=============== OGRE/GEV list, Mar 24th (Last: Mar 21st) =============== ===== Tables of Disorganisation From: sdorr@ix.netcom.com (Scott David Orr) From: sdorr@ix.netcom.com (Scott David Orr) ===== OGRE missile point costs From: Alan.Hench@mail.utexas.edu (Alan A. Hench) ============================== To: "Henry J. Cobb" From: sdorr@ix.netcom.com (Scott David Orr) Subject: Tables of Disorganisation Whoa, you lost me. > [Commander is a Pane rank, Combine Squadrons have Captains. What's a "squadron"? In rl, in the UK or Canada, it's a company of armor (14 tanks if the organization is like the U.S.). In the U.S., it refers only to cavalry, and it's a battalion (70 or ~55 combat vehicles, depending on what kind of cavalry squadron - armored cavalry [3 mixed tank/mechanized recon troops and one tank troop] or divisional cavalry [2 mech recon/security troops, two attack helicopter troops, an motorcycle recon platoon, and a mortar platoon] -- you're talking about). A "troop" is any tank platoon in the Commonwealth, and a cavalry company in the U.S. >(The >rank inflation for armor over infantry is even more confusing than the >cost differences for simular sized units, currently most 20th century >tanks do not carry any officers). Also "pure" Mk-IIIs are usually on >the Combine's side. This much I follow.... > As an example of how confusing this gets, the Major of a Mech Inf >Battalion is of the same rank as the Major of the Hover Company that >carries his grunts around. Well, I don't know about Ogre (how'd you know "Commander" was a Paneuropean rank, anyway?), but in the U.S. Army a battalion commander is usually a Lt. Colonel; companies are commanded mostly by Captains, but often by Majors (esp. big companies, or those that, as U.S. Army helicopter companies did when all pilots are officers, suffer from rank inflation), though Majors tend to occupy staff ranks; occasionally, esp. in war-time or for certain specialist units, a company will be commanded by a senior 1st Lieutenant. Platoons are commanded by Lieutenants, but these officers exercise little authority (it's basically on-the-job training) and the real control typically resides with the company CO. Individual armored vehicles (except for the personal vehicles of officers) are commanded by Sergeants, often Staff Sergeants. The next most senior crewman is a the gunner, after that the driver, and at the bottom of the totem pole the loader (btw, don't GEV's have 2- or 3-person crews? It's just LGEV's with one man, isn't it?). The platoon CO command one two-tank section, and the platoon (senior) sergeant the other. A tank battalion is composed of 4 tank companies (each with 3 4-tank platoons and a command section), plus a battalion HQ platoon (one tank section and one Tactical Operations Center section -- tracked vehicles carrying bunches of electronics, found in all armored cavalry and mechanized infantry squadrons and battalions too), one scout platoon (3 sections of cavalry fighting vehicles), and one mortar platoon (two sections of self-propelled mortars), for a total of 58 tanks, 6 CFV's (M3 "Devers" in the U.S., usually called "Bradleys" like the M2, because they're practically indistinguishable), and 4 mortar carriers. Infantry works about the same way, except most modern armies have only 3 squads (commanded by Sergeants), each broken into two fire-teams (typically commanded by Corporals), plus a heavy weapons squad (anti-tank missiles), which is usually split between the other squads. U.S. mech infantry platoons now have 2 large squads, in order to avoid the fourth vehicle in the platoon being used as an "HQ" vehicle and thereby putting both the platoon CO and the platoon sergeant the same place. The vehicles (organic transport) for a separate squad. A mech infantry platoon has 4 mech infantry companies (3 platoon of four vehicles and 2 infantry squadrons each, plus a command section), and anti-tank company (3 self-propelled AT platoons plus a command section riding in APC's), a battalion HQ, a scout platoon, and a mortar platoon, meaning a total of 58 IFV's or APC's, 2 more APC's for the AT company, 6 CFV's, 12 self-propelled AT carriers (M901 ITV's), and 4 mortar carriers. Artillery companies, BTW, are called "batteries", and I think artillery platoons are called "sections" (yes, that IS confusing -- though a section may be a two-gun unit). Vive la difference! Helicopters are like armor, and can be formed into either battalions and companies ("helicopter" units) or squadrons and troops ("cavalry" units). An individual helicopter is typically commanded by a Warrant Officer of some sort (a set of ranks below officers and above enlisted men, reserved for technical specialists). Helicopters squadrons or battalions are organized like more or less like armor, except that there are no support units (spotter helicopters are organic to each company/troop) and there are fewer vehicle in a helicopter unit than in a tank unit. >(Its very strange to have an organic unit's >CO chosen by whichever's support arm's officer has more time in rank). >I'd give each Infantry officer a half-point "virtual" promotion just to >straighten this out, or simply pull in the GEV-PCs as Sections (two >sections and three companies reporting to a MI Battalion Major, no fixed >section to MI company chain