Fictional Firepower: M240 Incinerator Unit (Aliens)

Aliens is an awesome movie, I don't think I'll get to many counters to that statement (and if you do; hey! It's a free country, you can be wrong if you want to :P). And, it had some amazing looking guns and tech. From the pulse rifle, to the power loader, to the Sulaco (a design that launched a thousand HALO ships), it pretty much set THE standard for that gritty 80's sci-fi look we all know and love. And this is before diving into the Colonial Marines Technical Manuel which expanded on that considerably! 

Well, it's just dawned on me that I have zero posts on any of the tech from it! How the heck don't I even have stats for the PIG when it's me, THE GURPS plasma gun guy?! So, what sparked me to realized that I had a lack of Aliens content? 

Two things. 

First was getting asked for some help with TL 8+ flamethrowers on Discord. Then I saw this video on Youtube that ran through an Aliens themed game of Space Hulk (which also had liberal usage of a flamethrower). What do these two things have to with each other? Welcome to how my brain works! You see, helping with those flamethrowers had me thinking about stating a flamethrower for my blog already, then that video made me realize that I had 0 Aliens content. My first go too, of course, was the pulse rifle, buuuut, Douglass and Hans have already beat me to it... dang... Then I was like, "Oh right,flamethrowers were a pretty big thing in the movies (except for III buuut... we don't talk about III) AND the game I just saw.". That and I already had someone tickling my tism' about stating up flamethrowers. Which brings me to now... the thing you actually care about and not my questionable state of mental heath: Liquid propelled war crimes!

Ultra-Tech Gun Noodlings: How to Figure Bulk and Magazine Length

Sup fam. Got some quick but tasty nuggets for you today.

First off I've come up with a way of figuring a weapons bulk that gets good results. This is NOT official by any means but it seems to work. It is a bit fiddly though. 

First you're gonna have to fi
gure to values:

Bul and Buw.

Bul is based on the weapons length in millimeters and can be figured as:

6 × LOG₁₀(Wl/305) + 2

Wl is the weapons length is millimeters. 

Buw is based on the weapons weight (unloaded if mounted) in pounds and can be figured as:

2 × LOG₁₀(Ww) + 2

Ww is based on the weapons weight (unloaded if mounted) in pounds. 

The weapons actual Bulk then can be figured by taking the average of Bul and Buw and then slapping a negative signto it. 

For example: A FAMAS G2 is 757mm long and weighs 8.4lbs. This gives us a Bul of 6 × LOG₁₀(757/305) + 2 or 4.4 and a Buw of 2 × LOG₁₀(8.4) + 2or 3.8. This gives a Bulk of (4.4 + 3.8)/2 or -4. While there are no stats for a FAMAS in any official book, HANS was kind enough to provide the forum with a write up and sure enough it's bulk is -4. 

 And while we're here, might as well throw in a quick way to estimate a magazine length, just so you can get an idea if your magazine modification is practical (and should let you know you're not going to see a huge increase in the number of caseless rounds a standard magazine can hold).

Magazine height can be estimated as number of rounds × rounds actual diameter (this might differ from the listed one, a 5.56 NATO round is actually ~5.7mm) × the polymer/plastic magazine type weight modifier for a given magazine type found on High-Tech p.155 under Extended Magazines. Multiply this value 0.7 for curved magazines like most military rifles use.Adjust the height by +/-10% as needed.

Why am I getting some casting couch energy form this pic?

For Example: a 20 round magazine for a FN Five SeveN is about 126mm (~5 in.) tall. The actual diameter for the round is 5.7mm and used a high-density magazine which has a polymer/plastic weight modifier of 1.1. This gives us a height of 20 × 5.7 × 1.1 or 125.4mm (4.9 in.). Close enough for government work.

So why am I thinking of gun stats all of a sudden? Well, I know, bad question. When am I NOT thinking of gun stats after all. Well I may or may not be working on expanding the kinetic side of Ultra-Tech firepower in my next few posts. I do hope to get some stuff out soon but I am also working on some non blog related projects so  maybe that might be more on the soonish side of things but they'll get there.

Ultra-Tech Ultra Quickie: Experimental Melee Rules Part II: Power Weapons

Ok, looks like my last post is getting some traction. I'm in inspired mode so let's keep this content train ah-chuggin!

Power Weapons (TL 10)
Power weapons use some form of force field to increase their impact force, be it gravitational, electromagnetic, or some other energy herein unknown to modern science.

Power weapons let off a glow that can provide some light but also give their users position away when activated. They will act as a light source that is bright enough to give a modifier of LOG₁₅(damage adds) -3 or if you want more details they will be as bright as a light with a lux of 5 × LOG(damage adds). See GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses p. 13 for more information on how light levels translates into light level modifiers. 

For weapons that do cutting, impaling, or piercing damage they increase the weapons Armor Divisor by one step (to a max of 10) and add TL -3 points of damage adds, crushing attacks only get the damage adds. +13CF.

They also worsen the odds breaking for  a non-force weapon on a parry by 1.

This can be increased to TL -2 for +1 CF, TL -1 for +4 CF,  TL for +9 CF, or TL +1 for +19 CF.  
 

Power weapons need a power source to function, usually power cells.

A standard C cell will power a power weapon for TLp/divide by weapons weight in seconds. TLp is 75 at TL 10, 150 at TL 11, 225 at TL 12.

