This weekend saw a pair of gaming sessions in Kingston. They raised some
questions in my mind about interpretation of rules and reality (both obviously
separate from the other...). So I thought I'd air some of them in this forum
for some feedback.
The first was a DS2 battle - a river valley with 4
urban objectives fought over by two minor powers with some external
sponsorship. It was nasty in that these two groups were fighting over the
urban areas and the winner would "cleanse" the towns of collaborators,
insurgents, etc. Having the same goal made for a level moral playing field,
and really was outside of the course of the game except that the presence of
friendlies in the objectives meant no town artillery.
The whole scenario was sparked off by the ambush of a side A convoy by side B
insurgents
(3 x Phalanx APCs + 5 trucks ambushed by 4
militia stands with IAVRs and an APSW stand).
On the one side (side A - the "Rescue Force"),
we had 24 tracklayer MBTs (fast tracked) with HKPs, 18 tracklayer AIFVs with
RFACs (and perhaps GMS), 18 infantry stands, and 6 jeeps
with recce/spotters. They had 2 3-gun batteries
of medium artillery (203mm howitzers) with 3 shots each any type. They also
got the five insurgent stands (the convoy forces didn't matter for long as
they were vaporized without
doing much damage - I think they ended up
getting one enemy vehicle).
On the other side, we had 6 MDC armed fast GEV grav tanks, 6 DFFG armed fast
GEV tanks,
12 fast GEV APCs, 8 hi-mob wheeled APCs, 4 hi-
mob wheeled HKP armed TDs, and 20 infantry
stands. 2 3-gun batteries of heavy artillery with
4 shots each any type (MRLS). They also had 6
hover jeeps with recce/spotters.
The game unfolded in favour of side B, though side A controlled two of the
objectives at the end. The casualties inflicted, other than the convoy, were
mostly from side B's artillery.
A few questions arose:
1) Does the game permit you to call artillery by
grid reference (ie no spotter, pre-registered
fire points). If so, when? If we assume that everything on the battlefield is
known because of drones, sensors, sat recon, etc., then one should be able to
drop shots on top of the enemy anytime without spotters. If we assume this is
not the case, do spotters then have to make some sort of sighting rolls to see
the enemy?
2) Artillery comes down mightily fast. If I have three or four attack waves
driving forward with a 1" separation (100m) and the enemy drops a
salvo in open-sheaf upon me, i'm only going to
be able to move at maximum one of these units, even though ostensibly the
entire wave is moving concurrently. Hitting moving targets thus seems awfully
simple. We thought this was a bit much. Is that just me or has anyone else
seen this? I'm not suggesting artillery isn't effective, I'm merely suggesting
that because of the move A, move B, move A nature of the game, it is very hard
for an attack force to move together and thus large chunks of it may be
exposed when this really doesn't quite make sense. Plus, there seems to be no
quality roll or anything to determine if the artillery is on target and
effectual. It just seems to arrive. Or did I miss something?
3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If not, why not?
4) Can infantry close assault vehicles with no supporting infantry?
5) I have my tank in the edge of an urban area, ostensibly using buildings for
cover. Is this considered "soft cover"? if so, why? If not, what is it
considered?
> --- Thomas Barclay <kaladorn@magma.ca> wrote:
> On the other side, we had 6 MDC armed fast
Am I the only one that really dislikes mixed-mobility
forces?
> 1) Does the game permit you to call artillery by
No.
> everything on the battlefield is known because
No.
> 2) Artillery comes down mightily fast. If I have
Nope. Your fool commander should not have CRS so badly that he bunched up like
that.
> sense. Plus, there seems to be no quality roll or
Nope. Artillery comes where you tell it to come. With modern ballistic
science, artillery, even
unguided comes down where the FDC tells it to 99%+ of
the time. FDC is an AI nowdays. What's left is the primary cause of artillery
not hitting the target in any era: Spotter Error. However, with GPS in every
helmet and laser rangefinders on every rifle, then that is reduced. There's
still a chance of error, but not a significant one given the ground scale and
the fact that the artillery shells are all carrier rounds with lots of little
submunitions saturating the impact area.
> 3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If
I'm inclined to say NO, because it's called Infantry Close Assault. But it
doesn't say so.
> 4) Can infantry close assault vehicles with no
All it says is that the target must be one enemy unit holding a single
position or location.
My question would be WHY? There's no benefit that shooting at them with IAVRs
wouldn't bring.
