Re: Lethality of PDW-calibers, I have to admit I just can't see how the 5.7x28mm FMJs could possibly have a better terminal effect on an unarmored human body than even a 9x19mm FMJ. It's a tiny little pointy bullet traveling at low rifle velocity, and so the wound cavity is equally tiny. Certainly such rounds are better at penetrating armor, and we'll just have to see if or how advances in body armor technology (such as viable full-body armor if shear-thickening fluids or similar technologies break though) affect the field.

One thing's for certain: The FN 5-7 is just about the last handgun I'd want to be stuck with if facing angry trolls.

That's about how I feel. Especially on the last point.

Hell there is absolutely no reason I can see why the P90 would somehow operate outside of it's designated niche of PDW. Other than increased ammo capacity it really has nothing that makes it more useful than M4 carbine for compact assault missions.

Same thing with the 4.6 x 30mm HK ammo until it's proven in battle I'm not sure people are going to trust thier lives to it.

Heh. Don't think I've forgotten Fringeworthy already. Standing and Ability to Deal With Aliens are the best attributes ever.

I don't disagree with the issues you bring up with Andy's system, but the unnecessary detail is fairly easy to deal with. In fact, I did it while I was working on the Canon Revision (link at the start of this thread) project last year. Fewer dice rolled and a far simpler table, but roughly similar concept. Keeping it sanely playable was always a very big concern of mine, and I think I kept it in check. Or would you consider that still too much for maintaining playability?

I'll admit that in my sleep-fogged state your final version of the hit location rules aren't making themselves immediately obvious; I'll look again and comment after I have the good sleeps.

~J

They're not. They never really hit a final version because I never got around to finishing the project (aforementioned lack of interest, lack of time, lack of group to play with, etc). The concept should be there, though, and I recall there being enough to get an idea of what it'd look like in practice. If not, I'll writ eup something tomorrow. I'd better sleep, myself.

My big problem with it isn't armshots being lethal, but that someone can take a godlike shot aimed center-of-mass and still hit the arm. If you assume that the character is just aiming for some vulnerable place and specifically chose the arm, it seems to me that you pull the whole thing back to the abstract and there isn't much point.

There's absolutely no reason to do anything with it just to prove me wrong. I am fairly dead-set against it, but I like to think that that's entrenched in reason rather than orneriness (whether that's accurate or not may be another matter), and that I would alter my position if presented with a good system. We apparently differ on what exactly that is, though, not that we have any need of being in agreement.

~J

His point is that, even taking all that into account, and achieving an astounding number of successes to hit exactly where he wanted, it is still possible to hit in the arm or other place not where he aimed.

Personally, as I have said before, I don't see the need for either hit location systems or called shots in Shadowrun. A decent number of successes means you have achieved a hit right where you want, while a limited number could mean you have missed where you are aiming and just 'winged' your target.

Again, that makes sense just fine for a lot of shots, but I still don't see it for a twenty-two success shot (or a twelve-success, or even an eight-success (enough to deal deadly damage with a small knife and then some)). Moreover, what happens for a ten-round autofire action? Do all ten rounds impact the arm on a hit? A quick scan of the Rules page on Raygun's site doesn't unveil any rules for partial hits from autofire, though I thought he had some, but the question is, while less serious, still applicable for two rounds. Does one roll separately for each round? Then can a burst with a lot of successes (by all accounts very accurate) still hit arm-head-opposite leg? Or leg-head-same leg?

Edit: yeah, Fortune pretty much sums my take up.

~J

In CP:2020's hit location (as it applies to bursts/autofire), a fairly common house rule is to roll hit location for the first shot. From that point on, roll a d3. On a 1, you subtract 1 from the previous hit's location, on a 2 you count it as the same spot, on a 3 you add 1 to the previous hit's location. This tends to end up with most of a long burst hitting the same spot, and when a burst doesn't, the fire is fairly slowly "walked" from area to area (the way I'm assume fire sometimes does).

