I recall reading about (in GDWs stuff) a US system called Assault Breaker
which was a theatre level system deployed against massed armour and mechanized
infantry assaults to destroy the AFVs. I can't remember if it was rockets or
arty, but it was supposedly
devastating. Now, given that my MBT can now have a top armour of 3-5
in SG2 terms (which translates to 3d12 to 5d12 for amour roll) and AT
artillery attacks at 2xd12 for Impact, I'm thinking that some larger nastier
form of AT artillery would be deployed so as to make such arty a viable threat
to things larger than a size 2 APC.
Anyone have any suggestions for alternate (and perhaps more deadly)
area or theatre based anti-armour systems? Specifically those
deployed by air, arty or rocket launcher?
Area weapons against concentrated forces?
How About THOR a satellite based system that discharges packets of
individually guided tungsten opr depleted uranium penetrators that enter the
atmosphere and then fall while being targetted against fixed defense,
vehicles, even personnel in the field. The kinetic energy converted to heat is
unbelievable and a tungsten penetrator hitting a tank, apc or battleship for
that matter would be a definite kill every time. Insert the satellites into
low orbit, allow battlefield commanders to command guide the descending weapon
and voila! One offensive dead in its tracks. This may be hell for the gaming
table, but game out the earth orbit battle for denying the enemy the ability
to deploy THOR, it will keep you interested.
> On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Thomas Barclay wrote:
> I recall reading about (in GDWs stuff) a US system called Assault
This Assault Breaker system had as it's.sig a nice little mushroom cloud,
rising into the sky?
rules for nuke use on SG2 battlefields: Set up your game normally, and play
until someone uses a nuke. At this point, douse the table with gasoline, drop
a match, and attempt to continue to play.
(The above is shamelessly cribbed from a WW3-in-Europe paper wargame's
rules for simulating strategic nuclear warfare: Light one corner of the map on
fire. continue to play...)
I don't know about anti-tank use in SG2, but the regular artillery is
already plenty mean enough. Try this: Take equal sized, identically equipped
light infantry platoons. Give one plt a light tank, and give the
other plt a battery of three light mortars (off-table). Bet the mortar
guys win...they have the couple of games like this we played. The tank dies,
but the mortars keep hammering away. After games like this, I'm
almost scared to try heavy or extra-hvy artillery...
I'd think that there's enough anti-tank weaponry on the average SG2
battlefield already, without adding meaner atry. When every squad has a
GMS/L and maybe some IAVRs, armour has enough problems. And if we move
up to DS2, heavy arty MAK is already a pretty good 'assault breaker'.
How did the 'Assault Breaker' arty differ from regular arty, anyway? Just more
of it, or was it a different system?
Possibilities:
AT artillery could be of several types:
Cluster Munitions - covering area with bomblets, in the 2xd12 damage
range. You could always just say they use more powerful explosives, and use
3xd12... it's a game, right??
Guided single rounds - artillery shell is lobbed into the area where
armour may be found. AI in shell scans using radar and thermal imaging, picks
target, and shell is guided in, with terminal rocket assist for extra
penetration. A present day 105mm or 155mm artillery shell, or 120mm will
nuke a tank if it lands on the top deck - though this is extremely
unlikely because of accuracy issues. If you have guided munitions with
penetrator and rocket assist in addition to the explosive warhead, the tank is
toast -
accurately. And you can justify using 3 or 4xd12 damage. Guided mortar rounds
exist now, and I think guided artillery rounds exist too.
In game terms, guided artillery could be treated like a direct fire shot,
say from a missile. He gets jamming/ECM if he has them, you get a
guidance system roll. Limit it by saying you need to spot from an observer or
something. Maybe have the system be affected by EW, so if the target side has
an EW trooper, they can jam the guidance system??? How about having
laser designated artillery - you have a model on your side with a laser
designator (like the New Anglian trooper kneeling with one), and if you can
designate the tank (successfully "hit" it getting "a lock") you then can fire
artillery shells that are guided the same way air dropped laser guided bombs
are. The USAF supposedly had some success killing Iraqi tanks with
750lb laser guided bombs dropped from F16's during the Gulf War - this
is the same principle.
I read about the "tungsten rods dropped from orbit" idea sometime in the past
as well. It was supposed to be for taking out battalions or brigades at a time
though, and the rods were not guided at each vehicle, only to an area on the
battlefield. There would be enough kinetic energy being converted to heat that
tanks would melt, troops would vapourize, etc etc. Would require a BIG lifting
rocket, though, to get the thing into orbit. If I remember correctly, the rods
were 6 feet long (?) and had a basic guidance system with fins on the back
end. I think this idea would be more
applicable to DS than SG - on the SG scale it would destroy the entire
table.
