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Shockwave_IIc
Ok various random synapses have fired in my brain, and random thoughts have been birthed.......

Ok, On this first one its about riggers and rigger combat.

Could It be possible for a Pilot/Gunner of an attack Helicopter with a mini gun to shoot down incoming missiles? Assuming of cause the Helicopter detected them and had time.

Next one.
If someone was to use a data filter on a mission, would they still be able to learn?
Ol' Scratch
QUOTE (Shockwave_IIc)
If someone was to use a data filter on a mission, would they still be able to learn?

Sure. They'll just effectively have amnesia as to how they learned it if it was for an extended period of time.
Fix-it
QUOTE (Shockwave_IIc)

Could It be possible for a Pilot/Gunner of an attack Helicopter with a mini gun to shoot down incoming missiles? Assuming of cause the Helicopter detected them and had time.

I would say no, a computerized targeting system would be needed to shoot down something as fast as a rocket or missle. and the missle won't necessarily not do damage to the aircraft when it explodes, depends on distance, warhead type (HE, flak, or AP?) and what is being used to shoot it down. (Minigun, LMG/MMG/HMG, lasers, or a shotgun-type spread.
BishopMcQ
In a cursory scan of the rules I didn't see any reason that a person who detected the missile could not target them in an attempt to shoot them down. There, of course, are several questions that get raised by this possibility--how fast is the missile moving, is it armored, what is the body, etc.

I will hand the floor over to someone with experience with missiles and point defense systems...
BishopMcQ
Fix-It--I understand that a computer is the only thing that could target a missile reliably but what about using sensor-augmented gunnery? Or manual gunnery has modifiers for shooting fast-moving objects...This of course has the problem that missiles don't travel a fixed distance each combat turn, they simply cover the necessary distance which means the missile will either travel very fast or very slow because of the abstracted rules set...
Conskill
The chances of a man manually shooting a missile out of the sky are absolutely tiny, and probably impossible if he's trying to "snipe" it.

That said, I see nothing wrong with letting him try. If he rolls impressively enough, rule that the hail of gunfire he sprays into the sky gets lucky.
Edward
The difficulty becomes what stats dose the missile have. The navel weapons rules in R3 have flight speeds for long range missiles I think I even recall seeing a ship based point defence weapon in R3 but I could be wrong.

Edward
lacemaker
I think we discussed the datafilter and its effects on memory in another thread recently - the conclusion was that it would have a momento style effect- you'd remember individual events as they happened, but because there would be no uptake into long term memory you would always be operating from a limited window of recall. Certainly you wouln't be able to retain any skills you learned, and there should probably be a karma penalty - maybe the reverse of the mnemonic enhancer bonus.
Shockwave_IIc
@Lacemaker,
thats kinda the way i understood it as well, you lose the benefit of learn through repeation because, everytime you do something it will be like the first time you ever did it. (well maybe not the first but you get the idea.

@Conskill,
You really think i rigger with all the mods and what not (what ever it is they do)would be able to get a minigun to shoot down an incoming missil if given enough time?

Conskill
I think it's entirely possible for them to throw a lot of munitions in its projected flight path (which they should have, if they've detected it in time in the first place) and get very, very lucky.

Generally speaking, I don't like ruling anything is absolutely impossible unless it is physically impossible, but I have no problem with giving it a TN that God would wince at.
Austere Emancipator
A quick note, I'll get back to this when I get back from the Univ in about 2 hours.

First, most non-naval missiles in SR travel at 1,000 meters per CT and arrive at the end of the Combat Turn in which they were fired (cc.102, Missile Timing). Making a Sensor Test to lock on to the missile is a Complex Action, so the rigger needs at least 2 phases between the missile being launched and it hitting to have any chance of shooting it down.

The missile will have an insane Maneuver Score, is extremely small (from the target's PoV) and moves extremely fast, which amounts to at least +7 TN on a Manual Gunnery test against it even though it's coming right at you, and personally I'd tack on a few more modifiers just because.
BishopMcQ
Austere--thanks for the speed, that was one thing I thought I had seen but couldn't find anywhere. Because of the massive speed difference between the two objects, you could rule that the helicopter from the above example is effectively standing still, then you would divide the speed by 30 and get a direct add to the TN.