> 5) I have my tank in the edge of an urban area,
For what purposes? For direct fire from heavy weapons? Yes.
G'day,
> 1) Does the game permit you to call artillery by
Not as it stands, but after Laserlight's recent questions we're messing with a
houserule for specific scenarios where you have to note pre game the
activation, the turn and the spot you want it. If you want it changed then you
have to make a fairly steep comms roll.
> Hitting moving targets
Well if you gave everything a chance of getting out of the way then the
artillery wouldn't be worth much;) Seriously we've found that artillery can
become an art, when to call it so that you maximise his hurt while minimising
his chance to hurt you first can be a tough call in spots.
> Plus, there seems to be no quality roll or
If you really want large artillery wonder class all offboard artillery as
ortillery.
> 3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If
They probably can, but I think last time we had this thread (or was that for
SG? sorry I've forgotten) it got down to wouldn't that be silly?;P;)
> 4) Can infantry close assault vehicles with no
I'd let them, but please see answer to 3... personally I'd stay dug in and use
IAVRs;)
> 5) I have my tank in the edge of an urban area,
Yes its cover, except from infantry in the same urban area I guess.
Cheers
From: "John Atkinson" <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> Am I the only one that really dislikes mixed-mobility
No. But sometimes you have to made do with what you've got.
On 17-Jul-02 at 20:27, Beth.Fulton@csiro.au (Beth.Fulton@csiro.au)
wrote:
> > 3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If
;P ;)
Probably mine, a convoy needed to get from point A to point B ASAP (Starport
with oribital transport due any minute) and their only route was to contact a
hidden marker which turn out to be an infantry unit. If they tried to bring up
the infantry they would have lost because the heavy units would have arrived
from space.
BTW, DS.
> John Atkinson wrote:
> >sense. Plus, there seems to be no quality roll or
Well... as long as "where the FDC tells it" is an area some 50-100
meters wide, anyway <g> At least that's what the active US and British
artillerymen I've talked to/listened in on recently claim :-/
> FDC is an AI nowdays. What's left is the primary cause of artillery
...and with even weak GPS jammers built by off-the-shelf radio
components,
or distributed by enemy artillery, it goes back up again ;-)
> >3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If not, why not?
But
> it doesn't say so.
How would you do an overrun attack by vehicles against infantry in SGII?
> >4) Can infantry close assault vehicles with no
Because you're one of those players who keep track of the number of IAVRs
used, and you have run out of them?
Later,
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> Well... as long as "where the FDC tells it" is an
Talk to Don. He's the cannon-cocker here.
But since we're talking about Dirtside II where
50-100m is .5-1" it's fairly trivial.
> >FDC is an AI nowdays. What's left is the primary
Inertial Trackers as an idiot-proof backup to your
GPS. . .
> > >3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If
I would't do it in Dirtside, that's for sure.
Personally, modern infantry have nasty, sharp, pointy teeth inside about 300m
so any tanker that tries to get that close to people with modern AT weapons
should
just be ruled dead of terminal stupidity. Game-wise,
the infantry should take a confidence check at about a
-1 to not suffer panzer shock, and then get a chance
to fire _every_ antiarmor weapon they have at the
tank, and their machinguns at the TC if he's dumb enough to stick his head out
the turret.
Then treat it as a close combat where the machineguns get to roll as
individual infantrymen while the infantry guys get to use IAVRs only. If they
run out of IAVRs, then they automatically fail all confidence checks and run
like hell.
> >My question would be WHY? There's no benefit that
If you play DSII with a significant amount (3+
platoons) of infantry and you keep track of IAVRs individually, you're what's
called
"Obsessive-Compulsive" and I can only recommend a long
session of therapy. Especially considering that according the the dumb grunt
reading over my shoulder,
a 4-man fireteam of 'Merican infantry could easily be
carrying 8 AT-4s without breaking a sweat.
> On 21-Jul-02 at 15:51, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:
> If you play DSII with a significant amount (3+
That brings me to a SG question. Vehicles are weakenned to keep them in
balance. Infantry is limited in number of IAVRs because that would be
unbalanced. Is it just me
or have we fixed a non-problem causing a problem that
needed to be fixed????
Why not make tanks as nasty in SG as they are in DS? Allow infantry enough
IAVRs to swat the the tanks as they should.
> --- Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:
> Why not make tanks as nasty in SG as they are in DS?
Are vehicles that weakened? I mean, they are moving slower than they do on the
DSII table, but any vehicle that zips around when they KNOW they are at close
quarters with dismounts is a funeral pyre waiting to happen.