Okay. So, I lied. That's not a fairly common house rule, and I actually just made it up. But the simple fact is it took me thirty seconds to do so, and I think something like it would work.

I just don't see the need in multi-success-based system like Shadowrun. More (net) successes = better shot is as complex as it needs to get.

IRL in a combat situation you'll be talking people with skills from 4 to 6 and a TN of absolute floor minimum 4. I'd still say that it is a problem at 8 successes, which, while outside of the reach of most real-life combatants, is well within the range of a sensewared, smartlinked samurai.

~J

I have not. That sounds incredibly cumbersome, and I guess I sit corrected.

That said, big fan of hit locations that I am, that system sounds horrendously clunky and unplayable. I still strongly believe hit locations are viable and very much disagree with Kage and co, but I think I understand where they're coming from a little better after reading that.

I wouldn't quite call it unplayable (since, well, I play it from time to time), but it is kinda slow if everyone is autofiring at everyone else. A quick shortcut is to roll all your hits at once (for location), so you can basically stop if any of them come up a headshot. What with them doing double damage (and the head generally being lightly armored, if at all) and all that, pretty much once anyone pings your noggin with anything capable of full auto fire, it's all over.

So it ends up being "I roll a single d10 for my attack attempt," "Woohoo, I hit him twelve times," "Whee, 12d10 for locations -- three headshots!" And then the GM cries a little bit as another NPC drops before a single statistic on the lovingly crafted character sheet comes into play.

But, well, it's a lethal game that way.

I think Shadowrun has enough going on at once, as it is. In CP:2020 I can stomach hit location (and armor values varying by location, etc, etc) because raw physical combat is all that's likely to be happening at a given time.

You don't have to worry about magic screwing with things (as magic is wont to do, where do you figure a Manabolt hits someone?), you don't have soak rolls (just damage versus armor), you don't really have combat pool to spend (there's the luck attribute, but that's not really the same), there's no wonky Adept powers or all-encompasing Armor spells... Shadowrun has plenty on it's plate already, I think. A game that's meatworld revolves almost totally around shooting people can handle a hit location mechanic, because hit location is part of shooting people (and shooting people is the way to get things doen, 99% of the time, and the more graphic and specific and horrible the shooting is, the more fun the agme).

Shadowrun, though? It's busy. And with the Matrix-overlay hooplah just around the corner (which means the hacker/decker/whatever might be right there in the middle of it all far more often, mixing it up with everyone else and adding Matrix stuff in the middle of a firefight), there's even another dimension possibly coming. You could have a spirit/mage duel on the astral, a hacker/IC scuffle on the matrix-plane, and a bunch of adepts and sammies hosing down security guards -- all at once, all in the same combat round, all in the same room. Adding hit locations to all that? No thanks.

But, in the same vein, some Shadowrun games won't have all that (or at least some combats won't). It'd be nice to have the option of some hit location rules or something, some other advanced combat stuff, to use from time to time. When the gunbunnies really wanna shine, or when you wanna run a less complicated game, or whatnot. I can see a desire for hit location and extra realism, but I can understand why there isn't a need for it.

If that makes sense.

Raygun:

You have a PM.

Balls to your fun, where the hell's the answer to my question?

Things I like about Shadowrun's combat system: skill > big booms. Greg Gunslinger the pistoleer physad with pistols 6 and IA: pistols 4 is going to be putting .22 bullets in the eyes of bad guys while his mate Frank Faceman with Firearms 4 is unlikely to kill much of anything with his Ruger Super Warhawk without some luck.

Things I don't like about Shadowrun's combat system: irrational damage codes (and, incidentally, weapon weights and concealabilities, but those aren't technically part of the combat system). Love to see these cleaned up in SR4.

