The BBC2 has a tv show called Top Gear, aimed squarely at the auto enthusiast demographic. When they got a hold of the superb handling Lotus Exige, they wanted to put it through its paces.

So, they called up the British Army, and got them to send over an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter with one of their ace pilots, and set up the following demonstration: The Apache, restricted to the airspace above the test track, would try to get a missile lock on the Exige while the Exige tried to complete a lap on the track, performing whatever evasive driving needed to avoid the chopper.

In the words of the host of the show, Jeremy Clarkson (who was also driving):
"The best helicopter gunship in the world, flown by the best pilots in the world, the British Army, against the best handling car in the world, driven by an idiot."

(Don't read too much into the "best pilots" comment; I'm sure that the British Army would only lend them the Apache if the show threw in something like that to make the recruiters happy)

Now in the real world, the Apache would be about a mile off, popping up from behind the treeline, and not limited to the track itself, and the car would be a smoking crater. Despite that, it's still a fun video.

That was pretty amusing to watch, and definitely something to keep in mind if a GM decides to throw an attack chopper into a chase scene.

Why not the best pilots? I guess they could have used US pilots, but they have a tendency to attack the wrong targets or disregard orders

In a game term, if say the corp decide to launch an attack gunship at the players, and they get into an urban area (not unlike a rash corp to shrug off civilian damage, just to achieve a goal), it would have the same problems as it did there. The air-space is restricted, and thus it can't get into optimum lock and firing positions. However i doubt a corp gunship would sit back and not use the vision tracking assault cannon like they did in the vid.

Cool video.

I wondered the same thing about the chain gun. Apparently, the game was set up for hellfire only.

I imagine a little shrapnel would do wondrous things to those racing tires in the middle of a tight turn.

I also wondered if perhaps corp security forces have special missile warheads for use in the sprawl. Something with the standard guidance, but a block of concrete instead of an explosive charge. It would do wicked damage to a normal car, or even a lightly armored car, but would not do as much collateral damage.

pssh, put that thing against an AH-6 Loach with two pods of hydra rockets and any Specops pilot, and it's a smoking crater.

post? what post? there's no post here.

Cheap and "good enough", I figure. Not bad thinking until you factor in the price of the guidance.

~J

yeah, i understand the reduction of casualty radius and all, i'm just wondering why concrete specifically. instead of, say, copper or gravel or babies.

Denser than gravel, lighter than solid copper, and less lawsuits than babies.

I'll not that he never actually states that the helicopter failed to acheive targeting lock.

Good catch, Nick.


And yeah, if he'd wanted to, the pilot could've just hovered and used his gun, or flown a mile away and hised Longbow radar to light that sucker up.

I like the concrete rounds idea. All about limiting collateral damage, while punching round concrete sized holes in the runner's vehicles.

"There's a loud thud, and a smoking hole where the engine used to be. The car jerks as it runs over it's own, now flattened engine, and then goes skidding out of control into the nearest building."

To be fair, there will be quite a lot more than a thud and a smoking hole. The fuel of the missile will burst to flame/explode upon impact, leading to a something of a fireball -- unless it burns out the fuel soon after launch and then coasts the rest of the way in, in which case it'll have to have a pretty high velocity at first and a relatively short range.

If you pump up the velocity by a bit (like, say, 5000fps/1500mps), it gets even better. Check out the LOSAT videos on this page -- they're about 3/4s of the way down the page. I'm pretty sure most of the fireball is from the fuel of the rocket, but even the impact itself will be quite spectacular when you start talking about tens of kilos hitting metal at Mach 5+. And the collateral damage can still be quite limited compared to a HEAT warhead.

I have read similar things (not concrete though) about A10s flying missions with practice ammunition to limit collateral damage when they only expect soft targets. I imagine it is LOTS cheaper than the really sexy anti tank rounds too.

I should note that Clarkson admitted that if the Apache came "from a long way off" he'd be a smoking crater. I presume that the IDF doesn't chase Hamas leaders around the inside of a track before blowing up their cars.

