Is that a MDC weapon?

[Nightmaster]

I have read the thread about making your own ammo and the discussion there make me wonder.

What could be called a "MDC" weapon? Let me explain my question.

The Game Rules say that 1 MDC equals to 100 SDC. The problem is that game rules dont actually mean RL, it is just a set of mechnics for combat and such. KS could even have said that the ration was 1:30. That dont mean that MDC weapons are one hundred times more powerfull than SDC weapons. Its just game mechanics.

So with that in mind let me ask for a example.

Take an Ak-47/M16 Assault Rifle, get the muzzle velocities, impact power and actual penetration of the rounds used by then (I am no specialist but I have read that diferent weapons using the same caliber round can have diferent values in that matter) and then ask yourself:

"If a weapon with the same size of those weapons and apparently the same recoil could fire rounds that hit with 5-10 times the impact power and penetration as such normal rounds (7.62mm and 5.56mm), then what they could penetrate/destroy?"

and after coming up with a answer the next question:

"Would this weapon qualify as a MDC weapon?"


I am no mathmatics guy or specialist in weapons (nor do I know where to start search for this srt of info), I am just curious by what could be classified as a MDC weapon by RL Physics rules.

[drewkitty ~..~]

MDC vs SDC is like saying Wood vs Stainless Steel. With an equal thickness you are going to get a order of magnitude higher Damage Capacity.
BTW, the rules do not say that 1 MDC is equal to 100 SDC, they say that 100 SDC soaks up that same amount of damage as 1 MDC.

The there is ND (Normal Damage) vs MD is like taking the energy in a normal damage weapons that delivers the energy in a 1/1000th of a sec to delivering that same energy in 1/100,000th of a sec. and scale the energy in the attack by 100.

Currently they have a laser that can deliver the energy of a stick of dynamite in a fusion research lab in the US. but it takes a whole building to house.

As to the "Would this weapon qualify as a MDC weapon?" question. No, you did not give a MDC value.

As to the "Would this weapon qualify as a MD weapon?" question. Not if it used SDC rounds. For the ballistic weapon to do MD, the bullets/projectiles need to be MDC, or moving at near low relativistic speeds (10,000s of meters per sec.).

[Misfit KotLD]

Is that an MDC laser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Honestly, you'll hurt your brain trying to make the game match real life in this manner.

[Nightmaster]

MDC vs SDC is like saying Wood vs Stainless Steel. With an equal thickness you are going to get a order of magnitude higher Damage Capacity.
BTW, the rules do not say that 1 MDC is equal to 100 SDC, they say that 100 SDC soaks up that same amount of damage as 1 MDC.

The there is ND (Normal Damage) vs MD is like taking the energy in a normal damage weapons that delivers the energy in a 1/1000th of a sec to delivering that same energy in 1/100,000th of a sec. and scale the energy in the attack by 100.

Currently they have a laser that can deliver the energy of a stick of dynamite in a fusion research lab in the US. but it takes a whole building to house.

As to the "Would this weapon qualify as a MDC weapon?" question. No, you did not give a MDC value.

As to the "Would this weapon qualify as a MD weapon?" question. Not if it used SDC rounds. For the ballistic weapon to do MD, the bullets/projectiles need to be MDC, or moving at near low relativistic speeds (10,000s of meters per sec.).

I dont need to give a MDC value because I am not talking about game rules but concepts.

Example.

Tank is considered by palladium a MDC structure (remember RMB the example KS give about a guy in a tank and some guys with rifles and RPGs?) and in no moment you have the amount of MDC this tank have. What I am talking is the same.

The question was if the said example of weapon I described, using a projectile with the same dimensions as a 7.62mm or 5.56mm bullet (I am not talking about the material they are made) but firing then with 5-10 times muzzle velocity, impact power and penetration would that weapon classify as a MDC weapon?

Also I asked in such circunstances what would such bullets could destroy today.

[Nightmaster]

Is that an MDC laser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Honestly, you'll hurt your brain trying to make the game match real life in this manner.

Dont think so. To KS a tank is a MDC structure today

Rifts Main Book; page 38; Mega-Damage, S.D.C. and M.D.C.; second paragraph

...Consider this example with a contemporary M.D.C. structure we all recognize, a tank....

Since we have that kind of example I dont think is that problematic to apply RL to the game.

[Misfit KotLD]

There's an entire thread devoted to this discussion, but I can't find it right now.

[MikelAmroni]

It's hardly the first, I've seen many over the years, and yes, Misfit KotLD is right, you'll eventually hurt your head. Palladium is not a realistic system. It tries to make its psuedo science work internally, but fails even that half the time, or more (depending on your point of view). Eventually you'll have to either come up with your own adaptation (that most others won't use, but at least you'll have oen that makes sense to you), you'll accept one that someone else has done, or you'll say screw it, and go with the books and call the whole idea a good one to have wasted time over, but not wasted time pursuing. As to which it will be, only you will know. Me, I said screw it a long time ago, and just make tweaks, not full on changes to the system, like every other GM out there.

[Rallan]

Is that an MDC laser in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Honestly, you'll hurt your brain trying to make the game match real life in this manner.

Dont think so. To KS a tank is a MDC structure today

They'll hurt their brains even more than you'd think trying to make it match real life. To KS a robot with such silly stats that it can take less damage than its own weight in cardboard boxes is an MDC structure. To KS a mile-long spaceship with so little MDC that it works out to the equivalent of an SDC for every few square feet of hull is an MDC structure.

[popscythe]

Palladium is not a realistic system.

Because getting hit with a beam of light that burns you apart as quickly as a the blast from conventional missile would (if localized) is completely unrealistic. Similarly, having armor or materials that are completely impervious to technology 500-600 years old at the current game date is woefully unrealistic. Lets all complain about it for a while.

[Carindel]

I chuckled a little internally about the "cardboard boxes" quote. Nonetheless, I'd question the validity of that assertion, or at the least, ask for some calculations to back it up.

[MikelAmroni]

Palladium is not a realistic system.

Because getting hit with a beam of light that burns you apart as quickly as a the blast from conventional missile would (if localized) is completely unrealistic. Similarly, having armor or materials that are completely impervious to technology 500-600 years old at the current game date is woefully unrealistic. Lets all complain about it for a while.

*chuckles* You misunderstand. I wasn't complaining. I am of the camp who says "Meh, whatever, it plays just fine, tweak what really bothers you and move on." I think the whole impetus to make it a completely (or even mostly) realistic is a fool's errand. It plays just fine, but it tends to fall apart to arguments like Rallan's (and he's had that one for a while). It doesn't make it any less fun to play. And it tends to give everything a destructibility that is kinda nice, both as a player and as a GM, but it doesn't match logic completely. Palladium is a rule of cool system, not rule of logic system.

Far from complaining, I like it for its quirks.

[popscythe]

arguments like Rallan's

It's more about the resiliency of the materials in question. Surprisingly, MDC has gotten more realistic as we progress in technology in the last 20 years as opposed to less.
I think that the machine guns doing MDC in bursts in the merc book is actually a woeful misinterpretation. A Browning .50 firing armor piercing rounds will not (even in bursts) do anything but dent up a MBT a bit. The entire point of MDC is that you either hit the minimum threshhold of damage to begin to damage the material in question, or you do not. It's not about how well assembled the materials are, and if you think about it, a robot that falls apart upon taking minor damage is actually fairly realistic. If the attacks it's suffering actually pierce it's rather thin armor plating and damage the internals, it's screwed. However, SDC weapons simply don't pierce the armor plating. I realize that reiterating this is unnecessary, but I truly believe that MDC really isn't as far fetched as it appears at first, even in the examples given. The SDF could really have used some more MDC, but then again it was constantly on the verge of blowing up throughout the series, so perhaps it really was a giant tin can that was just strong enough to resist orbital debris and similar tiny hits and would have a gaping hole blown in it (city blocks vented into space at a time, etc) by any sizable weapons (hence it's defense fleet).

[drewkitty ~..~]

Spoiler:

MDC vs SDC is like saying Wood vs Stainless Steel. With an equal thickness you are going to get a order of magnitude higher Damage Capacity.
BTW, the rules do not say that 1 MDC is equal to 100 SDC, they say that 100 SDC soaks up that same amount of damage as 1 MDC.

The there is ND (Normal Damage) vs MD is like taking the energy in a normal damage weapons that delivers the energy in a 1/1000th of a sec to delivering that same energy in 1/100,000th of a sec. and scale the energy in the attack by 100.

Currently they have a laser that can deliver the energy of a stick of dynamite in a fusion research lab in the US. but it takes a whole building to house.

As to the "Would this weapon qualify as a MDC weapon?" question. No, you did not give a MDC value.

As to the "Would this weapon qualify as a MD weapon?" question. Not if it used SDC rounds. For the ballistic weapon to do MD, the bullets/projectiles need to be MDC, or moving at near low relativistic speeds (10,000s of meters per sec.).

I don't need to give a MDC value because I am not talking about game rules but concepts.

Example.

Tank is considered by palladium a MDC structure (remember RMB the example KS give about a guy in a tank and some guys with rifles and RPGs?) and in no moment you have the amount of MDC this tank have. What I am talking is the same.

The question was if the said example of weapon I described, using a projectile with the same dimensions as a 7.62mm or 5.56mm bullet (I am not talking about the material they are made) but firing then with 5-10 times muzzle velocity, impact power and penetration would that weapon classify as a MDC weapon?

Also I asked in such circumstances what would such bullets could destroy today.

Someone did not get my point. So I will give another stab at it and see if my point sticks this time.
If the weapon is not made out of MDC materials It can not be MDC.
Even though, weapons made out of SDC materials could possibly, theoretically, be a MD weapons. Even if they are very large.

I'll Rephrase what I said.
As to Ballistic weapons, if the impactor is not MDC; or going so fast it does not matter; the the impactor would go "SPLAT" and not damage the MDC it is hitting.

There would be an energy transfer so there would still be a knock back effect.

So while 'yes. a impactor of the same caliber could do MD'. The Impactor would have to be MDC to be able to Do MD. Otherwise it is just does ND.
Get your terminology correct and you won't suffer the berating about not using it correctly.

[Rallan]

I chuckled a little internally about the "cardboard boxes" quote. Nonetheless, I'd question the validity of that assertion, or at the least, ask for some calculations to back it up.

Normally I use the Devastator from the Triax worldbook as my example, but I can't find it so we'll see how the G-40 Superbot (the sixty foot tall behemoth of a robot that the Gargoyle Empire gets in the Mindwerks sourcebook) adds up.

If you add up the MDC of everything on it (including stuff like the sensor arrays, individual weapons, and the huge and purely decorative wings), the G-40 has a whopping total of 7150 MDC. It weighs 90 tons. We'll generously round that up and call it 80 MDC per ton. Or an average of 8 SDC per kilogram of weight.

Which means alas that I've been proven wrong. In this example, a giant engine of doom can take about as much damage as twice its own weight in cardboard boxes

[drewkitty ~..~]

Perfectly clear. I just happen to disagree with you.

Case in point. a gaseous plasma is not MDC hard but punches holes quite nicely in armor plate because of it's OTHER properties...including heat and velocity.

WildWalker

Plasma is gas-like, but not a gas. And it is directed energy, even if over longer ranges it is sort of ballistic, because it has mass.

If the plasma can punch holds in MDC stuff then the weapon would be a MD weapon, not an MDC weapon.
People here, and on the PB staff, add C's where they don't belong, when talking about MD weapons.

[popscythe]

In this example, a giant engine of doom can take about as much damage as twice its own weight in cardboard boxes

Please reiterate the issue with this for me, I do not understand. Are you saying that it weighs too much and say body armor is much lighter and provides more protection? Well body armor is just stuff you wear, a robot has a HUGE amount of stuff inside it to make it mobile. There's a reason that bigdog (http://video.google.com/videosearch?rlz ... en&tab=wv#) is the robot wave of the future. Using motors to make things mobile requires huge motors. Using even more motors to make it ambulatory would be insane and require motors and power sources that we don't have (but exist on Rifts earth... and weigh 90 tons when you put armor and sensors and weapons on them). As far as all that weight being fragile, that makes perfect sense. It's a mechanical statue that's held aloft by intricate technology. You shoot it, and it breaks into pieces. You put thicker armor on it, you need more weight in motors to keep it walking. etc etc etc

Am I missing the point? I mean, it's not like pete's pocket pistol is going to take it down. In Rifts, 100 men with pete's pocket pistol could take it down, but it's just how the armor/weapons balance came out. In Vietnam fighting vehicles were getting torn up by small arms fire. In Rifts, the fighting vehicles get torn up by MDC small arms fire too. The vehicle would be best to stay out of range of any giant hordes of pistol packin' petes.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Because rifts is a char driven game, not a mech driven game.

The troops were having the weight problem when they up armored their humves in Iraq. The same problem is mentioned in the Bubblegum Crisis with the difference between the Knight Saber's hard suits and the military's & the AD Polices K-12's

[Rallan]

In this example, a giant engine of doom can take about as much damage as twice its own weight in cardboard boxes

Please reiterate the issue with this for me, I do not understand. Are you saying that it weighs too much and say body armor is much lighter and provides more protection? Well body armor is just stuff you wear, a robot has a HUGE amount of stuff inside it to make it mobile. There's a reason that bigdog (http://video.google.com/videosearch?rlz ... en&tab=wv#) is the robot wave of the future. Using motors to make things mobile requires huge motors. Using even more motors to make it ambulatory would be insane and require motors and power sources that we don't have (but exist on Rifts earth... and weigh 90 tons when you put armor and sensors and weapons on them). As far as all that weight being fragile, that makes perfect sense. It's a mechanical statue that's held aloft by intricate technology. You shoot it, and it breaks into pieces. You put thicker armor on it, you need more weight in motors to keep it walking. etc etc etc

Am I missing the point? I mean, it's not like pete's pocket pistol is going to take it down. In Rifts, 100 men with pete's pocket pistol could take it down, but it's just how the armor/weapons balance came out. In Vietnam fighting vehicles were getting torn up by small arms fire. In Rifts, the fighting vehicles get torn up by MDC small arms fire too. The vehicle would be best to stay out of range of any giant hordes of pistol packin' petes.

That it weighs so much but an equally heavy pile of cardboard would provide similar protection, that's the problem.

