Motorcycle Armor for James Bond: 007

For James Bond: 007 — Helmet and armor jackets reduce Wound Level taken by the rider in a crash by one.  Full-racing suits lower injuries by 3 wound level.

 

First Impressions: HJC Sy-Max II Helmet

My old Nolan N-01 helmet is six years old, and while it’s held up remarkably well, the thing is old and the padding starting to lose it’s thickness.  I ordered up an HJC Sy-Max II flip-face helmet from PJ Triumph Ducati here in Albuquerque and took possession today.

First impressions:  it’s a bit flimsier feeling than the original Sy-Max.  Granted, the plastics technology is improved int eh last eight years, but it’s incredibly light compared to my Nolan.  The helmet does have a better chin bar release system than the Nolan, which has two tabs to push on either side of  the chin bar; the Sy-Max has one in the center.  Easy to get to, easy to manipulate.  the helmet is comfortable, but there’s a space over the ears in the padding (probably for a bluetooth sound system) that will most likely give more wind noise that the Nolan.

Another plus:  the helmet has an integrated sunscreen.  There is a small lever on the top of the helmet that lowers a sun shade over the eyes.  It is far enough out it does not impact glasses — meaning I don’t need to swap from sunglasses to normal glasses when riding.  A single button releases the shade into the helmet.  It works well.

The ventilation seems pretty good, but I’ll find out more about that tomorrow morning when I ride to work, as I will with the road noise.  The color I chose was anthracite — metallic gray.  It looks good, seems well built, and other than the slightly chintzy feel due to the light weight (which I’m sure I will like when I’m wearing the thing for extended periods of time), it seems like a quality helmet.

Not bad for $200…

 

New Gun for JB:007 — Kimber Ultra CDP II

Since I had a chance to fire the new pistol today, I figured I might as well gin up some numbers for James Bond: 007.  Here’s the Kimber Ultra CDP II…

KIMBER CDP II ULTRA 9mm

PM: +1   S/R: 2   AMMO: 8   DC: F   CLOS: 0-3   LONG: 7-12   CON: -2   JAM: 98+   DR: +1   RL: 1

GAME INFORMATION:  The Ultra CDP II’s Meprolight night sights remove the ease factor penalty.  .40S&W and .45acp versions of the gun have much stouter recoil and lose the performance modifier, but have a Close range of 0-4 and Long of 8-14.

See my review of the gun for a picture.

 

Quick Review: Kimber CDP II Ultra

I found a Kimber CDP II Ultra in the local gun store, used, for under $1000.  I had looked earlier in the day at one in another store for $1300.  My wife likes the 1911 platform, and the 9mm round is still cheap and easy to get, so I figured getting her off of the .45acp round might be advantageous for the next 3-5 months, while the ammo supply catches up to demand.

Appearance:  Fit and finish are top notch, as one would expect from Kimber’s Custom Shop.  The CDP is an alloy frame in black, with a silver slide (the opposite of my CZ-85’s look) with cocobolo grips.  I find the grips a bit thick for the gun, but not uncomfortably so.  It’s a 3″ barrel, 8 round single stack magazine, with beavertail, skeletonized trigger and hammer.  (Guessing the trigger pull at about 3-4 pounds.)

Nice gun.  Looks great, light weight, and small enough to easily conceal.

We took it out to the local indoor range and put 150 rounds through it, the first 100 were 230 gr Winchester FMJ, the last 50 Brown Bear 230 gr FMJ.  We did have double feed malfunctions on the magazine that came with the gun (there were small dents in the left side of the mag), but the extra Kimber mag bought had no troubles.  All of the malfunctions were the wife’s, I had none and suspect they were due to her limp-wristing the gun for the first 60 or so rounds.  She only had one or two more malfunctions on the original magazine after that.

The accuracy for me at 10 yards are about 2″ at a speedy pace of shooting.  Her accuracy was about Texas at 7 yards, but by the time she was done shooting, she was blasting 2-3″ groups at 10 yards.  One magazine fired at 15 yards by me gave up another 2.25″ group.  Accuracy is solid, recoil is surprisingly stout for a 9mm due to the light weight, but still much more controllable than her Rock Island Officer’s Model in .45acp.

