Re: My Life Story, Philosophy of Design, Colonization Patterns, and other trivia, was Re: DS: Walkers

--- John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com> wrote:

> > Elegant.
> 
> That's one of the highest compliments I've had in a
> long time.  

And was intended as such.  You've influenced my
thoughts on a lot of different vehicles, but one area
I already had an opinion I still hold was this: the
more direct and to the point a weapon is, the more apt
I am to mount it on my MBT's.  Even more so in DSII
than in Battletech.  But in my Btech days I was a
gauss fanatic.	Nothing says it quite like 15 points
of damage from long range.  I'd even manouver
specifically to give my opponent partial cover,
because the decrease in chance of hitting wasn't as
big a deal as the increase in chance that an actual
hit would pop his head like a watermelon.

There was a Mk 2 that added a pair of
> MGs
> and a 1/2 ton of ammo.  :)

I'm assuming for those times you faced infantry?

 I started this when I was
> 8-9(?). 
> Spend 16 years on anything and you get good.

I should say....

> RL Army experience. . . just is the difference
> between
> classroom theory and practical exercises.  I just
> get
> to do my PEs down at the Stargrunt level and below. 
> :)

LOL
 
> > take a walker.  Fighting on the Olympic peninsula
> of
> > Washington?  Walkers backed by VTOL.  *shrug* just
> a
> 
> Maybe--although I still like Grav.

I love grav.  And given certain backgrounds, with
varying abilities for grav, I like it even more.  A
lot of it depends on certain assumptions you make
about what and where a grav vehicle can and can't
do/go.	We don't yet know IRL which assumptions are
correct, so we have to take one set, accept them, and
apply them to the game.  which set is personal taste,
and will affect how you view grav.

> Unless. . . My perception of GZGverse 

Ah, see, there's where our ability to address each
other's points of view is going to deteriorate.  I
don't play in the GZGverse, at least not in the
tuffleyverse, and a lot of things are different,
politically as well as technologically, which make
certain strategic axioms non-interchangeable (though
tactics remain the same or similar).

is that you
> have
> relatively small professional armies.  A division or
> at most a Corps will defend a planet.  

Part of the difference is that in my personal setting,
conflicts on earth itself are still fairly common. 
Makes a huge difference.

> My thoughts on the urbanization of space:
 
> As such, mass high-tech armies just aren't in the
> picture, which rules out the need for specialized
> formations with complex gear only good for a handful
> of places and times.	

All of your points are well-taken, and extremely valid
in the context of conflicts on colonies.  Back home
here on earth, or on highly inhabited, balkanized
worlds (depending on how far along in colonization you
set things), maybe not so much....

=====
Qui me amat, amet et canem meum.

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com