[GZG] [SG3]: What if?

If you were working on an SG3 what would you add / try / tweak?

Some things off the top of my head:

1) I'd toy with armor meaning something in close combat. 2) Vehicles having
variable speed.
3) A "momentum" mechanic ala- Crossfire e.g. you keep performing
actions until you fail. This would assume a certain size to the battlefield.

Anyone else?

Damo

> On Jan 29, 2008 5:22 PM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

Armor in close combat... That's a tricky situation. I mean, armor restricts
movement and tires you out when you are exerting yourself as much as you have
to in CQB. So the odds are somewhat in favor of the folks NOT wearing body
armor. They get to move faster and fight for longer.

This has not had a major impact in most modern uses of body armor
because the folks wearing the armor tend to be gross mis-matches
against the folks NOT wearing armor. I mean, SWAT team vs. average bank
robber, the armor doesn't slow the SWAT guys enough to overcome
their other advantages.  Or US GIs vs. Third-World Goatherders.  No
comparison.  Should two equally well-trained units fight with a
disparity in body armor but equality in other areas of equipment, you might
see a difference.

On the other hand, you stay alive when you get hit, presuming your buddies
keep the bad guys from swarming over your prone body and finishing you off.
If, of course, your body armor actually allows you to survive direct hits by
the weapons being used. IBA can survive a
lot of 7.62x39--if it comes in on the areas protected by the plates.
It can survive 7.62x54mm, but you are going to be somewhat jacked
up--cracked ribs and whatnot.  Old body armor, the kevlar vests used
by other armies (if they have any body armor at all), won't stop rifle
bullets, but will stop fragmentation. What is the model used in SGII? Is armor
primarily to stop light rounds and fragmentation, or does it actually stop
bullets from the primary weapons of the opposition?

If you were working on an SG3 what would you add / try / tweak?

Some things off the top of my head:

1) I'd toy with armor meaning something in close combat. 2) Vehicles having
variable speed.
3) A "momentum" mechanic ala- Crossfire e.g. you keep performing
actions until you fail. This would assume a certain size to the battlefield.

Anyone else?

Damo

4) Archaic weaponry stats: farmers Vs military sort of thing or hordes with
primitive weapons but NUMBERS. 5) I'd use the optional Platoon Sgt activation
rules (I forget who on list came up with those but, they work) I'd make that a
standard rule. 6) the artillery rules need some work, (granted I'm ex
artillery so somewhat biased here) there needs to be rules to reflect actual
ordnance that exists now like DPICM and FASCAM. 7) counter artillery like the
calliope from Hammers Slammers that can shoot incomming down (that technology
is not that far off by the way) 8) rules for unmanned battlefield aerial
drones (armed and unarmed) 9) rules for robotic units.

> On Jan 29, 2008 5:22 PM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

Several of us have compiled long lists, but mine boils down to:

- Fix heavy weapon ranges.
- Fix heavy weapon lethality.
- Fix vehicle movement rates.
- Fix vehicle armour ratings.
- Fix vehicle survivability.
- Fix missiles.
- Fix artillery accuracy.
- Fix artillery lethality.
- Add heavy machine guns.
- Add artillery countermeasures.
- Add sci-fi chrome.

In summary, bring it forward from a sci-fi version of the Vietnam War
to a sci-fi version of a modern war...

> At 7:10 PM -0600 1/29/08, John Atkinson wrote:

Say like Gurkas in fatigues with soft caps and kukhris and rifles vs US GI's
in their full battle rattle?

;-)

> Is armor primarily to stop light rounds and fragmentation, or does it

Or blades, axes and other close combat edged weapons?

> Damo wrote:
1) Well right now one thing that SG2 does not model is the effect troop

quality has on whether a unit becomes pinned. As it stands, under the
equivalent volume and effectiveness of fire, a veteran unit and a green unit
would both be pinned. I've heard accounts of elite units (such as the SEAL
team portrayed in "Lone Survivor") who receive huge volumes of fire from green
troops and continue to return fire. You can't model this

behavior in StarGrunt.

2) Something needs to be done to the vehicle rules. I find them difficult to
run, and when I do get them right the end result is not satisfying. Either
nothing happens, the vehicle is disabled, or it's destroyed. If it takes a
while to determine the result, I want there to be some granularity at the end.

3) Hordes, gangs of civilians portrayed in a meaningful way. I don't think you
could portray something like "Black Hawk Down" with SG2. If you have lots of
troops that have not had basic training they use a D4. I find they're not at
all effective or fun to play.