After the range, cleaning is the usual Kimber headache where you have to capture the recoil spring with a little bit of paper clip or the wee tool for it (that Kimber makes you buy separately!)  Lock the slide open, capture the spring, drop the magazine and move slide forward to get the slide stop out.   Take off the slide and barrel.  Move the lug back to get the spring assembly out.  Remove the barrel.  Reverse once done cleaning.  Getting the friggin’ slide to get back onto the frame is fun and takes a bit of patiences…but it works.

Overall, the wife gives the gun top marks for looks (5 out of 5), a 3.5 of 5 for accuracy, a 3 out of 5 for reliability, and a 3 out of 5 for ease of cleaning.  I give it an excellent (5 out of 5) for the looks, 4 out of 5 for the accuracy and reliability, and 3 for ease of cleaning.  My marks were higher on the reliability and accuracy, as I had none of the troubles she did.

For this reason, I expect that a few more trips to the range will increase her ratings on the handling of the gun.  It’s a bit pricey for a 1911, in my opinion; a lot of the current crop are too expensive, especially when you can get the fantastic CZ or Tanfoglio for half the price.  But if you want a 1911 in 9mm, it’s this or Kimber’s Aegis, the Springfield Armory EMP, or the STI.

Here it is with the CZ-85…

 

Fixing the Rear Turn Signal on a 2006 Ford Taurus

Well, that was fun…

Had to replace the left rear turn signal on my 2006 Taurus.  Apparently, Ford has trouble with left rear turn signals…it’s the only thing that broke on my 1998 Mustang, and on other fords my other friends have owned.

Hey, Ford, let’s make it a bit more of a pain in the ass to change a simple bulb.  Step 1:  mangle the interior padding of the trunk to get to the screws for the light assembly.  Step 2:  struggle at awkward angle with the screws (don’t drop them under the trunk!)  Step 3:  realize at the last second there’s another screw under the plastic molding at the back of the trunk.  Try to bend plastic out of the way to undo this screw.  (See warning from step 2 and double it.)  Step 4:  pull light assempbly off the car.  Step 5: unscrew bulb assembly.  Step 6: pull bulb and replace with ice cold, unfeeling fingers.  (You should do this, if at all possible, in the cold and wind…)  Step 7:  try the turn signal to see if it works.

Success!  Now retrace your steps in reverse to put the thing back together.   Add curses as needed.

 

Joining the Reputation Economy

Well…maybe not really.  I just opened an “account” at the Whuffie Bank, no doubt inspired by the Cory Doctorow novels.

 

Quick ‘n Dirty Fleet-Level Combat for Battlestar Galactica RPG

The Battlestar Galactica game naturally lends itself to mass-combat, if only due to the large number of fighters in any combat between capital vessels.  In our campaign, we’ve had three capital ships on either side, plus masses of fighters.  Instead of judging combat by caveat, some fights should have that element of danger that randomness gives…

To that end, I cobbled together a set of mass combat for BSG RPG:

1.  Whereas personal combat takes place in 6-second increments, mass combat takes place in at least 1 minute increments.  All capital ships are a single unit, with fighters represented by flight, squadron, or wing.

2.  At Capital range, all capital ships are an EASY target and cannot maneuver to avoid fire.  Point defense systems may conduct an opposed test against incoming fire to stop missile and kinetic weapons, as well as attack fighter craft that close to skirmish range.  At ranges before Capital, ships can also attempt to maneuver to make targeting more difficult by presenting a smaller target or better angle to slough off attacks.  This requires a HARD AGL+PILOT/CAPITAL SHIP.  A success allows the to add the ship’s AGL to the EASY difficulty, and at Long Dradis, the test acts as an opposed test to the enemy’s roll to hit.

3.  Another way to stop incoming missile fire is to jam the guidance systems of the weapon.  EW raptors can attempt to better the defense test of the capital ship with an INT+TECHNICAL ENGINEERING/ ELECTRONIC WARFARE.  The higher roll is the difficulty for the missile attack.

