Re: Dirtside Rules Question

>Ryan wrote:
>> This begs a question. Can a VTOL do an opfire vs an aerospace,
>assuming its in arc of its weapons? The military guys always note the
>difficulty of fighters attacking helo's in RL. They move around on you
>but still get to hide down in the brush. (one pass he's here, the next
>pass he's over there and shooting at you as you come in...)
>
>>From my own experience (limited to flying Apache's in Microprose's
>Gunship 2000), only Air to Air weapons have a chance of hitting a
>fighter. So, in my rules and in our games, we've split up GMS into two
>categories, Ground Attack (which are the same as normal GMS), and
>AntiAerospace or THAAD. AntiAerospaces or THAAD GMS draw chits equal to
>size class (AAGMS/L: 1 AAGMS/H: 2 etc), but can intercept aerospace or
>VTOL elements.
>
>Just my point of view.

Piece of trivia for you that might be relevant.

The Canadian Forces field a piece of equipment called ADATS.  This is
basically an anti-aircraft missile system.  It uses, I believe, radar
for
detection, and laser designation for the missile's actual flight.
Supposedly it's really effective.  4 Air Defence Regiment (which is a
mixed
Regular-Reserve) recently had some systems on deployment with a USMC MEU
demonstrating the system - as the Marines are concerned that they don't
have an anti-air system that is effective for medium range intercepts
(the
ADATS system is much longer-range than stuff like Stingers, etc).  They
were really impressed when an ADATS shot took down a low flying cruise
missile at 10 miles at night with a reservist opperator.

What lead me to mention this in the first place is that the ADATS system
was designed from the outset to be a dual-mode anti-aircraft AND
anti-armour system.  These missiles are big, and have a warhead
sufficient
to take out a tank, and have done so in testing.  We were supposed to
sell
a whole bunch of the systems to the US, but they bailed out of the
development program a few years back, so the only operator of ADATS is
the
Canadian military.  The dual role capability would give mobile forces
the
ability to take on both type of targets with the same missile.	They
would
be primarily air-defense, but have the anti-armour capability as a back
up...

My point is that if we can have a system like this NOW, is it not
reasonable to think that a GMS system 150 years from now will be able to
take on both tanks and aircraft?  Why not simply state that your GMS
systems can take on both air and ground targets.  If you don't like the
idea that they will be equally effective against both types of targets,
how
about designating them with a primary specialty ie:  GMS/H-AT for
primarily
anti-tank, and GMS/H-AA for primarily anti-air.  They would operate at
full
effectiveness against their primary target type, and less effectively
against the other type.  The less-effectively part could be accomplished
by
either reducing their damage potential, or reducing their hit potential
-
or maybe both.

Just a thought.

Adrian Johnson
ajohnson@idirect.com