DS2/SG2 artillery

A few more thoughts - I'm having a moment of insomnia.

Date: Mon, 29 Nov 1999 01:11:46 -0500
From: Adrian Johnson <ajohnson@idirect.com>
Subject: Re: SG2/DS2 artillery

>Once you have a grav platform, the war is so much about mobility and a
>tank becomes the all around weapon - replacing jets (which are lighter
>armoured), VTOLS (same), arty (not mobile enough), and of course doing
>duty as a tank.

Except that the tank isn't a tank any more, 'cause it starts to carry
infantry and all kinds secondary weapon systems.  If the grav platform
has
the capability to carry the weight of heavy armour, then why not have it

carry troops too - and you get multi purpose vehicles that serve as
orbital
dropships and troopcarriers.  What's the purpose of having separate
"tanks"
if the apc's can carry tank-size armament anyway...  If the role of the
tank is JUST to fight other tanks, there isn't any point in having them.

Infantry hold the ground, and in the end, tanks now are about supporting

the infantry by killing the other guy's tanks, which can kill your
apc's.
But if your apc's are as tough and as heavily armed as a tank, why
bother
having tanks?

** Counterpoint:
In a tank, I put in maximum weapons for my space or engine power (and
armour). In an APC, I put in troops. They take up space and consume
thrust or lift or whatever. A tank would always have a point as it would
always have heavier armour and more FP than an IFV. Even if the IFV
mounts a DFFG and a GMS/H.

And if you're fighting with these sorts of zoomie high tech flying
apc's,
"ground" warfare will probably be about short, sharp, small fights
between
dispersed forces that manoever for position to sieze strategic bits of
land
or get the other guy's depots.	No percentage in mass-battle type
fighting,
'cause the other guy will just slam you with ortillery if you
concentrate
too heavily.

** This reminds me very much of the Traveller universe. The Imperial
Marine APCs and Grav Tanks were like a flying M1 armed with fusion guns
and TacMissiles. They were imprevious to small and many large arms. They
were armed horrendously, were out-atmosphere capable (no interface
transport, thank you very much) and could go hundreds of kph. The
infantry, when it debussed, was PA with Plasma Guns. Very Very Nasty.
Also very very expensive and small in number. And yes, orbital
superiority is a big plus.

I don't see too much place for "conventioal" artillery at anything
larger
than the platoon mortar size when you can do it from orbit.

** Assuming you have dedicated fleet elements. I think you may still
want company and battalion assets. But regimental artillery definitely
falls under the ortillery tab I think.

If you don't
have some forces in orbit, then you're toast anyway 'cause he
ortilleries
you into the stone age whenever you concentrate....

** Except, of course, on outposts where neither side can afford to
station a ship. Though I wouldn't be surprised if they dropped some Thor
Javelin satellites before leaving - giving a limited ortillery capacity.
On these kind of backwaters, you'd see lower tech troops, with
tracklayers or wheeled vehicles, and with towed guns, etc.

>Until then though, I assume forces wanted a high mobility force and
>specifically those operating with an atmosphere (no AC on airless
rocks)
>will want to be air-cushion. That'd let them move very fast over water,

>most land, tundra, ice floes, etc. It makes amphibious assaults a joke.

>Additionally, you'll get an AC tank moving faster than a track layer.
>And probably better for the ground its running over - more distributed
>surface pressure. Works in swamps!

Sure.  Forces nowadays are getting smaller but more highly lethal, and I

think that trend will continue.  Artillery will get smarter, so you'll
need
less of it and equipment not as BIG to do the same job - which means
easier
logistic support, manoeverability, etc.

** Or the same you can do the same job better which is sometimes
preferable.

 If the arty shells are all guided
by an AI, you won't need to shoot off bazillions of them to get the
other
guy - and that brings in the whole ew/counter-ew thing 'cause each side
will try to spoof the others' arty shells, etc etc.

