> At 4:19 PM +0100 5/6/02, Roger Burton West wrote:
That's exactly the wrong way to go. The Rules work for the most part. The
designs are good starting points. Make minor adjustments to them. I have.
> There is nothing holy about the current rule system. The only way any
The way things work is that when you are using fighters or missiles (both a
form of expendable ordinance) you get one Alpha Strike and maybe a Beta Strike
against a foe that you have parity with. Your hope is to smash him before he
launches his strike at you. Missiles or Fighters in piecemeal amounts are a
waste.
What is missing isn't a good set of designs. But the context that if you are
up against a foe that you can't win against because you have lots of PDS and
he's a got a battle line full of ships mounting Guns, you refuse or try to
make his life as hard as possible.
You folks need to stop thinking in terms of GW style scenarios. This is just
like dirtside. Two fleets just don't line up at 500 Klicks and advance in
line. There is really lots of maneuvering and scouting that goes on. There is
a massive fight for information before the first shot is ever fired. You need
to add to the rules, not change them.
I'm amazed. The world is ending. Ryan and I see eye to eye.
Out of curiosity, has anyone considered one change to tactics/rules that
would be generic, would give you a resort against fighters, AND makes sense?
What happens to fighters if they're in a hostile system, and their carrying
ship(s) get destroyed? That should have a very serious effect on morale at
BEST. Maybe some rules regarding these circumstances would help (I can't
recall if the rules already address this). Then a valid strategy becomes going
after the carrier and killing it. If you can do this before the fighters kill
you, there should be some reward in game terms.
3B^2
> At 9:35 AM -0700 5/6/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:
:-P
We were agreeing over the weekend too you know...
> Out of curiosity, has anyone considered one change to tactics/rules
Again, it really seems to me that what is lacking is a cohesive Morale effect
for task groups as well as newer sensor and fleet tactics rules. Carriers just
don't launch strikes from visual range. They launch a strike that has been
planned due to intel indicating a force is over there somewhere, beyond
passive sensor range.
I've had a plan to sit down and make up something then play test it, but a
combination of the death of my mother, inheriting her house, purchasing two
armored cars, playing in a good AD&D campaign again and getting involved with
a cute goth chic has pretty much nixed the chances of that getting done.
So do any of you single folks that don't have 10 pans on the stove want to
give it a shot?
From: Ryan M Gill rmgill@mindspring.com
Subject: Its Doctrine, Scouting and Tactics not Fighters
> Two fleets just don't line up at 500 Klicks
Ok, so we need rules which
a) simulate pre-battle manuevering
b) simulate pre-battle recon
c) affect the tabletop setup d) are simple e) are quick Suggestions?
> From a previous post of mine reagarding DBM's setup with some general
> [quoted text omitted]
The interesting parts of this set-up:
1) Each player has some say in the terrain to be used - which allows
each side to choose terrain that is favorable to it's units (i.e. archers have
a hard time hitting targets in woods, but psiloi (skirmishers) pass easily
through woods so woods and orchards are a good defense against archers). The
assumption of DBM is that the attacker gets to choose the season of attack,
but the defender (in his homeland) gets to choose the actual location, and is
given more options in placing terrain. If terrain such as nebula, a star's
corona, asteroid fields etc. can be placed by the "defender" you can negate or
reduce the capabilites of the attacker.
2) Ambushes and flank attacks - if ships can use asteroids, cloaking
devices or ECM to "hide" on the board, then both sides become much more wary.
If mines are terrain feature that a defender can choose then attackers will be
more cautious in approaching. If there is the possibility of a fleet of ships
appearing to the side or behind you, your battle formations are going to
diffferent than if you know all the enemy ships are in front of you. Flank
attacks are rolled for each turn
- the the owning player rolls a 6, the command is on it's way and will
appear on the designated side on the next turn. This might represent
powered-down or cloaked ships that were pre-positioned or "coasting" but
under strict communication silence.
3) Commands - in DBM an army is demoralised if enough commanders are
killed. Fleets should have Flag Ships where the Admiral or Commander is
located, and loss of said ship should cause either a morale check or some sort
of disruption as the Flag is passed to the next ship in line. This might
require that a very powerful ship is held out of the line of battle to keep
the Admiral safe.