I actually started out liking the idea of a hit location system, and have been convinced that SR doesn't need one by Fortune & co. Because of SR's success-based damage, hit locations are actually not relevant, since they can be extrapolated from how well you roll. You rolled 12 successes on your attack? Congratulations, you just pegged that little nerve junction thingy that drops your target like a stone. You draw a bead on his head and roll 1 success? You putz, you twitched and winged him in the arm.

I wouldn't mind some clarification on shooting to wound - hosing a guy's legs to stop him getting away, for example - but realistically that can be adjudicated by a competent GM anyway, assuming you don't have an assnut running the game

Sorry, I think I missed your question.

Was it the "Why use a P90 over a Tavor Micro, etc, etc...?"

Yeah.

There are a lot of variables that need to be taken into account. What if there are hostages? What are the walls made of? If a round goes through a wall or door, what might it hit and what might be the consequences? Environmental concerns like that would certainly influence my decision.
You may need to conceal your weapon (seriously, the p90 is small, but so is the Tavor, though I havn't used it), you may need the higher capacity.
Maybe the Tavor isn't available to you?

A lot of it I'm sure goes with personal preferance. If your getting ready for an op and you have any weapon to choose from, you may just want to choose one that you're more familiar with, rather than one you havn't practiced with much. Hell, I like the location of the optical sights on the P90.

This is would be the same answer as if you had asked me why use any of those rather than say, an MP5.

I think the p90 is a great weapon. That said, I don't know if the 5.7 or 4.6 cartridge will survive to 2070, but I wouldn't be suprised if those cartridges or variants did. I could see a big market for PDW's in the world or SR. Niche weapons will always be around IMO, but then that's just my personal opinion and I could be dead-ass wrong.

I'm not saying there aren't little things the P90 does well. It's got high capacity, high rate of fire, and light recoil, and there really aren't any comparably sized weapons that can quite boast all that. But those aren't really primary concerns in combat, as I understand it. The weapon's lethality is dubious at best, its penetration in armor better than most pistol offerings (9x19mm PBP, I'm not so sure about; Russians sure don't seem to want anyone to know much about that stuff) but not really any better than any real rifle round. I just don't see the appeal.

If you can't get a Tavor, what about all the other compact assault rifle platforms (M733, SG552, HK53, etc)? You can't really base an argument for the P90 on not having anything else. Using whatever you have is the oldest maxim of conflict, but all things being reasonably equal, why the P90? Hell, all things being reasonably equal, it should be a bit harder to get than much else. FNH is pretty notorious about controlling their stuff, though, I guess that seems to be changing a little these days.

Still, that said, I just don't see what the P90 offers. It's small, but so are a lot of SMGs and compact carbines. It penetrates armor, but so do the compact carbines. It won't overpenetrate as much as those compact carbines, but neither will SMGs, and if you're worried about hostages that much , precise shooting with whatever you're using is necessary. On top of all of this, it's expensive and it's not terribly lethal. It may be ergonomic; I'm in position to comment there. What I just don't see is what it offers of any real significane in any real offensive capacity that isn't done better elsewhere.

That said, I do see a long running place for niche weapons, and I don't see the PDW concept disappearing— but I also don't see it really growing much, either. PDWs make very significant tradeoffs to achieve high penetration, high rate of fire, high capacity, low recoil, etc.

I'm not calling it the be all and end all of weapons. I probably won't convince you, but I nor anyone I know has run into any problems regarding terminal effect. Many pistols' terminal effect is dubious at best as far as I'm concerned.

Availability is often a big issue, esp. when on short notice, and yes, there are other options available. You choose the right weapon for the job, and sometimes, those you listed are not the right weapon. Yes, precise shooting is neccessary, but things happen. Why take the chance that a stray round does something you prefer it not to, especially if there is a weapon available to minimize that chance?

Like I said, I probably won't convince you. I was simply trying to say that I think these weapons will have a place in the future. Not a huge place, but a place nonetheless.

edit: It seems on the last part we are at least in agreement.

