Re: Low Tech Scenarios

In a message dated 98-05-17 17:59:48 EDT, Tom Hughes writes:

<< Actually you have to add one more factor, the terrain. I saw a film
clip
 of a Russian vehicle sitting on the road and not being able to raise
the
 barrel high enough to hit the Afgans sitting high up on the slope. The
 afgans were shooting at the poor Russian draftees huddled around their
 vehicles with AK's and the vehicles were pounding a stretch of empty
 hillside just below the Afgans. I know it sounds weird but the Russki's
 built their equiptment for the flat plains of Russia and their
equiptment
 refects this. That is one of the many reasons they did so badly.
 >>

A bit of an idiosyncracy, this, but fun in a one-off game.  I _think_ it
was
the BMP-1 (Armored Infantry Vehicle) that had a restricted elevation on
it's
main gun.  This was a real liability in Afghanistan, both in mountainous
areas
and in driving through built-up areas (you'd think they would learn...).
 This
was fixed in the next iteration of the BMP, the -2.  But they still had
a
nasty problem of blowing the heads off of their own infantrymen; the
BMP-1 &
-2 were of very low profile, and cannon, when level or depressed to
shoot at
targets on a similar elevation level, was right at head height...this
was
later addressed in the BMP-3.

Anyway, if this was early war, the draftees are waiting for the Hinds to
come
and plaster the indigs.  Late war, they're just waiting...

Noah V. Doyle