Tactical and Heavy Weaponry
Some targets are too much for one human to attack. Some targets are too risky and would cost the lives of many a good human. Some targets are too well protected; some targets aren’t even present at the time but will be there at a later date. These targets need special weapons and methods in order to be successfully assaulted. Explosives, fire, chemicals and so on deployed tactically and effectively are the best options to use against such targets.
Tactical weapons, by their very nature, are designed to give their users an advantage over their opponents. This advantage can come in the form of more destruction or it could be that the location of battle can be chosen ahead of time. Whatever the form of the advantage, tactical and heavy weapons have played a part in every major conflict since the earliest recorded histories. From medieval siege weapons to ancient Chinese firework rockets, from Roman artillery to the Tartar army catapulting plague victims into the city of Kaffa in the 14th century, tactical weapons have allowed armies to attack bigger and tougher opponents with both a minimum force and with suffering minimal losses and will continue shape the future of modern conflicts.
Example: A heavy fragmentation grenade has a Damage of 0(L)+3; this means attacks with the grenade add zero dice to the attack roll (Dexterity + Athletics), the attack does lethal damage and, assuming the roll is successful, three successes are added to the successes scored on the roll to determine the amount of damage done.
Stationary explosives have a Damage of “N/A” because they’re left in place, not used to attack specific targets. When hidden, such explosives use the system for traps on p. 184 to determine how well hidden they are, and the damage they inflict on anyone or anything nearby is determined solely by the Blast Area and Force of the explosion.
Blast Area: The diameter of the explosion in yards. The number listed is for the primary blast area; the secondary blast area is twice this number. A blast area of 0 yards is considered to affect only the person the area is in contact with, though the blast Area have a secondary Blast Area of 1.
Force: How much damage the explosion inflicts on anyone or anything not the subject of a direct attack with theweapon. Bystanders caught in the primary blast area take the explosive’s Force rating as automatic points of damage, and the bystanders also suffer the explosive’s Force in damage dice.
Characters outside of the primary blast area but within the secondary blast area take damage differently. They simply take the Force rating of the explosive as damage dice.
Example: John is 15 yards from a one pound C-4 bomb when it goes off. Instead of taking 4 points of lethal damage automatically and taking an additional 4 dice of damage, he suffers only the 4 dice of damage.
Explosives without a Damage trait have the type of damage they inflict (B: bashing; L: lethal) noted under Force, instead.
Ranges: The short, medium and long ranges of the weapon. Attacks in the short range are made at no penalty, attacks at medium range are made at –2 and attacks at long range are made at –4.
Cost: The minimum dots in the Resources Merit usually required to purchase the weapon. An “N/A” entry indicates that the item is a military device and is not available to the general public. Military devices are for sale only on the black market (see p. 194).
Size: The size of the explosive. Items of Size 1 can be hidden within a hand, items of Size 2 can be hidden inside a coat and items of Size 3 cannot be hidden anywhere on a person. See p. 198 for “Weapon Concealment” rules.
Effects: Any other effects pertinent to the behavior of the explosive, such as the 9 again or 8 again rules, Armor Piercing or Knockdown.
An explosive with the 9 or 8 again rule applies that rule to both attack rolls and to damage rolls using the explosive’s Blast Area and Force.
Armor Piercing is expressed as “AP” followed by a number, and armor piercing explosives apply their Armor Piercing value only to their primary target. The exception is white phosphorus and thermite ordinance, which apply their Armor Piercing values to everything caught within the blast area.
See p. 168, the World of Darkness Rulebook, for more information on the Knockdown effect.
By the 10th century, the Chinese began creating bombs, fire arrows and “ground rats” (a type of firework designed to scare and disorient). Sometimes these “ground rats” would briefly launch themselves into the air. Soon afterward, the Chinese first used exploding rockets. The first rockets used bamboo tubes to propel objects into the air, though these tubes were fragile and unsafe for practical use. Next, the Chinese used metal to form crude cannons. This practice quickly spread across Asia into the Middle East and, by the 13th century, had reached Europe.
