Suppressive Fire, Deadly in sewers Options

[tisoz]

[Arethusa]

The TN limit is there to stop Cletus the Slack Jawed Yokel from defaulting Surgery to Intelligence and rolling a freak 30, masterfully performing a quadruple bypass in 48.3 seconds.

Like unfortunately far too much of SR canon, it makes sense sometimes and causes ridiculous problems moretimes.

[Fortune]

Dunno ... I've never had my leg blown off. ;)

I don't think there should be an arbitrary TN limit that precludes defaulting. As you say, defaulting alone incurs a (pretty hefty) TN penalty in and of itself, which added on to the normal penalties pretty much limits the chances of success anyway.

I don't (usually) use that particular rule in my games.

[Sandoval Smith]

This is a situation in which the SR mechanics are very close to real life. When using automatic weapons in a narrow, enclosed space, those that shoot the firstest, with the mostest, win (allowing for the possibility of extraordinary circumstances).

[hobgoblin]

one man with a machinegun and loads of bullets can take out a army if said army cant find cover or in some other way get out of range.

[toturi]

one man with a machine gun will die if everyone in said army simply shot at him once if he doesn't find cover or in some other way get out of range.

[Kagetenshi]

Indeed. For that to work you need a chokepoint. Thermopylae, anyone?

~J

[FrostyNSO]

[Kagetenshi]

I somehow think that the other guy won't be taking much better aim after taking a bullet.

~J

[Sandoval Smith]

Or rather as we're talking about surpressive fire, after he's taken a lot of bullets.

[FrostyNSO]

Chances are he won't even feel it until it's all over. Unless that shot is instantly fatal, you're looking at either two dead or one dead and one wounded.

[Voran]

I suppose the downside to suppressive fire is that you burn clips of ammo fast. How many did they have left before they actually got to the complex? Also, even though it is not covered so much in the random encounter rules of SR, you could notably increase the number of encounter checks.

Or to teach them some restraint, have one of their next encounters use a grenade on them :) Sewers make great reflectors for grenade damage.

[Kagetenshi]

Restraint? They acted entirely appropriately for the situation.

~J

[Austere Emancipa...]

Firing a HMG in a sewer would be fun, though, apart from the noise problems that were mentioned. With that, 6 rounds might be quite sufficient for killing every motherfucker in the sewer. Those not in the same, straight corridor would get a heart attack. How and why you'd have a HMG in a sewer, I don't know, but it would be fun.

Defaulting definitely should count, though. It's certainly possible to fire dozens of rounds in a 2 x 2 meter corridor without killing any of the 6 people in it. If you've never fired guns before, some of the shots fired won't go very far into the corridor, and the rest might skip off the walls and otherwise cover the unpopulated spots of the corridor. There are still great possibilities in missing with suppressive fire IRL.

Although the defaulting modifier of +2 between a SMG and an AR when using suppressive fire indoors at rather close ranges is rather silly, but that's a problem of the fragmented firearm skills, not of suppressive fire.

[Necro Tech]

Oddly last weekend we had the whole supressive fire thing play out with 1 against 8. He was in fact using an Ares HVAR against a bunch of gangers. He was shooting over 4 meters and got 7 out of 8 before getting shot to death. 200 rnds of ammo expended. It was quite a sight.

[Edward]

Austere Emancipator mentions that some of the enemy is behind others, you don’t need to com up with any strange rules involving shooting threw previous targets to get to them (Barrier ratings of bodies), the list of modifiers to the attack roll includes the target's cover. That should be considered.

Also I would rule that you can’t injure more people than you have bullets, that would require considering the Barrier rating of the body and by the time you consider a metahumon’s mass and twice there ballistic armor (has to get out the other side) it will be a rare occurrence at best

tisoz gave this list for things that would stop an unskilled gunman from using a weapon in adverse circumstances “Charging bolts, selector switches, safeties. A little more than point and shoot.”

As far as I can see there is nothing on that list that is easier when trying to put a single round in somebody’s chest than streaming the bullets out at somebody that is behind cover, or that is harder if the weapon lacks recoil compensation.

The strange thing about suppressive fire is it needs 6 rounds, when I was watching band of brothers they used suppressive fire with bolt action rifles. Now assuming the target is only moving threw one targeted square what dose it mater how many other targeted squares there are if each on only has one round in it.

Edward

[Austere Emancipa...]

In BoB they have semi-automatic rifles, M1 Garands, as well as M1 Carbines if you wish to call the latter "rifle".

The difference is that in military engagements the whole infantry formations are doing suppressive fire, and that IRL you can squeeze off a lot more than 2 rounds with semi-automatic weapons in 3 seconds -- and you can certainly squeeze off a lot more than 10 rounds with fully automatic weapons. When even just 4 guys are all firing an 8-round clip in 3 seconds, that amounts to quite a lot of bullets occupying the targeted area. Calling 2 or 3 rounds fired in 3 seconds "suppressive fire" would be a bit misleading.

This post has been edited by Austere Emancipator: Feb 8 2005, 12:09 PM

[Crusher Bob]

Note that the US was the only power during WW2 to issue semi-automatic rifles to everyone, this tended to make US infantry formations comparatively very firepower heavy compared to the infantry of other nations.

Supressive fire supresses through psycological effect, not by how many bullets are in the area. Snipers are famous for 'supressing' large groups of soldiers with 'only 2-3 bullets'... It's the feat of being hit that supresses. If I can convince you that you will be hit while firing only a few bullets then fine, hundreds of bullets hitting 'way over there' are unlikely to supress...

[Austere Emancipa...]

The idea of being suppressed doesn't actually have a lot to do with the rules mechanics of Suppressive Fire in SR, though. In SR, suppressive fire is quite specifically about filling an area with bullets.

And while a sniper might be capable of keeping an infantry squad pinned down with only a few shots, I was under the impression that that's not actually referred to as suppressive fire in common use.

[Arethusa]

To my knowledge, it isn't. It's suppression, but that's a bit different.

Anyway, SR's suppressing fire really isn't suppressing fire, and I've never seen any satisfying mechanic for real suppressing fire in any system.

[hobgoblin]

[Method]

[tisoz]

[Austere Emancipa...]

Sorry if I wasn't being clear, but my message was actually more in reply to Fortune's message about being able to fire a HMG in a general direction even without ever being trained with one. I have fired a HMG, and was just commenting that that would be an extrordinarily fun weapon to cover a sewer corridor with.

In case you didn't notice, I already commented on your group's actions in the 3rd message of this thread, and made note of their weaponry and lack of skill to use those weapons.

[Kagetenshi]