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

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004, John Atkinson wrote:

> --- 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?
>

Well, among other things, it says that they favor a "saturation" type 
weapon over the (probabley more costly in $) accurate GMS.   Part of
that 
could be doctrine - quasi artillery that can hit multiple targets with 
splash damage - and part of it could be poor military expenditure 
thinking - it's cheaper to field rockets than it is to field missiles,
so 
if we put enough of 'em out there, it's gotta be ok!.

To be fair (or whatever) I designed this force of what I had sitting in
a 
box when I decided that I wanted to build a DSII OGRE force.  The
banshee 
looks (to me) more like a saturation rocket weapon than the P.E. missile

tank does.  The banshee has twin (connected) boxes that are reminiscent 
of rocket pods, while the P.E. missile tank has three missiles on rails.

It *looks* like a SLAM to me. :)

> 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.
>

Absolutely.  No argument at all.  By the same token, it was pretty clear

that the French during that period were fully prepared to win WWI. 
Sadly 
for them, the Germans were gearing up for WWII. :)  I've found that my 
SLAMs are not terribley effective against OGREs, but that's ok, 'cause
the 
missile tanks in OGRE were not that effective in the original game.
Thus, 
my Combine political and military leaders have/had a skewed opinion on
the 
merits of the SLAM vs the GSM/H. :)

> 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.
>

Right.	And I don't this particular force to be quite up to current U.S.

standards.  I look at them as being fairly good and competent, but not 
quite cutting edge.  Thus, the MBTs have HKPs instead of MDCs (OGRE 
secondary batteries are MDCs, so I wanted the MBTs to be not quite as 
good), but OTOH, the tank destroyers do have MDCs, albeit in a fixed
mount 
(those things look like Swedish S tanks!).  I wanted them to have punch 
beyond what the normal tank has, in the same way that the WWII M36 with 
its 90mm punched harder than the 75mm/76mm gun on the Sherman.

> 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.
>

I use stealth in some of my vehicles as well, but not all on all of
them. 
I think that sometimes that die shift will save your bacon, so when it 
does, it was worth it. :)

>> 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.
>

I agree with that as well.  However, most rules don't.	Thus, if you're 
going to play Russians, you're going to have to suffer the stereotypes
of 
the rule writers.  Rather than whine about how the Russians should be 
better than the rules allow, I have done what I can to try to win within

the rules limits.  Mostly, the Russian command was inferior and thus,
more 
static and less flexible, which is reflected in the rules I gamed with,
so 
it was always in my best interest to have a really strong starting 
position.  Worked pretty well.	 I just never *expect* my Russians to
act 
like French, so I'm not disappointed.

Similarly, I don't expect my SLAM tanks to act like GSMs, so again,
while 
I may not be delighted with the number of kills they pull, I don't have 
any false expectations, and try to use them where they'll do some good.
:)

> John
>

Thanks for taking the time to discuss this.  I'm enjoying it. :)

J