OK, so, I just saw the new A-team movie. First, 100% Pink Mohawk!

Second, though, there is the sequence where, when the tank they have bailed out of a c-130 in has lost two of its 3 chutes,
they use the recoil from the cannon to "steer" it so they will land in a lake, and then use the recoil from firing repeatedly
to slow the fall down even more.

While I know this likely makes physics curl up into a fetal position and cry, I am wondering:
1) Jason, if you read this, are we going to see rules for "flying a tank" in War! ?
2) If not, how would other people handle the rolls for doing such a feat if it were to happen in their game?
(Please! No saying "They burn a point of permanent edge." I want there to be honest to goodness rolls and
skills involved, so that a viewing Corp Baddy can be "What the hell are those madmen doing?")

Flying tanks? Isn't that what T-birds are for?

If the tank recoil could slow the fall that mean the tank recoil when firing on the ground is supposed to send the tank flying.

If my players try something like that in any of my games they will go "SPLAT!!", simply and quickly "SPLAT!!".

Well there would need to be a high gunnery skill in there. After that I have no clue; for the sheer mohawk of it I would cobble something together. And although it wouldn't slow it terribly much you could technically steer the tank with the recoil. Even with the recoil comps they still move quite a bit.

The only difference that I can think of is that the friction and mass centered on the ground would absorb the shockwave. Firing it while airborne would affect it's momentum as there is no ground to absorb the shockwave.

Still - *SPLAT* is about right regardless as they would basically have to get about 60-80 TONNES of metal to STOP before it hits the ground.

Just mod the tank for lighter-than-air. Crunchy armored blimp ftw.

flying fox gliding system, arsenal p136. Only problem is that it tops out at body 12 vehicles, tho i guess a GM could allow a custom, single use variant for anything tank like.

Maybe my definition of "Pink Mohawk" is different, but I think the movie as a whole is anything but (with the exception of the tank flying scene of course). They use disguises, precision, timing, skill, and planning to pull off all of their capers. To me, that is the opposite of Pink Mohawk.

*shrug* I might be alone in that regard.

If the players end up inside a falling tank after the cargo plane they're in gets shot down you'd just say "Okay you're all dead, roll up new characters!"?

That would suck. If you let the tank shenanigans happen (assuming here that it wasn't stolen from a movie) your players would be telling that story for decades and laughing every time they did.

I think sometimes we lose perspective on why we play these games and what is "acceptable" while fantasizing. But of course, to each their own. What works on one table gets groaned down at another table.

SR have always had a hand of god mechanic for just such situations.

They did not try to make the tank stop. They used the recoil to direct it over a lake, and then used the recoil to bleed off enough velocity that the tank would not flip when hitting the lake, nor imbed itself in the lake bottom.



Yes, your definition of Pink Mohawk is different. Pink Mohawk is over the top. If it involves doing something utterly rediculous, like flying a tank, doing a shell game with cargo containers, or
even the bagdhad truck heist? Sure, there is planning and timing involved, but, that is not what makes something pink mohawk. Timing a break through a wall into an mental health ward so that
it coincides with when the 3d Movie vehicle would drive through the wall? That is pink mohawk! Pink Mohawk is as much about the theatrics as it is anything else.

Steer: maybe. But only a small amount. You'd have to be over the lake already, and even then you'd probably still clip the small boat that was directly under you at the time (so instead of killing everyone on board you instead only sink their craft).

Slow down: almost certainly not. The recoil isn't enough force, or sustained enough to make a noticeable difference (I doubt you could fire the tank cannon full auto). The terminal velocity of a tank is quite fast. The mass of a tank is also fairly large. The muzzle velocity and mass of a cannon round compared to the tank is on the order of throwing golf balls while careening down a hill on a bike in a (futile) attempt to slow down.

also, that boat below you that you were trying not to land on would first get shot by a fully automatic tank main gun, and *then* have a (marginally slower) 60 ton tank smash into it. on the plus side, by the time you hit the water, there probably wouldn't be much of a boat left to hit, so you would achieve your objective of 'not landing on top of the boat'.