4.  Fighters and raptors act in groups to be ore effective.  Fighters are grouped into flights, squadrons, and wings – each is considered a single “capital level” unit in mass combat and do damage at the spacecraft-scale.

Flights consist of 1-11 fighters.    They can take twice the damage of the number of vessels in the flight.  Every two hits, lose a fighter (never a player character ship, though!)  Flights only do basic damage from a successful hit on a vessel.  Squadrons consist of 12-24 craft.  They gain d2W to a unit (be it a capital ship or a fighter unit.)  Wings consist of 2 or more squadrons (48+ fighters) and gain a d4W to any damage rendered.  Whenever a unit takes enough damage to drop below the minimum size, then lose their damage bonus.

5.  In fleet level combat, initiative is decided by an opposed INT+PERCEPTION/ TACTICS  of the commanders.  (For a fleet, this is the admiral; for a ship, the commander; for a fighter wing or what have you, the CAG.)  [We allow the CAG to roll separately of the admiral/commander, but the latter can do an indirect combined test with the CAG to gain initiative.]

6.  Combat takes place as with character level combat:  winners of initiative go first, then the force with the lower initiative.  On board the capital ships, the commander can aid any number of tests going on with an ALE+LEADERSHIP test.  Other characters can conduct tests they are assigned (a gunnery officer or executive officer might be handling the ship’s cannons or the point defense.)  Each test give a -1 step on the attribute.  (So a gunnery officer might be handling a gunnery salvo with a d8 Alertness and a d8 Heavy Weapons/Ship Cannons, then conduct point defense with a d6 Alertness and a d8 Heavy Weapons/Ship Cannons.)  This also counts for the leadership tests the commander might be rolling.  (Ordering a gunnery salvo, directing damage control, and aiding the CAG in conducting the fight — the last to tests would each lose a -1 shift to the attribute test.)  Engineers or deck crew can conduct damage control — fixing stun damage, or doing jury rigging on wounds.

Fighter units are commanded either by the player character leading a flight or squadron, and any non-PC led unit is commanded by the CAG.  The character rolls an opposed test vs. their opponents (usually an AGL+PILOT/VIPER) and vice-versa.

7.  Players in mass combat:  during the combat actions, you can “zoom in” on individual characters doing their thing — the fighter pilot in one tough dogfight, the engineer trying to stop the tylium lines from catching fire and blowing the ship sky-high, or the marines fighting Cylons boarding the ship.  Every ten rounds, zoom back out to handle the fleet-level stuff.

Granted, these aren’t well fleshed out, nor are they comprehensive, but they worked as a good framework for capital-ship level combat in the last few games we’ve had.

 

Review: Fabrique Nationale FiveSeven Handgun

The FN FiveSeven handgun has received a lot of notoriety since it was released to the civilian market (10 years too late, thanks to the Clinton AWB) in 2005.  Since then, it has gained a reputation that runs from “glorified .22″ you’ll hear with the .45 aficionados (who view anything not starting with a .4 as too small to be an effective round) to the super-weapon that has such penetration it’ll shoot clear through to the core of the planet! of the anti-gun screeds.  It’s called the mata policia in Mexico, and it was the weapon Major Hasan decided to shoot up a bunch of unarmed soldiers with at Fort Hood.

It’s been my carry gun since 2005.  I would have been carrying it early, had it been available.  I had a chance to fire the P90 during an open service shoot in the 1990s and was impressed with the submachinegun, but I never got a chance to fire the pistol until I bought one.  After 10,000+ rounds through the gun, I’m still a fan of the platform and the round.

The pistol itself is a bit odd.  The grip is long, but not thick and is best for people with longer fingers.  I find the grip very comfortable and natural in it’s point of aim.  The safety is ambidextrous and placed forward, above the trigger well.  It seems odd until the first few times you snap it off quickly after drawing the weapon…it’s exactly where it should be; you only have to shift the firing finger, or use your off thumb to strike it off or on.  The slide stop is back, where the right hand thumb can actuate it  quickly.   It is, however, in an awful position for the left-hander.  I’ve learned when slapping the magazine in, to let my fingers on the right hand snag the release.

