Re: A bunch of different stuff from the Digest

On 27 Sep 2004 at 17:16, The GZG Digest wrote:

> From: J L Hilal <jlhilal@yahoo.com>
> 
> - --- Thomas Westbrook <tom_westbrook@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Combat ranges when from 50-m to 1000-m (During the US civil War)
down to
> > 300-m in WW2 and down to 50-m in Vietnam. 

I mostly lurk on here these days, and I only get the digest, so I missed

this. Combat ranges (I'm assuming you are talking about rifled musket 
engagement ranges) during the American Civil War were not usually at 
1000m. You had sharpshooters hitting targets at 800 yards, and maybe out

to 1000 yards, but the vast majority of rifled musket combat fell in the

50 to 150 yard range (even though the rifled musket was capable of
longer 
range fire). This has been rather well described by Brent Nosworthy in 
_The Bloody Crucible of Courage_.

> In particular, some naval propellent cordites are prone to sweat
> nitroglyceryn and the shell fillers become prone to detonations from
> jarring or tropical climate heat. 

Just an odd bit of synchronicity, as I've been reading about the
invasion 
of the Pacific island of Peleliu (September to November, 1944). They 
mentioned that there's still a lot of unexploded ordnance on the island,

which can be dangerous due to its unstable nature.

A friend of mine went to the Somme battlefield earlier this year. There 
are still a couple of people killed each year due to unexploded ordnance

from World War I, though most of it is probably best described as "death

by misadventure". The son of the woman whose B&B he was staying at died 
this way. He found an old Mills bomb. It exploded when he tried to clean

it. With a grinder. Old rusty unstable bomb + heat from friction +
sparks 
= evolution in action.
 
> Although it was presented in the US press as a disaster, it did
> little military damage to US forces, most of the damage to US forces
being
> political and PR.

The U.S. press did not present it as a disaster. What they did was 
juxtapose the positive spin of the U.S. military prior to Tet with the 
unexpected (though intelligence suggested that the VC were building up 
for an offensive as early as November, 1967) violence of the Tet 
offensive. 

Here's a link to an essay on this very topic, by Don North, a reporter
in 
Vietnam at the time.

http://historynet.com/vn/blvcassaultonembassy/index.html

The third paragraph mentions the conclusions drawn by Army historian 
William Hammond. Hammond wrote in 1988, "It is undeniable that press 
reports were more often accurate than the public statements or the 
administration in portraying the situation in Vietnam. In the end, 
President Johnson and his advisers put too much faith in public 
relations."

The idea that the Vietnam war was lost due to the press turning on the 
military is still very much pervasive -- particularly in the military --

as the comments on this list have suggested. I thought I'd present the 
counter argument. 

> From: Robert Makowsky <rmakowsky@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: Initiative - was RE: Piquet
> 
> I was thinking that, along with the fact that it
> allows the wild results we see from real life.  Very
> appealing to me as I tend to be more into how the
> combat was fought and not who won because they were
> able to exectute based on an obscure rule.

I'll also point out that Piquet is very good for co-operative play. This

is a variation of playing the game that some folks actually prefer. I'm 
going to be gaming out an alt-history engagement with a friend who isn't

as strong, tactically, as I am. We are gaming it for his novel. We did a

co-operative game once before for a battle in his novel and it worked 
very well.

Another area where Piquet works well is in solitaire gaming, since you 
don't know who will win the initiative next or what cards will come up.
 
> From: Beth
>
> Having said all that, the uncertainty and potentially uneven
initiative
> does mean that it is not for people who like control in a game and its
> pretty much one of those things you either really like or really
loathe.

This sums it up very nicely. I happen to like the system because you see

things happen in Piquet that you don't see in other games but you do see

in real life. I think it's a lot of fun.

Allan

---

Allan Goodall	    http://www.hyperbear.com
agoodall@att.net   agoodall@hyperbear.com

"O would some power the giftie gie us to see ourselves as others see us"
 - Robert Burns, "To A Louse"