A +1 power weapon halves this duration, a +2 one cuts it by a 1/3 , a +3 one cuts it by  1/5, and  +4 one cuts it by 1/8th.
 

Legal class worsens by 1 to a max of LC 2.

DR Steps

Find your weapons base Armor Divisor (AD) on the below table and for each step your modifiers adds, move down one step on the table. For example if you have a base AD of 2 and have one step worth of AD modifiers you will move down one step and your weapons now has a AD of 3.

 

Step AD

0 1

1 2

2 3

3 5

 

Ultra-Tech Ultra Quickie: Experimental Melee Rules Part I: Updated Vibrobalde Rules

Update: Formatting issue fixed. I guess you just can't copy your text over from Google Docs and need to paste it in a simple editing tool like notepad first >.>. Like Google owns both Docs and Blogger.... you'd think they'd be integrated... but then again Google is utter trash trash. 

Update 2 Electric Boogaloo: Fixed a typo. The cost factor for upgrading damage to TL -3 was wrong (have no idea why I had it at +3) and has been changed to the correct +9 CF.

Another quick one since the inspiration hit me out of nowhere. Here's a experimental reworking of the rules for Vibroblades found in Ultra-Tech p. 164 that cleans it up a bit and makes it more modular. If you like this I'll  make other posts covering this stuff and update other options such as Super Fine and Hyper Dense and even add some new options.

Vibro/High Frequency Blade (TL 9)
Only available to weapons that do cutting, impaling, and or piercing damage (though optimized for cutting weapons). Vibro and High Frequency (or HF) technology are two means to reach the same end; to vibrate the blade at ultra high frequencies to better slice through objects. Vibro weapons use ultrasonic waves while HF weapons use high powered alternating current but otherwise their effects are identical (though HF tech has uses outside of just making blades effectively sharper).  

A downside is the vibrations make an audible humming sound when activated. Make a hearing based Per roll to detect. See below to figure out the base range that someone can hear the weapon but in most cases the sound level will be that of a normal conversation for detection purposes.

To find out the exact range you can hear a vibro/HF weapon first find out its decibel rating.

Decibels Rating equals 20 × LOG( weapon weight in pounds × TLm×Em × 10). TLm is 2 at TL 9, 1 at TL 10, 0.5 at TL 11 and 0.25 at TL 12. Em is 2 if you upgrade to TL -5, 3 at TL -4, 5 at TL -3, 8 at TL -2.

Then take the Decibel Rating and look it up on the Hearing Distance table in High-Tech p. 158 or Loudness Levels in GURPS Powers: Enhanced Senses p. 21.

Characters with Ultra-Hearing can detect a vibro/HF weapon at 10× its normal range.

If your character wouldn't know what a vibro or HF blade is then a further IQ roll is needed to figure out why you hear a humming noise. On a failure you write it off as a ringing in your ear or something similar.

If a character has either enhanced time sense or perception at 20+, they can simply see the weapon oscillate.

For weapons that do cutting, impaling, or piercing damage, when the vibro/HF function is turned on  they increase the weapons Armor Divisor by one step (to a max of 10)  and only for cutting damage they add TL -6 points of damage adds.  When turned off the weapon does its base damage. +9 CF.

This can be increased to TL -5 for an additional  +1 CF, TL -4 for +4 CF,  TL -3 for +9 CF, or TL -2  for +19 CF.

Vibro/High Frequency Blades need a power source to function, usually power cells.

A standard C cell will power a Vibro/High Frequency Blade for TLp/divide by weapons weight in seconds. TLp is 37.5 at TL 9, 300 at TL 10, 600 at TL 11, 900 at TL 12.

A +1 vibro/HF weapon halves this duration, a +2 one cuts it by a 1/3 , a +3 one cuts it by  1/5, and  +4 one cuts it by 1/8th.

Legal class worsens by 1 to a max of LC 2.

 

DR Steps

Find your weapons base Armor Divisor (AD) on the below table and for each step your modifiers adds, move down one step on the table. For example if you have a base AD of 2 and have one step worth of AD modifiers you will move down one step and your weapons now has a AD of 3.

 

Step AD

0 1

1 2

2 3

3 5

4 10 

 

 

 

Fictional Firepower: Seburo C-25A

Hey! Want to hear some The_Ryujin_LP deep lore that you might not know?

Ready?

This is gonna blow your mind!

I ...kinda like cyberpunk. I know, I know. Who could tell, right? But all jokes aside, next to R. Talsorian's Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0 and William Gibson's Neuromancer, it was the works of Masamune Shirow that grabbed me at a young age and never let go. While Appleseed will always be my favorite of his, there is no doubt that of all his works none if more well known and influential on popular culture then Ghost in the Shell. Hell, even before anime became a household term, there was a good chance someone you ran into was at lest aware of something by that name existed.

And its from the cyberpunk world of Ghost in the Shell where I draw the inspiration for this post here, the Seburo C-25A (been a while since I dusted off this blog topic heh). This was the main weapon of Security Section 9 in the manga and  was pretty much a not future P90 (I know, kinda redundant with how the thing looks) firing powerful, HV rounds capable of stopping even moderately armored cyborgs.