Plus in more general terms, it makes large things in general pretty ridiculous. Why do fifteen and twenty foot high robots have only slightly more MDC than a lot of medium to heavy power armor suits? Why do tanks (which you can liberally slather with armour like it's going out of style) only have as much MDC as those robots? Why do the truly gigantic robots like the Devastator, Superbot, and the handful of other bots in the 40 feet and up category have such paltry amounts of protection for their size? Why are there spaceships in the Phase World books with so little MDC for their size that they effectively have 1 point of SDC for every several square feet of external hull? In short, why is it that the bigger stuff is the more likely it is to be built entirely from cardboard and balsa wood, and how is it even remotely plausible that anyone would pay tens of millions (or billions, in the case of humungous spaceships) to build them?

In real life terms, it'd be the equivalent of finding out that the battleship HMS Dreadnought (the heaviest battleship in the world when it was made, with an eleven inch thick steel hull) is so flimsy that that a rowing boat full of guys with teaspoons could tear it apart.

It's just downright silly, and the only way you've been able to justify this silly piece of canon is by justifyng other canon. Huge robots like the Devastator and Superbot aren't portrayed as being on the cutting edge of what's possible and needing to be relatively lightly armoured just to be able to move (and by "lightly armored" you apparently mean "so little MDC that if you average it out it'd give less protection per square foot than a half-centimetre aluminium hull"). No sirree Bob. They're protrayed as being to robots what the Dreadnought was to ironclads: bigger, badder, and so heavily armoured that they're effectively in a whole new class of they're own. They're described as being so tough that they're used in the front line of assaults and the back end of rearguard actions because all that armour they're supposed to have makes them capable of taking pretty much anything the enemy can throw at them.

[Rallan]

Because rifts is a char driven game, not a mech driven game.

The troops were having the weight problem when they up armored their humves in Iraq. The same problem is mentioned in the Bubblegum Crisis with the difference between the Knight Saber's hard suits and the military's & the AD Polices K-12's

That would be great if the mecha were over somewhere else minding their own business, but they're not. Rifts is a game where all the major powers (and an awful lot of towns and mercenary bands) are running around with everything from power armor to tanks to giant robots, and where a lot of the character classes have been written specifically for people who want to be a mech pilot. And if a lot of PCs are going to be piloting giant robots, then it's safe to assume that giant robots weren't given crappy stats to make life easier for the PCs.

Also, Rifts is not a "char driven game". There are no cinematic game mechanics. There are no rules for nerfing mooks to make them easier to wipe out, or beefing up PCs and major NPCs to make them harder to take down. Rifts has always taken a perverse pride in being a game where there is no such thing as game balance, where the monsters and soldiers are just as deadly as the PCs (assuming that the group isn't playing monster RCCs or soldier OCCs), and where it's left entirely up to the GM with no canon support whatsoever to make sure the PCs themselves don't end up being wildly mismatched.

[popscythe]

It's just downright silly, and the only way you've been able to justify this silly piece of canon is by justifyng other canon.

I don't believe that statement is accurate. We actually seem to be agreeing on how it works, but you believe that how it works (in a realistic way) is silly and unrealistic. There have been many times in history where weapons out-weighed armor, and far less times when armor was extremely effective against most of the weapons available on the battlefield. In Rifts, it's "currently" both ways. Armor is extremely effective against weapons (stopping shots that would instantly kill an unarmored person/destroy an unarmored structure) but unfortunately there is no MDC material that can can *completely* withstand MD, so any MD small armament will eventually burn through and destroy any MDC structure. So, like I said, vehicles in Rifts cannot be used at point blank range against a giant horde of people with personal laser weapons. That's why most MDC vehicles are faster than and more heavily armed than MDC-armored soldiers with MD "small arms"; to avoid being gang beaten by 100 pop gun guys.

If you think that the giant robots in question aren't effective against small arms wielding soldiers, that's another question of course, but I would disagree. They have their advantages, namely in being more heavily armed and armored than the little guys. Missiles work very well against infantry, and robot/PA pilots get additional attacks with which to use all their weapon systems. If there were a hundred, or a thousand small pop gun guys, and they were fighting as soldiers do (as opposed to say, all taking 100 called shots at the left knee or something), the giant robots in numbers to match the power of the force they were engaging (say, 20-1, but that's just off the top of my head) would most likely prevail due to washing the earth clean with a blistering hail of MD fire. That's not counting the infantry support that platforms such as giant robots or artillery usually have with them (skelebots!) to prevent the platform being overrun, rendering it's weapons useless.

From a Rifts (as written) military perspective, the giant robots do their jobs. Would I like to see some giant robots that were a bit stronger? Sure! But I maintain that a giant robot is probably the most fragile weapons platform on Rifts earth.. for good reason. They'd be fragile in real life too. Their upside is not that they're good against tanks or heavily armed power armors like the Glitterboy, their upside is in oppressing, frightening and cutting down in large swathes infantry units, especially mixed group of MDC and SDC armored villagers or something. That's exactly why the CS and Headhunters and Bandits stuff employ them so often. However, of course... don't let them all crowd up and called shot you in the left knee, or your Enforcer or whatever is screwed just like the Panzer of WW2 after a bag of grenades goes off in it's treads.

I feel like you've done a lot of thinking about it, Rallan, and I appreciate that. It's good to talk specifics with someone who knows their stuff.

[Rallan]

It's just downright silly, and the only way you've been able to justify this silly piece of canon is by justifyng other canon.

I don't believe that statement is accurate. We actually seem to be agreeing on how it works, but you believe that how it works (in a realistic way) is silly and unrealistic. There have been many times in history where weapons out-weighed armor, and far less times when armor was extremely effective against most of the weapons available on the battlefield. In Rifts, it's "currently" both ways. Armor is extremely effective against weapons (stopping shots that would instantly kill an unarmored person/destroy an unarmored structure) but unfortunately there is no MDC material that can can *completely* withstand MD, so any MD small armament will eventually burn through and destroy any MDC structure. So, like I said, vehicles in Rifts cannot be used at point blank range against a giant horde of people with personal laser weapons. That's why most MDC vehicles are faster than and more heavily armed than MDC-armored soldiers with MD "small arms"; to avoid being gang beaten by 100 pop gun guys.

If you think that the giant robots in question aren't effective against small arms wielding soldiers, that's another question of course, but I would disagree. They have their advantages, namely in being more heavily armed and armored than the little guys. Missiles work very well against infantry, and robot/PA pilots get additional attacks with which to use all their weapon systems. If there were a hundred, or a thousand small pop gun guys, and they were fighting as soldiers do (as opposed to say, all taking 100 called shots at the left knee or something), the giant robots in numbers to match the power of the force they were engaging (say, 20-1, but that's just off the top of my head) would most likely prevail due to washing the earth clean with a blistering hail of MD fire. That's not counting the infantry support that platforms such as giant robots or artillery usually have with them (skelebots!) to prevent the platform being overrun, rendering it's weapons useless.

From a Rifts (as written) military perspective, the giant robots do their jobs. Would I like to see some giant robots that were a bit stronger? Sure! But I maintain that a giant robot is probably the most fragile weapons platform on Rifts earth.. for good reason. They'd be fragile in real life too. Their upside is not that they're good against tanks or heavily armed power armors like the Glitterboy, their upside is in oppressing, frightening and cutting down in large swathes infantry units, especially mixed group of MDC and SDC armored villagers or something. That's exactly why the CS and Headhunters and Bandits stuff employ them so often. However, of course... don't let them all crowd up and called shot you in the left knee, or your Enforcer or whatever is screwed just like the Panzer of WW2 after a bag of grenades goes off in it's treads.

I feel like you've done a lot of thinking about it, Rallan, and I appreciate that. It's good to talk specifics with someone who knows their stuff.

No, from a Rifts perspective they're like battleships made from tin cans. Very very huge and tempting targets, and surprisingly flimsy vehicles that'll totally fail to stand up to the firepower directed against them. And complete and utter white elephants, considering the insane cost of building them and the amount of infinitely superior armor and firepower you could've gotten by spending that many credits building other stuff. The Devastator (which has rather less MDC than the robot I used in my example) really does have as much MDC as its own weight in cardboard boxes, and for bonus points it carries a rifle as long as a schoolbus which does as much damage as some plasma and particle beam weapons that regular human beings can use. To go by the write-up, these robots are basically Godzilla in the world's largest suit of armour. To go by the stats, they're laughably pathetic.

[popscythe]

I believe that you are woefully underestimating the Devastator. It will certainly not "totally fail" to stand up to anything. It's weapon systems are intended to be used in combination. The rifle you mention that does 1d6x10 has greater range than the man-portable plasma/particle weapons (which one does 1d6x10, by the way? I can only find 5d6 and 6d6 ones after a brief looksee) and a greater bonus to strike, it is clearly the robot's precision weapon. If the writeup and the stats don't seem congruent to you, I'm not sure what to say. The Devastator seems fine to me. I don't believe it is under armored, or over-sized for it's capabilities, both in attack and defense. It's also a carrier! Carriers in real life are heavily armed and armored, but nobody takes them "into" a fight. They are also huge and tempting targets! However, it would take a lot more than a single saboteur to destroy either an aircraft carrier or a Devastator... Neither one is going down without a fight, and the Devastator definitely has the edge over a conventional carrier vehicle in close combat. (If the conventional carrier was an MDC structure, you get where I'm going with my shoddy comparison)

Of course, I could be wrong. What type of challenge do you believe that the Devastator would "totally fail" to stand up to? Instead of replying here directly, make a thread called "Robot Vehicles are Balls" or something to that effect and post your response there! I'd definitely like to discuss the matter further, but we have gotten pretty far off topic.

[Nightmaster]

There have been many times in history where weapons out-weighed armor, and far less times when armor was extremely effective against most of the weapons available on the battlefield.

Sorry but you are completly wrong.

During WW1, WW2 and all wars since the introduction of armored vehicles, with the exception of explosives and some very special weapons, no other weapon could harm a simple Tank!

In Rifts a 10 man squad using L-20 Laser Rifles (2D6/6D6) can destroy the main body of a tank in less than 15 seconds! The funny thing is that the same proportion is not applied to EBA.

If infantry rifles are so powerful that they can harm and destroy the main body of a tank, then normal EBA (I am not even talking about power armor) would not offer any protection against then and yet we see the completly opposite.

[Devari]

For some reason some people seem to be quite confused about MDC damage in the Palladium system. I'll try to clear up this confusion by focusing on a few main points.

1) Damage in any RPG setting is an ABSTRACT concept. It represents the amount of damage to stop a target from functioning. This is due to multiple factors, including armor plating, redundancy of internal systems, weak spots and so on. It does NOT represent a total damage capacity that you can calculate based on the total weight and type of material. It is NOT the amount of energy or force used to completely vapourize the material or object in question. It is NOT going to scale in a linear fashion.

For example, a larger vehicle might be ten times larger than a smaller vehicle by mass and made of similar materials but just because it weighs ten times as much doesn't mean it will take ten times as much damage to destroy the vehicle in game terms. This is because you aren't trying to stop it by punching holes in every last part of the vehicle, you're destroying the vehicle by inflicting damage to the engine/powerplant, control systems, and so on. This is why you can't add up the total mass of a robot vehicle and expect it to have the same MDC per kg that a smaller vehicle does. Larger vehicles will almost always have LESS MDC per kg because much of their larger mass isn't just composed of armor, it's due to having more weapons, larger troop capacity, and so on. As I mentioned above this is because the damage rating is ABSTRACT and doesn't represent some quantity that you calculate, it represents how much damage the vehicle can take before it stops working. This is why larger battleships don't have as much MDC as you would expect based on their mass. They don't carry armor that is ten times as thick just because they have ten times the mass, much of their mass is composed of additional weapons, ammunition, crew quarters, and so on, and this is why they have MDC ratings that are much lower per ton compared to smaller ships. They are harder to destroy or disable but we're talking around two or three times more damage for every ten times increase in mass compared to smaller ships. This is also why robots in Rifts have far less MDC per ton than power armor suits, the robots don't just use their increased mass for thicker armor, most of the mass is taken up by a much larger array of weapons, a crew compartment capable of seating 2-4 people, a larger engine/powerplant, and so on.

2) An MD weapon is any weapon capable of inflicting MD regardless of what it is made from or what the rounds themselves are made from. Whether an object inflicts MD depends on the damage capabilities of the rounds or energy the weapon fires and does not necessarily require that the weapon or rounds themselves are made from MDC materials. There are weapons that are not made of MDC materials that can still inflict MD because of the speed and forces invovled. For example, railguns in Rifts can still inflict MD using rounds composed of normal silver metal. These rounds inflict less MD against armor or vehicles since the SDC metal is softer than the normal rounds but the railgun is capable of accelerating these SDC rounds at high enough speeds that the impact still inflicts MD. This is why some firearms can inflict MD using special ammunition (such as ramjet ammuntion that accelerates the round to railgun speeds) or by firing concentrated bursts even though an SDC firearm is not normally capable of damaging an MDC object. Even normal SDC objects can damage MDC materials if they are accelerated to high enough speeds or if you fire a concentrated burst into a target.

The reverse is also true. A weapon can be physically made of MDC materials and metals but will still not inflict MD if the forces invovled are not high enough. For example, there are many examples in Rifts of swords and knives that are made of MDC alloy but only inflict SDC damage because they aren't used with enough force to damage MDC armor. These weapons can still parry MDC attacks because they are physically strong enough to resist MD forces but they don't inflict MD on their own simply by swinging the weapon at something.

3) You can NOT look at a weapon and decide how much damage it should inflict without looking at factors such as range and ammunition capacity. For example, some vehicle weapons have lower damage ratings than you might expect but have long ranges. This is because instead of inflicting heavy damage at short range the energy beam is focused to inflict lower damage at a much longer range. If one weapon inflicts 1D6 damage with a 1000 foot range and another weapon inflicts 2D6 damage with a 500 foot range you should consider these weapons EQUIVALENT in terms of total damage or total energy output per shot. For example, I often seen players criticise the low damage of the Devatator's laser rifle at only 1D6x10 MDC but then ignore the 8000 foot range of the weapon. Weapon damage is only one factor you need to consider because the energy output goes into the damage AND range of the energy beam. For example, a laser pistol with 1D6 damage and 1000 foot range is not 1/10 as powerful as the Devastator's laser rifle at 1D6x10 damage and 8000 foot range, it is really only 1/80 as powerful since it has ten times less damage and eight times less range. I do agree that the Devastator's rifle is underpowered as a weapon overall when compared to heavy infantry weapons but you still need to consider both damage AND range when making a comparison.

