best man portable weapon aginst PA(L)

[cawest]

What is a better counter PA(L) weapon?  the Mauser 960 or the Blazer rifle?  the battle field in on a dropship or jumpship.

have fun

[Cryhavok101]

The Mauser 960's compact grenade launcher makes it the clear winner here in my opinion.

[Daryk]

Looking at the kind of ordnance a compact grenade launcher (the kind the Mauser has) can use (Class A, which is only 2X/8A), it seems the Blazer wins with 5E/4.  The Blazer Pistol isn't a bad choice either with 5E/3.  Against BA, you need AP.

EDIT: Taking a closer look at how armor interacts with AP and BD, it seems to be more complicated.  Assuming you have PA(L) with two points of tactical armor, that gives them 6 BAR against energy and 5 BAR against explosives.  That means:
The Blazer Rifle will do 5AP - 6 BAR = -1 BD for 3 BD per hit.
The Grenade Launcher will do 2AP - 5 BAR = -3 BD for 5 BD per hit.  Area effect AP and BD are reduced by 1 each for each meter of distance between the target and the impact point, which means a near miss of 1 meter would do 3 BD, 2 meters 1 BD, and no damage at 3 meters or more.  This also means if you're in close quarters, you'll take damage from your own grenades, not to mention the bulkheads.

So, while the grenade launcher will do more damage per hit, it's much riskier inside a ship.  I'd stick with the Blazer Rifle.

[bluedragon7]

Ingame: Mauser 960 due to burst fire and vibroblade as a bonus in close quarters, I would avoid explosives there, but worst case it gives more options.

Rules: Assuming a PA(L) BAR of 6 the Blazer does exactly 1 point of damage if it hits, regardless how good you hit. The Mauser has a chance of making 2, 1 or 0. With 2 damage requiring a 18pp Burst with a MOS of 9, while below MOS 3 you only make 0.
A PA(L) BAR divides the damage after comparing AP and BAR by its rating.

[Cryhavok101]

Area effect AP and BD are reduced by 1 each for each meter of distance between the target and the impact point, which means a near miss of 1 meter would do 3 BD, 2 meters 1 BD, and no damage at 3 meters or more.

And if a blazer rifle misses at all it does 0. The grenade will be hurting the PA(L) and his pals (I am assuming he has pals, since they are normally deployed in squads).

So, while the grenade launcher will do more damage per hit, it's much riskier inside a ship.  I'd stick with the Blazer Rifle.

Nope, collateral damage and the ship exploding with you in it is just good entertainment that encourages the defending force to stop fighting. You have to be crazier than them.

[Daryk]

Ah, I missed the damage division thing because of the separate section on "Battle Armor and Exoskeletons".  It looked like that damage was in addition to the damage on page 185 (since that section refers to battle armor/exoskeletons as a "middle ground" between tactical and personal armor).

As for the Mauser's laser, with only a 3 AP, I'm not seeing how it could damage a PA(L) at all.  3 AP vs. the 6 BAR results in -3 BD, so the Mauser starts at 0, and could potentially get up to 10 with a 10 MOS (on a full 20 pp burst, per the page 179 rule on burst fire).  Dividing that 10 by 6 BAR yields only .167, which would round down to zero damage to the armor, and thus no damage to the pilot.  What am I missing?

With damage division factored in, the grenades do the same damage as the blazer if they hit or are within 1 meter (i.e., a MoF of 1), but none beyond that.  Call me prejudiced because I'm in the Navy, but deliberately damaging your own ship while you're defending it is less preferred.

[bluedragon7]

Its 1.67 at MoS 10 ^-^ so rounded to 2 as would be MoS 9 with 9/6=1.5 as well so no need to go for a full burst of 10 shots. However MoS 9 is not very common.

For grenades it makes a difference if its a 1-point (BAR4 vs explosives) or a 2-point (BAR5) PA(L)

Best case is 1,5 so 2 damage on a direct hit for BAR4, against BAR 5 the maximum is 1

Actually I did not find how grenades scatter in direct fire ( on board a ship indirect fire should not work unless in a huge cargohold during acceleration)

[Daryk]

The decimal point, aha!  Thanks.  That's what I get for doing math when I'm not fully awake.

[Daryk]

Looking more closely at the ordnance available against tactical armor, it seems the Tech Manual tables seriously underestimate the ability of quite a number of weapons to damage tactical armor.  Take the VLAW for example:

The damage code for the VLAW is listed as (C) on page 274, which means class (C) ordnance.  Flipping over to page 282, Class C anti-vehicle ordnance is listed as 8X/10A.  Assuming BAR 10 armor, that would be reduced to 8 damage, then divided by 10 for 0.8, which rounds to one point of damage on the tactical scale.  Checking the latest Tech Manual errata (3.0), it lists the VLAW as only 0.48 damage.

So now I'm wondering if the this is the source of the disconnect between AToW and TW.  I seem to recall the Tech Manual tables using a formula derived from the old Combat Operations book instead of the straight AToW rules.  What I don't remember is why.

[truetanker]

You guys are forgetting the Mauser 960 can use Smoke / Tear Gas Grenades as well for passive actions too.

Most dropship crews would have some form of suit protection, but still need to breathe. Also Smoke would make it harder for ranged to-hit numbers either way, allowing more melee actions where the Vibroblade works best.

TT

[bluedragon7]

The conversion rules are found in the AToW Companion.

[Daryk]

Ah, yes... page 170.  Given they came up with a way to convert damage in the base AToW book, I have to wonder why they kept the old formula for TM and republished it in the Companion.  The justification given on page 168 would make more sense if the formula didn't significantly reduce the damage potential of many weapons (e.g., the aforementioned VLAW).  Sure, the abstraction should find a way to account for MoS, but I don't see that reducing damage.