Aircraft

If memory serves, I promised to do this post two weeks ago. How time flies! In between, the family has gone through a high school graduation and a college orientation, and I’ve written about 8 quarterly reports for my real job. But now it is time – some G.I. Joe vehicles for GRIT & VIGOR.

I’ve spent the last four weeks writing High Frontier, a setting toolbox for GRIT & VIGOR based on the “retro-future”, or the future that people in 1950 dreamed they and their children would enjoy from the 1960s to the futuristic year … 2000! We’re talking moon bases, space stations, space colonies, lots of cool airplanes and concept cars, etc.

Along the way, I ran across a Wikipedia article on a G.I. Joe fighter plane, and realized I could probably stat those up as well. Where possible, I used the specifications published for these vehicles, and I filled in the gaps with info on the real vehicles on which they were based.

Notes:

Jet aircraft are given a generation [G]. This is added to the aircraft’s maneuverability (and thus AC) and attack rolls during combat.

Damage followed by a single asterisk (*) is multiplied by 10. Two asterisks (**) means multiply by 100.

Conquest X-30 | G.I. Joe 1986

Type: Huge Fighter G4
Hit Dice: 30 (105 hp)
Armor Class: 21
Attacks: 2 x 25mm cannons (7d6), 4 x AIM-12 Light Sparrow AAM (1d10**), 7,000 lb of bombs
Speed: 1600 mph
Maneuver: +8
Climb: 8500 fpr
Ceiling: 55,000 feet
Crew/Passengers: 1/0

These G.I. Joe fighter planes are based on the real Grumman X-29 (which appears in High Frontier). It is notable for its forward swept wings.

Phantom X-19 | G.I. Joe 1988

Type: Gargantuan Attack G5
Hit Dice: 45 (158 hp)
Armor Class: 18
Attacks: 2 x anti-satellite lasers (10d6), 2 x BY-106 Little Guy (1d10**), 1 x Bullseye III cruise missile (xxx), 2 x 2000 lb bombs
Speed: 2400 mph
Maneuver: +6
Climb: 6000 fpr
Ceiling: 72,000 feet
Crew/Passengers: 1/0

The Phantom is inspired (loosely) on a model that purported to be the “stealth bomber” (the F-117 Nighthawk) that turned out to look nothing like it.

Night Raven S3P | Cobra Command 1985

Type: Gargantuan Fighter G4
Hit Dice: 47 (165 hp)
Armor Class: 19
Attacks: 2 x 20mm cannons (6d6), 4 x SRAAM AAM (1d10**)
Speed: 2200 mph
Maneuver: +8
Climb: 6800 fpr
Ceiling: 86,000 feet
Crew/Passengers: 2/0

The Cobra Night Raven was based loosely on the SR-71 Blackbird (which means Cobra was as good at hacking the Pentagon as the Chinese, Russians, etc.)

Rattler | Cobra Command 1984

Type: Huge Attack G3
Hit Dice: 30 (105 hp)
Armor Class: 18
Attacks: 2 x 20mm cannon (6d6), 1 x 30mm cannons (8d6), 2 x AAM (1d8**), 2 x Renegade ASM (6d6*)
Speed: 450 mph
Maneuver: +5
Climb: 1000 fpr
Ceiling: 45,000 feet
Crew/Passengers: 2/0

The go-to combat aircraft of Cobra in the cartoons.

Skystriker XP-14F | G.I. Joe 1983

Type: Gargantuan Fighter G4
Hit Dice: 42 (147 hp)
Armor Class: 23
Attacks: 1 x 20mm cannons (6d6), 2 x AIM-9 Sidewinder AAM (1d8**), 2 x AIM-54 Phoenix (6d6**), 2 x AIM-7 Sparrow (1d12**)
Speed: 1500 mph
Maneuver: +8
Climb: 7500 fpr
Ceiling: 51,000 feet
Crew/Passengers: 2/0

The Skystriker was G.I. Joe’s principal combat aircraft (and clearly superior to the Rattlers).

German warbird, or …

Work proceeds on Grit & Vigor. The last couple weeks have been spent gathering vehicle data, turning it into something useful, and brainstorming the rules for dogfights, car chases and inventions.

On the vehicle front, I now have data for about 1,400 tanks, cars and airplanes, and believe I have found a way to turn the raw data into game data. Just for fun, I thought I might throw out some comparisons between military vehicles from the olden days and Blood & Treasure monsters. Obviously, I need to look at some heavyweights.

