Re: Landing Ships

>	Greetings All,

'Lo!
>	While the discussion of merchant vs. military hulls for troop
transport
>has been going on, I have been reading Tom Clancy's new non-fiction
book
>"Marine". The book has some good information on the USMC for modern
gamers.
>I took the ships carrying a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) and tried
to
>convert them to Full Thrust ships with equivalent carrying capacity.
>	The LHD-1, USS Wasp, is a helicopter assault carrier. It was
listed as
>carrying one rifle company , the battalion weapons company with 24
hummers,
>the battalion and landing force HQ and support elements, one battery of
6
>towed 155mm guns, four LAV-25's, two LAV-AT, twelve medium transport
>helicopters, eight heavy transport helo's, four cobras, and six
Harriers.
SNIP
>Jon, am I looking at some thing wrong or do the Full Thrust\ Dirtside
>rules in MT need tweaked. Did you intend that troops were mostly
shipped
>frozen or should I assume that troops are moved in company sized units?
>								       
>John Kinder

I think that from the point of view of playability, this is the wrong
way to
approach an FT/DSII conversion.  
The important thing is to represent each _significant element_ of the
ship
and her abilities.  DSII forces 
can  be assumed to be more capable than their present day equivalents.
Looking, for example, at the artillery, 
Wasp carries a typical towed field artillery battery.  The DSII
equivalent
is 3 medium weapons, probably SP.  
HQ & support elements?	Forget them!  Well, not quite- a couple of
command
teams and the DSII C&C requirement 
will cover it, if you just mumble something about automation.  Armour? 
A
scout platoon and an AT section.  
Attack VTOLs- a section of 2 or 3.  All those Hummers- what does the
weapons
company have?  Simulate its capacity 
in terms of AT, LAD etc and give it DSII elments and transport to match.
Can the helos lift the whole force at once?  Clearly not:  get enough
transport VTOLs to move the armour and artillery together, and that
should
be it (giving you as commander plenty of command choices to make and
hopefully increasing your involvement as a player).  The Wasp only needs
defensive weapons- no ADAF!  And you don't need to represent CIWS on a
one
for one basis, either.	The Harrier is a bit less capable than a
dedicated
strike aircraft- perhaps you'd be closer to the mark with 3?

Another trick (from the first rules I ever played "Battle!  Practical
Wargaming" by Charles Grant- great stuff!) is to downsize your force. 
Let
platoons represent companies, and companies represent battalions.

Cheers,
Rob Paul
Rob Paul
NERC Institute of Virology 
Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SR	  Tel. (01865) 512361
rpaul@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
  "Once again, villainy is rotting meat before the maggots of justice!"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--