[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Yup, Herr math is correct. As is adzling's. And as he and others have said. The whole defense pool (dodge is something else) is 18 dice, so multiple attacks (via runners and multiple) a pass and long full auto bursts.
 
The thing is, while SWAT/CRB full body armors are restricted (therefore usable under the right setting/fack license. Mil-Spec harden armor should always be F rating. So while it might be easy to come by, it means the Corp/Cops/opposition pulls out EBRs or Barretts with adps, high force spirits, heavy mil/corp spec vehicles (with multiple heavy weapons), and blows the runners to shreds!

[Mirikon]

But with Heavy Mil-Spec locking in at merely 35,000 ¥ it suggests to be quite inexpensive, considering the fact that each armor has to be custom fit for ist wearer and can't be mass produced.
So with that price tag it's hard to explain that such tech isn't already in use for security vehicles.

There's a few reasons.

1) Size/Mass. Armoring a person takes a lot less material than armoring a vehicle, and the weapons that are used against people are generally smaller than those used against vehicles, anyways. So armor for vehicles will cost more.
2) Numbers. There are FAR more military soldiers than there are military vehicles. Even so, the availability on milspec armor is very high.
3) Security. Simply put, while one person, or even a unit, in milspec armor is a definite problem, that unit supported by a milspec APC is deadly dangerous.
4) Restrictions. No one wants milspec armored vehicles to be out in the shadows. Absolutely nothing good comes from this equation for any of the people who have said vehicles.
5) Purpose. Milspec vehicles are purpose built machines. A milspec APC is not going to have an upgrade to make its armor hardened, it will have the hardened armor to begin with, if it can. This is the difference between a main battle tank and a Bulldog that someone slapped a crap-ton of armor plates on. They simply don't make hardened armor upgrades. You want that, you need a full build in a factory where you can bet there are at least twenty spies and informants from at least ten different organizations, making sure they know damn well who is getting ready for war.

Of course, the biggest reason we haven't seen anything like that so far is because of the type of game Shadowrun is. While there will eventually be a military/mercenary book, continuing the tradition from War! all the way back to Fields of Fire, the focus of Shadowrun is not full scale military engagements. In fact, if runners are ever going head to head against the full weight of a national military, they should have run a LONG time ago.

[RiggerBob]

Aircraft are ALWAYS going to be more vulnerable than other vehicles, RiggerBob. Armor increases mass, and increased mass means it takes more energy to move. That doesn't mean much on the ground or at sea, since big, heavy engines are fine there, but in the air, where you have to keep going a certain speed or you (literally) fall out of the sky, mass is very much an issue. So combat aircraft are never going to match a main battle tank for shrugging off hits. Their primary defense isn't armor, but the fact that a target moving at Mach speeds is damn near impossible to hit without expensive guidance systems on your missiles or going that fast yourself.

That's perfectly true in real-life of course.

And is quiet irrelevant in shadowrun (being part of the cyberpunk genre after all^^) were t-birds (vector-thrust LAVs) never were conventional aircrafts but "Hardwired"-inspired futuristic hover tanks with the heaviest armor (see "CAS/GD Stonewall Main Battle Tank" in 4th edition's Mil-Spec Tech for example). 

[Mirikon]

You do know there's a difference between a t-bird and a main battle tank, right? The Stonewall is more accurately a hovercraft rather than an aircraft. It doesn't get more than a few feet off the ground. T-birds, on the other hand, are aircraft. They may be able to take a hit better than a Cessna, but they are blockade running smuggler aircraft, not military tanks that barely get off the ground. You can also see that, compared to the Banshee (an actual T-bird), the Stonewall has less than half the acceleration and speed than the Banshee, and handles worse, while the Banshee has Body 20 and Armor 18, compared to the Stonewall's Body 36 and Armor 28. Comparing them is like comparing the New York Yankees to the New York Jets. Sure, they're both sports teams in New York, but past that...