THE MONSTERS

The Neothelid – 25 HD wrapped up in acid-dripping, tentacled horror. Imagine it going toe-to-toe with a Russian T-18 tank. The tank is easier to hit, but can absorb some damage and deal it pretty well.

T-18: Huge Construct (Tank), HD 25 (88 hp), AC 19 (DR 6), SPD 10 mph (140), ATK 1 tank gun (8d8) and light machine gun (1d8), MVR +0, CP 2/0, WT 13,000 lb.

… fantasy robot – who would win in a fight?

The Balor Demon – 20 HD of demonic fury, roughly equivalent to a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk. The Warhawk can deal more damage with its six heavy machine guns, but the Balor isn’t affected by such mundane weaponry. Better load that Warhawk up with magic bullets.

Curtiss P-40 Warhawk: Huge Construct (Fighter), HD 20 (70 hp), AC 16, SPD 360 mph (5280), ATK 6 heavy machine guns (2d6) and bombs (1000 lb), MVR +2, CP 1/0, CEILING 29,000 ft., WT 8,400 lb.

The Iron Golem – 18 HD of heavy metal death, the equal of Messerschmitt Bf.109 – though let’s be honest, one good strafe or bomb drop, and the iron golem’s iron hide and its vaunted magic immunity is going to go up in smoke.

Messerschmitt Bf.109: Large-X Construct (Fighter), HD 18 (63 hp), AC 16, SPD 398 mph (5830), ATK 2 heavy machine guns (2d6) and 1 medium machine gun (1d8) and bombs (550 lb), MVR +3, CP 1/0, CEILING 39,000 ft., WT 6,940 lb.

A few notes on the vehicles:

Size is based on weight (and how interesting would that be to do with all the monsters?). I used the full d20 scale (I only used Small to Huge in B&T), and added half-steps in. Size determines Hit Dice.

CP refers to crew and passengers. The crew is going to be making the attacks for the vehicle, so it’s their attack bonus that counts when firing their weapons.

The weapons here are generic, and the final stats will include their ROF and range. ROF works into the gun rules, with each addition round you fire at a target either increasing your chance to hit by +1, or contributing to an additional 1d6 damage at a rate of 5 rounds to 1d6 damage – player’s choice and they can mix and match (e.g. an extra 20 rounds of ammo can translate into a +20 bonus to hit, or +4d6 damage or something in between, like +10 to hit and +2d6 damage). The bombs I still haven’t decided on, but probably going to be treated as something like a fireball spell – damage dice and radius based on the poundage, with people and items passing saving throws to halve the damage. The game is really designed more for man vs. man, rather than man vs. B-17 Flying Fortress.

Speed is the vehicles top speed, in miles per hour and, in parentheses, feet per round. For car chases, I’m working out a system that uses top speed as a determinant for the difficulty of stunts, to make it easy for referees and players to create stats for vehicles without having to know much about them other than their weight, their style and their top speed.

Armor Class is based on the material of the vehicle’s skin, as well as its thickness. Size plays a part as well. Damage reduction (DR) is based on the thickness of the armor, since I needed a way to screen the tanks from weapons that, by right, shouldn’t be able to penetrate their armor.

MVR is maneuverability, which is based on the vehicle’s type and its power to weight ratio.

Not a perfect system, I know, but I think it will work well enough for game purposes. My focus is on three systems – aerial combat (aircraft vs. aircraft), car chases and a nod towards aircraft attacking land vehicles. G&V isn’t designed as a wargame, but the combat rules should be able to handle something as basic as two tanks plugging away at one another.

Oh, and just for fun …

Burrough’s Barsoom Scout Flyer: Large Construct (Fighter), HD 11 (39 hp), AC 20, SPD 300 mph (1460), ATK none, MVR +3, CP 5/0, CEILING 11,000 ft., WT 1,500 lb.

Nemo’s Nautilus: Colossal x5 Construct (Submarine), HD 250 (875 hp), AC 22, SPD 40 mph (580), ATK 1 ram, MVR -1, CP ???, DEPTH 52,000 ft., WT 1,500 tons

Well’s Martian Tripod: Huge-X Construct (Tank), HD 31 (109 hp), AC 22, SPD 10 mph (140), ATK 1 heat ray (10d6 fire) and black smoke projector (as cloudkill?), MVR +1, CP 1/0, WT 20,000 lb.

Martian Tripod vs. Balor – now that’s a fight I would pay to see!