Friday, October 11, 2013

Stuff to have in Car Wars

As I only get into Car Wars every year in the early fall (I don't know why, but that is really what happens), I missed the announcement that they are going to be making a 6th edition.  I need to write the SJG folks with all my wonderful obsessive points and plans.  But even if the 6e stinks, I probably will stay in 2.5e with just a lot of home-brewed ideas. 

For some reason, this part of the game is my favorite, hence all my posts under the tag "weapon analysis".  I don't want full verisimilitude, but I think there needs to be some correspondence to what is useful in current anti-tank warfare (which is what CW is).

Part of the problem in calibrating the CW-RW (Car Wars - Real World) correspondence is that CW was slapped together with different mentalities over the 12 or so years of it's heyday (1981 to 1992; CWC2.5e was 1990, UACFH was 1992... although the pdf of CWC2.5 lists 1996 & 1998, so I wonder if that book is now more authoritative.)

I go through this part of the CW project/obsession every year as well.  It starts with analyzing the weapons, like the "The State of the Art, 2039,Part I", by Craig Sheeley and Charles Oines (and HTMLized by Gustav Dahlström); see all my blog posts for the whole Sturm und Drang.

What I want to do with this post is to get the notes down of what I think needs to be added, for now (unless noted, all pictures are from the linked Wiki article):
  • Personal equipmentPistol Gripped Sawed Off Double Barreled Shotgun (PGSODBSG, or "Mad Max Gun" or even "Bronze Gun").  As I tipped off, this is the weapon of the police force, the Bronze, in the Mad Max movies.  And how can that *not* be in Car Wars?! (Note, the pic below is  from Rage, a computer game that came out in 2011, and I totally missed it!  It looks like a Mad Max/CW hybrid game, coooooool!)
  • Mini-Multiple-Fire-Rocket-Pod (I wrote it up already, here). Cloest to the Hydra 70mm rocket system.
  • Minigun - 30 cal gatling gun.  I've written about it here, and here, and I realize that I really should consolidate all of this.  Hrm.
  • Grenade Machine Gun (GMG) - like the Mk 19, which was used even in Vietnam. 
  • 25mm Chain Gun - the famed M242 Bushmaster, which could possibly be the CW "Autocannon"
  • 20mm Autocannon - like the famed 20mm Oerlikon, back in use since WWII!, which could be the CW "heavy machine gun" 
  • 40mm Bofors - This may be too big for standard CW vehicles.Still, it's an old military standby, in use since 1934!  
  • 30mm Avenger - Oh baby, the best of the best, the 30mm GAU-8 Avenger.  For all I know, this could be the RFTG (6 spaces), the HVMG (3), or the GC (5).
  • 25mm Equalizer - A lesser known Avenger type. To quote from the Wiki: "GAU-12/U Equalizer is a five-barrel 25 mm Gatling-type rotary cannon." (Pic from here).  Same quetions as above, is this the HMVG or GC?
I can add more later, but that's all for the ballistic weapon system.  Most antitank weapons nowadays are actually missiles and as far as I can tell, most of the missiles have been taken care of with the Aeroduel nonsense.  Since most CW cars are designed to carry laser guided rockets, that actually fits the current state of the art, and that wasn't the full intention of the CW designers.  Which shows that it actually makes sense.

No comments: