From: malloy@nprdc.navy.mil (Sean Malloy)
Subject: Re: A Sean Sort Of Question (WWII rifle - panzerbusche)
X-Gated-By: The Black Marble Wombat@morticia.cnns.unt.edu
X-Gated-From: torg mailing list
Organization: University of North Texas
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Date: Mon, 27 Jul 1992 18:21:14 GMT

> I ran across an interesting rifle in the library today - vintage
> WWII.  I'm curious if Sean can work up Torg style stats / DV for 
> this beastie.  He'll probably need more data than what I have here,
> though.

Well, I can give it a shot.

> The rifle is a 'Panzerbusche 38/39' (two models)  billed as an 'anti-tank'
> rifle. However, it's usefuleness against real tanks was fairly low - it might
> be just the thing for that armored character, though :-) :-)
> 
> Stats are a 7.92mm projectile (originally steel core, later changed
> to tungsten core), 'necked down' from a 13mm cartridge (rather than
> discarding sabot, the barrel is tapered).  The mass of the projectile
> is not given, but the velocity is - 3975ft/sec (1210m/s) for the 38
> and 4150 ft/sec (1265m/s) for the 39.  It's also rated as being able to
> penetrate a little over an inch (30mm) of armor sloped at 60 degrees at
> 100 meters.

The only weapon meeting this description that I recall is the
'squeeze-bore' 28/20mm antitank rifle -- it squeezed a tungsten-core
28mm shot down to 20mm at the muzzle. Are you sure about the caliber?

Penetration of a 30mm TL20 armor plate sloped at 60 degrees would give
the weapon a DV of 25 (this is an angle of 65 degrees from horizontal,
or 30 degrees off vertical - the standard measurement for armor slope
of the period). Given what I remember of the squeeze-bore weapons, the
barrel length and muzzle velocity would give you ranges of:

	Short 3-35m	Med 36-200m	Long 201-800m

Since the weapon was fixed-mount and incorporated sighting devices,
these values need to get bumped a bit.

> The 38, the first model, was heavier at 35 lb and had an automatic ejector
> mechanism.  The 39 was lighter at 27.25 lb, and was entirely manually
> operated.  Both were single shot.

Put the whole thing together and you get:

Weapon       TL    DV Shots Short  Medium   Long         Cost
PzB 38/39    20    25   1   3-50   36-400   201-1500     70K(25)

The rounds the weapon fires are armor-piercing, and get the +1/-2
modifier for armor penetration of living targets. Loading the weapon
requires two rounds. The ammunition for this gun is expensive and
rare; if the weapon is fired using a projectile material other than
tungsten, excessive breech pressures will be generated, and the weapon
will either jam or blow out the breech. Additionally, the squeeze-bore
arrangement resulted in high rates of barrel wear; assess a penalty of
-1 to all attack rolls made with the weapon for each 100 rounds fired
through a barrel. Machining a new barrel is a difficulty 15 task
taking a minimum of 1 day for a machine shop.

The weapon was normally issued with a gunshield for the firer; treat
this as TOU+5/18 armor when the firer is shot at from the direction
the gun is pointing.

-- 
random sig #83:
                                             | People in this world look at
Sean Malloy                                  | things mistakenly, and think that
Navy Personnel Research & Development Center | what they do not understand must
San Diego, CA 92152-6800                     | be the Void. This is not the true
malloy@nprdc.navy.mil                        | Void. It is bewilderment.
                                             | - Miyamoto Musashi
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