I say send the matter over to MythBusters and see if they'll do it.

Which would be awesome.

Well they did have 1 chute left so I don't think they were in full free fall. They were falling faster than they would like and they wanted to slow themselves down a bit. Possible probably not, but movie/game fun possible I say yes.

I'd see it as a teamwork test in the moive.

Hannibal gave off aiming coordinates. He used lets call it a tactics skill. Every hit on the test gave 1 extra die for the gunnery test.

The number of successes would work like a gymnastics test to reduce damage from a fall. I'd either magnify there hits by a number to represent the chute or just reduce the base damage due to the chute.

Edit to add: I loved the movie. It was awesome on so many levels and I liked how they made a nostalgia movie without dumbing it up like they did with the dukes of hazard and some other movies.

Falling with a partial chute is freefall. It's just a slower freefall due to the resistance the chute provides.

Mind, you're talking 2/3rds of the chute missing (that is, two of three smaller chutes gone), which assuming that it didn't just break from the force being applied to it, firing your gun downwards still won't make a damn difference.

I am unsure of the difference in they weren't in full freefall, and they were in freefall but slower.

Still while all 3 chutes is what is needed to make a regular safe landing, the 1 big chute would likely if it did not snap off be a decent clip slower than a full free-fall. If anyone has studies they want to pull up on this I'd like to see them. Like how much of the other 2 chutes is for slowing the fall and how much is for stabilization so the tank lands on its treads? Sure with one chute I suspect this will still be going way to fast to survive, like how tandem jumpers need more of a chute than a solo jumper if you wont a nice safe landing.

But
1. They did have 1 chute and it was the large primary chute.
2. It was a water landing.
3. Even if they only shaved a few MPH off there decent with the shooting it was still a few MPH.


Again possible in real life, probably not. But it is cool and awesome for movie/game realities.

I don't think that kind of drop is done in real life at all (I know they did it with Jeeps in a limited fashion, but nothing much bigger). When they have to deploy tanks out of C-130's without landing they skim the ground VERY close and let the chutes pull the tank and pallet out of the back. It never actually falls that far, it just skids on the ground.

Light vehicles will airdrop as in the movie, but not tanks. They attempted a high-altitude airdrop with a drag chute.

I've noticed one other case in which a tank was airdropped, and that was in a Mack Bolan novel. take that as you will.

I did find this while verifying the airdrops. I want one.

Right, and when they do tanks I'm pretty sure they get down to just a few feet of altitude. Less than 10 feet I believe although I'm no Loadmaster so I wouldn't presume to speak with specifics.

Typically the -130 will actually touch down with the back end and the tank'll slide out, chutes will deploy, and it lifts back off. They don't stay that low that long, for obvious reasons.

Edit: Interesting. Apparently the Russians do have an airdroppable APC - by using a chute/rocket combination. They put a retro on the pallet that fires when the primer rods touch ground, and it bleeds off more than enough speed to make a gentle touchdown for the vehcile.

The 15-ton M551 Sheridan has been airdropped once in combat (although two of the ten didn't survive the landing).

The Abrams—at least I think it was an Abrams in A-Team—is four times the weight.

I notice both the Russian and U.S. versions of airdroppable tanks have since been retired, more or less.

Sure, but those air drops were probably of the low altitude variety that Doc and I are discussing. Even though they happen at a very low altitude they are still called "air drops".

If it was an Abrams in the movie, it shouldn't have been. An Abrams won't fit in a -130.

Simply becasue of the total awesomeness of the move I would allow it in my game. Then again my game is all about over the top shenanigans.

Also, I loved the movie. I think it is a worthy successor to a great show.

I stand corrected. Here is a video of a C5 dropping 4 Sheridans from high altitude:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibPtRAkmkk8

Still, there's been no tank since then that has been dropped using that method and I think it's safe to assume that the Sheridan was the heaviest tank capable of this kind of deployment. At least in 2010.

However, it makes the "what ifs" more viable.

In real life dropping an Abrams from a C-130 wouldn't work for a simple reason: The C-130 has a cargo capacity somewhere around 20t, an Abrams weights three times as much. Even the Stryker is a really tight fit.

