Re: Oerjan Ohlson's Wet Dreams

Peter Mancini wrote:

>Hmmm, wet dreams about infantry carried AT weaponry...  Yikes.

When you design LAWs for a living, your perspective sometimes gets a
bit odd :-/

>Ok, I see your point.	That is an tough analysis.  However, even so,
>even if it doesn't make perfectly logical sense - tanks without
infantry
>cover die like bugs if they get too close to infantry.  This has been
well
>proven during and since WWII.

Sure. But the reason they die to infantry up close is almost invariably
that they get shot in the sides or rear, not the front. (That is, when
they don't die because the enemy infantry climbs up on them and throws
hand grenades down the hatches :-/)

FWIW, yes I think the side armour of SGII/DSII vehicles is too strong -
or, rather, I think that there's not enough of a penalty (in cost etc.)
to put meter-thick armour on the sides of SGII/DSII vehicles :-/

>I am not saying the system doesn't need to be looked at (your analysis
>leads me to believe it does) but everything is in motion 

If everything (particularly the target) is in motion, the high hit
numbers seem even less likely for poor-quality troops... stationary
targets are *much* easier to hit :-/

>and the battlefield is not a billiards table.	Just because you are
>firing from the front arc on the gaming table doesn't mean that at
some
>point the vehicle moved and gave you an alternative and softer point
to >hit. (I am speaking about an abstraction here that Jon may or may
not >have intended.)

In DSII I agree with you; the ground scale (1:4000) is so much smaller
than the model scale (1:300), and the turns so long (~15 minutes) that
it is impossible to accurately follow all minor twists and turns a
vehicle makes. OTOH DSII has the "Opportunity Fire" rule which tries to
handle this explicitly.

The SGII ground scale (1:400) is smaller than the model scale (which is
in the 1:100-120 range in my case, 1:60-72-ish for those who use 25mm
models), but is the difference really large enough to "abstract away"
turns of 20-30 degrees over the shorter SGII game turns?

>P.S. and yes I know from first hand experience.

Tanker, infantry or weapon designer experience? All three are valid,
but tend to be somewhat different :-/

Later,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry