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Re: FT: Thought on Orbital Bombardment...

From: "Imre A. Szabo" <ias@s...>
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2003 20:23:02 -0500
Subject: Re: FT: Thought on Orbital Bombardment...

> Again, it depends on the situation.  I've heard
> arguements that the German bombardments of Moscow and
> Stalingrad actually made things worse, because the
> rubble made even better obstacles and hiding places
> than intact buildings did.  *shrug* I'm not the WWII
> expert here, so I'll leave others to argue that.

The worst was Flanders in World War 1, but I notice that your examples
are
cities, not islands in the Pacific drive.

> except that most of the ships didn't carry 16" guns,
> they were destroyers and cruisers with 5" and 8" guns.

If you read and understood my original post, you would realize that the
weapons on frigates, destroyers, and light cruisers are ineffective
against
terran planets.  Secondly, cruiser and destoyers were used for shore
bombardment in World War II quite a bit by the U.S.  And those 4" to 8"
guns
did a good job.  So if anything, my suggustions are too restrictive on
orbital bombardments...  For example, Mars is an O2; therefore class 1
and
class 2 beams are ineffective.	Class 3 beams get one die each.  Another
example is Earth, a type T, only the class 4 beams off an ESU Kamorov
are
effective, and they only get 1 die each.  The moon would be type O1;
therefore class 2 beams get 1 die each, class 3 beams get 2 dice each,
etc.

> Well, even Ortillery, which is designed for hitting
> the ground, isn't guaranteed to hit on the first try.
> And how much area does that grid coordinate cover?

Nor is friendly, dirtside artillary.  Grid coordinates vary, from
kilometers
to a meter.  Depends on what map you are using.  With computerized fire
control you zoom into the level of detail you need.

> and which typ of anti-ship weapon are we talking
> about?  Beam Weapons? that's a pretty focused beam of
> energy, how effective is that at Area effect
> bombardment?

Individually, insignificant, but if you control the orbitals and have a
half
dozen battleships up there...

> No, it means that the way we make it work doesn't
> please you.  Anti-ship weapons are designed for
> anti-sHip fire, and suffer specific lmitiations which
> make them less effective against ground targets than a
> dedicated Ortillery system is.

The reason it doesn't please me is because it is an extrapolation that
is
inconsistent from what we know from history.  Less effective does not
mean
ineffective.  Milan Anti-Tank Gided Missiles are not made to take out
machinegun nests.  But they were used for just that in the Falklands
Wars.
Less effective then a specialized missile, yes.  Ineffective, no. 
Another
good example is larger caliber naval guns made to take on dreadnoughts.
They were less effective then a specialized weapon when used against
destroyers.  There are cases where they puched holes straight through
them
and never detonated.  But they still sank destroyers.

> Uh-huh.  And what scale of conflict does Harpoon
> simulate?  I've never played it, so I can't comment on
> the applicability. to this discussion.

Individual ships, aircraft, and missiles.  In larger battles you have
multiple taskforces of these running arround.  It's much more detailed
then
Full Thrust and I don't recommend running multiple carrier battle groups
except on the computer version.  But it is a lot of fun on the
computer...

> Again, which system?	While they may be the equivalent
> of modern and historical naval guns in what their
> primary role is, they vastly differ from them in how
> they carry out their function.

That's why I made them much less effective except against asteroids.

ias

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