> On Wed, January 30, 2008 01:10, John Atkinson wrote:
[...effectiveness of SGX armour in close combat...]
> Is armor primarily to stop light rounds and fragmentation, or does it

By armour, do you mean the body armour worn by the FSE legionnaires, the heavy
combat armour worn by the NSL, or full powered armour?

SG2 armour should probably cover that whole range, though given the randomness
of the die mechanic even d12 powered armour isn't bullet proof against direct
hits from low powered weapons.

Which brings me to my peeve of the randomness of the die mechanic. Good troops
are less predictable in their results than poor troops.

> 3) Hordes, gangs of civilians portrayed in a meaningful way. I don't

Do people really want to play ultra horde armies? They take ages to play, at
least at the start of the game, because there are so many models to deploy and
move. Do you really want to have to remove casualties with a bucket and spade
every phase?

I can see the endless hordes of zombies (militia) as GM controlled villains in
a participation game but not as a viable army except for the perversely
inclined.

You need to ensure that infantry vehicles and artillery all have a balance and
use. If any one of the 3 is too good people only take that thing. Its very
easy to overestimate the effectiveness of artillery and make them the
god of the battlefield. Then you have the sci-fi version of WW1.

When looking at modern games people still play a lot of cold war 1980s style
games. No one I have seen tries to war-game desert storm because who
wants
an army of 3 Abrams against 100 T55s, that not a war-game its a shoot em
up video game with models and dice.

Technology is likely an exponential curve, heck 50 years and you go from

Sherman tanks to Abrams. You can't wargame that much of a differential.

> On Jan 29, 2008 10:39 PM, Mark Kinsey <Kinseym@ptd.net> wrote:

> 3) Hordes, gangs of civilians portrayed in a meaningful way. I don't

Have you tried it with odds of 40 or 50 to one?

Remember that the assault force that was pinned down at the first crash site
was a mere 90 Rangers, and was attacked by a force large enough to sustain 700
or so KIA. Some estimates have several thousand Somalis wounded. So there had
to have been in the neighborhood of
3,000-5,000 or more militia fighters in the streets that day.  There
are low-ball estimates of a mere 2,000 fighters in the neighborhood,
but I doubt that force could have remained combat effective after
casualties that heavy. Even that would have been 22-1.

With a minimum Stargrunt platoon of 24 figures, that requires over 500
militiamen to replicate the Day of the Rangers using the lowest of estimates.

They aren't going to be "effective". That's the whole point of mobs and
untrained militiamen so stupid they hack the front sight post off of their
weapons because it interferes with sighting down the barrel. It's rather like
complaining about the law of gravitation.

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> 30, 2008 6:31 AM, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com> wrote:

> [...]
Something I *do* complain about from time to time. ;-)

Mk

> On Wed, January 30, 2008 11:31, John Atkinson wrote:

> With a minimum Stargrunt platoon of 24 figures, that requires over 500

I'm sure Jon would love everyone to buy the figures to try out
this scenario :-)

> On Jan 29, 2008 10:37 PM, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Say like Gurkas in fatigues with soft caps and

That would be ugly.

> > Is armor primarily to stop light rounds and fragmentation, or does

Tell you what.  You get a sword, I get an M-4.  We'll see how well you
do. Consider that there are few areas where you can get a quick kill with a
sword, and most of them are covered by the ceramic plates or the helmet.

Let's make it really interesting. I'll take a 12ga shotgun instead...

There should be a severe disadvantage for folks going into combat without
firearms. There is a reason we don't really fix bayonets before going into
houses anymore. Proper CQB techniques minimize the chance of being surprised
by some idiot at arm's length or less, and you should already have your weapon
up and ready to engage the target anyway.

> On Jan 30, 2008 2:27 AM, Samuel Penn <sam@glendale.org.uk> wrote:

> By armour, do you mean the body armour worn by the FSE legionnaires,

Yes.

> SG2 armour should probably cover that whole range, though given the

I agree. Good troops should be less random than green ones, not more so.

How about Green troops getting a d6, regulars d6+2, veterans d6+4, etc?

> At 8:14 AM -0600 1/30/08, John Atkinson wrote:

Naah, I'll give Thapa my ghurka buddy a kuhkuri and my FAL and he can try his
craft against you. I'll issue you both with blanks so noone really
gets hurt. ;-)

The advantage of heavier weapons like a kukri or
axe or sharpened E-Tool (the WWII types, not the
folding thing we have today) is that they tend to be blunt force items as well
if they don't penetrate. Generally the kukhri is used on arms and legs and
such which are much harder to protect. A severed arm raised in defense will
generally make someone combat ineffective and a casualty in short order. It's
hard to charge your M4 with your hand sitting in your lap. Though you can try
the other hand usually by then you'd have seen your head stoved in.