While not as famous to the general audience as the CZN M22 from the movie (which actually fired the P90's 5.7×25mm round) or even the totally not just a FN F-2000 C-26A from Stand Alone Complex (which always struck me as a bit  weird, the C-26A lost out to the 25A...); to me the C-25A will always be THE gun of Ghost in the Shell. After all, the other two wouldn't even be a thing without the C-25A to set the rules.

Follow me after the jump is you wish to download the deets on this personal favorite of mine.

Ultra-Tech Firepower: Ramblings on Ultra-Tech Missile and How to Make them I Guess

Hey everyone! 

Guess what?!

It's that time once again! Time for your favorite crunchmeister to beat upon my favorite dead ultra-horse! This time trying my hardest to wack out the wonkieness behind how Ultra-Tech designed its missiles!

Yay!

Ultra-Tech Firepower: SAA GU 384 Boomslang, 50mmCRH (TL 9)

SAA GU 384 Boomslang, 50mmCRH (TL 9)

The trend since just before the turn of the century is for light armored vehicles to get, well, not so light with each generation getting heavier  and with beefier armor. This has in turn driven the need for bigger and bigger gun armaments that they need to mount in order to keep them competitive with their pears; going from 20-25mm in the beginning to 30mm today and even some designs going for 40mm+! Of course the ultra-tech armors of the future will only compound this factor further. Though as guns get more powerful, their recoil gets worse and you start to run into issues where your near tank level firepower is starting to become to much for the platform to handle and accuracy starts to suffer and the added stress causes the frames life space starts to drop.
 

Suid-Afrika Bewapeningskorporasie, the South Africa Armaments Corporation, developed the SAA GU 384 Boomslang to help counter this limitation. Named after the boomslag, a large venomous snake endemic to the area, as a way to single that this was to be weapon system with a deadly bite! 

Ultra-Tech Firepower: Big Guns Never Tire

 

 

Bigger in fact does seem to be better when it comes to the future of main battle tank guns. Rheinmetall already has a 130mm tank gun model it's shopping around and the US is even looking into the possibility of going up to a massive 140mm gun in some of it's next generation MBT concepts. While the safe money is on the 130mm seeing wide spread adoption, it's not only already is a working model at this point but also it's  largely based on it's already successful RH-120 line of tank guns (and it being the cheaper options doesn't hurt either) making it easier to retrain crews to use and maintain it. The 140mm , while still in development at this point, does still have some advantages in its favor do its larger warhead giving it some more flexibility in munitions and it's greater penetration power will help keep it at over match capacity even against advancements in armor technology.

Well, if you want to seriously up the dakka quotient in your game, follow me after the jump.

Sa-bow indexed!

Tank identified, Twelve-hundred-up! On target!  Fire!

Round away!

Ultra-Tech Firepower: Wolden & Hawks PDW-7P, 8mmAADR (TL 9)

Note: Slight update

 GURPS forum user Kale made the great suggestion of allowing the forward grip be swapped with a tac light which I should of included from the state. Good call man. He also suggested adding the option of adding a small 20 gauge shotgun in lieu of an idea I had off adding in a really small grenade launcher earlier in my concept phase for this gun. I was looking into maybe adding something like the S&W Governor but then it dawned on me that 15mm gyroc was about the same size as a 20 gauge so I went with that idea instead. Also another forum user by the name Say, it isn't that bad! has said that my stat lines are coming in weird for him. Well I looked into ways to fix it and it looks like Blogger has made it easier to add tables (the last time I tried it was so finicky that I gave up and have been hand adjusting stat lines since) so I have updated the PDW-7P's stat line to have a proper table. It's still wonky AF but hopefully it's more stable.

Wolden & Hawks PDW-7P, 8mmAADR (TL 9)

The PDW-7P was the first fully in-house developed firearm designed by Wolden and Hawks, a very successful gun modding studio run by Greager Wolden and Carter Hawks. With furthering social unrest and increased attacks and kidnapping attempts on high value corporate exec, research engineers, and politicians the team saw a chance to fill the growing need for a compact and easy to conceal high rate of fire weapon that can also defeat most forms of soft body armor to sell to the growing private security firm sector.

Deigning the actual firing platform was the easy part. Based on interviews with potential clients, Wolden & Hawks  only took seven design iterations to come up with the PDW-7P. It was to be handy in closed in fighting situations and with a strong emphasis on making it very easy to holster or conceal and extremely reliable (treat as Fine( Reliable)) so that it didn't jam or fail to feed in the middle of fight. This lead to the weapon being no larger then a heavy pistol (hence the 7P, seven for the seventh design iteration and P for pistol form factor) with a somewhat boxy appearance do to it having an integrated P90 style forward grip in front of the trigger guard which incorporated an ambidextrous fire control selector (which could be switched between safe, semi-auto, 3-round limited burst, and full auto) and a built in telescoping collapsible stock (one ready maneuver to collapse or pull out the stock). This let it be stored and used as readily a normal pistol but with a flick of the selector allowed it to instantly transition into a machine pistol or if better stability and accuracy was needed the stock could be extended turning it into a full on submachine gun. While the weapon only used a standard iron sight and smart gun electronics to keep the weapons bulk down, it did have a top mounted modular rail so buyers could add their own sighting options if needed. The forward half of the forward grip can be removed and replaced with either a tactical flashlight (50 yard beam, $100, 1 A/8hrs. See High-Tech pg. 52) or a under barrel Holdout Gyroc, 15mm (see Ultra-Tech pg. 144 and 145)

