============ The Ogre Digest, Mar 14th (Last: Mar 13th) ============= ===== [sjgames-illuminator] New Ogre Page From: webmaster@sjgames.com ===== Sea Power and Silliness From: cbarnett@BIX.com ===== Javascript unit cost calculator From: Servitor@aol.com ===== OGRE Missiles From: Servitor@aol.com ===== Battletech mecha rules From: romb0001 ===== Missile GEV From: Lee Ajifu ===== OgreNav From: "Blount, Stephen" ===== Raptor-WW: GEV Wild Weasel From: "Andrew Walters" ============================== From: webmaster@sjgames.com Subject: [sjgames-illuminator] New Ogre Page SJ Games Daily Illuminator ( http://www.sjgames.com/ill/ ) March 14, 2001: New Ogre Page -------------------------------------------------------------- John Hurtt has created this spectacular Ogre fan page ( http://hometown.aol.com/servitor/Ogreindex/ogrindex.htm ) with lots of photographs and commentary. ============================== From: cbarnett@BIX.com Subject: Sea Power and Silliness Re: Putting classic alternative units in OGRE to the test I have long been interested in naval war in the OGREverse and have seen things over the years in the Naval Institute's Proceedings that looked good for the game. The BPC Subs article had problems, but they don't all seem to be the ones you pointed out, Henry. >Landing Surface Effect Vehicle (LSEV) We have this today. It's called an LCAC. >so the LSEV would not be built totally defenseless in case it got The current vehicle is not really armored, just fairly damage tolerant. I'm not sure what the defense strength should be, in the era of unobtainium armor, but >But the original carrying capacity is way off. The LSEV should be able to >carry only up to two OGRE Minis size points of land units inside, just >like a big hovertruck. (I.e. a Missile Tank or two Light Tanks or up to an LCAC in a pretty large vehicle. It can put today's HVY *past* the beach. In a future fusion powered version, it should have weight budget for decent point defense. Even LGEVs have dual-purpose railguns after all. The LCAC has Armament: 2 - 12.7mm MGs. Gun mounts will support: M-2HB .50 cal machine gun; Mk-19 Mod3 40mm grenade launcher; M-60 machine gun (from http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/ships/ship-lcac.html) >It carries infantry under the same rules as the Hovertruck (just more of Trucks don't have big honking loading ramps. An LCAC does, and we must presume the Combine's navy can do at least this well. >Surface Effect Ship (SES) >Found in BPC Subs by Martin Halbert Halbert seems to have misunderstood what an SES is. The (70's?) Navy study that built two examples showed that the idea worked, but seemed to be a solution in search of a problem. A few such things exist today. They amount to to catamarans with skirts fore and aft. The cushion is trapped by rigid, surface piercing sidewalls on each side. It has far better seakeeping than a plain 'hover. Which a destroyer-sized ship would need. But amphibious it ain't. >As for the SES, I refuse to believe in a hovercraft with a defense value >of four, because it's just too easy to get a nuke under that skirt. Also Should the bow or stern seals be compromised, you've still got a catamaran. There's at least one design in operation today as a ferry that doesn't have skirts at all. >the 175mm LB Gauss Cannon is a bit much to put on a hovercraft, but An SES is s *ship*. >addition it carries two one shot OGRE Missiles. All the weapons can be My main complaint about SES as described in the article (and to a lesser extent his sub) is the lack of a launch rack. Older Aegis ships had reloading launch rails. Newer ones were built with Vertical Launch System cells that both increased the launch rate and number of missles carried. The under-deck machinery to reload the rails took up space that now can hold more launch-ready missles. Having a gaggle of hatches for the birds arguably makes an OGREverse ship vulnerable to top-attack shaped nukes, so a OGRE rack may make more sense. >= 16.8 VPs or almost three armor units. An SES, as given or as one might more sensibly define it would be more like a cybertank in cost. It's not a patrol boat, it's a capital ship. The Sea Control Ship You didn't mention the SCS, perhaps feeling that it has a Monty Python level of silliness... The SCS is a projection of a misbegotten McNamara concept for small carriers. The historical SCS failed in part because