Back to the Bradley topic

[kato13]

thefusilier 09-06-2008, 09:15 AM Hey,


I'm looking for some thoughts or suggestions on the Bradley again.


My players are engaged by 2 BMPs. Its awfully close, under 250 meters and the gunner goes for automatic fire. His rolls are poor based on using the autofire rules in the book. It also says that optics only negate difficulty multipliers and they don't make shots easier than the unmodified difficulties. As a result, the experienced gunner hits crap after blasting out a load of rounds.


Are the game mechanics poor for situations like this or am I reading the rules wrong. Do you guys use any special house rules for situations like this (autocannon rules)? Anything?


Brandon

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Targan 09-06-2008, 09:39 AM Are the game mechanics poor for situations like this or am I reading the rules wrong. Do you guys use any special house rules for situations like this (autocannon rules)? Anything?If the commander is sufficiently on the ball might it be possible for him to realise that the gunner's aim is askew and use his own controls to override the gunner and lay the gun on target himself?


One aspect of the autofire rules in Gunmaster is that in situations where the firer is close enough that he can clearly see his fall of shot he gets bonuses to keep the rest of his autofire on target. At 250 metres you would definitely be able to see the fall of shot from a 25mm autocannon. I also have my own house rules for determining scatter for different kinds of direct fire rounds that miss their target (an oval area extremely stretched in line with the direction of fire with a lower chance of rounds falling short than overshooting).


This is especially important for large calibre rounds that have an explosive or incendiary effect because they may cause incidental damage or other effects despite missing. For instance API rounds might start brush fires, explosive rounds might kick up dirt and make demoralisingly loud bangs, fragments might hit the intended target and even if they don't penetrate might damage external cargo or induce vehicle crews to close their hatches, etc.

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Raellus 09-06-2008, 03:28 PM Is the Bradley's stabilization system out? If so, then regular autofire rules would apply. If it's working though, I would imagine that any penalties for recoil would be dropped. I've seen gun camera footage of super-tight grouping with full auto 25mm fire.


Does there happen to be a Soviet Army deserter in the party? Maybe a Latvian scout of some sort? He should be able to take out a couple of BMPs, no problem!


; )

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simonmark6 09-06-2008, 04:47 PM What? By farting?

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pmulcahy 09-06-2008, 05:31 PM What? By farting?


Hey -- a use for my digestive problems at last!

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kcdusk 09-06-2008, 10:09 PM Is the Bradley's stabilization system out? If so, then regular autofire rules would apply.

; )



As the driver of the bradley in question, i had stopped the brad to help with aiming. But since reading your post Raellus, it occurred to me the bradley had a wear value of about 9 i think. So now i am asking myself "what works on the bradley", since that is probably a shorter list than "what isnt working"!

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thefusilier 09-06-2008, 10:40 PM All the shots were from a stationary position and because it was within the close range band, no dice were dropped for distance either. Its stabilization is good anyways.


It was the regular autofire rules that I am not happy about. It would be ok if the gunner was using a machine gun. But it doesn't seem right using a 25mm Bushmaster from a turret... at an AFV... at under 200 meters... using the vehicles sighting system... and hitting maybe 1 or 2 shots every 15 rounds.

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simonmark6 09-07-2008, 04:37 AM I think that the rules could be tweaked a bit, although you're getting into guess and opinion territory. Given you want to make autofire from the Bradley more accurate, you could do 1 or both of these as an idea:


1) Add +1 to the autofire roll for the Fire Control and +1 for Basic stabilization or +2 for Good


2) For vehicles and buildings, re-roll half the missed rounds and see if they hit the target, the vehicle is big so some of the misses from the aimpoint might still hit.


That way, a character with an Autogun asset of 8 would normally hit on a 2 (I think), with at best 2 hits for every 20 rounds, would change to hitting on a 5 from a Bradley making 1 in 4 rounds hit.


The second change would have nine of the missed shells rerolled giving the possibility of another hit, though it's still a crapshoot.


Combining the two changes would average 5 hits from the initial rolls, with 7/8 re-rolls and the chance for another 1/2 hits, 6/7 hits on a target should be enough to incapacitate it if the shells can penetrate.


These combined changes would make autofire on vehicles more deadly, a 25 round burst would usually result in 8/10 hits as opposed to the 4/5 of aimed fire, but it would make the chances of being scragged by enemy vehicle autofire more likely too.

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thefusilier 09-07-2008, 06:10 AM True, its guess and opinion territory, but I think those are some good ideas SM. I might try your ideas and see how it goes.