[RiggerBob]

No, i don't.
I know the difference between fast light-armored designated scouts (GMC Banshee, GMC Harpy, Saeder-Krupp Sleipnir, Aztech Lobo etc.) and slower heavy-armored tanks (CAS/GD Stonewall, Ruhrmetall Behemoth etc.).

Though all the years of shadowrun (if i remember correctly the Behemoth was last seen in 2nd for example) all these were commonly labeled thunderbirds (at least "fast armored vector-thrust LAV" is what i've always known as the definition of a thunderbird. 5th edition only mentions t-birds by name and rarely describes any terminology we already know from previous editions). And they are all flying bricks powered more by vector-thrust rule-of-cool than actual aerodynamics 
They all were mil-spec tech too, with some of the lighter ones sometimes used for heavy (mega-)corp security too...

If you want to believe the GMC Gryphon is just "upgraded civilian/corpsec gear" (as you put it) with real mil-spec vehicles yet to come, that's ok. I don't (especially when the text mentions it's developmental relation to the GMC Harpy, a vehicle designated as mil-spec in 2nd/3rd and covered in "Mil-Spec Tech" in 4th).

So let's just agree to disagree here...

[Mirikon]

Just because something is military does not make it a battle tank, RiggerBob. A humvee is a military vehicle, after all. A PT boat and a destroyer are both military naval vessels, but if you try to compare the two in front of a Navy man, you're likely going to be kissing the deck. The Harpy Scout is a LAV (an actual air vehicle), with similar stats to the Banshee. It is a little slower on the top end, but chalk that up to the added mass of sensor arrays and signature masking. NOW you're making valid comparisons. The Harpy Scout is a stealth-focused scout vehicle, while the Banshee is a speed-focused blockade runner. Neither one is a main battle tank. Even in the 5E book, it says that the Banshee is a recon/courier craft when it sees military action. The Gryphon is a V/STOL equivalent of an Apache attack helicopter. Full of things that will make your enemy's life miserable, but someone hits you with a missile, and you're in trouble. The Gryphon is a military vehicle, yes. But you haven't seen any of the heavy armor yet, because they haven't published them yet.

[RiggerBob]

See, that's exactly what i've been talking about...

Sure, we haven't seen the real heavy armor yet, but we have mil-spec tech thunderbirds. Some of them we know from (multiple) earlier editions already. And we can extrapolate from there...

So let's take a look:

The GMC Banshee had an armor rating of 18 in 2nd edition, the heaviest armor tank had 24... that's a 33% increase.

Same Banshee had an armor rating of 18 in 4th edition, the CAS/GD Stonewall Main Battle Tank ("primary armored vehicle of the CAS's tank devisions") had 28... 55% increase here.


So, what should i expect from heavy tanks yet to come?

Even if i calculate with a generous 100% increase in armor based on 5th edition's Banshee (again 18 armor), that 36 armor still soak less boxes of damage than a suit of personal armor.

And no matter how legally forbidden, military spec state of the art that suit is, that's completely ridiculous and over the the top.

[Mirikon]

You seem to be forgetting the fact that vehicle Body ties into damage soak. A Troll with maxed Body (10) and heavy milspec armor is going to soak on average 23 points of damage (10 Body + 23 armor = 33 dice, so 11 hits, +12 autohits). Even if the Stonewall's Body (36) and Armor (28) are unchanged from 4th, that would come out to about 21 points of soak. As we both agree that the Stonewall will likely have more armor this edition, let's say it goes up by 10, as a low end estimate. At this point, we're already over the soak a Troll with maxed Body can manage with hardened milspec armor.

And all of this assumes that hardened armor won't be a vehicle upgrade option that appears in whatever the 5e version of milspec tech is.

[Herr Brackhaus]

I sincerely doubt, and hope, that milspec armor (read: tanks) don't go too overboard with AV increases. AV rockets already have issues dealing with the very objects they are designed for use against. Further power creep just means tanks are going to be nigh invulnerable to anything but dedicated anti-tank vehicle weaponry.

