MCLAUGHLIN, RICHARD A. CPT wrote:
> Shhhhhhhhh. Are you crazy };^')
> Someone may be listening. We must not even hint at targeting
> restrictions. Our troops must ignore all tactical threats and
> maintain operational awareness at all times. If we were not allowed
> to move and fire with total impunity it would be chaos, the dead
> rising, fire from the sky, rivers of blood, dogs and cats living
> together in the streets.
>
I did NOT say that troops should ignore tactical threats, I said the
rules should not force you into shooting at a unit you don't want to
shoot at. Let me give a "real world example" here.
You are the platoon leader of a 4 tank platoon armed with M1A1 You
have in front of you, at about 2000 meters a company of "Russian" Mech
infantry, supported by a platoon of T-XX (latest Russian tank, assume it
to be capable of hurting a M1A1 at this range). The tanks are at say
2100 meters. The mech infantry is in BMP-2 (the one with no ATGM and a
30mm Auto Cannon). You are under "weapons free" ROE (that may be an
ADA thing, ignore if N/A to Armor). Do you
1) shoot the tanks, which can hurt you RIGHT NOW or
2) shoot the infantry which may give you fits in 10-15 min. when they
get there.
A good set of war game rules should let you do it either way. WH40K
says that you shoot the mech inf. first, you have no choice.
> No, I do not understand the hate towards targeting restrictions
> either. J. Michael Looney's example of Gretchen and Shooty Boyz is a
> good point. I think the detachment rules allow you to bring a screen
> as part of you detachment.
>
You will note that in my example there were two (2) detachments, not 1
(one) detachment.
> I mix LR, Marines, and bikes in all of my detachments. A Infantry
> detachment will always get task organized with a few LR and bikes. A
> LR detachment gets a few Atk Bikes to soak up blast markers (cheaper
> than predators and the 15cm is not that significant since the AB moves
>
> faster).
Here we get into a personal, almost, dare I say it, "religious" issue.
I feel that an E40K SM, IG or Eldar detachment is a platoon, not a
company. This makes quite a difference in detachment design. I can
not think of many real world TO&Es that mix armor and infantry at the
platoon level (H series Armored Cav, and BAOR Tank Regiments, both
1970's era, being the only ones off the top of my head, there may be
more, and I think the BAOR was a task grouping, not TO&E). For what it
is worth I base SM on US TO&E, and IG on Soviet TO&Es. They are both
field test orgs that seem to work...
In the case of armor, well, I try and make a detachment from 5-10 tanks
(which would be 1 US Platoon (Yeah I know, they are 4 tanks now) to one
"Warsaw Pact" company in size). Infantry is about 8 stands.
The above is for "normal" races. I use a a whole other design system
with Orks, based on what I feel the background shows to be the orky
nature, which does NOT say "Lets hide behind some grots from the
humies/pansys/stunties" <opps starting wrong rant here>
I have not started thinking about my design system for 'Nids yet, but
you can rest assured that it will be based on a concept of how the race
works, not what the rules will allow to "protect" high value targets.
--
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Received on Fri Sep 05 1997 - 14:22:25 UTC