Military weapons

[JTwig]

Did anyone else find some of the comments on military weapons laughable? I'm an avid target shooter, and at one time, hunter. Most firearms in the military use 9mm and 5.56mm (.223), which also happen to be the two most popular round in North America after the .22LR. Even with the current shortage they can still be found in large numbers.

The next most common small arms round in the US military (in no particular order) would be 7.62mm, .308, .40,and .45. All of those are also popular civilian rounds; if you have been in a Cabelas, Gander Mountain, or even Walmart you can find shelves of each (at least before the current shortage). The .40 caliber is also standard for most federal agencies, and has been adopted by many police departments throughout the nation.

More exotic weapons such as the .50 caliber machine gun, RPGs, mortars, and artillery ammo could be hard to find, though even .50 caliber is available on the civilian market.

As for being hard to maintain, the AR-15 is the most popular civilian rifle according to sales records over the past ten years (more than 800,000 are sold a year, and last year nearly 1.2 million were sold in the US). The civilian version of the M9 is also popular, though no where near as popular as the AR-15. Cleaning kit and parts for both should be as easy to find as the are for other firearms.

The only ammo that would be easier to find than 9mm or 5.56mm would be .22LR and 12g. As for the rules saying that .22LR not being effective, well if fired from a rifle at 50-75 yard it would do significant damage to the brain. If fired from a pistol at 15 yards or less it would also be effective; the round has even been known to bounce around inside the head when fired from a pistol.

I'm not sure how much experience the writer has with current firearm trends and culture, but that is my two cents.

[Trooper Jim]

The firearms comments were ridiculous at best.

[dargo83]

for me i use the palladium weapons damage on the following site http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/RP ... mages.htm#

[JTwig]

for me i use the palladium weapons damage on the following site http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/RP ... mages.htm#

I use my own custom damages listed by caliber. While it has much in common with the standard palladium firearms chart, it is much more consistent. Firearms can be hard to translate into game terms, as even the same caliber can have vastly different ballistic characteristics depending on the grain count and what firearm it is fired out of (that’s just naming two, obvious things that can effect performance).

[dargo83]

for me i use the palladium weapons damage on the following site http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/RP ... mages.htm#

I use my own custom damages listed by caliber. While it has much in common with the standard palladium firearms chart, it is much more consistent. Firearms can be hard to translate into game terms, as even the same caliber can have vastly different ballistic characteristics depending on the grain count and what firearm it is fired out of (that’s just naming two, obvious things that can effect performance).

dude i would like to see ur damage chart
thanks
dargo

[JTwig]

for me i use the palladium weapons damage on the following site http://www.kitsune.addr.com/Firearms/RP ... mages.htm#

I use my own custom damages listed by caliber. While it has much in common with the standard palladium firearms chart, it is much more consistent. Firearms can be hard to translate into game terms, as even the same caliber can have vastly different ballistic characteristics depending on the grain count and what firearm it is fired out of (that’s just naming two, obvious things that can effect performance).

dude i would like to see ur damage chart
thanks
dargo

It's really not that impressive, but I'm always willing to share.

.22LR - 2d4
.32 Auto - 2d6
.38 & 9mm - 3d6
.40 & .45 ACP - 4d6
.45 Long & 10mm- 4d6+3
.357 - 4d6
.44 mag - 5d6
30-30 & 5.56mm - 4d6
.308, 30-06, & 7.62mm - 5d6
.50 (pistol) - 5d6
.50 (rifle & machine gun) - 1d4x10
20mm - 1d6x10
30mm - 2d4x10
37mm - 2d4x10+10
40mm - 3d4x10
50mm - 4d6x10
75mm - 1d4x100
90mm - 1d6x100
105mm - 2d4x100
120mm - 3d4x100
155mm - 3d6x100

This is from memory, so it might not be exact & is missing some of the more exotic caliber from WW 1 & WW 2.

So in my games an M4 does 4d6 SDC, has a range of 1450 feet (rough range from Wikipedia), a payload of 30 (average mag count), and could fire a single shot, 3-round burst, or fully automatic. A full-length M16 would do the the same damage, but have different range. It's not exactly accurate, but it's as good as I can get in game terms.

I've got a pdf of with stats for several modern firearms and combat vehicle somewhere. Send me a PM with you email and I'll pass it along if I can find it.

[Jefffar]

Pretty reasonable, though you are probably a fair bit light on the .50 BMG and above. The power of these rounds really is hard to understand and put into game terms but a .50 is easily 2D4x10 to 2D6x10 damage. Of course things begin to get really of track there so a 1D6x10 .50 is workable from a game point of view. Once you break out of the Automatic Cannons the table could almost advance exponentially.

[azazel1024]

Agreed on pretty all counts.