But yeah, this is definitely a chaingun situation ^_^

As it has been said, the Exige wouldent be a smoking crater, but most likely swiss cheese. But it does prove that a car in open terrain could really screw with a Big Bird in tight or restricted space. Like the streets of Seattle.

Top Gear also gets shown on this side of the pond on 'Speed network'. love that show, really I do.

*whistle*
Swiss Cheese Indeed.

This is nit picking, because the vehicle would almost certainly be disabled with the first hit, but I picture... (what _do_ you call a wound channel in a vehicle?) craters? about the size of a garbage can from each shell.

The fragments would certainly travel further through the car, but that is what I picture the HE content opening up.

All it takes is one hit, and the most effective single hit will be one that takes out the driver.

From the looks of that little baby, just about the only NON crippeling shot would be taking out the passenger. Thats provided it didnt remove the framerail in the process. So note to the FBI (NSA, ect, cause we KNOW your watching), dont use these to run away from anyone with anything bigger then an annoyed goat.

Slick little car...

It's how I always imagined the Westwind 2000 looking like.

Close, but oddly the Westwind seats 4. 2+1b.
But as far as how it would look... yeah... tiny little plastic rocketship.

im guessing here but could they be using the limo term as describing a variant that was used by heads of state on official duty?

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/dict.asp?...?Word=limousine

the 1. could be applyed to allmost any car by trowing in someone to drive it and maybe a wall between the driver and the passangers.

the westwind would make a very small limo but could to the job i guess

Here's a thought. Could a smaller more manuverable drone be rack mounted on the chopper and deployed to attack targets in restricted spaces, so all the chopper would have to do is maintain communications range with the drone?

the ultimate smart weapon would be a drone, loaded with explosives, that was orderd to land onto the target vehicle and then detonate.

expensive yes, but it will not detonate until its in contact with the vehicle. and the drones dogbrain should be able to navigate obstacles to get there while a missile most often goes in the most straight line it can find.

unless you do it hellfire style, missile gets fired from cover and goes high, launchpatform pops out of cover and paints the target, missile dives. ok so its mostly straight from the time of target paint but its more like a artillery launch then a normal missile launch.

hmm, didnt they work on putting laser targeting and control fins on artillery shells? more or less a variant of a laser guided bomb

hmm, while i think about it, a rigger can ride a antiship missile, could this in theory be done with a smaller one allso?

the problem with that idea is that it's a bit slow. if the drone is actually taking the time to land on the vehicle, that gives security forces a lot of time to deal with it--shoot it down, hack it, whatever.

As per Rigger 3 naval combat rules, you can rig an actual missile. So no need for a special-built self-detonating drone. The only problem is that the canon missiles don't have Sensor ratings, so they can't be used as their own spotters (ie. in an active seeking mode) unless you tweak things a bit.

You could definitely use small, cheap, flying drones with high-rating Sensors high over the battlefield as part of a BattleTac or whatever network, and use that to fire missiles with no LOS -- Rigger 3 and Cannon Companion contain all the rules you need to make that work.

In addition to the laser-guided M712, there are plenty of artillery munitions, for howitzers and rocket launchers, which have a seeking projectile or submunitions -- for example, the M898 SADARM which has 2 submunitions using infrared and millimeter wave radar to acquire targets.

[Edit]Damn, these would look great at New Year's.[/Edit]

hmm, i poked around in rigger3 after i posted my question about missiles and riggers.

seems the reason normal missiles cant be rigged is because they should be able to travel the distance between the launcher and the target within the space of a combat round or less...

and the talk about a spotter drone for a non-LOS strike. predator anyone (as in the UAV, not the movie monster)?

They also did a similar thing with a Range Rover sport vs Challenger 2 tank.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=38...ear+range+rover

Skip about 5 minutes in if you're not that interested in the car.

Squirt.

I seriously wonder what Shadowrunners would think if they somehow got ahold of Dumpshock ("And now, I will connect my computer to the metaplanes! Hmm... Dumpshock forums?").