The Heavy Armory · Chapter 10

Guns of the Mechanised Age

Ground weapons from 1939 to today: what is bolted to a tank, towed behind a truck, or carried in three loads by an infantry section.

The first five entries are personal-scale crew weapons. They are what a squad owns. Everything after them is what a squad calls for.

Shells

A gun of this chapter or the last fires any of these that suits it. The loader chooses.

Shell	Effect	Price
High explosive	The listed profile for howitzers and mortars. For tank and field guns: no Pierce, and Blast 3	x1
Armour-piercing	The listed profile for tank and anti-tank guns. No Blast	x1
Shaped charge (from 1942)	Pierce 4, whatever the gun. Damage does not fall with range. Blast 1	x2
Sabot (from 1944)	Pierce 2 higher. No Blast. Long-barrelled guns only	x4
Shrapnel or canister	Range becomes Medium. Against people, Blast equal to the gun's Hull damage, with no Boons needed. Half damage to vehicles	x1
Smoke	No damage. A cloud of Short radius for 5 rounds: add 2 Bane Dice to attacks through it	x1
Illumination	No damage. Lights everything within Long range of the burst for 3 rounds	x1

Heavy Machine Gun

Fifty-calibre, twelve-seven, the deuce

The gun on the tripod, the truck ring, the tank cupola, and the boat's bow. Mounted on a vehicle it is the Pintle Gun of The Starship Armory. Breach 1: it holes unarmoured and lightly armoured vehicles.

Automatic Grenade Launcher

Belt-fed launcher, forty-mil gun

A machine gun that fires grenades. Each Auto-Fire hit triggers its own Blast for 1 Boon.

Medium Mortar

Eighty-one, eighty-two, battalion mortar

The infantry's own artillery: three loads for three people and a bomb every few seconds. It cannot attack inside Medium range.

Recoilless Rifle

Recoilless gun, one-oh-six, jeep gun

A light gun that vents its recoil backwards, small enough for a jeep or a tripod. It gives infantry a tank-killing weapon with a visible signature every time it fires.

Anti-Tank Guided Missile

Wire-guided missile, tripod missile

A missile steered to its target by the gunner through a wire or a beam. The gunner must keep the sight on the target until it hits: an attack on the gunner before then adds 2 Bane Dice to the missile. It cannot attack inside Medium range.

Automatic Cannon

Twenty- to thirty-mil cannon, chain gun, Oerlikon

The gun of armoured cars, infantry fighting vehicles, patrol boats, and light anti-aircraft mounts. It is the Autocannon of The Starship Armory with a faster cyclic rate.

Light Tank Gun

Thirty-seven, two-pounder, light anti-tank gun

The gun of the tanks and anti-tank batteries of 1939. Within three years it could not hurt the tanks it faced.

Medium Tank Gun

Seventy-five, seventy-six, six-pounder

The gun of the medium tank and of the towed anti-tank gun that waited for it. Slow-Firing 1 is the loader in a cramped turret; on an open field carriage with a full crew it is ignored.

Heavy Tank Gun

Eighty-eight, ninety, seventeen-pounder, one-twenty-two

A high-velocity gun, first built to shoot at aircraft and then pointed at tanks. It kills a medium tank of its day in two hits at any range it can see.

Main Battle Tank Gun

One-oh-five, one-twenty, one-twenty-five smoothbore

A stabilised gun with a ballistic computer. It fires on the move and hits what it aims at. With an autoloader the crew is 3.

Light Howitzer

One-oh-five, twenty-five-pounder, pack howitzer

The divisional gun: light enough to tow behind a truck or sling under a helicopter. It may fire directly at Medium range without Indirect, at 5 Hull with Pierce 1.

Rocket Artillery

Rocket truck, multiple launcher, organ

A truck with rails or tubes for a dozen to forty rockets, fired in seconds. Each of four ripples is one attack. Reloading takes ten minutes, by which time the truck should be somewhere else.

Heavy Anti-Aircraft Gun

Eighty-eight, three-point-seven, ninety-mil

A high-velocity gun firing time-fused shells into the path of aircraft. It can hit a target in flight at any height. Pointed at the ground it is the Heavy Tank Gun.

Surface-to-Air Missile

SAM, air defence missile

A radar- or heat-guided missile on a trailer, a tracked launcher, or a ship. It attacks only targets in flight. The shoulder-fired version is the Guided Missile Launcher in The Modern Armory.