The hard part was what to chamber it in. Feedback had reviled a desire to have penetration levels near what the 5.7mmCL could do in a full sized SMG but given that the PDW-7P had a normal pistol length barrel there was not many round that could fit the bill and they were going to have to make their own custom cartridge. After several rounds of simulations and testing they found that a high-pressure round based on a heavily modified 9mmCL cartridge would suit their needs. The base round was necked down to 7.92mm with a 6 gram bulk amorphous tungsten cored projectile. To push for a high muzzle velocity a a higher pressure propellant block was used with a light composite coating applied to the block making it semi-caseless. This coating would briefly contain the expanding gas when the round was fired further increasing the chamber pressure bumping the muzzle energy up by roughly 9.3%. The composite coating is then burned up and ejected out the barrel with the rest of the propellant residue. Between the high velocity and dense core, this gives the round nearly 10mm of penetration of RHA equivalent. Given that the round was close enough to 8mm and its primary purpose it was christen the 8mm Advanced Armor Defeating Round. 

The PDW-7P originally only came with a conventional sized doubled stacked pistol magazine capable of holding 20 rounds to help with concealment  but W & H eventually developed a 33 round extended mag (0.5 lbs, $20) after customer receiving enough customer feed back asking for the option. A third party developed 100 round  C-mag (2 lbs, $160. An integrated A cells powers drum for up to 1,000 rounds. Worsens bulk by -1) also became available but W & H strongly recommend against its use as they viewed it as unreliable (drop Malf. to normal while loaded with this magazine) and the amount of extra bulk it added to the platform was over all incompatible with the weapons concept.

The excellent performance of the weapon however came with a high cost per round which was further impacted by the 8mmADD's production being limited to just its flagship platform. But despite this sales have been have been at lest steady with many of the major private protection firms buying at lest a limited  test of the weapon. This has also lead to other firearm manufacturers to start to take note of the round which may lead to further adoption driving costs down further.

 

GUNS (SMG) (DX-4, or most other Guns at -2)

TL	Weapon	Damage	Acc	Range	Weight	ROF	Shots	ST	Bulk	Rcl	Cost	LC	Notes

9	PDW-7P,	4d-1 (2) pi-	3	220/2,400	2.5/0.3	12	20 +1 (3)	5†	-3	2	$890/$18	2	[1, 2, 3]

		8mmAADR

[1] With the stock collapsed Acc drops to 2, ST changes to 7, and bulk goes down to -2 and can be used with the GUNS (PISTOL) skill instead. 

[2] With drum mag ST becomes 6† with stock, 8 with the stock collapsed.

[3] Accessory rail.

8mmAADR

TL   WPS   CPS

9     0.015   $0.52

Ultra-Tech Firepower: The LGIP LAA-88, 88mmRL

Note: When I first uploaded this post I used the wrong formula when figuring the ammunitions price making them cost a lot more then they should of. The listed prices are now correct. 

LGIP  LAA-88, 88mmRL (TL 9)         

Even with ultra-tech advances in missile technology many militaries still have the need for a simple, accurate, and relatively cheap man portable heavy direct fire support platform. The Belgium developed Limburg Geavanceerde Industriële Productie (Limburg Advanced Industrial Manufacturing) Light Anti-Material 88 millimeter recoilless rifle was developed to fill that niche.

The LAA-88 follows a fairly conventional shoulder launch design that took advantage of  advancements in material manufacturing to build the main body out of  composite fiber wrapped around a rifled barrel made of titanium alloy. This kept the weapons weight down while maintaining a long barrel life (rated for 1,500 shots before needing to be discarded) without major increase in manufacturing cost. Also while not a true Rarefaction Wave Gun, it does use a similar but simpler gas pressure trapping system to reduce the amount of wasted motive energy normally present in recoilless designs and increase the weapons muzzle without needing more propellant. At its rear is a proprietary advanced variable aperture venturi which helps break up the weapons backblast cutting its force by almost a third. To handle the weapon it features an ergonomic integrated forward grip, trigger assembly and adjustable shoulder rest made of high impact polymer. It also has a detachable 0.9lbs  4× IR scope with integrated targeting computer and standard smart gun electronics (+2 Acc from scope, +3 Acc from laser rangefinder, range 5,000 yards, +2 to Guns (LAW)*, 1B/10hrs). While it can be used by a single operator (doubles how long it takes to reload) it more optimally used with a two man crew with one carrying and firing the weapon and the other loading it and carrying the ammunition.

Like all reoilless rifle ammunition the 88mmRL rounds are actually rifled cannon rounds and not rockets. This means a reoilless round leaves the barrel its peak velocity as allowing it to reach a higher muzzle velocity over all and making them more accurate then a rocket. The round further increases muzzle velocity to over twice that of earlier models not only through its launch platforms pressure trapping system but through the use of higher energy explosives based propellant. They weigh 4.4lbs which include a counter mass made of  high surface area to mass plastic flakes designed to decelerate quickly further helping to contain its backblast. The ammunition is rear loaded into the LAA-88 opening the sealing lock just before venturi and then twisting it open, sliding in the round, twisting it back down, and then closing the sealing lock.

