The Best That Never Was 2 (Prototypes)

[Legbreaker]

The one thing I miss that was in 1st ed is the PzF-11-1 disposable AT rocket. Was probably the best LAW in the 1st ed of the game, and although it's featured on the cover of the 2nd ed Heavy Weapons book, there's no stats for it.
Paul hasn't done it either.

[Vespers War]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The one thing I miss that was in 1st ed is the PzF-11-1 disposable AT rocket. Was probably the best LAW in the 1st ed of the game, and although it's featured on the cover of the 2nd ed Heavy Weapons book, there's no stats for it.
Paul hasn't done it either.

I took a quick look at it, and here's how I'd approach a quick and dirty conversion of the PzF-11-1:

Things get wonky when looking at some of the changes in AT weapons. The two weapons with the same damage in v1 aren't in v2 (Dragon and TOW I, replaced by Dragon PIP and TOW II).

Looking at the 1st edition stats, it should be stronger than:
LAW-80 (100C in v2)
Armbrust (55C)
AT-4/M136 (70C)
RPG-75 (55C)
APILAS (60C)
Eryx (60C)

But weaker than:
Tank Breaker (90C)
RBS-56 BILL (30C)
AT-3 Sagger (75C)

I'm willing to overlook BILL as an outlier, since it may have gotten knocked down for being top attack (although then Tank Breaker should have been knocked down also, but whatever). If we also ignore LAW 80 for having gotten a major boost in v2, we end up with a PzF-11-1 that should be somewhere around 70-75C, with something like C:5, B:5 (give or take 1 point on either stat) and the same range, weight, and price as v1.

[pansarskott]

RBS 56 BILL is really weak in v2. I think they forgot to increase the values from v1, it stayed at 30C. For comparison, a HEAT rifle grenade in v2 has 30C.
Tank Breaker increased from x30C to 90C (might be a bit weak as well, but that was a fictional weapon at the time).

Even though RBS-56 was designed for top attack, it was still a modern powerful HEAT warhead designed to defeat ERA (by using explosives that had higher detonation velocity than what was expected to be used in ERA tiles)

I tried to find info on warhead diameter, but only found for BILL 2 (110 mm main warhead)

The picture is wrong as well. That's not how the tripod looks. Even in 1989 (v1 HWG) there should have been pics available. Big disappointment for me who did military service using the RBS-56 in 1989.

Sorry for the rant!

For comparison or adding new weapons, I would use warhead diameter and "generation" to make up stats. I.e a 100 mm warhead from 1988 has higher penetration than a same diameter warhead from 1973.

[Vespers War]

Tank Breaker is what became Javelin, which has a 127mm warhead, just to provide a point of comparison for BILL.

(edit to add: Tank Breaker was started by DARPA in 1978. In 1986 the Army asked for proposals to replace Dragon. The Tank Breaker developers provided the proposals. TI proposed a missile with an IR seeker, Hughes went for fiber optic wire guidance, and Ford Aerospace a laser beam-rider. The competition shoot-off between TI and Hughes was in 1987-88, and full development of the Advanced Anti-armor Weapon System-Medium that the Army named Javelin commenced in 1989, with the contract going to a joint venture between TI and Martin Marietta. Full-scale production of Javelin started in 1997).

Sagger is 125mm, but an older generation of missile.

For RHA penetration, Sagger-C was 520mm in its improved version (460mm in the original 1969 configuration), and the 1992-era Sagger-D was 800mm. Javelin is "750+" normally, and ~600mm if the target has ERA thanks to the tandem warhead.

I've seen numbers everywhere between 500 and 900 for BILL, so I have no idea what its actual penetration was. Those may be two generations of BILL or based on whether the target has ERA or not, but it wasn't clear from what I was able to find.

[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Vespers War

(edit to add: Tank Breaker was started by DARPA in 1978. In 1986 the Army asked for proposals to replace Dragon. The Tank Breaker developers provided the proposals. TI proposed a missile with an IR seeker, Hughes went for fiber optic wire guidance, and Ford Aerospace a laser beam-rider. The competition shoot-off between TI and Hughes was in 1987-88, and full development of the Advanced Anti-armor Weapon System-Medium that the Army named Javelin commenced in 1989, with the contract going to a joint venture between TI and Martin Marietta. Full-scale production of Javelin started in 1997).

So your average missile gunner in the beginning of the Twilight war would be issued earlier iterations of what came out of the Tank Breaker program, like the Tank Breaker in the BYB (though I'm guessing Dragons would still be common, perhaps even upgraded variants). Special ops might have limited numbers of Javelin they receive before things break down entirely.

[Raellus]

I'm not sure why, but I'd assumed that the IRL Javelin was what T2k's Tank Breaker was supposed to be (i.e. the game designers anticipated the weapon system's technological development but didn't correctly predict its name).

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[Raellus]

Worth an entry, Paul M?

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zon...-hand-grenades

So that scene in Three Kings wasn't so outlandish after all...

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[pmulcahy11b]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

The one thing I miss that was in 1st ed is the PzF-11-1 disposable AT rocket. Was probably the best LAW in the 1st ed of the game, and although it's featured on the cover of the 2nd ed Heavy Weapons book, there's no stats for it.
Paul hasn't done it either.

Look again, it's there -- but it's listed on the page as "Panzerfaust 11-1"

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by pmulcahy11b

Look again, it's there -- but it's listed on the page as "Panzerfaust 11-1"

Well, that would explain a lot then. Same beast, different name.