Re: Traveller + SG2/DS2/?

Infojunky wrote:

>>Finally, a comment for Infojunky: There aren't that many pure infantry

>>military actions left nowadays, unless you look at conflicts like the 
>>Afghani civil war prior to US involvement or the war between Eritrea
and 
>>Ethiopia.
>
>Yes I agree with you there, and for open field battles SG2 is not the
rule 
>set,

I'm not talking about "open field battles". I'm talking about your
typical 
ambush of a patrol or supply convoy in Baghdad, February 2005. SG2 is
not 
the rule set for that kind of action either, because it can't replicate
the 
way the real-world vehicles are reported to move - I almost daily get
new 
comments from people in Iraq now of convoys and QRFs moving at 50+ mph,
or 
MBTs chasing or moving to cut off withdrawing insurgents at 30+ mph.
Good 
luck using SG2 for that kind of actions.

>>As soon as any western power gets involved, even small-scale actions
in 
>>close urban terrain tend to involve armoured (or at least protected) 
>>vehicles - and in wartime, these vehicles are very rarely limited to
the 
>>speed of crawling grunts.
>
>Yes, but neither are they moving at a constant speeds in excess of the 
>infantry,

Of course they don't move at "constant speeds". They almost invariably
move 
in stops and starts. The point is that when they move *at all* they very

often do so at speeds far in excess of what infantry can manage. In SG2,

they're restricted to move at constant speeds roughly *similar* to what
the 
infantry can manage.

>Though there are points where they will out run or charge ahead to
provide 
>cover for their supporting troops. In these situations the rules are
lacking.

And these situations are pretty common in today's combat. An even more 
common situation is when vehicles are used to *rapidly re-deploy
infantry* 
to reinforce a beleagured outpost or to outflank or encircle an enemy 
position; that too is impossible in SG2 simply because the vehicles
can't 
move anywhere near as fast as they can in the real world.

>>Police work during (nominal) peacetime in (supposedly) friendly areas 
>>could easily be different, of course; since so few police forces use
our 
>>products I tend to see a lot more military AARs than police ones.
>
>At least here in the US it was surprising how often skills learning in
the 
>jungle where required for safe operations in urban areas.

Very true. However, it is also true that last year's Thunder Runs
through 
Baghdad (and less famously Basra) and the subsequent actions revised
quite 
a lot of the "conventional wisdom" about urban combat - particularly
with 
respect to how vehicles can be used in built-up areas.

Regards,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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