Besides Shaped-Charge rounds (in table), it could also fired HE (7d×4(0.5) cr  with a 5d×5 [4d+1] cr ex follow up), MF-DC (Multiple Fletch-Dense Cored, 1d(2) pi-, ROF 1 × 1,100 ), SAP-E2 which is  designed to  penetrate into a target like a bunker before setting off a powerful Thermobaric explosive (Semi-Armor Piercing-Enhanced Effect,  7d×4 cr with a 5d×10 cr ex follow up. Divide crushing explosive damage by [2 × distance in yards from center of blast]), Electromagnetic Smoke (9 yard radii, lasts for 1 to 4 minutes. Takes 9 seconds to fully deploy.), and flare (900 yards radii, lasts for 5 minutes) rounds. 

 LGIP also offers more advanced version of its range of 88mmRL rounds which use an nano-optic array  and added control surfaces similar to the the type used in their range of 15 and 30mm Gyrocs which allows the rounds to make course corrections to greatly increase the weapons accuracy. These increase the rounds Acc to 7 but triple the cost.

Backblast: 1d+1 cr 

 

GUNS (LAW) (DX-4 or most other Guns at -4)

TL  Weapon                    Damage                Acc    Range      Weight     ROF    Shots   ST    Bulk  Rcl   Cost     LC   Notes 

9     LAA-88, 88mmRL  5d×11(10) cr inc     5 +2   10/2,700    13.9/4.4     1          1(4)     8†     -7      1     $2,700    1      [1, 2]

                          Linked  6d×2 [4d+1] cr ex

[1] Hazardous backblast (see description).

[2] First Range figure is minimum range, not 1/2D.

TL  Ammo                                                       WPS     CPS    LC

9   88mmRL Shaped Charge                             4.4        $280     1

9   88mmRL HE                                                4.4       $250      1

9   88mmRL MF-DC                                         4.4       $440   1

9   88mmRL SAP-E2                                        4.4       $500   1

9   88mmRL Electromagnetic Smoke               4.4       $310      1

9   88mmRL Flare                                             4.4       $280      1

*Uses the Specialized Targeting Programs optional rule from Future Soldier,  Pyramid 3-55 Military Sci-Fi. This program is specialized to work only with this weapon dropping the Complexity for a +2 to Guns down from Complexity 4 to a Complexity 2 program. $250.

Ultra-Tech Firepower: Salvo Explosively Impelled Munitions

Future War Stories is one of the many blogs that I frequent. If you already are a reader of this blog then you probably aren't to terribly surprised by this fact. If this is the first time hearing about it, it's a real good resource on speculative military science fiction and a gold mind for ideas. So go check it out.

Well, a few days ago I was looking something up and one of the sites that came up during the google search was one of the posts on this blog. I read  it over and then I come across this glorious lil' GIF below.

Ahhhhh, Elysium. Not the greatest movie but oh boi! The visuals and designs work in this movie, largely down but the undeniably talented Aaron Beck (for another example of his work see my last post). But man! Look at that shot! That is one brilliantly render blast wave. Of course... sadly, there is no way in hell you can get a blast that big with a bullet that small (in universe it's just a modified AK-47 firing airbursting 7.62×39mm rounds). Not even with Ultra-Tech explosives like TL 11 Advanced Nuclear Isomer warheads (Ultra-Tech Too, Pyramid 3-51 Tech & Toys III) can you get a blast like that! But... the idea did get my noggin' joggin'. What if instead of using the explosives as the primary means of damaging the target, the blast was instead used to enhanced and boost the effects of the projectiles kinetic effect? Well you get maybe an little over the top but cool (and probably possible with mature TL 9 tech) new toy to play with!



Salvo Explosively Impelled Munition (SXIM) (TL 9) 
SXIM projectiles are composed of eight somewhat sword shaped dense cored flechettes fused together around an shape charge explosive and a ladar based proximity fuse. Before firing the shooter must take a ready action to lase a target and feed ranging data to the proximity fuse. After that the weapon can be fired on the shooters next turn. The fired rounds then streaks towards the target and at a precise range (based on the amount of explosives used) the shape charge will go off  using the explosive force to both break apart the flechettes as well give them an extra "kick" boosting their kinetic energy. Do to their design this does cutting damage with a (2) armor divisor. Also against a lased target, the firing weapons has it effective ROF changed to  n×8 (with n being the number of shots fired) and it's rcl  changed to 1. If no target is designated  the round will instead point detonate when it strikes a target that gives it enough resistance (DR or HP 2+ for hard objects or more then 4HP or more resistance for most living things). When a round point detonates it does the weapons original piercing damage ×1.5 with an (2) armor divisor plus explosive damage if the round is powerful enough to cause significant effect. Also if firing undesignated, use the weapons original ROF and rcl.

Detonation Range is how far from the target the round goes off. This is unimportant for most rounds but for larger rounds the blast effect could be large enough to effect a relevant effect. A Range of C means it goes off in the same hex as the target.


__________________________________________________________________________________
SXIM Warhead Table
Warhead                Damage                                                    Detonation Range
7mmCL                   3d+1 (2) cut                                                C
10mmCL                 4d-1 (2) cut                                                 C
10mmCLR               5d-1 (2) cut                                                 C
15mmCL                 8d (2) cut                                                    C
18.5mmPC              2d+2 cut                                                    C
20mmPC                1d-4 cr ex + linked 3d+2 (2) cut                    C
20mmCL                1d-4 cr ex +  linked 9d+2 (2) cut                   C
20mmCLH              1d-4cr ex + linked 8d×2 (2) cut                     C
25mmCL                1d-3 cr ex + linked  5d+1 (2) cut                    1
100mmCL               4d cr ex +    linked 5d×16 (2) cut                  2

Add +1 per die to both crushing explosive damage and cutting damage at TL 10-12. SXIM rounds are five times normal cost. 