Soon, every country had to have an artillery division in its army if the country had any hope of winning major conflicts. Factories called “powederworks” mixed and ground gunpowder. Crude cannons led to more advanced cannons, mortars and then muskets, which ushered in the end of the medieval world (as bullets could easily penetrate a knight’s armor).
During the 17th century, gunpowder evolved into commercial use, for blasting rocks and clearing paths for roads. The 1800s brought about greater demand for commercial demolitions and even more powerful explosives such as nitroglycerine. Albert Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize, developed dynamite, which stabilized nitroglycerine and made it relatively safe for commercial applications.
The 20th century brought with it huge leaps in explosive technologies. Shapeable explosives or plastique explosives allowed for explosions that could then be shaped and aimed. Their destructive power was focused directly at the target rather than partially at the target and partially at everything else. Then, as the world was plunged into conflicts using the deadliest weapons yet to be seen, larger and more powerful explosives were developed, culminating with the harnessing of the power of the atom to create devastation on an epic scale.
Most of the weapons presented in this chapter are explosive in nature. Explosive weapons have some or all the following Traits:
Type: This is the name or descriptor of the weapon.
Damage: This is the number of dice added to or subtracted from attempts to attack enemies with the explosive. Attacks using different types of explosives use different rolls; for example, attacks with hand grenades are Dexterity + Athletics, while attacks with howitzers are Intelligence + Firearms and require an Artillery Specialty. See the descriptions of specific types of explosives for more details. As with attack rolls for other weapons, successes on the attack roll add to the damage done. In addition, all explosives use the extra successes rule. On a successful attack, a number of extra successes are added to the roll to determine the damage inflicted — this is expressed as a value after the Damage trait and damage type (B: bashing, L: lethal), and is usually equal to the Force of the explosive.
This section covers heavy weaponry used to attack enemies at short range, whether it be grenade launchers, artillery over-the-shoulder disposable rocket launchers and flamethrowers.
Mechanics: Hand grenades are thrown weapons. See p. 67, the World of Darkness Rulebook, for how to calculate the Range of thrown weapons. All grenades are considered aerodynamic except for Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs.
Grenades are unpredictable, and there is no true method for a character to know how much time there is left before the grenade will explode. Storytellers who wish to add a little danger to grenade use can use the following rules to mimic a grenade’s delay:
Once the grenade has been primed, the Storyteller secretly rolls a d10. The grenade is given an Initiative of the thrower’s current Initiative minus the roll result. On the grenade’s Initiative during the current turn, the grenade will explode. If this puts the grenade’s Initiative at less than zero, then the grenade explodes after the first action of the following round. Characters may attempt to intercede, escape or even try to throw the grenade back before it explodes.
A character who is “cooking” a grenade releases the grenade’s lever. The Storyteller rolls to determine the grenade’s “secret” Initiative. The player states for how long (at what Initiative) his character will hold the grenade before throwing it. If the character holds the grenade past its Initiative, the grenade will explode in his hand. The character may attempt to perform any other actions normally allowed during the time he is “cooking” the grenade.
If you are using this rule, grenades are treated as stationary explosives — use the attack roll to determine if the grenade lands where the thrower wants it to, but, afterwards, the grenade does damage to anyone nearby according to its Blast Area and Force, and is not considered to have a primary target.
Example: Jim has an Initiative of 10. At the beginning of his turn, he decides to “cook off” a grenade. Jim declares that he will throw it at an Initiative of 6. The Storyteller rolls for the grenade and gets a 6, which means the grenade will explode at an Initiative of 4 (Jim’s Initiative of 10 minus 6 equals 4). Jim throws the grenade just in time to see it explode.
Mechanics: Grenade launchers are fired with Dexterity + Firearms. A grenade launcher’s Damage is effectively zero, because a grenade launcher does not add to the accuracy of its users’ attacks; however, successes on the attack roll still add to damage inflicted on the primary target, and grenade launcher ammunition still adds extra successes equal to the ammo’s Force to successful attack rolls to determine the amount of damage inflicted.
