Ammunition

[chriswebb2020.736]

Ammunition

I have some questions for shooters:

Standard - Now, is this basically a FMJ round? I ask because I am curious that the only expanding rounds listed in the game are 'Hollowpoints' and 'Shotgun Slugs'.

Dual-Purpose - Could someone please provide me with a real life example of a 'Dual Purpose' round?

Safety Rounds - Now I am guessing that these are 'frangible' rounds. Am I correct?

Also, can someone with first hand experience please tell me if there really is such a large disparity between 5.45x39mm and 5.56x45mm rifle rounds? Does the NATO round really have about 25% more power than the Soviet one?

Lastly, does the 7.62x39mm really have such similar characteristics to the 5.56x45mm?

 

[Sardukhar]

Standard usually means jacketed, yes. Full on lead is rarer to find as a bullet.

No idea on a Dual Purpose ral life round. DP in CP2020 is fairly oddball and based on the idea that two different materials in the bullet will respond differently to armour. I honestly can't see the inner hard coure of such a round performing that well against armour while the outer soft care just comes apart and doesn't mess with the penetrator. Maybe in a larger bullet. I think tank rounds have something like this.

Safety rounds are generally any round designed to have less object penetration. I.e. walls and windows and whatnot. Handily, they also tend to come apart in flesh nicely.

No idea about the disparity.

The x39 vs the x45mm data I looked at indicates the 7.62mm is much more powerful, which makes sense. I trust ballistics generally pre-flight, it's a solid science. Which is why I still have my fingers.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

Cheers sard. I am going to have to reevaluate the damage numbers for some rounds.

I know the 5.45 is a fair bit lighter than the 5.56, but I also know that the Russian round is designed to tumble. Guess I will need to do some more homework...

 

[Sardukhar]

Well.

MANY WORDS AHEAD.



At this point things get sticky. Which is why I said pre-flight ballistics are a pretty solid science.

When a round leaves the barrel, all sorts of things start to affect it. "Why Ballisticians Go Grey" is a chapter title in my Speer reloading manual, something I often say to indicate how hard it is to predict what will happen outside the controlled interface of the weapon.

When that round hits a target, it gets messier. In every way. Impact physics, round composition, target composition, wound elasticity...

Observed values for certain bullets and weights and make up tend to produce consistent results. Depending on study.

Tumbling rounds do better, usually. Certain bullet weights and speeds do better, usually.

The .357Magnum, for example, has a much better one-shot-stop on humans than the .44M, for example. I think the .357M has the best 1HK for pistols, actually. Have to check that.

Why? LOTS of debate. It also depends on the human, which gets more confusing. Since most testing can't be done on people, the best we can do is simulate. Real world results can be quite different - see the famous shootout between the FBI and Platt/Matix.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1986_FBI_Miami_shootout

"Toxicology tests showed that the abilities of Platt and Matix to fight through multiple traumatic gunshot wounds and continue to battle and attempt to escape were not achieved through any chemical means."

These were 9mm rounds. Not tiny. And until then, seen as having more than adequate stopping power.

9mm are still the round of choice for most serving police departments.

"New NYPD officers are allowed to select one of three 9mm service pistols: the Sig Sauer P226 DAO, Smith & Wesson Model 5946 DAO, and Glock 19"

So. Yeah.

Hunting has this rule: "Always Bring Enough Gun". It's not some macho bullshit, it's because, within sane limits, it's better to have a little bit too much stopping power, than not enough.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

Well, I guess my last question would have to be:
How much have the larger calibre rounds been dialed down so that they don't dominate a fire fight as much?

 

[Sardukhar]

In CP2020 terms?

It's hard to say. In 2013, when they did 11d6 damage with full energy, that was pretty crazy.

A 9m in this game does 2d6+1. A 5.56, with much much greater energy only does 5D6. 9mm is about 570J of energy. 5.56? about 1800. More than three times. In a straight ratio, you'd be looking at something closer to 6D6+3 or 7D6.

.38 Spec does 2d6 with on average 250 J. Half that of a 9mm, about one-seventh of the 5.56.


7.62 NATO, that does 6D6+2 damage goes out at 3300 to 3500 J. TWICE that of the 5.56 and something like FIFTEEN times that of the .38 Special.

Lesson: do not get shot by a rifle. Or at all, really.

I take deer with my .303, generally. It has similar energy to a 7.62 NATO round. One bullet does it. It also goes easily through trees, half inch of iron at 25 yards, etc.

But should it have 30D6 damage?

No. It should not. It will quite likely kill you and certainly badly hurt you, but it is no autokill.

Because of how humans - and deer - work, within certain limits you are going to achieve very similar upper end effects. At a certain speed, that bullet is going right through. Bye! Luck, time to medical care, more luck, idiosyncratic wound channelling... whatever.

Much of it depends on where you are hit. Very much. Google will tell you about people who took .50 cal hits and lived. This is not the norm. I have never seen a deer survive a .303, for example. But then, I hit them in the chest or neck.

Toughest guy I know took two .22 rounds to the torso and fell over. He could still move - but not for long.