In my limited DSII vehicular experience, the larger
ones (size 3+) tend to be pretty invulnerable to
anything that gets shot at unless there's GMS/L or
better on the table.
From: "Roger Books" <books@jumpspace.net>
> That brings me to a SG question. Vehicles are weakenned to
They are? I usually *don't* bring a load of IAVR but that doesn't mean I
couldn't. IIRC DS2 has a line in it about every infantryman
being able to carry 1-2 IAVR. So for my regular IF squad, 11 men x 2
each = lots. I just don't see that they should be fired at infantry (unless
they're in a bunker or something) so *I* limit them, but I don't recall
anything in the rules about them being limited. And there will be occasions
when everyone in an IF squad *does* draw an
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
> They are? I usually *don't* bring a load of IAVR
I generally do. I mean, 4 per squad is the doctrinal minimum. I've got 2
riflemen and 2 NCOs that aren't carrying anything else extra so they can carry
more also. I prefer not to load down my SAW gunners too
much (500-round casettes, spare batteries, etc take up
a good bit of weight, even more if I'm a sonofabitch and make 'em carry their
tripods). The really nice thing about SF is that the stupid trend of the past
30 years or so towards weighing the infantry down with at
_least_ 3/4 of their bodyweight in gear can be
reversed. Pratically everything electronic can by shrunk by an order of
magnitude or more. Lightweight fabrics can shrink your snivel gear, etc. The
only thing that's still an unlightenable requirement is water. Maybe we could
even get back to the historical standard of 60lb fighting load for the
infantryman.
> there will be occasions when everyone in an IF squad
Deliberate defense, anti-armor ambush (very popular
infantry mission), etc.
> On 21-Jul-02 at 16:46, John Atkinson (johnmatkinson@yahoo.com) wrote:
> Maybe we could even get back to the historical
Ran into a 50+ year old gentlemen who was getting a late
start on the Appalachian Trail. He had all new gear, every nifty thing he
could think of, and was carrying 75 lbs on his back. After all, when he was
younger and in the army he did it...
FYI, my max weight is 35lbs including 4 liters of water, the water filter and
food for a week. It can be more if there is little running water. Of course
toys from Mattel would bump this very quickly, as would body armour.
You should have heard my ex-girlfriends shock when they
left water in BHD, but then she hikes and has suffered dehydration.
> John Atkinson wrote:
> >Well... as long as "where the FDC tells it" is an area some 50-100
That's a large enough potential deviation to turn a "perfect" placement of the
sheaf (ie., covering the entire platoon) into a marginal hit (hitting only a
few elements in the platoon).
> >>FDC is an AI nowdays. What's left is the primary cause of artillery
If inertial trackers are idiot-proof, why use GPS in the first place?
> >>>3) Can vehicles alone close assault infantry? If not, why not?
But
> >>it doesn't say so.
Good point <g>
> Personally, modern infantry have nasty, sharp, pointy
I design those teeth for a living... Today's "IAVR" equivalents don't kill a
modern tank frontally, unless they're very lucky. Tomorrow's "IAVRs", ie.
the ones we're developing today, have a better chance - they'll kill
*today's* tanks from any aspect... but tomorrow's tanks will undoubtedly be
better protected than today's tanks are. (And so the arms race goes
on...)
Flank and rear shots have a much better kill probability, but that means
that you'll have to hold your fire until the tanks are already in the middle
of your position. Better make sure that those FNGs don't fire too
early...
And why would the tanks be restricted to machine guns only? Main guns can be
*quite* effective against infantry as well, particularly if they're
capable of firing beehive-style rounds... not to mention what a DFFG can
do to a foxhole at close range.
The US Army in 'Nam seems to have been pretty successful when
close-assaulting well dug-in enemy infantry in the jungle with light
armoured vehicles, BTW - and while the North Vietnamese didn't have as
good AT weapons as we have today, the Sheridans and ACAVs assaulting them
didn't
have much armour to speak of either :-/
> >>My question would be WHY? There's no benefit that
Or you're a veteran SGII player but not too experienced with DSII <g>
> Especially considering that according the the dumb grunt reading over
You're the one who wanted to reduce the 60-lb combat carry; 2 AT4s per
man
is about half that load already. Then you have rifle+ammo, water and
possibly body armour on top of that as "must-haves"... if you're not to
exceed 60 lbs per man, who carries the SAW and the M203? Not to mention the
fancy battlefield electronics? <g>
Later,
> --- Laserlight <laserlight@quixnet.net> wrote:
John said:
> I generally do. I mean, 4 per squad is the doctrinal
Me too, as it happens, but not "one for everyone." Usually.