[Kalidor]

There's also the issue of diminishing returns. You only get so much more out of something by making it bigger, without it being too big and heavy to move or collapse in on itself.

If the materials are optimized at 8-10 foot tall power armor, they can still be used in bigger structures but you're going to have to spread it out.

[Nightmaster]

Devari:
I know what you are saying but what I asked is a conceptualization of what could be considered a "MDC" weapon. By Kevin Siembieda a Tank is a modern day MDC structure. How much MDC it have in the main body is irrelevant in this discussion since we are not talking about game mechanics here.

I gived a example of a weapon that fires projectiles with the same dimensions of of cartridges 5.56mm or 7.62mm 5-10 times more fast and that delivers too 5-10 times impact/penetration.

What I asked then is if such weapon could be classified as a MD weapon and in real day physics what bullets of those caliber could destroy/penetrate if they were fired at such great speeds (and survive the travel of course).

[Kalidor]

This is why the hardness mechanic from 3.5 works better overall.

If a tank has a hardness of 20, a normal person can hit it with a bat all day long and it's not going to tear it up. But a supernaturally strong person (like you might think of a superhero as) is going to do more than 20 points of damage, as will missles and plasma ejectors.

[Devari]

Devari:
I know what you are saying but what I asked is a conceptualization of what could be considered a "MDC" weapon. By Kevin Siembieda a Tank is a modern day MDC structure. How much MDC it have in the main body is irrelevant in this discussion since we are not talking about game mechanics here.

I gived a example of a weapon that fires projectiles with the same dimensions of of cartridges 5.56mm or 7.62mm 5-10 times more fast and that delivers too 5-10 times impact/penetration.

What I asked then is if such weapon could be classified as a MD weapon and in real day physics what bullets of those caliber could destroy/penetrate if they were fired at such great speeds (and survive the travel of course).

The easiest way to answer this question is to look at Palladium stats for modern weapons to see where a weapon crosses the threshold from SDC damage to MD. Generally once you get to a modern 30 mm cannon you're crossing the threshold between SDC damage to MD damage for a single round. For example, the 30 mm GAU-8 galing cannon on the A-10 from Systems Failure inflicts 4D6x10 SDC per round, which inflicts an average of 140 SDC or 1.4 MD. This is essentially 1D2 MD per round, i.e., an average of 1.5 MD per round, and could be considered the point at which a single round from a weapon starts to inflict MD without requiring burst fire. The 30 mm GAU-8 fires rounds with a projectile weight of around 400 g with a DU penetrator and has a muzzle velocity of almost 1000 m/s (or 1 km/s) depending on the specific type of round. The 30 mm 2A42 cannon on the Mi-28 Havoc or Ka-50 Hokum helicopters is similar in terms of projectile weight and muzzle velocity. So if you want to know roughly what you would need to do to accelerate a projectile before it starts to inflict MD a 30 mm cannon would be a good benchmark, i.e., a round would need to be as powerful as a 30 mm cannon (400 g projectile with a muzzle velocity of 1000 m/s) to inflict around 1-2 MD per round. A round would need to be roughly twice as powerful in order to inflict around 1D4 MDC with a single round.

However, it is also worth keeping in mind that once a rapid fire weapon reaches an average of 100 SDC or 1 MD per round you can easily use the weapon with burst fire rules to inflict MD with a burst. For example, using the GAU-8 30 mm cannon with a damage of 4D6x10 SDC per round and translating every 100 SDC to 1 MD the GAU-8 would inflict 4D6 MD to an MD target using a full burst, i.e., 10x damage modifier for a full burst of 100 rounds would inflict 4D6x10 SDC x10 for burst fire = 4D6 x 100 SDC or 4D6 MD. This compares well with the 3D4x100 SDC or 3D4 MD damage rating for a 120 mm or 125 mm tank cannon round from a T-80 or M1 main battle tank, which makes sense since since a full GAU-8 30 mm burst would be expected to destroy a main battle tank. Most tanks have around 12-15 MDC and so using these rules a GAU-8 30 mm gatling cannon would typically destroy a modern MBT with a full burst.

To answer your original question, a round would need to be much more powerful than a modern 7.62 mm NATO rifle round to start inflicting MD in a single shot. A 7.62 mm NATO round weighs around 10 g (150 grains) and has a muzzle velocity of around 850 m/s. So if we consider that the weight of the 7.62 mm NATO round is approxiamtely 40 times less than a round from a 30 mm cannon and the muzzle velocity is 850 m/s compared to 1000 m/s then a 30 mm round has approximately 50 times more muzzle energy than a 7.62 mm NATO round. So you would need to scale up the muzzle energy of a 7.62 mm NATO round by approximately a factor of 50 (i.e., considerably more than a 5-10x increase) to reach the level where a single round would be inflict 1-2 MD per round and become roughly equivalent to a 30 mm cannon round. With advanced MDC materials this could be decreased signficantly, for example, if the round was made of armor-piercing MDC material the weight and muzzle velocity required could be considerably lower to inflict the same MD. Similarly, if you're able to achieve extremely high speeds of several km/s (such as with a railgun) then you could also inflict MD with considerably smaller projectiles. In general though if you're working with real-world materials the 30 mm cannon round is a good benchmark.

[Nightmaster]

Well that is something new. I dindt know that 30mm rounds could destroy a M1A2 Main Battle Tank.

As for special materials for the bullets (I am avoiding using the term MDC) there is already special constructed projectiles being used around the world such as full steel bullets, that is, bullets that are made entirely of high density steel instead of simple being jacked in steel but I agree that simple lead as the main composition of the projectile would not work.

[Devari]

Well that is something new. I dindt know that 30mm rounds could destroy a M1A2 Main Battle Tank.

If you fired a 30 mm round at the front armor of an MBT you wouldn't do much damage because an individual 30 mm round won't penetrate the front hull or front turret armor, but the combination of the GAU-8's 30 mm DU rounds, the high rate of fire and the fact that an aircraft will generally be shooting at a tank's much lighter top armor rather than from the front means that an aircraft armed with a 30 mm gatling cannon can reliably destroy an MBT. Typically though if you're firing rounds at the front of the tank you really need to use a 120 mm or 125 mm tank cannon firing AP ammunition if you want to penetrate the tank's armor.

As for special materials for the bullets (I am avoiding using the term MDC) there is already special constructed projectiles being used around the world such as full steel bullets, that is, bullets that are made entirely of high density steel instead of simple being jacked in steel but I agree that simple lead as the main composition of the projectile would not work.

In terms of modern materials one of the best armor piercing materials currently available is depleted uranium. The advantages of DU are that it is very dense (even denser than lead) and it also has pyrophoric properites that ignites the metal and creates an incendiary effect when it strikes its target in addition to penetrating the target with kinetic energy. The use of depleted uranium in modern military rounds is relatively common and DU has been used in ammunition ranging from 20 mm vulcan rounds in the CIWS up to the DU penetrators used in 120 mm tank cannons.

Interestingly, DU is also used in Rifts weapons to improve armor penetration. For example, using DU rounds in the Triax TX-500 cyborg railgun increases damage from 6D6 MD per burst with standard rounds to 8D6 MD per burst with DU rounds. Since DU is apparently superior to standard railgun ammunition in Rifts this would seem to suggest that the metal used in standard railguns rounds probably consist of fairly conventional materials. This confirms that the railgun rounds in Rifts rely primarily on accelerating relativley normal metals to extremely high speeds and indicates that the rounds don't actually need to be made of MDC alloys to achieve the majority of their damage effects. DU rounds are also used in machineguns in Rifts, for example, the Triax VX-370 mini-machinegun uses DU rounds and inflicts 2D4 MD with a 30 round burst. So if you're looking at modern materals to use for ammunition it seems that DU is a good choice since some Rifts weapons use DU as a basis for their ammunition.

[popscythe]

During WW1, WW2 and all wars since the introduction of armored vehicles, with the exception of explosives and some very special weapons, no other weapon could harm a simple Tank!

I think the completely wrong is on the other foot on this one, sir. The "impervious armored tank" MYTH started during WW2. Most of the tanks in WW1 were poorly armored deathtraps. I'm not saying that a garand will punch through the armor of a Sherman, but infantry found very many of ways to disable and destroy tanks without "proper" weaponry when required.

That being said, which tank was it that 10 men with rifles will destroy in one melee, including damage they're taking from the tank itself? And why is the tank pulled up next to them in Rifts, when it knows that it's best bet is to engage them out of the range of their small arms?

This is why the hardness mechanic from 3.5 works better overall.

:/ But then a 10th level fighter can hack through a tank with his steel sword, or worse yet, his bare hands. Damage Resistance (aka "hardness") is a low quality solution. That being said, I'm not completely repulsed by the idea of giving all giant robots and other war machines some measure of damage resistance to hand held weapons.

[Kalidor]

A 10th level fighter isn't going to do much more damage per single hit than a 1st level fighter. He just gets to hit more times and at a greater accuracy. Unless you mean the fact that by 10th level he'll likely have some magic weapons and magic STR enhancing gear to have a higher damage output -- in that case he's still not going to do much more than 20 points (which was just an arbitrary number anyway, Tanks might well have a 30 hardness or more) and even if he does he's not doing it as a normal guy, but a guy with magic weapons and gear..

His bare handed damage wouldn't go up without some serious magic as well. Even if he had some insane STR of 25 or more he still couldn't do more than 20 points of damage with his bare hands without the aid of magic. And even then, I can't think of anything off hand.

[Rallan]

Well that is something new. I dindt know that 30mm rounds could destroy a M1A2 Main Battle Tank.

Hell, if Rommel and Montgomery knew 30mm rounds were so badass, it would've changed the course of the North Africa Campaign

[popscythe]

And even then, I can't think of anything off hand.

After you get a couple more years deep into 3.5/Pathfinder you'll see quite a few more horrors than that, my friend.

:)

That's what I was thinking.

[Rallan]

During WW1, WW2 and all wars since the introduction of armored vehicles, with the exception of explosives and some very special weapons, no other weapon could harm a simple Tank!

I think the completely wrong is on the other foot on this one, sir. The "impervious armored tank" MYTH started during WW2. Most of the tanks in WW1 were poorly armored deathtraps. I'm not saying that a garand will punch through the armor of a Sherman, but infantry found very many of ways to disable and destroy tanks without "proper" weaponry when required.

I dunno if I'd call it a myth though, since they really earned that reputation, thanks to the 1930s arms race which led from the tank as infantry support vehicle to the tank as heavily armoured mobile artillery with some serious anti-tank capabilities of its own. All of a sudden you went from tanks so flimsy that high-powered rifles stood a good chance of killing some of the crew (a la the good oldfashioned antitank rifle, which became obsolete about five minutes after WWII started) to tanks with cannons strapped on the top of them and with enough armour of their own to make sure that other tanks with cannons couldn't reliably disable them. They still had their weaknesses - and they still have them today - but it's long since reached the stage where if you're attacking a tank from a distance, you won't do any real damage unless you're using artillery or specialised anti-tank weaponry.

[popscythe]

They still had their weaknesses - and they still have them today - but it's long since reached the stage where if you're attacking a tank from a distance, you won't do any real damage unless you're using artillery or specialised anti-tank weaponry.

Which is identical to Rifts, excepting the fact that all MD weapons are sufficient in Rifts to serve as anti-tank weaponry if within range. If you're attacking a tank at a distance, (such as the distance where the tank's weapons reach you, but your weapons do not reach the tank) you'd need missiles or other specialized (longer range) weaponry. Even in situations where a tank (such as the Terror Mini-Tank) can't outdistance it's enemies by thousands of feet and must settle for a few hundred or similar ranges to some infantry weapons, they are bristling with weapons, and the pilot (or pilots!) get mucho extra attacks with which to lay down the pain. Take a look at the Terror Mini tank in the Triax book. It's only got 300 main body MD, but it could still tear through a medium sized group of Dead Boys without issue, even at point blank. I'd go so far to say that the tank could probably eliminate the group of dead boys (say five of them) in a melee without issue, and without taking more than 40-50 MD (unless the dead boys brought heavy weapons). I know they should get heavy weapons for a fair fight, but the (false) claim here is that riflemen will just whip tanks and similar vehicles.

Tanks (and other MDC vehicles) need to be employed slightly differently than in real life in Rifts, but their strategic value is not wholly lessened thereby.

[glitterboy2098]

During WW1, WW2 and all wars since the introduction of armored vehicles, with the exception of explosives and some very special weapons, no other weapon could harm a simple Tank!

I think the completely wrong is on the other foot on this one, sir. The "impervious armored tank" MYTH started during WW2. Most of the tanks in WW1 were poorly armored deathtraps. I'm not saying that a garand will punch through the armor of a Sherman, but infantry found very many of ways to disable and destroy tanks without "proper" weaponry when required.

during WW1, the British Mk.V's and Mk.V*'s were mostly immune to penetration from normal rifle ammo (just splinters inside), and when first deployed, most of the artillery was deployed too far back to be employed in direct fire. then the Germans and Austrians figured out "K" ammo (steel core AP stuff) could penetrate plate steel on tanks. they redeployed the artillery and issued k ammo all round. they also developed some high calibre rifles for anti-tank use.

in WW2, armor had advanced enough that most WW1 anti-tank rifles were ineffective, and anti-tank got relegated to towed cannon, mins, and satchel charges. (the use of Molotov's in the winter war was successful mostly due ot the use of gasoline fuels in tanks..the switch to desiel made them less viable in an anti-tank role)
most notably, on the russian front the T-35 became known as unkillable, alongside the KV-1's, even by tank guns. the T-34 had sloped armor, while the KV-1's just had massive armor. both were too thick for the guns of the time to penetrate (at the time, guns were 40-50mm..though even the 88's would often just glance off a T-34..) that the T-34's and KV-1's both had 75mm cannon at the time made them seem unstopable killers. this is what led the development of later german tanks, with their heavy armor and heavy guns. it also spurred the development of the Panzerfaust anti-tank recoilless grenades, just as the German Tigers and late model panzers led the US to develop the Bazooka, which in turn spurred the german Panzershreck. Allied tanks were universally poorly armored, usually inadequetly gunned for the times, and ran on gasoline, and thus more vulnerable to hits. only their sheer numbers let them beat german tanks.
(japan's tanks were stuck in a late ww1 mentality, and were worse than allied tanks..and didn't have the numbers. most were in china, which had an even worse tank force than the japanese..)

post-war advancements in armor were unable to make the bazooka and RPG's ineffective, then you had the development of ATGM's..which for a time almost killed the idea of a tank to many..though the 1 in 4 accuracy of most early ATGM's were pretty lousy. then armor caught up, rendering the HEAT rounds less effective, and seeing the ressurection of kinetic Ap rounds..

on and on it goes.

now the development of "active defense systems" like the israeli "Trophy" and the BAE AMP-ADS, combined with composite armors and reactive armors are swinging things back to the "invulnerable tank" concept..despite all of those having been countered already or of only limited duration.