> Let's make it really interesting. I'll take a 12ga shotgun instead. .
.

Ahh, now you're getting into the light/close
range weapons area again. Winchester 1898 with
the bayonet fixed? :-D

> There should be a severe disadvantage for folks going into combat

You'd say that, but they still seem to have an effect. A bunch of enraged
soldiers rushing at you with steel fixed tends to cause a fear response. I
think the British used them relatively recently to clear a street of
insurgents/rioters when a couple of their
squaddies got hit with petrol bombs. I do think they stuck a few of the folks
responsible too. The British in WWII did routinely carry the day with bayonet
charges against Germans (no slouches when it came to infantry attacks) when
everyone had ammo running low and it was win or loose time.

Really, I think the point to be asked, is would light armor, a carbine and a
hand weapon like an axe, kukhri or gladius useful where forces along side or
opposing are using heavy armor and more weight of kit?

Next time you deploy, have your squad fix bayonets and see how the opposition
fixates on that one thing you're poking around at them. You might never stick
someone, but you should see a noticeable difference.

Any more thoughts on carrying a short roman sword into combat?

> John Atkinson wrote:

'Good' troops actual dice rolls are less predictable, but their
effectiveness is more predictable - i.e. they will tend do everything
better than 'bad' troops ( a d8 will beat a d6 56% of the time, draw
13%, lose 31%). ( green vs green gives W/D/L of 42% / 16% / 42%).

If you gave regular troops a d6+2 instead of a d8, you get W/D/L of 72%
/ 11% / 17%). You have made them far better than they used to be.

Just because the dice roll is more random, does not mean that their
effectiveness is more random. The chances of beating your opponents rolls go
up as you increase the dice size. You are making the outcome less random each
time you increase the dice size.

Cheers,

Steve

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> On Jan 30, 2008 9:30 AM, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> Naah, I'll give Thapa my ghurka buddy a kuhkuri

Depends on the situation--and remember that it isn't man vs. man, it
should be platoon vs. squad.

> The advantage of heavier weapons like a kukri or

I don't have to charge it, since I've gone in Red, and 1) doubt anyone will
get close enough to sever a limb, 2) have a full magazine to offload into him
anyway, and 3) have a squad of buddies behind me.

> >There should be a severe disadvantage for folks going into combat

Against a mob of civilians, yes. Against troops, less so.

> I think the British used them

Sure--if your ROE doesn't permit you to open fire, or you have a
situation where rioters you don't wish to kill are making a nuisance of
themselves. Against guys with AKs who are shooting at you, return fire.

> they stuck a few of the folks responsible too.

Only if there were no MGs in play. See: Battle of the Somme.

> Really, I think the point to be asked, is would

Nope--because you are going to have to decide which you want to use at
any given time, the firearm or the sharp stick. A bayonet allows you to do
both, which means you don't have to 100% rely on getting to within 3 feet of
me.

> From: Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>

> At 8:14 AM -0600 1/30/08, John Atkinson wrote:

> Naah, I'll give Thapa my ghurka buddy a kuhkuri

I'm trying to visualize a situation where some dude gets an exotic axe (or
maybe several thousand dudes) and what happens when they go up against some
futuristic commando squad with either ceramic or powered
armor, equipped with some sort of single-piece weapons with full-auto
rifles as the main weapon and a shotgun fixed where a bayonet would go in a
present day rifle, with close support by similarly armored fellows
with high powered fragmentation launchers and/or gatling guns.  The
reaction by the commandoes is more likely to be amusement than fear. That
scenario's just so full of wrong...

EF

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r I play SGII I apply two fixes:

1) Cumulative morale: Morale really only starts to bight when a squad looses
more than half of its number at any one time. I imagine that as the casualties
stack up, the morale of a squad should become more fragile.

2) Close Assault odds: As I have argued (many moons ago) if a figure is
outnumbered in combat it should suffer some penalty. Otherwise there is no
game advantage to outnumbering an opponent in close assault. I apply a
negative (open) die shift against any figure outnumbered in close assault.

Also, some larger unit morale rules might be added.

Other than that, for the sake of balance (just in case St John is reading
this) I really really like Stargrunt II, it is my favourite wargame.

