Mortar's

[copeab]

Originally Posted by LT. Ox

I some times wonder just how much "live fire" practice could be done with ammo stocks they way they must be leading to just how good your teams can be?
Just thinken

Some mortars have refurbishable training rounds.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by copeab

Some mortars have refurbishable training rounds.

Oh yes, we did a week with those on a miniature town in AIT. They are sabot rounds, with a cast iron body and a 20mm sabot round in the core which causes a flash when it goes off so you can see where you hit. We made a game of trying to run downrange and catch the body (which didn't go nearly as far), until somebody got hurt (cut his hand on the fin). If you didn't get a satisfactory score on the mock range, you became an 11B. (I didn't become an 11B until my second AIT a few years later.)

The sabot comes completely out of the body a second or so after firing; it's mostly there to allow us to get used the weight and handling of the round. The instructor sergeant just popped in a sabot, gave it to us, and when the body was returned, popped in a new sabot.

The 20mm sabots are simple, so I would guess a reasonable-sized community could make then.

[Legbreaker]

We had the same sort of thing for the M72 LAW - a 20mm (might have been 22mm - it's been 20+ years) rocket inside an insert in the fibreglass casing. Not exactly an AT round, but you still wouldn't want to get hit by it!

The 84mm Carl Gustav also has/had a training round using a 7.62mm tracer (I think). Absolutely NOTHING like firing real rounds, but it was useful for practising your aim and actually hitting the target before being allowed anywhere near the rather more expensive HEAT rounds (something like $10,000 per shot I think).

A mate of mine was working collecting shopping trolleys and was teased for doing what was seen as a dead end, low pay job. He shut them up quick when he mentioned he'd just blown through $100,000.00 of ammo on the weekend as a reservist.

[Draq]

Artillery and aircraft can only clear/destroy an objective, only boots on the ground can take and hold one.

[CDAT]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Oh yes, we did a week with those on a miniature town in AIT. They are sabot rounds, with a cast iron body and a 20mm sabot round in the core which causes a flash when it goes off so you can see where you hit. We made a game of trying to run downrange and catch the body (which didn't go nearly as far), until somebody got hurt (cut his hand on the fin). If you didn't get a satisfactory score on the mock range, you became an 11B. (I didn't become an 11B until my second AIT a few years later.)

The sabot comes completely out of the body a second or so after firing; it's mostly there to allow us to get used the weight and handling of the round. The instructor sergeant just popped in a sabot, gave it to us, and when the body was returned, popped in a new sabot.

The 20mm sabots are simple, so I would guess a reasonable-sized community could make then.

They also have full size inert warhead rounds (sand, concrete, and/or puff charge) . I have never been in mortars or artillery. But I was EOD, and we spend a fair amount of time down range looking at ordinance in the wild. We would practice different TTPs on the, we found a lot of 155mm with the shipping plugs still in them, and 81mm mortars that just had a puff charge, could easily be reused with new fuze and powder rings.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Draq

Artillery and aircraft can only clear/destroy an objective, only boots on the ground can take and hold one.

Definitely true. Though air, artillery, and tank backup is always appreciated.

[Legbreaker]

Provided of course it's on target, otherwise it's ineffective at best, catastrophic at worst.

[jester]

I once drew up a Mortarman for a game. I had him retain the cannon with the M8 small square baseplate the sights and about a dozen mortar rounds with a M4 and small amount of ammo plus bipod. Spend some time trying to recall how many rounds the vest for mortarmen carried.

I myself trained as a mortarman, was made a rifleman for a few years then transferred back to mortars.

With the current 60mm mortar with the trigger, with an M8 baseplate, the built in level for ranger near the trigger, one man can fire the system and keep it on target easily with line of sight and even with a decent spotter.

In some of my games, I have gifted my players with 120mms or 105s and they created havoc with a decent amount of WP or even worse RP. Once on target you can do ALOT of damage.

Remember the scene in Kellys heroes? Where they bribe the mortar section to lay down fire so they can get through? Anyone under mortar fire will take cover and give you a chance to move in. And with the 60mm used in LIGHT units, it is man portable. In my unit, we carried them fully assembled less the round baseplate which was easily positioned, then the ball from the guntube locked in, bipods splayed and aimed in. Easy peasy! For us, we could do a large gun deflection in the max time for a minor, and for a minor, under 9 seconds was the norm.