It is also incredibly light.  With a full 20-round magazine, the weapon weighs about a pound and a quarter (half as much as the CZ-85 I also like to carry.)  You can carry the thing all day without becoming fatigued, but it does feel a bit like a toy — a complaint of some of the reviewers out there.  Frame and slide cover are plastic, and the metal bits are all alloys and aluminum.  Despite the light weight, it’s very tough.  It’s also an ugly bugger…

The 5.7×28mm round is, on paper, somewhat anemic.  The SS197 rounds — V-Max 40 grain bullets — travel at a shade under 2000 fps, and hit about as hard as a .380 ACP round.  The other civilian rounds from FN and their affiliates ( Federal and Fiocchi make rounds for the US market) is the SS192 and SS195 28-grain rounds.  They are almost exactly the same, but the SS195s have lead free primers to make treehuggers happy (and make the ammunition only good for 3-5 years of storage.)  Elite Ammunition loads their rounds in a variety of weights:  from 28 and 40 grain rounds like the factory ammo, to a 55-grain and a smoking fast 32-grain (2400+ is advertised for the latter.)  These specialty rounds will get your muzzle energies into the hot 9mm range.

The real benefit of the round is four fold:  1) you can cram a lot of firepower into a handgun, 2) the round has very low recoil impulse, making it easy to fire and control, 3) the round yaws on impact and according to a friend working for the Little Rock forensics department “is stunning in what it can do.”  4) the SS190 (restricted by law) rounds defeat Class 3 body armor.  The civilian rounds are not armor piercing, but having fired a bunch at a friend’s expired Class 2 vest, we were surprised to find they blew through the thing the majority of the time.  Two out of ten rounds got through his expired Class 3, but I suspect that was due to them hitting an area that was frequently folded and the fibers were weakened.  I know of people who have had great success with nutria and other small to moderate sized vermin with the handgun at 25 yards.

Put the platform and the rounds together…  The FN FiveSeven is highly accurate.  The rounds move at about 1900-2200 fps, depending on which you are shooting, and give you a highly accurate gun out to about 50 yards.  I dropped hits on a pumpkin, outdoors with a mild breeze, at 100 yards.  (Out of the PS90 carbine, I hit a wine bottle at 300 yards with a light crosswind on the first shot.)  At reasonable self-defense rounds of 10 yards or less, sub inch groups are entirely possible, and frequent with practice.

The extremely light weight of the FN, however, makes any twitch of the hand throw the aim a bit.  Granted, this means you’re shooting a 2″ group, instead of a 1″ group, and the small diameter of the bullet means that it looks like you’re not so accurate…until you fire a 9mm or .45 at the same target and have a single round cover the two or three holes you thought were spread so far apart.  I normal practice with a draw from the holster and a panic fire of three rounds to the chest area of a target at 15 yards with 2-3″ groups.

In the time I’ve had the firearm, I’ve had two failures to fire due to ammo issues, no jams, and only one mechanical issue:  I wore out the magazine catch.  FNH-USA replaced it for free…and I got a hat out of it.  The magazine catch is, by the way, reversible for southpaws like me.

Despite the nay-sayers, I’ve never felt the FiveSeven inadequate as a self-defense round, it is fast and accurate, so you can drop two to three rounds in rapid succession with accuracy.  Shot placement usually wins the day, and quite frankly…after the first round goes off, most people do not want to play.

As a carry gun, I feel I can recommend it, even with the high price of the handgun ($950-1200, depending on where you are in the country.)  I carry it, and so do several friends of mine.  I’ve never worried about it malfunctioning, like I did my Walther PPK.  It’s a bit big for concealed carry, but we have open carry here in New Mexico.  As a target pistol, it’s excellent fun, although the rounds are on the rich side at $20-22/box of 50.

