Ambush

So the mission for Session 12 is a convoy ambush; a way of getting the party used to taking it to the Word of Blake, and to start the "Active Resistance" half of the campaign.  The theory is the party ambushes the truck carrying Candidate 26 to Devil's Tower as it winds though the forests of Wyoming.  They'll be assisted by a group of Terran Resistance fighters, who will furnish them with a few support weapons, and a few extra bodies. The escort for the truck will be a couple of Word of Blake militiamen, and a light attack vehicle.  I'm thinking a Scorpion Light Tank (TRO:3026R p. 26.)

The Tactical Addendum nor the Combat section of A Time of War is terribly explicit about the BAR values of tank armor, but if we presume that tanks are running around in the same armor as 'Mechs (given they take the same damage at the Total Warfare scale), then we can presume that the Scorpion will have a BAR of 10.  To hurt that tank, that is, to do at least 1 point of armor damage, the party needs to put 20 standard damage points into it with one blow.  Let's see what can do that.

A lot of the Support Weapons have serious Burst ratings, which is all well and good if you can roll well.  At ambush ranges, the to-hit number for a vehicle is something like 1, but the highest Support Weapon skill the party has is Shin at +1.   The practical upshot is that he'll be able to do at best 11 or 12 burst damage.  With a Support Machine Gun (5B/5BD), he'd score as high as 22, but he'd need a 10 or better to do that, and they'd be looking at stacking as much as 64 damage on this beast.  He'll need something more effective.

A Heavy Recoilless rifle will put a point of damage on the tank on any success (8X/12BD).  That's nice, but it won't stop a thundering tank from killing all of them.  More likely, the party will need to lay some kind of command-detonated minefield to take out the armor asset before seizing the truck.  If the mines only disable the motive systems, though, the recoilless rifle might be very necessary.

I expect the party will have a great time planning and executing this operation, once they have a few operational details.