If you folks aren't using mortars, you are missing out.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Given the lack of GPS and other electronic devices in working order in T2K

How do you figure that?

The Original Block I GPS was deactivated on 9 October 1985, but the last Block I satellite was not taken out of service until 18 November 1995, well past its 5 year design life.

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/navstar.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-85

The first of the nine satellites in the initial Block II series was launched February 14, 1989; the last was launched October 1, 1990. The final satellite of the series to be taken out of service was decommissioned on March 15, 2007, well past its 7.5 year design life.

ftp://tycho.usno.navy.mil/pub/gps/gpsb2.txt

Originally launched between 1997 and 2009 to add capabilities to the GPS constellation and to replace other aging satellites, today 12 GPS IIR and eight IIR-M satellites – designed and built by Lockheed Martin -- help deliver precise positioning, navigation and timing services to more than one billion global military, civilian and commercial users every day. These satellites represent about two-thirds of the current GPS constellation.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/gps.html
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?Do=const...t=Type&dir=Asc

As for other electronic devices, military stuff will be hardened against EMP as are radios. Batteries would be the biggest problem, but some items could run on recharged batteries

It’s implied in the game that some systems may be damaged in the nuclear war but not actual written out.

GPS and other electronic devices are not talked about in the game a lot because under the original concept they don't serve a purpose.

GPS: Yes a GPS when you’re trapped behind enemy lines is great but, the PC's are on there own nobody coming to rescue them. A GPS will only tell you where you are and which way to go…but so will a MAP. This is why you don't see GPS or a Compass in the Basic Equipment Section

Radios: Beyond communicating between PC's and Vehicle to Vehicle, a radio doesn’t play a big role in Game play either. Most vehicle radios have ranges of 30-50 km but what would the PC’s do with a Long Range SATCOM radio? Contact Corps HQ which would say or do what?

In short it’s not practical for game play not because it’s not working.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by rcaf_777

How do you figure that?

Umm, "Satellite Down" and almost everything in it.

Just one quote (of many):

Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk.

[rcaf_777]

[QUOTE=Legbreaker;69038]Umm, "Satellite Down" and almost everything in it.[QUOTE]

No Satellite Down is about a group of PC's that are trying to track down DP 201 which fell to earth, they only mention of other satellites is in the opening player brief given by Colonel Darren Darvish USA which says "Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk" Page 4

Nowhere else dose it given any other details, not in satellite down or any other publication I looked at. In Version 2.2 at the bottom of page 14, it mention spaces stations being abandoned but not any satellite being shot out of the sky.

Now as for Colonel Darren Darvish saying "Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk" How would they know if ever other satellite has been knock out, if you have no satellite to confirm this? or are a group USAF Officers watching the skies from the ground with a telescope.

There are also many other issues that both the Soviets and US would have overcome to knock every other satellite in Low, Mid and High orbit. And why would the Soviet Union waste a Anti-satellite weapon just to knock out Telstar 401 out of commission is Fox News that offensive?

Please post your reply in a new thread so we don't over take this one, and do list your pages number for your many quotes I'm sure you will find.

[Legbreaker]

There's LOTS of information in there actually.

On 13 November 1995, the Soviet Union launched the last of its high-orbiting weather-tracking satellites, named DP 201. With the widening of hostilities, the expected life of such a satellite was less than a few days. Still this device managed to survive longer, dodging even the most adamant attempts to destroy it, for reasons which have never been completely understood.

When the United States employed its orbital ASAT (antisatellite) network, it had suffered years of battles in Congress and hundreds of budget cuts. Still, what finally was put into space functioned well enough. Most Soviet spy satellites were downed in the first few months of conflict. Likewise, the USSR also made use of advanced space technology in the downing of most of America's surveillance systems in orbit. The war was a simple one of attrition: one in which neither side had an upper hand or really hoped to win.

