I was playing a Dirtside game last weekend and my opponent (the lesser cheesy
one) was using a tactic that left a bad taste in my mouth. He was doing a "pop
down" attack. he would keep his copter in high mode and drop down to attack,
and then climb up again. this chewed up my forces. He also fields tanks with 0
armor. This wouldn't be so bad except for 2000 points he an field 4 choppers
and 6 tanks. I had 1 copter and 4 tanks. Add to this the fact that I didn't
win one dice role the whole game and it was a miserable experience. Short of
fielding a AA battery is there any way to deal with a force like this, or
should I just not play against him anymore?
> David wrote:
This tactic works in real life against a foe with low air power and low air
defence. My suggestion is play with more points, and specify and agree on a
percentage amount to spend on air power and air defence for each side. With
such a low points battle, I would have specified No Aerospace, No VTOL and No
air defence.
I hope that helps!
5 vehicles in 2000 pts? They must be big vehicles.
My average force at that point level is 12-16 vehicles + infantry.
Several options: 1. How is he doing a "pop down". Changing altitude between
High & Low mode counts as a movement action, only leaving the fire action
available. Pop Ups can only be done when in Low mode hover (check the rule
book re: Pop ups, I think it specifically mentions this).
2. Field a light fighter (size 2-3) with gms/l & rfac/2. About
3-400
points. This should deal with those choppers at least.
3. 1-2 size 2 vehicles with basic ZAD - they should only cost about
150
pts each. (can be used as RFAC/2 against ground targets as well).
4. Send in the swarm. Nothing but size 1/armour 1 vehicles with
twin
RFAC/1 or similar (about 60 points each, the DSII generator seems to be
down). This should 5. "Ultimately most problems can be solved by applying a
large brick to the correct skull. Difficulties arise when you don't have a
brick or can't find the right skull. The devil is always in the details." In
this case, you know the right skull.
'Neath Southern Skies - http://users.mcmedia.com.au/~denian/
> -----Original Message-----
> He has to drop down (Movement Action) & fire (Combat Action) in one
That's right. I had forgotten that. In my DSII games, with plentiful air
defence, it's exceedingly dangerous for VTOLs to hang around at High altitude.
Typically, my artillery spotter VTOLs last one turn against my friend's HEL
armed tanks and HEL ADS.
> David D. Taylor wrote:
> I was playing a Dirtside game last weekend and my opponent (the
He has to drop down (Movement Action) & fire (Combat Action) in one
activation, then remain at Low until his next activation in which he can climb
back up again. However, I don't think he has to drop down in
order to attack - IIRC VTOLs can fire at ground targets from High, but
not get shot *at* except by LAD or ADS.
> He also fields tanks with 0 armor.
Soft-skinned tanks? They count as Powered Infantry when shot at by
infantry... they tend to die rather often IME. At least if they get hit
:-/
> Add to this the fact that I didn't win one dice role the whole game
This can kill anyone.
> Short of fielding a AA battery is there any way to deal with a
IMO, not using AA batteries when attacked by air assets is like
refusing to use depth charges when attacked by submarines in a WW1/2
naval game.
Regards,
> On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, Robertson, Brendan wrote:
> 2. Field a light fighter (size 2-3) with gms/l & rfac/2. About
This is the way I would go. I've had expensive attack helecopters swatted out
of the sky with cheap aerospace. Boy does that smart.
This begs a question. Can a VTOL do an opfire vs an aerospace, assuming its in
arc of its weapons? The military guys always note the difficulty of fighters
attacking helo's in RL. They move around on you but still get to hide down in
the brush. (one pass he's here, the next pass he's over there and shooting at
you as you come in...)
> Ryan wrote:
> From my own experience (limited to flying Apache's in Microprose's
Just my point of view.
> Ryan wrote:
Piece of trivia for you that might be relevant.
