Re: DSII - Air Defence Levels.

Andrew & Alex wrote:
> 
> Remember that in the DSII battle field, the command hierarchy has been
> flattened to nearly non-existent. The hierarchy only exists for
historical
> and unit morale reasons. Check out the DSII rule book, page 6,
Command,
> Control and Communications.

Don't buy that.  :)  The man on the scene always has a better picture of
his fight than the man in the rear.  Conversely, the man in the rear has
a better picture of how that fight fits into the Big Picture than the
man on the scene.  You start trying to get one man to do both, then he
can't do either well.

> >>	 But you may be looking for something that doesn't really exist.
> >???	From a battalion commander's perspective, either his air support
> >arrives, or not.
>     The battalion commander being in the on-table command post, is
that
> right?

Yeah.  Or in a command tank, which is where I usually put him.

> >If not, there are two reasons--either it's got a
> >higher priority mission,
>     Which means that the task force commander, the DSII player, has
given it
> another mission to do or hasn't got it in the first place.
 
> >or it's been shot down.
>     No or ineffective escorting aerospace fighters purchased by the
DSII
> player or effective enemy AA or enemy interceptors purchased by the
opposing
> DSII player.

It all works out to "Shot down".

> >If it's shot down by
> >patrolling interceptors,
>     These aerospace interceptors could be fielded by the enemy task
force
> commander or DSII player.

You're seeing the DSII player as the overall commander, at Corps or
higher level--I'm seeing him as the batallion commander.  Corps COs
don't interfere with how their batallions conduct their fights--or at
least, they shouldn't.
 
>     In my Steel Panthers III games, I usually have a complete "ring"
of 6
> Patriot launchers surrounding an ammo dump. I find that it's
reasonably
> effective against enemy air power for the first 4-5 strikes. The
Patriots
> aren't assigned to an armoured company or brigade, they're just in my
SPIII
> Task Force.

Yeah.  Your Steel Panters unit reflects how the Real World works. 
Sure.  Note that I've been using Task Force to designate a "Task
Organized Batallion".  But Patriots are not found on the front
lines--they are generally in the rear with the gear, defending supply
dumps, HQs, ports, airfields. . . 

>     A US Marines formation some years ago would have had battleship
strikes
> assigned to it, hopefully on enemy formations! :-). This can be
modelled in
> DSII as Very Heavy Artillery or Full Thrust orbital artillery. I've
designed

Right.	But note the way this works--the Battleship is NOT part of the
Marine force.  It's somewhere off the table.  The Marines call back, and
ASK for it.  If it doesn't come, they have no idea why--they may never
find out why.  It could be busy flattening something else deep in the
enemy's rear, it could be providing fire suport for the next batallion
over, or it could be fighting for it's life against the entire enemy
Navy.  No more reason to model this than there is model the intricacies
of air warfare/air defense.  You simply roll the dice and say, "Damn,
that battleship isn't responding!"

John M. Atkinson