That depends, doesn't it? I mean, a purpose-built drone is going to be fairly successful at hitting a human sized target from a respectable distance. Of course, the drone is using guided munitions (which would be reflected in the weapon quality) and is travelling relatively slowly.

The main gun on a main battle tank, on the other hand, is designed to hit other tanks and would be completely unwieldy against a person, unless you were just trying to annihilate a building and everyone in it. That same tank might have a machine gun mounted on it that is designed for infantry types, and would be much more successful at hitting individuals.

Battleships (like the now decommissioned U.S.S. Missouri and U.S.S. Iowa) used huge guns to barrage an area, but when they needed a specific target destroyed, they could fire cruise missiles. Carriers have point-defense weapons for use against anti-ship missiles, but they're going to farm out all of their "attack" jobs to fighters, which may or may not be better equipped to attack a person sized target depending on their loadout and the type of aircraft.

All that to say: I doubt a Star Destroyer (the Battleship-Carriers of Star Wars) is going to drop into the upper atmosphere and use its turbolasers to bump off a single individual. The Star Destroyer is purpose built for orbital bombardment, which is going to destroy everything in a huge area and/or ship-to-ship combat. The quad-lasers on a YT-1300 (or similar) are probably more analogous to a couple of .50 cals mounted on the side of a helicopter or in the turrets of a B-29.

Imo opinion you are confusing what is a gun on a weapon system designed to destroy with can it hit a target. The 120 mm smoothbore is designed to destroy other tanks. It is fully capable of hitting a man sized target. Sitting on Bradley ranges with the 30mm chain guns. They are capable of easily hitting man sized targets. The principle difference between a weapon in a tank turret as opposed to a crew served weapon is the turreted weapon is a vastly more stable firing platform with a vastly better gun sight.

You don't miss with those weapons and if someone is approaching a perimeter with them you stay out of the arc of fire.

In reagrds to a shell from an old 16" battleship gun, they have a ridiculous kill radius invluding blast and frgamentary effects of up to several hundred meters. No need for too much accuracy....

Well, that was kind of my point. On a low, slow, helicopter, .50 cal machine guns are very effective against infantry and soft targets. In a B-29 at 30,000 feet, going 190 knots, they're only going to be effective against other high flying, fast moving aircraft. A YT-1300 flying a little above treetop level (as we see on Yavin IV) should at the very least be effective at suppressing infantry, if not outright destroying them. Of course, that same YT-1300 is going to be a ripe target for AAA and interceptors if it's flying in contested airspace.

That said, I've always had a much harder time shooting small targets accurately in an X-Wing: Alliance simulation of a YT-1300 gun turret than I ever did shooting machine guns out of helicopters.

Rate of fire is a big factor in such cases I would imagine. A quadlaser barrel takes 1.3 seconds between firing shots. A 50. cal machine gun fires between 7 and 8 shots per second.on the low end and 20 shots per second on the high end.

Imo opinion you are confusing what is a gun on a weapon system designed to destroy with can it hit a target. The 120 mm smoothbore is designed to destroy other tanks. It is fully capable of hitting a man sized target. Sitting on Bradley ranges with the 30mm chain guns. They are capable of easily hitting man sized targets. The principle difference between a weapon in a tank turret as opposed to a crew served weapon is the turreted weapon is a vastly more stable firing platform with a vastly better gun sight.

You don't miss with those weapons and if someone is approaching a perimeter with them you stay out of the arc of fire.

In reagrds to a shell from an old 16" battleship gun, they have a ridiculous kill radius invluding blast and frgamentary effects of up to several hundred meters. No need for too much accuracy....

Fair points, all. I suppose I was thinking of an M1A3 loaded with sabot rounds against a group of people at very close range. Yeah, you could probably hit a person from two miles away with a 120mm canon, but in most cases, why would you? Economy of force, and all that.

The 30mm on the Bradley has proven to be very effective against infantry, but I don't really consider the Bradley a tank.

As far as the 16" guns go, I was pointing out that they're an area effect weapon, not a precision guided munition.

I'm not speaking to the cost effectiveness of the round being used, just that turreted weapon systems are far more accurate. The coaxial MG on the M1 is death.

I don't think that there is any drawback in the form of mechanical penalties to aiming ship weapons at individuals. They will have restrictive arcs of fire and not be able to change direction as fast as a trooper with a rifle, but if the target is in sight I wouldn't penalize players aiming at man sized targets.

Imo opinion you are confusing what is a gun on a weapon system designed to destroy with can it hit a target. The 120 mm smoothbore is designed to destroy other tanks. It is fully capable of hitting a man sized target. Sitting on Bradley ranges with the 30mm chain guns. They are capable of easily hitting man sized targets. The principle difference between a weapon in a tank turret as opposed to a crew served weapon is the turreted weapon is a vastly more stable firing platform with a vastly better gun sight.

You don't miss with those weapons and if someone is approaching a perimeter with them you stay out of the arc of fire.

In reagrds to a shell from an old 16" battleship gun, they have a ridiculous kill radius invluding blast and frgamentary effects of up to several hundred meters. No need for too much accuracy....

Fair points, all. I suppose I was thinking of an M1A3 loaded with sabot rounds against a group of people at very close range. Yeah, you could probably hit a person from two miles away with a 120mm canon, but in most cases, why would you? Economy of force, and all that.

The 30mm on the Bradley has proven to be very effective against infantry, but I don't really consider the Bradley a tank.

As far as the 16" guns go, I was pointing out that they're an area effect weapon, not a precision guided munition.

A more apt comparison would be the various close air support gunships

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Republic_A-10_Thunderbolt_II

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_AC-130

Both are equipped with weapons (autocannons) that are more than capable of shredding enemy vehicles, infantry, and aircraft. Their main weakness is of course against anti-air fire and fighter craft.

1: The ship in question is described by the TC as a scout ship not a specialized air support craft.

2: Autocannons have a much higher rate of fire than Laser cannons in Star Wars which means the autocannons can have a much higher miss to hit ratio and still eliminate infantry targets effectively. It only takes one direct hit to knock out an infantry target with either weapon but the higher rate of fire of the autocannon means it will still be effective even if it takes 10 or 20 shots to score that one hit, that isn't true for the laser cannon.

An update since we ran our session today.

The PCs were sensible enough to not take on the ship directly so they weren't glassed on sight... However... they were lured into a kill zone by the 5 scouts + an NCO. three of them stepped into wire traps and over the space of a 3 and 1/2 hour combat encounter with over 18 turns in a round... They lost 17 people and the Scout Troopers lost 3 forcing a mutual retreat. ~

In the end the PCs were able to retake their own starship and use it to assault the scout ship to bring them to a pyrrhic victory.

Thanks for all the advice guys.

Good to hear that they were at least smart enough not to intentionally face a weapon that will hit nearly 50% of the time, dealing 70+ points of damage each time. It's a shame they were so callous/careless with the soldiers under their command. That's not going to win them any friends.

Hah. Well. there's no one left alive to make them any enemies, either. They're burning as much sky as they can at the moment to hand over their paydata and put all this messy business behind them. Still, there are forces at work which will not forget.