Artillery weapons are indirect-fire weapons. In indirect fire, a weapon cannot be sighted at the target and must be aimed using distance and bearing (direction). An indirectfire weapon is most often used when the target is not visible, such as when it is behind a mountain or other object that blocks line of sight. Indirect fire can also be used when the target is well out of range for small arms attacks but is still visible to the battery (a group of artillery pieces).
Artillery weapons serve several different roles in combat operations: close fire support, counterfire and interdiction fire.
Close fire support missions are used to target enemy forces that are well beyond the range of conventional weapons but threaten or are poised to threaten friendly forces. This mission occurs in conjunction with forward observers, personnel who call in and guide fire from a position where they may observe the points of impact of each round.
Counterfire missions are used against enemy artillery units, which can include mortar teams, air defense, missile systems, etc. The goal of counterfire actions is to suppress enemy artillery to allow friendly forces uninhibited freedom of movement — and to kill the enemy artillery in self-defense before it can return the sentiment.
Interdiction fire missions are intended to deny enemy access to a specific area. This type of mission can be used either to redirect enemy forces away from a particular area or clear an area for later friendly forces’ use.
Mechanics: Attacks with artillery are made with an unmodified Intelligence + Firearms roll. Firing artillery is a specialized skill, because it often involves firing at targets outside of the artillery team’s visual range, using coordinates provided by a map and a spotter communicating over the radio. Characters without an Artillery Specialty in Firearms cannot use their Firearms Skills to attack, and must instead default to Intelligence with a –2 untrained penalty.
Unlike with direct-fire weapons, successes on the attack roll for indirect-fire weapons do not contribute to damage. Instead, assuming a successful hit, the target simply takes damage according to the artillery shell’s Blast Area and Force traits. The 8 again and 9 again rules do not apply to the attack roll, but only to damage. All artillery shells with Force traits inflict lethal damage.
Most modern mortars fire a shell ranging in width from 60mm to 120mm and are effective against targets at ranges of more than 1,000 yards. Historically, however, mortars have been as large as 36 inches. Traits are given for the smaller mortars that characters might encounter in the hands of infantry units.
Examples: American M224, British L-16a2, Israeli C-03 Commando Mortar
Howitzers can either be towed by vehicles or self-propelled (usually as tracked vehicles). Howitzers are designed for indirect-fire missions, and most howitzers are limited to a 60-degree firing arc. Their munitions range from 75mm upwards to over 200mm, with 120mm to 155mm being the most common. Some World War II era guns were even smaller, ranging from 35mm to 47mm. Because of their power, these guns have ranges listed in kilometers.
Examples: US M59 “Long Tom” 155mm (towed), Russian 2S3 Akatsiya 155mm (self-propelled), Chinese Type 59-1 130mm (towed)
Unlike mortars, which have a limited range of ammunition types, howitzers have a multitude of available munitions: high explosive (HE), smoke, illumination, high explosive rocket-assisted, high explosive anti-tank fin-stabilized (HEAT-FS), incendiary, chemical and nuclear. High explosive, smoke and illumination rounds are big brothers to the versions fired by mortars but perform the same function. A high explosive rocket-assisted (HERA) shell is a high explosive shell that, once fired from the gun, uses an onboard rocket to propel the shell farther than a conventional shell, but otherwise has the same effects as an HE shell. The HEAT-FS shell is an anti-tank shell that, when launched, sprouts several fins to help control its flight path and provide for a more accurate shot. Incendiary shells are intended to start fires and produce obscuring smoke.
Larger shells (155mm and above) have the ability to carry mass destruction payloads such as chemical (see “Chemical Weapons,” p. 124) and even nuclear weapons (see “Nuclear Weapons,” p. 121). Howitzers also have a large variety of payload-carrying munitions available, none of which will be discussed here, such as mines, grenades, fragmentary, radio jamming equipment and flechette.
