Re: (TFT) Guns and Armour Penetration.

["Ty Beard" <tbeard@tyler.net>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Charles Gadda" <cgadda@earthlink.net>
To: <tft@brainiac.com>


> > What "bullet test" is being referenced here and at what range? I have no
> > doubt that *some* bullets at certain ranges can be stopped with medieval
> > plate armor. But TFT fights occur at very short range, so battlefield
> > testing (if it is to support your contention) should be done with
bullets
> > similar to what we are discussing and at very close ranges.
>
> Who cares? The fact is that the purchaser, at least, expected some
> protection from it. Enough said.

No it isn't.

To analogize -- one might well buy a modern flak jacket to provide
protection from pistol bullets and grenade fragments. But the mere fact that
the flak jacket offers some protection from pistol bullets and fragments
does *not* mean that it will protect the wearer from a 30-06 round.

The range is particularly important because spherical bullets lose velocity
relatively quickly (compared with conical projectiles). One would logically
expect a dramatic decrease in the round's ability to penetrate at longer
ranges. Or, to say it differently, one would expect a spherical bullet to
have a dramatic increase in penetration at short range.

> > Your premature "apology" is rather curious. Why not simply avoid the
> > obnoxious (and rather pitiful) insults and simply give the information
> > where
> > the book may be found? Or simply have the courage to make the obnoxious
> > statement and take the consequences.
> >
> > In any case, I suggest that you cease these absurd little speculations
and
> > confine yourself to the issues at hand. Otherwise little will come of
this
> > other than a flamewar -- and I have no desire to educate an obvious
> > amateur
> > on such things.
> >
> If a flamewar results, at least half of the blame will be laid squarely
upon
> your head. I take most of the blame for starting it - after all, I did
make
> a very nasty comment at the beginning of my first reply to you presuming
> some ignorance on your part. That was uncalled for, and I am sorry.

Apology accepted. I have no desire to participate in a flame war, but one of
my failings is a severe inability to "turn the other cheek". So for that, I
apologize.

> As a point of fact, I really was trying to limit it, but would have been
> better served by omitting that comment altogether, I suppose. But I was
> somewhat piqued, too - the book is readily available, if you bother to
look
> for it. You make it sound like I was setting you up for failure by citing
an
> unfindable source! That was simply not true.

Nor was it my intent to accuse you of such. I rather hoped you could point
me to a source where it was available, which is why I posted the syntax of
my search.

> As for educating "an obvious amateur" well, perhaps that is so. Then
again,
> maybe not. You have failed to cite ANY sources for you claims

I meant an amateur at flame wars (which might well be a compliment). As for
history, we are all amateurs unless we are professional historians. I am
trained as such, but do not do it for a living. So I am an amateur historian
as well. And while I have a reasonable knowledge of warfare 1500-1800, I am
by no means an expert on the subject. My primary area of interest and
expertise is in modern warfare.

So, to restart the original topic -- how should we treat guns in TFT? My
observations:

1. By allowing armor to protect vs. guns, we dramatically reduce the chance
of killing a typical ST 10-12 warrior with a gun. From 63% to 10% in the
case of a ST 12 warrior.

2. I believe that this is far too much. I also believe that medieval plate
armor would not have materially increased your chance of survival if you
were shot at 30m- distance. I have found no significant historical evidence
that armor was actually proof against long gun bullets during the period
1500-1700. And if, as I suspect, the penetration of the crossbow was largely
due to its KE, then one would expect a similar result from a bullet, which
(a) imparts far more KE; and (b) has a relatively small cross-section. I do
agree that the crossbow bolt has a point, but I can find no way to properly
assess how much of the crossbow's penetration was due to this point. (The
work I have done in evaluating modern APFSDS penetrators does not work so
well with wooden crossbow bolts). I am unaware of any sources that suggest
that typical infantry crossbows had superior penetration to muskets in the
period 1500-1700. In addition, I note that infantry stopped using heavy
armor when the threat to them changed from melee weapons (swords and pikes)
to gunpowder weapons, which offers circumstantial support for my hypothesis
that armor was relatively useless against firearms.

3. Now if I am correct, then there are 3 approaches that I can think of. The
first is to simply increase the damage. For reasons already noted, I detest
this solution. The second is to introduce some concept of penetration --
whether by ignoring some or all types of primitive armor or by assigning a
"penetration rating". The third solution is to use the D&D approach and
assign dramatically lower hit points to normals (not as bad a solution at
one might think).

4. For philosophical reasons, I chose option 2. For simplicity, I chose to
simply ignore physical armor. The idea of giving arquebusses a penetration
of 3 is reasonable, but it still allows plate to halve the chance of being
killed outright by the arquebuss. This seems a little high to me.

5. Note that I do not claim that armor has *no* effect on a bullet. Rather,
I claim that armor offers so little practical effect (at typical TFT ranges)
that we can ignore it in game terms without much distortion.

6. The real problem here, btw, is that hit points don't do a very good job
of modelling wounds in the real world. Apparently, you chance of being
wounded is far more a function of where you're hit than the physical
capabilities of the weapon. (This intuitively makes sense; there's a big
difference in being hit in the stomach and being hit in the hand.) I base
this on a fascinating Challenge magazine article by Frank Chadwick analysing
the outcomes of a number of gun battles on the US-Mexico border. But
annoyingly, modelling this in a game results in a lousy game. As does
assuming Muzzle Energy = Penetration = Damage (ala GURPS, or Striker) IMHO.
In those games, an unarmored man is almost certainly dead if hit by gunfire.

--Ty
=====
Post to the entire list by writing to tft@brainiac.com.
Unsubscribe by mailing to majordomo@brainiac.com with the message body
"unsubscribe tft"