high-performance VTOL fighters didn't work with 70's technology. A Harrier is a close support plane that can give a good account of itself against lesser powers' conventional fighters. At TL9+, this might not be a problem. I know that the OGREverse convention is 'if it flies it dies', but at sea, you are over the horizon from those nasty 'ol fixed AA lasers. Supporting a landing, lasers again come into play. But I see this as an argument for those missle racks to provide fire support. Heck, *some* ship must be carrying cruises... The non-canon air rules seem deficient in the restrictions placed on air/ground and ground/air attacks. From GURPS OGRE we know that almost everything has point defense. Lasers aren't the only threat to aircraft. By the same token, I expect that hypersmart missles launched from aircraft would be serious threats to both other planes and to surface platforms. The value of the embarked air wing alone demands that more defensive systems be installed than the D2 Halbert gives. I know I've not given any positive suggestions for units or rules. Please forgive me for ventilating. I'll think about this some more and then everyone can snipe at *my* ideas. Charles Barnett . ===== [Yeah, I was way off on the carrying capacity. A single Paneuropean light tank slighty exceeds the overload carrying capacity of the modern LCAC. (So much for the mobility of the European Rapid Reaction Force. (What makes the think the "offical" french initials for this will turn out to be FARCE?)) So let's remove the armored top from my version (anybody got a can opener?) and leave the cargo exposed on top and give it the capacity of a small revetment (without the protection for the cargo). The increase in speed and lift over the modern LCAC is explained by the nuclear propulsion. As for the catamaran, if it can't go on land why not use a standard hull shape and have more room for the nuclear reactor and missile ammo inside? -HJC] ============================== From: Servitor@aol.com Subject: Javascript unit cost calculator Hi Henry, BTW, now that the SHVY is D5, any plans on your part to raise the D entry field on your site's calculator to "5" from it's current top value of "4"? best, John Hurtt (Servitor@aol.com) -Yes, I'm a game geek, how did you know? -Lobby your congressman for a national "Slap a Spammer" Day ===== [First, I'd need to update the system to use my latest formula, which nobody has commented on. -HJC] ============================== From: Servitor@aol.com Subject: OGRE Missiles > ...expecting full > performance of the OGRE missile when launched from a platform with a tiny > fraction of the electronic support that a mid size OGRE can provide... The "fluff" material available concerning OGRE missiles strongly suggests that the missiles are totally self-contained concerning targeting, ECM/ECCM, etc. thus only needing a simple launch rail and firing/activation circuits. This has always been the primary explanation (to me) why they are so large and (relatively) expensive. If you want to consider "silliness", I think the main reason the HMSL tank is silly is how anyone could expect those two massive missiles to sit on that itty-bitty chassis without popping every bogey wheel off like overripe grapes... ;) best, John Hurtt (Servitor@aol.com) -Yes, I'm a game geek, how did you know? -Lobby your congressman for a national "Slap a Spammer" Day ===== [But even with a fire and forget weapon, the launch platform must locate the target before firing. I figured that the OGRE missile must be a huge thing that popped out a bunch of decoy/sensors that painted the target and forced reaction fire, but GURPS Ogre has itty bitty OGRE Missiles. Weight of three hypersmart missile rails and 12 hypersmart missiles: 36 tons. Weight of six ogre missile tubes and six ogre missiles: 36 tons -HJC] ============================== From: romb0001 Subject: Battletech mecha rules > > [Did you see the conversion rules on the > > sjgames.com site? -HJC] > > No, where are they? I just did a seach using the SJG > engine and found bubkus. Have a look at: http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/miniatures/ogrmecha.html and http://www.sjgames.com/ogre/miniatures/cybwalk.html I like them a lot better than the Battletech conversion rules(and not just because I'm a raving HG fan and the author works for DP9). They're simpler, more playable, and make more