4) Supply - Although not covered in DBM, supply could be introduced as a
cost for ships in a fleet - a certain price or mass cost for the fleet
to maintain full supply, i.e. for every 10 mass of expendables (missiles,
fighters, mines, scatterguns) it costs 1 mass for the supply train. Failure to
provide the required mass requires a supply roll similar to a threshold system
check, each expendable not covered would roll to see if it were operational.
So a fleet with 55 points of expendables opts to only pay 5 mass for supply,
it would have to find an expendable system(s) (a hangar of fighters, or a 5
point SML magazine etc.) to roll on a threshold check (a 6 means it's empty).
So a fleet can pack up a large amount of missiles, scatter guns or fighters,
but is going to expend a portion of it's overall value to guarantee that they
are available or take the chance that they spent the mass for a hangar or SML
for nothing.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ryan M Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com>
> At 9:35 AM -0700 5/6/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:
Yeah, but I wasn't online then, so it doesn't count. ;-)
> Again, it really seems to me that what is lacking is a cohesive
Which is one of the reasons I like campaign games better than one-offs,
since you can concoct campaign rules to cover such contingencies.
> I've had a plan to sit down and make up something then play test it,
This is now your sacred duty. Thus Spake Me.
> but a combination of the death of my mother,
My condolences. I lost my father last summer, I know the feeling.
inheriting her house,
Kind of a mixed blessing, isn't it?
> purchasing two armored cars, playing in a good AD&D campaign again
Lucky Bastard^3
has pretty much nixed the
> chances of that getting done.
Ummm... anyone with fewer than 10 pans is not a gamer and would be of no use
for such a project. ;-)
2B^2
> On Mon, May 06, 2002 at 01:00:57PM -0400, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
Oh, that's _easy_. Drop a die from 3 feet above the table for each ship,
set up where it lands. You left off:
f) give vaguely plausible results
:-)
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 1:00 PM -0400 5/6/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
Short of a second map that has each CA/DD flotilla and BB
line on it moved around like chess pieces, the following work. Some I've tried
others I've postulated based on real experience of similar methods that
worked.
The easiest way is when you have a ref. He comes up with the scenario and why
the two forces are there on the opposite sides of the board. Scrolly boards
are, while more of a pain in the ass, do represent space better given that
sometimes you'll both get going in the same direction and the game turns into
a pursuit like many of the WWI Gun actions really were.
The next method is to have discussion by the players before hand on what the
scenario is and what the victory conditions are. Its best if they aren't
playing comparing designs like GW hero characters every other week.
The next method is where players give a rough indication of the first 20% of
their force. And they then choose 20% blocks going
from there from a pre-arranged group of craft. This can get tricky
due to the need to form pre-arranged blocks of craft from the start.
Fitting optimal units into such blocks can get tricky. The first player to
offer info on his block is the looser of a die roll. They
alternate giving/getting info and picking in response until the end.
You could make this a bit more complex where each player makes an opposed die
roll for each set of "blocks" where by they are playing out the scouting phase
of the battle. For example. Opposed die roll. Player A wins. Player B has to
pick his first Block and tell player A basically what it is. "4 Ships, total
Mass 40 max, thrust 6, corvette signatures." Player A then picks his ships and
then tells Player B. You could continue on this pattern, or have an additional
opposed die roll for each phase. At the end you've got a good idea of what the
ships are. One could, in theory, pay additional points in order to gain a die
type or cause your opponent to get incorrect information or less information.
"I'm spending 100 points for enhanced picket sensors, I get a D8 for this
roll" or "I'm spending 50 points on deception jamming, this group is 100 mass
of ships that appear to be cruisers".
> At 10:07 AM -0700 5/6/02, Brian Bilderback wrote:
But getting everyone to show is the hard part. I've been surprised we've had
folks showing for the AD&D campaign like we have.
> I've had a plan to sit down and make up something then play test it,
I have many sacred duties....priorities are the issue...
