============ OGREverse list, Oct 22nd (Last: Oct 17th) ============= ===== Roswell Fnord Ogre From: "William Spencer" ===== A Depsperate Plea for Scale From: "John D. Gwinner" ===== 500 dollar toilet seats From: Alan E and Carmel J Brain ===== OGREverse List Archives From: "Spencer Graham" ------------------------------ From: "William Spencer" Subject: Roswell Fnord Ogre > [Does anybody really believe that an organization that buys $500 >toilet seat covers and depends on 2nd Lt's could really hide even one >ET >for more than five minutes? -HJC] Well, maybe they contracted out to a private security corporation. Actually, though, the apparent incompetence of fnord the military is all a clever ruse. If we really knew how dangerous They really were, They would lose control over us. So, They entertain us with blunders and gaffes, while fnord preparing their orbital mind control lasers and tanks in salt mines for the fnord final takeover.... Fnord. Right, that leads me to one very silly idea for an OGRE scenario: A PEU strikeforce managed to get all the way to the "hidden" NAC desert base, when the NAC unleashed their secret weapon.... Set up as for a Destroy the CP scenario, but the defender only gets about 50% the forces of the attacker in "conventional units" - make up the difference in flying saucers or OMCLs, released halfway through the game from "salt mines" scattered across the map. A Flying Saucer is a 24 point unit, attack 4, range 12" (as laser), defense 3, move 8"/6" flying (it ignores terrain unless it flies at low altitude or lands, in which case treat as GEV). A Flying Saucer can cloak or uncloak instead of attacking - when cloaked, remove it from the board. No one can see it or directly attack, but it can be affected by spillover or cruise missiles. Flying Saucers can't attack when cloaked. The NAC also gets orbital mind control lasers (12 points each). OMCLs aren't placed on the board - use tokens. Expend one OMCL token (it gets shot down after one low-orbital pass) to make an A6 attack against a unit. On a NE, there's no effect. On a D, the unit is disabled. On an X, the unit falls under your control for 1d turns. On a XX, it's yours _permanently_! OGRE systems (treads or weapons) can be affected normally by this - if treads are controlled, the PEU loses control of the OGRE's movement (but not weapons) until one row of treads is destroyed. No, OGREs cannot attack _themselves_. OPTIONAL RULE: The PEU can use the alien units, but they have to pay double the points for them. Bonus points if anyone paints their miniatures in black and gold with an eye in the pyramid emblem. ----- [Why is Fnord Motors marked peaceful if they're a military contractor? -HJC] ------------------------------ From: "John D. Gwinner" Subject: A Depsperate Plea for Scale > From: "Andrew Walters" > I've asked before and hate to be a pest, but some of us are fiddling with > Lego, wood, and other types of miniatures who don't happen to have the > original minis. Could someone measure their minis (in whatever units you > like, even made-up ones) and let us know length, width, and height? I'll > settle for two out of three. Okay, one. Well, I have an original Mark V (I think that's what it is, two main batteries, 6 secondaries, six missles in silos, 16 AP's --geez, I should know that off the top of my head, but it *has* been 20 years). Here we go: 1.7" wide 3.1" long (not including the 'prow' which is slightly wider -- altered slight from the pictures); 3.33" long w/prow, 1.71" wide (tread units), 1.2" wide (main body), 1.52" wide (2nd body half, outside of the missle tubes). Tread units: 1.275 long ..83" long (bottom) 4.05" wide ..38" high 1"Overall height, not including prow: I can't measure the height of the prow, it got seperated from the ogre in the move. I know I have it, but I can't find it (sigh) Hope that helps, == John == ------------------------------ From: Alan E and Carmel J Brain Subject: 500 dollar toilet seats > From: "Todd A. Zircher" > > The $500 toilet seats can be justified ... hey at least > > they're supposed to be blast proof right? > > Close, they were supposed to be impact resistant. So, even > if the plane (I can't remember if it was a C-5 or AWACs) > dropped out of the sky from 30,000 feet, the toilet seats > would survive. The original story is about a $20,000 coffee machine, the one on the C-5A. How it happened: The specified requirements for this machine was that it would be able to make enough coffee for a full load of troops (about 500), when they're about to go into action so will want 2-3 cups per hour, so we're talking 5000 cups. So it's capable of containing/brewing at least a ton of coffee. It had to be self-cleaning and relatively lightweight, and operate off the C-5's available internal power without causing spikes or EM interference with nav aids. As a safety measure, it should be able to take explosive decompression without itself exploding and causing casualties from hundreds of gallons of boiling coffee. It also had to physically fit in the small volume allocated for it. $20,000 is by no means an expensive price for such a purpose built device. And finally... as a cost-cutting measure, the Pentagon went to great lengths to pinch pennies. Any minor equipment that was not "flight safety critical", such as cushions, seat ribbons, lighting etc had to be salvageable in case of a crash. In order to test this latter, they had to put one of these machines on a radio-controlled plane, and crash the thing. A proportion of the cost of the aircraft was added to the cost of each item on board. Now for the coffee machine, it added about $490 to the original cost of $19500. For the Toilet seat, it added $490 to the original cost of $10. The same thing happens with the GAO-mandated overhead distribution on invoices. Say the USAF is buying a new F-16C Fighter to replace one lost in an accident. It costs about $20 million, and there's maybe $20,000 of overheads (paperwork, packaging, safety inspections, compliance with ADA, compliance with EEO etc). At the same time it buys a packet of 19 2-inch woodworking screws. You guessed it: the GAO madates, or at least it used to, that overheads be spread equally amongst all items. So $1000 is allocated to the F-16C, and $1000 to each of the 2-inch screws. Hence the $500 toilet seats and $1000 screws. -- http://www2.dynamite.com.au/aebrain aebrain@dynamite.com.au <> <> How doth the little Crocodile | Alan & Carmel Brain| xxxxx Improve his shining tail? | Canberra Australia | xxxxxHxHxxxxxx _MMMMMMMMM_MMMMMMMMM abrain@cs.adfa.edu.au o O*OO^^^^OO*O o oo oo oo oo By pulling MAERKLIN Wagons, in 1/220 Scale ------------------------------ From: "Spencer Graham" Subject: OGREverse List Archives Hiya...a while back there was a set of VTOL counters for OGRE on the mailing.....what was that html address? Thanks, Spencer ----- [See: http://www.io.com/~hcobb/gev/1997/ for April and July -HJC] Henry J. Cobb ogre@sjgames.com http://www.io.com/~hcobb All OGRE-related items Copyright (c) 1999, by Steve Jackson Games.