One of the HUGE advantages of an M4 or M16A4 is that it can take both 5.56 NATO AND it can take civilian .223, where as a large number of .223 chambered rifles can only take .223 because of the higher chamber pressures that 5.56 NATO produces.

Also the rounds are relatively light and small, compared to a lot of other rifle ammo, allowing you to carry more of it.

Plus so easy to find.

Also even with possible looting, the US military, police departments, national guard and lots of other LEO organizations have M16s of some variety, M4 or AR-15 in huge numbers. So short of running across some out of the way rural police station, and possibly even then, you are likely to find 5.56/.223 laying around, and possibly spare rifles/parts for them. Its pretty unlikely even in a "looted" scenario that whoever looted the place got EVERYTHING. Especially if the police station, guard armory/barracks, etc got looted fairly early on, as they were probably just grabbing what they could and running.

The rifles/carbines also tend to be very accurate and there are a ton of accesories that will work on both the M16A4 and AR-15 without much adaptation.

I am not sure if it is intention from Kevin with the DR rewrite/writes, or if it is just extreme ignorance, but guns are probably portrayed less accurately in DR than in any other PB book and that is saying something.

It isn't even simply how hard it is to kill a zed in DR with a gun (or in general). I can grook that as deliberate intention to make zombies stronger than they were during life (plenty of zombie flicks do this), but just flat out wrong statements about guns and a lot of the choices about things like calling a 9mm a low caliber weapon that has little chance of penetrating a zombie's skull.

Ignoring if the skull is toughened up or not, a straight up 9x19 para JHP, let alone jacketed or FMJ round is pretty likely to punch straight through a normal human skull filled with normal human brains at resonably short ranges hit straight on. that is pretty damned traumatic, zombie or not. A .223 pretty much means no chance of survival, period.

Most "survival" stories of people brain shot with a bullet are from low calibre weapons, like a .22 short, or a relatively glancing hit, long range, or from over penetration of something else before it struck someone in the head. There is of course always the element of extreme luck.

Pretty much, shooting a zombie in the head should kill it most of the time. Exceptions again for true low calibre bullets, long range, shooting through something first, or just "nicking" it.

I roll with Compendium of Contemporary weapons damages. They aren't overly accurate, but they'll work. No AR for zombies' heads, just a straight -5 to strike for the called shot for a head shot. I also use the CoCW x4 damage direct to HP rules for a head shot. That means a 9mm at 2d6 damage is roughly 50/50 to strike a zombie in the head with no bonuses to strike. If it does hit a zombie in the head, at 2d6x4 damage, it is going to average 28...which on average means the zombie probably dies.

Something like a 5.56, at 3D6 damage (x4 for the head shot, direct to HP) is basically guaranteed kill, unless you roll really low, so long as you hit.

Fast movers I add an extra -3 to strike, since they are moving darned fast and long range adds -3 to strike (more than 50% of the range of the weapon). +2 to strike for point blank range (less than 10% of the range of the weapon)

So, it does mean a headshot is kind of hard to get, but if you have some decent bonuses, you can probably manage headshots most of the time and almost all of the time it is going to kill one, unless you are using something really light, like a .22 (which IIRC does 1d6 damage).

Which is much more realistic. I don't need a billion zombie masacre in my games, but having to empty an entire magazine to maybe take down one, or two zombies if you are lucky, does not seem right. Guns are a last resort because they make a lot of noise and can draw zombies from a mile or more around...but they should darned well get the job DONE.

The times you should be in trouble is if you try to hand to hand it with a boat load of zombies, you get suprised by one, or you do something stupid and get swarmed under...then it doesn't matter if you are killing 6 zombies with 10 rounds, you've got 200 zombies coming down on you and a handful of them are probably runners.

You be screwed because you were stupid.

[Deckard1973]

Did anyone else find some of the comments on military weapons laughable? I'm an avid target shooter, and at one time, hunter. Most firearms in the military use 9mm and 5.56mm (.223), which also happen to be the two most popular round in North America after the .22LR. Even with the current shortage they can still be found in large numbers.

The next most common small arms round in the US military (in no particular order) would be 7.62mm, .308, .40,and .45. All of those are also popular civilian rounds; if you have been in a Cabelas, Gander Mountain, or even Walmart you can find shelves of each (at least before the current shortage). The .40 caliber is also standard for most federal agencies, and has been adopted by many police departments throughout the nation.

More exotic weapons such as the .50 caliber machine gun, RPGs, mortars, and artillery ammo could be hard to find, though even .50 caliber is available on the civilian market.

As for being hard to maintain, the AR-15 is the most popular civilian rifle according to sales records over the past ten years (more than 800,000 are sold a year, and last year nearly 1.2 million were sold in the US). The civilian version of the M9 is also popular, though no where near as popular as the AR-15. Cleaning kit and parts for both should be as easy to find as the are for other firearms.