> but a combination of the death of my mother,
She passed last August....
> inheriting her house,
Good and bad. Nice to have a house. A pain to have a house. I'm waiting on
that first income tax return where I get to claim the interest....
> purchasing two armored cars, playing in a good AD&D campaign again
Somethings go well I guess...
> has pretty much nixed the
Yeah, but one of those pans is a house that needs more insulation, has a yard,
needs gardening work done, needed a network (one thing done), needs painting,
cleaning, and a few other bits of work. One of those other pans is those
armored cars, the ferret has 52 grease nipples, 15 fluids to check and 2
batterys.
Brian Bilderback schrieb:
> What happens to fighters if they're in a hostile
Would depend on your PPB (pseudo-psychological B***). The reaction
might well be "We'll be dead soon anyway, so let's go for the kill", leading
to a Kamikaze reaction. Rare, but not totally unheard of in real life.
Greetings
> -----Original Message-----
We tried something similar as a house rule in our group for
campaign games...this was under FT2/MT though.
If the Fleet is in hostile territory and loses all fighter bay
equipped ships, fighters roll 1d6+2 for morale (instead of 1d6).
If they fail 3 times in a row they eject and await pick-up.
It never got used as there was an opposite argument that fighters knowing that
they have no way of bringing their fighter home would be more likely to press
the attack in the hope that their side won and would be the force picking up
bailed out crew at the end of the battle.
Rather than expand on the rule for racial/cultural modifiers,
scenario modifiers (homeworld defence for instance), we dropped it.
Rgds,
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> and is given more options in placing terrain. If
Why would I fight in any of those situations if I'm the attacker?
If the defending squadrons in a star system decide to hide in the star's
corona, HOORAY! I can safely ignore them. I'm going to swing into orbit around
the main world, blast the orbital installations that don't surrender quickly,
and start landing troops or bombarding or doing whatever else comes to mind.
If there are asteroid belts thick enough to notice (hint: as far as we know,
this only happens on TV, not the the real world) then I'll avoid them by
coming in above the plane of the ecliptic if necessary.
I put terrain as a general item, it could just as easily be rapidly laid mine
fields, an exploded comet or asteroid to generate a cloud of gas or metal
particles to throw off sensors.
The attacker is attacking based on his best recon - i.e. the ecliptic is
empty go in that way. The defender may have sown it with shielded mines or set
up Beam 4 stations above the ecliptic plane.
The scenario design assumes that the attacker is attacking for a reason
- to destroy the opponent's fleet. You aren't gaming the scenarios
where one side see's it's overmatched and withdraws.
One fleet may be on patrol in-system or in-transit to station, the
commander decides to stand and fight and will take advantage of any "terrain"
available. If you don't want too much "terrain" just limit the number of
scenario points to each side, or simply don't allow terrain and just allow
hidden ships and flank attacks.
If a ship has good stealth characteristics, and is not active, you might not
need asteroids to hide with, just sitting out in space "running silent" might
be enough to evade detection until the opponent was too close to do much about
it. It would definitely make people think twice about dashing across the board
at high speed. The feel would be like
WW2 submarines against convoys - you'd have an active screening force to
the front and outsides to catch hidden ships before they got to fire.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-gzg-l@lists.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU
This is where campaign play really takes effect.
> The scenario design assumes that the attacker is
This is again one of the problems with trying to judge whether
the bring so many points to the table in a one-off is unbalanced
without affecting campaign play.
> One fleet may be on patrol in-system or in-transit to
We allow silent starts with believe it or not, MT rules on
systems starting from cold. On a roll of 5-6 the system comes
back on line (roll for each system), on a 1 it cannot be
cold-started and is inoperable during the coming engagement
(drives are the exception and always come active on 4-6 ignoring
rolls of 1) shamelessly stolen from one of the scenarios given in MT.
> [quoted text omitted]
Rgds,
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> The attacker is attacking based on his best recon -
If you are so wealthy that you can seed battlestations to get near total
coverage of your system, then you're so well defended that attacking you is a
fool's game in the first place.
