D20 Modern - Feet or Meters

[2WS-Steve]

Not so sure about the M16 being wholly inferior. I lugged it around in the infantry and it was pretty light and accurate out past 300m. It also has a really nice iron-sighting system. In real-life you don't need to drop ogres, just injure humans. And injuring has the advantage that it takes the troop and the troops that need to carry him away from the lines out of the fight. I think ammo weight might matter a lot too; a soldier can carry scads of 5.56 ammo. People complained about reliability but it always seemed to work well enough if you kept it clean.

 

[Troll Lord]

Steve

I'll agree with you about cleaning the weapon. I carted one around in the Army for three years and never once had a jam. Personally I like the m16. Wish I could buy one.

But sadly, you do want to kill the fella commin at you. The theory that two folks will carry the wounded off isn't really that valid . . . look at Somalia for a good example there, no one carried the wounded off the field, they just kept coming. The Russians and Chinese have the same battlefield philosophy, let the wounded and dead lie where they fall and keep pressing the attack. I have some good books on the 1st and 2nd Chechyan wars if you want some examples.

And for sheer killing power, the M14 hurtles a 308 round (7.62). It generates more energy at approximately 200 yards than the m16 has at the mussle. That will knock you the hell down.

And to reference a Delta Team member who fought at Mogidishu (sp), he had to shoot targets two and three times to get them to drop while his compadre with an M1 took them down in one.

 

[Troll Lord]

LOL I should have a dictionary stapled to my forehead.......that would be muzzle, not mussle.

LOL

 

[Ranger REG]

Re: Oh, come on...

The fact is that the United States is too stubborn/lazy to change... probably more lazy than stubborn. I had hoped that the infamous "Mars Probe" incident (you know, the one where the stupid American scientists thought they were using foot-pounds when they were really using Newtons and wound up smashing their probe into Mars) would have convinced the US that it really *IS* more expensive to stick to the Imperial system. Alas, no. I love the U.S., but we do a lot of really stupid things - our copyright laws get held hostage by a mouse, our judicial system is the laughingstock of the Free World thanks to both the O.J. Trial and the 2000 presidential election, and of course, we use the Imperial system. Bleah. We just have too darn many stupid people with too darn much money and too darn much power running our country. Other than that, it's a great place.

Our system may not produce perfect results, but I prefer this than any others.

 

[2WS-Steve]

I'll stop hijacking the thread after this, I promise!

Roger that Stephen. All my players would prefer higher powered rounds anyway; they *do* spend a lot of time shooting ogres

 

[Canada_K]

Who really cares if they use feet, meters, or light years? Does it really make any difference to how we play the game? I'd be inclined to stick with feet, not because I like it or because I think it's better/worse than meters, but because I'm used to it now.

 

[Frilf]

You are all crazy! Imperial and Metric systems are *both* losers. We should go back to drams, cubits, hands, spans, and stones (among others). We could cobble together a system of measurement so obscure that no further progress could be made in the world (if it were widely adopted, of course). Besides, who really needs a system based on *10*!? That's way to complex. Base 37 numeration is the way to go. It's soooo much easier to calculate.

Cheers!

 

[VoceNoctum1]

In a related case, we switched our main combat infantry assault weapon from the M14 to the M16 in order to adapt our cartridges to those fired by our Nato allies (standard 5.62 (?) round), which is a wholly inferior weapon in combat.

Actually, so far as I know, we made NATO switch to 308/ 7.62 and then made them switch to .223/ 5.56
I think both are american rounds by invention, though seperate rounds may have evolved from there. (e.g. there are many different styles of 5.56)

BUT, you can blame them for the durn 9mm replacing the .45's!
That is intolerable!

Meters/ imperial don't bug me so much as the date/ month thing and the comma/ decimal point thing. Plus all those extra letters they insert into words.

 

[Henrix]

Plus all those extra letters they insert into words.

True, true. Many words in english has a ridiculous amount of redundant letters.

 

[Turjan]

This discussion is a bit ridiculous. The European countries had to perform the conversion from their old systems to metric ones, too. In Germany, we had feet, inches, "Ellen" (about half a meter), miles, and lots of funny weight units, too. Most of these units disappeared during the first half of this century. In order to get rid of the remnants of the old system (during the 80's), the approach was the following: the old units were forbidden to be used in publications and by shops and salesmen. Within a short time, they were gone from private usage, too.

Well, you get used to nearly everything. Who does remember the D-Mark ?