That being said, which tank was it that 10 men with rifles will destroy in one melee, including damage they're taking from the tank itself? And why is the tank pulled up next to them in Rifts, when it knows that it's best bet is to engage them out of the range of their small arms?

sadly, the main reason for "pulling up close" in rifts is the fact that tank guns rarely have ranges superior to an infantryman's assualt rifle. and often comparable damage. sure, they have "infinite" payloads, but that doesn't really do much good.

[Nightmaster]

During WW1, WW2 and all wars since the introduction of armored vehicles, with the exception of explosives and some very special weapons, no other weapon could harm a simple Tank!

I think the completely wrong is on the other foot on this one, sir. The "impervious armored tank" MYTH started during WW2. Most of the tanks in WW1 were poorly armored deathtraps. I'm not saying that a garand will punch through the armor of a Sherman, but infantry found very many of ways to disable and destroy tanks without "proper" weaponry when required.

I think you missed the part "with the exception of explosives and some very special weapons" of my post.

Glitterboy2098 said it all regarding of the inability of infantry to hurt tanks without proper weapons (explosives, mines, Anti-Tanks Rfiles *hint* etc).

That being said, which tank was it that 10 men with rifles will destroy in one melee, including damage they're taking from the tank itself? And why is the tank pulled up next to them in Rifts, when it knows that it's best bet is to engage them out of the range of their small arms?

Lets see

Most Laser rifles (L-20 included but I am not with my book here so I can say what is the maximum range for it) have ranges in the 1600ft to 2000ft (488m to 610m)

Most tanks main gun have ranges up to 2 miles but if we are going to play fair then the both parties need to be in range with their weapons. Besides like Kevin Siembieda himself have said in the Rifts Game Master Guide, Rifts is a comic action type of RPG, were combat is most of the time done up close.

Now for damage lets get things strait.

Most tank main weapons dont do more than 2D6x10 MD; 3D6x10 if a special round or if the tank gun is really heavy.

That means that unless the damage roll of the tank is near maximum or a critical is rolled, then the soldier if wearing a 80+ MDC EBA would survive the attack. Also unless the tank have a secondary weapon that is not the coaxial gun, he can only target on soldier at a time (ok that is not a rule but as with other things in Rifts this is a oversight since the melee round is only 15 sec).

On the soldiers side we have weapons that do 2D6 MD (single shot) or 6D6 MD (pulse burst). That is a impressive 6D6x10 MD (10 soldiers firing pulses) in the first melee action of possible 4 that all those soldiers would have at 1st level.

Now lets assume that the tank have 500 MDC of main body and every soldier is using a gladiator EBA (80 MDC)

With strait averages (that it, rolling 3 in every dice) the first attack of the soldiers would deplete 180 MDC from the tank main body.

The tank on the other hand could dish out only 60-90 MDC (depending on how powerful the gun is) in a single soldier. Add the fact that the soldier can "Roll with Impact" to half the damage from the tank main gun (after all its a explosive attack) and the damage drops to 30-45 MDC.

So if the soldiers win initiative the combat would resolve in this order
1st - Soldiers Attack = 180 MDC (strait average, 3 in each damage dice rolled)
2nd - Tank Attack = 90 MDC (big gun) but soldier succed in roll with impact so only 45 MDC done
3rd - Soldiers Attack = 180 MDC
4th - Tank Attack = 90 MDC (same guy) soldier killed
5th - Soldiers Attack = 144 MDC Tank main body destroyed

So even if in that combat scenario the tank manages to kill 2 soldiers (both failed to roll with impact), before the 15 sec melee round ends the tank main body would have been depleted by 486 MDC in the 3rd attack made by the soldiers. In the begining of the 4th attack a single soldier would manage to finish the tank.

[Shark_Force]

don't forget the soldiers can dodge

(i suppose the tank could also dodge, but it's never going to get to act if it spends all its time dodging)

[popscythe]

lets get things strait.

Indeed, lets get things straight. Your math is wrong, you're forgetting that tanks invariably have additional weapons systems, get extra attacks, and have multiple crew members for even more attacks and nearly all of them do area effect damage as well as targeting and sensors bonuses, imaging to find hiding soldiers, the speed to retreat completely out of battle if needed, and many others. A simple smoke screen and using their thermal imaging sensors would turn the tides on those soldiers immediately (enjoying your -10s boys?) and that's not even the type of thing I was talking about, I was talking about using their weapons in a straight up point blank slugfest (improper usage of tank), which the tank might still win. The ranges on tank energy weapons are usually 2-3k feet, btw. They don't need to be two miles away, they could be 2250 feet away and driving backwards at 10mph as the soldiers advance. The tank *could* do an enormous number of things that the infantry can't cope with.

Your averages for the soldiers damage is completely wrong. You don't do it like 6d6x10, you're actually hurting your own chances there (increasing the chances of a minimum), but yet, as you've completely crippled the tank in your example, it doesn't matter.

Pick the weakest tank you can find in Rifts, and use it correctly, even at point blank. It's going to be doing far more damage than you believe it does.

Also as for "missing" your comment, which I quoted and responded directly to, infantry soldiers in WW2 disabled tanks with things like big pieces of scrap metal and thompsons and those tanks were far superior to the WW1 deathtraps. I'm not saying they shot their thompsons at the armor of the tank, they'd need, say an MD weapon for that to be effective (as it is in Rifts). However, if we're going to talk about specific Historical or Rifts examples, we need to get it correct, and give the tanks their due.

[Nightmaster]

lets get things strait.

Indeed, lets get things straight. Your math is wrong, you're forgetting that tanks invariably have additional weapons systems, get extra attacks, and have multiple crew members for even more attacks and nearly all of them do area effect damage as well as targeting and sensors bonuses, imaging to find hiding soldiers, the speed to retreat completely out of battle if needed, and many others.

First tell me what tanks in Rifts Earth gives the crew inside extra attacks per melee.

Second, except for possible mini-missile launchers the tank could have installed, only the main gun is a area effect weapon.

Finally I dont know in what reality you lives but no vehicle can escape that fast from guns with range in the 2000ft in less than 15 seconds. Even if the tank maximum speed is 100km/h and he can attain such speed in 1 second, the maximum distance he would achieve in a full melee round (15 sec) would be 416.5 meters and that is still inside the 1600ft range.

A simple smoke screen and using their thermal imaging sensors would turn the tides on those soldiers immediately (enjoying your -10s boys?)

If the object being screened was the same size as a human or human sized power armor I would agree with you but we are talking about a tank here.

Smoke screen is used today by tanks to make enemy units not being able to make precise strikes (someting that is necessary to really kill a tank today) or target specific area of the tank that otherwise would be fully exposed (like the back armor, treads and etc). The smoke is not mean to stop incoming fire or to make it impossible to target the tank (unless the screen covers a really huge area). Also if there is any drawback in using smoke screen is that the tank crew would be completly blind inside the screen, their only option would have to run and try to escape combat.

and that's not even the type of thing I was talking about, I was talking about using their weapons in a straight up point blank slugfest (improper usage of tank), which the tank might still win. The ranges on tank energy weapons are usually 2-3k feet, btw. They don't need to be two miles away, they could be 2250 feet away and driving backwards at 10mph as the soldiers advance. The tank *could* do an enormous number of things that the infantry can't cope with.

Lets be fair ok? That scenario only happens if both parties are in open ground with no cover in the area which clearly only benefit the tank.

If a normal scenario, that is a urban/forest scenario, both parties would be in fair ground since both would notice the other at the same time (no ambush on both sides) and both would be with each other in their weapons effective range.

Your averages for the soldiers damage is completely wrong. You don't do it like 6d6x10, you're actually hurting your own chances there (increasing the chances of a minimum), but yet, as you've completely crippled the tank in your example, it doesn't matter.

I have done that for simplify things.

If you set that all sides would be rolling strait 3 on each damage dice (I am no mathematics guy so I will not try some mathematic acrobacy here) you can simple multiply the damage done by each soldier to get the total they can deplete the tanks main body in a single melee attack.

Pick the weakest tank you can find in Rifts, and use it correctly, even at point blank. It's going to be doing far more damage than you believe it does.

I wil do better and get one of the best tanks:

IH-12B Iron Fist Medium Tank
Main Body: 450 MDC
Crew: Driver, Gunner and Tank Commander (typical crew of a tank)
WEAPONS
Main Gun: 120mm Auto-Cannon
- Damage -
High-Explosive (HE): 1D6X10 M.D. with a blast radius of 20 ft (6.1 m). = 30 M.D.
High-Explosive Anti-Tank (HEAT): 2D6x 10 M.D. with a blast radius of 10 ft (3 m). = 60 M.D.
AP: 1D4 x 10 M.D.; no blast radius (punch through the armor). = 30 M.D.
APSD: 2D4x 10 M.D.; no blast radius (punch through the armor). = 60 M.D.
Coaxial Gun: IH-105 Rail Gun (fixed position under the main gun barrel)
- Damage: 1D4x10 M.D. = 30 M.D.
Second Gun: IH-100 Rail Gun (cupola)
- Damage: 1D6x10 M.D. = 30 M.D.
Third Gun: IH-34L Laser Turret
- Damage:6D6 M.D = 18 M.D.
-------------- Ref. Rifts Mercenaries Page 109

As you see I have already applied the rule of "3" to the damage codes of the tank (even for the D4 dices). A note is that only the gunner or the tank commander can operate the weapons and that they can only command/use one weapon per attack (unless it exist a Paired Weapon skill for vehicle weapons ), also the Coaxial Gun can only fire at the same target that the main gun is fixed upon and the cupola rail gun leaves whatever is using it vulnerable to attacks by the soldiers outside.

If the tank concentrate fire on a single soldier per attack (killing one each time) the same combat resolution that I have posted would apply since he would be killing a soldier per attack, but since he have 50 less MDC in the main body as the example I gived he would be destroyed in the 3rd attack by the soldiers.

The main point is to show that the rules for MDC combat in Rifts are broken, because they allow for such situations to happen while at the same time not allowing to soldiers inside their EBA to be damaged in combat (maybe the engineers need to make Tanks with the same materials as EBA... hmmm )

Ironically the SDC combat system dont allow for soldiers using assault rifles to damage or even destroy a tank, no matter what.

[Devari]

Most claims that tanks are "underpowered" or that they can be easily defeated by infantry in Rifts simply aren't accurate. If you're going to make a comparison of tanks vs. infantry in Rifts you really need to compare a fully-crewed main battle tank vs. an infantry squad and you also need to take into account the vehicle's speed, mobility and weapon ranges. To eliminate issues of technology level (Northern Gun vs. Coalition vs. Triax, etc.) let's take standard Coalition soldiers vs. a Coalition Main Battle Tank. In fact, let's take the same Coalition tank crew and put them inside their tank vs. outside their tank with gear. I'll use the Grinning Skull MBT from Rifts Mercenaries.

Coalition Solider Weapons
The Grinning Skull MBT has a weapons locker with:
4 C-14 Fire-Breather Assault Rifles: 3D6 MD, 2000 foot range, 20 shots per E-clip.
2 C-27 Plasma Rifles: 6D6 MD, 1600 foot range, 10 shots per E-canister.
2 CR-1 Rocket Launchers with Fragmentation Mini-Missiles: 5D6x10 MD for fragmentation, 1D6x10 MD for plasma (assume they're using plasma for maximum damage), 1 mile range, rate of fire 1 per melee with a single operator or 3 per melee with a 2-operator team, 12 missiles provided with rocket launchers.

Using the weapons in their tank's weapons locker, the soldiers inflict an average damage of 10.5 MD per laser blast, 21 MD per plasma blast or 35 MD per rocket launcher missile, for an average of 22 MD per soldier among the 6 person crew. This is almost identical to giving each of the soldiers C-12 Heavy Assault Laser Rifles and using the 6D6 burst setting for an average damage of 21 MD per solider. So if you don't want to use what's in the weapons locker and use the standard C-12 laser rifles instead they will still inflict almost exactly the same average damage. For simplicity let's use an average damage of 22 MD per shot with a range of 2000 feet for small arms fire.

Armor: 80 MDC from CA-1 Heavy Body Armor.

Infantry Summary:
For a 6 man squad:
Average total damage for six soldiers is 22 MDC per shot x 6 = 132 MDC.
Average range for C-12 laser rifles is 2000 feet.
Six soldiers have a total of 80 MDC x 6 = 480 MDC.

For a 10 man squad:
Average total damage for ten soldiers is 22 MDC per shot x 10 = 220 MDC.
Average range for C-12 laser rifles is 2000 feet.
Ten soldiers have a total of 80 MDC x 10 = 800 MDC.

Now, put these same soldiers back in their tank.

CS Grinning Skull Main Battle Tank
Crew of 6, capable of individually controlling each of the six weapons systems (the pilot and co-pilot can act as gunners plus three additional dedicated gunners are carried).
Speed: 90 mph (144 kmh) on land, 30 mph (48 kmh) in water.
Main Body: 500 MDC
Weapons:
C-144 Cannons: 4D4x10 MD per double blast, up to 4 single blasts or 2 double blasts per melee, 6000 foot range.
CR-4T Laser Turret: 6D6 MD, up to 6 blasts per melee, 4000 foot range.
(2) C-2T Laser Turret: 4D6 MD, up to 6 blasts per melee, 4000 foot range.
(2) CR-10S Missile Launchers: 5D6 MD for fragmentation, 1D6x10 MD for plasma (standard missile load is an even mix but assume they're using plasma missiles for maximum damage), can fire volleys of 2, 3, 5 or 10 missiles, payload of 20 missiles per launcher.