> The scenario design assumes that the attacker is
Contrary to popular belief, it's a pretty unusual
circumstance where a well-thought out strategy centers
around killing an enemy fleet for the hell of it. Usually you wish to either
invade something, blockade something, etc. If you can do your mission without
engaging, anyone except a moron (which there are no lack of in naval history)
would do it that way.
> dashing across the board at high speed. The feel
If the stealth/sensor ratio is the same as it was in
WWII, there would be a radically different way of fighting space combat. You'd
be running around slagging bases with surprise nuclear strikes and hoping he
ran out before you did. Because if you can't stop lightning strikes, they will
be the only way people do business.
> On Tuesday, May 07, 2002 3:05 AM, B Lin [SMTP:lin@rxkinetix.com] wrote:
Interestingly, I addressed points 1, 3 & 4 in my current campaign rules. And
point 2 can occur when using a GM for your campaign to really screw things
over.
Not totally true, you can have conventions that prohibit such things.
Just look at the whole MAD doctrine - no one could stop a nuclear
missile, and the US had such weapons before the Russians, and yet, we didn't
go ahead and slag all their military bases.
Even today, an ICBM could theoretically carry conventional or kinetic kill
warheads and with a CEP of 100 meters or less, you could hit an aircraft
carrier in dock with a spread of 10 warheads. The newest American carriers are
$4.5 billion a pop not including aircraft. Taking the MX for example, the cost
at time of deployment in 1986 was 70 million per missile, not including
warheads. Thus for a cost of under 100 million, you can disable or destroy a
ship worth 45 times that. And yet, the US doesn't routinely fire ICBM's at
capital ships. The reason
is that you don't want your intentions mistaken for something larger - a
nuclear attack, which would end up up with both sides slagging each other in
minutes.
At one time or another various weapons were banned simply because people
thought they were too atrocious or easy to use - crossbows in Medieval
Europe, firearms in Feudal Japan, dum dum or hollow point bullets, biological,
chemical and nuclear weapons, and now land mines are on the table. So there is
precedent for conventions that ban the use of certain tactics or weapons,
despite how useful they are in warfare. This does not stop "rogue" nations or
entities from using such weapons or tactics, but they are generally frowned on
by the rest of the world
and other forms of pressure - political, economic and occasionally
miltary are used to reduce or eliminate the forces that do use such
contra-band tactics/weapons.
--Binhan
> -----Original Message-----
> -----Original Message-----
Why not adopt the MT guideline; if there are no specific mission objectives a
fleet will attempt to disengage when 50% in
> At 3:23 PM -0600 5/9/02, B Lin wrote:
Mad didn't occur until the Russians had a way of getting their nukes here. The
main concern early on was that we really didn't want to get into another
slogging war with the Ruskies at the time. MAD was a
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
Actually, during the time period where the US had nukes and the Russkies
didn't, we were delivering them
by B-29. Which are eminently interceptable. We never
had enough to guarantee we'd wipe out the Russians until they also had enough
to seriously hurt us.
> Even today, an ICBM could theoretically carry
Uh... the USN is AFAIK the only nation operating serious capital ships[1]
other than France (1) and Russia (I'm not sure how many of them are actually
operational). During most of the Cold War the USN was the only nation that
operated capital ships.
[1]Defining capital ship as "aircraft carrier capable
of carrying a significant air wing". Battleships et al are currently
downgraded to amphibious warfare fire support and cruise missle launchers.
Furthermore, given a 30 minute flight time, that carrier you're shooting at
did move a significant
distance, probably at least 10-20 nautical miles.
Your ballistic missle is not capable of in-flight
course corrections. That's the definition of the word "BALLISTIC." Have some
sense.
On the gripping hand, both the US, the Soviet Union, and France designed,
built, tested, and deployed operationally a variety of nuclear weapons for
shooting at carriers, battleships, oversided missle cruisers with delusions of
Godhood (Kirov), and tiny pointless jeep carriers (Kiev). The Soviet Union
built a number of aircraft with the sole intent of using them to launch
overwhelming numbers of
nuclear-armed cruise missles at US carriers. See:
Backfire.
