============ OGRE/GEV list, Sep 19th (Last: Sep 14th) ============= ===== Crewing requirements. From: "Andrew Walters" ===== Archaic Sub Units From: jimaclem@JUNO.COM From: VIPER394@aol.com ------------------------------ From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: Crewing requirements. Crew Complement and Starting Abandoned Vehicle Issues: Warning: Uninformed opinions follow. If you know better, let me know; "Let a wise man strike me - it is a kindness; let him rebuke me, it is oil on my head." Ps. 141:5 It strikes me that though automation will make driving and gunnery easier, C&C and ECM/ECCM will become more complex. I think this argues for larger crews, with a dedicated commander and possible a dedicated EW crewman. I guess with all the advances in technology I always envisioned Ogre-universe vehicle crews operating more like large aircraft crews. I understand that one of the reasons air crews like two-person combat aircraft is that it gives you two sets of eyes looking for enemy aircraft. Since combat is primarily sensor-limited more people is better, and you might just need someone doing nothing but studying the IR/Radar/seismic sensors. As for jumping into an abandoned vehicle, I suspect a heavy tank is closer to a aircraft than a passenger, car; you probably can't jump in, hotwire it, and drive off. There's probably a checklist and you probably have to check some things on the outside of the vehicle (fuel leaks, air-intakes clear of birds, booby traps, squirrels nesting in the treads, turn signals working, banana in tail pipe), which would probably require several minutes exposure on the battle field. Since crew uniforms need to provide enough protection to bail out (never mind that it probably never happens, it has to be possible or you have a morale problem) they can probably survive the turn or two they'll need to fire up the vehicle, but during that time they ought to be particularly vulnerable to attack - the hatches are open, they can't move, one or more crewmen are outside, ECM not online yet. I'd give the heavy tank four crewmen - Driver/Engineer, Gunner/Sensor, Commander/Radio, ECM/Sensors. Think of a 747 cockpit. Other armor units four or three. Since battles appear to involve relatively small numbers of units, tens of tanks instead of hundreds, the efficiency of each unit becomes paramount. So three HVYs could each give up a man to get a fourth operational, but I think all four should have reduced attack or defense or movement or all. But of course the biggest factor will be the condition of the abandonded HVY - did someone just forget where they parked it? If it needs to be refueled or repaired more time and exposure would be involved, and if its been out there long it will need to be checked for booby traps. As for officers I recall that the Combine provides all citizens with "all the education they could absorb", so despite the high cost of officers I think each would be commanded by a Lt. If the loss of officers seems high, so is the lost of men and armor. This makes sense for two reasons: 1) the history of the Last War describes all major offensives by the Combine and Paneurope in Europe, Great Britain and South America as extremely costly, and 2) all the scenarios we play reflect particularly desperate situations, where losses are high because retreat doesn't make sense. This certainly got me as a neophyte wargamer in the habit of burning up counters for the sake of objectives, but that's my own problem. The artwork also argues for large crews - a modern tank has virtually no visible hatches, windows or view ports but has three or four people in it. All the armor unit artwork feature one or more externally visible crew view ports, and think of the 747 cockpit again - only half the crew needs to see out, the others are looking only at screens and readouts. Of course, one could decide to disregard the artwork as fanciful, but I refuse to do that. Eighteen years later those two big guns in their ball-and-socket mounts still take me back to that ad I found in the back pages of Science News in 1979 that started my descent into wargaming. Those great big picture windows on the front of the GEV may be impossible, but I've lived with them to long to stop believing in them. Must be transparent BPC. They probably have it at Home Depot. While we're at it, how many vehicles per counter, how many men per point of infantry or militia, and how many infantry squads can ride on a Mark V? Andrew Walters ------------------------------ From: jimaclem@JUNO.COM Subject: Archaic Sub Units >From: sdorr@ix.netcom.com (Scott David Orr) >>Each is assumed to have had 20 missile tubes, giveing the new version >>eighty (80) !!! cruise missiles. >BTW, I don't think I'm familiar with a class of SSBN that carries 20 >missiles exactly. It can vary anywhere from 2 (an experimental >Chinese >unit) to 24, though, with most units having at least 12 (and only the >older >ones at the bottom of that range). I know, the variation is quite wide. Twenty seemed like a good, round number. If you want more or less, feel free! >>may carry up to four SLOM's (Sub Launched Ogre Missiles). These are >the >>same as the standard Ogre missile, just launched via the sub's >torpedoe >>tubes. >You could put this in the missile tubes, too. you're right! >> >>SSN (Archaic Unit) >> >>Attack: 6 (torpedoes) Range: 6 (only against ships, and other >>subs) > >I don't understand why the torpedoes from an SSN would be any more >effective >than the torpedoes from an SSBN. I assumed this just because the SSN is a Hunter Killer unit, unlike the SSBN, which seems to be intended to mimic a hole in the water. > >>SS (Archaic Unit) >> >>Attack: 3 (torpedoes) Range: 6 (only against ships, and other >>subs) > >Again, why would the attack rating be lower than for the SSN? > These are simply not as capable as the SSN's. >>Defense: 1 (early units w/o BPC armor) >> 2 (units with BPC added) >>Move: 3 (surfaced) >> 1 (submerged) > >While I agree these things should be slower than nucler boats >underwater, >most of them will be faster underwater than surfaced (because they >aren't >designed to operate on the surface--they snorkel for power, but that's >as >close as they get). Good point, I was thinking of the older versions of diesel-electrics, which won't be a factor in any future wars. Change the moves to be the same as the SSN, but these will only be found in shallow coastal waters, being range limited. > >>Give me some input on these. I'm working on rules for ocean movement >and >>combat, hope to have those posted soon, along with surface and sub >units >>built during the Ogre era. > >Well, archaic subs have one huge problem in the Ogre universe: >nuclear >weapons. A nuke set off underwater generates a nasty pressure wave >that >should destroy every sub within a mile or so by collapsing their >hulls; I >think non-BPC subs would be even more vulnerable than militia, who at >least >have a chance to hide. Realistically, any attack against a sub will be >an >auto-kill against all subs in that hex (how big are hexes again?). > >But not only do such weapons hurt the sub, they also screw up >sonar--for >some time after you set one off sonar is essentially useless if the >sound in >question has to go through that area. That means the sub might be >okay in a >surprise attack, but once the nukes start flying it's going to have >problems >seeing. > >Scott Orr All reasonable points, in fact my sea combat rules include a nuke DC, which will kill every sub in a hex. Problem is, you have to find the right hex and live long enough to get close to it! >From: VIPER394@aol.com >>jimaclem@juno.com you write >> SSBN (Archaic Unit) >>Attack: 4 (torpedoes) Range: 6 (only against ships, and other >>subs) > >does this meen that torpedoes can not be use against ogres clawing >acrost the >ocean or lake bottoms?? >it seams to me it would be logical to that they could hit any nautical >target Yes, they can attack underwater Ogres. ----- From: VIPER394@aol.com Subject: Archaic Sub Units >scott you write >BTW, I don't think I'm familiar with a class of SSBN that carries 20 >missiles exactly. It can vary anywhere from 2 (an experimental Chinese >unit) to 24, though, with most units having at least 12 (and only the older >ones at the bottom of that range). unless im mistaken the typhoon class and most modern soviet "boomers" have 20 tubes also in general from the missle in the missle crawler miniture i would say that a SSBN could only carry 1 per tube and that a SSGN could carry 4 or so [total.] ------------------------------ Henry J. Cobb hcobb@io.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1997, by Steve Jackson Games.