> On Tue, 29 Jan 2008, Damo wrote:

> If you were working on an SG3 what would you add / try / tweak?

4) A release date.  ;-)

</vent>  Better no rules than a bad SG3...

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r I play SGII I apply two fixes:

1) Cumulative morale: Morale really only starts to bight when a squad looses
more than half of its number at any one time. I imagine that as the casualties
stack up, the morale of a squad should become more fragile.

2) Close Assault odds: As I have argued (many moons ago) if a figure is
outnumbered in combat it should suffer some penalty. Otherwise there is no
game advantage to outnumbering an opponent in close assault. I apply a
negative (open) die shift against any figure outnumbered in close assault.

Why should morale be circumulative? Watching Black Hawn Down again, the
Americans spend a lot of effort to look after their wounded and dead. Wound 1
model and the squad becomes immobile while the medic moves over and
potentially another 2 models become non combattants as they carry the
stretcher. I think the impact on casulaties should be almost uniform with
serious wounds more disabling on a squad than a dead result. I also think that
once a squad takes 50% casulaties it is combat ineffective and can only take
cover to try and protect their wounded.

Most wargames tend to make the soldiers far more courageous and tak far higher
% casulaties than historical battles. Units often became ineffective at 10%
casulaties.

Please note this is not a critism of the heroics of a war fighting nation.
Certainly if I ever found myself in a fight like that, I'd want comrades that
would look after me.

Why does being outnumbered in a close assault matter? Beyond those that can
immediately reach to attack you ~6 models the rest can't reach to add to the
fight. There perhaphs should be a bonus for surrounding a
model so it is trapped and can't retreat / dodge. Also you have to be
winning the fight. No number of rubbish troops are going to affect smaller
numbers of better troops unless the rubbish troops can pull them down.

> At 12:03 PM -0600 1/30/08, John Atkinson wrote:

Or squad vs section. :-)
> I don't have to charge it, since I've gone in Red, and 1) doubt anyone

True, door entry situations are a problem. Magazine changes can take an
eternity. There are rational and effective ways to trip your stack of men up
as they enter. A secondary barrier after the door with sandbags and other
materials to stop ballistic rounds would be good. Nails through boards up the
stairs to stop you getting up to the second floor is also an old but good
method. And of course basement and 2nd floor mouse holes to get out once
they've ceded the ground to you. We are talking 1st world force vs 1st world
force here though, not joe partisan vs the Storm Troopers.

> Against a mob of civilians, yes. Against troops, less so.

Less so, but when everyone's been in the firefight for a while and everyone's
scampering for more ammo, it has carried the day in more than one battle from
WWII and later even. Mount Tumbledown is a good example I think. The ARgies
even had MGs and snipers and the brits still swarmed them in close fighting.

> Sure--if your ROE doesn't permit you to open fire, or you have a

Now days it seems like ROE have gotten pretty sticky and confining.

> > they stuck a few of the folks responsible too.

Not necessarily.

Subedar Lal Bahadur Thapa (Magar) 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles
  Resse-es- Zouai, Tunisia, N. Africa, April 1943

  On the night of 5-6 April, during the silent
attack on the Resse-es-Zouai, Subadar Lal Bahadur
Thapa was Second-in-Command of D Company. The
garrison of the outer posts were all killed by Subadar Lal Bahadur Thapa and
hi men by kukri or bayonet in the first rush and the enemy

then opened very heavy fire straight down the narrow enclosed pathway and
steep arena sides. Subadar Lalbahadur Thapa led his men on and fought his way
up the narrow gully straight through the enemy's fire, with little room to
manoeuvre, in the face of intense and sustained
machine-gun concentrations and the liberal us of
grenades by the enemy.

  Next the machine-gun posts were dealt with,
Subadar Lal Bahadur Thapa personally killing two men with his kukri and two
more with his revolver. This Gurkha Officer continued to fight
his way up the narrow bullet-swept approaches to
the crest. He and two riflemen managed to reach the crest, where Subadar Lal
Bahadur Thapa then secured the whole feature and covered his company's advance
up the defile.

> Nope--because you are going to have to decide which you want to use at

They certainly provide you with an option for silent attack. Assume for 1st
World SG3 level tech that the light infantry have their heavy
blades/axes with very sharp modern edges, good
but light armor for protection from fragments and suits to mask their IR
signatures against NVG and the like that the more heavily equipped but
radiating troops will be carrying.

