[SG] [DS] Mr. Atkinson's feedback :)

1) John, what's a reasonable separation for two 
platoons of IFVs (part of the same infantry 
company) on the move? I would have thought 
two lines, each containing 3 vehicles, with 200m 
horizontal spacing, 100m vertical (along the 
axis of attack) spacing was enough. Perhaps 
I'm way short? It was this configuration which 
allowed the 400m artillery diameter to cream 
the crap out of the APCs. Anyone else care to 
venture or produce an FM reference? At some 
point you exceed the range of mutual support. 
Before I blame the manouver commander for 
his incompetence, I should have some idea how 
to advise him for following games.

2) Also, something else bothers me a bit in 
DS2. Why is all artillery a 2" burst radius? Yes, it 
has different chit draws. But the point of some 
artillery types is coverage. (example: MRLS). 
Standard tube artillery (esp using ToT) can put 
down excellent pinpoint fire. But MRLS give area 
coverage. But all artillery is a 2" burst radius in 
DS. (In SG, areas being grossly restricted for 
some types, they at least capture this 
distinction between small area booms and big 
area booms). 

3) Why can't I call artillery down on a grid 
reference? Obviously the game doesn't have 
rules, but pre-registered fire points on GPS'd 
map coordinates hardly seems impossible 
today. And if we assume you can see anything 
on the board from recon drones, satellites, etc, 
and you don't actually need to do spotting of 
units and then IDing and then artillery calls, then 
we'd quickly see the force compositions of DS 
forces being ten hover jeeps or grav bikes with 
artillery spotters and a huge whopping pile of 
artillery (at least for defenses or meeting 
engagements). Artillery alone if used in quantity 
is effective enough to ruins someone's day. 

4) IAVRs in SG2 are underpowered, like GMS/P. 
Concur. 

5) Why would you want to close assault a tank 
unit with infantry in DS2? If you force the unit to 
make a reaction test, they may withdraw. This 
gives you the position for free. Plus you may 
not have IAVR equipped troops. (Militia, irregs, 
etc). 

6) I find DS2 CA interesting. You don't seem to 
get good defensive reaction test mods for 
being in position or for having armour or for 
having PA. You get penalized for being attacked 
by PA, but not for defending with it. Odd. 
Seems to me PA is fairly effective in SG2 in 
either case.....

7) Debarking a vehicle under attack. John 
seemed to take both sides of the fence. (He 
didn't, it just seemed that way). He says 
basically you wouldn't get out under 
machinegun fire, but if the vehicle was alight or 
the GEV lost cushion and went crunch into the 
ground, he'd be out like a flash. But then again, 
since the driver controls the ramps, he might 
have a hard time getting out. Oh, and someone 
is shooting a machinegun...? 

I guess what he was suggesting (correct me if 
I'm wrong in your oh so gentle manner *grin*, 
John) is that there are some things that inhibit 
your desire to get out and some things which 
enhance it. Would it be possible to create a list 
of modifiers that should apply, I wonder? 
Getting shot at drops the TL, having a disabled 
vehicle ups the TL, etc. And should debarkation 
take more game time if the driver is dead 
(can't throw open the ramp)? And we talk 
about a dead crewman (killed by spall), but we 
won't unass, unless of course there is also a 
fire, etc. How do we relate this to known vehicle 
states in SG2? (Immobilized, Disabled, 
Destroyed, Systems Down)?

8) I hate mixed mobility forces too. Don't yet 
have quite enough GEV minis. And still trying to 
figure out how to do GEV CEVs that make 
sense. OTOH, the minute you throw in transport 
vehicles, engineers, etc, don't you kind of 
automatically get mixed mobility types? 

9) DS2 has no quality roll for spotting (well, it 
does, in that you call the arty, but it either 
arrives on target or doesn't come at all). Even 
today, we see US Spec Ops blown up by their 
own air support and Canadian troops nuked by 
USAF. Now, I'm not trying to raise any sort of 
spectre here, but the point I'm making is the 
DS2 rules seem fratricide free. Perhaps this will 
be the case in 200 years. I have much less faith 
than the author on this one. Doubly so as a 
former grunt who was usually likely to be on the 
receiving end of any errors. 

10) There is no ten. Carry on with the day's 
training. 
---------------------------------------------
Thomas Barclay
Co-Creator of http://www.stargrunt.ca 
Stargrunt II and Dirtside II game site

No Battle Plan Survives Contact With Dice.
-- Mark 'Indy' Kochte