First let's take the tank's main weapons, specifically the main gun and missiles. These are weapons that a dismounted infantry squad can't use because they're not man-portable (the tank's main guns weigh 4 tons and the mini-missile launchers carry a total of 40 missiles) so they represent the tank's main firepower. The average damage for the main gun turret is 100 MD per dual shot from the C-144 main cannons. The mini-missiles can be volley-fired for massive damage of up to 1D6x100 MD per volley of 10 missiles, or an average of 350 MD per gunner, but since this is overkill against individual soldiers let's assume they're firing volleys of 3 missiles, for a total damage of 105 MD per volley.

Tank Main Weapons:
Average total damage is 100 MD for main guns + 105 MD per volley of 3 mini-missiles x 2 = 310 MD.
Average range is 6000 feet.

Compare this to a 10-main infantry squad:
Average total damage for twelve soldiers is 22 MDC per shot x 10 = 220 MDC.
Average range is 2000 feet.

There are a few important points here. First, the tank is inflicting more damage than a 10-man infantry squad at 3X the range of what the infantry is capable of using their small arms at. This is HIGHER damage at THREE TIMES the distance the infantry can shoot. So the infantry clearly have dramatically inferior firepower and inferior range. Even more importantly, each of these three main weapon attacks from the tank will reliably kill an infantry solider wearing 80 MDC body armor. So each successful attack will likely kill a solider and reduce the firepower of the squad.

Now, let’s consider how the tank’s mobility affects these weapon ranges. At top speed the tank can drive 90 mph (144 kmh), or 2000 feet per 15 second melee round. This means that while moving at full speed straight towards the infantry squad the tank will have two full 15 second melee rounds of shooting before the squad is in range. Notice that I'm driving the tank DIRECTLY AT THE SQUAD to close the distance as fast as possible. I'm having the tank intentionally close the distance as fast as possible and simply having the tank shoot the infantry as it charges towards them. In other words, I'm simulating an assault situation where the tank is attacking a defended area where the infantry can wait and allow the tank to close the distance. Even under these conditions the tank gets two full melee rounds of firepower before the infantry are in range with small arms. This is enough time to easily destroy a 10 man squad even before the squad's rifles are in range.

Now, let’s consider if the infantry squad had to cover this distance themselves. How long would it take for an infantry squad to cross the 4000 foot distance between 6000 feet and the maximum range of their rifles at only 2000 feet? If the infantry can run at Spd 20 they would cover 20 x 20 = 400 meters per minute or 1320 feet per minute, which works out to 330 feet per 15 second melee round. So if the tank is STATIONARY sitting at 6000 foot range they need 12 melee rounds to cross the 4000 foot distance to bring their weapons within range. So even if the tank were immobilized it will easily have the time to gun down the soldiers MULTIPLE TIMES during the 12 melee rounds as they cross the distance from 6000 feet down to 2000 feet.

Now, suppose the tank was evading the soldiers but still staying within range of the main guns? The tank could easily take down soldiers without any real risk simply by using its superior speed, mobility and weapon ranges.

This range and speed advantage is huge and can't be neglected. A tank is not an immobile pill-box, it's a heavily armed and highly mobile armored vehicle. Even if the crew keep the vehicle stationary the tank still has a range and firepower advantage over infantry, but as soon as the tank starts moving the infantry don’t have any real chance of stopping it before it can kill them, even if it drives straight towards the squad at full speed and closes the distance as fast as possible.

Also, keep in mind that this what the tank can do using only the main guns and missile launchers. The tank also has secondary laser weapons, the CR-4T laser turret inflicts 21 MD and the two C-2T laser turrets each inflict 14 MD, for a total of 49 MD damage from the secondary lasers or an average of 16 MD for each of the three gunners. This is somewhat lower than the average of 21 MD per shot firing C-12 laser rifles in burst fire but keep in mind that while the tanks laser turrets inflict slightly lower damage they provide have TWICE the range that the infantry laser rifles do. The range advantage alone gives the gunners 6 rounds before the infantry can cover this 2000 foot distance, and this is assuming the tank is standing still and allowing the infantry to run towards it at full speed.

Tank Secondary Weapons:
Average total damage is 16 MDC per shot x 3 = 48 MDC.
Average range is 4000 feet.

So in total the secondary weapon systems can kill one solider for every two attacks and they can inflict this damage at twice the range of the infantry weapons.

Now, it’s clear that in terms of firepower, range, speed and mobility the tank is clearly going to demolish the infantry squad. What if we put the tank in the most disadvantaged possible position where its speed, mobility and weapon ranges aren't used? Let's assume the tank is ambushed by a 10-man infantry squad at point-blank range and can’t retreat:

For the Coalition Grinning Skull main battle tank:
Average total damage from the main weapons is 100-105 MDC per shot x 3 = 310 MDC.
Average total damage from the secondary weapons is 16 MDC per shot x 3 = 48 MDC.
Tank can kill an average of 3.5 soliders each melee attack.
Tank has a main body with 500 MDC.

For the 10 man Coalition infantry squad:
Average total damage for ten soldiers is 22 MDC per shot x 10 = 220 MDC.
Ten soldiers have a total of 80 MDC x 10 = 800 MDC.

Assuming all attacks are simultaneous:
First attack the 10 soldiers inflict 220 MDC. Tank is down to 280 MDC.
Tank kills 3.5 soldiers during this attack (3 from main weapons, 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapons) leaving 6-7 soldiers.

Second attack the remaining 6-7 soldiers inflict 143 MDC. Tank is down to 137 MDC.
Tank kills 3.5 soldiers during this attack (3 from main weapons, 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapons) leaving 3 soldiers.

Third attack the remaining 3 soldiers inflict 66 MDC. Tank is down to 71 MDC.
Tank kills 2.5 soldiers during this attack (main gun can only fire two bursts per round, leaving 2 from the missiles plus 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapon) leaving 0-1 soldiers.

Fourth attack the remaining solider inflicts 22 MDC. Tank is down to 49 MDC.
Tank kills the solider in return and can still continue to fight or can be repaired.

So even in this situation, which is a worst-case scenario that artificially eliminates ALL of the tank's advantages in terms of speed, mobility and weapon range, the infantry squad is still unable to destroy the tank. In any other scenario where the tank can utilize its superior weapon range and mobility the tank easily destroys the infantry squad. Also, keep in mind that the tank carries troops of its own, either a 6-man infantry squad or a pair of SAMAS. These would support the tank and greatly increase its advantages against the infantry squad and make it much less likely that the tank could be ambushed.

I really don't see how the Rifts tank is underpowered in any way against infantry. It has the speed, mobility and range to destroy the infantry squad well before the squad is within small arms range. It can even destroy the squad as it drives at full speed towards them because it can open fire at long range and will destroy the squad before their weapons are in range. If ambushed it has the speed to move from point-blank range to 2000 feet away in 1-2 melee rounds. Even in a worst-case scenario involving a point-blank engagement against infantry where the tank can't take advantage of its speed or superior weapon range and has to stand its ground the tank still wins the engagement. This tank is in no way "underpowered". In fact, in many ways it does much better against infantry in Rifts that most modern tanks perform against contemporary infantry.

[popscythe]

I really don't see how the Rifts tank is underpowered in any way against infantry

High-five! You have far more patience than I, sir, and I applaud you for it. Thanks for the good play-by-play!

[Nightmaster]

Sorry for the long delay but work can be a pain sometimes...

Most claims that tanks are "underpowered" or that they can be easily defeated by infantry in Rifts simply aren't accurate. If you're going to make a comparison of tanks vs. infantry in Rifts you really need to compare a fully-crewed main battle tank vs. an infantry squad and you also need to take into account the vehicle's speed, mobility and weapon ranges. To eliminate issues of technology level (Northern Gun vs. Coalition vs. Triax, etc.) let's take standard Coalition soldiers vs. a Coalition Main Battle Tank. In fact, let's take the same Coalition tank crew and put them inside their tank vs. outside their tank with gear. I'll use the Grinning Skull MBT from Rifts Mercenaries.

First you start from the wrong perspective here. I am not comparing Tank vs. Infantry. I am saying that by the Palladium MDC Combat rules, a 10 man squad is capable of destroing a tank in less than 15 seconds using only laser pulse rifles like the L-20 (see RMB).

Also you have take a very unique tank for your example. The Grinning Skull have more weapon systems than the majority of the tanks presented so far in the books. In the Rifts Mercenaries book the only tank with more weapon systems is a Naruni Jugernault Tank! Also this tank have 3 gunners as part of the crew. That is akin of cheating since the example I gived is of a somewhat powerful tank that dont have as many weapons as this one.

Now, put these same soldiers back in their tank.
CS Grinning Skull Main Battle Tank
Crew of 6, capable of individually controlling each of the six weapons systems (the pilot and co-pilot can act as gunners plus three additional dedicated gunners are carried).

That is a serious misunderstanding here. Let me quote the book to show why.

Rifts Mercenaries, page 148

C-144 Cannons (2): The Grinning Skull's main weapon is a pair of automatic, self-loading cannons. These cannons are operated by the turret gunner, but in an emergency can be used by another gunner, the pilot, or the copilot. The turret can rotate 360 degrees and has a 70 degree angle of fire (up and down).

CR-4T Laser Turret: The turret has a cupola (mini-turret) with a laser battery. This is the same gun used in the Coalition Mark V, but used here as a secondary weapon. The gun can be fired by any of the three gunners. The gun has the same rotation and arc of fire as the main gun.

C-2T Dual Turrets (2): There is one light laser turret on each side of the tank. They are the same turrets mounted on the Mark V, but only two have been installed. There is usually one gunner per side, using both the turret and the mini-missile launcher (see below). The laser turrets have a 360 degree rotation and a 90 degree arc of fire.

CR-10S Side-Mounted Missile Launchers (2): Two multi-tube missile launchers are mounted on either side of the tank's main body. The missiles are fired by the side gunners or the co-pilot.

The problem here is who operate what weapon. The text clearly state that the main gun is fired by the turret gunner only but that in a emergency it can be operated by any of the other crew. That is, there is one guy seated in the turret controling the main gun and only when he cant or is dead will the others step in to take his place in the controls.

The cupola turret can only be controled, unless logic fails me, by one gunner per time, be it the turret gunner or any of the other two gunners. The problem is that unless I have missed some new rule, one cannot operate more than a single weapon per attack/action (unless he have paried weapons but that is only for hand held weapons). In this scenario there is a problem of what gunner will be operating the cupola turret since only the gunners have controls for this weapon. The same problem happens with the side turrets since only the side gunners can operate then.

The pilot cannot use any weapon other then the main turret and that is only in the case that turret gunner is out and cannot operate the gun.

The Co-pilot can operate the missiles and only that.

In the end 1 of the six weapons cannot be used by the crew for lack of personnel to operate it. If they try to change seats will not help either since only the side gunners and the main gun gunner can control the cupola turret. I will not even come into the detail that in a situation where the tank is under fire if they try to change seats will spell their deaths.

First let's take the tank's main weapons, specifically the main gun and missiles. These are weapons that a dismounted infantry squad can't use because they're not man-portable (the tank's main guns weigh 4 tons and the mini-missile launchers carry a total of 40 missiles) so they represent the tank's main firepower. The average damage for the main gun turret is 100 MD per dual shot from the C-144 main cannons. The mini-missiles can be volley-fired for massive damage of up to 1D6x100 MD per volley of 10 missiles, or an average of 350 MD per gunner, but since this is overkill against individual soldiers let's assume they're firing volleys of 3 missiles, for a total damage of 105 MD per volley.

Tank Main Weapons:
Average total damage is 100 MD for main guns + 105 MD per volley of 3 mini-missiles x 2 = 310 MD.
Average range is 6000 feet.

The only problem here is that you are forgeting that the main gun can only angle up or down and not to the sides (it can rotate 360 but that dont resolve the problem). The text clearly say that the gun can angle up to 70° degrees up and down but dont say nothing about angle to the sides. If you take a look on the picture of the vehicle you can see that the guns are very apart from each other. Logic would dictates that in order to hit a target with both cannons, the target would need to be very large (something that a single human size soldier would not be). Also the weapon dont have a blast radius and I verified the books to see if that was a misprint or something and there is none.

Looking in the Mercenaries book the only round that does the same amount of damage by a single shell is a APSD round (see Iron Fist entry for special rounds for its main gun in page 110) and like the Griining Skull main gun it dont have a blast radius either.

That means you cannot do a double blast against a single power armor (unles it is a large thing like the Ulti-Max) let alone a single human sized soldier so your value of damage is wrong.

Tank Secondary Weapons:
Average total damage is 16 MDC per shot x 3 = 48 MDC.
Average range is 4000 feet.

So in total the secondary weapon systems can kill one solider for every two attacks and they can inflict this damage at twice the range of the infantry weapons.

The thing is "Will you have the time to do so?". If your secondary weapons all gang up on a single soldier they will not kill him (assuming you managed to hit that is). By your own accounts you need two attacks to kill a soldier. That means two melee actions to effectivily kill one and that is a lot of delay for the palladium combat system.

Now, it’s clear that in terms of firepower, range, speed and mobility the tank is clearly going to demolish the infantry squad.

I never had the intent to say otherwise but GAME RULES WISE all that superior firepower means nothing if your armor cant withstand infantry level laser fire and that happens because the MDC combat system is broken.

What if we put the tank in the most disadvantaged possible position where its speed, mobility and weapon ranges aren't used? Let's assume the tank is ambushed by a 10-man infantry squad at point-blank range and can’t retreat:

For the Coalition Grinning Skull main battle tank:
Average total damage from the main weapons is 100-105 MDC per shot x 3 = 310 MDC.
Average total damage from the secondary weapons is 16 MDC per shot x 3 = 48 MDC.
Tank can kill an average of 3.5 soliders each melee attack.
Tank has a main body with 500 MDC.

For the 10 man Coalition infantry squad:
Average total damage for ten soldiers is 22 MDC per shot x 10 = 220 MDC.
Ten soldiers have a total of 80 MDC x 10 = 800 MDC.

Assuming all attacks are simultaneous:
First attack the 10 soldiers inflict 220 MDC. Tank is down to 280 MDC.
Tank kills 3.5 soldiers during this attack (3 from main weapons, 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapons) leaving 6-7 soldiers.

Second attack the remaining 6-7 soldiers inflict 143 MDC. Tank is down to 137 MDC.
Tank kills 3.5 soldiers during this attack (3 from main weapons, 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapons) leaving 3 soldiers.