And here's how to stat up SXIM rounds for any gun. 

Blast Damage 

First figure the Warhead's Weight 

Weight = Caliber in mm³ × 0.000002

Blast Damage = √ (warhead wight) × 9.9. Divide the product by 3.5 to get the dice of damage. For most small arms blast damage can be safely ignored

Flechette damage = Base bullet damage × 0.53. Does cutting damage with an (2) armor divisor.

Detonation range = √(blast damage)


If target is lased the firing weapons stats are adjusted  as follow:
ROF becomes n × 8

Rcl becomes 1.  
   
Enjoy!

Ultra-Tech Firepower: Epoch Systems BE^2-HV/380 20mm Autocannon

Epoch Systems BE^2-HV/380 20mm Autocannnon, 20mmCLH (TL 9) 

Designed by Epoch Systems, the Ballistic Enhanced Effect-High Velocity Model 380 (BE²-HV/380, generally called Bee Hive) is a high powered 20mm autocannon designed for increased after armor effects against light to medium armored targets. It fires  the heavy, high velocity 20mmCLH round with an APIS (Armor Piercing Individual Salvo) warhead which is a specially designed APDS round that deploys three bulk amorphous tungsten cored penetrators in a triplex arrangement uniquely designed for this weapon platform.

The BE²-HV/380 counts as having a heavy barrel for the purposes of sustained fire and and can fire up to 2,000 shots in a sustained burst, 1,000 shots in a rapid burst, and 500 in a assault burst. See GURPS High-Tech pg. 85-86 for further information on sustained fire. 

Originally designed for light tanks and IFVs, the BE^2-HV/380 has also seen use as main arm for light mecha and cyber assault platforms. If used by a mecha or a limbed cyber platform, the weapon is set up in a "rifle form" configuration with Acc 5, loaded weight 211 lbs., and ST 19† if used with two or more arms or ST 27 if used one armed.

The BE²-HV/380 is fed from a 60 round helical drum magazine loaded at the bottom of the weapon. While designed  from the ground up to fire the 20mmCLH APIS round, it can also fire a APEP round (DMG 5d×10 (2) pi++, Range 3,230/15,000, ROF 10, Rcl 2) as well a newly developed version of the APIS round that replaces the tungsten penetrators with triplex APHEX rounds, the APIS-EX round (DMG 7d×3 (2) pi++ with 1d-2 [1d] cr ex follow up, Range 540/2,400). While never fielded in normal use, a standard 20mmCLH would do Dam 6d×5 pi++, Range 1,600/7,200, ROF 10, and Rcl 2.

GUNNER (MACHINE GUN) (DX-4 or other Gunner at -4)
TL Weapon                       Damage          Acc      Range           EWt.     ROF    Shots      ST       Bulk   Rcl     Cost                LC

9 BE²HV, 20mmCLH 6d×5 (2) pi+ 6 1,600/7,200 133/78 10×3 60+1(5) 24M -10 1 $102,000/$300 1 

TL Ammo WPS CPS LC

9  20mmCLH APIS 0.5 $90 1

9 20mmCLH 0.5 $10 2
9  20mmCLH APED 0.5 $70 1

9 20mmCLH APIS-EX 0.5 $240 1  

Ultra-Tech Ultra Quickie: Frag Out!

Quick update to get my creative ball rolling again.

In GURPS 4th edition an explosives fragmentation damage has been tied to the diameter of the warhead that carries it, that is the warheads diameter (in millimeters)/20. Now this works good enough in most cases but some warheads are designed to create an enhanced or heavier fragmentation effect. Below I cover two warhead options to get more fragmentation bang for your buck. See this post for even more Ultra-Tech warhead options.

High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead (HEEF) (TL 9) 
This warhead uses either a thicker or denser case to create an enhanced fragmentation effect with greater penetration and wounding potential. Due to the stronger case, the warheads blast effect is reduced.

 Blast effect damage is figured as the square root (warhead weight)×19.8. Divide the product by 3.5 to get dice of damage. Damage is crushing explosive.

 Fragmentation damage is figured  as Warhead Diameter (in millimeters)/12 in dice of damage. Damage is cutting fragmentation damage.

Add +1 per die to the crushing explosive damage at TL10-12. This warhead is only available for 15mm or larger. Double normal cost.

HEEF projectiles, with the exception of hand grenades, that are built at TL 9 or higher can incorporate a programmable fuse that can be set for either impact or, if the target is at least 40 yards away or farther, for proximity detonation  see Ultra-Tech pg. 154. Grenades and satchel charges with HEEF warheads inflict the damage shown below. When set for impact detonation,guns and launchers with HEEF warheads inflict their normal piercing damage with a (0.5) armor divisor, plus a follow-up attack causing the damage shown below.