At least in previous editions, you still had a chance against armor with hand held weaponry. If they make hardned armor an option for already high body and AV vehicles I have trouble seeing what kind of weapons short of Thor shots and dragons stand a chance damaging them.

[Rift_0f_Bladz]

Herr, the only real option for anti-tanks are either tanks or anti-tank weapons. The an it vehicle missiles in the CRB I will agree are not very impressive, but (hopefully) are not actual Mil-Spec anti-armored vehicle rockets/missiles.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Rift_0f_Bladz
I have a hard time seeing how an anti-vehicle missile is anything but milspec tech, personally. Most civilians don't exactly go deer hunting with a rocket launcher...

[thePrimarch]

I sincerely doubt, and hope, that milspec armor (read: tanks) don't go too overboard with AV increases. AV rockets already have issues dealing with the very objects they are designed for use against. Further power creep just means tanks are going to be nigh invulnerable to anything but dedicated anti-tank vehicle weaponry.

Well... I mean, that is probably appropriate. Modern tanks are designed to be difficult-as-hell to destroy with man-portable AV weaponry. Typically it takes a hit to a known weakspot on an older model tank, or several repeated shots on newer tanks (with no guarantee of success). There aren't very many man-portable AV weapons that are effective against a third-generation tank.

AV rockets are most effective against more typical Shadowrunner targets -- civilian, police, and transport vehicles -- and less effective against armored military vehicles. This means that tanks are still a threat that your Shadowrunners (or insurgents, or mercs, depending on what the campaign is focused on) will have to either evade or gain special equipment in order to defeat ("jury-rigged anti-tank mine" or "collapsing building" both count as special equipment in this case).

Now, if you want a T-Bird designed to take out tanks, you'll probably need a little more firepower than what mounting a few man-portable RPGs in turrets will give you. And that's really where Mil-spec tech will have to come in.

[Herr Brackhaus]

Well... I mean, that is probably appropriate. Modern tanks are designed to be difficult-as-hell to destroy with man-portable AV weaponry. Typically it takes a hit to a known weakspot on an older model tank, or several repeated shots on newer tanks (with no guarantee of success). There aren't very many man-portable AV weapons that are effective against a third-generation tank.

One word: Javelin.

[adzling]

Yeah but doesn't the Javelin hit the weaker top armor?

[Malevolence]

That is a good point - all of the weapons we've seen thus far are man portable weapons jury-rigged onto more or less standard vehicles/drones. Some may come from the factory with the weapons pre-attached, but they are still equivalent to man portable weapons. The main gun on a tank, or the guns on a battleship will be significantly more powerful. And there will likely be things that are more akin to Vulcan guns and more destructive AV rockets (like the Javelin already mentioned) that are more appropriate to taking out mil-tech vehicles.


So, armor creep for military vehicles is not likely to be a huge problem. And really, other than tanks and specific heavy armor vehicles, most military vehicles will probably be susceptible to the weapons we currently have available. Like was mentioned earlier, Humvees and aircraft are not anywhere as heavily armored as a tank - tanks are almost a special case when it comes to sheer indestructibility. If it weren't for the fact that a navy vessel has boat-loads (literally) of anti-missile defenses and can see you coming a mile away (again, literally), they'd probably be perfectly susceptible to the explosives and weaponry currently available as well. I expect a lot of military grade vehicles/drones to be the same - not significantly less destructable than civilian equivalents, but backed up with EW and sensors and other battlefield dominance technologies that make them significantly more of a threat.


Point being, mil-spec is a whole different ball of wax. We've seen the infantry armor (though, granted, the rank and file don't wear anything quite that good), and it puts every other armor to shame. I expect the other toys to do the same - if it isn't amazing armor, it is fantastically destructive weaponry or sensors and EW capabilities that would make your sneaksuit and Fairlight Caliban look like Fischer-Price preschool toys. And, I wouldn't be surprised if the armor we have seen is actually last year's top-of-the-line - there are probably actual powered armor suits that will be even more drool-worthy.