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Re: (FT,SG) News Break

From: Oerjan Ohlson <oerjan.ohlson@t...>
Date: Tue, 22 Jul 2003 01:13:19 +0200
Subject: Re: (FT,SG) News Break

Allan Goodall wrote:

> >Sure, more accurate artillery would be more "realistic" (although
it's easy
> >enough to PSB accuracy away in an SF game), but devastatingly
accurate
> >artillery strikes in SGII scale can just...suck..  Makes for a very
quick,
> >and generally quite boring, game when Death From Above wipes out one 
> side on
> >turn two.
>
>I've talked to Oerjan about this, as I was contemplating making some
changes
>to vehicles and artillery for SG2. Yes, you're right, if you have a
one-sided
>combat (i.e. Afghanistan 2001/2002) it's going to be boring gaming the
one
>side.

What? You mean you don't find the rolls to see if you flunked the call
for 
arty/PG bombs (thus dropping them on your own location instead of on the

target) exciting? <VBG>

>The thing that gets me about artillery in SG2 is that the second and
third
>tubes of a three tube fire mission deviate too much. Oerjan suggests
that they
>shouldn't deviate more than the blast radius of a single tube. That
makes
>artillery a lot more devastating. However, the flip side with modern
artillery
>is that if you are fighting against an equal force you have a major
problem
>with counter battery fire. You may get your one fire mission, but a
second or
>third may be out of the question (or you could force the issue and
possibly
>lose your artillery assets).

Shoot-and-scoot tactics would be prudent... but it means that your 
artillery can't shoot again until they've finished scooting. And it
doesn't 
always save you, either :-/

Even if you're not fighting against an equal force, there's almost
always a 
time lag involved between calling for support and getting it - the
bigger a 
hammer you want to use, the longer it is likely to take before it
arrives 
(the larger guns tend to be further behind the front, so the rounds have

longer to travel). If your target manages to move away before your fire 
mission arrives, well... tough :-/ Make sure you pin the enemy better
next 
time! Your platoon mortars have a very short time lag, but are they 
powerful enough to hurt the enemy? (Eg., today's 60mm mortars aren't 
terribly effective against modern body armour.)

>Then there are the other assets around that would take out rounds in
bound to
>a battle area. This is more futuristic stuff, though I understand work
is
>being done in this area.

Yep. Both the US and the ex-USSR have/had EW systems designed to
detonate 
incoming HE shells prematurely by fooling them into believing that they 
were closer to the ground than they actually were. PGMs can be spoofed
by 
various means, not least of which is providing false targets (as 
demonstrated eg. in NATO bombardment of Kosovo and Serbia). The THEL
(IIRC 
Tactical High-Energy Laser) system has demonstrated the ability to shoot

down multiple simultaneously incoming Katyusha rockets, but hasn't
reached 
field status yet. And so on :-/

>The idea I came up with, but never finished, was the equivalent of an
air
>defence environment.

This would probably be the easiest way to handle it, yes.

Later,

Oerjan
oerjan.ohlson@telia.com

"Life is like a sewer.
  What you get out of it, depends on what you put into it."
-Hen3ry

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