One reason to favor an SMG/PDW over an assault rifle is that they don't penetrate quite so much. Less concern about a round going through a wall, door or other object and striking an unwanted (and potentially explosive/poisonous) target.

Compactness seems to be another consideration. It's easier to maneuver an SMG/PDW or carbine around a narrow staircase or sharp corner than a longer assault rifle.

Those may have already been brought up but I'm sleepy, so I'm rambling.

Well, after talking to Frosty over PMs all yesterday (like I should have done in the first place) and with him treating me with nothing but respect after my outburst of bad attitude, I feel that I do owe him an apology. At this point, as far as I'm concerned, he's either the real thing or really full of shit!

Sorry, Frosty.

Your status as Forum Ninja™ is hereby denied.

About the P90... David Fortier recently had a good article about it. He kind of sat on the fence about the terminal ballistics issues, but gave a good rundown on how the P90 works for some applications and doesn't for others. I think that's the kind of perspective that's missing from a lot of things I've read about the P90, but it is something that's been touched on here. A lot of people seem to compare the P90 to assault rifles more than they do to submachine guns or handguns, which is what the thing was designed to replace. I've certainly done a lot of that myself. Essentially, it's the very same argument people were having about the M1 Carbine after WWII. The P90 obviously lacks the terminal performance of a 5.56mm carbine.

But one thing I especially can't fathom, Frosty, is the idea of the subsonic 5.7x28mm load being more effective than a subsonic 9mm Para (from your PM). It's essentially a US M193 bullet moving at 950-1,050 fps. Now, I'm sure it depends greatly on what load you're comparing it to and what you're shooting with it, but some of the 147 grain JHP loads out there (like Winchester's Silvertip @ 1010 fps) should outperform it by a very handy margin, so long as body armor isn't involved. Even then, I can't imagine it performing much worse. There are .22 LR loads that come pretty close to those ballistics.

In other news, I thought you guys might be interested to know (if you didn't already) that Colt Defense bought Diemaco (Canadian C7/C8 rifle manufacturer) from Héroux-Devtek last month.

Hopefully there's no hard feelings there, Raygun/FrostyNSO/any indignant third parties.

I hope Frosty just understands how many ninja trained ex-SEAL (who transferred over to the Navy 'cause they had to fake their death after a bunch of black ops missions as a Marine Force Recon sniper) kung fu master SWAT troopers come on line and hang out with all us RPG geeks. We get a little cynical after a while.

Take a look at some of the video on this site to get an idea of the penetration of various rounds.

Box'O Truth

The Search-function is your friend: The Box O' Truth, An interesting study in shot penetration
Although I notice they've added new stuff since then. The sand-test is a bit skewed because they use heavy sheetrock boxes packed with sand -- more loose sand in bags isn't going to stop bullets as well.

I think it's astonishing that people are only now realizing the problem of heavy clothing vs. hollowpoints. The shots through denim show why it's very important to test all defense handgung rounds on a denim-coated calibrated gelatin block such as has been done here. Check the tables for the 9mm, .40 S&W and .45 ACP JHP and notice how poorly nearly all JHP rounds perform when fired through a denim block. Ammo manufacturers should be catching up to this soon; meanwhile, you might want to stay away from 155gr .40 S&W and 185gr .45 ACP Winchester Silvertips.

So currently we really have no idea whether the 9 x 19mm PBP round is substantial improved over the base model or whether it's merely hype at the current time?

Further question has there been any quantitave comparisons of the chinese 5.8 x 42 mm assault rifle round?

Same as with flechettes in Shadowrun. Against someone not in appreciably thick clothing, hollowpoints'll fuck their world all up. Against anything heavy enough to provide an armor rating (a layer or two of good denim/leather/whatever, here, not just "real" kevlar-types of armor) they just...don't work as well as they should.

I'm sure one of the gunbunnies can explain it better.