I think most people would agree that a +32 would be a fair statement. (33 -1 for incoming) Most normal people won't have a snowball's chance, but if you are that lucky, you deserve to have saved the day in my opinion.
Crusher Bob
Assuming that the missile isn't doing evasive manuvering and you are shooting at a missile targeted at you (as opposed to shooting a missile that is crossing) then the math of getting some projectiles in the path of the missile is not too hard. The problems really lie in detection speed and accuracy, computational speed, the speed of your weapons system (how fast can your turret make corrections, how fast does it start shooting after you pull the trigger), and the ability of your weapon to actually destroy the missile.

7.62 NATO is probably the lower limit on weapons systems I'd expect to bring down a missile (9S or so in SR). Especially since you want the missile to be hit far away, even downing the missile at a few hundred yards can still cause light damage to the target, especially when the missile payload is large. (We are talking about large anti ship and anti building missiles, rather than the much smaller anti-tank missiles.)

Assuming a missile target at the helicopter and not crosssing, and assuming no anti-missile software/hardware in the system the TN should be around 20 + with slight reductions for a large number of rounds fired. (Say -1 for every 3 rounds?). Having a good targeting lock on the missile (i.e. you've been tracking it on the way in should reduce this TN by around another 6+ points (maybe 2x the sensor rating?). Having a computer controlled weapon system (rather than 'manual' control) will give you a few points, etc.

So a guy shooting at a missile with his assualt rifle might have a TN of 22? while a dedicated, computer controlled anti missile system with a good sensor lock might only be looking for TN 6?.

Note that the missile speed, flight path, target, evasive manuvers, etc will effect this.

[edit]
Sample missile flight speeds:
Short Range AAM (Sidewinder) ~ Mach 2
Medium Range AAM (AMRAAM) AAM ~ Mach 4
LongRange AAM (Phoenix) ~ Mach 5
High Speed Anti Ship missile (AS-6, etc) ~ Mach 2
Most Anti-Ship Missiles (Exocet, etc) ~ Mach 1
Low Speed Anti-Ship Missle/Land Attack Cruise Missle (Harpoon, Tomahawk, etc) ~ Mach .8
Anti-Tank Missile ~ Mach .75 to Mach 1.3
The ground and helicopter launched ATGMs tend to be slower, with the ones launched from aircraft tend to be faster.
ICBM re-entry vehicle (nuke) ~ Mach 15+
Short and medium range ballistic missile (SCUD, etc) ~ Mach 4+
ABM (anti ballistic missile) ~ Mach 6++
[/edit]
Edward
The throwing les in the missiles flight path got me thinking about the similar strategy of throwing lead in a meta human’s projected path known as suppressive fire.

If you allow this to ride you find that the missile has no combat pool and thus can’t make a dodge test making hitting it almost trivial.

Perhaps this is not the rules we should be using for shooting down missiles.

Edward
Austere Emancipator
The missiles I was mainly talking about above were ATGMs (which includes "Anti-Vehicular Missiles"), which are the only types of slow missiles likely to be fired at helos. As far as SR is concerned, these can be shot down with just about any weapon, they should probably have a BOD of 1.

With Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery, swatting down any slow-moving missiles becomes a trivial exercise. The only problem is the requirement of two Complex Actions per missile -- one to lock on, one to fire. A missile is not going to have a particularly good Signature because of the flame, and they have no ECM systems at all. The TN to notice, lock on and hit the missile will likely be ~2-4.

Using these rules to shoot down missiles, in order to effectively engage any vehicle capable of point defense with missiles, you'll have to fire (Amount of Complex Action for the Target Before Missiles Hits)/2 + 1 missiles. If the target has an init of 25, you are firing missiles with a Speed of 1000 in the first phase of a CT at init 26 and the range to the target is 1500 meters, you'll need to fire 4 missiles at the same time. Also note that this makes firing non-NWCN-controlled missiles at NWCN-equipped ships completely pointless, because a large ship with a NWCN network and several point-defense weapons can shoot down a couple of dozen missiles per CT starting several kilometers away from the ship.