The Canadian Forces field a piece of equipment called ADATS. This is
basically an anti-aircraft missile system. It uses, I believe, radar
for detection, and laser designation for the missile's actual flight.
Supposedly it's really effective. 4 Air Defence Regiment (which is a mixed
Regular-Reserve) recently had some systems on deployment with a USMC MEU
demonstrating the system - as the Marines are concerned that they don't
have an anti-air system that is effective for medium range intercepts
(the
ADATS system is much longer-range than stuff like Stingers, etc). They
were really impressed when an ADATS shot took down a low flying cruise missile
at 10 miles at night with a reservist opperator.
What lead me to mention this in the first place is that the ADATS system
was designed from the outset to be a dual-mode anti-aircraft AND
anti-armour system. These missiles are big, and have a warhead
sufficient to take out a tank, and have done so in testing. We were supposed
to sell a whole bunch of the systems to the US, but they bailed out of the
development program a few years back, so the only operator of ADATS is the
Canadian military. The dual role capability would give mobile forces the
ability to take on both type of targets with the same missile. They would
be primarily air-defense, but have the anti-armour capability as a back
up...
My point is that if we can have a system like this NOW, is it not reasonable
to think that a GMS system 150 years from now will be able to take on both
tanks and aircraft? Why not simply state that your GMS systems can take on
both air and ground targets. If you don't like the idea that they will be
equally effective against both types of targets, how
about designating them with a primary specialty ie: GMS/H-AT for
primarily
anti-tank, and GMS/H-AA for primarily anti-air. They would operate at
full effectiveness against their primary target type, and less effectively
against the other type. The less-effectively part could be accomplished
by either reducing their damage potential, or reducing their hit potential
-
or maybe both.
Just a thought.
Adrian pointed out:
> My point is that if we can have a system like this NOW, is it not
My system covers that well, by allowing Anti-Aerospace GMS to
fired at ground targets. It's just not as effective, only drawing 1 through 5
chits, according to size class, 1 through 5.
Quoting Robertson, Brendan (Wed, Sep 29, 1999 at 02:20:33PM +1000)
> Several options:
I have no experience of DS2 or SG2, but surely option 6 would be infantry
armed with SAM launchers.. rather effective against hovering helicopters with
all the frictional heat that the blades build up.
David,
I am assuming that your friend did a drop from high mode to low mode to do
this attack, right? If so and it is a VTOL you can take opportunity fire
against it with any direct fire weapon from a unactivated unit as long as it
is not in high mode. This will help if you don't have AAA. Also, the VTOL does
not get any special defensive throws for a drop in altitude versus a popup. I
would recommend using AAA since it helps against missiles as well.
Mike
Michael Miserendino Senior Software Engineer Lincoln Re mtmiserendino@lnc.com
> owner-gzg-l@CSUA.Berkeley.EDU at internet 09/28 10:41 PM >>>
I was playing a Dirtside game last weekend and my opponent (the lesser cheesy
one) was using a tactic that left a bad taste in my mouth. He was doing a "pop
down" attack. he would keep his copter in high mode and drop down to attack,
and then climb up again. this chewed up my forces. He also fields tanks with 0
armor. This wouldn't be so bad except for 2000 points he an field 4 choppers
and 6 tanks. I had 1 copter and 4 tanks. Add to this the fact that I didn't
win one dice role the whole game and it was a miserable experience. Short of
fielding a AA battery is there any way to deal with a force like this, or
should I just not play against him anymore?
David D. Taylor dtaylor@pce.net ICQ # 1851388 "Ultimately most problems can be
solved by applying a large brick to the correct skull. Difficulties arise when
you don't have a brick or can't find the right skull. The devil is always in
the details."
Marcus Cole - Babylon 5
!
!!
> On Wed, 29 Sep 1999, Andrew Martin wrote:
> fighter. So, in my rules and in our games, we've split up GMS into two
This makes perfect sense. Considering that Air to air weapons are pretty
light inso far as warhead size. Compared to ground attack weapons.