Adrian
> I recall reading about (in GDWs stuff) a US system called Assault
Brian spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> This Assault Breaker system had as it's .sig a nice little mushroom
It was a non-nuclear system that consisted (IIRC) of thousands of
self-guiding missiles/bomblets that would independently acquire and
destroy tank and other AFV targets.
> I don't know about anti-tank use in SG2, but the regular artillery is
> I'd think that there's enough anti-tank weaponry on the average SG2
Not my experience at all. Put something of armour 4 or 5 on the
board, and it is near invulnerable. GMS/P uses D12* Impact, as does
IAVR. Meaning a GOOD shot gets you D12x2. My MBTs are armour 4 or 5, meaning
D12x5. Anti Tank Artillery gets max D12x5 with AA bomblet
(not an accurate depiction of the power of this stuff - in reality it
is very very deadly to tanks - at least at the present). The point
is, the Tank stands there, can (barring an absolutely pathetic roll on behalf
of the tanker) and laugh (even with only a top armour or 3
or 4) at the GMS/P and IAVRs. GMS/L is more dangerous.... and GMS/H
is very nasty but these are tank killers usually mounted on TAC AIR or Tank
Destroyers (a la M901 ITV). The artillery is not a significant threat to the
tank. And what do you think the tank is doing that your hordes of GMS and IAVR
toting infantry are shooting
at it? Probably something dumb. A tank has stand off weapons - it
should use them in that manner if it can. The infantry precede it, and it uses
its longer range to advantage to eliminate the IAVR
threat (plus having infantry in front of it - which means enemy
infantry better be shooting at THEM not the tank or else they will
kill those IAVR firing enemy). The GMS/P is a full-board threat...
but with its pathetic (relative to MBT armour) penetration, it isn't
much of a threat barring really bad luck on the MBT - and if he is
using cover he can really cut out the range advantage a lot.
I guess I just don't think a tank should be able to calmly sit through an MRL
or a Heavy Howitzer attack using 2183 armour without worrying A LOT. Modern
arty is deadly, and can be just as deadly to tanks with the right loadouts. So
the D12x2 (not even a D12x2 asterisk because of the nature of the attack)
isn't all that intimidating.
Arty does have the advantage it can fire again, but I figure if
people are tossing 240mm Rocket Assisted Terminally Self-Guided
Sabotted Kinetic Kill rounds at me... (or some other fanciful anti tank
bomblet or plasma launched HKP which deploys from my arty round) then they
should be a tad more dangerous to tanks.
YMMV, Of course. To each his own experience. I'm only curious about what the
options for this in the real world are. I'm sure someone who worked on us MLRS
or Heavy Arty could comment on how deadly
state-of-today weapons are to todays MBTs.
> How did the 'Assault Breaker' arty differ from regular arty, anyway?
Just
> more of it, or was it a different system?
Different system. Only deployed when (I think) you could locate at least 10 or
20 targets together. It cost something like $100K US a shot. But the idea was
it would break massed armour pushes. That is why it was a Theatre level asset.
/************************************************
Adrian spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> Cluster Munitions - covering area with bomblets, in the 2xd12 damage
Good.
> Guided single rounds - artillery shell is lobbed into the area where
Yes. I think you'll find that they develop ones that they fire 'roughly' into
their target area, and let the onboard pattern recognition stuff identify the
AFV to destroy (probably IFF stuff
too).
> In game terms, guided artillery could be treated like a direct fire
I'd do that at certain tech levels. As they got better, their onboard stuff
might make them closer to a fast approach slightly more ballistic missile.
They could pick their target and nuke it without
an observer - but god help you if your IFF was off....
Maybe have the system be affected by EW, so if the target side
> has an EW trooper, they can jam the guidance system??? How about
Makes good sense.
> I read about the "tungsten rods dropped from orbit" idea sometime in
In RL, they were actually guided. And they did target individual
tanks - you dropped one rod and it self guided. It could penetrate
ANY roof armour.
But dropping a whole satellite load on a region would be obsence... and
probably very deadly to the people living there..... especially if they had
some sort of an explosive tip... or used a nuke....
(argh).
But yes, that would be overload. Single rods called onto an SG board would be
powerful (multi turn delay) but not impossible. An area bombardment would be
pointless.....
/************************************************
Thomas Barclay wrote:
> > Guided single rounds - artillery shell is lobbed into the area where
IIRC the STRIX 120mm mortar round does this (ie, identifies the AFV, or at
least the type of AFV, to destroy). It is made by another division of
the company though, so I'm not too well-read on it. I'm not sure how
much data on it is public either, so I'd better not say too much. No doubt
some of you have already seen it in action, though <g>
Overhead attacks (both from off-center-warhead missiles and guided arty
rounds) are going to be very common within a fairly near future, so I hope the
tank designers come up with countermeasures ('cuz otherwise the SF ground
combat games are going to be *really* dull... and I'll be out of work as well
if AFVs are destroyed several miles away from the
infantry :-/ ).
Regards,
> Thomas Barclay wrote:
> Not my experience at all. Put something of armour 4 or 5 on the
Maybe in Stargrunt II--my use of medium artillery in DSII has
traumatized every one of my regular opponents on the subject.:) I regularly
toast size 4 or 5 vehicles. The key is tight sheafs when possible. Yeah,
you'll only catch a few, but raping a platoon of size 5 heavy tanks with each
salvo is fairly intimidating.
> or 4) at the GMS/P and IAVRs. GMS/L is more dangerous.... and GMS/H
I'm not a real fan of the way SGII models armored vehicles. Unfortunately, I
can't come up with a better system for an SF skirmish game which has to deal
with every vehicle model and design under the sun.
> kill those IAVR firing enemy). The GMS/P is a full-board threat...
GMS/P is too weak. I'd use a GMS/L team or two instead.
> YMMV, Of course. To each his own experience. I'm only curious about
Basically, if you're dumb enough to hold still under a rain of ICM rounds from
modern artillery, you're toast. Fortunately these rounds
are not that common outside US/NATO/people whose defense budgets the US
subsidises (Like Israel).
> Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@sofkin.ca> wrote:
See my site here:
http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/DSII/ARTY.HTM
for this:
GMS ammunition for artillery
----------------------------
This ammunition system models the Copperhead round fired by the M109 Paladin
155mm SP artillery, and the Strix 120mm mortar rounds.
and this:
Very Heavy Artillery
--------------------
Very heavy artillery (VHA) is a size 8 weapon (for weapons fit purposes). It
causes 4 chits to be drawn for every element firing on VEHICLE elements; 5
chits to be drawn for every element firing on INFANTRY elements. Points cost
would be 400 for VHA system, MAK/HEF/DPL ammunition markers cost 50 Ã
weapons in battery. The VHA system takes up 24 capacity points and carries up
to three ammunition markers. Each ammunition marker takes up 8 units of space
See my site here:
http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/DSII/EW.HTM
for this:
Size Class 3, 4 & 5 GMS
-----------------------
Think of these as big Surface to Surface (SSM) or Surface to Air (SAM)
Missile systems, much like 1,000lb/500Kg (or bigger!) laser guided
bombs, but with fire & forget and powered flight capabilities. Damage
validities as
per GMS/L and GMS/H. GMS/3 can be carried by VTOLs and Aerospace craft
as they are a size class 3 weapon.
See also More Thrust (GZG) for Ortillery.
I leave it as an exercise for the reader to translate these systems from DSII
to SGII.
Of course, the most effect assault breaker is nuke when your own troops aren't
looking.
Andrew spake thusly upon matters weighty:
> I leave it as an exercise for the reader to translate these systems
Thanks for the simple task.....(grimace)
> Of course, the most effect assault breaker is nuke when your own
The real system was (as I understand it) developed for use vs a Pact offensive
into NATO territory...ergo Nuke was not a good option.
Usagi Yoyimbo Site: http://members.xoom.com/AndrewMartin/UY/
Now this I will have to visit! Samurai Rabbits.... somewhere there must be a
silly SG2 scenario lurking there....
/************************************************
> Adrian Johnson <ajohnson@idirect.com> wrote:
See DSII's MAK and HEF artillery options. MAK: Multiple Armour Killer. HEF:
High Explosive Fragmentation.
> Guided single rounds - artillery shell is lobbed into the area where
Guided mortar rounds: Strix. Guided artillery rounds: Copper Head. Copper Head
is laser designated. See my site for DSII rules for these weapons. There are
also the "skeet" (SADARM) artillery rounds which are reasonably simulated with
DSII's MAK ammunition.
> In game terms, guided artillery could be treated like a direct fire
See my site for DSII artillery firing GMS and indirectly fired GMS.
> How about having
See my site for DSII laser-designated GMS downgrades rules.
> The USAF supposedly had some success killing Iraqi tanks with
Tom Clancy's book, Fighter Wing, page 58, quotes a Col. John A. Warden: 'This
sort of thing led Buster Glosson to come up with "tank plinking", where we
used small LGBs (Laser Guided Bombs) to destroy armoured vehicles. The common
wisdom was that it was ridiculous to use an expensive
[$12,000]
precision LGB against a tank. But when you send four planes out with four
bombs each and they come back with an average of twelve kills, that's cheap.'
I think a 75% success rate is pretty good.