Interestingly enough, any jet fighter or thunderbird in SR can outrun any missile without trouble. No missile in the game moves faster than 1100m/CT (Javelot long-range SAM). This makes no fucking sense at all -- feel free to increase the speed of all SAMs/AAMs to 5000m/CT or more.
Crusher Bob
Yes, 'mathematically' shooting a predictable path projectile is pretty simple. It's being able to hit the 'window' in time thats the difficult part.

[edit]
The back of the napkin says that the speed of sound is around 1000 M/Combat turn.

This means that (using my above numbers) AAM should go from 2000M/Ct to around 5000M/CT (assuming todays missiles).

And yes the tactics of turning away from the missile and running (called 'dragging') to reduce the missiles chance of interception is a popular missile defense. The top speed of the missile is not necessiarily as important as is powered envelope.

SAMs, even though they are launched from a stationary starting point (they don't get the airplanes vector as a bonus, are effective because they tend to be a whle lot bigger than plane carreid AAMS. Just sticking an AAM on a ground launcher will lower its effetive range by 2/3rds or more.
[/edit]
Austere Emancipator
Yeah. And if a player says they should be able to use Suppressive Fire against a missile, just ask them to tell you exactly which meters of air his character is shooting at. Give him 3 seconds, tops, to figure it out. If, by a massive stroke of luck, he actually guesses a spot which the missile would really occupy by the time the bullets get there, you can just tell him the missile takes on a new AoA/the wind changes slightly/air pressure messes with his aim/any other crap and he missed completely.
Crusher Bob
As for missiles and ECM, the new generation of missiles effectively has ECCM, the AMRAAM and AA-12 both have 'home on jam' guidance modes, and later generation IR missiles have all sorts of logic tricks to avoid being distracted by flares.
Austere Emancipator
Yup, ECCM is common in the newest active-mode capable missiles, but I don't know of any RL missiles with ECM. Either it's a cost issue, or they rather have faster and smaller missiles with not ECM than slightly larger and slower missiles with ECM.
Crusher Bob
Since only ships these days have active defenses (more or less), it's much cheaper to change the flight profile of the missile (sea skimming) and slightly stealth the missile body than it is to add ECM gear.

With sea skimming missiles, you run into issues involving the radar horizon, so if you make a very fast sea skimming missile, then you can hopefully hit your target before he can do to much about it.

Even the current best in seaborne SAM/Radar systems (AEGIS) can't use an airborne radar for actual missile targeting (IIRC the SM-1 inteceptors used are semi-active)...

Oh wait, that was earlier versions of the SM-1, the later verions have radar or IR terminal guidance.

But the flight path statement still applies. smile.gif
DarkShade
do a search on a system called goalkeeper , check its stats.. that is the least you need to reliably shoot down missiles with flying lead.
for someone shooting at a missile, it would depend on a lot of things, it is hard in any case to target it, then swivel your gun in time and actually hit the tn <way up there tn> even then I would only give a chance to weapons firing full auto..

DS
Kagetenshi
Shadowrun turrets swivel pretty fast, as in the hands of a capable Rigger they can target up to four widely spaced targets a combat turn, more if you count walking FA fire.

~J
Austere Emancipator
Only with Manual Gunnery, though. Strictly by canon, you need to take the Complex Action to lock on to anything you use Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery against. But yeah, SR turrets don't really take any time to swivel around 180 degrees.
Kagetenshi
The extra time for Sensor-Enhanced Gunnery is taken up getting a Sensor Lock, so the turret can still swivel that quickly. It just doesn't actually fire that quickly.

~J
The Jopp
Nothing is impossible in my book but to MANUALLY take down an incoming missile with sheer eye-hand coordination is impossible, perhaps, with a bit of luck from some deity you might succeed.

Sensorenhanced gunnery might have a chance, but, as someone stated above it takes time.

In order to get an equivalent of the "Goalkeeper" system you would need the following,

secondary sensor (independent radar) and call it something like Missile Defense or something and a connected pilot program (fire control computer). This would need some acceptance from the GM but I wouldn't see a problem since the system would roll an average of 3D6 as their skill to take down a missile.
KarmaInferno
The original poster specified a minigun.

Surely with enough lead in the air you'd at least have a slim chance of saving your bacon?


