Jon wrote: > In the case of the Sheffield, it was that TL7 Expensive Metal armor that > did her in. The aluminum superstructure itself caught fire. I'd have to see > if I can find any of my Harpoon books to check on if the Stark was built > that way. (Related trivia: one of the major bugs of the BMP-1 & 2 MICVs was > that their armor was made of an alloy of aluminum & magnesium, and would > burn like a flare when hit with a big shaped charge. o_O )
Bug or feature? A lightweight armor means more DR, even if it can burn, and a big HEAT warhead will ruin your day anyway. To hit a ship in the first place, the missile has to get through air defenses. I'm assuming a SM+2 missile moving at 1000 mph, but going down to 700 mph wouldn't make much difference. The inner defense would be a Phalanx-style CIWS. That is a 20mm gatling as per VE43, so depending on ammo it has 1/2D 1,500 to 2,250, Max 6,100 to 9,150, and Acc 15 or 16. RoF could be 100, but naval mounts fire at a more sedate 50-75. Call it RoF 60 for simplified math. Assume two rounds at firing, at 2,000 and 1,000 yards, after one turn of aiming. The gunner is probably a TL7 C4 program, so the skill is 12, and there will be radar contact. The first turn will be skill + min(Acc, skill) + 2 for radar rangefinder + 2 SM - 19 for speed/range 2,000+1,000 That means the effective skill is only 7, but then the roll is for a 20-round burst, so even a miss by 2 still hits with at least one round. In the second turn, the odds go up by 1 since range goes down. That would mean a missile would have to survive three attacks with a 37.5% success rate, and if that fails three more with a 50% success rate. Total survival chances are 0.625^3*0.5^3 or roughly 3%. This ignores the possibility of a dodge or passive defense, but then TL7 missiles are unlikely to dodge much. Are there any mistakes in my math or rules? It seems that Phalanx can handle somewhere around 0.4 missiles per turn per mount, which is a lot more than I'd expect. TL7 time on target attacks won't be synchronized to the second. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
