3G3 has been an extremely useful tool in my game. Currently I am running a campaign taking place in the waning months of WWII on the Ostfront. It revolves around the fortunes of a tank destroyer crew belonging to the 653 Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion. (yeah, we're both RPG geeks and WWII geeks)
BTRC's 3G3 was indispensable for generating stats of all kinds of WWII ordnance. Weapons as diverse as the German Sturmgewehr 44 (7.92x33 kurz round), the 8.8cm Stu.K.43(L/71)employed by the SdKfz 184 "Elefant", and the soviet 120mm Model 1938 mortar were all modeled in a satisfactory manner(my group quickly discovered that you don't want a soviet 120 mm mortar platoon to discover your whereabouts). Larger weapons such as those used in tanks and artillery pieces require some extrapolation of the tables, but it should not be too much of a problem since there is a plethora of real-world data available for most weapon systems used in the Second World War.
We are using a modified version of Bill Gant's excellent Gunmaster Gold rules (which are themselves an extension of the Harnmaster rules) for our campaign. The numbers generated by G3G are fairly easy to incorporate into the Gunmaster Gold tables.
I am starting to work on conversions for armament used by the Luftwaffe's night fighter units from 1943 on. So far G3G appears to at least capture the proper feel of the weaponry involved.
Having said all this, my experience with the G3G design system is pretty much confined to number crunching for firearms and heavy weapons built between 1939-1945. As I said above, there is a great deal of information available for WWII era weaponry, so many of the numbers you need to plug into the various formulas are usually somewhere at hand. For someone wanting to simulate (say) a 19th century Dreyse Needle Gun, lack of historical information might call for some educated guessing during the design process.
Someone armed (heh) with G3G, Jane's Small Arms, and a copy of one of Dana Jorgenson's Big Bang series (another very good source available from rpgnow), should be able to model any historical weapon from WWII up to the present.
G3G also covers all kinds of futuristic weapon systems (e.g., particle beams, guass rifles). Although our group has pretty much confined itself to playing within historical milieus, G3G is tempting me to nudge our current campaign to take a turn down the "alternate history" path.
It goes without saying (but I will say it anyway) G3G is geared for those who like their firearms dealt with in a crunchy manner. Weapon design requires a fair amount of time with a calculator, paper and pencil. This might not be some people's cup of tea, but these folks probably would not be attracted to G3G in any case.
Anyway, for $8.00 you can hardly go wrong with G3G. Highly recommended.
p.s. There is a good review of G3G on www.rpg.net that goes into far more detail than my ramblings here.
Rex
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