I'm not saying they'll always win, but I think, depending on the terrain and
mission as well as time of day, that you'll very much have a rock scissors
paper type problem which will make certain situations more useful for light
highly trained and motivated infantry. Places where you cannot deploy power
armor or where it would be a problem.

> At 11:11 AM -0800 1/30/08, Eric Foley wrote:

If we're talking exotic weapons we're probably looking at exotic weapons on
both sides. Special
anti-armor charges you chuck at an armored combat
soldier and other things useful for cracking armor. I do think however, the
example especially
concerned is non-powered armor vs trained well
disciplined troops in mixed or rough ground where visibility is limited. Light
and fast might win the day. I know our very own Sgt Atkinson has complained
elsewhere that he cannot easily run down an insurgent he wants for information
if he's wearing 85 lbs of SAPI plates, helmet groin protectors and water wings
(looking very much like a modern day samurai) and trying to vault a fence or
wall.

> On Jan 30, 2008 7:28 PM, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> the day. I know our very own Sgt Atkinson has

Google for a powerpoint presentation called "How to Win in All Anbar" by CPT
Travis Patriquin.

Or watch the video here.

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2007/12/blackfive-tv--2.html

It's less than 20 slides.

> On Jan 30, 2008 7:28 PM, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

Nope.  Your assault on a dug-in enemy in an urban area should be at
least at 5-1 odds.  With fire support to blow apart strongpoints.

> True, door entry situations are a problem.

That's ridiculous. Against a fortress, you just crack it with a 120mm
HEAT-MP round or a couple Hellfires.  Combined Arms is a
mother-fucker.

> >Against a mob of civilians, yes. Against troops, less so.

Against Argentine conscripts, with fire support from a modern combined arms
formation including light tanks and naval gunfire...

At night.

In crappy terrain.

> On the night of 5-6 April, during the silent

Nota Bene: Night attack using stealth before night vision devices were
invented.

> They certainly provide you with an option for

It's a set of assumptions. But your assumption requires that your
light guys get to within ax/sword range undetected, because they will
have to switch out, and I get a couple seconds to light them up if I do catch
them before they get that close.

Stalking people is hard. In World War II, any given country could only produce
a handful of units with enough fieldcraft to do this in any numbers. Stalking
people with night vision is much, much harder.
It is possible that a handful of folks could do it--but you really,
really don't want to bet on it.

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that anyone who is going to consider future warfare really needs to stop
dredging up outdated references for close quarters combat. Drawing on Age of
Musket or even WW2 references for future warfare settings seems pretty silly
when most of those past scenarios don't even hold up in present warfare
conditions. In the vast diversity of human future weapons, it seems very
unlikely that anybody is going to really focus on improving the close combat
hth weapon. I am no expert, but it seems we haven't bothered in the 60 years
since WW2. Bayonets exist but only as a possible weapon and have been greatly
reduced in their size. Hitting sombody with a rifle or stabbing them with your
knife is about as far as most close combats seem to go as far as I know. You
guys actually in the military or whatever can correct me and please do, but
does it really seem that HTH weapons are likely to come back on their own.
Now, if we run into an alien species (or terrestrial faction) that still digs
HTH due to either technical limitations or cultural affectations, there might
be a sudden shift. It might start with field expedient weapons and then evolve
into a manufactured conversion or even a
purpose-built tool.
A good example of this is in World War Z, where they end up manufacturing a
bladed field tool by the millions and distribute across the nation as an
effective weapon against the sudden appearance of millions of zombies. Bottom
line, who knows what the future will bring. If it stays human on
human warfare, we're not likely to see HTH weapons make a come-back
unless we bomb ourselves into the stone-age but hey, that's a fun
wargame too.
-Eli

> On Wed, January 30, 2008 19:11, Eric Foley wrote:

Valerian space axe!

Of course, the Galactic Patrol actually had a good PSB reason for using melee
weapons for space boarding actions (in an inertialess field, bullets have zero
penetration).

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like to run bugs (starship troopers) or Posleen in a solo game when I can't
find other players. I'd like to play a horde of Jaffa if the minis weren't so
expensive.

