RE: [sg] platoon stuff and combat engineers

G'day,

> OK, I'll buy 50 guys foraging for food...
> Ammo, I'll buy that you could acquire rifle ammunition
> in small quantities from sporting good stores (most of
> it will be useless as it will be the wrong caliber...

Assuming they don't use the same caliber.
 
> Mortar ammo, linked machinegun ammo, and guided
> missles will be far more difficult to come by....

Assuming they're not interchangeable warheads for the rifle ammo, and
that
you can't carry a lot due to its size and that its not easily made on
the
way. That's the beauty of scifi mine can be way more fanciful in some
respects than your vision of the universe and neither's wrong just
depends
on what you want ;)
I do understand your points its just that my background works on
different
premises (and I must apologise because I should have stated them up
front).

> Radio parts you'll find.  But not the specific kinds
> you need to fix microminiature frequency-hopping
> helmet radios.

Assuming they don't use the same parts. They mightn't today, but there's
nothing stopping them 180 years into the future (well 400 years in my
time
line).

> Spare parts, especially for power armor, will also
> pose a problem.  

That's why specific family lines are tasked with maintaining them in my
fictional setting.
 
> Unless you're defending a refinery there will also be 
> a shortage of POL products.

POL? I'm assuming this has to do with petrochemicals?
   
> Can your computer make judgement calls?  

Could be. Model wise neural nets can do some cool stuff now let alone
what
they could handle in that many generations down the track. I guess that
may
be asking for trouble, but that depends on where the line falls in the
whole
artificial intelligence debate.

> You've got 4 guns available.	One recon team has
> reported that there's a company of tanks parked in the
> open with hatches open, tankers lined up behind a
> truck eating chow, ec.  The other team is being
> overrun by a 2 platoons of enemy militia.  Who gets
> the guns?

To be fair to your question in the settings you play in I'd probably
guess
(and probably incorrectly) to help the platoon out. In the settings I'll
be
using I'd make the same decision as the local fauna is gonna slow down
those
tanks (attracted to vibrations unless going very slowly or very
dispersed).
  
> Time-delay fuzes and direct fire howitzers will help
> with making the initial breach. . . 

Yep ;)

Have fun