HEEF Table
Warhead           Damage
15mm              1d-2 cr ex [1d+1]
18.5mm           1d-1 cr ex [1d+2]
25mm              1d cr ex    [2d]
30mm              1d+1 cr ex [2d+2]
40mm              2d cr ex     [3d+1]
64mm              4d cr ex     [5d+1]
100mm            8d cr ex     [8d+1]      
130mm            12d cr ex  [11d-1]
160mm            8d×2 cr ex [6d×2]
400mm            4d×16 cr ex [5d×7]



Continuous Rod Warhead (TL 9) 
This is a special type of High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead. A Continuous Rod Warhead surrounds the explosives with a bundle of metal rectangular  rods welded to one another at the top and bottom in an alternating pattern.

When the warhead goes off, the bundle of rods are propelled outward in an expanding ring, unfolding like a circular accordion gate.This effect not only greatly increases the warheads lethality against thin skinned targets, though it is less effective against thicker skinned or armored targets. Up until the ring finally breaks apart it is far more likely to hit targets within its effective range  then standard fragments (with hit probability dropping at a rate of 1/R rather than 1/R² as for conventional fragments).

Even after the ring breaks the rods are still dangerous and have the hit probability of a normal fragmentation warhead.

While effective, Continuous Rod Warheads are more complicated and expensive to build then normal fragmentation warheads. They are also more effective with larger warheads (the first production warhead was the early TL 7 710mm RIM-8 Talos with a 30 yard effective range!).

A Continuous Rod Warhead has similar effects to a High Explosive Enhanced Fragmentation Warhead only the fragments have an armor divisor of (0.5) and fragmentation has both  a primary and a secondary threat range. In the primary threat range the chance of scoring a hit is increased.

The fragments still hit with a skill of 15 but penalties do to range to the target are ignored. Primary threat range is fragment dice of damage × 0.5 yards.

 In the secondary threat range use the normal fragmentation rules with the exception that you trace the range from the end of the primary threat range when figuring range penalties- not the center of the blast.

Blast effect damage is figured as the square root (warhead weight)×19.8. Divide the product by 3.5 to get dice of damage. Damage is crushing explosive.

Fragmentation damage is figured  as Warhead Diameter (in millimeters)/12 in dice of damage. Damage is cutting fragmentation damage with a (0.5) armor divisor.

Add +1 per die to the crushing explosive damage at TL10-12. This warhead is only available for mm 64mm or larger. Five times normal cost.


Continuous Rod projectiles are always set for proximity detonation- see Ultra-Tech pg. 154.


Continuous Rod Warhead Table
Warhead         Damage                      Effective/Secondary
64mm              4d cr ex     [5d+1]        3 yrd./26 yrd.
100mm            8d cr ex     [8d+1]        4 yrd./41 yrd.            
130mm            12d cr ex  [11d-1]        5 yrd./54 yrd.
160mm            8d×2 cr ex [6d×2]        6 yrd./60 yrd.
400mm            4d×16 cr ex [5d×7]      18 yrd./175 yrd.
        

Ultra-Tech Ultra-Quickie: How Much Explosives Are In a Ultra-Tech Warhead?

As any GM can account, sometimes PC's can get a little too clever for their britches and think outside the box.

For example: Let's say after disarming a bomb that was going to take out the presidents personal shuttle one of your players decides they're going to remove its explosive filler so they can repurpose it later.

Great! Smart lil bugger.... Now you just gotta figure out how much boom-boom is in this dang thing. Sure you can just pull a number out of your butt buuuut then you gotta hope you remember why you picked this number later if you have to do this again and hope no of your players are an "expert" on explosives and go, "Actually!"

Well good thing there is a way to figure how much explosives are in the warheads listed in Ultra-Tech!

First you just have to figure out how much a given warhead weighs and if you have read this blog post you should already know how to do this but to make your life easier I'll just give your the formula again.

Warhead weight = Warhead diameter (in mm)³ × 0.000002.

See Warheads R' Us for how I came up with this, my more observant readers might notice that this will give you same results as stating up a small warhead in GURPS Vehicles 3rd ed which in turn is the standard that Transhuman Space used for it's warheads (which in turn was a major influence on the 4th ed version of Ultra-Tech).

Now that you have how much the whole warhead weighs, we can now separate the explosive filler from the casing, fuse and other necessary components. 

To do that just take the warheads weight and multiply if by 0.78 annnnd boom! The product is the weight of the actual boomy part of the thing. Of course in real life this would vary based on what kind of warhead it was, how it was fused and so on this does at lest give you a good rule of thumb that is consistent and lines up with GURPS RAW.

Hmmmm?

Oh right.... you want to know how I came up with this, silly me. 

Well, if you open up your Basic Set to pg. 415 you'll see there's handy little formula to figure how much damage a given amount of explosives do. You just needed to know the weight and the explosives REF (relative effectiveness factor, or how powerful it is compared to the same amount of TNT).

Now let's look at a 100mm warhead which weighs 2lbs and a TL 9 HE warhead does 6d×5 cr ex.

To give a base line let's look at what 2lbs of TL 9 HE would do (I'll save you the crunch on this one but it's safe to say that TL 9 military explosives in Ultra-Tech are Plastex B/ Octanitrocubane) with a REF of 4).

Using the listed formula 2lbs of HE would do 6d × square Root of (2lbs × 4 × REF(4)) or 6d×5.56, which would normally be rounded to 6 but that would throw off the results. 

Now if we compare how much damage a 100mm warhead does compared to 2lbs of just HE that the warhead does only about 88% of the damage. Now since damage is based on the square root of the weight of the explosives, just convert that 88% to a decimal and square it which gives us a weight modifier of about 0.78. 