> At one time or another various weapons were banned
Crossbows were notionally banned by Papal bull for use against fellow
Christians. I can, however, find no record of any one actually NOT using
crossbows. Every major and minor principality used crossbows on a regular
basis, with the exceptions of backwater dumps like Scotland. Even the English
supplemented their
native longbowmen with crossbow-toting mercenaries on
occasion.
> Europe, firearms in Feudal Japan,
Firearms were banned in Feudal Japan because Tokugawa had no desire to permit
ANYONE to build a power base
and the only way to do so _quickly_ (creating a
Samurai swordsman/archer takes about 2 decades) would
have been peasant musketeers.
dum dum or hollow
> point bullets,
Militarily useless--they are banned because they cause
more damage than is necessary. It doesn't hurt anyone to give them up.
biological, chemical and nuclear
> weapons,
Every major power has nuclear weapons and the stated intent to use them if
anyone threatens their existence.
> and now land mines are on the table. So
Land mine are only on the table for those nations that weren't really planning
to use them in the first place.
> there is precedent for conventions that ban the use
You haven't mentioned a single case where a truly useful tactic or weapon was
banned.
Your original point was that if lightining strikes were unblockable, that
would be the only way warfare would be conducted. I countered with the idea
that is not always true because of conventions. You listed reasons why, even
though we had unblockable means (ICBM's) we didn't go out and paste the
Russians is beacuse (in your words) "We never had enough to guarantee we'd
wipe out the Russians until they also had enough to seriously hurt us."
That's why MAD works. The defending nation may not be able to survive a first
strike, but it guarantees that it will be able to launch a simultaneous strike
or maintain forces capable of such a massive strike that the opposing nation
will be destroyed or crippled.
Lightning strikes could work, but would not be used if both sides retain the
capability to perform them (i.e. modern nuclear submarines)in a manner that
would cripple both sides. You can never be sure if there is a cloaked ship
waiting just outside your base waiting for signal to lob a mass of SM's into
your fleet. Most nations would not want to get involved in the economic cost
of "securing" all their bases against such a first strike, and so there would
be a de facto ban against such tactics.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
"You haven't mentioned a single case where a truly useful tactic or weapon was
banned.
John"
So looking at your comments below:
So the part of Crossbows being banned by the Pope implies that they weren't
useful? Or are you arguing that the Pope didn't really ban the use of
crossbows?
The part about guns being banned in Japan implies that they weren't useful?
And the treaties currently banning the use of Chemical and Biological weapons
isn't a ban and those weapons aren't useful?
A de facto ban on the use of nuclear weapons, even tactically implies that
they are not useful, despite the stockpiling by nuclear nations?
The point of the post, is that even if you CAN do something, and even if it
makes tactical sense doesn't mean that it is acceptable for policitcal,
environmental or economic reasons.
For instance it makes perfect tactical sense to use a baby 100 kt warhead to
wipe out a carrier group. The problem is that it may lead to escalation and
eventual MAD.
It makes good strategic sense to kill all your POW's (less maintenance, no
chance for them to escape and come back at you if released etc) but by
convention they are not killed, and are even required to be kept in
"decent" conditions. This has political and morale implications - if the
enemy knows that you don't take prisoners, they will tend to fight to the
death since surrender doesn't get them anything. In addition, you may motivate
other countries to rally against you since they don't want their troops
exterminated in battles (which make it harder for them to recruit into their
militaries).
A ban may or may not have force depending on who backs it up. Just because an
item or tactic is banned doesn't mean it's not possible to use it, it just has
repercussions that you may or may not want to deal with.
So going back to the original point - certain tactics may or may not be
used based on "conventions" held by various organizations and nations. So
while they may be feasible in game terms, they can be considered "bad form" to
use and may cause an escalation that both parties do not want.
--Binhan
[quoted original message omitted]
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> Lightning strikes could work, but would not be used
The result historically was that, since the introduction of the nuclear weapon
there has been no
fighting between any two nuclear-armed powers (except
via proxy), nor has a nuclear-armed state been
attacked with enough force to truly threaten it's existence. The sole counter
example was Israel in 1973, and they managed to use conventional weapons to
stop the Arabs cold in the buffer zones (Golan, Sinai). Had the Syrian
penetrated to Heights, there is no question in anyone's mind that Damascus
would have exploded in a radioactive cloud. Along with as many other Arab
cities as was necessary to get the message across.
