The Heavy Armory · Chapter 14
Matchups and Fitting Out
Damage by Mount and Period
| Period | Light | Standard | Heavy | Capital |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ancient | 1 to 3 | 3 to 6 | 8 to 9 | 12 (a fire ship) |
| Powder | 2 to 3 | 4 to 5 | 7 to 8 | — |
| Industrial | 3 to 4 | 5 to 10 | 8 to 12 | 14 to 16 |
| Modern | 3 to 5 | 5 to 9 | 9 to 12 | 18 |
The numbers barely move. A trebuchet stone and a howitzer shell both deal 8. What three thousand years buy is range, accuracy, rate of fire, and Pierce. A bombard fires once in six rounds at Long range. A tank gun fires every round at Extreme, on the move, through 5 points of Armor.
Batteries by Ship
| Ship | Guns a side | Battery gains |
|---|---|---|
| Sloop or brig | 7 Light Guns | Linked 2 |
| Galleon | 10 Medium Guns | Linked 3 |
| Frigate | 14 Heavy Guns | Linked 3 |
| Ship of the line, lower deck | 14 Great Guns | Linked 3 |
| Ship of the line, all three decks fired as three batteries | 37 guns | Three attacks, each Linked 3 |
| Field battery | 6 Medium Guns | Linked 2 |
| Siege battery | 4 Heavy Guns | Linked 2 |
What Stops What
| Attack | Stopped by | Not stopped by |
|---|---|---|
| Stone and bolt engines | Any stone wall; shields and mantlets for the crew | Timber, palisades, ships |
| Round shot | Earth, low thick walls, a ship's oak at long range | Tall masonry, anything at short range |
| Mortars and howitzers | Overhead cover, dispersal | Walls, trenches, anything open above |
| Machine guns | Any Armor | People in the open |
| Tank and anti-tank guns | The next generation of armour | The last one |
| Shaped charges and missiles | Reactive armour, distance, killing the gunner | Thickness |
| Torpedoes | Nets, speed, seeing them coming | Belt armour |
| Bombs | Fighters, anti-aircraft guns, bad weather | Anything that cannot move |
| Guided missiles | Chaff, flares, jamming, point defence | Armor |
Three Fights
A breach. Four Heavy Guns in a siege battery fire on a stone curtain wall: Armor 4, less 2 for being masonry under gunfire, less the guns' Pierce 1. Each hit deals 7 plus Successes, less 1. The battery is Linked 2, and reloads for three rounds. With two hits a volley, the section's 20 Hull Points are gone on the second volley. In the five rounds that takes, the defenders' own guns have been firing at the battery.
A frigate action. Two frigates, Hull 36 and Armor 2, each fire a battery of fourteen Heavy Guns: 7 Hull, Pierce 1, Linked 3. Each hit deals 6 or more. A broadside that scores three hits takes half the enemy's Hull. The fight is two or three exchanges, six to nine rounds, and most of that time is reloading and manoeuvring for a rake.
An ambush. A Medium Tank, Hull 16 and Armor 4, drives past a towed Heavy Tank Gun: 6 Hull, Pierce 4. The first shot is at Short range against its side, Armor 3. It deals 6 plus Successes with nothing subtracted. Two or three hits end it. The tank's own gun, firing back at an Emplaced target behind a gun shield, needs the gun crew out of the fight, and canister is the shell for that.