Use of Elite SF

John said: 

>1)If you have an elite commando on the 
table, you're using 'em wrong.	SOF do 
NOT belong at the FEBA where people 
drive tanks around.  They belong way 
behind enemy lines where the enemy 
doesn't have anyone capable of putting up 
a fight.

[Tomb] Ignoring heavily armed MP formations, 
rear area security troops, and a chance 
encounter with a line formation rotated out of 
line or new to the area. 

Not necessarily.  Ranger companies were 
at D-Day, and the 1st Special Service Force 
held a chunk of the line at Anzio.  Even 
discounting any historical instances, well, 
needs must when the devil drives.  If you 
need bodies to fill a hole (Battle of the 
Bulge, frex), you get them where you can. 

[Tomb] True, but this would not be what I 
would see as 'using them right' as John 
suggests. This is 'using them wrong 
because you need to'. But every trained, 
expensive, experienced elite raider you lose 
while he fights to plug a hole in LoB is 
going to cost you several times the cost of 
a normal gropo to replace. So it is an 
inefficient use of elite resources. 
Sometimes inefficient is necessary, so rules 
would be handy. But just because you must 
do a thing doesn't mean it isn't 'using them 
wrong'. 

[Tomb] I agree with John that a unit isn't 
likely to self rally, but this hinges on the 
whole rallying issue. Units have pulled back 
and went back in, but they were rallied. 
The question is at what size can a unit 
realistically expect some possibility of an 
organic self-rally? Fireteam? Squad? 
Platoon? Company? I have seen and read 
about instances of self-rallying in squads 
and in platoon sized actions. One might say 
these actually occur in DS2 beneath the 
granularity level, so when a unit actually 
breaks and pulls back, that means the 
morale of the NCOs and leaders who'd 
usually be rallying the forces is also broken, 
and an external rallying is required. This 
would explain the existing rules and not 
necessitate new rules. 

[Tomb] Keep in mind that every 
successively higher level GZG game 
abstracts a greater amount of the 
underlying detail of what is happening 
(FMA Skirmish will still abstract some 
micro-scale details, Stargrunt abstracts a 
lot of details of what individual guys are 
doing, and DS2 abstracts details of what is 
going on within platoons, and FMA Drop 
Troops will undoubtedly abstract the 
details of the actions of companies or 
battalions, etc.). This abstraction is 
significant because it means a lot of 
underlying detail is subsumed.... troops 
who are showing good morale in DS2 may 
already have broken, started to retreat, 
and been rallied - all without any visibility 
on the DS2 game board. 

Tomb.  
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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
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