Re: [GZG] Question: small-arms tech and troop quality....

>On Sat, Dec 13, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Ground Zero Games <jon@gzg.com> wrote:
>>  Here's a deliberately vague and provocative question to get a
>>  stimulated debate going...... <GRIN!!>
>>
>>  "Is one super-trained elite special forces soldier with the best
>>  cutting-edge high-tech weapon worth 25 untrained farmers with
>>  shotguns?"
>
>Maybe.  More importantly, 8-12 super-trained elite special forces
>soldiers with the best cutting-edge high-tech weapons are worth 250 or
>more untrained farmers with shotguns.	A lot of the advantages of
>training and discipline come into play with unit cohesion, morale, and
>effective teamwork.  The horde of untrained folks are going to run
>away a lot sooner if they run into problems, and aren't going to be
>able to use their numbers to good advantage, and may even inflict
>casualties on each other by accident.
>
>>  OK, now to put it a little bit into context.....
>>
>>  If we have a (game) situation where there are five levels of troop
>>  quality from 1 = Untrained up to 5 = Elite, and similarly five bands
>>  of "tech level" where 1 = primitive firearms (that's "primitive" in
>>  the SF sense, eg: early to mid 20th century stuff, bolt-action
rifles
>>  and such) and 5 = highly advanced weapons (plasma/fusion rifles),
>>  then is it in any way reasonable to calculate effective firepower by
>>  a simple multiplication of the two factors?
>
>No.  A lot depends on factors beyond the weapons themselves.  [BIG
SNIP]

All valid points, John, but at this stage I'm not concerned with all 
those other factors. Maybe I didn't explain myself very well in the 
first posting, but see my reply to Roger's post. What I'm trying to 
get to is a STARTING POINT for relative firepower values, which will 
then be modified by the various other factors that need to be 
accounted for.

If I read your comments correctly, you're saying that you believe 
that starting point should be JUST the troop quality, rather than a 
combination of that and weapon tech?

>
>>  will matter a lot. All I'm talking about is the ability to place an
>>  effective weight of fire down on a target area, at whatever we
decide
>>  to be the effective combat range for a given type of weapon.
>
>When it comes to that, I tend to feel that crew-served weapons are as
>important or more so than the rifles in question.  Good machine guns
>can make up for inferior rifles if you have enough of them.  While the
>Germans had inferior rifles to the US troops in WWII, the fact that
>they had a superb and technologically superior machine gun which was
>integrated into every single infantry squad more than made up for
>that.	And the superior US combined arms and fire support trumped the
>firepower of German squads in any case anyway.  :)

Agreed, which is why all this and more needs to be factored in at 
later stages. A SAW/LMG should probably have AT LEAST the firepower 
of an infantry rifle fireteam, maybe more, especially at the lower 
tech levels. But we need to start by quantifying the rifle team's 
effect in game terms, before we add in the LMG or whatever.

>
>I have deliberately ignored the question of plasma/fusion rifles, as
>it all depends on how one wishes to treat them in game mechanical
>terms.  The precise characteristics of the weapon must be more
>concrete to determine the effects of the weapon on tactics.

For the time being, think of them like their Traveller counterparts - 
very advanced and powerful - though probably with less range than 
lasers.

Jon (GZG)

>
>John
>--
>"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
>and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
>--Vita Aureliani
>
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