Roger

> On Jan 30, 2008 5:17 AM, john tailby <John_Tailby@xtra.co.nz> wrote:

> > 3) Hordes, gangs of civilians portrayed in a meaningful way. I don't
If
> > you have lots of troops that have not had basic training they use a

> On Jan 30, 2008, at 11:49 PM, emu2020@comcast.net wrote:

> I think that anyone who is going to consider future warfare really
That right...because the city-fighting issues of the 40s have
absolutely no bearing on modern day conflicts confined to close quarters.:)

I think SG3, as a SciFi set, needs to cover the gamut though. I use FMAs and
SG2 to do Zombie games quite a bit.
> In the vast diversity of human future weapons, it seems very
As a CQB weapon how capable is the modern M-4 carbine compared to WW2
bolt-action rifles?

D.

It seems to me that much of the justification for H2H weapons is based on a
few obscure cases among thousands of combat actions. With similar cherry
picking I wonder what other items we should put at the forefront of the rules.

> On Jan 31, 2008 6:42 AM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

> That right...because the city-fighting issues of the 40s have

Relatively little, actually.

> I think SG3, as a SciFi set, needs to cover the gamut though. I use

As a CQB weapon, immense improvement.

As a melee weapon, it is in every way inferior.

> Robert Makowsky wrote:

I would prefer it if close assaults were more abstract, and resolved at the
squad level, rather than the current method of matching up individual figures.
Something like the quality dice, and a 'close assault' dice that could be
shifted based on the relative numbers in each squad (and maybe also shifted if
the squad has effective CA weapons

- shotguns, flamers, (and axes and swords if you like that sort of thing

) etc.). There should be more casualties than would occur by shooting attacks.

Has anyone tried to do this before?

Steve

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> As a CQB weapon how capable is the modern M-4 carbine compared to WW2

> bolt-action rifles?
Even in WW2, the preferred weapons for close-quarter fighting were fully

automatic (Machine pistols like the MP40, PPSh, Thompson, Sten, Sturmgewehr
44), plus hand grenades.

Greetings Karl Heinz

I saw a report a long time ago that suggested that H2H weapons had a more
obscure result in combat than missile weapons because:

* With missile weapons, you tend to be at considerable distance from you
target and fire at them until they stop firing at you. This
      may be for a number of reasons - fear, shock, wounds or death.  Of
these, three of these would leave the target in condition for some action to
need to be taken while death doesn't. After a battle, cause of death is very
rarely bothered about so how a person died isn't normally recorded.

* With melee weapons, you are unlikely to stop trying to kill the enemy until
they are actually dead. If they're dead, then their dead. No action needed. I
don't believe there are many wounded from a H2H fight, at least on the losing
side.

This means there is no accurate record of how effective H2H weapons are
because they leave few if any survivors.

I'm not saying they are effective, merely that records will never accurately
reflect how effective they are.

An interesting idea and one I've never pursued.

A die shift for outnumbering the foe would be huge; you'd have to base it on
some outnumbering ratios.

I'm not sure how to trigger some casualties on each side whether they are
winning or losing, either. That's one thing I like about the current
mechanism, slow as it is.

You'd probably lose a lot of granularity when individual figures have
particularly good or bad weaponry for the assault.

* With melee weapons, you are unlikely to stop trying to kill the enemy until
they are actually dead. If they're dead, then their dead. No action needed. I
don't believe there are many wounded from a H2H fight, at least on the losing
side.

I tend to agree with you on that, it's just the circumstances of that type of
fighting are rare. The trench raiders of WWI where the most effective weapon
was the entrenching tool is one example. In most cases those who "thought"
their hand to hand training and martial spirit

would give them victory met with disaster. You only need look at Japanese
Bonsai of hundreds against a hand full of dug in marines that never succeeded.
Firepower usually wins. That said there will always be the isolated
circumstance where troops are intermixed and only linited use of firearms can
be used. There should be something along
the lines of an "Overrun/intermixed/friendlies in line of fire rule" or
something to cover that.

> On Jan 31, 2008 11:09 AM, Adrian1 <al.ll@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

I'm not sure where you're getting the information that cause of death
isn't recorded, but in some wars it _was_ recorded, and in relatively
good detail.

During the American Civil War, the Union did a very detailed job of going over
corpses on several of the major battlefields (Antietam, Gettysburg for sure,
several others spring to mind, like Chickamauga and The Wilderness) during
burial of the dead. They checked to see the type of wound that killed the
soldier.

Now, this wasn't 100% accurate. It took some experience to tell the difference
between a bayonet stab and penetration from a shell fragment, but they did a
reasonable job.

It was through these studies that they discovered that bayonet wounds resulted
in about 4% of the battlefield deaths where bayonets were used.

So, some battlefields did result in accurate data for a lack of lethality in
hand to hand weapons.

