http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...ideoid=47982367


There has to be a way to pull this off as a weapon.

anyone have any background information on this ridiculously stupid activity?

I'd feel safer doing a bull run.

troll+sledgehammer+foam explosives vs military armor in close combat

or maybe a dwarf?
http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-01-77-5-49-e...-1-70-2obl.html

really a better way would be to just fit a 10ga break-action shotgun mechanism onto the end of a long handle, then have the trigger fire on contact pressure over 20lb.

simple, reliable, re-loadable.

any poser with a katana will still pwn you though.

Off the top of my head? Take a look at the rules for shaped charges, then explosives + push detonator.

You'd be better off explaining it to the GM like this:

(Time to bust out my Mad Weapon's Designer Cap)

Sledgehammer, hollowed at one end into a short, wide barrel. Edges of the striking end have a built-in push-detonator. Handle contains a store of liquid explosives, which are squirted into the hammerhead and detonated on impact. Similar to a fuel-injection engine, kind of.

You'd have to make sure the head was made of a durable/thick enough substance that it could survive the explosion, in addition, since the explosion occurs inside the hammer, chunky salsa rules may magnify the force of the blast coming out the business end of your new boomstick. Recoil would probably be horrific, but since melee attacks are a complex action, this would only come up if you use multiple IP's to swing it more than once in a turn.

Congratulations, you now have a man(troll)-portable pile driver. Will be back with calculations.

OK, here's how I'd stat it:

Steel Sledgehammer + Underbarrel Weapon (Atomizer) + Smartgun System + Pilot Upgrade + Push Detonator

Technically, the atomizer is built into the weapon, rather than under it, but it's close enough to model the cost and difficulty of the mod. The smartgun w/ pilot upgrade makes the atomizer function as a drone, which you program to hold it's action and release a single spray of liquid explosives into the head of the sledge upon contact, using the smartgun's rangefinder. The push detonator is set to activate with the pressure of a combat strike, detonating the .5 kg of liquid explosives as the hammer presses against the target.

Now, there seem to be three ways to interpret the effects here:

1) Call it a shaped charge, which there are no rules for actually making

2) Apply the chunky salsa rules, which don't account for blasts rebounding in a space of less that 1 meter (By the raw, you'd effectively have an infinitely building DV, until it got high enough to blow the thing apart)

3) Use the tamping rules, which specifically state they don't apply to people or vehicals

I suppose the most sane route is just to call it a shaped charge, which according to the BBB affects "up to 60 degrees in a specific direction" and has a blast value of -1 per meter. You could also consider it tamped if hitting a barrier with the boomsledge.

I'm guessing the armor rating of steel would be the same as listed for a metal beam: 16 If not, adjust the material or the rating of the explosives accordingly.

The square root of .5 is, let's say .7, x 12 for rating 12 liquid explosives = DV 8 (rounding down as normal)

Explosives placed directly against a target halve armor, so this is the highest rating explosive you could use without damaging your armor 16 hammer head.

The result is a sledgehammer that releases a DV 8, AP 1/2 directional explosion into the target on impact, in addition to the damage for taking a sledgehammer to the dome.

More durable sledge materials would allow you to use more powerful explosives, but in any case if your target had more armor than your hammer, it would effectively tamp the explosion the other way and blow the hammer to pieces--probably doing some nifty harm to you in the process.

Those were just firecrackers, kid's toys. They aren't real explosives; you have to be holding one fairly close to your head or torso to get killed by it. It's just the kind of stuff that you lose a hand or two playing with when you're young.

Anyway, the firecracker is just a cardboard tube filled with a low explosive primary that can be detonated with impact, probably potassium chlorate. And while the damage from close-range potassium chlorate deflagration is nothing to sneeze at, being hit in the head with a sledge hammer is usually lethal all by itself.

Using this detonation method with a secondary explosive, particularly a high explosive secondary, is well beyond so insane it just might work and right up into the land of so insane it is stupid.