Due to the limited accuracy of unguided rockets, they have two main uses. Characters are most likely to encounter small, man-portable anti-vehicular rocket launchers designed to disable tanks or destroy lighter ground vehicles. Bombardment rockets are a cheaper alternative to howitzers, possessing equivalent range and striking power at the expense of accuracy and overall efficiency.
Mechanics: Attacks with rockets and missiles require a Dexterity + Firearms roll. Characters without a Heavy Weapons Specialty in Firearms suffer a –2 penalty to this roll. Attacks against targets smaller than Size 10 suffer a penalty equal to the Size differential, and some weapons require targets to be even larger (see individual descriptions).
For the sake of simplicity, these rules ignore the extensive flight time (possibly as long as several turns, at extreme range) and assume that all missiles strike within the same turn as they’re fired. A character firing a missile launcher must aim for at least one turn before firing or the attack loses the benefit of the 10 again rule and every 1 rolled cancels a success. Reloading a missile launcher takes three turns.
Mechanics: Vehicle-scale weaponry attacks are resolved using the system for firearms conflict — Dexterity + Firearms + the weapon’s Damage trait. Characters without a Heavy Weapons Specialty suffer a –2 penalty to this roll.
Tactical weapons, by their very nature, are designed to give their users an advantage over their opponents. This advantage can come in the form of more destruction or it could be that the location of battle can be chosen ahead of time. Whatever the form of the advantage, tactical and heavy weapons have played a part in every major conflict since the earliest recorded histories. From medieval siege weapons to ancient Chinese firework rockets, from Roman artillery to the Tartar army catapulting plague victims into the city of Kaffa in the 14th century, tactical weapons have allowed armies to attack bigger and tougher opponents with both a minimum force and with suffering minimal losses and will continue shape the future of modern conflicts.
Explosives
Legend has it that a Chinese cook accidentally mixed saltpeter, sulfur and charcoal (all common kitchen ingredients at the time), and, by doing so, created gunpowder. He discovered that this mixture burned when ignited. It was later discovered that, when placed into a container (bamboo tubes) and ignited, the mixture would explode — thus creating the world’s first firecracker. The Chinese believed that the loud bang created by the explosion would scare away evil demons and thus began using firecrackers to celebrate every special occasion, such as weddings, births, the New Year and coronations.Example: A heavy fragmentation grenade has a Damage of 0(L)+3; this means attacks with the grenade add zero dice to the attack roll (Dexterity + Athletics), the attack does lethal damage and, assuming the roll is successful, three successes are added to the successes scored on the roll to determine the amount of damage done.
Stationary explosives have a Damage of “N/A” because they’re left in place, not used to attack specific targets. When hidden, such explosives use the system for traps on p. 184 to determine how well hidden they are, and the damage they inflict on anyone or anything nearby is determined solely by the Blast Area and Force of the explosion.
Blast Area: The diameter of the explosion in yards. The number listed is for the primary blast area; the secondary blast area is twice this number. A blast area of 0 yards is considered to affect only the person the area is in contact with, though the blast Area have a secondary Blast Area of 1.
Force: How much damage the explosion inflicts on anyone or anything not the subject of a direct attack with theweapon. Bystanders caught in the primary blast area take the explosive’s Force rating as automatic points of damage, and the bystanders also suffer the explosive’s Force in damage dice.
Characters outside of the primary blast area but within the secondary blast area take damage differently. They simply take the Force rating of the explosive as damage dice.
Example: John is 15 yards from a one pound C-4 bomb when it goes off. Instead of taking 4 points of lethal damage automatically and taking an additional 4 dice of damage, he suffers only the 4 dice of damage.
Explosives without a Damage trait have the type of damage they inflict (B: bashing; L: lethal) noted under Force, instead.
Ranges: The short, medium and long ranges of the weapon. Attacks in the short range are made at no penalty, attacks at medium range are made at –2 and attacks at long range are made at –4.
Cost: The minimum dots in the Resources Merit usually required to purchase the weapon. An “N/A” entry indicates that the item is a military device and is not available to the general public. Military devices are for sale only on the black market (see p. 194).
