would be close to impossible to achieve, and finding a source of them nearly as impossible. As far as characters beginning with them, their availability would likely be to American characters only, with the Ref deciding whether or not a character would have access to them at all. The likelyhood of any non Infantry arm character being issued these by T2K's 2000 is virtually nil, maybe a Support Arm character who'd skimmed one off the truck, but the Ref would have total control of this obviously.
Any thoughts?
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jtar7242 06-29-2004, 07:33 PM Nothing? Or was it just so well written that you were all stunned speechless? I hadn't ever seen anything like this on anyone's fansite. Most people seem obsessed with making stats for every weapon that ever fired a bullet and every vehicle that ever was used, but not on making accurate bodyarmor.
If I was stuck in T2K's timeline, I'd certainly be just as concerned with the countermeasure, as the measure.
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TR 06-29-2004, 09:02 PM The potential problem with the whole body armor issue is that Twilight's damage codes were too similar. I can recall doing body armor rules (never posted them) but the 38 Special, 9mm Parabellum, 10mm and 45 ACP rounds for example are close in damages (1, 1, 2 & 2) and similiar penetrations (all Nil save the 10mm Auto). There are problem rounds as well which anemic in nature were designed to penetrate low level body armor (such as the Russian 5.45mm PSM handgun) which I can report Grade I & II vests (without plates).
The only way I saw to do this justice would be to overhaul the damage and penetration ratings for the cartridges in Twilight... which I think all of us agree on. However that's a big undertaking and invaribily I don't think everyone would ever truly agree totally on such a project.
As it is the rules provided would be a good try, how it would work in the game with a couple PC's being hit by varrying calibers would be the real test to see how it works out.
Until Later
TR
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TiggerCCW UK 07-01-2004, 03:09 AM Sorry you felt neglected jtar7242
Its a very impressive piece of work.
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jtar7242 07-01-2004, 03:38 AM Not neglected, was just amazed nobody had anything to say, heh. It's been a while since my friends and I actually played, and I figured I'd toss up that idea so people could post any inaccuracies they might see with my adaption to the rules. Like TR said, the rules are a bit clumsy considering when they were written there wasn't any armor capable of stopping rifle ammunition in wide use yet. Since our game will likely be pretty standard, there won't be a problem with oddball calibers, and armor piercing ammunitions. Given that in a canon or near canon story the players and even their enemies would likely not have the capability to reproduce anything but basic ammunition anyway.
Plus, I figured since I hadn't seen anything like this on the net, it might prove useful for others thinking about picking up this gem of a game again. If someone wants to adapt it and put it on their site, feel free.
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