RE: [sg] platoon stuff and combat engineers

--- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:
> 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.

All civillian firearms use the same caliber as your
military weapons?  Interesting.  It's your
setting--although to be fair, I do also issue
standardized assault rifles to practically every adult
in my Empire.  Of course, there are a wide variety of
handguns, hunting rifles, etc. in civillian usage, but
the availability of 5mm caseless rifles does mean this
caliber is carried by most stores that carry any ammo.

Of course this doesn't do my regulars much good since
they carry 4mm gauss rifles and those are restricted
availability.
  
> > 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

Are you talking about mortars and missles??  Now,
machinegun ammo will be pretty much the same (IMU, as
in Real Life, my SAWs fire the same ammo as my rifles)
but linking it is a sonofabitch.

> 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 ;)

Oh, I would understand automated microfactories on
every farmstead.  

I would also expect that the first thing an invader
would do would be to confiscate 'em, move them to a
central location, and control strictly what you could
and couldn't produce.

> 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).

Uhhh, your civillians use frequency-hopping encrypted
radios??  Compatible with your military commo nets??

You just made my intel guy's day.  They'll send a spy
into the corner store, buy one, break it down and
analyze it, and all of a sudden I'm listening to every
transmission you make.	Wooo-hooo!  

And since I send people to prison for misplacing
COMSEC equipment, you AREN'T listening to mine.
 
> > 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.

??? Please explain.
  
> > 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?

Petroleum, Oils, and Lubricants. 

Military equipment eats POL.  I mean, I could roll my
AVLB into a corner gas station and put their 15W40
into my engine.  The probem is one of scale--I've had
to, on one occasion, drop 10 gallons into my engine, 
plus more into the transmission.  Last time I lubed
the track, I just did the roadwheels and the tongue,
and I still used 6 tubes of grease (yes, it had been a
while since the damn thing got lubed).	Then there's
those POL products that there is little call for in
civillian life (90W oil for ACEs, FRH for M-113 ramp
hydraulics, etc, etc, etc).  I might could find them
somewhere in Kileen, but I'd have to spend a lot of
time looking.
 
> > 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.

I'm personally pessimistic.  AIs will be useful to
handle some things, but not everything.
 
> To be fair to your question in the settings you play
> in I'd probably guess
> (and probably incorrectly) to help the platoon out.

It may or may not be incorrect.  I might be able to
drop some HEF around the recon platoon, relay the
guns, and drop MAK onto the tanks.

The point is, which one will your computer choose?

> 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).

You have critters that can kill a tank?
   
John

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup