In message <871041045.0621426.0@kryten.acs.bolton.ac.uk> "Steve Pugh" writes:
> Stuart Murray wrote:
[The below should be read with many IMHO-, AFAIK-, AFAIR-type
caveats. Correction from rufty-tufty military types welcomed].
I don't wholey agree. For example, I think in all the major infantry assaults
carried out in the Falkland Is. the PBI were explicitly told to remove their
helmets.
Partly, I think, this was as a recognition aid, but it makes sense to me in
other terms. In the general case, infantry are done for by sundry Death From
Above. Artillery. Air strikes. Shrapnel is liberally spread over infantry
positions to cause attrition
through wounding. Here, in a 1:300 sort-of Dirtside-y environment
helmets are extremely useful to cover the head/neck from wounding.
In a close assault, man-to-man Stargrunt-y environment the danger
is more like Death From In Front. Enemy and friendly troops are
too close to call in supporting bombardment. Rifle/MG bullets do
not respect helmets, and nor, I dare say, would "plasma guns" and other SF
infantry weapons.
If you're going in to assault enemy infantry the armchair tactician in me
suggests that you really might as well take the weight of your neck, toss away
your helmet and get the maximum possible peripheral vision.
If your local library is anything like mine there should be plenty of warry
picture books with photos of special forces (if your local supermarket is like
mine, there should be a pile of unsold
Bravo-2-0 cash-in SAS books). You don't often see special forces
wearing helmets. Plenty of soft headware, berets, sunhats, forage
caps, wooly hats, arab-style head coverings, kepi etc. You might
spot Gurkhas and other highlanders wearing tam o'shanters. I s'pose they don't
expect to be bombarded either, since the enemy isn't supposed to know they're
there.
> > OK so if I'm on a what I'd like to see in SG II miniatures mode here
If we're going to talk berets and other headgear, what I'd like to see GZG do,
rather than cast varients, is decapitate all their current troopers and cast
seperate sprues of lead heads.
Think of the possible variants that could be added to all ranges by producing
extra head sprues. Berets as mentioned. Lots of different soft hats and caps
as mentioned above. Heads with macho bandanas. Bandaged heads. Different
hairsyles, flattops, mohicans,
dreadlocks. Different head-sets, VR goggles, bio-implants,
android heads. Heads with different racial characteristics. Alien
heads... all those cheesy aliens from low-budget SF like Babylon-5
where all the aliens are humans with big rubber heads (eg. Narn).
Pinheads. Coneheads. Eggheads. Bobo-the-clown heads. That sort of
thing.
Capeesh?
David wrote
> You don't often see special forces
Actually SF types are generally NOT meant to go head to head. Exceptions are
the CountTerrorist assault situations and you will note that the
SAS, GSG-9 to mention just two, do use helmets. Personally I much prefer
taking a rifle butt on the side of a compressed plastic helmet than the number
3 haircut! And in the Falklands? Well it is common knowledge that the Para's
skull is far thicker than any 'Tin pot'.......
> At 09:13 AM 8/9/97 +1000, you wrote:
Exceptions
> are the CountTerrorist assault situations and you will note that the
Early in WW2, Soviet squaddies apparently thought helmets were "unmanly", and
officers and NCOs had to use fines and suchlike punishments to force them into
wearing them.
For troops of Scottish descent, I'd think a modern helmet would unduly cushion
the effect of our national martial art (puttin the heid on)...
On the general uniform style question, I think early First World War
Austro-
Hungarian infantry uniforms are worth a look- much more practical
modern-looking
than one might expect- the headgear is a sort of feldmutze type cap with
a cloth
"sprig" on one side. Incidentally, amongst other things, the A-H army
had a particular
stiff shako which was confined to senior officers- The rank and file
therefore called it the "artificial brain"!
cheers,
In a message dated 97-08-08 19:10:09 EDT, you write:
<< >You don't often see special forces
> wearing helmets. Plenty of soft headware, berets, sunhats,
I wonder, this is SF where the high tech battle field rules? What about the
radio R/T, infra red pop down interface, helmet cam, built in map
projector ( with the "you are here red arrow!), ammo status, magna gogles,
aural magnifier, em detector, etc.
In the High Tech battlefield the elite troops would be the ones with helmets
and the militia would be the ones without.
> <<I wonder, this is SF where the high tech battle field rules? What
Tom Hughes >>
Pfc. Hoskins crouched silently in the bush, sweating in the overweight
laughably named 'cool' suit. The freezon-12 can had run out at least two
weeks ago, along with the batteries for the chil-pak on his newfangled
MPPG, forcing him to fire it in semi-auto mode only. He groaned as he
carefully removed the newlar "squat-pot" off his head and used the high
tech helmet for what it did best, provide a stable seat during the long
ambushes in the bush. At least the Indig militia had those old steel
pots that could hold water for shaving or a quick cat-cat bath in the
field. Hell, the Ell-tee had traded his cool-suit to a gadget-hungry
Indie Captain for a set of the local's cammies and a bottle of coconanna hooch
weeks ago. Maybe some of the new lightweight battle dress would
> come through on the next shuttle...... Maybe....
In message <970812133031_1848956341@emout04.mail.aol.com>
> TEHughes@aol.com writes:
...That would be me...
> << >You don't often see special forces
Well, no, I meant right now today, but since GZG ground-based
games are clearly directed at combat being not-radically-
different-to-today it all follows.
> What about the radio R/T,
...earphones and throat mike (but surely you'll be keeping radio silence
anyway),...
> infra red pop down interface,
...goggles,...
> helmet cam,
...at home (ditto RT silence)...
> built in map projector (with the "you are here red arrow!),
...on the NCO (can't trust an officer with a map),...
> ammo status,
...on your weapon,...
> magna gogles,
...goggles again (I wouldn't want my vision permanently magnified
anyway),...
> aural magnifier,
...earphones again,...
> em detector, etc.
Remind me... this is kit that will detect when all the kit above is being
used...? Good reason to chuck them all...
It all rather brings up the question of cognative loads and information
overkill.
It also goes to show that we can add a huge range of exciting, new,
head varients to the seperate head/body idea with many, many
different combinations of neato head furniture to personalise your troopers
the way want them. Which would include helmets.
> In the High Tech battlefield the elite troops would be the ones with
I think it more the case that the elite will get their personal preference and
the militia will discard unwanted encumberances. The regulars inbetween would
get the regulation kit and a fine if they don't follow the regs.
Just an opinion.
> Pfc. Hoskins crouched silently in the bush, sweating in the overweight
Amen brother. Ever try wearing the NBC suits? They suck. Almost better gettin
gased than wearing that thing for a day or two.
That
Chuk Guy
Wearing NBC? Getting gassed is MUCH MUCH worse than any discomfort a helmet
causes!!
And Pfc Hoskins sounds as if the organisation he belongs to is only marginally
better off than the Indog Militia! And what about the lack of Battler
discipline? Moving around to remove a helmet so he can get comfortable in an
ambush site? Poor preparation of his ambush site, poor individual discipline,
poor platoon discipline, lousy resupply...........a helmet is the last thing
these guys have got to be worried about!
Owen Glover IT Services
> ----------
It strikes me that, In the GZG official universe at least, the 'Elite' troops
are the power armour blokes, where all this stuff is built into the suit. I
have some NAC marines and half of them have those big 'fighter pilot' helmets.
The rest are bare headed or wear berets. The officer in a beret has a throat
mike setup and what look like a pair of Raybans.. Just
because in 1997 IR goggles / binocs / tactical displays are big & bulky
doesn't mean in (say) 10 years you won't have a system that can project all
the necessary information onto a standard pair of spectacles...
TTFN
Jon
> From: "George,Eugene M" <Eugene.M.George@kp.ORG>
> >
I LIKE IT!!!!!
KR
G'day (sorry just can't help myself),
I've found this thread on hi-tec for the Grunt interesting. It
anin't that far off. B coy 1 Bn 15 InfReg in the states is currenlt trialling
their futuristic "Land Warrior" system. The system consists of throat mikes,
personal night vision gear, new communications equipment and apparently some
VR type goggles (target indication?). The idea is to have a platoon using the
system by the end of the year trialling it. The "Land Warrior" system is
intended to improve the preformance of a whole platoon by allowing (as I
understand it) Company and other platoon commanders to directly recieve
information from another platoon or it's members. France is also introducing
new systems to their infantry but rather than
being a co-ordinated package they are consentrating on stand alone
systems like night sights and new individual radios. This sort of system would
not allow the CO to see what PFC Shirack does. The hope is that each system
can be throughly tested in the field and later intergrated with the other
packages to produce a complete system, the Systeme d'Armes Combattant, which
interestingly includes a full face helmet and body armour. Finally Australia
has it's own ideas called Project Wundurra, which in some respects similar to
the American idea but not quite as ambitious. Australia is aiming to produce a
ssytem which greatly improves the proformance of a section (squad for the
Yanks) rather than an entire platoon. Like the other systems it includes
individual radios, small mikes, postion location devices on each soldier,
millitarised laptops (God only knows what it ways) and night vision equipment.
From the photos I've been able to get my hands on the night vision gear comes
in single and double eyepiece versions, the double appears to be linked to the
comms equipment on the trooper. I've also seen what appears like a flip down
VR screen on some troopers which again is linked to the comms. As for
helemets, most of the soldiers trialing the gear where bush hats but thats
probably just us Aussie's. Interestingly the officer in charge of the projet
felt that introducing
such hi-tec equipment to a recruit too early in their training would
actually make worse soldiers in the long run.
Finally, I have heard from a computer illiterate friend that somewhere on the
net someone had come with special stats for U.N. ships for the FT background.
I can't think where else to look. Any ideas?
Tony Wilkinson. twilko@ozemail.com.au "If you build a better mouse trap,
Nature will always build a better mouse!"
> At 01:01 PM 8/12/97 -0700, you wrote:
In a message dated 97-08-12 21:57:27 EDT, you write:
<< >
> <<I wonder, this is SF where the high tech battle field rules? What
Tom Hughes >>
#>Pfc. Hoskins crouched silently in the bush, sweating in the overweight
laughably named 'cool' suit. The freezon-12 can had run out at least
two
weeks ago, along with the batteries for the chil-pak on his newfangled
MPPG, forcing him to fire it in semi-auto mode only. He groaned as he
carefully removed the newlar "squat-pot" off his head and used the high
tech helmet for what it did best, provide a stable seat during the long
ambushes in the bush. At least the Indig militia had those old steel
pots that could hold water for shaving or a quick cat-cat bath in the
field. Hell, the Ell-tee had traded his cool-suit to a gadget-hungry
Indie Captain for a set of the local's cammies and a bottle of coconanna hooch
weeks ago. Maybe some of the new lightweight battle dress would
> come through on the next shuttle...... Maybe....##>>
Cpl Schneider was walking point when his aural enhancement unit picked up the
sound of the flexing newlar helmet. He looked around with his infra-red
vision till he spotted a thermal plume coming from the other side of a cane
break some 50 meters ahead and off the trail. As he keyed the mike to Sgt
Heinz, he was studying the trail ahead on 4X magnification. Sgt Heinz said to
hold it there until 3 troopers managed to work their way in behind the suspect
location, Cpl Schneider listened to the sarge coach his teammates into
position from his helmet display. A quick check of their relative positions on
his vid visor
showed him just where he needed to let off the flash-bang when he
stepped down the path. The rest of the patrol moved up to less than 10 meters
behind him, he focused he helmet cam on the trip wires just visible from his
position till everyone knew their location, the 10 minutes he had been stuying
the trail under magnaficion had paid off. Sarge gave three clicks into his
mike and the counter ambush started.
Schneider walked forward loudly enough to attract the attention of the ambush
squad, with the rest of his patrol close and quiet behind him. When he was
just inside the ambush, in one move he threw the flash-bang and dropped
to center of the path. The burst of light and noise went off between him and
ambushers causing them to fire blindly and higher than they planned. That was
all the edge his patrol needed, in 30 seconds it was over. He stayed down for
quiet a bit longer than that. Between the 3 troopers in behind the ambushers
and his patrol mates at his back they had sprung a crossfire on the ambushers
and gotten three of the ambushers with no casualties. He grinned to himself
"knowledge is power."
Pfc Hoskins said nothing, he was dead, more interested in comfort than
knowledge he died unaware of what killed him, lying on top of a helmet that
would have told him about the patrols' manuevring first.