Re: Tech Levels and Quality was Re: DS3 design (long)

On Fri, 24 Sep 2004, Thomas Westbrook wrote:

> My biggest gripe with DS2 is that the milita weapons are assumed to be
> inferior to the regular army weapons, yet I have been in National
Guard 
> armories that still have M1 Garands from WW2 and Korea, which IMHO are

> better weapons than the POS M16 series.
>

So my take on this (as O.O. alluded to earlier) is that it's not just
the 
*weapons* involved.  A good part of it is training and the ability to
find 
targets.  Yes, I can take an M-1 Garand (a fine rifle!), but if you put
me 
out into the field with 4 or 5 of my friends, none of whom are trained 
infantrymen (militia are we!), and face us off against a squad of 
well-trained (line!) military professionals armed with shorter ranged 
weapons (M-16s), I'm fairly confident that they'll:

a) find us before we find them
b) be able to target us better than we can target them (all of us over 
open sights)
c) know how to coordinate fire and select targets
d) kick our stupid militia asses

Does my M-1 fire further and more accurately than an M-16?  Yeah, if the

RIFLEs are being compared.  But if you compare ME with a trained GRUNT, 
the grunt WILL likley shoot MUCH better than me over greater ranges.

DSII abstracts a lot of things into ranges, targeting dice, and chits. 
I'm not saying that it doesn't need a major overhaul, but it should at 
least be respected for the things that are elegant and slick about it. 
I 
think that the fact militia truly sucks compared to line infantry makes 
sense.

Just another opinion...

John