But, to paraphrase O.J. Simpson, if I did it this is how I'd do it: just duct tape some C4 on there right beside the firecracker - the deflagration of the potassium chlorate would set off the secondary explosive. This will probably turn the hammer head and shaft into separate deadly projectiles and is likely to kill you, but unlike the other solutions it will actually work.

Don't even bother with liquid explosives. Any liquid that is unstable enough to reliably detonate in such a setup is unstable enough to explode and kill you long before you enter combat and a failure to detonate on cue will make things even more dangerous for you because you'll have liquid explosives splashing around everywhere. That ain't good.

Putting a cavity in the hammerhead and filling it with explosives will to one of two things, either turn the hammer into a rocket, which will probably hurt you but might not kill you and turn the hammerhead into a fragmentation grenade which probably will kill you. Neither outcome is desirable. And using a compression switch in a hammer is just a little too dangerous, due to the risk of accidental detonation.

I do hate it when people try to apply real-world physics to a fragging RPG...

...especially when they're doing it to shoot down one of my insane weapon designs.

Would it work in real life?

No fragging way.

Would it work in shadowrun?

The mechanics are pretty sound, though you'd need to pass it by your GM.

In SR4, liquid explosives are as stable as any other plastic explosive in SR4, (which is to say very) and failure to detonate on que or detonating accidentally only happens on a glitch. People use monowhips in SR4, so why not boomsledges?

Bloody silly really. Alright if you're into pink mohawk style play. I'd still impose a higher than normal probability for a glitch and/or possibly fatal consequences for a glitch, rather like the monowhip imposing increased damage on a glitch. It sounds rather like the kind of thing a friend of mine did IC when he played SLA. 'nuff said.

In other news... Where did that kid's sledge go? He sure ain't holding it afterwards!

Add that most modern explosives (plastique, foam explosives, etc) require a detonation via a specific blasting cap and the idea really goes down the tubes.

You can't set off C4 with a frickin' firecracker, fer chrisakes!

kinda reminds me of the power/super-sledge from Fallout Fame . .
and something like this is being used by SWAT teams to bust open doors, but the boom is in the tip of a metal door ram

I love potassium chlorate. Back when I was in a summer academic program there was an amazing chemistry teacher, Mr. Kilner, who was a real kind, hands-on kind of guy who loved the subject. In one of his labs we created potassium chlorate and lit it up with some sulfuric acid. It was extremely empowering and cool to watch something you created yourself go up in purple flame like that.

Not if you dikote it!!!

I suspect this is one of those weapons that requires either you have cyberarms, or that you're a troll (although the image of a dwarf hanging onto the handle of a hammer rocket is rather amusing).

Yes you can. They're called Sympathetic Detonations ,and are detailed in Arsenal.

Sympathetic detonation, sure, but a 'firecracker' doesn't have the impulse required to cause a sympathetic detonation with C4. Maybe some other type of plastic explosive, but not C4. It's extremely stable.

If you want to classify some kind of home-made explosive with a higher impulse than a chinatown popper as a firecracker, then maybe you're talking. But a standard silver nitrate and paper object isn't gonna do it.

Hmm. Couldn´t one use a shaft-mounted pressure ram with very little explosives, and a light projectile, timed to hit the target when the tension from the hammerhead hit in the targets armor is at it´s max?

If you're hitting something with a primary explosive in the first place you should be shot. Actually, don't bother with that, you'll be dead the instant something hit's your back up supply.

And as said, if you're using a secondary explosive, then you're hitting something with a frag on a stick.

could one not simply use those explosives to drive a projectile of about the size of a bolt into the target?
oh, wait . .

Have a modified sledge hammer with a piston (Sharpened or blunt) in it and explosive charges packed behind the piston. When the head of the hammer (With the pistol) strikes something, the piston is driven back, compacts the explosives and detonates them. The piston is then shot forward into the target. Crushing damage plus piercing damage. You could have either a piston with a hollow bottom and an opening to pour in gun-powder and keep using the same piston or have pre-packaged one-use piston charges

I'd hold that in the same category as monofillament bolas, brutally effective but you'd have to be off your f***king rail to try and use it.

Hmm. Maybe there is a place for it in the game after all...