The steel parts slowly, very slowly melt away, while the ceramic bits won't mind much. The AN-M14 TH3 incendiary grenade will only penetrate ½" RHS during the 40 seconds it burns, which basically means it will not penetrate any non-aluminum AFV's armor. It could possibly be used to inflict serious damage to some equipment on the vehicle, but that would not be a healthy thing to attempt in a combat zone.

Thermite will work wonders on some of the slightly older APCs with aluminum armor plates, however. I bet you could crack open an M113A3 with the AN-M14.

As for the Maus, well, some lessons were learnt from WW2. It is interesting to note how modern MBTs are lighter than King Tigers, provide up to 6 times as much protection as the Maus, and have several times the firepower (in terms of neutralization capability of enemy MBTs). Pitting WW2 tanks against modern ones, the fight would be very short and insanely one-sided. Pitting WW2 infantry against modern grunts, the latter would only have a slight edge -- mostly from communications.

The ceramic bits, not at all. The steel, not very. You'd cripple the tank completely before the temperature inside rose to unbearable levels. With 2060s life support and concerns of flame/incendiary weapons, it wouldn't surprise me if SR MBTs included effective cooling systems in the life support system. Not to mention that covering the tank with thermite or similar weapons would fuse shut all exits.

Like all elemental manipulation spells, the secondary effects take effect only if you do reasonable damage with the spell. It's been said before, but it's worth saying again: you need a FORCE 41 MANIPULATION SPELL TO HAVE ANY EFFECT ON THIS THING. So no, Acid Bomb won't work well.

I'm willing to bet Aqua Regia, "used for hundreds of years in the jewelry industry," is nowhere near an appropriate anti-tank weapon, hot or not. "Given enough time" seems to be a real hinderance when talking about modern armored warfare. Stick to the naval guns and strategic missiles, I'd say.

When an explosive reflects off of surfaces that it can't penetrate the target gets hit with a much damage code. This is not staging. This is the power of the attack.

I paraphrased the book but the quote won't make much difference.

Austere: as far as the bounce I wasn't counting the ground and back and assuming a clearance of 1 meter for math ease. The ponit was just to demostrate that it would eventually go through by cannon.

Its silly but having shadowrunners anywhere near a Leopard tank I find to be equally silly.

That would actuall work. I believe that there is a type of commercial nanite designed to destroy structures on the molecular level. A few quintillion of those, properly modified, could eat the entire tank.

Of course, such nanites would require corporate or government connections and it would probably be simpiler to call in fire support from the most convenient Army, Navy, or Air Force.



How about the potato-in-the-exaust-pipe method? Even if the crew compartment is completely sealed there must be an opening somewhere. An engine capable of moving something as heavy as a MBT will produce a good deal of waste heat, so there must be a radiator of some sort. There is certainly a fuel tank, as well. Depending on the engine there is also an exaust port to vent waste gases.

A called shot to bypass armor isn't unreasonable; neither is jumping on the turret with a cutting laser and opening up the hatch.

Actually, if you use the nanites "smart corrosives" with acids from M&M you could do it. It'd have to be rating 20 to pass the barrier 20 armor (or whatever the equivilant barrier of the armor is). It'd have a rating of that #, and cost of 500xthat #.

It would eat through at a rate of rating per combat turn, so thats your ticket through.

And if this does pop up, I will personally hunt the author down and beat him/her senseless. Repeatedly.

Absolutely. The exhausts vents are usually spread over a rather large area, and these days they are sometimes shielded (and will certainly be by the 2060s). Blocking them would require some kind of custom-built heat-resistant plate with heavy-duty adhesives that you'd have to attach over the exhaust area(s). And, again, you'd have to work on/around the tank for an extended period on the battlefield, make your escape, and then wait for quite some time before the engines go offline.

You can penetrate the 40 points of vehicle armor with Medium Naval and Rail Guns or heavier weapons, or with any of the heavy Surface-to-Surface or Air-to-Surface missiles found in Rigger 3. Although you're about as likely to find such weapons employed by a team of runners as you are to find suitcase nukes.

Though we could argue that about Elemental Manipulations since they follow all the standard rules for Ranged Combat, which allows for Called Shots to subcomponents on vehicle sized objects.

Rereading the rules, the Choas spell would only have to be force 4. There is just the small matter of a 28 TN to contend with.

Er… Chaotic World is the area-effect variant.

~J

Yup, the plating you see on some modern MBT (like the newest Merkavas) exhausts are not likely to be thicker than, I dunno, 1"? And if you managed to get a surprise shot at such a tank from a rear-flank angle, you could bypass the plating. In that situation, you might manage to get an AV Assault Cannon shot through the exhaust vent grating.

What you'd actually hit after that is a good question. On many designs, a straight line through the exhaust vent would continue into top or side armor, not into the engine compartment. To guarantee damage to the engine, you'd have to use a rather heavy HEAT warhead.

This problem can probably be solved adequately in the design phase of a future MBT. The actual exhaust vent can be shielded, placed along the top or rear armor plate (if on the side or back) or the side armor plate (if in the back), so that a straight line in from the exhaust vents would never end up in the engine comparments. The vents could have double shielding, on the outside and then behind a corner in the exhaust "pipe" -- the inner shields would pop up immediately if the outer shields or vent edges are hit. Or new technology could simply allow for a way to vent exhausts which require no conventional vent or pipe system, as Tarantula suggested.

In other words, I definitely wouldn't count on this method for neutralizing a 2060s MBT.

If you happen to be carrying around 5.2 pounds of c-4 AND can get up to it to plant it on the treads them merry christmas. I wouldn't want to try to waltz inside the tank's APZ personally.