Rupert replied to me: > > For TL6, fire and secondary explosions were a major factor. For TL7, > > the effects of full fire suppression systems will render it moot. > > > In this the rules are far too generous, given the effects of fire on > ships in the Falklands War, and what happened to USS Stark (hit by *one* > not very powerful missile). Fire still seems to be the major > ship-killer. Both USS Stark (barely saved) and HMS Sheffield (lost) > were set on fire and damaged more by the missile's propellant burning as > by the warhead (though the initial damage and disruption caused by the > warhead breaking up floors and blukheads, etc., would certainly have > helped the fires get a hold). > > Probably the greatest vulnerability of a carrier is that it has one or > two decks that are largely open across the full length and breadth of > the vessel, and these spaces are full of delicate and flammable > (sometimes explosive) aircraft, and fuel lines run up to them, so > there's a ready source of accelerant of those get damaged.
Speaking about new rules for 3E is rather pointless, but there is no 4E Vehicles yet, so it might make sense to ramble about it -- how about these thoughts? 4E B433 is very much character-scale, not vehicle-scale. * 3E had uses 'a fire' as a unit of measurement, which is the amount of fire which does 2d per 10 seconds. Fires can stay the same size, die out, or spawn another fire. That works reasonably well for a car, or a tank, or a jet, but burning a ship 2d at a time will take forever. * Of course a ship will likely burn longer than a car. Maybe both the time scale and the damage per unit of fire should grow with SM or volume. As a first guess, perhaps fires for SM+3 vehicles should be handled in 3-second increments, SM+4 vehicles burn in 10 second increments, SM+5 burns in 30-second increments, etc. Damage would scale similarly. * Firefighting gear should be proportional to vehicle size, not a fixed size as in 3E. Having multiples of this size gives a bonus as before. * The number of human firefighters required to make a difference scales with size, too. These rules would only consider fires which are scaled to the same size as the vehicle. Lesser blazes are ignored. Alternatively, one could give the fire a SM, and give it a chance to grow or die back. The ratio or difference of the fire SM and the vehicle SM would affect the chances of fuel or ammo explosions, or the fire spreading into other subassemblies. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