Third attack the remaining 3 soldiers inflict 66 MDC. Tank is down to 71 MDC.
Tank kills 2.5 soldiers during this attack (main gun can only fire two bursts per round, leaving 2 from the missiles plus 0.5 soldiers

from the secondary weapon) leaving 0-1 soldiers.

Fourth attack the remaining solider inflicts 22 MDC. Tank is down to 49 MDC.
Tank kills the solider in return and can still continue to fight or can be repaired.

So even in this situation, which is a worst-case scenario that artificially eliminates ALL of the tank's advantages in terms of speed, mobility and weapon range, the infantry squad is still unable to destroy the tank. In any other scenario where the tank can utilize its superior weapon range and mobility the tank easily destroys the infantry squad. Also, keep in mind that the tank carries troops of its own, either a 6-man infantry squad or a pair of SAMAS. These would support the tank and greatly increase its advantages against the infantry squad and make it much less likely that the tank could be ambushed.

I really don't see how the Rifts tank is underpowered in any way against infantry. It has the speed, mobility and range to destroy the infantry squad well before the squad is within small arms range. It can even destroy the squad as it drives at full speed towards them because it can open fire at long range and will destroy the squad before their weapons are in range. If ambushed it has the speed to move from point-blank range to 2000 feet away in 1-2 melee rounds. Even in a worst-case scenario involving a point-blank engagement against infantry where the tank can't take advantage of its speed or superior weapon range and has to stand its ground the tank still wins the engagement. This tank is in no way "underpowered". In fact, in many ways it does much better against infantry in Rifts that most modern tanks perform against contemporary infantry.

Your error is making the soldiers a single entity with a total of 800 MDC. Mathematiclly you are very good right but the combat game rules dont follow it.

1st- Aside from the missiles you have no weapon in this tank that have a blast radius.

2nd- If you apply a normal flow of combat round you will see that all the excess damage done by the weapons in one soldier would not stack to the next soldier in the pile and thus you would not have a 3.5 soldiers killed every melee action.

3rd- Your damage statistics forget to add the fact that the missile damage can be halfved if the soldier succed in a roll with impact check.

4th- The soldiers would not be lined up even in your scenario (they ambushed the tank) and so you would not be abble to attack more than two soldiers (if you are lucky) with your missiles.

5th- The amount of possible gunners in the tank dont allow for all the weapons to be useable in combat. One of then would not be used for lack of gunners (after all someone must pilot the tank to put it into position to fire the missiles in the first place). Also you cant have more than one gunner use the same weapon in a single round so you cannot make the main cannon or any other weapon fire more than once per melee action.

To record a melee round in palladium is 15 seconds long. Also to record the normal order of action in the palladium combat system is always:

Initiative winner rolls his attack
Defender roll apropriate defense roll
Defender rolls his attack in counter
Attacker roll apropriate defense roll

And so goes until all sides have used all his actions or one side is dead/incapacitated. If all actions are used then the round ends and a new one start.



--------------------------------------------------------------------

All in all your example even justify my rant since in YOUR example from its 500 MDC the tank was left with only 49 MDC in the main body. If another enemy just appear he would be doomed.

Now just think a little and answer that question:

Would it be possible for a main battle tank, made of MDC materials and equiped with vehicle size MDC weapons to be damaged, even if just a minor hole in the armor, by infantry soldiers, using human sized MDC assault rifles and doning human sized MDC body armor?


I for myself can say that such a thing would not be possible by logic and common sense but that is it: LOGIC and COMMOM SENSE.

The game rules as they are writen dont follow that in the MDC combat rules (and that is curious since the SDC combat rules follow it to a extent) and allow for such ridiculous scenarios were a infantry laser rifle can damage and potentialy destroy a tank made with the same technology as the rifle.

[Devari]

Sorry for the long delay but work can be a pain sometimes...

Your error is making the soldiers a single entity with a total of 800 MDC. Mathematiclly you are very good right but the combat game rules dont follow it.

Re-read the post again and you'll see that it is a 100% straight comparison of infantry vs. tank using the game rules as written. The example I gave assumes the soldiers are individual targets with 80 MDC each.

1st- Aside from the missiles you have no weapon in this tank that have a blast radius.

Blast radius isn't being used in my example, I'm assuming each solider is being attacked directly by a direct-fire weapon, not being caught in a blast radius. If I used blast radius that would only benefit the tank in this example so I assumed the infantry are spread out enough to avoid hitting more than one solider by a blast radius weapon.

2nd- If you apply a normal flow of combat round you will see that all the excess damage done by the weapons in one soldier would not stack to the next soldier in the pile and thus you would not have a 3.5 soldiers killed every melee action.

Re-read my post. I'm treating each soldier individually and I demonstrated that the main weapons can destroy a solider in a single hit. The only exception is the secondary weaopns and for these purposes I added up 0.5 soliders per attack. There is no reason the tank can't use the secondary weapons to focus on a single soldier from one attack to the next.

3rd- Your damage statistics forget to add the fact that the missile damage can be halfved if the soldier succed in a roll with impact check.

I'm using plasma missiles and scoring direct hits on the soldiers, there's no "impact" for them to roll with. In RUE roll with impact only works against physical blows and falls from hand to hand combat, read p. 346 of RUE where it states that it doesn't work against "energy blasts, bullets, fire, blade weapons, psionis, magic, or radiation".

4th- The soldiers would not be lined up even in your scenario (they ambushed the tank) and so you would not be abble to attack more than two soldiers (if you are lucky) with your missiles.

The solider's don't need to line up, all of the weapons except for the missiles are on turrets and the missile launchers themselves can be aimed with the vehicle. There's no reason you can't use each missile launcher against a separate target, you just maneuver the vehicle to make two separate shots.

5th- The amount of possible gunners in the tank dont allow for all the weapons to be useable in combat. One of then would not be used for lack of gunners (after all someone must pilot the tank to put it into position to fire the missiles in the first place). Also you cant have more than one gunner use the same weapon in a single round so you cannot make the main cannon or any other weapon fire more than once per melee action.

Read the description of the tank in Rifts mercenaries. The pilot can act as a gunner and use his combat actions for this, that is how the tank is designed. Also, if you read the description of who can fire which weapon you can get them to be fired by different gunners than they are assigned, i.e., you don't need to use the side gunners to fire both the laser turrets and the missiles, you can divide them up to whoever can control the weapon systems. Also, the main cannons can fire twice per round when firing double blasts and most of the other weapons can fire up to 6 times per melee so the tank crew can easily fire more than once per round with each weapon using all of their attacks. It would really help if you actually read the description of the tank rather than assuming that it has limitations that aren't present in the rules.

To record a melee round in palladium is 15 seconds long. Also to record the normal order of action in the palladium combat system is always:

Initiative winner rolls his attack
Defender roll apropriate defense roll
Defender rolls his attack in counter
Attacker roll apropriate defense roll

And so goes until all sides have used all his actions or one side is dead/incapacitated. If all actions are used then the round ends and a new one start.

This makes no difference. I'm making the attacks simultaneous for simplicity even though half the time the tank would win initative, half the time any given soldier would win initiative, it makes no difference to the average outcome.

All in all your example even justify my rant since in YOUR example from its 500 MDC the tank was left with only 49 MDC in the main body. If another enemy just appear he would be doomed.

Now just think a little and answer that question:

Would it be possible for a main battle tank, made of MDC materials and equiped with vehicle size MDC weapons to be damaged, even if just a minor hole in the armor, by infantry soldiers, using human sized MDC assault rifles and doning human sized MDC body armor?

I for myself can say that such a thing would not be possible by logic and common sense but that is it: LOGIC and COMMOM SENSE.

The game rules as they are writen dont follow that in the MDC combat rules (and that is curious since the SDC combat rules follow it to a extent) and allow for such ridiculous scenarios were a infantry laser rifle can damage and potentialy destroy a tank made with the same technology as the rifle.

That's a totally separate issue. If you're arguing that small arms in Rifts shouldn't be able to harm a tank at all that's a separate issue but doesn't necessarily mean that the tank overall is "underpowered" just because infantry have a chance of harming it with small arms. If you're suggesting that the tank is "underpowered" because you think it can't handle infanty I just demonstrated that isn't the case. The tank can handle infantry very easily under battlefield conditions and can even win a point-blank ambush where the infantry have all the possible advantages vs. the tank. These are two separate issues.

Keep in mind that Rifts isn't just a higher-powered version of modern combat. The infantry vs. vehicle balance has totally shifted due to the changes in technology. Tehnically power armor is probably the most cost-effective weapon on Rifts earth (both due to manpower and unit cost advatages) and by the stats there should be almost no giant robots (simply too expensive vs. power armor) and very limited use of infantry (dramatically reduced mobility vs. power armor). For that matter, airpower should be just as prevalent in Rifts earth as in modern times, but for some inexplicable reason viritually no one uses attack aircraft on a large scale. There's no real good reason for this, it's just the way the Rifts setting is described. Tanks in Rifts might not work the way you personally want them to (or the way modern tanks work) but they're reasonably well balanced vs. infantry in terms of game stats and overall game balance.

[Nightmaster]

2nd- If you apply a normal flow of combat round you will see that all the excess damage done by the weapons in one soldier would not stack to the next soldier in the pile and thus you would not have a 3.5 soldiers killed every melee action.

Re-read my post. I'm treating each soldier individually and I demonstrated that the main weapons can destroy a solider in a single hit. The only exception is the secondary weaopns and for these purposes I added up 0.5 soliders per attack. There is no reason the tank can't use the secondary weapons to focus on a single soldier from one attack to the next.

Except that the main gun cannot (by logic not the description of the weapon entry) do a double blast on a human sized soldier.

3rd- Your damage statistics forget to add the fact that the missile damage can be halfved if the soldier succed in a roll with impact check.

I'm using plasma missiles and scoring direct hits on the soldiers, there's no "impact" for them to roll with. In RUE roll with impact only works against physical blows and falls from hand to hand combat, read p. 346 of RUE where it states that it doesn't work against "energy blasts, bullets, fire, blade weapons, psionis, magic, or radiation".

As far I am concerned you must read page 341 of RUE. The entry about roll with impact. It works on explosions too and a plasma missile counts as a explosive device so the soldier is allowed a roll with impact to half the damage.

5th- The amount of possible gunners in the tank dont allow for all the weapons to be useable in combat. One of then would not be used for lack of gunners (after all someone must pilot the tank to put it into position to fire the missiles in the first place). Also you cant have more than one gunner use the same weapon in a single round so you cannot make the main cannon or any other weapon fire more than once per melee action.

Read the description of the tank in Rifts mercenaries. The pilot can act as a gunner and use his combat actions for this, that is how the tank is designed. Also, if you read the description of who can fire which weapon you can get them to be fired by different gunners than they are assigned, i.e., you don't need to use the side gunners to fire both the laser turrets and the missiles, you can divide them up to whoever can control the weapon systems. Also, the main cannons can fire twice per round when firing double blasts and most of the other weapons can fire up to 6 times per melee so the tank crew can easily fire more than once per round with each weapon using all of their attacks. It would really help if you actually read the description of the tank rather than assuming that it has limitations that aren't present in the rules.

Now its you that need to re-read my post.

I described there why one of the guns would not be able to be used.

With quotes from the weapons entries.

The descriptions on each weapon and the possible users each weapon can have (again in said description) is what make me state that one of those weapons would not be fired.

To record a melee round in palladium is 15 seconds long. Also to record the normal order of action in the palladium combat system is always:

Initiative winner rolls his attack
Defender roll apropriate defense roll
Defender rolls his attack in counter
Attacker roll apropriate defense roll

And so goes until all sides have used all his actions or one side is dead/incapacitated. If all actions are used then the round ends and a new one start.

This makes no difference. I'm making the attacks simultaneous for simplicity even though half the time the tank would win initative, half the time any given soldier would win initiative, it makes no difference to the average outcome.

The first thing that I agree with you. It makes no difference at all. The result is still the tank destroyed.

That's a totally separate issue. If you're arguing that small arms in Rifts shouldn't be able to harm a tank at all that's a separate issue but doesn't necessarily mean that the tank overall is "underpowered" just because infantry have a chance of harming it with small arms. If you're suggesting that the tank is "underpowered" because you think it can't handle infanty I just demonstrated that isn't the case. The tank can handle infantry very easily under battlefield conditions and can even win a point-blank ambush where the infantry have all the possible advantages vs. the tank. These are two separate issues.

Is that so? use other tank then, like a Iron Hammer Main Battle Tank in the same situation as you placed the Grinning Skull. I doub it will be that easily since the Iron Hammer dont have that many weapon systems.

I was talking about a average tank in regards of weapons and crew.

The Grinning Skull is not your average tank in regards of weapons and crew.

Keep in mind that Rifts isn't just a higher-powered version of modern combat. The infantry vs. vehicle balance has totally shifted due to the changes in technology. Tehnically power armor is probably the most cost-effective weapon on Rifts earth (both due to manpower and unit cost advatages) and by the stats there should be almost no giant robots (simply too expensive vs. power armor) and very limited use of infantry (dramatically reduced mobility vs. power armor). For that matter, airpower should be just as prevalent in Rifts earth as in modern times, but for some inexplicable reason viritually no one uses attack aircraft on a large scale. There's no real good reason for this, it's just the way the Rifts setting is described. Tanks in Rifts might not work the way you personally want them to (or the way modern tanks work) but they're reasonably well balanced vs. infantry in terms of game stats and overall game balance.

Sorry but it is. Everything is there, from helicopters to submarines.

The lame thing are the lack of a good combat system for the setting which again I find funny since the SDC combat system handle that much better than the MDC combat system. Of course the SDC system have its problems (nothing is perfect) but it dont allow for such ridiculous things like the one we are discussing here.

[Devari]

Except that the main gun cannot (by logic not the description of the weapon entry) do a double blast on a human sized soldier.

Sorry, but we're talking rules as written here. You can't just make up limitations for the tank's main weapon systems as part of the scenario.

3rd- Your damage statistics forget to add the fact that the missile damage can be halfved if the soldier succed in a roll with impact check.

I'm using plasma missiles and scoring direct hits on the soldiers, there's no "impact" for them to roll with. In RUE roll with impact only works against physical blows and falls from hand to hand combat, read p. 346 of RUE where it states that it doesn't work against "energy blasts, bullets, fire, blade weapons, psionis, magic, or radiation".

