On "Called Shot" and flechette, Some thoughts Options

[theartthief]

I know that this has been covered before. I have tried to read all of the posts that I found. Here are some thoughts about why "Called Shot" should be allowed for PCs and how to make flechette ammo more interesting.

Called Shot:
While cannon rules do not allow called shot for anything smaller than a vehicle there are some situations where it makes sense that the PC should get the benefit of a called shot. Melee combat is not that spot. I used to play a 60+ year old sniper with a love of all work wet who was allowed to use called shot only for contracts. This makes sense as he would have time to set up and lay out his shot without bullets whizzing over his head. This also works with RL snipers. That said I propose a house rule for "Called Shot" as follows:

Character must have clear line of sight of target and be in a stable position outside of combat. The opposing character (NPC, cyberdog, whatever) should be stationary or walking. No combat pool dice apply to the test.

Someone will no doubt say that this rule favors snipers. Well... it does. Let's face it, the amount of time that would be required for a called shot can realistically only be pulled off by a sniper ... or maybe an ambush. GMs discretion if a handgun in an ambush situation would work with called shot.

One other thought: if called shot as a cannon rule does not work on anything smaller than a vehicle doesn't it make sense that it won't work on bikes? After all a Troll is about the same size as most bikes.


Flechette
Despite my comments earlier on "Called Shot" I have no desire to make flechette bypass all armor, that is just plain broken. I looked up the definition of flechette and found that:

Flechette: A steel missile or dart dropped from an aircraft or fired from an artillery piece.

[French, diminutive of flèche, arrow. See flèche.]

From dictionary.com

This makes sense about flechette doing more damage to an un-armored target if the round is packed with mini-darts, or mini-knives. Given that a knife can be driven through un-reinforced bullet-proof jackets, I don't see why flechette ammo wouldn't pass through the ballistic portion of armor. OK, I grant that these silvers would be tumbling and not flying straight but why not some of them. Therefore I suggest the following:

Flechette ammo keeps its damage and power upgrades against armor but every two points of impact armor deduces its damage code and the rest is resisted by ballistic armor. This would allow that the shear force of the blast - the ballistic portion (after all ballistic pretty much describes all guns) - be resisted by ballistic armor and the damage portion - impact - be resisted by that armor, this would simulate the random nature of darts, knives hitting broad side instead of point on.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks,
-theartthief

[Firewall]

[Slamm-O]

woah woah woah, elaborate on that brest thing dont just leave me hanging, are you saying that 'more endowed' women can not use BP vests with any real effect? so shadworunner and assassin chicks would prolly want reductions? there goes all my sexy SR contacts...(well still can be sexy i know, but still...)

[Firewall]

In the UK there was a female officer (or 'police-woman', as we call them here) who got stabbed when not wearing her vest. I think it made the papers because she sued but anyway, she complained that her 'assets' did not fit into the vest.

So I reckon in SR, anyone with large breasts would be unable to use 'off the shelf' body armour. It would have to be a custom job (1.5 x base price) and probably twice as hard to get... (if nothing else, it cuts down on the Lara Crofts)

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Word from Your Master:

[Firewall]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Austere Emancipa...]

[mcb]

Something like a small steel flechette, a knife point, or even an arrow has the advantage against unreinforce kevlar because the harder steel of a knife blade or very pointed tip of a flechette or arrow pushes the relatively loosely woven fiber apart bypassing them rather then try to break the exceptional strong kevlar fibers. A standard lead or copper jacketed lead bullet is soft and the strong kevlar fibers cut into the soft metal getting a good bite on the bullet and then the fibers can distributing the force across a larger section of the kevlar material.

The problem with flechette is they are steel. Steel produces projectiles with relatively horrible ballistic coefficients. Ask and duck hunter that has tried to use steel shot to hunt with after then made the use of lead shot illegal. The only really good use for flechette I have seen is in area effect weapons like anti-personnel mines and anti-personnel rockets.

The Millitary tried to used then in shotguns for a little bit in Vietnam to help with penetrating dense jungle foliage but with the advent of copper plated buckshot, flechettes fell out of favor in shotgun. The copper plated buckshot performed nearly as well in foliage penetration, pellets count was as high or higer then flechettes in a single round, and buckshot was a lot cheaper to produce.

Steel Flechettes have never proven exception effective or successful in small arms as projectiles but have found a nitch as optimize fragments in area effect anti-personnel and soft target weapon systems.

JMHO
mcb

[Voran]

In SR, Flechette ammo as written and used, seemed to be more like the real world version of (I think the word is) frangible ammo. (Check's raygun's site, yep looks like frangible is the word I'm looking for). Though to be fair, even that isn't a direct conversion, since frangibles apparently are designed to fragment on impact leading to more gross damage to the body, whereas SR flechette ammo is like stuffing buckshot into a pistol bullet casing :P. SR definately has its own wierd rules about guns and ammo.

Yknow, the funny thing is, without sites like Raygun's or community feedback, because I know SQUAT about guns or ammo, I would have taken SR's definitions and setups at face value, and been none the wiser :)

[Austere Emancipa...]

[Fahr]

I was told something ilke this in my Archery classses at college, and it makes some sense, but i had always thought that is was the sharpness factor that made broadheads penetrate kevlar better, thin very sharp blades can cut kevlar, and so the force is not disipated but instead used to slice the fibers, thus driving through and hitting the person behind it. additionally, an arrow is more dangerous because it will still cut you and make you bleed even after shedding force getting through the kevlar.

bullets will give you blunt trauma behind the impact site, but the arrow will cut you if it makes it through the kevlar layer at all, and broadheads are as sharp as razors, so you tend to get very clean cuts that blead a whole lot. If i could get a hold of a peice of kevlar, I would be more than happy to shoot arrows at it and post the results. :)

-Mike R.

[theartthief]

Ok.... points (no pun intended) taken.

Thanks Firewall, for this:

And as for what a flechette really is, that is why my group uses house rules for them. Less powerful (1 less damage level) than a normal slug but ignore 2 points of armour/troll-skin (which pushes up TN on your body roll).

I will most likely use this in my games.

Thanks to all for the feedback.

-theartthief

[Austere Emancipa...]

[mcb]

There are two type of basic attack with a blade, a cutting slashing action or a stabbing action Kevlar vest perform very differently in these two situations. Kevlar has pretty good protection against cutting or slashing action, but very poor against stabbing actions.

Kevlar fibers are very slippery and very strong this make them excellent at resisting a slashing cut. They would rather let the blade slide over them then let it get purchase to actually cut the fiber, but the same slippery property that makes them good at resisting the slash hinders any effectiveness in stopping penetration of a stab. The fibers would rather slip out of the way of the stabbing point of a hard steel knife blade or similar point not being able to get a hold of it as they can with softer metal of a bullet. Also since the fibers are so slippery, especial sliding over other Kevlar fibers, it is difficult to weave them in a pattern that resist being displaced when being stab by a fine point. The tip of a broad-head or the stiletto point of a double edge knife works pretty good at pushing the fibers out of the way. If you use an ice pick type stabling device Kevlar offers almost no protection.

Many stab resistant vests have stainless steel or titanium meshes woven in between layers of Kevlar. The metal mesh is good at resisting the blade’s attempts to displace the fibers in the metal mesh. Other vest use thin but tough layer of polymer sheets to slow the blade and keep it from displacing the Kevlar fibers.

mcb

[Austere Emancipa...]

The NIJ says the following in the Selection and Application Guide to Personal Body Armor under Body Armor Construction - How Does Stab-Resistant Body Armor Work?