[TW 2013] Body armor and Trama plates

[Michael Lewis]

I'm using the basic load from TW2000 for my TW2013 characters. What would be the equivalent flak jacket from TW2000 in TW2013?

Did they not have trama plates back then?

Do you think trama plates are too effective for beginning characters in TW2013?

What about knock down and stunning? Would a rifle bullet knock down and stun a PC if he was hit wearing trama plates?

It says they it covers the chest and upper abdomen (20%). Does that mean you roll percentile dice to see if a bullet hits or that's just the chance on the random location chart its going to hit those body parts?

Thanks

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

Do you think trama plates are too effective for beginning characters in TW2013?

I'm a bit confused by the question. Isn't the fact that trauma plates are effective the whole point? Why should being a "starting character" preclude a character from having trauma plates in their armour if having them is standard for that armour type/role of character?

[stg58fal]

I think its called a tactical vest in T2013.

Trauma plates are the ONLY reason one of my PCs lived. Multiple hits from an RPK-74, NONE of which penetrated the plates. If they had, he'd have died.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Targan

I'm a bit confused by the question. Isn't the fact that trauma plates are effective the whole point? Why should being a "starting character" preclude a character from having trauma plates in their armour if having them is standard for that armour type/role of character?

I think this is an artifact of other game systems having an artificially-regulated power curve in which gaining combat effectiveness is a key component (sometimes the only component) of character advancement. And by "other game systems," I'm referring mainly to those which run on class/level scales.

It's worth noting that those systems usually are paired with settings with radically different economies. You're looking at medieval or renaissance craft-guilds rather than mass production, which means only older and more experienced combatants have the prestige or personal wealth to afford those rare "superior" weapons and armor. And the all-handcrafted nature of magical items only extends that scale to higher and higher levels of "technology," ensuring only ridiculously wealthy adventurers can afford those things. By contrast, Twilight 2000 and 2013 assume prolific modern tools, as well as the opportunity to acquire equipment from the 50-90% of the prewar population that's now dead and no longer needs it.

- C.

[Michael Lewis]

Yes, your right. Mainly for game balance. You don't want your players starting with tanks or plate armor.

Secondly, I've not played TW2013, just mainly read it. That's why the question.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

Yes, your right. Mainly for game balance. You don't want your players starting with tanks or plate armor.

That's not the way T2K (or T2013) works. You start with the gear that is appropriate to start with. In fact in my experience T2K campaigns tend to ebb and flow in terms of equipment and often your PC's equipment gets crappier and crappier, not better and better. And in T2K it's entirely possible for a PC group to start with a tank. It's not like D&D where your stuff pretty much automatically gets gets better and better, the tank will get harder and harder to find fuel for, it's ammo will slowly be depleted and in the end in all likelihood the PCs will end up trading it or abandoning it. That's the T2K vibe.

[NanbanJim]

Targan and the others have said it quite well, but I couldn't help put my 2 cents in.

Michael, there is a way to make the campaign more "advancement" style: Make it what we called in Shadowrun a "gutter campaign," where the PCs start with nothing and you carefully mete out slightly improved gear to them by ensuring their opposition would only likely have limited gear.

A good way to do this may be with the PCs as refugees stuck in a pogrom (work camp) in a para-rural area of a higher gun-control state, say, the western bulge of Illinois (a quick Googling of "Illinois map population" told me that). In a twist of irony, the clan in the "Big House" have all caught something airborne and rather terminal (the vector for this can be a campaign element), and so while they have the bullwhips, the beating sticks, due to local law and personal need they never were all that well armed to begin with--just lucky. A couple pistols a rifle and shotgun or two would be the "big guns."

That setting is ready for the PCs to make their break from their weakened guards... and the disease could also keep the PCs from getting that far.

Add in some personal motivations, eg the PCs families were all sold to similar local pogroms (hobby farms/ranches, maybe a gravel pit and/or peat mine). Perhaps all of these were seized by the lackeys of Chicago "philanthropists" who, after the end of real central control, "stepped in" and offered to help those city dwellers starving and stranded a way to get 2 meals a day and a roof... in what turned out to be slave labour (or indentured servitude with no effective law enforcement to ensure the release after term).

This removes urban PD from the equation. National Guard may patrol on occasion, but would generally want to GTFO by this point in time as fast as possible... and potentially trigger-happy, since there's nothing worth them protecting out here (these pogroms would barely dent the governor's needs), but handfuls of people (the Philanthropist Network) very interested in keeping prying eyes away.

After freeing a half-dozen pogroms, they'll be lucky to have any longarms with even assault-rifle ergonomics, much less select-fire capabilities. Explosives would be Molotovs, improvised explosives (eg fireworks, dangerous enough in their own right), and perhaps some dynamite from the mines. You control whether or not they get better gear (and if it's available, remember they have to pry it off from someone already using it). And yet even if you don't provide better gear, it's believable enough.

If you want to "upgrade," you'll have to deal with bandit/slavers by lead or trade, assault the NG patrols (which should probably be a moral quandry, especially if they capture an NG survivor who can explain that, "hey, it's not personal, we just learned to shoot first or die for not doing so, I got a wife and wait, aren't you Uncle Denny from Becky's side of the family??"), or...

Well, the list goes on, but that's months of campaigning down the road.

That's one way to merge classic tabletopping with a modern availability curve.