So this means that a 2lbs warhead should have 2lbs × 0.78 or 1.56lbs worth of explosives. So if I'm wright, if we plug 1.56lbs into the explosives damage formula we should get 6×5 and look at that, the formula gives us 6d×4.99 dice worth of damage. Bam! 

Oh, and another use for this knowledge is now you can swap out the plastex B and try out different types of explosives. For example, if we decided that we wanted that 100mm warhead filled with Nanoscale Thermite (Ultra-Tech, Too Pyramid 3/51 Tech and Toys III) we now knows that it can hold 1.6lbs worth which will burn for eight seconds and cost $320. 

I know this wasn't too big of a post, especially with how long I've been out of the game but rest assure I do have some more post in the works, two that give you more warheads to play should be done soon, with as well doing some major research into Robotech: The Next Generation/The Sentinels mecha and weapons so I should have more Ultra-Tech fun for you guys soonish. 

High Tech: Raytheon Pike Laser Guided 40mm Munition

Yeah, that's the one.

In my post covering 30mm Gyrocs you might of noticed a pic I placed in there showing a really small missile with the words, “Welp, looks like TL9 is getting closer and closer.” written below it. Well there is a really good reason I stated that, I just didn't really explain why. You see that wasn't just a mock up of some “in the pipe works” concept but rather an example of Raytheon's newest toy, the Pike.

What makes the Pike special and a example of emergent TL9 tech is that its a laser guided mini-missile that's dimensions are only 40×430mm and weighs less then two pounds! Even better, it's designed to be fired out of conventional 40mm grenade launchers that are capable of firing what High-Tech calls long rounds (High-Tech pg 143) such as the H&K M320.

While not yet self guided and a bit bigger, the future depicted in the Transhuman Space where military rifles comes equipped with self guided 30mm mini-missiles is now looking very likely!

Now the actual weapon is still in development and has yet to be officially adopted, it is already close enough that it is being tested in field (by the Canadians it seems though I the sources on this is kinda sketchy. But this would be fitting since Transhuman Space's creator is Canadian heh) so there is a chance that well connected PC's in a modern game could find a way to snag a couple. I'm sure a group of monster hunters will put them to good use. Note that the current test model will only work in slightly modified grenade launcher thought the final model should be able to be fired from any launcher that can fire long rounds.

Now since the Pike is still in development and a rather new weapons system, there isn't exactly a lot of hard data out there so some of the stats I've come up with are borderline ass pull, especially the cost and accuracy and missiles speed. The other stats are reasonably sound.

Raytheon Pike 40mm Precision Guided Munition, 40mm (USA, 2020-)

The Pike is a 40mm precision-guided mini-missile developed by Raytheon that can be fired from conventional breach loaded 40mm grenade launchers such as the Heckler & Koch M320 or a FN mk 13 mod 0.

Unlike the 40mm grenades normally fired by these platforms, the Pike uses a digital, semi-active laser seeker to guide itself to the target and is powered by a rocket that gives a maximum range of 2,200 yards or 1.2 miles. The Pike can be guided using a laser designator that is attached to the firing rifle or by another team member and is capable of picking up a target that have been lazed after the round has been fired blind.

When fired, the Pike is “kicked” out the barrel but a soft launch system similar to regular 40mm grenades to a distance of about 3 yards. After that the main motor kicks in propelling it to a max range of about 2,200 yards in about 15 seconds.

The munition is meant to be used against fixed and slow-moving mid-ranged targets and uses a 10 oz HE-AB warhead (High-Tech pg. 174).



It is also meant to have greater accuracy and longer range then typical “RPG” systems and standard 40mm grenades while being lighter and far cheaper then current man portable guided weapon system.



The Pike is loaded just like a normal 40mm grenade, you slide the breach open and slide in the munition then close and lock the breach. This takes 3 ready actions. Then either firer, if the have a laser desingtor attached to their rifle, or another solider lazes the target using another ready action which gives +3 to Acc. The firer then takes an Aim Maneuver to line up the munition and gain the benefits of the +3 Acc and finally makes another ready action to make an unmodified Artillery (Guided Missile) roll to fire. Though as stated before, it can be blind fired (use Guns (LAW) in this case) and then have a target lazed with in a 60 degree cone in front of the munition while it is in flight. It will still receive the +3 Acc for being guided but does not gain the benefits of its own Acc of 3.

While so far only a HE-AB warhead is planned (shown in table), a potential HEDP warhead would do 7d×2(10) cr ex with 7d+1 cr ex [2d] linked. A hypothetical Thermobaric warhead would do 13d+1 cr ex (divide damage [2×distance in yards from the center of the blast]).

While this will not normally mater, it has backblast 1d+1.

ARTILLERY (GUIDED MISSILE) (IQ-5)

TL Weapon                           Damage            Acc     Range        Weight   RoF    Shots   ST   Cost   LC Notes

8    Raytheon PIKE, 40mm   11d cr ex [2d]    3        150/2,200    1.7        1          1(3)     6†    $700    1     [1, 2, 3]

[1] The munition has a minimum range of 30 yards.

[2] Has hazardous backblast, (see description). 

[3] Homing Attack (see BS pg. 413). Gunner uses Artillery (Guided Missile) to aim.