Despite all these odds, DP 201 stayed in space, taking its pictures of all the world's weather patterns and trends, dutifully recording all information it was exposed to. It was originally designed to monitor the ozone and jet stream patterns, as well as other wind and weather patterns, but this role was expanded as time passed and more nuclear weapons were launched by both sides. The spread of fallout across the world determined which countries were to survive, and during the peak of the nuclear exchange, DP 201 was hovering over the world tracking the weather patterns.

The satellite would have given the Soviets a strong advantage during reconstruction of their nation if not for a crippling shot by one of the few automated SDI systems still in space.

While this specifically talks about US ASAT weapons and capabilities, is it really inconceivable that the Soviets didn't have something similar?
Why would both sides be so desperate to recover one downed satellite if ANYONE had anything still up in orbit?
It just doesn't make ANY sense for operational satellites to still exist and be available for GPS.

We also know from the background materials (all versions) that "orbiting space laboratories, are abandoned as the war drags on".

Also from the nuclear target lists: "Vandenbelp AFS. CA: Recon satellite launch facilities (1 Mt ground burst)", "Spacefight Center, Cape Canaveral FL: Recon satellite launch facilities (1 MT ground burst)", "Houston, TX: Oil refining and storage facilities (1.5 Mt)", "Plesetsk, RSFSR: Recon satellite launching facilities (1 Mt)", "Leninsk·Tyuralam, KSSR: Recon satellite launching facilities (2 Mt)", and "KapustJn Yar, RSFSR: Secondary satellite launching facilities (500 Kt)". There may be other control and launch sites I don't know about, but how likely is it any would have been missed given the extreme value of satellites?

As if that isn't enough, and perhaps more relevant to the thread than all the above:

The M1A2 in the current version of the game is the actual current production variant, and is undoubtedly the most capable tank in the world, particularly if it is operating with its supporting data networks and GPS satellites in place. In a post-holocaust world, of course, those capabilities are considerably degraded, but it's still a very tough tank.

GPS is dead in T2K, plain and simple.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

And something more important about satellites, they need constant monitoring to ensure they stay in the proper orbit.
For GPS satellites, it's critical and they also need their atomic clocks monitored to ensure that they stay aligned with Earth time (because both General and Special Relativity mess with them).
Once a few of them start to drift, so does your GPS navigation. Typically, a GPS receiver will get info from four satellites but it can happily make do with three - once the third satellite starts to drift, you are shit outta luck.

With the loss of personnel to control/maintain them, any high altitude EMP interfering with them, damaged satellites and other debris hitting them and no space programme to correct any problems, GPS would lose needed accuracy within a few weeks to a month and probably be totally dead within one to two years.

[Legbreaker]

And that SSC, was going to be my very next point on why GPS is dead in T2K.

[rcaf_777]

See new thread

[Olefin]

I would think that rounds for the smaller mortars would actually be plentiful, but that many of them may be coming from the facilities like the one in Krakow (Wojo's)- i.e. the small machine shop kind of ammo facilities that were still operational after the 1997 strikes

thus you may have 12 rounds for your 60mm mortar but possibly only one or two of them may be pre-war and the rest may not be the up to the same quality standards considering the source

[Legbreaker]

I think you're probably right there. Reliability issues are dealt with in the 1st ed heavy weapons book with a flat 10% chance of blowing up in your face or not detonating at all.
Still, 9 rounds out of ten working as intended isn't too bad, provided you don't mind loosing a few mortarmen along the way... :

[Bullet Magnet]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

I think you're probably right there. Reliability issues are dealt with in the 1st ed heavy weapons book with a flat 10% chance of blowing up in your face or not detonating at all.
Still, 9 rounds out of ten working as intended isn't too bad, provided you don't mind loosing a few mortarmen along the way... :

There should probably be a little chart for that. After the 10% chance of failure as noted above, to account for the possible results. Things to include might be:
Dud Mortar - does not detonate upon reaching target
Insufficient Propelling Charge - reduced range (of course, they won't know this until they use the round)
Dud Propelling Charge - either not launching at all, or only travels a couple meters before coming back to the ground (with the round detonating as if it had reached intended target)
Overloaded Propelling Charge - round explodes in tube, causing injury to crew and anyone unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius

