Re: John A.

Forwarded from JohnA, msg received this morning (US Eastern)

Been browsing through the archives. Couple comments 
for forwarding: 

1)Low-tech DSII. As far as mixing tech levels, it's a 
waste of time. See: 3rd ID vs. The Entire Iraqi 
Army. Low-tech armies can't play on the modern 
battlefield. Not invited. You can play reasonable 
SGII guerilla warfare scenarios, but a fight on the 
DSII table is lost before it begins. Simply the 
command-and-control and EW options available to the 
higher tech forces, as well as superior weapon and 
sensor ranges, means it's about as "balanced" as a 
gunnery range. Unless you go after some completely 
lost-and-confused convoy of mechanics with few 
crewserved weapons and improperly maintained personal 
weapons, as well as a moron of a commanding officer 
and lousy Situational Awareness in the whole convoy. 

2)AGL vs. SAW. The AGLs postulated in SGII are not 
Mk19s. They are lightweight weapons in the 20mm range 
such as are under development by the US Army--OCSW, 
IIRC. Intended to replace/supplement the M-240, and 
hopefully in that weight range. It has a higher 
firepower due to area effect of the grenades, but a 
lower penetration because the primary wound effect 
mechanism is shrapnel. They do much better against 
targets in cover than machine guns, but 'modern' body 
armor (by SGII standards) greatly reduces the danger 
from fragmentation. Now, the SAW category in SGII 
presumes that exotic propulsion technologies (binary 
liquid, gauss, ETC, etc) push the muzzle velocities 
and sustained ROF of SAW-weight weapons up to GPMG 
levels and hence the distinction between these weapons 
disappears. So a SGII SAW will be a far superior 
direct fire weapon. AGLs are used primarily to cover 
dead space. They also complement machine guns. MGs 
cause people to get down and take frontal cover. The 
arcing trajectory and HE effect of AGLs mean people 
huddled in one spot behind lumps in the ground get 
blown to bits. If you wanted finer distinction 
between them in game terms, personally I would 
downgrade the effects of cover by one level vs. AGLs, 
but upgrade the effects of armor by one level. 

Having said that, the NRE primarily uses gauss SAWs as 
their crewserved weapons. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again: SGII does 
not model heavy crewserves like the .50 cal or the 
Mk19 at all. It's a light infantry game, and light 
infantry doesn't have these puppies except on 
vehicles. And we all know SGII rules only cover 
vehicles because JT couldn't get away with 
dispensining with them entirely. 

3)Re Flakmagnet's comment on civilized warfare: I'll 
deal with you later. 

3.5)Belt Buckles still aren't funny. 

4)Andreas Udby--Essayons, man. Where you in 2nd Eng? 
It's my life goal to avoid getting sent to Korea as 
long as I can avoid it. :) 4th ID Force XXI doctrine 
jacks Engineer line platoons all up. Only 2 squads, 
and gives the PSG a track. PL and PSG tracks both get 
Mk 19s, the 2 squad tracks get an M2. From what I can 
see you joined the list the month after I deployed, or 
at least your first post is 30 APR. 

5)Looks like mid-tour leave for me is now back on, for 
12 Nov. 

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