Note: HTH combat in the American Civil War was relatively rare.
Bayonet _charges_ were very frequent. The bayonet charge had a
psychological effect. Either the guys receiving the charge would run away, or
they'd stand and discharge their weapons into the chargers,
who would usually stop charging. Actual hand-to-hand combat only
happened when one side or the other was caught unawares.

I'm not sure how much this applies to modern combat, if at all, other than to
say that there have been wars in the last 150 years that generated detailed
information about the use of HTH weapons in combat.

> On Jan 31, 2008, at 10:52 AM, John Atkinson wrote:

> On Jan 31, 2008 6:42 AM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

What basic tenets have changed in room to room combat?

> As a melee weapon, it is in every way inferior.

If by "melee weapon" you mean "expensive club" then I can see that.

Damo

> On Jan 31, 2008 11:09 AM, Adrian1 <al.ll@tiscali.co.uk> wrote:

> * With melee weapons, you are unlikely to stop trying to kill the

Oops, forgot to reply to this point.

During the Civil War, more men survived sword and bayonet attacks than died
from them. The same thing happened with men clubbed by muskets.

Soldiers in HTH fighting tend to fight the most immediate threat. A guy lying
on the ground in front of you isn't an immediate threat, the guy charging you
is. While there were cases of wounded men bayoneted where they lay,
particularly after his compatriots ran off, once the main threat was over
soldiers tended to stop and take a breather. Adrenalin stopped pumping in the
relative peace, and the desire to kill diminished. In ancient times, this is
when most of the slaughter occurred. In wars with "civilized" men, there's a
shift away from killing a helpless man even if he was the enemy.

I'm reminded of an occurrence on Little Round Top after one of the Texas
regiments (5th Texas, I think) pulled back from the hill. One Texan lay behind
a rock taking pot shots at the men of the 44th New York. He didn't realize he
had been swarmed by Yankees until one New York officer slapped the man across
the back with the flat of his sword and told him to behave himself. It always
struck me that the officer chose not to run the man through, even though he
was still discharging his weapon (though not very effectively).

> On Jan 31, 2008 1:21 PM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

I'm not regurgitating the appropriate field manual. That is left as an
exercise for the student. But technological changes have been introduced,
including the following.

Night vision.

Automatic or burst fire weapons in the hands of every single combatant.

Automatic Rifles (M-249, RPK) as common issue, with enough ammo to
matter. The only WWII equivalent was the BAR, and that was huge, unweildy, and
had a mere 20rd mag.

Body armor.

Radio communications down to the individual or at least the team leader.

Smaller squads in most 1st World Armies.

Vehicle support, frequently armored, integrated at every level.

More responsive and more accurate artillery and air support.

The impact on MOUT should be immediately obvious.

> On Jan 31, 2008 12:54 PM, Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:

I don't normally comment on obvious typos, but I giggled so much I almost fell
out of my chair at the thought of hundreds of Japanese soldiers rushing
forward and then throwing little tiny potted trees at U.S. Marines...

> On 1/31/08, Allan Goodall <agoodall@hyperbear.com> wrote:

So it's not the little trees themselves rushing forward?

Some sort of WW2 version of Macbeth's Birnam Wood come to Dunsinane?

<grin>

I don't normally comment on obvious typos, but I giggled so much I almost fell
out of my chair at the thought of hundreds of Japanese soldiers rushing
forward and then throwing little tiny potted trees at U.S. Marines...

Allan

See, told you it never worked...)

> At 8:47 PM -0600 1/30/08, John Atkinson wrote:

Seen it. :-)

Still, I've seen you complaining about the water wings too. :-P

> At 6:04 PM -0600 1/31/08, John Atkinson wrote:

What happens when radio coms like that became an attractor for counter fire
home. IR will help, but that means you're in Line of sight only, perhaps
around one or two walls.

> Smaller squads in most 1st World Armies.

With many more layers of command approval required to get it.

> The impact on MOUT should be immediately obvious.

So give both sides this sort of gear and take away the Air Superiority and
make it air parity. What does that change? Think 1st World Combatant vs 1st
World Combatant.

One thing I've learned from history is that the fight for your life as a
nation isn't against a force that you have absolute superiority over, its the
one that has a chance to snuff you out. Hands down the biggest baddest force
we fought as a nation was the Germans. They had superior infantry (early on)
and superior tanks and aircraft in a lot of respects, just not enough senior
leaders to know when NOT to attack and Hitler just really screwed their
strategic situation up all kinds of ways from Sunday.