of command, please don't loose that Major!) Not a problem in the U.S. Army, since the vehicles are organic to the infantry platoons. In Ogre, you just put a Lt. in charge of each mech infantry platoon, with a sergeant in charge of each infantry squad and another sergeant in charge of the GEV-PC or Hovertruck. A Captain or Major commands each company, and a Lt. Colonel command the battalion. BTW, what's this about "giving points" to officers? That's where you lost me. Scott Orr ----- To: "Henry J. Cobb" From: sdorr@ix.netcom.com (Scott David Orr) Subject: Tables of Disorganisation I wrote: A tank battalion is composed of 4 tank companies (each with 3 4-tank platoons and a command section), plus a battalion HQ platoon (one tank section and one Tactical Operations Center section -- tracked vehicles carrying bunches of electronics, found in all armored cavalry and mechanized infantry squadrons and battalions too), one scout platoon (3 sections of cavalry fighting vehicles), and one mortar platoon (two sections of self-propelled mortars), for a total of 58 tanks, 6 CFV's (M3 "Devers" in the U.S., usually called "Bradleys" like the M2, because they're practically indistinguishable), and 4 mortar carriers. Oops, I goofed -- a tank battalion mortar platoon has 8 mortar carrier (I think); for an infantry battalion, it's only 4. Scott Orr ----- [Sir, you are missing out on a vital part of the OGRE experience, just browse on over to SJG's web site and place an order for the Ogre Minis Book (or support your local retailer, for $15 and skip the shipping costs), on pages 52 to 55 you will find the ToO that have me so confused. -HJC] ------------------------------ To: "Henry J. Cobb" From: Alan.Hench@mail.utexas.edu (Alan A. Hench) Subject: OGRE missile point costs Looking through my old copy of GEV, it lists the VP value for the basic units, and most of the Ogre components. But, it's not clear to me whether the old MkIII/MkV disposable missiles are listed or not. It says that each missile expended is worth 1 VP. Is that just referring to the internal missiles fired through the Missile Racks? Or is that also the VP cost for losing one of the external missiles? I'm taking the total VP cost for an Ogre to get a feel for how much the Ogre "costs". The problem comes when comparing an Ogre with Missile Racks to one with external missiles. Let's say the Ogre has spent 32VP on missiles. With Missile Racks, that works out to about 3 Missile Racks and 15 Missiles. But what about the Ogre with external Missiles? If they are only 1 VP each as well, then it has 32 externally mounted missiles. That's twice as many missiles as the Ogre with Missile Racks. And each one has to be targeted separately to disable. And they can all fire at once instead of just 3 at a time. Seems to me that an externally mounted Missile has to be worth more VP than an internal Missile. I'm just not sure how much of a difference there should be. Is there an actual value given in some text I don't have, like the Minis book? If not, how many VPs would you suggest they cost? Henry, I was looking back at your cost formula, and noticed that it shows a Mobile Howitzer having a slightly higher VP cost than a Howitzer. This would imply that a Mobile Howitzer is at least as valuable, and possibly more valuable than a Howitzer. But my intuition has always been that the Howitzer was the more valuable of the two. I'd like to know what other people think, to see if my intuition is flawed. Overall, is the Mobile Howitzer a more valuable unit than a Howitzer? Or is the Howitzer a better choice in most circumstances? A lot of the examples and fiction I've seen assume the prevalent use of Howitzers, not Mobile Howitzers. Why would Howitzers be so common if the Mobile Howitzer was actually more valuable? Could it simply be because they were talking about a defensive position, where the mobility of the Mobile Howitzer isn't all that important? That would imply that Mobile Howitzers make up their value on the offense. Do people often use Mobile Howitzers as part of an offensive force? ----- [Last things first, MHWZs are smart enough to retire from the field, the big guns make the heroic stands, simply because they can't move. In a long gone Space Gamer, Steve noted that the one-point cost was in expending the missile, or loosing it. (There's a certain amount of infrastructure on the beast that is recovered with it or not, but the external mountings take more surface area per missile, which increases the area to armor, but still Mark V's LOVE Missile Racks, they give first missile shot to Mk-VIs (yes six gets first shot against five) and still win) The errata seems not to have been rolled over to the Web pages, pity. The bigger problem is the following table... OGRE Total Cost - Item Costs = Body Cost Mk-I 25 30 Negative five points Mk-II 50 52 Negative two points Mk-III 100 82 18 points Mk-III-B 120 92 28 points Mk-IV 150 113 37 points Mk-V 150 118 32 points Mk-VI 210 168 42 points Thank goodness the current working formula does not cover OGREs! (I can just see a battlefield littered with Mk-I hulks, each with one functional 2ndry battery and a thread, each costing exactly zero points %-) -HJC] Henry J. Cobb hcobb@io.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1996, by Steve Jackson Games.