Since _all_ powers in the GZGverse have starships, as
do private individuals and corporations, then we are faced with peace breaking
out due to the excessive
risks involved in warfare (excepting on-planet
brushfire conflicts between fringe groups). Or writing our PSB so that
starship drives are detectable at a significant distance. IMU, FTL drives give
off a detectable signature, so that even if you put stealth
systems/cloaking devices on your ships, they are
detected as they jump insystem. This makes cloaking device more use as
tactical application rather than
general invulnerability/first strike weapon.
We're writing a background for a wargame, folks. This means the human race has
been sustaining conflict among the stars for nearly a century and hasn't
wrecked the habilitable planets. Nor has any major power been defeated
decisively enough to remove it from the Great Game. So obviously it's not easy
or everyone would have gotten together and slagged the IFed planets down to
bare rock. And the IFed would
have slagged New Israel--regardless of the potential
consequences.
> --- B Lin <lin@rxkinetix.com> wrote:
> So the part of Crossbows being banned by the Pope
I'm arguing that the Pope didn't really ban the use of crossbows. If you
(personally, ie: Mr.Lin) announce that in your opinion using the frappe
setting on blenders is truly immoral, can we then say that the frappe setting
is "banned" if everyone else keeps using that setting? Putting out your
opinion doesn't mean much unless you are either capable of enforcing it, or
you have so much prestige that your decrees are obeyed by a significant
fraction of the population regardless. The Pope had neither in this case.
> The part about guns being banned in Japan implies
Not to the Powers That Be. Tokugawa didn't need guns to maintain control of
the country.
> And the treaties currently banning the use of
Biological weapons are impossible to control and in the day and age of air
travel are almost guaranteed to backfire. Chemical weapons are of dubious
utility--and are prevented more by the stated doctrine
of many states to respond to chemical attack by using
their stocks of chemical and/or nuclear weapons on the
offending party.
> A de facto ban on the use of nuclear weapons, even
What de facto ban? All I see is unilateral no-first
use policies and not even all nuclear powers have those.
> The point of the post, is that even if you CAN do
Which is, of course, why the US, French, and Russians had plans to do
exactally that should it become necessay.
> It makes good strategic sense to kill all your POW's
No it doesn't. Your enemy stops surrendering. Desperate men make for bad
opponents. Further you wish to preserve your own POWs.
> At 9:07 AM -0700 5/10/02, John Atkinson wrote:
Ok, I'll bite. Gas attacks. Used extensively during WWI. Not used during WWII.
Perhaps because both sides decided it would be a bad idea. There was some
expectation of its use, but as time went on, troops discarded or at least
stopped keeping their masks in a ready location.
This is perhaps the one sane thing that Hitler did decide about.
> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:
More accurately, because both sides had massive stocks and demonstrated no
compunction about hammering civillian cities. In fact, there was one accident
on an Allied freighter carrying some sort of gas which caused a large number
of US casualties when the ship was damaged in harbor.
Besides, gas isn't really that effective against properly trained troops with
proper protective gear. Sure, it hinders them by forcing them into protective
gear, but the other side is just as hindered.
G'day,
A couple of things
1.
> Putting out your opinion doesn't
There are cases of people ignoring bans all the time... witness cinemas in
Australia ignoring the recent ban on a French movie I can't remember the name
of (no that's not an invitation for someone to start a thread on its real name
;);P).
2.
> Had the Syrian penetrated to Heights, there
PLEASE answer the following question OFFLIST!!! And preferably without the use
of acronyms;)
When a military is about to throw nuclear (etc) weapons around do they even
think about the potential it has to spread beyond where they want it to go? I
would've though given the vagaries of weather and aquifers that anyone lobbing
those kind of weapons around in such a small area was asking for
trouble when it came to being caught in the side-effects.
Cheers