On the 'modern urban combat is much different from our folk-memory of
WW2' front, this just got mentioned on a TMP thread:

"House To House" by David Bellavia
http://www.amazon.com/House-David-Bellavia/dp/1416574719/ref=sr_1_1?ie=U
TF8&s=books&qid=1201909249&sr=8-1

Most of the book is apparently a memoir of the urban fighting in Falluja in
2004.

I've put in a request-to-purchase with our local library for this one.

> On Jan 31, 2008, at 7:04 PM, John Atkinson wrote:

> On Jan 31, 2008 1:21 PM, Damo <damosan@gmail.com> wrote:

Oh yes! I don't deny advances in technology or standard armaments. No sir.
Having said that a few items you mention were indeed rooted
firmly in WW2 and I guess that was my point -- you will always have
technological advances but they exist as multipliers of the core.

Someone earlier said it was foolish to look at the past in order to project
something into the future implying that any attempt to do so with an SG3 was
wasted effort. I don't think it is. If anything we should look at city
fighting in the 40's compared to today and then project another 60 years into
the future.

In 60 years will artillery be 10 seconds away...always? How about air? Will
space be completely weaponized? Will company commanders lead from bunkers
thousands of miles away with perfect situational awareness? Will the idea of
squads, platoons, etc. just go away and be replaced by the concept of
independent but mutually supporting strike teams?

Or is this more like 120 years out?

What kind of countermeasures and counter-countermeasures will be
devised to handle this stuff.

Who knows! I guess that's what makes it fun.

Damo

> On Feb 1, 2008 2:57 PM, Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:

> >Radio communications down to the individual or at least the team

Ummm... if the enemy has enough indirect fire to drop rounds on every single
transmitter in a modern army, you are so badly overmatched and outnumbered
that you may as well go home. If I'm attacking with a brigade of 5,000
Soldiers, and I have say, 1 radio per 5 men, then the sheer volume of
transmissions is going to
overwhelm the direction-finding weenies.  Especially when you consider
that most of the transmission are a second or two long. Indirect fire dropping
in on transmitters will remain reserved for folks talking on the radio long
enough to identify them as Important People, not SGT Joe Teamleader.

> >Smaller squads in most 1st World Armies.

I've had Apaches on my radio net. My platoon leader was talking to them. That
didn't happen in WWII. You most certainly didn't have
P-47s asking about the movement on a particular room and asking if it
was friendly or not.

> >The impact on MOUT should be immediately obvious.

A lot. It won't resemble WWII in the slightest.

> One thing I've learned from history is that the fight for your life as

Which isn't the point I was making. Read what's written.

With high-tech gear on either side, or on both, the combat will not
strongly resemble WWII at the tactical level.

> On Feb 1, 2008 8:47 PM, John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@gmail.com> wrote:

That was my impression, too, that the number of layers had been eliminated,
not added.

I think it was here that I saw a link to a blog posting about a Canadian
mechanized team in Afghanistan. The one incident that struck me the most was
when they were pinned down by insurgents in a stronghold. Suddenly a voice
came over their radio net with a call sign that the Canadian didn't recognize.
It turned out that the voice was that of a Predator pilot who just happened to
have his drone in the neighbourhood. Soon after he dropped a Hellfire on the
building (after the Canadians determined that while 85 yards was a bit too
close to be when a Hellfire exploded, they would probably be okay behind a
wall).

> At 8:47 PM -0600 2/1/08, John Atkinson wrote:

Mortar rounds aren't far from having GPS receivers. If I can DF a unit with
two points, I can direct even dumb mortar rounds on them no? DF systems are
going to be using some pretty sharp hardware. While I don't know the ability
of say prophet to filter transmissions, I do know it's for tactical level
intercepts. Give the system concept a century and I'd fully expect that
transmissions by in individual troops will enable op for to localize their
position. It'd be tantamount to your enemy being able to look at your blue
force tracker map over your shoulder, down to every transmitting unit.

> Especially when you consider

Depends on the tasking. If I'm tasked with defending a point and I know I have
a squad attacking my position and I can localize platoons who are in the CEP
of a couple of mortar rounds being able to drop the rounds on them would be
handy.

> Which isn't the point I was making. Read what's written.

True but we utterly diverged from the original point. Light infantry with
modern weapons against heavy infantry with modern weapons and body armor. Hmm,
fancy a walk through the jungle?

Greetings:

""House To House" by David Bellavia"

Good book. Excellent read. Also look for "Highway War" by Folsom.

FPK3