> You wrote:
> Re: Morale rules. (I know another tangent). With most wargames, most
Winning battles through attrition is to the art of war as a paint by the
numbers kit is to the Mona Lisa. Frystaat military axiom[1]
morale >rules if any). In real battles, you are defeating the enemy's morale
or >will to resist. Inflicting the greatest shock in the shortest period of
>time. That's why to me a good set of morale rules would show losses
>inflicted in a very short period of time stopping forces as opposed to
>prolonged losses over a long period of time. For
I think DS would be much improved by rules for morale of entire force, rather
than just the platoons. BTW, am I the only person who thinks
that it's damn near impossible to break a normal-sized platoon which
starts off confident?
example, a company losing >50% casualties over the space of four hours, might
still be combat >effective, but a company losing 50% casualties in four
minutes is probably >gonna pack it in.
Probably? Unless they've got the NKVD behind them with HMGs...
[1]Name that quote!
On Wed, 20 May 1998 06:52:07 -0500 (CDT), jatkins6@ix.netcom.com (John
> Atkinson) wrote:
> I think DS would be much improved by rules for morale of entire force,
I'll second this!
> BTW, am I the only person who thinks
Nope, I agree too. In fact, it is IMPOSSIBLE to break a unit of two AFVs if
they start at confident. The worst that can happen is that they drop from
Confident to Shaken when the first goes up (note that with vehicles, Shaken
doesn't degrade their performance). When the second goes up, the unit is gone!
Talk about min/maxing...
I think that an overall force morale rule would go far towards fixing this
problem, though, depending on the rule's implementation. If the force's morale
was tested every time a unit's morale dropped to Shaken, or a unit was
destroyed (probably different a worse die shift for the latter!), then a force
of small tank units would be worse off.
Has anyone taken a stab at this? I did a while ago, but I haven't touched it
in ages.
> You wrote:
> Nope, I agree too. In fact, it is IMPOSSIBLE to break a unit of two
Of course, the only time I'd look at a two-vehicle unit without beating
the person putting it on the board would be for a scout section. I
follow US lead and put them in 6-vehicle platoons that operate in
pairs. Normal-sized for tanks/IFVs ranges from 3-5, with 4 being
ideal. And you don't call a size 4 tank a scout... Unless you're NSL, in which
case that screwy (but historically quite effective!) German recon doctrine is
in effect.
In a message dated 98-05-20 07:56:10 EDT, you write:
> Winning battles through attrition is to the art of war as a paint by
<snip>
> [1]Name that quote!
S.M. Stirlings story in the first "War World" anthology, Jerry Pournelle ed.
I'm not sure of the timing, but I alway thought of the Frystaaters as
proto-
Draka, especially since that and other axioms show up in the appendix of
"Marching Through Georgia".
I always liked the haBandari. :-)
Don
> You wrote:
> S.M. Stirlings story in the first "War World" anthology, Jerry
Bingbing!
> I'm not sure of the timing, but I alway thought of the Frystaaters as
Ja, but not so vicious.
> I always liked the haBandari. :-)
I've given some thought to converting Saurons, Frystaaters, and haBandari over
to Stargrunt statistics. Might be messy, though.
Saurons would all be elite, with additional die shifts in hand-to-hand
and so forth... And movement of 8, 10 for scouts. And modifiers to wounded
rolls.
[quoted original message omitted]
> In a message dated 98-05-21 23:49:24 EDT, John wrote:
Wahoo! Finally, the first one to respond to a "name that quote post"!!!
> I'm not sure of the timing, but I alway thought of the Frystaaters as
> Ja, but not so vicious.
Weeellll, we don't really know that. We see Oom Piet (an avowed socialist!!)
and his merry band, not the hidebound conservatives back home that exiled him
in the first place. "Draka" who's homeworld make the deepest hole of Darkest
Africa look like Club Med sounds like a very special Hell.
> I've given some thought to converting Saurons, Frystaaters, and
Yep. I haven't played much SGII (one small game!) so I'm not familiar with the
rules, but definately resistance to wounds; them Saurons is tuff bastids!!!
:-)
> John M. Atkinson
Oh, yeah. Hell, the Mercenary and Sparta series with Pournelle and Stirling
have *loads* of nifty ideas.
Don