Re: [DS] Some questions from this weekend

John Atkinson wrote:

> >>But since we're talking about Dirtside II where 50-100m is .5-1"
it's
> >>fairly trivial.
> >
> >That's a large enough potential deviation to turn a "perfect"
placement of
> >the sheaf (ie., covering the entire platoon) into a marginal hit
(hitting
> >only a few elements in the platoon).
>
>Now, iven that that is a 50m deviation in the air,
>when it starts dispensing 'smart' bomblets, is it
>enough to affect where those smart bomblets fly?

According to what I've been told a 50-100 meter deviation of the bomblet

release point tends to give a corresponding deviation in where the
bomblets 
fall if they're dumb HEF-style ones or are able to look for a target if 
they're smart MAK-style ones, so I suspect that it would affect the 
location of the beaten area as well. Don't know for certain, of course.

> >>Personally, modern infantry have nasty, sharp, pointy
> >>teeth inside about 300m so any tanker that tries to
> >>get that close to people with modern AT weapons should
> >>just be ruled dead of terminal stupidity.
> >
> >I design those teeth for a living... Today's "IAVR"
> >equivalents don't kill a modern tank frontally, unless they're very
lucky.
>
>True.	But in an "overrun" attack there are more opportunities for
flank 
>and rear shots (sure, you're driving straight at the infantry you see,
but 
>if the platoon has three squads on line and you're driving towards
second 
>squad, maybe first squad can shoot you), as well as belly shots (when 
>cresting unmodelled terrain) etc.

Still means that the grunts need to hold their fire until after the
tanks 
have opened up... if the squads are on line, first squad won't get a
very 
favourable Pkill until the tanks are almost on top of second squad. 
'Course, first squad may very well have a tank or three of their own 
attacking them (or at the very least prepared to fire in their direction

the instant it detects something suspicious) - tank platoon and company
FMs 
puts a lot of emphasis on having wingmen covering flank sectors and
things 
like that :-/

> >And why would the tanks be restricted to machine guns only? Main guns
can
> >be *quite* effective against infantry as well, particularly if
they're
> >capable of firing beehive-style rounds... not to mention what a DFFG
can do
> >to a foxhole at close range.
>
>Not against troops at 50m or less.  You can't track 'em fast enough.

With a large-caliber beehive round set for muzzle burst, you rarely
*need* 
to track them very closely - having the gun pointed in the correct
general 
direction tends to be sufficient... and when you're operating as a
platoon 
or company rather than as individual vehicles, there should be a gun 
covering each sector. DFFGs and other SciFi weapons may be different;
it's 
a bit hard to tell yet <g>

> >The US Army in 'Nam seems to have been pretty successful when
> >close-assaulting well dug-in enemy infantry in the jungle with light
> >armoured vehicles, BTW - and while the North Vietnamese didn't have
as good
> >AT weapons as we have today, the Sheridans and ACAVs assaulting them
didn't
> >have much armour to speak of either :-/
>
>Close-assaults I've read of tend to be dumping huge volumes of 152mm
and 
>MG at relatively short range, with any "overruning" tending to come
after 
>the VC have decided that arguing with the Blackhorse was  bad idea.  I
may 
>be wrong.

The battle reports I've seen (mostly in Armor magazine though, not in 
official histories) usually describe the action as the armour moving 
forward through the enemy position blasting everything that gets into 
sight. In addition quite a few of these battles seem to have started as 
ambushes, thus giving the VC/NVA plenty of opportunities for flank shots

even if the US troops should stop :-/ (Can't've been just the Blackhorse

who did this though; I've seen reports describing M48s and IIRC
Centurions 
in very similar situations too... more armour than the Sheridans, but 
smaller guns :-/ )

> >>Especially considering that according the the dumb grunt reading
over my
> >>shoulder, a 4-man fireteam of 'Merican infantry could easily be 
> carrying 8 AT-4s
> >>without breaking a sweat.
> >
> >You're the one who wanted to reduce the 60-lb combat carry; 2 AT4s
per man
> >is about half that load already. Then you have rifle+ammo, water and 
> possibly body armour >on top of that as "must-haves"... if you're not
to 
> exceed 60 lbs per man, who carries the >SAW and the M203? Not to
mention 
> the fancy battlefield electronics? <g>
>
>He was also mentioning that his combat load is pretty close to his
160lb 
>body weight.  :)

So why do you want to reduce the standard combat load, if your average 
grunts can carry that much? After all, above you seem to take his 
description of what an American fire team can carry as some sort of
norm... <g>

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

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