Monday, February 15, 2010

Ballistics Tests

When I originally played Little Wars we used Airfix plastic 1/32nd scale figures, unbased (and mostly unpainted) and fired matchsticks at them and larger bullets from an Ambush! gun, as I've already mentioned.

Even using matchsticks, a hit would knock the figure over and possibly take a couple of others with it in collateral damage.

I had a play last night testing out firing matchsticks at the sample LWR figures I have painted up and even at fairly close range, they simply bounce off as the solid metal figures are so much heavier.

I also tried firing small pieces of metal sprue, to see if I cast up some bullets they would work - but they seem equally light and don't knock the figures over...

Funny Little Wars uses the concept for artillery fire that you measure from where the matchstick lands (or the figure it hits) and that gives you the burst radius - different weights of artillery having different radii - and then you throw a D6 for each figure within the radius.

The discussion of Kriegspiel at the end of Little Wars discusses this idea as well, using different weights of screws or bolts which are placed in the end of a gun barrel and then fired out using a matchstick to strike them. I haven't tried this yet to see if it would work - it is only really suitable for the larger guns with a long barrel as the shorter field guns have a barrel which is not as long as a matchstick anyway.

Although I intend to play most using Funny Little Wars I would like to use classic Little Wars as well...

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