[Tegyrius]

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

Do you think trama plates are too effective for beginning characters in TW2013?

Depends on how often you want to kill beginning characters. Trauma plates, like soft armor, have armor values calibrated to reflect their real-world performance against specific threats. But you can't put them on limbs or the head.

What about knock down and stunning? Would a rifle bullet knock down and stun a PC if he was hit wearing trama plates?

Possibly. But my reading on terminal ballistics implies to me that knockdown and stun is as much psychological as it is physiological - some people fall down when shot because they expect they should, not because of any loss of physical control. So I might treat that as a function of CUF rather than a pure damage function.

It says they it covers the chest and upper abdomen (20%). Does that mean you roll percentile dice to see if a bullet hits or that's just the chance on the random location chart its going to hit those body parts?

The percentages reflect the fact that trauma plates don't provide 100% coverage on those body locations. Check out the diagram on page 3 of the attached PDF (swiped from sixty-six.org by way of M4carbine.net). Here's the procedure in Reflex rules:

1. Determine hit location with the standard chart (d6 x d6).
2. If the hit location is protected by armor with a percentage notation, roll against that percentage to see if the attack strikes the armor.

That help?

- C.

[Lundgren]

About tanks, I once read a comment by a GM "the players wanted a tank; I was evil enough to give them one." I think that group, after a while, considered a bicycle to be an upgrade.

Originally Posted by Michael Lewis

What about knock down and stunning? Would a rifle bullet knock down and stun a PC if he was hit wearing trama plates?

An unprepared human is very easy to make losing his balance. There was a video a couple of years ago of a US soldier taking a hit in his west. As I recall, he got wobbly and fell down to a sitting position, looked a bit surprised for a second while his brain sorted out what just happened, and then got up and behind the vehicle he was next to.

I have seen people ending up on their ass for not having a proper firing stance while firing a 7.62N weapon or a 12 gauge shotgun. Being hit with one of those, and no penetration, would probably be like being hit with a fist (and we are not talking professional boxer here).

Most people, when they are afraid, raise their "center of gravity" and will have a really piss poor balance. If someone points a gun I know or at least have reason to suspect is loaded at me, and says "BOO!", I would most likely fall down. A loud sudden bang would be even more effective.

Pumped up on adrenalin and in the middle of being active in combat (perhaps charging over a street), I'm not sure that many would even register a round from an assault rifle if it is stopped by the plate.

Basically: the physical force of being hit by a round is equal or less than the force the the shooter receives from the gun.

[Martti]

Originally Posted by Lundgren

Basically: the physical force of being hit by a round is equal or less than the force the the shooter receives from the gun.

Some of you might have visited the site box of truth where the guys running the site shoot stuff up to see how the rounds penetrate different layers of different materials, trauma plates and ballistic vest for one. They use Ballistic? clay as a background. Some rounds do leave a huge dent to the clay even if the round doesn't penetrate the armor. If I'd punch the clay or even hit it with a bat I'd barely leave a mark.

[Lundgren]

Originally Posted by Martti

Some of you might have visited the site box of truth where the guys running the site shoot stuff up to see how the rounds penetrate different layers of different materials, trauma plates and ballistic vest for one. They use Ballistic? clay as a background. Some rounds do leave a huge dent to the clay even if the round doesn't penetrate the armor. If I'd punch the clay or even hit it with a bat I'd barely leave a mark.

When you hit with a fist or a bat, it will spread out the force over a larger area. The force giving that dent through a vest is still hitting a much smaller area.

The body is very flexible; and to my understanding, ballistic gel doesn't bounce back when it is hit. The person will most likely have large bruises and perhaps a cracked rib or two. But hey, you tend to get those from getting hit by a fist as well Cracked rib and things giving large bruises are things that can go unnoticed while being high on adrenalin.

Now, how you feel the next day is a completely different story.

If that dent takes at the right spot I assume we might have the wind knocked out of us so we can't breath for a while, heart flutter, or any other area that would give us problem if hit by a good punch.

[Martti]

Originally Posted by Lundgren

while firing a 7.62N weapon or a 12 gauge shotgun. Being hit with one of those, and no penetration, would probably be like being hit with a fist (and we are not talking professional boxer here).

Sorry this is what I was trying to quote.

[Apache6]

- In US usage SAPI plates (Small Arms Protective Insert) were not 'general issue until spring 2003. The first general issue occurred for USMC units just before the 2003 "March to Baghdad. At that time almost every Marine infantrymen (but not most of the combat support Marines) were equipped with one SAPI plate (worn on the chest). It should have been two plates for every Marine, but the demand outstripped the ability to produce and deploy the plates, so they were prioritized for Infantry units and worn only on chest.

- This was one time Marines actually had better kit then the Army. Very few Army units (I believe mostly SOF and Rangers) had SAPI plates during that period.

- SAPI plates will stop small arms rounds usually resulting in nothing more then bruises. The rest of the vest is still frag resistant kevlar.

- Prior to that US body armor (commonly called a flak jacket) was primarily intended to provide protection against shell/grenade fragments, though it would stop some pistol rounds (.45 reliably, 9mm "usually" (the rounds would still often penetrate the vest at close range, but it would still have 'helped') and shotgun pellets (00 shot).

- In 2013 every Soldier or Marine going into a hostile situation should have 2 SAPIs.