-karma
Austere Emancipator
Because of the humongous amounts of ass sucked by SR miniguns, assuming 3 actions per CT and going FA on each, that's a cyclic RoF of 900rpm sustained for 3 seconds (45 rounds fired). That's about the same as a 3-second burst with a RL M249 SAW or similar LMG. That increases the lead density along the flight path of a missile by about 0.07%.
KarmaInferno
So it's a deficiency in the SR rules, not in miniguns.

biggrin.gif


-karma
DrJest
I think the issue here is how "manual" is manual gunnery when used by a rigger?

I'm really just ravelling a thread here, since I don't know a whole lot about riggers, but... When they're jacked in, a riggers senses are actually the sensors of the vehicle; actions take place at the speed of thought, and attacking is like pointing a finger. This, as I understand it, is the point of rigging. So if the vehicle's sensors pick up the missile at a distance, the rigger tracks it perceptually through those sensors, and shoots it down by "pointing his finger" at it.

Or am I misunderstanding the rigger phenomenon?
Kagetenshi
That’s accurate. The difference is that sensor-enhanced gunnery helps in tracking the target and adds precision to the aiming.

~J
lorthazar
Hell, a better idea would be FA shotguns with linked with a chaff, thermal smoke and flare dispenser.

Drop the chaff, breaking radar lock on, drop thermal smoke grenade to mess up the thermo sig of the area, then the flare. In a lot of cases this will fool the missile for only a short time, but if you have a dedicated systems targeting with a FA shotgun you can but enough 00 buckshot in the air to make life very short for the missile.

Not as elegant as a laser of minigun, but if you wanna live it'll work.
Crusher Bob
And then you get the missile to go off within 30 yards or you, since the warhead was several hundred kilograms of explosives and there may be some unburnt fuel to add to the party, you are still in a world of hurt. You want the missile to blow up far away, shotguns do not reach far away....

A plane launched ATGM is likely to have a warhead in the 40-60 KG range. An ATGM launched from a chopper is likely to have a warheat in the 10-35 KG range. A very big ASM is likely to have a warhead in the 1 ton range (200-400 KG is more normal), anything that big you want going off at least 200 meters away...
Kagetenshi
I didn't know people launched ATGMs from motorbikes nyahnyah.gif

~J
Edward
What about a spirit with the accident power.

Should have engulf time to accident the incoming missile. But the mechanics for accident are wishy washy at best.

Or targeting it with a spell could you do it with fire bolt or would you need fire ball, what about power bolt/ball and what force would you need.

Edward
Shockwave_IIc
Ok I knew that would be difficult.

Basically i what the effect of (In realtion to the Helicopter crew) "Wow they are really that good" as opposed to "Fuck me, you can't do that"

ie. A Tn that is believable but difficult.
The image i had in my fried brain was...
Base get an alert of an attack, everyone runs to there respective vehicles. Helicopter piloted by 2 riggers (pilot/ Gunner Duh!!) powers up and detects incoming missile from the front, 2000m away (fired from the ground if that makes a difference) . Gunner desides to try his hand at point defence, since he's not in the air yet and is a sitting duck.

Anybody fancy working out Tn's for this?? Assuming VCR2 and skill(s) at 6? (If you're needing Helicopter stats pick a very good one, just shy of Sota)

I'm just wanting to see how likely this is. If it's like Tn's <12 it's belivable much more then that then maybe not....
Austere Emancipator
The rigger has already spotted the missile 2000 meters away? Are there several buildings in the area? Lots of obstacles around in general? Is there smoke/fog in the air or is it raining?

With VCR-2, you're probably looking at 2 or 3 actions per CT. Assuming the rigger is any good, he'll do a Sensor Test to lock on to the missile first. Assuming there are several buildings around/the helo is in a building/the missile's path takes it close to a building or other obstacle, the lock-on test has a TN of ~5-7ish. Signature of the missile is 5 or 6 (the large missiles all have Sig 5), -2 for Direct LOS, +1(+2) for Urban Terrain (+Restricted Terrain), maybe another +1 if smoke/fog/rain present.

If he scores at least one success on that, he can then use Sensor Enhanced Gunnery where his TN is 2-5 + possible recoil -- Signature of 5 or 6, -3 for Direct LOS, +2 if there are lots of buildings around.

