Re: gzg-d Digest V2012 #31

On Fri, Feb 3, 2012 at 12:00 AM,  <gzg-d-request@firedrake.org> wrote:

> Army A is from a democracy that is not expansionist militarily and
whose
> main concerns are self defense and the defense of its allies. The
value of
> crew members is high and vehicles are highly survivable, giving up
some
> mass for extra fire fighting, point defense and internal subcomponent
> armour. Mobility is somewhat secondary, but still desirable as it may
aid
> survivability. To make up for having a main gun which may not be the
> heaviest or furthest shooting, they make sure they have high quality
> sensors and fire control so what they can range on and see, they hit.
In
> this case, with mobility not the highest priority, maybe tracklayers
are
> okay.

> Army B is from an expansionist charismatic dictatorship. It's primary
> policy and thus doctrinal goals revolve around incursions to expand
> territorial holdings. They need to be fast and hard hitting, but
> sustainment is less critical. They tend to have fewer logistics
vehicles
> than they should and a bit lighter armour and defenses, in exchange
for
> which they fit large, long ranged guns with good firecontrol (but not
the
> best). The units are expected to be more attritional than those of
Army A,
> so they are overall cheaper and the crew and vehicles tend to be less
> survivable individually. The focus is on coming to the battle with
lots of
> them.

Part of the problem is DS's level of granularity.  Historical armor
geeks get very, very wrapped around the axle about minor differences
in equipment.  But for DS's purposes, a Pz IVf and a M-4A3 are pretty
much the same.	Correctly, Jon wrote the rules presupposing that what
you do with a tank is more important than 5mm of steel more or less.

Strategic situation and economics drive doctrine and procurement which
drives organization and tactics.  In wartime, this tends to simplify
to solutions that actually work, which is why so many historical
armored vehicles end up looking (at the DSII level of granularity)
identical to those of their opponents.	Once you work out how many
infantrymen you need to carry in a half-track, there are only so many
ways to make them all fit.

You average SF gamer buys minis that look cool and then tries to throw
them on the table and figure out what to do with them.

How do I know?	Jon sells minis with twin main guns.  No logical
reason for it, but it looks cool.

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