Re: [OT] It's D-Day (well, the 58th anniversary)!

--- Tomb <tomb@dreammechanics.com> wrote:
> Sorry for the OT, but I just noticed the date!

> but I just wanted to
> note it since I didn't see a darn thing about it
> today's paper! <grrr>

Heh.

I was reminded of it at 0630 this AM when our CO gave
a short speech on the subject.

Our battalion took 30% casualties in the first few
hours, when the 299th landed ahead of the first wave
to augment the naval beach parties with demolitions
assets.  Even got a mention in the movie.  :)

> How do people usually run orbital landings? Do you
> usually use
> invulnerable landers that just deploy the troops to
> the table *presto*
> or do you usually let weapons engage them? Do your
> landers usually hang
> around and fight?

Never have.  Would probably permit any air defenses to
engage, but then again a planet is a big place, air
defenses are expensive, and any place with good air
defenses (ie: Static systems like protect Moscow and
other strategic targets in USSR) would probably not be
selected as a beachhead, so there shouldn't be much
more than tactical ADA assets.
 
> SG:
> 
> Has anyone noticed the wide scatter for SG OA
> landings? It would seem to

Yup.  I actually like that.

> me by this time period, you should be able to land
> on a dime (with grav
> chutes, thrust packs, blah blah PSB blah). I find
> any kind of airborne
> or orbital insertaion leaves you scattered to hell
> and gone.... (kind of
> D-day ish!). 

I doubt that.  To give all your infantry the kind of
pilot training equivelant to a single-engine license
(no matter how high-tech, basic aerodynamics are not
getting any less complex) would jack their price tag
higher than it would be worth.

Now, Special Operations Forces could be more precise
in their landings, but not Joe Paratrooper.
 
> BOTH:
> 
> And how to you do heliborne insertion from a hover
> in either case
> (DS/SG)? Both the standard hover and the free-rappel
> variety? Would
> these (esp the latter) let you insert troops where a
> normal LZ could not
> exist according to the rules? And how to represent

Latter, yes.  Fast-roping permits (as seen in
Blackhawk Down) insertions into even urban areas.

> assault gliders in
> either, or insertion via hang glider or ultralight?
> Or zepellin? 

Uhh. . . I don't.  YMMV.
 
John

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