> water. Maybe we could even get back to the historical
"New lightweight yadda has reduced your load by 5 kg--and that means
we can give everyone a new 6kg gizmo without significantly increasing
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
> >But since we're talking about Dirtside II where
Now, iven that that is a 50m deviation in the air, when it starts dispensing
'smart' bomblets, is it enough to affect where those smart bomblets fly?
> >Personally, modern infantry have nasty, sharp,
True. But in an "overrun" attack there are more opportunities for flank and
rear shots (sure, you're driving straight at the infantry you see, but if the
platoon has three squads on line and you're driving towards second squad,
maybe first squad can shoot you), as well as belly shots (when cresting
unmodelled terrain) etc.
> And why would the tanks be restricted to machine
Not against troops at 50m or less. You can't track 'em fast enough.
> The US Army in 'Nam seems to have been pretty
Close-assaults I've read of tend to be dumping huge
volumes of 152mm and MG at relatively short range, with any "overruning"
tending to come after the VC have decided that arguing with the Blackhorse was
bad idea. I may be wrong.
> >Especially considering that according the the dumb
He was also mentioning that his combat load is pretty close to his 160lb body
weight.:)
> John Atkinson wrote:
[...]
> > >Especially considering that according the the dumb
*shakes head in disbelief* How can he maneuver?? Man, I know I suck in the
physical fitness environment (as testiment I was just on Mt Rainier a week and
a
half ago with a 70-75 lbs pack - ugh!!!), but carrying close to
his body weight?? I want him on my next mountaineering expedition! He can
carry the damned rope (and tent, and food, and fuel, and...)
> At 6:38 AM -0700 7/22/02, John Atkinson wrote:
I don't know John. The ACAV guys in Nam did pretty well with M113s
and M47s against the VC in anti-ambush drills in very close terrain.
Add those main guns in with all the MGs on the tanks and ACAVs going as well,
they put a hell of a lot of fire down range and into the brush. The Loader
would service the main gun while the driver would drive (and later on fire his
M60 mounted in front of his position, the commander would fire his.50 and fire
the main gun while using the commander's override to aim the gun by eye. The
loader would be firing the coax MG intermittently by using his boot on the
back plate while firing his (extra) M60. The gunner would be on the bustle or
back deck with an M60 and an M79. Then you had the ACAVs with their.50 cals
and 2 M60s plus an M79 as well. That's a lot of fire. It tends to make the
ambusher's duck abit. Especially when there are 3
of the tanks and 5-7 of the ACAVs.
> Close-assaults I've read of tend to be dumping huge
Valid point. The ACAV guys weren't crossing the positions too much. Usually
they were driving through the position before the ambush at some point
(bunkers were build along side roads in some cases) and then would go into
herringbone formations for the ambush, once it was calmer (relatively) they'd
move through the position to deal with any VC still dumb enough to move or
fire.
Still, the ambushes tended to have plenty of flank shots on the vehicles. The
mode of fighting had a distinct form to it with the armored vehicle crewmen
preferring to ride outside (up top) rather than inside do to the mine and rpg
threat. Sandbags all over the turret and around the crew hatch on the ACAVs
was pretty common. Gunsheilds for the extra m60's acquired for the 47 gunners
tended to get those guns taken by the brass because they weren't supposed to
have them.
> John Atkinson wrote:
> >>But since we're talking about Dirtside II where 50-100m is .5-1"
it's
> >>fairly trivial.
placement of
> >the sheaf (ie., covering the entire platoon) into a marginal hit
According to what I've been told a 50-100 meter deviation of the bomblet
release point tends to give a corresponding deviation in where the bomblets
fall if they're dumb HEF-style ones or are able to look for a target if
they're smart MAK-style ones, so I suspect that it would affect the
location of the beaten area as well. Don't know for certain, of course.
