From: Thomas Barclay <Thomas.Barclay@s...>
Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 22:56:16 -0400
Subject: [SG] [DS] Mr. Atkinson's feedback :)
1) John, what's a reasonable separation for two platoons of IFVs (part of the same infantry company) on the move? I would have thought two lines, each containing 3 vehicles, with 200m horizontal spacing, 100m vertical (along the axis of attack) spacing was enough. Perhaps I'm way short? It was this configuration which allowed the 400m artillery diameter to cream the crap out of the APCs. Anyone else care to venture or produce an FM reference? At some point you exceed the range of mutual support. Before I blame the manouver commander for his incompetence, I should have some idea how to advise him for following games. 2) Also, something else bothers me a bit in DS2. Why is all artillery a 2" burst radius? Yes, it has different chit draws. But the point of some artillery types is coverage. (example: MRLS). Standard tube artillery (esp using ToT) can put down excellent pinpoint fire. But MRLS give area coverage. But all artillery is a 2" burst radius in DS. (In SG, areas being grossly restricted for some types, they at least capture this distinction between small area booms and big area booms). 3) Why can't I call artillery down on a grid reference? Obviously the game doesn't have rules, but pre-registered fire points on GPS'd map coordinates hardly seems impossible today. And if we assume you can see anything on the board from recon drones, satellites, etc, and you don't actually need to do spotting of units and then IDing and then artillery calls, then we'd quickly see the force compositions of DS forces being ten hover jeeps or grav bikes with artillery spotters and a huge whopping pile of artillery (at least for defenses or meeting engagements). Artillery alone if used in quantity is effective enough to ruins someone's day. 4) IAVRs in SG2 are underpowered, like GMS/P. Concur. 5) Why would you want to close assault a tank unit with infantry in DS2? If you force the unit to make a reaction test, they may withdraw. This gives you the position for free. Plus you may not have IAVR equipped troops. (Militia, irregs, etc). 6) I find DS2 CA interesting. You don't seem to get good defensive reaction test mods for being in position or for having armour or for having PA. You get penalized for being attacked by PA, but not for defending with it. Odd. Seems to me PA is fairly effective in SG2 in either case..... 7) Debarking a vehicle under attack. John seemed to take both sides of the fence. (He didn't, it just seemed that way). He says basically you wouldn't get out under machinegun fire, but if the vehicle was alight or the GEV lost cushion and went crunch into the ground, he'd be out like a flash. But then again, since the driver controls the ramps, he might have a hard time getting out. Oh, and someone is shooting a machinegun...? I guess what he was suggesting (correct me if I'm wrong in your oh so gentle manner *grin*, John) is that there are some things that inhibit your desire to get out and some things which enhance it. Would it be possible to create a list of modifiers that should apply, I wonder? Getting shot at drops the TL, having a disabled vehicle ups the TL, etc. And should debarkation take more game time if the driver is dead (can't throw open the ramp)? And we talk about a dead crewman (killed by spall), but we won't unass, unless of course there is also a fire, etc. How do we relate this to known vehicle states in SG2? (Immobilized, Disabled, Destroyed, Systems Down)? 8) I hate mixed mobility forces too. Don't yet have quite enough GEV minis. And still trying to figure out how to do GEV CEVs that make sense. OTOH, the minute you throw in transport vehicles, engineers, etc, don't you kind of automatically get mixed mobility types? 9) DS2 has no quality roll for spotting (well, it does, in that you call the arty, but it either arrives on target or doesn't come at all). Even today, we see US Spec Ops blown up by their own air support and Canadian troops nuked by USAF. Now, I'm not trying to raise any sort of spectre here, but the point I'm making is the DS2 rules seem fratricide free. Perhaps this will be the case in 200 years. I have much less faith than the author on this one. Doubly so as a former grunt who was usually likely to be on the receiving end of any errors. 10) There is no ten. Carry on with the day's training.