Re: DS II Infantry vs vehicles

Brian Bilderback wrote:

>Uncle
> 
>You can put down Jane's now... I'm pretty well stumped.

The parts about Carl Gustav, MBT-LAW and AT4 weren't taken from Jane's.
Developing those systems is my day-time job, which gives me a fair idea
of their limitations and development potentials :-/

Some of the parts about Javelin and the rest of our competitors came
from Jane's, though <g>

>However, in your last few lines I see my possible salvation. I know
you >meant that defensice systems will improve, but so will the
weapons. 

Some parts of them will improve. Other parts won't, unless they're so
high-tech they can violate what we currently percieve as physical laws.
Newton's laws in particular.

>Remember we are playing "in 
>the future."  Perhaps technology has advanced far enough to give these

>weapons greater range.  I still think a heavier answer to the IAVR,
with 
>somewhat improved range, and better killing power, would be
attractive, 
>since their diurect-fire nature removes at least ECM from the
equation.  

You can get improved killing power, yes - but you can quite reasonably
expect armour to improve at roughly the same pace, cancelling out the
improved killing power. In order to get noticably improved range
(without disastrously low hit probabilities), you need either 

* a much higher muzzle velocity. Pretty much can't be done with a
man-portable recoilless weapon unless you're willing to risk serious
harm to its crew from overpressure whenever you fire the thing (except
possibly PA). Or,

* boost velocity in the trajectory. Can be done, but you have to be
certain that the projectile points exactly the right way when the
booster engine kicks in 'cuz otherwise your hit probability goes down
the drain. This is the reason the rocket-assisted anti-armour CG rounds
aren't really effective beyond ~500 meters - they usually don't point
exactly the right way, so accuracy does go down the drain at long
ranges. If you want to shoot further than this with a boosted grenade,
you need at least inertial guidance in the projectile - turning it into
a GSM/P with Basic fire control rather than an IAVR, to use SGII
terminology. DSII doesn't have GSM/Ps, incorporating them in the IAVR
category for simplicity instead.

>As for the ADP/PDS question, I'll concede that they probably will have
to >be capable of defending against this new weapon.  

ADS/PDS really should be able to stop IAVRs as well <shrug>

>I'm glad I threw this to the 
>group before playing it, hopefully it will survive, but in a truly
playable 
>form. And your comments on the capabilities of the Carl Gustav, and
>beehive  rounds, has lead me to the following idea, evolved from the
>SAVR:

Personally I'd treat them either as an SAW element with IAVRs, or as a
combined SAW/man-portable Ultra-Light Artillery element with IAVRs (see
rules on Andrew Martin's page for Ultra-Light Artillery). No need for
new mechanics IMO <shrug>

Regards,

Oerjan Ohlson
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
- Hen3ry