Artillery

[Greyaxe]

Artillery
GAW has the only artillery. Unfortunately there are very few stats on it, like range etc. Anyone use this, and what rules do you have for it?

[Mack]

Personally, artillery should be used more as a GM's description of the world rather than a direct attack by PC's.

[kaid]

Personally, artillery should be used more as a GM's description of the world rather than a direct attack by PC's.

I would agree with this unless you have a group of math nerds wanting to get their trigonometry faces on I don't see roleplaying an artillery station being that exciting. Typically you would be dealing with non line of sight extreme long range activity.

In a world with things like the SAMAS I am also not sure how overall useful something as inherently low mobility as artillery would be. Anything you have to setup/deploy/range in even fast systems like the paladin would be highly vulnerable to units armored like tanks that fly tree top level at 250-300MPH. Also given the overall level of body armor being employed a lot of what artillery was useful for such as large AOE supression due to large fragmentary effects is significantly less useful when every foot trooper has the armor of a old fashioned LAV. Sure direct or near direct hits could still kill but any effective fragmentary radius is drastically diminished in usefulness.

[Ravenwing]

Artillery
GAW has the only artillery. Unfortunately there are very few stats on it, like range etc. Anyone use this, and what rules do you have for it?

Actually that isn't correct. The CS Navy, and the CS Marine Corps use Artillery all the time, they have Howitzers, and we can assume that they're used by the Army as well. CS Navy Errata pointed out that they were accidentally omitted, and I think you can still find the descriptions for them in the Cutting Room Floor section of the main page of PB's site.

Also in Merc Ops, all three GAW Howitzers are stated out, with range, various rounds, and rate of fire, along with crew numbers.

[Greyaxe]

Personally, artillery should be used more as a GM's description of the world rather than a direct attack by PC's.

We have a mercenary group called "the Iron Fist" comprised mostly of borgs. They specialize in assault and heavy combat, go figure. SO they wanted to use artillery to soften targets. How would you approach this?

[Alrik Vas]

Scout out the location of the target, paint it, call it in, whatever. From there, the operators at the artillery site make a Weapon Systems (or advanced math or whatever the crap you deem appropriate) roll, so they can fire "on target."

Artillery is indirect fire, however. So unless they roll REALLY well on their operation, there will be some deviation from target. I don't know if Palladium has rules for that. In any case, if they saturate the area with HE rounds, there will be damage. "Softening" a target will just mean you deduct a certain amount of MDC from the player's target, probably a few direct and multiple indirect hits worth of damage. Roll a D4 and a d10 or something, i don't know the rules for Artillery in this game.

[Pepsi Jedi]

There's a rifter article. I'm not sure if it's the Coalition Edge or a different one, but it goes into detail on "Rifts era Artillery". Good stuff.

[Mack]

Personally, artillery should be used more as a GM's description of the world rather than a direct attack by PC's.

We have a mercenary group called "the Iron Fist" comprised mostly of borgs. They specialize in assault and heavy combat, go figure. SO they wanted to use artillery to soften targets. How would you approach this?

I'd still role-play it out, but with some factors in mind that would affect the arty's accuracy.
-- Has the target area been pre-surveyed?
-- Does the arty unit and the scouts have some kind of positioning / location system so they will know the exact distance & elevation to the target? (A localized equivalent of GPS.)
-- Are they trying to hit a moving target?
-- Has the arty unit had time to setup and calibrate their systems? (Being prepared vs rushed.)
-- How close to friendly troops are they allowed to fire? ("Hold on scouts, I have to get the Lt if you want me to fire that close to you...")
-- Is the arty crew good/experienced, or are the third-string newbs manning the unit?
-- Do the scouts have a good comm link back to the arty unit? ("Repeat, you're breaking up!!")

