Battle Dress in Combat

[JFGarber]

I need advice.

In the past, I've successfully avoided personal combat in T5.09. Next session, that stops. Five huscarls clad in TL-13 heavy battle dress (AV=51) will assault a ship defended by a single huscarl and several Rangers in lighter battle dress (AV=42.)

What do battle dress troops use against one another in close combat? Yes, a PEN-7 fusion rifle is a nasty bit of work, and effective even against AV=51, but it's not particularly well suited for close work in a starship corridor.

Are there canon melee weapons that are effective against a battle dress? An effective STR of 70 or so really wants some sort of high tech poniard.

I have also considered using the "Oversize" option to create high dice bullet or burn weapons that are not "guns". Am I way outside the intent of the rules?

 

[Original_Carl]

For close quarters, I like a Space Axe or the good old Marine cutlass. As you say, with an effective STR of 70, you just have to make sure the weapons are made of Unobtainium so they don't break. Although, if memory serves, the Space Axe description covers that condition. Vibro-blades are a classic option.

You can use Gun Maker to build hand cannons that would be effective against Battle Dress if you want something more "shooty" for close-quarters fighting. You could try other, more experimental weapons, too -- directed EMP projectors, grav manipulator/generators, high-voltage electrical discharge weapons, Implacable Dark Iron Wands, HEL whips, Death Wands ... the possibilities are many.

Maybe they just fight with charged energy gauntlets using Space Kung Fu, or Systema, or Kosho (one of my players introduced this as an official martial art of Our Traveller Universe but it was adapted for ZeroG).

 

[flykiller]

I need advice.

shaped charges work against anything. an ordinary rpg-7 will penetrate anything a man can wear.

emp weapons.

paint sprays (paint, lead, some future material) - smear the faceplates and sensor ports.

 

[Condottiere]

Teflon faceplate.

 

[Ulsyus]

Something like a shock-rod, but with a plasma charge: melee with the penetration advantage

 

[Swiftbrook]

Turn off the artificial gravity, turn off the internal compensators, hit the thrusters, kill the thrusters, turn the gravity back on, repeat. With no internal compensators, 1 horizontal G is going to be tough to have combat in.

 

[David Johansen]

Ah grav pong! I wonder if Virus ever developed a scoring system.

So, as written some weapons get pen = strength. This is why chaos marines have horns and tusks on their armor.

 

[JFGarber]

So, as written some weapons get pen = strength. This is why chaos marines have horns and tusks on their armor.

My imagery of battle dress melee combat is likewise informed by the game universe which you reference.

But help me out if you would. I've read the personal combat section until I'm fuzzy around the edges and I can see where (on page 181) STR is a modifier on "to hit", but for the life of me I cannot find the PEN reference. It should be there--it makes sense, but I can't find it.

 

[JFGarber]

Turn off the artificial gravity, turn off the internal compensators, hit the thrusters, kill the thrusters, turn the gravity back on, repeat. With no internal compensators, 1 horizontal G is going to be tough to have combat in.

I concur. As the referee, I'm sending the (experienced) huscarls into the engineering spaces to disable the life support and artificial gravity first. That has the added value of providing more volume for combat, and keeping at least some of the early rolls as ranged combat, where I think I have a better grasp of the rules and if I'm lucky it won't come to blows.

 

[JFGarber]

shaped charges work against anything. an ordinary rpg-7 will penetrate anything a man can wear.

Philosophically, and based on the tropes that inform my picture of MTU, I agree with you. But I'm struggling to make those types of weapons inside the rules as written agree with our perspective.

On page 193, we have military explosions. An anti-armor mine has PEN=10. That will certainly do the trick. But I doubt that there are many such beasts on a typical starship.

(And I observed also on page 193 that ortillery falling from freaking orbit only does Blast-1 Bang-2 Frag-1. Somebody is dropping crowbars from orbit, and they do damage roughly equivalent to a hand grenade???)

And I agree with you than an RPG should be more than sufficient to do the trick. But the best I can get out of GunMaker is a TL 11 Vheavy Ultimate Grenade Launcher which is Frag-9 Blast-2. That requires all nine dice to roll "6", an occurrence so vanishingly infrequent as to be a suicide ticket for the firer.

I could quit whining and just specify various weapons by referee fiat, but would prefer to work within the RAW.

 

[flykiller]

I agree with you than an RPG should be more than sufficient to do the trick. But the best I can get out of GunMaker is a TL 11 Vheavy Ultimate Grenade Launcher which is Frag-9 Blast-2. That requires all nine dice to roll "6", an occurrence so vanishingly infrequent as to be a suicide ticket for the firer.

I could quit whining and just specify various weapons by referee fiat, but would prefer to work within the RAW.

I'm hip, but the RAW appear to be written to achieve certain results rather than reflect reality. saying that an rpg-7 works is not referee fiat but rather is simply realistic.

that said, it's your game, you'll have to find a balance of realism/fantasy/RAW that works sustainably for you and for the players. maybe treat your upcoming battle not as something you have to get right the first time but rather as a learning experience for future games.

 

[David Johansen]

My imagery of battle dress melee combat is likewise informed by the game universe which you reference.

But help me out if you would. I've read the personal combat section until I'm fuzzy around the edges and I can see where (on page 181) STR is a modifier on "to hit", but for the life of me I cannot find the PEN reference. It should be there--it makes sense, but I can't find it.

Page 211 gives Pen = C1 to a number of natural weapons including horns.

 

[kilemall]

Turn off the artificial gravity, turn off the internal compensators, hit the thrusters, kill the thrusters, turn the gravity back on, repeat. With no internal compensators, 1 horizontal G is going to be tough to have combat in.

IMO one of the big reasons to develop BD is to deal with boarding actions and various 'gravtraps'. You go in with thrusters, grav belts and augmented strength to overcome high-G, you aren't so vulnerable to being turned into spam.

 

[David Johansen]

Interesting, I wonder what the interaction between inertial damper fields is like.

 

[mike wightman]

Do grav belts even work if the local gravity is artificial?

There is an interesting death in Consider Phlebas when a merc jumps from the superstructure of an ocean ship to its deck below - the ship is floating on the ocean of an orbital (really big ring shaped space station) that generates gravity by rotation.

The merc's grav belt does not work as it needs real gravity - splat.

Back to the topic - T5 still needs some work to fix its various combat subsystems.

In just about every previous version of Traveller you could take down BD with a RAM grenade, so that should be the starting point.

 

[Condottiere]

Anti gravity drives need mass to push against.

Artificial gravity might induce mass to allow objects to fall against.

 

[David Johansen]

Inertial dampers beat gravity, force, and physics and send them to bed without supper.

 

[mike wightman]

Anti gravity drives need mass to push against.

Artificial gravity might induce mass to allow objects to fall against.

Nope.
If an artificial gravity generator produces 'real gravity' then a ship will pull moons out of orbit as it flies by.

 

[aramis]

Nope.
If an artificial gravity generator produces 'real gravity' then a ship will pull moons out of orbit as it flies by.

Inverse square law makes that a bit of hyperbole... but it's just enough to make it required to mass balance launches...

 

[mike wightman]

To produce a pseudo-mass based artificial gravity means that the ship has to have the same mass as the Earth as pseudo-mass to have a 1g field.

F = G (m1 x m2)/r^2

A ship with a pseudo-mass based artificial gravity will cause tides,, bump satelites out of orbit,

Artificial gravity can not work in that way.