RE: [sg] platoon stuff and combat engineers

G'day,

> Are you talking about mortars and missles??  

All built on the same theme, external disc, central payload... sounds
weird
I know ;)

> I would also expect that the first thing an invader
> would do would be to confiscate 'em, move them to a
> central location, and control strictly what you could
> and couldn't produce.

Assuming said invader is from a different planet and superior enough to
pull
it off. Most of the time they're from the same planet, different colony
site. Even off world ones don't get to descend on mass and take out a
planet
with a few million population. I do have centres but think Persian
set-ups
of towns/cities (or even Aussie outback homesteads) not modern
megacities.
On top of that the planet itself is often enough protection, you put a
foot
wrong you may not have much of a foot left so to speak ;)
 
> Uhhh, your civillians use frequency-hopping encrypted
> radios??  Compatible with your military commo nets??

Yep.

> You just made my intel guy's day.  They'll send a spy
> into the corner store, buy one, break it down and
> analyze it, and all of a sudden I'm listening to every
> transmission you make.  Wooo-hooo!  

Not unless you can speak Tangelo.... we're run by historians you know,
we
know how the US beat the enemy code breakers of WWII ;)
 
> And since I send people to prison for misplacing
> COMSEC equipment, you AREN'T listening to mine.

Knowing how well I play that's the least of my worries ;)

>> That's why specific family lines are tasked with
>> maintaining them in my fictional setting.
> 
> ??? Please explain.

Specific xandan (families... and at this point I will profusely
apologise to
all the Persian speakers in the audience for massacring their language!)
have certain duties within their daste (squad). So one xandan is tasked
with
maintaining the PA, others with being medics or mechanics or radiomen
etc.

> Military equipment eats POL....

Do the weapons though? Pack animals are a big must in this setting, that
and
gliders so I'm less concerned with vehicles - or lots of vehicles at any
rate... savar's (fast-riders who risk their own death to get messages
through) are heroes, but they're also volunteers and usually from rather
"weird" xandan.

> The point is, which one will your computer choose?

Just like a human you train it, it learns it decides... that's the
beauty of
neural nets, especially given a couple more hundred years of playing
with
them.
 
> You have critters that can kill a tank?

Yep, in fact there are a few different kinds that work in different
ways,
that's why you REALLY don't want to attract them ;)

Cheers