So, another long story short, although you could up the minimum damage of everything above .38 by a dice or more, where they are now are mostly okay. A solid hit from a 5.56 will do about 18 damage. That's clear through Light, Serious, Critical and 2 into Mortal 0. That's fine. If they are tough, they might be just into Mortal or the upper end of Critical. They also might get lucky and get a clean through and through and be only Serious.

Now, as for the hilarity of limb hits causing auto death saves at 8 damage but torso hits not, that's different. Which is why I usually have critical hits, ( a 10 followed by whatever critical changes you made so it doesn't happen as often) apply wherever.

Interesting side note: the femoral artery loss will kill you faster than nearly any head hit that doesn't destroy the skull...

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

Good reading. Plenty of food for thought.

On a related note, my step dad was on the front line in the Falklands and his description of the difference between a 5.56mm hit to the arm compared to a 7.62mm NATO was that you would need to patch up the arm from the 5.56mm but ypu would need to find the arm after a 7.62mm.

 

[wisdom000]

Good reading. Plenty of food for thought.

On a related note, my step dad was on the front line in the Falklands and his description of the difference between a 5.56mm hit to the arm compared to a 7.62mm NATO was that you would need to patch up the arm from the 5.56mm but ypu would need to find the arm after a 7.62mm.

Which sums up the damage difference pretty well.

All in all, I think the damages work pretty well in Cyberpunk across the board. At the low end they don't do so much, but then bullets at the low end were'nt meant to go up against body armor at all... Some things may not line up exactly, but overall without getting into just mind numbing pedantry (GURPS, 3G3) you will have a hard time finding a system that does it better, especially one that is still playable for anyone but math nerds. And so many systems do it so much much worse.....

 

[quartermaim]

Dual-Purpose - Could someone please provide me with a real life example of a 'Dual Purpose' round?

Dual Purpose has to real life example, it was designed for lazy players and Refs who just wanted to shoot things and do the most damage. As a player and a Ref I have no real issue with them, but as a Ref I require my players to determine which damage is greater.

 

[Sardukhar]

Ahhh...what? You know what Dual Purpose rounds are, right?

Originally from Protect and Serve, the round acts as either AP or dum-dum - what it hits determines what kind of damage it does. Not sure how the players determine which damage is greater.

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m430.htm

Is an example of a DP round used in the MK 19 grenade launcher. DP rounds sort-of do exist, although they are typically explosive based. In the real world they are found only in larger calibres and munitions. It's not unbelievable that something like DP would exist for pistols by 2020 in the Cpunk world.


http://www.nammo.com/Technologies/Multipurpose/ is a version for 12.7mm up to 40mm by the Nordic Ammunition group. " The ammunition functions via a pyrotechnical ignition train with delayed action of the blast, large fragments and incendiary effect inside the target. "

Sort of an exploding API round, heh.

CHRIS! I want one of these for when I get that 12.7mm that..I..might...need? Someday?

 

[quartermaim]

Ahhh...what? You know what Dual Purpose rounds are, right?

Originally from Protect and Serve, the round acts as either AP or dum-dum - what it hits determines what kind of damage it does. Not sure how the players determine which damage is greater.

I thought you meant Dual-Purpose Rounds from Chromebook 2

 

[Sardukhar]

Yeah, same-same. They are pretty much a copy of the DP rounds for the Constitution Arms pistol used by the cops in P+S. That MAP totally rocked, possibly because it was SO OBVIOUSLY based on the Logan's Run gun from the book.

Anyway, the damage is determined by target surface, at least in the sourcebook.

 

[quartermaim]

Yeah, same-same. They are pretty much a copy of the DP rounds for the Constitution Arms pistol used by the cops in P+S. That MAP totally rocked, possibly because it was SO OBVIOUSLY based on the Logan's Run gun from the book.

Anyway, the damage is determined by target surface, at least in the sourcebook.

Correct I have no idea what I was thinking about determining damage.

Still, it does allow players not have to worry about losing damage. If the target location is armored its AP if its unarmed the damage is 1.5.

As for the Constitution Arms Pistol it was a great weapon.

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

Right, I have been doing a bit of homework on my own question and this is the best I have been able to come up with:

Say hello to the 7.62mm EPR (Enhanced Performance Round)

It's part of the latest 'green' movement being made as part of the effort to reduce the amount of lead being introduced into areas via ammunition. (almost 2000 tons by the US military each year, who knew...)

It uses a steel penetrator wrapped in a copper jacket. It retains similar characteristics to standard FMJ rounds but with drastically improved penetration. IF this steel penetrator was combined with a jacketed lead core, similar to a jacketed hollow point with a steel core, then I think that would actually work in a similar manner to the DP ammunition in Chrome 2.

So, in short, there is no direct equivelant currently in use, (unless it's top secret 'hush-hush' stuff,) but there are rounds approaching similar abilities. (To an extent...)

 

[chombatta]

There is simply to many factors to get a practical realistic result from the different calibers. A long projectile have more mass and stability, making it go through armor easier and better range. A shorter will do more damage as it turn through the body. There is a lot of different designs to make a big amount of prefeared effects. Getting it down to a fixed amount of dices wouldn't give you much of a realistic result, so you might as well just stick to the book. The real world is simply to different from interlock.