Re: [GZG] Armoured utility vehicles and IEDs in SG/DS

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gerbeer John said:

Here's what most people in this conversation aren't tracking.  As much
as
you want to put together scenarios that approach or incorporate elements
of
real-world situations, they make shitty games.	Sorry.Your average IED
incident lasts moments, and rarely incoporates anything more than a
device
and possibly a few secondary devices.  If small arms fire is encountered
as
part of the attack, you're talking a handful of jackasses blazing away
with
unaimed fire from a building far enough away that it can't be positively
identified.  It's over in less than a minute, because if they stick
around,
they end up very, very dead.
-------
[Tomb] I particularly asked about how to represent their effects in the
game. I made no specification about my intended use. I don't recall
wanting
to capture the details of the current situation nor do I suspect that
all
uses of IEDs, in either the real world or sci-fi, will take on the
character
of today's uses. Ultimately, an IED can make an effective way of
stopping a
convoy for an ambush. It can make an effective way of stopping or
slowing a
rapid reaction force responding to another situation. There are any
number
of places where one can and will make sense in the real-world and in
sci-fi.

If you've got foreign occupiers on your outrim colony world, maybe you
don't
have fancy weapons and have to resort to some know how an an IED in
setting
up an ambush or fixing action. Ultimately, your forces may not always
have
the same levels of support US or even NATO forces enjoy. If a UN mission
is
hit by an IED in the modern day and it is composed of (for instance)
South
African troops, an ambush or fixing action may be fairly successful as
they
may have trouble bringing to bear the firepower the US can. Similar
sorts of
situations are perfectly within the realm of the GZGverse.

So, don't go assuming what I have in mind. I just want to capture a
reasonable set of game numbers for how likely these things are to score
a
hit and how likely that is to score damage versus various sorts of
vehicles.
Beyond that, I leave to the people setting up games to decide where and
how
they are appropriate to use.

---------

John further said:

The object of [current day ME -- TomB] insurgents is not and cannot be
to
achieve a tactical success as you all might be thinking from watching
Red
Dawn one too many times [Not possible. Wolverines! -- TomB].  The
[current
ME -- TomB] objective is destabilize a country enough to prevent
effective
civil governance, and to get on the evening news enough
times that they can sell their narrative to the ignorant jackasses who
comprise the majority of West's voting populace.
--------

We've seen insurgents use IEDs in other places in the world (Vietnam,
Chechnya, etc) and I'm fairly certain that they had (at times) planned
tactical victories in the actions involving IEDs. There are a number of
scenarios, dependent on the resources and training of both sides, in
which
an IED could simply be a precursor to other forms of combat.

The fact that this (IED attacks followed by small arms engagement proves
disasterous to those involved if the attack is against the US or a major
Western power in Iraq/Afghanistan today may or may not impede it as a
good
game. If you define a game as 'column must get off far side of board,
insurgents must slow down using IEDs, RPGs, small arms, etc', then you
could
have a fun enough game. If the column forces aren't terribly top notch,
you
may actually have a real knock-down, drag-out fight. If you are playing
a
campaign of some sort, slowing down an enemy column may be worth some
insurgents sacrificed if you get to carry out another attack without
interference.

So, even though I haven't decided exactly what I want to use the
information
for, I can see plenty of cases where there are valid in-game
applications.

And thank you for the information, the parts you could provide.

TomB

-- 
"Now, I go to spread happiness to the rest of the station. It is a
terrible
responsibility but I have learned to live with it."
Londo, A Voice in the Wilderness, Part I

"To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like
administering medicine to the dead." -- Thomas Paine

Thomas Paine