[Vrykolas2k]

I have a merc group whose focus is artillery as well to soften targets.
They move in the arty, hide it using the Naruni cammo sheets, and when the enemy sets up camp, they have spotters who let the gunners know when the opposition is most vulnerable (ie, out of armour and vehicles).
They do the same thing pretty much if one minor kingdom hires them to fight another minor kingdom, or whatever.
Artillery is also useful against xiticix.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Most Xit's you fight can fly and don't spend alot of time walking on the ground. Their towers are natural MDC buildings and their hives too far underground for it to do much to aren't they? I mean you can bombard and blow down their towers eventually but by that point aren't a few hundred thousand of them attacking your emplacements?

It's 5 in the morning and I haven't slept yet but I wouldn't think that it'd be very useful against them. The slow moving nature of it would seem to indicate the 'swarm' counter attack would decimate the artillery units before they did much if any real damage to the Xits?

[ShadowLogan]

Artillery
GAW has the only artillery. Unfortunately there are very few stats on it, like range etc. Anyone use this, and what rules do you have for it?

Don't really use artillery, but there are rules for artillery that would still be applicable in WB22 with the mortar Glitterboy variant of FQ entry (Taurus, pg99-101 WB22 FQ), though they may be seen as incomplete.

Anything you have to setup/deploy/range in even fast systems like the paladin would be highly vulnerable to units armored like tanks that fly tree top level at 250-300MPH.

Artillery still managed to survive with the advent of aircraft with similar speeds and greater. Flying PA are not going to really change that, there may be some adaption necessary, but it will evolve.

Also given the overall level of body armor being employed a lot of what artillery was useful for such as large AOE supression due to large fragmentary effects is significantly less useful when every foot trooper has the armor of a old fashioned LAV.

It will still be useful:
-it will likely be hitting multiple targets (blast radius), it may take a several round to deplete MDC (but that isn't unusual in this system)
-it could see the development of more potent rounds to compensate (scale is not something PB does real well)
-fortifications and structures will still be vulnerable
-may not kill/harm a target, but it could still immobilize (flip an APC on it's side from the blast, collapse a wall to trap soldiers, etc)
-used to deploy sub-munitions

[Greyaxe]

Thanks Guys. this has been fruitful.

[kaid]

The really funny thing is what should make artillery just about moot is something that is not seen in rifts much even though all the tech appears to be there for it. That would be energy based CIWS systems. Right now you look at things like the iron dome defense which is good at knocking down rockets and motar rounds using missiles to hit the incoming projectiles. If you have fast firing energy based weapons it should be pretty trivial to make a similar system that just automatically targets and engages RPGs/Motars/missiles and given the firing speed/power of rifts laser weapons any slow firing projectile like those should have pretty much zero chance of impacting a target unless you completly swamp them with rounds.

You see some weapons in rifts being labled anti missile but all most really are not as good as they should be probably for game reasons to keep the feel of the robotech like mini missile barrages.

One thing I found interesting though about the miniature game is the zent pods actually DO mount a ciws system that functions reasonably and automatically engages incoming missiles have enough pods around and missiles have a low chance of making it to their targets.

[Vrykolas2k]

Most Xit's you fight can fly and don't spend alot of time walking on the ground. Their towers are natural MDC buildings and their hives too far underground for it to do much to aren't they? I mean you can bombard and blow down their towers eventually but by that point aren't a few hundred thousand of them attacking your emplacements?

It's 5 in the morning and I haven't slept yet but I wouldn't think that it'd be very useful against them. The slow moving nature of it would seem to indicate the 'swarm' counter attack would decimate the artillery units before they did much if any real damage to the Xits?

They don't tend to fly that far.
Remember the range of artillery, and how far they usually fly to seek out threats.
By the time they would fly that far, you'd be gone, the tower would be demolished, and the xiticix would be spending effort to rebuild... which takes time.

[Pepsi Jedi]

Most Xit's you fight can fly and don't spend alot of time walking on the ground. Their towers are natural MDC buildings and their hives too far underground for it to do much to aren't they? I mean you can bombard and blow down their towers eventually but by that point aren't a few hundred thousand of them attacking your emplacements?

