Improvised Armor in T2K

[Raellus]

I hesitated to post this topic due to some of the recent silliness in a related thread, but I decided to appeal to your better natures by doing so. What follows is a link to an interesting piece about what a few skillful, determined individuals can do with limited resources.

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/a-t...x-tank-factory

I reckon one would see a lot of this sort of thing in the T2KU.

This would be a good place to post pics of example of improvised or heavily-modded armor from around the world.

[Legbreaker]

Years ago a group I was playing with added about ten layers of corrugated roofing iron to a light truck. Was more psychological than actual armour, but anything's better than nothing right?

[ArmySGT.]

That is a former tank factory (one that would have been nuked in any timeline) so the scale of the equipment is equal to the task. Note 100 ton crane in the first picture.

The first thing that makes this work is that it has the permission (backing) of the government.

Slightly more than a hillbilly armor thread.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Geraldine Cremin

So does that mean Azov has a license for Azovette and her fellow Mad Max tanks?

“No, this is a tractor. For paperwork purposes it’s a tractor,” Zvarych says with mock innocence, “We put metal on our own tractor. Why would we need a license for this?”

I LOL'd. Reminds me of my great-grandfather's tank.

[Raellus]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

Slightly more than a hillbilly armor thread.

A fair point. I can change the title of the thread, if you like.

[ArmySGT.]

Originally Posted by Raellus

A fair point. I can change the title of the thread, if you like.

I don't know what title you could use.

Customized armor? Additional and certainly unauthorized armor? Trade off and one off, the armor edition?

I, for one am curious how Azovette is going to get around....... 1.5 meters of armor .... What is the new tonnage and can any Ukrainian roads or bridges support it?

What they really need to do is consolidate working equipment and bring in machinists / electricians to get the non working equipment going too. Ukraine if it was smart would invest in them with the stipulation that they produce agricultural equipment too.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by ArmySGT.

I, for one am curious how Azovette is going to get around....... 1.5 meters of armor .... What is the new tonnage and can any Ukrainian roads or bridges support it?

I believe that's the total thickness of the spaced armour - 7 layers on the front, 3 elsewhere.
Therefore the weight should be "relatively" low.

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Somewhere in a forgotten corner of my site is a handy-dandy chart that would tell you the armor value of that corrugated iron.

I think it worked out as 10 points in V1.0 and 1 point in 2.x

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Years ago a group I was playing with added about ten layers of corrugated roofing iron to a light truck. Was more psychological than actual armour, but anything's better than nothing right?

Somewhere in a forgotten corner of my site is a handy-dandy chart that would tell you the armor value of that corrugated iron.

[Targan]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Years ago a group I was playing with added about ten layers of corrugated roofing iron to a light truck. Was more psychological than actual armour, but anything's better than nothing right?

Originally Posted by Targan

I LOL'd. Reminds me of my great-grandfather's tank.

Originally Posted by Olefin

FYI as to corrugated iron - has anyone seen the Top Gear episode where they add corrugated sheets on top of a SUV to protect James when he approached an active volcano from overhead debris? The principle would be the same to protect someone in an improvised armored vehicle.

I've posted this before, my great-grandfather's "tank": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank



My father's father's father, "Fighting Bob" Semple, was New Zealand's Minister of Public Works during WWII. The rest of the Empire couldn't spare New Zealand any armour, so great-granddad sat down with the heads of the Department of Works and designed and had built a "tank" based on a tractor chassis.

[Olefin]

Whoops got the wrong title in my head (actually thats the name of a movie I love ) - I meant to say A Rock In Troubled Waters from Challenge Magazine number 42 and it details much of New Jersey in 2001 including some of the MilGov and NJ state forces in the area including how they were using bank armored cars as armored transports much as New America was doing so in Urban Guerilla.

Sorry about getting that confused

Oh and the section I was referring to is the following:

2nd Cavalry Squadron, NJSM:
Fifty troopers carried by 10 armored bank trucks.These vehicles have an armor value of 8, and all have other characteristics of a two and a half ton truck. Each car has a radio and an M79, in addition to the passengers' small arms. They are responsible for road patrol in and around Cape May, north of the canal.

[Legbreaker]

1st ed stats obviously which equate to barely 1 point in 2.x. No idea about T:2013 - anyone?

[Olefin]

Like I said love to see Paul put some stats up on armored bank cars and the like for use. It does seem that they could be encountered by characters especially if they are playing in the US and Canada as either potential enemy vehicles or ones they can put into action themselves

Whats interesting is that Urban Guerrilla has three different kinds of armored cars mentioned but doesn't flesh them out as to what kind of armor value they have - meaning they left it up to the GM to come up with something if the characters encountered them.

The Peacekeeper vehicle was basically an armored truck - maybe that's the best way to look at bank armored cars

[Schone23666]

Originally Posted by Targan

I've posted this before, my great-grandfather's "tank": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Semple_tank


My father's father's father, "Fighting Bob" Semple, was New Zealand's Minister of Public Works during WWII. The rest of the Empire couldn't spare New Zealand any armour, so great-granddad sat down with the heads of the Department of Works and designed and had built a "tank" based on a tractor chassis.

True respect to your ancestor, Targan. It just shows how creative people can be when times are desperate. Wonder what the stats would look like for this vehicle?

If you were to mount a decent cannon on it, it would probably have some decent success against the Japanese tanks, which were relatively light compared to the majority of other tanks fielded by the Germans and Soviets. Heck, one American tanker that served aboard a Sherman essentially called the M4 a "hodgepodge" (besides the not-so-affectionate name of Ronson) of various weapons and gears derived from different branches of the military. One could argue we eventually got it right with the M1 Abrams tank...though it only took us several decades and conflicts to do so.

[Olefin]

I have always treated the Challenge Magazine material as part of the canon because so much of it is by the same GDW authors who wrote the actual modules - Loren for instance submitted a bunch of articles much of which went into the V2.2 version

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Schone23666

One could argue we eventually got it right with the M1 Abrams tank...though it only took us several decades and conflicts to do so.

There is however no "right" or "perfect" design is there. It's always a trade off between the big three - Protection, firepower, and manoeuvrability. There's really only a "best fit" for the job at hand, and that only until somebody introduces something new - a new tactic or weapon perhaps which screws with one of the three areas.

Tank design (and pretty much all military equipment really) will continue to evolve long after we are dust. Who knows, a thousand years from now AFVs could be completely unrecognisable to us today. They could be the size of a bread box, or as big as an office building. Armour may be a thing of the past with force fields or high speed manoeuvrability the key to surviving. They could even be holograms for all we know!

A soldier in the year 3,000 may look back at us and shake their heads in disbelief, much like we do with the tactics employed in the first days of WWI.

[swaghauler]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Years ago a group I was playing with added about ten layers of corrugated roofing iron to a light truck. Was more psychological than actual armour, but anything's better than nothing right?

You actually had a fairly decent form of light armor there. If you place the corrugated tin with the raised sections "overlapping" (put the raised edge of one sheet into the trough of another one) and bolt or weld them all together; You will produce a form of spaced armor that will stop handgun rounds and even some light rifle rounds (M1 Carbine rounds). Back it with some cork or fiberglass and it will resist multiple rounds. Bolt it to a frame about a foot away from the vehicle of structure and you have a fairly good "RPG Screen" as well.