Size: The size of the explosive. Items of Size 1 can be hidden within a hand, items of Size 2 can be hidden inside a coat and items of Size 3 cannot be hidden anywhere on a person. See p. 198 for “Weapon Concealment” rules.
Effects: Any other effects pertinent to the behavior of the explosive, such as the 9 again or 8 again rules, Armor Piercing or Knockdown.
An explosive with the 9 or 8 again rule applies that rule to both attack rolls and to damage rolls using the explosive’s Blast Area and Force.
Armor Piercing is expressed as “AP” followed by a number, and armor piercing explosives apply their Armor Piercing value only to their primary target. The exception is white phosphorus and thermite ordinance, which apply their Armor Piercing values to everything caught within the blast area.
See p. 168, the World of Darkness Rulebook, for more information on the Knockdown effect.
Li Tian Versus the Prime Minister's Demon
During the Tang Dynasty, Prime Minister Wei Zhou defeated an evil dragon only to have it return to haunt him. Nobody knew of a way to rid the kingdom of this evil spirit. Li Tian, a Chinese monk, ignited a bamboo tube filled with gunpowder, and the resulting explosion and loud bang drove the spirit away. Li Tian continued using this method in driving away evil. He was eventually honored with a temple and the Chinese celebrate April 18th by offering sacrifices to Li Tian.By the 10th century, the Chinese began creating bombs, fire arrows and “ground rats” (a type of firework designed to scare and disorient). Sometimes these “ground rats” would briefly launch themselves into the air. Soon afterward, the Chinese first used exploding rockets. The first rockets used bamboo tubes to propel objects into the air, though these tubes were fragile and unsafe for practical use. Next, the Chinese used metal to form crude cannons. This practice quickly spread across Asia into the Middle East and, by the 13th century, had reached Europe.
Soon, every country had to have an artillery division in its army if the country had any hope of winning major conflicts. Factories called “powederworks” mixed and ground gunpowder. Crude cannons led to more advanced cannons, mortars and then muskets, which ushered in the end of the medieval world (as bullets could easily penetrate a knight’s armor).
During the 17th century, gunpowder evolved into commercial use, for blasting rocks and clearing paths for roads. The 1800s brought about greater demand for commercial demolitions and even more powerful explosives such as nitroglycerine. Albert Nobel, founder of the Nobel Prize, developed dynamite, which stabilized nitroglycerine and made it relatively safe for commercial applications.
The 20th century brought with it huge leaps in explosive technologies. Shapeable explosives or plastique explosives allowed for explosions that could then be shaped and aimed. Their destructive power was focused directly at the target rather than partially at the target and partially at everything else. Then, as the world was plunged into conflicts using the deadliest weapons yet to be seen, larger and more powerful explosives were developed, culminating with the harnessing of the power of the atom to create devastation on an epic scale.
Most of the weapons presented in this chapter are explosive in nature. Explosive weapons have some or all the following Traits:
Type: This is the name or descriptor of the weapon.
Damage: This is the number of dice added to or subtracted from attempts to attack enemies with the explosive. Attacks using different types of explosives use different rolls; for example, attacks with hand grenades are Dexterity + Athletics, while attacks with howitzers are Intelligence + Firearms and require an Artillery Specialty. See the descriptions of specific types of explosives for more details. As with attack rolls for other weapons, successes on the attack roll add to the damage done. In addition, all explosives use the extra successes rule. On a successful attack, a number of extra successes are added to the roll to determine the damage inflicted — this is expressed as a value after the Damage trait and damage type (B: bashing, L: lethal), and is usually equal to the Force of the explosive.
Heavy Weaponry
It takes more than a machine gun to destroy a tank. The armies of the world have developed heavy weaponry, suitable for eliminating targets that exist on a scale far greater than human beings. Enemy APCs, fighter jets and hardened bunkers all fit this description, but so do other, hidden things, things that exist in isolated caverns and below the ocean’s waves. Characters may believe they need large-scale destructive solutions to such threats, but don’t forget that any use of heavy weaponry by persons other than the military is likely to attract attention far beyond the means of most characters to escape.This section covers heavy weaponry used to attack enemies at short range, whether it be grenade launchers, artillery over-the-shoulder disposable rocket launchers and flamethrowers.