Those are just my ideas. I'll point out my experience with mortars is limited to seeing them used in a few movies. I'll leave it to someone who has first hand experience to correct me where I'm wrong, and to provide more accurate or clearer information. (and maybe to suggest odds of any of these events occurring)

[StainlessSteelCynic]

That's a great idea!
Other results could be: -
Overloaded Propelling Charge - round travels 1.5 times the actually intended distance but otherwise functions normally.
Slow Fuse - round fires and travels as intended but fuze doesn't work as intended, round sits where it landed and detonates 2D6 (seconds, minutes, hours?) later.
Dud Shell part 2 - "Did that round feel a little light?", round wasn't packed with any explosive charge other than the propellant, propellant and fuze work as intended but there's nothing to make it go "boom".
Sensitive Fuze - fuze activates while round is in flight causing shell to explode somewhere along its trajectory


I tried to think up enough possibilities to make a d10 chart when added to yours but I'm still two results short

[bobcat]

QC would be variable for post war munitions. Mortar,Goose Gun, and RPG rounds made by people who have been doing it for more than a year would generally be fairly reliablemaybe a D100 or D20 failure rate, less then a year D10, brand new facility with rookies D4

[Legbreaker]

Available chemicals and other materials make a big difference too. Using unstable chemicals for the explosive, or substandard metal for casings for example.
You use what's available and pay the consequences later (well, those on the firing line do anyway!)

[StainlessSteelCynic]

ArmySGT kindly sent me some other suggestions for mortar ammo failure and that easily gives us a quick & dirty d10 table to scare Players with
I particularly wanted a d10 chart so we wouldn't have to use a die not already used for the game so again, thanks ArmySGT

So we'd be looking at something like this (no particular order): -
01 - Dud Mortar - does not detonate upon reaching target
02 - Insufficient Propelling Charge - reduced range (of course, they won't know this until they use the round)
03 - Dud Propelling Charge - either not launching at all, or only travels a couple meters before coming back to the ground (with the round detonating as if it had reached intended target)
04 - Overloaded Propelling Charge - round explodes in tube, causing injury to crew and anyone unfortunate enough to be in the blast radius
05 - Overloaded Propelling Charge - round travels 1.5 times the actually intended distance but otherwise functions normally.
06 - Slow Fuse - round fires and travels as intended but fuze doesn't work as intended, round sits where it landed and detonates 2D6 (seconds, minutes, hours?) later.
07 - Dud Shell part 2 - "Did that round feel a little light?", round wasn't packed with any (or the wrong) explosive charge other than the propellant, propellant and fuze work as intended but there's nothing to make it properly go "boom".
08 - Sensitive Fuze - fuze activates while round is in flight causing shell to explode somewhere along its trajectory (maybe use d100 to determine percentage of trajectory travelled before detonation with 01 and 100 both being just at the muzzle of the tube?)
09 - Body and fins separate after launch - explosive filled body tumbles in flight landing 1d6x50 meters short of the target in a random direct (1d12 clock face)
10 - Bomb casing breaks apart after launch scattering the explosives in pea sized bits over a 50x50 meter area.

[Legbreaker]

What about using 2d6 or even 2d10 to create a bell curve with common and relatively benign failures (dud round for example) sitting around the middle of the order, and the truly nasty and catastrophic ones (explodes in tube) at the end(s)?

[StainlessSteelCynic]

Absolutely no reason why not.
From memory aren't d6 prone to giving a more defined bell curve than d10 and d20? If so it's probably worth using 3d6 in preference to 2d10 (or even 2d6), to place the more desirable (or the more likely) events within the bell curve peak and the less desirable events at the base.

With all this input I think we're about 75% of the way towards a workable faults table for post-war manufactured mortar ammo.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

ArmySGT has sent me some more suggestions for the faults table. At some point when real life stops bothering me, I'll try to put together a chart that takes advantage of the bell curve property of dice rolling as per Legbreaker's suggestion. While this table has been specifically made in relation to mortar shells, with a little tinkering it should be usable for other forms of artillery.



Slow Burn... On impact, the casing breaks in two at the ogive . The explosive filler burns (no detonation) in a bright furious geyser of blinding white fire and throws off sparks. 50% chance of igniting combustible materials in a 5 meter radius.

