Starship Troopers in Stargrunt2

>  I remember being indifferent to _Starship_Troopers_ and liking
>_The_Forever_War_ but I still think _Armor_ was the best of the
>bunch. 

I'm not sure I agree with Joachim that _Armor_ is the best, but it *is*
excellent.  It's somewhat confusing, but definitely has more combat
description that the other two. It's pretty intense! Haldeman's book was
too much ZAP-you'reDEAD, admittedly, this is probably a better
expectation
of future war. :)

Heinlein's book was more political than military, and the only parts I
really liked were the descriptions of boot camp and the armor itself,
and
the (too few) combat descriptions.  He was not a "military" writer, like
David Drake, or Stirling, or Haldeman.

I've heard rumors about the movie, and one of them did mention power
armor.
 They are shooting it in Montana or some similar place up in the West,
and
one of the extras posted something about seeing the suits (and the
actors
bitching about the heat in them).

However, it is set on Earth, fighting off an invasion, which is a plot
unlike anything from the book.	They are banking on a name to drag in
the
sci-fi fans, but there really isn't much connected to the book.

So that this mail has some SG2 content, here's the TO&E of the cap
troopers. Note, they really didn't have ranged attacks like rifles. 
They
used missile launchers, both HE & Nukes.  They also used a lot of
specialized bombs, and had two kinds of flamers - a short range hand
flamer
and a variable beam heavy flamer.  I've chosen the MLS to represent the
HE.

Trooper Squad (1 Corporal in charge of team 1, Lance Corporal as ASL)
6 troopers in heavy, fast PA, 2 troopers in light, fast PA.  Commonly
fielded as two teams of 4.  
-Armed with MLS and flamer
-special rules: their combat move represents a jump.  This jump can take
them over small buildings and other low obstacles.  The recon trooper's
combat move is x3 instead of x2. Allowable cohesiveness is doubled
(tactics
were to stay separated).

Trooper Section - 3 squads plus a Sergeant in a command suit.
The command suit is heavy, fast PA with x3 jump.  Also has built in EW
functions that are automated (the sergeant doesn't have to spend any
actions to activate or change settings).

Trooper Platoon - 2 sections, plus Platoon LT and Platoon Sgt. 
Both leaders have command PA.

I think SG2's scale does not represent itself as large enough to use
Nukes.


Any idea on how to represent the bombs?  If you played the board game
from
Avalon Hill, they had three common types - DAP (Delayed Action,
Proximity -
went off when you left the hex), DAR (Delayed Action, Remote - could set
off from short distance, including waiting some period of time), and HNG
(Heavy Nerve Gas - only affected Bugs, only bomb you could use in the
same
hex as one of your guys, and was also persistent).  All three had very
brief mention in the book.  The PsyOps bomb (the 30 second bomb, I love
that one!!) was described in a General article I think, I'll see if I
still
have that issue accessible.  That would be the funniest part of any
movie,
but since the movie is supposedly Bugs only (no Skinnies), I doubt they
will include it.

Of course, if I programmed one, it would stop the count at 10 or maybe
5,
say "I lied!" and then go off.	:)

John

***********************************************************************
John Phelps  ****   mailto: pbguru@cris.com or jphelps@austin.apple.com
OIC, Gundi's Gang -- Anything expressed above is strictly my opinion --
Murphy's Law of Combat, #66:
	    The enemy is never watching until you make a mistake.