Grenades
A grenade is a fist-sized bomb filled with an explosive or chemical material and detonated by a delayed ignition system. The earliest grenades were simple hollow shells filled with gunpowder. The user lit a wick and tossed the grenade as far from himself as possible. Today, grenades are filled with a variety of substances, depending on their purpose, and use an internal chemical delay system for ignition.Hand Grenades
A hand grenade has a handle and a safety pin that prevents the handle from coming off. After removing the pin and releasing the handle, the grenade will explode in three to five seconds. Hand grenades are usually thrown immediately after the lever is released to either give the attacker enough time to exit the area or throw it far enough to reach the target.Mechanics: Hand grenades are thrown weapons. See p. 67, the World of Darkness Rulebook, for how to calculate the Range of thrown weapons. All grenades are considered aerodynamic except for Molotov cocktails and pipe bombs.
Optional Grenade Rule
Grenades do not explode immediately after being thrown or even once they land. It takes 3 to 5 seconds after the grenade is primed before it will explode. Generally, a character will throw a grenade immediately after pulling the pin. If the grenade is not thrown too far, this might give an enemy ample time to throw the grenade back or simply escape the blast area.Grenades are unpredictable, and there is no true method for a character to know how much time there is left before the grenade will explode. Storytellers who wish to add a little danger to grenade use can use the following rules to mimic a grenade’s delay:
Once the grenade has been primed, the Storyteller secretly rolls a d10. The grenade is given an Initiative of the thrower’s current Initiative minus the roll result. On the grenade’s Initiative during the current turn, the grenade will explode. If this puts the grenade’s Initiative at less than zero, then the grenade explodes after the first action of the following round. Characters may attempt to intercede, escape or even try to throw the grenade back before it explodes.
A character who is “cooking” a grenade releases the grenade’s lever. The Storyteller rolls to determine the grenade’s “secret” Initiative. The player states for how long (at what Initiative) his character will hold the grenade before throwing it. If the character holds the grenade past its Initiative, the grenade will explode in his hand. The character may attempt to perform any other actions normally allowed during the time he is “cooking” the grenade.
If you are using this rule, grenades are treated as stationary explosives — use the attack roll to determine if the grenade lands where the thrower wants it to, but, afterwards, the grenade does damage to anyone nearby according to its Blast Area and Force, and is not considered to have a primary target.
Example: Jim has an Initiative of 10. At the beginning of his turn, he decides to “cook off” a grenade. Jim declares that he will throw it at an Initiative of 6. The Storyteller rolls for the grenade and gets a 6, which means the grenade will explode at an Initiative of 4 (Jim’s Initiative of 10 minus 6 equals 4). Jim throws the grenade just in time to see it explode.
Grenade Launchers
Hand grenades have a limited range, and sometimes it becomes necessary to hit targets at distances greater than an arm’s throw. Enter grenade launchers, which fire large projectiles with the same basic effects as some types of hand grenade. These grenades have low muzzle velocities and may have several seconds of “hang time,” so they use impact fuses rather than time delays.Mechanics: Grenade launchers are fired with Dexterity + Firearms. A grenade launcher’s Damage is effectively zero, because a grenade launcher does not add to the accuracy of its users’ attacks; however, successes on the attack roll still add to damage inflicted on the primary target, and grenade launcher ammunition still adds extra successes equal to the ammo’s Force to successful attack rolls to determine the amount of damage inflicted.
Artillery
Artillery provides long-range fire support. Throughout the history of war, more deaths have resulted from artillery than by any other means — hence its nickname, “the King of Battle.”Artillery weapons are indirect-fire weapons. In indirect fire, a weapon cannot be sighted at the target and must be aimed using distance and bearing (direction). An indirectfire weapon is most often used when the target is not visible, such as when it is behind a mountain or other object that blocks line of sight. Indirect fire can also be used when the target is well out of range for small arms attacks but is still visible to the battery (a group of artillery pieces).