I don't think it was an Abrams. There was only one top hatch, the Abrams has two.



-karma

As far as I can determine, the M551 was capable of both, Low-Altitude Parachute Extraction (LAPE), and Low Velocity Airdrop Delivery System (LVADS). LAPE is the the vehicle being pulled out of the back while skimming the ground. In LVADS the vehicle actually parachutes down from altitude. The minimum altitude is 500-feet to allow the parachutes time to slow descent, but it can be a higher drop.

EDIT: I really need to compose my responses faster, see the video above.

I grabbed some screenshots from the trailer.

Definately not an Abrams.




-karma

I wouldn't expect players to try and save the tank.
I'd expect them to rig themselves to the remaining chute and cut the tank free.

Right, the that is an airmobile fighting vehicle...forgot the name, but if memory serves it was part of some failed programme to replace the Sheridan


PS: Note that "airmobile" does not equal "air drop", although dropping a vehicle in the 20 ton range should be feasible.

Having just watched the movie, I'm sitting here wondering when they'll use models to try this on Mythbusters.

My error on the tank ID from the film.

It was a digital model of the never-deployed M8 Armored Gun System.

Apparently the M8 would have come in two versions, the light armor version would have been fully air-drop capable, as shown in the film (discounting the steering by gun of course).

Source: A-Team's Tank-Dropping VFX: Gallery

Hate to burst your bubble but Terminal Velocity for a tank is no different than the terminal velocity of a bowling ball.

Objects in freefall are equally affected by gravity. I remember an experiment in High School. We dropped a rubber ball and a bowling ball off the roof of the building. Despite there being several pounds difference (not to mention the difference in mass), they both fell at the same speed and hit the ground at the same time.

So long as they have the same coefficient of drag, sure, they fall at the same rate.
However the force produced by gravity on the heavier object will be considerably more in relation to the drag forces.

*Facepalm*

Terminal Velocity
In fluid dynamics an object is moving at its terminal velocity if its speed is constant due to the restraining force exerted by the air, water or other fluid through which it is moving.

A free-falling object achieves its terminal velocity when the downward force of gravity (Fg) equals the upward force of drag (Fd). This causes the net force on the object to be zero, resulting in an acceleration of zero.

"The more compact and dense the object, the higher its terminal velocity will be. Typical examples are the following: raindrop, 25 ft/s, human being, 250 ft/s." Soure: Bueche, Fredrick. Principles of Physics. New York: McGraw Hill, 1977: 64.

Terminal velocity of a car?
Assuming atmospheric conditions density of air being 0.0765 pounds/cu. ft. and assuming the car weighs 4000 lbs with dimensions of 6'x15'x5', with a drag coefficient of approximately 0.2...

The terminal velocity of a car under these conditions would be about 52 mph. This is assuming it's falling flat. If the car was falling pointing down, the terminal velocity would be something more like 90mph. Obviously this answer will vary by changing the assumptions.



If you are traveling at terminal velocity and slow your decent by 1 foot per second and can do this once every 3 seconds you're making no progress, as every second you speed back up 32 feet per second up to a maximum of your terminal velocity. So. Using the above numbers for the falling rate of a human...

1: 250
2: 249 //slow your decent
3: 250 //accelerate due to gravity
4: 250
5: 249 //slow your decent
6: 250 //accelerate due to gravity
7: 250

You would need to supply constant force that exceeds that of gravity (32 feet per second per second) otherwise you're doing nothing.

It might have made more sense if the cannon fire was to keep the tank stabilized to avoid having it upend. Falling flat would cause significantly more drag.... Either way, it seems highly impractical.

Did you moonlight as a writer on Numb3rs?

You forget one important part of the SPLAT element :

The actual people into the Tank will go SPLAT against him as soon as it hit the ground. The impact velocity will definitely not be slow enough for them to survive the concussion. And I doubt tanks have anti-concussion sittings and rollcages.

And if my players are stupids enough to try to survive a plane crash by jumping in a tank they deserve to die.