It's 5 in the morning and I haven't slept yet but I wouldn't think that it'd be very useful against them. The slow moving nature of it would seem to indicate the 'swarm' counter attack would decimate the artillery units before they did much if any real damage to the Xits?

They don't tend to fly that far.
Remember the range of artillery, and how far they usually fly to seek out threats.
By the time they would fly that far, you'd be gone, the tower would be demolished, and the xiticix would be spending effort to rebuild... which takes time.

They range out miles from their hives. More so when they're being attacked. High vantage point lets you see farther as well. Like when most of your population has wings and can fly.

Artillery does have range but if you stirr up the hive they don't just sit there hovering. They have that 'alien/bug' mindset but it's not all insect sort of intelligence. They have weird thought process but they can still go 'Big boom over there' and their higher caste bugs can figure out incoming fire and such. It's going to take more than a shot or two to take down the towers. (( One of the faults of Palladiums Sdc/mdc system is that you have to chew through it to get results.)) After the first blast or two the bugs are boiling out of every hole for miles around.

I don't have the Xit book open before me but if memory serves there's miles around the hives that have been defoliated and patrolled before you get to the hive itself. Artillery generally aren't small items, nor do they generally move quickly. Add in Rifts setting where it's not like the Artillery can roll down the road, and it's going to be cross country at the very best, it seems a difficult tactic to employ, or one with minimal return.

Knocking down the towers just pisses them off and doesn't actually 'hurt' them all that much. You're sure not going to knock them ALL down and some how seal them underground, before they find your location and zerg ya with thousands if not hundreds of thousands or millions of bugs.

[wyrmraker]

Depending on how the artillery is deployed, it can be very useful. Like any piece of military hardware, it should never be deployed alone. A few artillery cannons, combined with some anti-aircraft flak cannons, can be devastating. Add in some flying units, such as SAMAS, and some heavy ground units that double as ground assault units as well as towing the artillery, and you have a very nasty time.

The significant thing, however, would be recoil-dampening technologies. I would think that, after a century of R&D, that Golden Age technologies would have been able to significantly reduce the recoil on an artillery cannon, thus increasing the potential mobility. And, to be honest, I would think that Triax would have that technology.

How PB deals with artillery is confusing to me. in Merc Ops, the GAW 155mm howitzer has a range of 11.3 miles. The French TRF1 155mm Howitzer has a range of 15 miles with high-explosive rounds, 19 miles with long range shells, has been in use since 1990. Add to that the damage (3d4x10 for plasma shells, 2d4x10 for HE), which seems pretty poor to me, comparitively speaking to the rest of the Rifts arsenal.

[taalismn]

Durable micro-electronics make things like the Merlin 'smart' mortar shell (similar to what the Arkhons use in South America 2) both readily feasible and inexpensive. Combine with a SAMAS- or cyborg-mounted laser designator or forward spotter(or worse yet, a spotter on something like a NEMA spider-probe) and you have serious lethality from your old tubes.

[wyrmraker]

Or even a micro-robot radio transmitter, keyed to be received by the smart warhead. The microbots in Triax 2 would work well for that.

[taalismn]

Or even a micro-robot radio transmitter, keyed to be received by the smart warhead. The microbots in Triax 2 would work well for that.

All that's lacking is an independent propulsion system to make it a proper guided missile(as opposed to a projectile).

[wyrmraker]

Or even a micro-robot radio transmitter, keyed to be received by the smart warhead. The microbots in Triax 2 would work well for that.

All that's lacking is an independent propulsion system to make it a proper guided missile(as opposed to a projectile).

Guided munitions exist even today. And a small guidance system with micro-thrusters would be simple. The Germans were using radio-guided munitions as early as 1943.

[taalismn]

Or even a micro-robot radio transmitter, keyed to be received by the smart warhead. The microbots in Triax 2 would work well for that.

