Sunday, November 4, 2007

Grenade Launcher, part 3 - Another idea



I had asked a bunch of questions about the Grenade Launcher here and the answers are here. The impetus for my questions is a combination of: (1) not understanding the grenade scatter rules and (2) wondering why the grenade launcher in car wars is so wimpy compared to the real-world munition of Rocket Propelled Grenades (RPGs).

Car Wars has impact-fuses for the GL and I thought that would make the weapon like the impact-happy RPG. RPGs are a major, hand-held, tank-killer. They were used to devestating effect in the fiasco we know as "Black Hawk Down."

What I've come to accept - to the point where I'd establish that this should be an official "game fact" - is that the real-world RPG is not the Car Wars GL but the Car Wars Rocket Launcher. This makes sense - a 'medium rocket' is 1 space, 1 shot, 50 lb, 2 die damage weapon while a 'rocket launcher' is a 2 die damage but 10 shots in 2 spaces. The unguided nature of the single shot rockets means they're large and cheap (it's just a rocket engine plus a bunch of explosives). The Rocket launcher is a smaller explosive but the aiming mechanism, plus the fuel of the launcher, makes up the full 2 spaces.

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