sense to me. Giving anything smaller than a superheavy multiple attacks and tread units is too much complexity and record keeping in my opinion. And where does that range or 6 for the AC/20 come from? Even if that's inches on the tabletop(3 hexes) that works out to 4.5 km. The AC/20 has a range measured in city blocks, not kilometres! Bryan ============================== From: Lee Ajifu Subject: Missile GEV Hello, I know you also get over loaded with ideas but I came up with a design I would like you to consider: Missile GEV Move 3/2 (6"/4") GEV movement Attack 3 Range 3 (6") Defense 2 7 pts Thanks for your time, Lee ============================== From: "Blount, Stephen" Subject: OgreNav >> [Now we can postulate supersonic hovercraft firing supercavitating nuclear >> shells at supersonic supercavitating submarines, but it doesn't fit into the >> Ogreverse.] How come? The canon details about naval combat in the Ogreverse are, to put it charitably, scanty. And who said anything about supersonic? On the water, a GEV covers nine miles in four minutes. That's helicopter speed, and not very impressive helicopter speed, at that. >> [The air-water interface has always been lousy for precise echo location >> and so it's reasonable to assume that torps and GEVs would blunder into each >> other rather randomly with no advanced warning to either side. (You could >> have a "dipping" GEV that stopped quietly on the surface and listened for >> subs, but passive sonar wouldn't spot that either.) -HJC] Or you could have sonobuoys. Or blue-green lidar. Or supersensitive MAD. Or anything else that might develop in the next several decades. What speculative technology do you keep, and what do you discount? All this slides away from the real issue: that the Ogre system, love it though we may, is ill-suited to simulate blue-water naval actions. I'd like to see a Ogre-related naval game, but not at 1 hex = 1500 meters, and no rules for detection... --Stephen Blount ===== [The US Navy is not preparing to engage in any blue water action. Their attention is focused on the littorals and once all their aircraft get shot down by anti-missile lasers (the target is approaching at less than Mach 3? Groovy!) they'll be left with subs and the gator navy. -HJC] ============================== From: "Andrew Walters" Subject: Raptor-WW: GEV Wild Weasel The development of the Ninja purchased a tremendous amount of electronics warfare (EW) research that developers were eager to apply in other areas. While everything in the Ogreverse is loaded with ECM, the Ninja shows that you can always have more, if you're willing to pay for it. Sometimes, getting a squadron of raiding GEV through the defenses can be worth a lot. Start with a normal Combine Raptor GEV. Pull out the main gun, its fire control, and ammunition handling systems, leaving only the smaller point defense guns. Use the space for electronics. Replace the turret with a phased-array antenna system. Replace the gunner with a trained EW officer. You have the Raptor WW. Attack=1, Range=1, Move=4/3, D=3. It would cost 5vps by itself, but it has the special ability of raising the defense of other GEVs to 3, provided they are in the same hex or adjacent. Since this raises the value of the other GEVs by 1.5vps, and assume that it will be able to do this for three GEVs on average, call it 9vps, or 1.5 armor units. This has had zero play testing, and only a rudimentary think-through. Obviously, if you stack your GEVs you can get more value out of it, in return for a risk, and it will be an early target. Raptor-WW may make Breakthrough pointless, or more fun. It will certainly give the attacker headaches in Raid - keep them together for defense? Or spread out to claim more targets? I'm eager to see if this is fun or dumb. Should the cost be two armor units? Should it only protect GEVs in the same hex? We should adjust its cost and effect until there's lots of argument, that's how you know you have the balance right. You have to admit, though, it sure would be easy to make the miniature. Andrew Walters ===== [Defense in OGRE is due to armor, speed, jamming and point defense. I don't see how you could provide blanket +1 defense for a hex without a lot of point defense. -HJC] Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com Archives at http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 2001, by Steve Jackson Games.