The only ammo that would be easier to find than 9mm or 5.56mm would be .22LR and 12g. As for the rules saying that .22LR not being effective, well if fired from a rifle at 50-75 yard it would do significant damage to the brain. If fired from a pistol at 15 yards or less it would also be effective; the round has even been known to bounce around inside the head when fired from a pistol.

I'm not sure how much experience the writer has with current firearm trends and culture, but that is my two cents.

Just because it is popular does not make it the "best."
The Camery is popular. So is the Civic. Does that make them the best cars on the road?
Of course not.
The popularity of the M16/M4/AR15 has mostly to do with the manufacture process, e.g. cheap to produce when compared to the M14/M1A. Prior to the Obama gun scare, anyone could put together a AR15, from parts, online, for as little as $600. And the parts manufacture was still making money! Imagine if you could put it together at cost?
Under 200m the 5.56 (out of a 20inch barrel) is decent in the one shot one kill. Past 200m, the one shot one kill % drops off a cliff.
Then there is the reality of distance vs wind. That little 62grn 5.56 does not do well in mid to high winds, like, oh say Afghanistan. And the insurgents knew that. The 77grn did marginally better. I shot NRA high power rifle with a NM M1A. The Major I shot with ran a Rock River NM AR15. He use Berger VDL bullets atop a compressed load, that would not load into a magazine (the COL was too long out there to accommodate all that powder). Handloads. At the 600 line, the bullets were still keyholing (e.g. tumbling).
I was using factory Match grade 168s BTHPs and always beat him.
So, damage tables need to take into consideration for caliber, bullet weight, distance.
Not as much fun in a RPG setting.
But that is the reality of the real world.

Oh, to back up my claims: 6 years USMC Expert rating, NRA high power rifle Sharp Shooter rating, 12+ years handloading, one deployment to Afghanistan.

[Deckard1973]

Additional note: I was taking a CCW in Maryland from a guy who did personal security of VIPS for 5 years in Iraq.
He loved the 9mm. As long as it was HP.
RN, and he'd opt for .45ACP.
He loved my .45ACP handloads. Hornady 200grn SWC/Combat encapsulated bullets, 6.5grns of Vit N340, 900fps.

[Deckard1973]

Got to thinking: Ok, so say the non-magnum ammo, apply the given book damage at 200-300m or less. After that, for every 100m -1 to damage.
Magnum rounds call it 300-400m, then apply the -1 per 100m.
Waddya think?

[azazel1024]

Not a bad way to go. I use 200yds as "maximum range" for short barrel low calibre rifle rounds (.223 and under). 300 yds for long barrel low calibre rifle rounds. I use 400 yds for medium caliber (up to 7.62x54) and 800yds for heavy calibre (mostly just .338 Lapua, .50 cal and 14.5).

After those ranges it is -1 to strike and -10% to damage for every 200yds past the range (rounded down and starting at anything past maxium range). Not the most realistic, but it beats the pants off the game system.

[Deckard1973]

Not a bad way to go. I use 200yds as "maximum range" for short barrel low calibre rifle rounds (.223 and under). 300 yds for long barrel low calibre rifle rounds. I use 400 yds for medium caliber (up to 7.62x54) and 800yds for heavy calibre (mostly just .338 Lapua, .50 cal and 14.5).

After those ranges it is -1 to strike and -10% to damage for every 200yds past the range (rounded down and starting at anything past maxium range). Not the most realistic, but it beats the pants off the game system.

That is a neat idea!
But is it hard to do the math?

[Pepsi Jedi]

Thing is for a game who's rules are already accused of being put together by Rainman, that much detail is largely lost on folks.

They want (Some what) Realistic damage ratings, and a max effective range. Not all that detail.

Back to the OP, yeah the comments and damages on weapons in DR are .... eccentric at best. Hard to tell if that was the original writers, or the re-write, or what.

If it matters to players, I think it's the third supplement where they go back on their "Don't touch military weapons!! THEY ARE OF DA DABIL!!" There's more military stuff in there.

I too have replaced the damage ratings for firearms, and rate them by the ammo used.

For ranges, to be 100% honest, we don't keep exhaustive exhaustive records as to range. Usually if I'm GM My players will go "Is _____ In range?" and I can eye ball it in the set up and go "For your rifle yeah but not for your pistol" and that's as deep as we go for that. Sometimes they get "Oh it'll be a long shot with your pistol +4 diff to strike if you try it at that range" or something similar. I'm not sitting there with charts and graphs and measuring with a ruler on the paper and converting it etc etc etc.

Actually changing damage and range based on windage and humidity or elevation or something is not 'fun' for our group. That's too much like math/ and or work. lol .