** Though that leads to spoofing as you pointed out. Unguided shells are
hard to spoof.

But the arty you DO have will HAVE to be quick to move.  No point in any

kind of towed stuff at all, unless it is being used by a low tech force.

** Sort of what I thought. Same reason you don't see many towed AT guns.

We know there'll be conflicts at different tech levels (NSL regulars vs
ESU
regulars is HIGH tech, but NAC farmers' militia vs. marauding PAU
irregular
militia will be much lower tech.  In the case of extremely long lines of

communication, major powers may choose to send lower-tech equipment on
purpose, so that the local infrastructure can support the repair,
maintenance, and ammo resupply requirements of a long campaign.  The NAC

may not take it's best equipment if the enemy force isn't equipped with
high-tech stuff and it is FAR away from NAC core worlds...  So then you
get
the lower tech arty being used because of it's inherent reliability and
ease of maintenance - and maybe it is towed - or wheeled SP.

** I'm thinking of rebellious areas too or areas that want independence
- they get it at a cost - they can't make high-tech goodies so they make
lower tech, cheaper (but still deadly after a fashion) technologies.

** Though I didn't address it by quoting, Oerjan raised a good point
about armouring the skirts on hover vehicles.... obviously you'd have to
be able to to make them viable military vehicles. He raised a point
about low dust, noise and heat sigs. Well, dust sig would be partly a
product of environment, so might or might not be avoidable though some
sort of electrostatic effects might help. Noise... AC might be noisy -
depends on plenum design. I've seen silent fans moving LOTS of air
before. Heat.... same problem as conventional vehicles. Assume to do AC
we need some big ass power - Fusion or A-Matter. To do grav, doubly so.

** The reason I said in my post tanks = arty = planes = helicopters once
you get grav is this - though their are in fact variants (APC vs Tank vs
Grav Arty), the use of conventional arty goes out the window to some
extent - if my tanks are as mobile as planes, armoured like tanks and
hit like a huge hammer, they are almost so dangerous to artillery of a
conventional nature that it is suicidal to use (as are conventional
tanks against tanks that can fly). Similarly planes and helos can't
stand up to something that can carry tank armour AND fly. Unless they
can too. But once you have grav, all other techs seem passe. My theory
is that grav is expensive enough (especially the variant that can fly
rather than just hover) and techy enough that only elite units might get
it. But they'd be EVIL....

>Given this might be the case, wouldn't most artillery be of the form of

>an MRLS or a CPR (Chemically Propelled Round) nature mounted on an AC
>chassis (which grounds to setup and fire, but to leave just flips on
the
>fans and motors...). Given the state of Counter Battery today, that
>would seem like a darn good plan. Shoot, then scoot. Fast.
>

Yep.  Gotta be that way or they'll be counterbatteried right pronto.
And
I'd have the counterbattery stuff set up as MLRS with guided hypersonic
scramjet (or equiv) rounds, so the return fire arrives REALLY fast.

* Or even worse, some sort of loitering drone slaved to the CBR system -
it then just flies over the field with its stealth running, and when an
enemy gun fires, it backtracks and unloads a guided strike rapid-fast.
Thus the offensive arty gets a very small window to launch and move
(like fire as you are driving....).

 This
ammo would be more expensive than a simple explosive round, but the
counterbattery mission is about the most important one that arty can
undertake, so they use the good stuff.

** Hence why a UAV might be the answer.

>You might find field guns in militia and colonial forces (easier to
make
>than MRLS) similarly to why you'd find IAVRs and RRs there instead of
>GMS many times.
>

And that gives we gamers an excuse to use arty as a mission hook, and
use
them as off-table support...  I have added three of the Heavy Gear arty
pieces to my SG collection, and they are great to use as an objective in

scenarios.  I use that one as a demo game at con's quite often, and it's

lots of fun.  One side has to get on and capture or "spike" the guns,
and
the other has to defend them...  Simple.

** And I'm still waiting for the tech manual on how to build those....
;)

Tom.