All that's lacking is an independent propulsion system to make it a proper guided missile(as opposed to a projectile).

Guided munitions exist even today. And a small guidance system with micro-thrusters would be simple. The Germans were using radio-guided munitions as early as 1943.

Just noting that at some point the technological add-ons to an artillery shell at some point would push it over the edge into the definition of being a Palladium missile(mini-, short range, medium range, or long range) if you add propulsion with a greater range than that from the launching device.
Make your rocket-assisted shell TOO powerful for instance, and it's really a tube-launched missile like the (ill-fated) Shillelagh ATM.

[wyrmraker]

Or even a micro-robot radio transmitter, keyed to be received by the smart warhead. The microbots in Triax 2 would work well for that.

All that's lacking is an independent propulsion system to make it a proper guided missile(as opposed to a projectile).

Guided munitions exist even today. And a small guidance system with micro-thrusters would be simple. The Germans were using radio-guided munitions as early as 1943.

Just noting that at some point the technological add-ons to an artillery shell at some point would push it over the edge into the definition of being a Palladium missile(mini-, short range, medium range, or long range) if you add propulsion with a greater range than that from the launching device.
Make your rocket-assisted shell TOO powerful for instance, and it's really a tube-launched missile like the (ill-fated) Shillelagh ATM.

That's a good point. My counterpoint is that an artillery shell lacks a propulsion system, but not necessarily a guidance system, usually consisting of fin stabilization. Given the level of technology in Rifts, guidance micro-thrusters mounted on the sides wouldn't really be out of the question.

And I still say that the damage output is disproportionate in comparison to in-game technology.

[drewkitty ~..~]

EM Tags (RFID tags) and Laser designators are sufficient for a 'smart' artillery munition to home in on a target.

Much like the way the same they let a guided gravity bomb or missile home in on a target.(The US military has both of these today. In the 2nd Gulf War, covert ops went in and placed locater tags on Iraq's equipment before hand. What is part of the reason why the conventional war was over in a matter of weeks.)

The problem I see is that in an MD combat theater, artillery needs to have ether a "on target" hit or a "Very near miss" to do damage to the target. But even a near miss can cause people to duck for cover, and thus keep them from shooting your guys.

Most of the short comings are mitigated by using a larger munition thus allowing more of the volume to be dedicated to avionics and control mechanisms (such as fins, winglets, or thrusters) while maintaining or increasing the warhead size. The down side of using a larger munition is that you need a bigger crew to service any towed artillery or need a self-propelled artillery.

The problem with introducing artillery into rifts is that the PB system is written so people can play individuals in an environment that is biased towards the individual surviving. So what artillery there is is Line of Sight, mostly 2000'-3000' away not 20 miles away.

[taalismn]

The problem with introducing artillery into rifts is that the PB system is written so people can play individuals in an environment that is biased towards the individual surviving. So what artillery there is is Line of Sight, mostly 2000'-3000' away not 20 miles away.

No sport in being shelled by somebody you will likely NEVER see, no glory in churning a city block(and everybody in it) to gravel from the safety of distance. No big exp for pulling a firing lanyard for an hour.

[dragonfett]

Aren't the IAR-2 Abolisher considered "artillery"? I had seen somewhere that when they fire non-direct fire (like actual artillery), they can extend their range to around 5-6 miles.

[glitterboy2098]

Aren't the IAR-2 Abolisher considered "artillery"? I had seen somewhere that when they fire non-direct fire (like actual artillery), they can extend their range to around 5-6 miles.

nope. they have 6 direct fire Railguns. impressive range on them though for rifts railguns (6000ft) it's never said they can fire indirect.

[taalismn]

Yah...I once went back with the intent of adapting the Abolisher guns as artillery, but saw the states and realized I was better off with mortars. Quite disappointing, but it encouraged me to hit the reference books for Golden Age artillery.