If he cannot lock on to the missile or for some other reason is incapable of using Sensor Enhanced Gunnery, his chances with Manual Gunnery round down to 0%. Since the helo is still, he's looking at a TN somewhere around 40+, depending on range. If you want to be very, very nice to the character, you can just use the "Target Moving 3x + Times Faster" modifier instead, in which case the TN is 7 + range (4/5/6/9) - possible SL/rangefinder/visionmag. In this case, you could also get creative and add modifiers for "Attacker Moving In Restricted Terrain", since you are no longer considering the perfectly still helo to actually be still...
Shockwave_IIc
Thanks AE, i was hoping you'd be the one that would answer (but i wasn't going to ask).

So assuming good LOS and the fact that it was "spotted" almost 2k off, it's as good as shot down. Take it 2 incoming would cook the goose though.
Austere Emancipator
It might. Depends heavily on the Sensor rating of the helo in question and the exact TN. With Sensors-8 and a TN to lock on of 5, you'd need to fire at least 3 missiles at it to have a good chance of one getting through. Sensors-5, TN 6 and only 2 actions per CT, and there's a decent chance you'll get through with just 2 missiles.
Shockwave_IIc
biggrin.gif biggrin.gif Outstanding...........
Crusher Bob
This is why it should be safe to assume that most missiles would have higher sigs and ecm on them... biggrin.gif Upping the sigs of most 'high end missiles' in the 8-10 range and add a point or two of ECM.
Kanada Ten
QUOTE (Crusher Bob)
This is why it should be safe to assume that most missiles would have higher sigs and ecm on them... biggrin.gif Upping the sigs of most 'high end missiles' in the 8-10 range and add a point or two of ECM.

It's cheaper just to Quicken Radar Invisibility on them.
Austere Emancipator
Another immensely useful feature would be the ability to Dodge on its own, for example deciding how many dice from Intelligence go towards hitting the target and how many can be used to Dodge (either per CT or during the whole flight) at launch.
Crusher Bob
The problem with dodging is it would really cut down on the missiles effective range, especially AAMs.
Kremlin KOA
oh to those who say they would allow sensors or a computer to do it but would outlaw a rigger. remember...

If you would allow a MPCP 10 SK or equivalent computer to do something, then a DNI linked metahuman brain should be capable of same as a metahuman brain is an MPCP 10+ SK (Threats 1)
Necro Tech
I could ask my buddy (whose job it is to sit behind the little screen that controls the point defense system) but does anyone here know the RoF of the ship based defense guns?

BTW, those things don't work nearly as well as advertised according to him.
Crusher Bob
4000-8000 RPM (around 200-400 rounds per combat turn).

As for how well that work, my RDB says that they should have between a 10% and 75% chance of shooting down an incomming missile, depending on the missiles flight parameters (with fast sea skimming missiles being the 10% and slow arcing missiles being the 75%). But even a 10% chance is better than nothing.
Hasaku
4200 RPM for the 30mm Goalkeeper CIWS, according to the manufacturers of the gun. That's 210 rounds per CT, or 14 passes of full auto from a minigun user.
Pthgar
Check this out.
Phalanx Close in Weapon System.
Computer controlled, though.
Tarantula
QUOTE (Shockwave_IIc)
ie. A Tn that is believable but difficult.
The image i had in my fried brain was...
Base get an alert of an attack, everyone runs to there respective vehicles. Helicopter piloted by 2 riggers (pilot/ Gunner Duh!!) powers up and detects incoming missile from the front, 2000m away (fired from the ground if that makes a difference) . Gunner desides to try his hand at point defence, since he's not in the air yet and is a sitting duck.

Emphasis mine. Two riggers cannot jump into the same drone at the same time, its utterly redundant. Might as well have just one jump in and have the dogbrain executing the take-off procedures while he guns. Hell, better yet, why have them IN the helicopter at all? I'd much rather control it from the secure rigger network from the underground bunker.
Kagetenshi
Not redundant at all, and it requires either one of the naval networks or a division so that there are two logical vehicles inside a single physical vehicle, though this could (and in some ways should) be houseruled.

~J
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