Artillery weapons serve several different roles in combat operations: close fire support, counterfire and interdiction fire.
Close fire support missions are used to target enemy forces that are well beyond the range of conventional weapons but threaten or are poised to threaten friendly forces. This mission occurs in conjunction with forward observers, personnel who call in and guide fire from a position where they may observe the points of impact of each round.
Counterfire missions are used against enemy artillery units, which can include mortar teams, air defense, missile systems, etc. The goal of counterfire actions is to suppress enemy artillery to allow friendly forces uninhibited freedom of movement — and to kill the enemy artillery in self-defense before it can return the sentiment.
Interdiction fire missions are intended to deny enemy access to a specific area. This type of mission can be used either to redirect enemy forces away from a particular area or clear an area for later friendly forces’ use.
Mechanics: Attacks with artillery are made with an unmodified Intelligence + Firearms roll. Firing artillery is a specialized skill, because it often involves firing at targets outside of the artillery team’s visual range, using coordinates provided by a map and a spotter communicating over the radio. Characters without an Artillery Specialty in Firearms cannot use their Firearms Skills to attack, and must instead default to Intelligence with a –2 untrained penalty.
Unlike with direct-fire weapons, successes on the attack roll for indirect-fire weapons do not contribute to damage. Instead, assuming a successful hit, the target simply takes damage according to the artillery shell’s Blast Area and Force traits. The 8 again and 9 again rules do not apply to the attack roll, but only to damage. All artillery shells with Force traits inflict lethal damage.
Mortars
A mortar is simple mobile indirect-fire weapon, consisting of a smoothbore tube attached to a base with a sighting and an elevation adjustment device. A mortar shell is similar to a round of grenade launcher ammunition, consisting of propellant, casing, fuse and explosive payload. When dropped into the mortar, the shell makes contact with a firing pin, which sets off the propellant instantly. No complicated trigger mechanism exists. This simple construction makes mortars a favorite of forces with limited technical capabilities, such as insurgency movements. Mortars can weigh between 50 and 300 pounds (not counting ammo) and can be broken down into several pieces for ease of travel. Most mortars employ a team of three to four people to operate and transport.Most modern mortars fire a shell ranging in width from 60mm to 120mm and are effective against targets at ranges of more than 1,000 yards. Historically, however, mortars have been as large as 36 inches. Traits are given for the smaller mortars that characters might encounter in the hands of infantry units.
Examples: American M224, British L-16a2, Israeli C-03 Commando Mortar
Howitzers
Howitzers (modern-day cannons) are larger than mortars and fire rounds with no internal propellant — gunners must load one or more bags of propellant (“powder charges”) separately before firing. “Howitzer” is derived from Haubitze, a German word that means an explosive shell. Howitzer can also be used to describe a brutal, merciless attack.Howitzers can either be towed by vehicles or self-propelled (usually as tracked vehicles). Howitzers are designed for indirect-fire missions, and most howitzers are limited to a 60-degree firing arc. Their munitions range from 75mm upwards to over 200mm, with 120mm to 155mm being the most common. Some World War II era guns were even smaller, ranging from 35mm to 47mm. Because of their power, these guns have ranges listed in kilometers.
Examples: US M59 “Long Tom” 155mm (towed), Russian 2S3 Akatsiya 155mm (self-propelled), Chinese Type 59-1 130mm (towed)
Unlike mortars, which have a limited range of ammunition types, howitzers have a multitude of available munitions: high explosive (HE), smoke, illumination, high explosive rocket-assisted, high explosive anti-tank fin-stabilized (HEAT-FS), incendiary, chemical and nuclear. High explosive, smoke and illumination rounds are big brothers to the versions fired by mortars but perform the same function. A high explosive rocket-assisted (HERA) shell is a high explosive shell that, once fired from the gun, uses an onboard rocket to propel the shell farther than a conventional shell, but otherwise has the same effects as an HE shell. The HEAT-FS shell is an anti-tank shell that, when launched, sprouts several fins to help control its flight path and provide for a more accurate shot. Incendiary shells are intended to start fires and produce obscuring smoke.