 

Quick Impression: Ducati Streetfighter

Dropped into my local Triumph shop to pick up a new helmet and winter gloves, and was treated to a test ride of the new Ducati Streetfighter.  The motorcycle is essentially the 1098, stripped for the city of farings and with a very aggressive headlight/instrument cluster that sits very low and gives the bike a nasty, scrappy look that reminds me of the MV Augusta Brutale…but meaner.

The saddle is hard, like most of the Ducati sportbikes, but there is supposedly a gel seat being made for the Streetfighter.  That said, it was comfortable enough for a 20 minute jaunt through the twisties along the Manzano Mountains.  Like all Ducatis, the gearing is long and the bike is deceptive in its power.  You feel like you’re barely cracking the throttle, but the tach is reading 6000 at 55mph in second gear…but you’d swear you were only doing 30.  Fortunately, there were no police on the stretch of street I was on when I first took the machine out.

Passing is effortless.  Snap the throttle and hang on for your life.  This bike is fast — slam the breath out of you fast.  I got the Streetfighter up over 110 in forth gear in a second or two and was getting pushed backward in the saddle by the airflow over the bike.  Maneuverability is unbelievably snappy and controllable, and reminds me of the Triumph Street Triple — the Ducati is super-light, and I could steer with a little pressure from my middle fingers.  It’s like riding a cloud, and the Ducati does exactly what you want it to, no more, no less, and right away.  The brakes are very strong and there’s not a lot of play or curve to them.  And they stop the Streetfighter hard.  Stopping distance is easily on par with my Speed Triples 110 feet for a 60-0 stop.

Sound on the stock pipes is a bit peculiar:  the bike growls/purrs like a cougar, but the pitch is higher than I expected for a big bore sportbike.  The bike is powerful, but has a definite feminine quality to it.

I highly recommend trying a ride for the sportbike enthusiasts out there.  It’s a hell of a ride.

 

Strength and Melee Combat in Cortex RPGs.

There is a debate going on in the Cortex System RPG boards over Strength as a dump stat for characters.  Agility is more important for scoring a hit on an opponent, Vitality more important for survivability.  Strength winds up often being the stat that gets short shrift.  One of the ideas to make strength more important in Cortex is to have it effect melee and hand-to-hand damage.

In the Cortex system, weapons damage is usually represented by the basic damage done by an attack with the weapons damage added (ex. Bill swings a knife at Jim.  Bill’s attack is and Agility of d6 and a skill in Melee Combat of d4 v. Jim’s Agility of d6 and Atheltics (he’s dodging) of d4.  Bill gets lucky and rolls a 9, while Jim rolls a 4…that’s 5 points basic damage, which is broken into 3 stun/2 wound.  He then rolls a d4W for the knife and gets a 2W — total:  4 wound, 3 stun…)

Here’s the rub:  Bill’s a friggin’ monster with a d10 Strength.  Shouldn’t the knife do more damage?  Certainly if it’s a cinematic-styled game, it should.  There are a few ideas floating around on the Cortex System RPG boards, suggesting an average between the knife damage and the strength of the character (in this case, it would be a d6 [rounding down].)  Another is to roll the strength and weapons damage and average that.  (Ex. On a d4W Bill rolls a 2, and for his strength a 7:  average of 11 is 6, rounding down.)

I am suggesting that the d10 Strength would be the damage roll for the weapon, but it would be Basic damage…thus the increased impact of the strength only amplifies, but does not replace, the weapon’s wound capabilities.  (Ex.  Bill had the 5 points basic for his initial impact split into 3S and 2W.   He rolls his strength-based damage of d10B and gets a 6.  That is split down the middle for 6 stun and 5 wound.  It’s a serious wound, but not immediately fatal to Jim with his 12 Life Points.)

As for hand-to-hand combat, I often allow the characters to choose Agility or Strength in HTH Combat.  While not entirely realistic in the ability to strike a blow, it captures the “big action hero” punch/kick styles for the movies.  Schwartzeneggar was never very fast in his punches, for instance, but on impact, they were impressive in their effects (on screen, at least.)