Heck, the TRUE A-Team would have disengaged the Drag-chute from the tank and build an ULM from it before jumping off (taking the time to drug Mr T. before hand of course). THAT would have been Purple Mohawk.

I never let my players go into a situation where certain death is a solution without providing a decent way out of it. If the player try something really stupid and insist on doing so they deserve to die, not to be saved so they can try something even more stupid next time and campaign is ruined because it become a stupid series of silly stunt...

Mr. T is a few steps above 'actual people'.

As was stated earlier.

If your campaign is clearly headed toward Pink Mohawk, you can either roll with it or be a wet blanket.

So either the characters are just dead, GM is grumpy for the campaign de-railing, and players are annoyed.

OR

You have an epic crazy evening that will be talked about for years.

Evaluating the wants and needs of your players is as much a part of being a GM as plotting and running the adventure.





-karma

Followed the link you provided and found a "blooper" reel in the suggested vid links. I suppose it could give some ideas on the results of glitches for this insanity perhaps?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DopZgJaWstk

heh, the jeep or whatever that ends up hitting the ground rolling could be seen as a tactic rather then a blooper (if one can find someone crazy enough to ride it with the motor running).

and my sympathies to the soldiers having close encounters with trees and vehicles, and to those that "volunteered" to clean up after it all.

Unlikely. They'd also take a couple G's from hitting the ground too and be pretty shaken up (not injured, just rattled).

like i wrote, crazy enough

No Dice roll required, just pizza for the GM.

I saw the movie. It was great fun.
People are 1) Trying to get a bit too scientific with it and 2) Aren't factoring in everything.

Bottom line, if your C130 blows up around you, you're dead. Sure. Hiding in a moble gun isn't going to change that. The explosion that took out the plane 10 times that size would pretty much kill you too.

But where's the fun in that?

So the gun falls and deploys it's 3 chutes. Slows down to 'safe' decent speed. Face pops the hatch and gets on the .50 and takes out a UAV. Said UAV blows up and slices the cables holding two of your 3 chutes.

So you're descending again. But here's something many are missing. You've still got one chute. So you're not falling as fast as you could be. You're hanging pendulum style from the last chute.

The gun is pivoted to the left and fired. Falling though the air, the recoil of the shell is not mitigated by the gun being on the ground and set on it's tracks with it's weight acting as downward force. So yes the Recoil would move it.

How much? I've no clue. But a bit. It's basically dangling at the end of a cord that's hooked up to the chute reducing the downward force on the gun.

Looking though the targeting scope, the lake was pretty much under them the entire way down. After a few shots to 'move um over a bit' they turned the turrent forward. They fired.

The thing didn't "Stop" in the air. But it 'kicked' You'd see the chute's inflation billow a bit before the tank again sped up.

They're shooting straight down into the lake. boom boom boom. The shells DO hit the lake before the tank. Why is this important you ask? It breaks the surface tension of the lake itself to let the hydrodynamics and physics of the water differ.

Short version. falling from height into calm water is worse than earth, earth can compact (( how ever minimally)) Water will not. Disturb the surface of the water and you can enter the water and use it to slow and ease your fall.

So. Tank is falling at less than 'safe' falling speed, not terminal velocity. The chute is applying drag, jsut not as much as 'three' chutes. The physics of the way chutes work though, doesn't mean you're getting 1/3rd the effect. Once you have a chute, adding more chute isn't a 1:1 ratio of slowing your fall. I don't have the math in front of me (( nor will I look it up and crunch numbers for an "Ateam" Maneuver)) but we can guess around 'half' the drag of the three chutes.

So she's going slower than she could be. Falling into disturbed water, that will also lesson the impact.

Does this mean that the people will live and roll out askng the way to Berlin?

Probably not.

But in my game? I'd totally allow it. Fun>Physics most of the time. It was a 'workable' plan. It was good thinking and it was ____FUN____

Best part of that entire movie. lol

On a note about the rolling out and asking directions. Unless that tank(and I don't know of any) was built for it going underwater means it aint going anywhere. But it was an awesome scene so I'd roll with it.