As far I am concerned you must read page 341 of RUE. The entry about roll with impact. It works on explosions too and a plasma missile counts as a explosive device so the soldier is allowed a roll with impact to half the damage.

Sorry, but you're 100% wrong here. The rules on p. 341 and 346 of RUE clearly refer to physical impacts. Plasma damage is not based on a physical impact, plasma blasts are based on the transfer of massive amounts of thermal energy. The description of plasma weapons on p. 358 of RUE explains this very clearly when it refers to plasma weapons "consuming the limb", "liquefying the flesh and bone" and "severely burning" the target. There's absolutely no way you can roll with impact against plasma energy because there's no "impact" to roll against, it's thermal energy that causes the damage from a plasma blast.

I described there why one of the guns would not be able to be used.

With quotes from the weapons entries.

The descriptions on each weapon and the possible users each weapon can have (again in said description) is what make me state that one of those weapons would not be fired.

There are a total of six weapon systems and a total of six crew members and the weapon controls have enough redundancy to be fully crewed by individual crew members. The main crew (pilot, co-pilot, and gunners) can fully crew any five separate systems and there is also a sixth crew member (communications officer) who could take over the final weapon system. We have no specific mention of which weapon systems the communications officer's can control but as long as they can control at least one weapon system the other five crew members could take over the other five, which results in a fully-crewed tank. Even without the sixth weapons system, however, the tank would still win all of the above scenarios I described.

The first thing that I agree with you. It makes no difference at all. The result is still the tank destroyed.

Not by rules as written. The tank only loses if you make up limitations for the tank that don't exist in the rules or when you allow the soliders to do things that clearly go against the rules as written (such as having them roll with impact vs. a plasma energy blast).

Is that so? use other tank then, like a Iron Hammer Main Battle Tank in the same situation as you placed the Grinning Skull. I doub it will be that easily since the Iron Hammer dont have that many weapon systems.

I was talking about a average tank in regards of weapons and crew.

The Grinning Skull is not your average tank in regards of weapons and crew.

I clearly stated at the start of my post that I was putting Coalition soliders vs. a Coalition main battle tank to take techonlogy differences out of the scenario. To make the comparision as fair as possible I took Coalition soliders and used the same gear they would take from the weapons locker INSIDE the tank, which is equivalent to being armed with standard Coalition laser rifles firing pulse blasts that inflict 6D6 MD. This is the most direct comparison you can possibly make because you know exactly how the tank and infantry would be armed at the same technology level. If you want to use an Iron Hammer tank then you should give the infantry lower-technology MD weapons, probably around 2D6-3D6 MD per shot and around 50 MDC body armor since Iron Heart Armaments is a lower-techology manufacturer of MD weapons and vehicles.

What you're trying to do is like putting modern soliders with Javelin ATGMs against a 1960's T-62 main battle tank and claiming that tanks are underpowered because a modern ATGM can destroy an obsolete tank.

You need to keep the technology levels as balanced as possible to make a fair comparison. If you really want to start mixing techology levels then I could have chosen a Triax XM-300 Phantom Hover Tank with 700 MDC and weapons systems with 370 MD average damage, plus it has a silenced hover engine that gives it a 35% prowl chance in daylight and a 60% prowl chance at night. The reason I chose Coalition soliders vs. a Coalition tank is that the fight would be balanced in terms of technology levels. If you read my post again you'll notice that I stated this very clearly right at the start of my post.

Sorry but it is. Everything is there, from helicopters to submarines.

The simple observation that tanks and aircraft exist in Rifts does NOT mean that they have the same battlefield role as they would in modern times. You can't assume that just because modern small arms such as an AK-47 can't damage a modern tank that this should necessarily mean that tanks in Rifts should function in exactly the same way vs. infantry. Tanks in Rifts are still very powerful and are easily capable of destroying larger numbers of infantry using their superior firepower, range, armor and mobility, they just don't do this in exactly the same way that a modern tank does.

The lame thing are the lack of a good combat system for the setting which again I find funny since the SDC combat system handle that much better than the MDC combat system. Of course the SDC system have its problems (nothing is perfect) but it dont allow for such ridiculous things like the one we are discussing here.

It's only "ridiculous" because you're not following the rules as written. You're giving every possible advantage to the infantry and making up limitations for the tank that aren't in the rules. I clearly described how the tank has superior range, firepower and mobility and would destroy the infantry easily under any situtation where it could use this range and mobility. Even when ambushed at point blank range with every possible disadvantage the tank would still survive the encounter and be able to retreat. The only situations where the infantry have any advantage against the tank are where you either make up rules that don't exist (such as not allowing the main guns to fire against a single target), clearly break the rules (such as rolling with impact against plasma energy) or set up an imbalanced technology level (such as Coalition infantry vs. an Iron Hammer tank).

[Nightmaster]

Except that the main gun cannot (by logic not the description of the weapon entry) do a double blast on a human sized soldier.

Sorry, but we're talking rules as written here. You can't just make up limitations for the tank's main weapon systems as part of the scenario.

Actually its not me making up limitations to the main weapon of this tank. If you take your time to look through the books you will find that in some places, when you have vehicles with two weapons fixed in a forward position and those weapons are somewhat apart from each other, there is almost always a description saying that those weapons can only double blast a target if this target have a minimum size.

I am using the same logic here since at the same time there are other places were this kind of description is missing and this most of the time happens because authors didnt took their time to read the other authors works, thus keeping the same layout and description through the books, which create situations like that, that is, a main gun from a TANK that is composed of two cannon barrels that are keep a wide berth apart in the turret.

I dont know about you but comom sense (something that Siembieda always say is important) would dictate that you would not be able to double blast a small target like a human being with such weapon, unless you use blast radius for that...

But wait!! that cannon dont have a blast radius!! Thus you cannot use that tactic to kill the poor soldier right?

Outside of that you are right that the way its described there is nothing holding the main turret gunner from doing a double blast against a human sized soldier...

3rd- Your damage statistics forget to add the fact that the missile damage can be halfved if the soldier succed in a roll with impact check.

I'm using plasma missiles and scoring direct hits on the soldiers, there's no "impact" for them to roll with. In RUE roll with impact only works against physical blows and falls from hand to hand combat, read p. 346 of RUE where it states that it doesn't work against "energy blasts, bullets, fire, blade weapons, psionis, magic, or radiation".

As far I am concerned you must read page 341 of RUE. The entry about roll with impact. It works on explosions too and a plasma missile counts as a explosive device so the soldier is allowed a roll with impact to half the damage.

Sorry, but you're 100% wrong here. The rules on p. 341 and 346 of RUE clearly refer to physical impacts. Plasma damage is not based on a physical impact, plasma blasts are based on the transfer of massive amounts of thermal energy. The description of plasma weapons on p. 358 of RUE explains this very clearly when it refers to plasma weapons "consuming the limb", "liquefying the flesh and bone" and "severely burning" the target. There's absolutely no way you can roll with impact against plasma energy because there's no "impact" to roll against, it's thermal energy that causes the damage from a plasma blast.

I only agree with you here because I find basis in the old RMB about that. I stand corrected.

I described there why one of the guns would not be able to be used.

With quotes from the weapons entries.

The descriptions on each weapon and the possible users each weapon can have (again in said description) is what make me state that one of those weapons would not be fired.

There are a total of six weapon systems and a total of six crew members and the weapon controls have enough redundancy to be fully crewed by individual crew members. The main crew (pilot, co-pilot, and gunners) can fully crew any five separate systems and there is also a sixth crew member (communications officer) who could take over the final weapon system. We have no specific mention of which weapon systems the communications officer's can control but as long as they can control at least one weapon system the other five crew members could take over the other five, which results in a fully-crewed tank. Even without the sixth weapons system, however, the tank would still win all of the above scenarios I described.

That is you saying it. Nowhere in the description the communication officer is mentioned a being able to manner any of the weapons.

Is that so? use other tank then, like a Iron Hammer Main Battle Tank in the same situation as you placed the Grinning Skull. I doub it will be that easily since the Iron Hammer dont have that many weapon systems.

I was talking about a average tank in regards of weapons and crew.

The Grinning Skull is not your average tank in regards of weapons and crew.

I clearly stated at the start of my post that I was putting Coalition soliders vs. a Coalition main battle tank to take techonlogy differences out of the scenario. To make the comparision as fair as possible I took Coalition soliders and used the same gear they would take from the weapons locker INSIDE the tank, which is equivalent to being armed with standard Coalition laser rifles firing pulse blasts that inflict 6D6 MD. This is the most direct comparison you can possibly make because you know exactly how the tank and infantry would be armed at the same technology level. If you want to use an Iron Hammer tank then you should give the infantry lower-technology MD weapons, probably around 2D6-3D6 MD per shot and around 50 MDC body armor since Iron Heart Armaments is a lower-techology manufacturer of MD weapons and vehicles.

What you're trying to do is like putting modern soliders with Javelin ATGMs against a 1960's T-62 main battle tank and claiming that tanks are underpowered because a modern ATGM can destroy an obsolete tank.

You need to keep the technology levels as balanced as possible to make a fair comparison. If you really want to start mixing techology levels then I could have chosen a Triax XM-330 Phantom Hover Tank with 700 MDC and weapons systems with 370 MD average damage, plus it has a silenced hover engine that gives it a 35% prowl chance in daylight and a 60% prowl chance at night. The reason I chose Coalition soliders vs. a Coalition tank is that the fight would be balanced in terms of technology levels. If you read my post again you'll notice that I stated this very clearly right at the start of my post.

I dont know about you but a L-20 Laser rifle is a weapon common enough in the North America scenario. It does 6D6 damage per pulse too, have way more shots per e-clip than the cs counterpart (40 short and 50 long clip) and have only 400ft less range. Also the gladiator EBA gives the user 70 MDC which is only 10 MDC lower than the Old DeadBoy armor and if someone put and extra 5000 credits he can buy in the blackmarket the deadboy armor without that much of a problem.

As far as the Rifts setting and the palladium game rules, difference in technology dont carry over to the combat system. If you give your CS soldiers a L-20 pulse laser rifle in the ambush scenario they would not have any difference in performance.

In fact that was my proposal in the begining, soldiers wielding L-20 rifles and gladiator EBA against a Iron Fist/Hammer Tank.

In your example you used a tank that have much more weapon systems than most tanks and a lot of crew!.

Even the TRIAX XM-330 that is a very good tank cant do more than 3 attacks (assuming the communication officer can control one of the tanks weapon systems) in ther action because it have only a crew of 3!!

You say that you must keep the technology level. Ok do your example scenario using my initial proposal.

Get a Iron Fist Medium Tank with their crew of 3 vs. 10 soldiers using L-20 laser rifles and Gladiator EBA.

Sorry but it is. Everything is there, from helicopters to submarines.

The simple observation that tanks and aircraft exist in Rifts does NOT mean that they have the same battlefield role as they would in modern times. You can't assume that just because modern small arms such as an AK-47 can't damage a modern tank that this should necessarily mean that tanks in Rifts should function in exactly the same way vs. infantry. Tanks in Rifts are still very powerful and are easily capable of destroying larger numbers of infantry using their superior firepower, range, armor and mobility, they just don't do this in exactly the same way that a modern tank does.

That affirmation of yours is trully strange because everything presented in books so far portrait the said vehicles as being used in the same manner as today. The only difference is that altough they are being used in the same roles the combat rules dont give then the same ability.

Also as Jeffar (I think it was him correct me if I am wrong) said once in the robotech forum, in his thread about mecha vs. tanks. if you make a tank with the same technology and materials used to construct a mecha, the tank would be much more effective and powerful than the mecha.

That translate into that: If you use the same technology used to create infantry MDC weapons and armor to create a armored vehicle like a main battle tank, then the tank would be much more powerful and will be impervious to the infantry weapons thanks to the much heavier materials he can be made off.

Hell... 5 CS soldiers in the new deadboy armor have together the exact same amount of MDC as the Grinning Skull

The lame thing are the lack of a good combat system for the setting which again I find funny since the SDC combat system handle that much better than the MDC combat system. Of course the SDC system have its problems (nothing is perfect) but it dont allow for such ridiculous things like the one we are discussing here.

It's only "ridiculous" because you're not following the rules as written. You're giving every possible advantage to the infantry and making up limitations for the tank that aren't in the rules. I clearly described how the tank has superior range, firepower and mobility and would destroy the infantry easily under any situtation where it could use this range and mobility. Even when ambushed at point blank range with every possible disadvantage the tank would still survive the encounter and be able to retreat. The only situations where the infantry have any advantage against the tank are where you either make up rules that don't exist (such as not allowing the main guns to fire against a single target), clearly break the rules (such as rolling with impact against plasma energy) or set up an imbalanced technology level (such as Coalition infantry vs. an Iron Hammer tank).

For starters I am not handcaping the tank or giving advantages to the soldiers. What I am doing is being fair by allowing both parties in this scenario to be with each other in their respective ranges. If I dont do that then yes I would be giving advantage to the tank since the tank can hit from much more afar.

Also unlike me its you that is giving advantage to the tank by choosing a tank that is a "Porcupine" of weapons and have 6 crew members (among then 3 different gunners), unlike the majority of the settings tanks that dont have that many weapons and number of crew and gunners.

As for me breaking the rules I am not. I stated what I remember from the books. In this case (plasma missiles) I was wrong but again one cannot remember every single line from more than 30 books. If I did I would be a genius or a freak of nature (more like the second... )

And the technology issue, really I have almost every book from the setting and with the exception of the SA or PW books there not such a thing as technology diferences that have a play or real influence in combat.

Please show me examples of what you are saying ok? Because except for fluff text, in game mechanics there is nothing showing that NG equipment and weapons are inferior to CS or even TRIAX weapons.

------------------------------------------------------------

To clear that for good lets analyze how you portraited the situation. I WILL NOT DEAL IN MATHEMATICS HERE... I am not that type of person. I will simple analyze it by game rules and limitations.

First let's take the tank's main weapons, specifically the main gun and missiles. These are weapons that a dismounted infantry squad can't use because they're not man-portable (the tank's main guns weigh 4 tons and the mini-missile launchers carry a total of 40 missiles) so they represent the tank's main firepower. The average damage for the main gun turret is 100 MD per dual shot from the C-144 main cannons. The mini-missiles can be volley-fired for massive damage of up to 1D6x100 MD per volley of 10 missiles, or an average of 350 MD per gunner, but since this is overkill against individual soldiers let's assume they're firing volleys of 3 missiles, for a total damage of 105 MD per volley.

