Re: My own comments on Re: mixing technology force in Dirtside

--- John K Lerchey <lerchey@andrew.cmu.edu> wrote:

> then, cost effectiveness is not always what I have
> in mind when building 
> (some of you shudder...)

No, BUT. . . 

What does the prevalence of SLAM-armed vehicles say
about your force?  What does it say about their
society, about their doctrine, and about their beliefs
regarding military power?

For instance:  In WWII, the British had two types of
bad tank.  Infantry Tanks and Cruiser Tanks.  This
reflects the (badly flawed) pre-war British
understanding of the nature of armored warfare.  It is
interesting for that reason.  The Brits did not set
out to build crap tanks, they just had a skewed
opinion of what would be useful.

Modern terms:  Soviet tanks have a lot short-cuts
taken in order to make them easy to produce.  This is
due to their view on the violence of modern warfare. 
US tanks (M-1 family at least) were built to be really
damn good with very little worries about budgetary
problems.  This reflects US emphasis on small
high-tech forces which can maul much larger ones. 
Oddly enough, the US emphasis is much more
cost-effective.  Before people start screeching about
how it ain't really, remember our track record vs.
Russkie armor.	The most expensive army in the world
is the one that comes in second-place when someone
else comes calling.

DSII: The NRE uses stealth.  I know OO insists it is
overpriced and I'm shooting myself in the foot, but it
reflects a doctrine which tries to preserve the very
valuable, relatively few, and very highly trained
troopers driving those vehicles.  

> challenge.  Likewise, in the Napoleonic era, I
> played the Russians.	The 
> French had it all over them, but they were neat.  I
> loved the 
> semi-immobile masses, big (though not that
> effective) guns, and the fact 
> that while could barely manuever (comparatively),
> they	would stand and 
> hold forever.

I really do think that this view of Russian troops
(reinforced by most Nappy-era games) is exaggerated,
and that the Russians were for the most part not much
worse than any of Napoleon's other opponents. 

John

		
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