Bad fins or imbalanced casting.... The shell fires as normal but, cannot be stabilized in flight by a imperfect casting. The random rules for a miss apply, triple the distance for a catastrophic failure.

Intentional ..... The manufacturer substituted the explosive filler for clay. Whether, to save money or hide failures may not be known. There cannot be a detonation on impact.

Fuse failure..... the fuse arming mechanism shears a pin and the shell detonates at its highest point (perihelion) as the nose turns toward the earth.

Hangfire.... Slow propellant ignition... The shell drops down the tube and impacts the firing pin.. There is wisps of smoke and the shell will fire in 1d6 minutes.

[unkated]

To aid you in your work, O Cynic, I built the attached spreadsheet.

The First Sheet tallies outcomes for 2D6, 3D6, 2D10, and 3D10s both as number of outcomes or as percentages. Rows 12, 14, 31 & 33 display the could of outcomes of a given value using the number of dice; the row immediately under each count is the percentage chance of that given outcome. The differences in distribution is displayed in a pretty graph at the bottom.

The Second Sheet has blank tables for 2D6, 3D6, 2D10, and 3D10 outcomes, listing the approximate outcome for each set of dice as if on a D100 range (D1000 for 3D10).

Play with it and which outcome distribution you like best. Or skip if it doesn't suit.

What can I say? I was bored at work.

Uncle Ted

[StainlessSteelCynic]

That's very nice of you... pfft, it's pretty damned awesome actually!

Thank you kind sir


Edit: Been giving the spreadsheet a good look and it's very, very handy. My only question is about the graph itself.
Was there meant to be annotation for the colours on the graph?
When I open the spreadsheet the graph displays fine but there's nothing stating which colour is what die.
While I'm certain that green is the d6 and blue is the d10, I'm assuming that they are both 2 dice (i.e. 2d6, 2d10) and I'm also assuming that the red plot is 3d10 and the purple is 3d6, is that correct?
Thanks again for this, it really has made the dud round results a lot easier to place onto a chart.

[Bullet Magnet]

When I commented about a chart for possible complications resulting from the 10% chance of failure on mortar rounds made by the Wojo plant, I really didn't expect there to be such a response. Not that I'm complaining at all.

At the time, I was hoping someone might come up with enough possibilities to make something like a 2d6 chart, or maybe percentiles. Now I see there are too many results to fit on a 2d6 roll, but 3d6 might work. (I like Legbreaker's idea of putting the more disastrous results at the ends of a bell curve; it helps to keep the odds low enough that players won't be afraid to use mortars)

And, like Bobcat suggested, this could be applied to any other facilities that are making weapons during he war, with variable odds of failure depending on the level of quality control in place at the facility in question.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes from this. And also, to see what kinds of possible complications there are that I hadn't thought of.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Bullet Magnet

When I commented about a chart for possible complications resulting from the 10% chance of failure on mortar rounds made by the Wojo plant, I really didn't expect there to be such a response. Not that I'm complaining at all.

At the time, I was hoping someone might come up with enough possibilities to make something like a 2d6 chart, or maybe percentiles. Now I see there are too many results to fit on a 2d6 roll, but 3d6 might work. (I like Legbreaker's idea of putting the more disastrous results at the ends of a bell curve; it helps to keep the odds low enough that players won't be afraid to use mortars)

And, like Bobcat suggested, this could be applied to any other facilities that are making weapons during he war, with variable odds of failure depending on the level of quality control in place at the facility in question.

I am looking forward to seeing what comes from this. And also, to see what kinds of possible complications there are that I hadn't thought of.

See this everyone?
This is how the community should operate. Everyone working together to build on what's gone before, not tearing down and starting again, or arguing about the tiniest little discrepancies (which are probably just typos anyway).
This is GOOD!

[kcdusk]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

See this everyone?
This is how the community should operate. Everyone working together to build on what's gone before, not tearing down and starting again, or arguing about the tiniest little discrepancies (which are probably just typos anyway).
This is GOOD!

Absolutely agree. Take a point of interest, throw around some ideas, come up with an improvement in the game (regardless of if your using v1.0 or 2.2). Thats why i'm here.