Tank Main Weapons:
Average total damage is 100 MD for main guns + 105 MD per volley of 3 mini-missiles x 2 = 310 MD.
Average range is 6000 feet.

Your first error since you cant use more than one weapon system per action/attack.

In this case your maximum damage would be 205 MD since its two missile launchers that can be operated individualy by each side gunner or the co-pilot and not a single missile launcher that could do two volleys of 3 missiles each per attack/action that the user have. That alone already change that much of your calculation.

Tank Secondary Weapons:
Average total damage is 16 MDC per shot x 3 = 48 MDC.
Average range is 4000 feet.

So in total the secondary weapon systems can kill one solider for every two attacks and they can inflict this damage at twice the range of the infantry weapons.

Now, it’s clear that in terms of firepower, range, speed and mobility the tank is clearly going to demolish the infantry squad. What if we put the tank in the most disadvantaged possible position where its speed, mobility and weapon ranges aren't used? Let's assume the tank is ambushed by a 10-man infantry squad at point-blank range and can’t retreat:

For the Coalition Grinning Skull main battle tank:
Average total damage from the main weapons is 100-105 MDC per shot x 2 = 205 MDC.
Average total damage from the secondary weapons is 16 MDC per shot x 3 = 48 MDC.
Tank can kill an average of 3.5 soliders each melee attack.
Tank has a main body with 500 MDC.

For the 10 man Coalition infantry squad:
Average total damage for ten soldiers is 22 MDC per shot x 10 = 220 MDC.
Ten soldiers have a total of 80 MDC x 10 = 800 MDC.

Assuming all attacks are simultaneous:
First attack the 10 soldiers inflict 220 MDC. Tank is down to 280 MDC.
Tank kills 3.5 soldiers during this attack (3 from main weapons, 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapons) leaving 6-7 soldiers.

Second attack the remaining 6-7 soldiers inflict 143 MDC. Tank is down to 137 MDC.
Tank kills 3.5 soldiers during this attack (3 from main weapons, 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapons) leaving 3 soldiers.

Third attack the remaining 3 soldiers inflict 66 MDC. Tank is down to 71 MDC.
Tank kills 2.5 soldiers during this attack (main gun can only fire two bursts per round, leaving 2 from the missiles plus 0.5 soldiers from the secondary weapon) leaving 0-1 soldiers.

Fourth attack the remaining solider inflicts 22 MDC. Tank is down to 49 MDC.
Tank kills the solider in return and can still continue to fight or can be repaired.

I have changed the total damage for the main guns already so lets see if your example still hold:

Assuming all attacks are simultaneous:
First attack the 10 soldiers inflict 220 MDC. Tank is down to 280 MDC.
Tank Kills 2 soldiers and damaged one for 48 MD leaving 8 soldiers.

Second attack the remaining 8 soldiers inflict 176 MDC. Tank is down to 104 MDC.
Tank kills 3 soldiers during this attack (2 from main weapons and the one already damaged in the previous round from the secondary weapons) leaving 5 soldiers.

Third attack the remaining 5 soldiers inflict 110 MDC. Tank is destroyed.

If you keep the second volley of missiles you must stop one of the secondary guns then that would be the result:

Assuming all attacks are simultaneous:
First attack the 10 soldiers inflict 220 MDC. Tank is down to 280 MDC.
Tank Kills 3 soldiers and damaged one for 32 MD leaving 7 soldiers.

Second attack the remaining 8 soldiers inflict 154 MDC. Tank is down to 126 MDC.
Tank Kills 3 soldiers and damaged one for more 32 MD leaving 4 soldiers.

Third attack the remaining 4 soldiers inflict 88 MDC. Tank is down to 38 MDC.
Tank kills 3 soldiers during this attack (main gun can only fire two bursts per round, leaving 2 from the missiles plus the soldier that was damaged by secondary weapon) leaving 1 soldier.

Fourth attack the remaining solider inflicts 22 MDC. Tank is down to 16 MDC.
Tank kills the soldier in return and can still continue to fight or can be repaired.

In this scenario the tank wins but I really chuckle at the idea of then explaining to the chief engineer at HQ that the tank was nearly destroyed by 10 soldiers. If in even one of the attacks one of the soldiers score a simple critical hit that tank would be destroyed in the 3rd or 4th attack.

[Devari]

I am using the same logic here since at the same time there are other places were this kind of description is missing and this most of the time happens because authors didnt took their time to read the other authors works, thus keeping the same layout and description through the books, which create situations like that, that is, a main gun from a TANK that is composed of two cannon barrels that are keep a wide berth apart in the turret.

I dont know about you but comom sense (something that Siembieda always say is important) would dictate that you would not be able to double blast a small target like a human being with such weapon, unless you use blast radius for that...

I'm not disagreeing that in reality there would be a minimum range to fire both barrels at the same target, but we don't have this specific limitation written into the game rules so you can't use that issue if we're discussing the rules as written. If you want to start bringing other tactics into the discussion and use them as a substitute for the rules as written then we're not really talking about the game rules anymore. For example, if the solider is so close that the tank can't fire both of the main guns at it then the tank could simply accelerate and run the soldier over. A 40 ton tank moving at 90 mph is going to easily catch and crush soliders under its treads but since we don't have rules for that I'm not adding those types of "common sense" options into the scenario. I've only discussed the options the game rules provide, such as the superior speed, mobility, firepower and range that the tank clearly has vs. infantry when using the rules as written along with the game stats.

That is you saying it. Nowhere in the description the communication officer is mentioned a being able to manner any of the weapons.

Even if the communication officer has no weapons control at all (which I find highly unlikely considering how redundant the weapons control are for all of the other crew stations) the tank doesn't need the sixth weapon system to win vs. infantry.

As far as the Rifts setting and the palladium game rules, difference in technology dont carry over to the combat system. If you give your CS soldiers a L-20 pulse laser rifle in the ambush scenario they would not have any difference in performance.

In fact that was my proposal in the begining, soldiers wielding L-20 rifles and gladiator EBA against a Iron Fist/Hammer Tank.

Giving soliders a rifle that can pulse-fire 6D6 MD blasts per shot is equivalent to CS technology and thus they should be put against a CS tank. If the soliders are armed and armored equivalent to what CS infantry uses then they should be put agaisnt a tank that is equivalent to what the CS uses, i.e., a Grinning Skull main battle tank. In fact, my example put CS infantry against a CS tank using weapons from the tank's weapons locker, which is equivalent to 6D6 MD bursts per shot. It doesn't matter if the weapons are made by Northern Gun or the CS, if they use the same technology level then it isn't fair to put infantry firing 6D6 MD per shot vs. an Iron Hammer tank when the Iron Hammer tank is clearly a lower-technology vehicle.

In your example you used a tank that have much more weapon systems than most tanks and a lot of crew!.

The Grinning Skull can be considered to be a typical main battle tank if we're using CS technology (or roughly equivalent technology such Northern Gun) as our baseline. If you want to use a clearly inferior tank such as an Iron Hammer then you need to give the infantry clearly inferior weapons and armor to make it a fair comparison. An Iron Hammer is a low-technology tank and would be equivalent to using a 2D6-3D6 MD laser rifle lacking any burst fire capacity.

Even the TRIAX XM-330 that is a very good tank cant do more than 3 attacks (assuming the communication officer can control one of the tanks weapon systems) in ther action because it have only a crew of 3!!

It's safe to assume that the extra passengers that the Triax XM-330 can accommodate could crew the secondary weapon systems. It makes no sense to give a tank that many weapons without providing adequate weapon controls inside the tank when there are clearly enough space for sufficient passengers to serve as extra gunners. In fact, if these control weren't provided then the tank crew would certainly have an operator install these systems as a battlefield modification as soon as the tank was deployed for combat (similar to how soliders will have field modifications made to vehicles if there are clearly design deficiencies). However, even if we assume that the extra passengers can't fire any weapons the XM-330 would still destroy any infantry squad easily in your scenario due to superior firepower, weapon range and exceptional mobility from the hover system, not to mention the tank's ability to prowl and surprize the infantry. The point is that putting an XM-330 against standard coalition soliders isn't a fair fight because an advanced hover tank is clearly dramatically superior to a tank such as the Grinning Skull. That's why I used CS infantry vs. a CS tank since technology levels are exactly equal if we use a CS tank and weapons from the tank's weapon's locker.

That affirmation of yours is trully strange because everything presented in books so far portrait the said vehicles as being used in the same manner as today. The only difference is that altough they are being used in the same roles the combat rules dont give then the same ability.

Actually, the books clearly give many examples of how warfare has changed in Rifts compared to modern settings. The books give several examples such as how giant robots have made tanks obsolete due to their mobility and versatility, or where power armor is used for air support, or where most nations have stopped using airpower extensively because of the effectivness of ground-based missile batteries (i.e., how Air Castle Bombers get shot down immediatley upon entering CS airspace). These types of changes have clearly made Rifts battlefields significantly different from modern times, which is why tanks and aircraft don't fulfil the same roles that they used to.

That translate into that: If you use the same technology used to create infantry MDC weapons and armor to create a armored vehicle like a main battle tank, then the tank would be much more powerful and will be impervious to the infantry weapons thanks to the much heavier materials he can be made off.

This is assuming that energy blasts and MDC armor work the same way as bullets vs. conventional armor. As I said earlier, the technology of Rifts is completely different than modern weapons, you can't assume that just because tanks and small arms work a certain way in modern times that this should also be the case in Rifts. For example, one possible reason why heavy combat vehicles aren't completely immune to small arms in Rifts may be due to the effects of energy weapons vs. armor. For example, if the armor used in Rifts acts like a type of ablative armor that vaporizes as it absorbs energy then over time even smaller weapons could melt through the armor of the vehicle. This is probably be why enough infantry pulse-firing energy rifles can eventually destroy a tank. This also explains why infantry armor can absorb a certain amount of total damage rather than simply being "burned through" from a single high-powered energy blast. You can't assume that energy blasts can be treated with the same "common sense" that you use for bullets, they are a completely different type of weapon and will have a completely different effect on armor.

For starters I am not handcaping the tank or giving advantages to the soldiers. What I am doing is being fair by allowing both parties in this scenario to be with each other in their respective ranges. If I dont do that then yes I would be giving advantage to the tank since the tank can hit from much more afar.

You've got it backwards. You're not "giving" an advantage to the tank by allowing it to use its range and mobility, you're talking it's built-in advantages away but putting the infantry up close. Part of what makes a tank a powerful combat vehicle is its firepower, range and mobility. You can't assume that the infantry will be able to negate this advantage, it's part of what makes the tank so effective in combat. What you're suggesting is like putting a sniper with a long-range sniper rifle vs. a SWAT team member with a submachine gun inside a building and calling it a fair fight. Part of what makes the sniper so deadly is the sniper's range and accuracy, if you set up a scenario that takes this away you're handicapping the sniper in an unrealistic way. If you want to argue that infantry can handle a tank in Rifts they have to be able to take the tank down under battlefield conditions (i.e., where the tank is using its range and mobility), not just at point-blank range in an urban ambush.

Please show me examples of what you are saying ok? Because except for fluff text, in game mechanics there is nothing showing that NG equipment and weapons are inferior to CS or even TRIAX weapons.

See above where I explained the differences between Iron Heart Armaments vs. CS vs. Triax techology. Most NG equipment is similar to what the CS uses, but some types of equipment are clearly inferior, such as the Iron Heart tanks, and some equpiment is clealry superior, such as the Triax XM-330 hover tank. The Iron Hammer tank clearly has fewer weapons vs. the CS Grinning Skull tank and the Triax XM-330 clearly has far superior mobility (including the ability to PROWL) vs. a CS or Iron Hammer tank.

In this case your maximum damage would be 205 MD since its two missile launchers that can be operated individualy by each side gunner or the co-pilot and not a single missile launcher that could do two volleys of 3 missiles each per attack/action that the user have. That alone already change that much of your calculation.

I'm not sure what you're saying here. The main cannons and each side missile launcher would have a separate crew member firing a double blast from the cannons or a three-missile volley from a missile launcher during each attack. The only weapon system that would not have a crew member when using a five-man crew would be one of the smaller laser turrets, all of the main weapon systems would have a separate crew member operating it.

In this scenario the tank wins but I really chuckle at the idea of then explaining to the chief engineer at HQ that the tank was nearly destroyed by 10 soldiers. If in even one of the attacks one of the soldiers score a simple critical hit that tank would be destroyed in the 3rd or 4th attack.

How would that be any different than explaining how a modern tank was destroyed by infantry using ATGMs during an ambush in an urban environment? The soldiers might be a threat at point-blank range in a city ambush but they are easily destroyed by the tank on the battlefield or under any situation where the tank's range and mobility can be used. It isn't uncommon at all to find that tanks are vulnerable to urban ambushes even with modern weapons. Modern tanks are very vulnerable to infantry in a city environment and can be disabled or destroyed by well-coordinated infantry relatively easily. That's why you never send tanks into close-quarters fighting without having lighter vehicles or infantry as a scouting screen first. They didn't send M1 tanks into Iraq on their own, they sent in Bradleys, Humvees and infantry into the cities first ahead of the tanks because tanks are not really designed for urban fighting in the first place. They're too large and slow and even though an RPG-7 can't easily destroy an M1 there are certainly many ways that infantry can disable it. If you're trying to criticize Rifts tanks for being vulnerable to damage vs. infantry in a point-blank urban ambush where the tank's mobility and range aren't used that's not a situation where a tank would ever be expected to perform well. You could make exactly the same argument against a modern tank vs. modern soliders armed with ATGMs in an urban environment. A tank is a battlefield weapon, when used agaisnt infantry in an urban environment it needs to be properly supported. This is true in modern times and you should also expect it to be true in Rifts. If you use the CS Grinning Skull tank in combination with the infantry support it carries (either 6 soliders or 2 SAMAS) and utilize its superior firepower, range and mobility then infantry are a relatively minor threat that can easily be handled by the tank and its infantry support. Your problem is that you seem to think that a tank is supposed to be some type of unstoppable killing machine vs. infantry under all conditions, but the reality is that this simply isn't the case, even in modern times.