> >>Personally, modern infantry have nasty, sharp, pointy
Still means that the grunts need to hold their fire until after the tanks have
opened up... if the squads are on line, first squad won't get a very
favourable Pkill until the tanks are almost on top of second squad. 'Course,
first squad may very well have a tank or three of their own attacking them (or
at the very least prepared to fire in their direction
the instant it detects something suspicious) - tank platoon and company
FMs puts a lot of emphasis on having wingmen covering flank sectors and things
like that :-/
> >And why would the tanks be restricted to machine guns only? Main guns
With a large-caliber beehive round set for muzzle burst, you rarely
*need*
to track them very closely - having the gun pointed in the correct
general direction tends to be sufficient... and when you're operating as a
platoon or company rather than as individual vehicles, there should be a gun
covering each sector. DFFGs and other SciFi weapons may be different; it's a
bit hard to tell yet <g>
> >The US Army in 'Nam seems to have been pretty successful when
The battle reports I've seen (mostly in Armor magazine though, not in official
histories) usually describe the action as the armour moving forward through
the enemy position blasting everything that gets into sight. In addition quite
a few of these battles seem to have started as
ambushes, thus giving the VC/NVA plenty of opportunities for flank shots
even if the US troops should stop :-/ (Can't've been just the Blackhorse
who did this though; I've seen reports describing M48s and IIRC Centurions in
very similar situations too... more armour than the Sheridans, but
smaller guns :-/ )
> >>Especially considering that according the the dumb grunt reading
So why do you want to reduce the standard combat load, if your average grunts
can carry that much? After all, above you seem to take his description of what
an American fire team can carry as some sort of
norm... <g>
Later,
> --- Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@telia.com> wrote:
Re: Armored overruns. Basically, it's not usually a good idea. It can be done,
but it's expensive against modern regular troops liberally equipped with
anti-armor weapons. We can quibble about individual
historical cases, but like any other close assault it's most effective against
shaky troops unused to
being attacked directly. With better-trained troops
it's a coin toss. Against really good infantry, it's a bad idea.
> So why do you want to reduce the standard combat
Now, you're confluting two of my statements together and making a composite
statement out of 'em.
1)Item: Tracking IAVRs in DSII is a bit silly. The 8 per team number was given
as an upper range. Neither modern US nor NRE units carry this many on a
regular basis. There are missions which call for that many.
2)Item: For the whole of recorded history, infantry carried 60 lbs fighting
load. US followed this historical trend until the 1970s, when light infantry
types managed to take over the US Army (all the mech guys who won WWII and
Korea were gone, and the light infantry idiots who lost Vietnam took over by
default)and to make up for something (small genitalia, IMNSHO) upped the load
carried by our squaddies well beyond reason. I believe that loading down
infantry with the kitchen sink and more should be the exception that might be
required by certain missions rather than the standard practice, as it is in US
Army today.
3)Item: Future IAVRs might not weigh as much as modern ones. The IAVRs
modelled on OU light infantry are smaller than a collapsed M72 LAW.
> --- Indy <kochte@stsci.edu> wrote:
> > He was also mentioning that his combat load is
Ummm... whether or not he could is an open question. Much of it is the Dragon
which goes away if he has to run. But generally they get inserted close to the
target, shoot off all the Dragons, and then run. More of it is water and food
which goes away at a fairly high rate throughout the mission.
[quoted original message omitted]
> John Atkinson wrote:
> > So why do you want to reduce the standard combat
> 1)Item: Tracking IAVRs in DSII is a bit silly.
I'm not confluting *this* part of your statement. I *am*, however, slightly
sceptic about the statement that a 4-man fire team carries 8 AT4s
"without
breaking a sweat" - at least if they're supposed to carry any other
heavy weapons at the same time.
> The 8 per team number was given as an upper range.
You (or, more likely, the "dumb grunt" you quoted) expressed it as if it
was something done routinely.
> 2)Item: For the whole of recorded history, infantry carried 60 lbs
Source? All my sources claim a standard *marching* load of 80 lbs (not
60),
but none of them say anything about the standard *fighting* load -
probably because there is no such thing. The infantry fighting load has varied
enormously from one troop type to another over the last few millennia; I
strongly doubt that your average psiloi or levied unarmoured farmer had a
*fighting* load of 60 lbs, for example.
> 3)Item: Future IAVRs might not weigh as much as modern ones. The
4) Item: Future AFVs are very likely to have PDS systems, which -
although
DSII does not allow it - are likely to degrade incoming IAVR quite
seriously.
5) Item: The lighter an IAVR is, the poorer the accuracy. The IAVRs modelled
on OU light infantry most likely need at least rudimentary manoeuvering
ability in order to hit the broad side of a barn at 200 meters while still
carrying a worthwhile warhead... can be done, but it ain't
cheap :-/
Later,