Cimarb, on 23 January 2015 - 11:19 PM, said:
Technically, the "heaviest" AC20 is the 203 mm Ultra
Autocannon/20 on the
Cauldron Born, but even that can spread damage across multiple targets according to the TT Rules, which means it fires at least 2 shells. Otherwise spot on, and I really wish we could choose which style of autocannon we used...
edit for stupid copy/paste format garbage...
The 203mm weapon on the
Cauldron-Born is an
Ultra AC/20, which cannot spread its damage in a single-salvo (e.g. normal ROF) & can only hit multiple locations when used in "ultra mode" (e.g. double ROF).
Quote
Rather than firing at a single target, any type of autocannon can be "walked" across two targets close to one another. An LB-X autocannon firing a cluster shot and Ultra and Rotary autocannons firing at multiple targets are a special case.
...
For Ultra and Rotary autocannons, make a single to-hit roll against the highest to-hit number plus 1. Then determine whether the designated number of shots fired hit a target. If only one shot hit, it will strike one of the targets - determined at random - with a single shot that does full damage. If two, four or six shots hit, one, two or three shots will strike each target at full damage. If three or five shots hit, one or two shots will strike each target; randomly determine where the other shot lands.
Tactical Operations, page 100
By contrast, the 185mm ChemJet Guns on the
Demolisher tank fire in four-shell bursts.
Quote
The existence of weapon classes is an old point of contention among purists and the pragmatic. An engineer or armchair general might hold forth that the Crusher SH Cannon Autocannon (the only useful part of a Hetzer wheeled assault gun) is a completely different sort of weapon than 185mm ChemJet Guns of the fearsome Demolisher tank, because the former is a 150mm autocannon designed to fire a cassette of 10 shells while the latter is a 185mm weapon that fires a four-round cassette. However, not everyone can afford the luxury of such nitpicking, and so militaries long ago adopted a scheme of rough classes to judge weapon systems. In the case of the aforementioned autocannons, military personnel and casual observers would consider both weapons to be “class 20” autocannons as they both fire 200 kilograms of ammunition in a 10-second period at an effective range of just under 300 meters. Any autocannon that falls into that range of performance is a class-20 autocannon, whether they fire a single 300mm, 200-kilogram shell or scores of 50mm shells. Thus all autocannon that deliver approximately the same mass of ordnance on target in the same elapsed time at the same range belong to a single class (in this case, AC/20)
Era Report: 3052, page 98
Relative to BT canon, PGI's implementation of single-shot vs burst-fire ACs is backwards - that is, Standard ACs (and non-cluster-mode LB-X ACs) should be firing multi-shell bursts per salvo, while UACs should be firing single-shells per salvo.
70
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