Simonmark6... are you Mark101 on Rpol?

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simonmark6 09-07-2008, 07:06 AM Yup.

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Raellus 09-07-2008, 03:06 PM As the driver of the bradley in question, i had stopped the brad to help with aiming. But since reading your post Raellus, it occurred to me the bradley had a wear value of about 9 i think. So now i am asking myself "what works on the bradley", since that is probably a shorter list than "what isnt working"!


Good point, KC. Perhaps the stabilization system is unreliable or completely kaput. That would explain the poor shots-to-hits ratio.

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kcdusk 09-07-2008, 03:29 PM Fusilier. To add to your workload, because i know your finding running hte game too easy. Our PCs have been with the bradley for a while (years?) in the game. So if wear is a 9, perhaps we could list the items that are not working, working half the time, and working normally?


In this case though, maybe just list the items that are working half the time (since wear is a 9).


Gives the vehicle some personality.


Lets players know what works and what doesnt.


I might put a suggestion together for you and PM you tonight.

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leonpoi 09-08-2008, 12:44 AM All the shots were from a stationary position and because it was within the close range band, no dice were dropped for distance either. Its stabilization is good anyways.


It was the regular autofire rules that I am not happy about. It would be ok if the gunner was using a machine gun. But it doesn't seem right using a 25mm Bushmaster from a turret... at an AFV... at under 200 meters... using the vehicles sighting system... and hitting maybe 1 or 2 shots every 15 rounds.i understand exactly what you are saying. For autofire I use a rule that at less than (or equal to) 1/2 the base range shots hit on 1/2 skill and not 1/4 - but this would not have helped you here. 1/2 skill means that a SMG at about 15m can burst to good effect, but again doesn't help your bradley in your case.

I would suggest that the bradley gunner use 5 single shots because at at 250m that would be 5 shots at short range i.e. full skill. That would carve up the bmps.

I also assume that any vehicle with any kind of fire control also has a rangefinder plus decent optics which I treat as a gun sight - extreme becomes long for aimed shots.

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thefusilier 09-08-2008, 06:32 AM I would suggest that the bradley gunner use 5 single shots because at at 250m that would be 5 shots at short range i.e. full skill. That would carve up the bmps.


I also assume that any vehicle with any kind of fire control also has a rangefinder plus decent optics which I treat as a gun sight - extreme becomes long for aimed shots.


I did that... and he hit all five. But I was still disappointed in the events. Yeah, the optics and rangefinder help... but do nothing for my close range battle.


Thanks all for replying.

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leonpoi 09-08-2008, 05:04 PM I did that... and he hit all five. But I was still disappointed in the events. Yeah, the optics and rangefinder help... but do nothing for my close range battle.


Thanks all for replying.I know that in version 1 of the rules the rangefinder rules are:


Rangefinders: Vehicle-mounted and towed large caliber guns

and howitzers have rangefinders, which provide a firing bonus to

the gunner’s base hit number. This bonus may only be used for

aimed shots and only when shooting at vehicles or other large

targets (such as buildings). The entry in the equipment list for

each vehicle or towed gun gives its rangefinder bonus. This

bonus is added to the base hit number at close, medium, and

long range. Half the bonus is added at extreme range.


In version 1 the bradley has a RF bonus of +15 (% on a percentile dice), Abrams, for example, have +40. This only affected aimed shots though so I think autofire or rapid single shots get no bonus.


simonmark6's solutions could work by adding the Fire Control bonus to the number to hit and also rerolling misses on a vehicle for autofire. I think both of these are a pretty good idea and they help autofire proportionally a bit more because the autofire chances are low already. FC would therefore work kind of like corrections for indirect fire so a precedent is already set in the rules. It makes sense to re-roll 1/2 of the misses as normal for a vehicle of size 1 because it occupies the same size as the danger zone of a burst.


You'd have to make a decision about what happens when you are shooting at a target with size > 1 because this already reduces the difficulty. I should clarify that the autofire rule that I use is 1/2 skill at 1/2 range but when you are re-rolling the misses they use the normal 1/4 skill so I would use the same idea for vehicles of > size 1.


simonmark6 thanks for those FC ideas, I'm going to use them from now on but will only apply FC to the hit bonus and leave stabilisation to negating movement penalties and instead apply a penalty to unaimed shots from a moving vehicle which are negated by the weapon stabilisation. i.e. weapon stablisation allows shooting on the move but also aimed shooting on the move.

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