Larger shells (155mm and above) have the ability to carry mass destruction payloads such as chemical (see “Chemical Weapons,” p. 124) and even nuclear weapons (see “Nuclear Weapons,” p. 121). Howitzers also have a large variety of payload-carrying munitions available, none of which will be discussed here, such as mines, grenades, fragmentary, radio jamming equipment and flechette.
Rockets and Missiles
The next step in military heavy weapons evolution after the introduction of artillery was the development of rockets and missiles, which provide the same basic damage profile but with greater range and, in the case of guided missiles, enhanced accuracy. In military terms, the primary difference between a rocket and a missile is that the latter has a guidance system that enhances its accuracy, rather than relying purely on operator skill, ballistics and luck.Due to the limited accuracy of unguided rockets, they have two main uses. Characters are most likely to encounter small, man-portable anti-vehicular rocket launchers designed to disable tanks or destroy lighter ground vehicles. Bombardment rockets are a cheaper alternative to howitzers, possessing equivalent range and striking power at the expense of accuracy and overall efficiency.
Mechanics: Attacks with rockets and missiles require a Dexterity + Firearms roll. Characters without a Heavy Weapons Specialty in Firearms suffer a –2 penalty to this roll. Attacks against targets smaller than Size 10 suffer a penalty equal to the Size differential, and some weapons require targets to be even larger (see individual descriptions).
Rocket Launcers
Man-portable rocket launchers are the primary means by which infantrymen even the scales when facing armored vehicles or fortified positions. Rocket launchers fire unguided rockets with two main types of warheads. HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) warheads are shaped charges designed to punch through vehicular armor with explosive force and a jet of molten metal, while HE (High Explosive) warheads have normal omnidirectional blast effects.Missile Launchers
Missile launchers are more sophisticated than rocket launchers, as missile launchers incorporate electronic targeting and guidance systems to control the missiles fired. Two main types of guided missiles exist. Self-guided missiles have onboard sensors (such as radar or heat sensors) that take over from the launchers’ targeting systems after launch to steer the missiles toward their targets. Terminally guided missiles, by comparison, require some form of remote control after launch, be it direct steering instructions transmitted through a wire or a laser dot held steady on the targets until impact.For the sake of simplicity, these rules ignore the extensive flight time (possibly as long as several turns, at extreme range) and assume that all missiles strike within the same turn as they’re fired. A character firing a missile launcher must aim for at least one turn before firing or the attack loses the benefit of the 10 again rule and every 1 rolled cancels a success. Reloading a missile launcher takes three turns.
Military Vehicle Armament
Military vehicles (see Chapter Three) carry weaponry far more powerful than the personal-scale items detailed in this book’s other chapters. The following is by no means a complete catalog but rather a set of generic rules and descriptions sufficient for use when ancient horrors and modern military forces collide.Mechanics: Vehicle-scale weaponry attacks are resolved using the system for firearms conflict — Dexterity + Firearms + the weapon’s Damage trait. Characters without a Heavy Weapons Specialty suffer a –2 penalty to this roll.
Grenade Myths
For anyone who would like to remove the safety pin with his teeth, note that it requires between 10 to 35 pounds of force to remove it. It’s likely that a character would pull his teeth out before he even budged the safety pin.Grenades do not bounce. Most grenades weigh about a pound and have steel or aluminum casings. Grenades might ricochet off door frames in computer games, but, in the real world, grenades will just drop to the floor.
After the safety pin is removed, it can be replaced only so long as the handle has not been released. Even the slightest movement of the handle is enough to start the fuse. Once the handle is released, there is no way to reset the grenade. Whether the safety pin has been reinserted or not, the grenade will explode.
Hand grenades can be “cooked.” Cooking a grenade is a technique that attempts to limit a target’s ability to throw the grenade back or escape from its explosion. Once the user releases the handle, he holds the grenade for one or two seconds before throwing it.