Re: Re: [GZG] Small thought re: Orbital Assault

On 11/25/05, james mitchell <tagalong@sa.chariot.net.au> wrote:
> as an old battletech player, there is nothing worse than a contested
drop
> zone, there's to much confusion and to many people firing on you as
you
> leave the ship, when dropping planet side you need a base that can
easily be
> defended and lets you move unabated, so as to capture key facilities,
eg the
> power plant, radar , and airfields etc, if you think that you can just
drop

True--but you have to be within striking distance of some objective
worth taking.  Dropping a month's road march from your objective is
pointless.

> and as for insurgent type games, remember that a 15yr with a 1000
dollar
> black-market	rpg 9 can take out a multimillion dollar Abrams tank,
> according to the pentagon and janes,

Easier said then done.	Also don't forget that tanks don't travel alone.

or his mate with a sniper rifle can tie
> up a company of troops for a couple of hours game of tag, I think that
it

What you read in a book somewhere, I've experienced.

Usual result--dead gunman.  They can be triangulated well enough to
find them.  And killing armored soldiers is easier said than done.  It
can be done, but not easily nor reliably.  Especially if their ROE
allows them to return fire when "positively identified".  When it is
all said and done, positive ID is in the eye of the leader on the
ground.  As long as you have an AK to go with the corpse, it's all
good.

Games are possible with COIN scenarios.  But they are lacking the main
advantage of the insurgent--troops not paying 100% attention because
they have done this over and over and over with no contact.  It also
requires a somewhat unrealistic concentration of insurgent assets. 
When a force comes into a town for cordon-and-search, the insurgents
don't know about it ahead of time.  They are improvising on the fly,
while the Government troops have a plan and the leadership has done
rehearsals.  They have discussed what the contingency plans are.  And
they bring enough force to the table to make the eventual outcome
pretty much a given.  If not, they fall back a bit, and scream for air
support.  A pair of Apaches takes the heart out of most insurgents,
and kills the rest.

Most games, however, would come down to a couple of dice rolls. 
Basically, does anyone notice anything wrong before the attack, does
the IED actually go off, where precisely is it in relation to the
vehicle, and then a dice roll vs. the gunner's armor.  Followed by a
react-to-IED drill that won't take long.  And if the initiator is
nearby and the drill is done correctly, you've got one or two
terrorists stuffed and cuffed.	If not, that's about it except for
medevac and vehicle recovery.

> comes down to what a person wants in his games and some of the
funniest
> things can go wrong with a platoon chasing one person all over town,
is alot
> of enjoyment for some and dam right pain for other's, if you think not
alot

Yeah, it's a pain if you've experienced it.  But given a platoon and a
villiage, I know my response.

Cordon it off, request some support, and go house by house.  I've done
it, a few times with quite good results.

John
--
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again.  We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani

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