Battle Value 3.0

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ghostrider
06/04/16 08:11 PM
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And yet the border with Germany, where the initial attacks came from is east. The fact the successful push can from the north. Without the forces pinning the defenders to their eastern border, and their allies that helped push into france didn't come thru Belgium, came in from the east. NOT the west or some other almost impossible direction.

Now. Did France choose to fight in the terrain on their northern borders? No.
Did germany decide it wanted to fight Russia in the winter? No.
Might want to reread about italy. Only the leaders were supportive of the germans. That is why the southern push towards germany was more successful then from france and belgium. But that did not mean that was because it was the only attack.

Attack midway from the plains. I dare you to. There is no other way to do it then sea and possible air drops. Submarines can not crawl out of the ocean, so you have some room for mechs. Try taking Kansas by going thru austrialia. Hit russia from brazil. No see or air, but land forces like non hover tanks. I want to see that.

Well then, I guess you have not played the game as it was meant to be played. Try the scenario pacts. More then a few are set up so your forces are at a disadvantage. Or actually pick a unit and run it thru ALL your battles. This picking and choosing based on terrain is not how real life goes.
Until you actually run the SAME units thru multiple battles and terrain, like a merc unit that has no back up mechs, don't even bother telling others they are playing wrong. Tailoring your unts to fit a fight is unrealistic. You can send in some that match your terrain, but that is not the case alot of the time.
Point in case. Poland sent cavalry against german tanks. Why?
THEY HAD NO CHOICE. It was what they had.
ghostrider
06/04/16 08:19 PM
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The statement you give about choosing your troops and terrain to fight in reminds me of the joke.

A person is walking home at night and sees someone searching for something under a lit street lamp.
"Can I help you with something?" He asks.
The person responds by saying he lost some money.
So the person asks if he knows where abouts he lost it.
And the guy replies, "In the dark alley over there."
So the first guys asks, "Why are you looking here?"
So the second guys says, "Because the light it better here."


You have to attack where the target is. It is that simple.
Akalabeth
06/05/16 12:44 AM
108.180.183.124

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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

Tailoring your unts to fit a fight is unrealistic.



Gee Hurricanes don't work in the desert. The sand screws them up. Maybe we should tailor the plane to filter out the sand?

Gee X destroyer isn't suited to fighting in the atlantic. Maybe on the next class we should increase the forecastle to lessen the impact of waves.

Gee the Germans have a lot of heavy tanks. Maybe we should create bigger guns to pierce their armour.

Gee crossing this river will leave us sitting ducks. Maybe we should smoke their position or attack at night.

Gee the Inner Sphere likes to drag out our campaigns. Maybe we, as Clan Wolf, should use energy weapons or bring more ammunition so we're successful on Tukayyid while everyone else is not.

Just give it up dude, you don't know what you're talking about. When a soldier's life is on the line, you can be damn sure they're going to choose what's best for their survival. They're going to choose the best units they have, the best position to attack from, the best circumstances to attack from, EVERYTHING.

Quote:
ghostrider writes:

Point in case. Poland sent cavalry against german tanks. Why?
THEY HAD NO CHOICE. It was what they had.



WRONG AND WRONG by the way.

They had Tankettes. Which they didn't use in the attack.
And they sent Cavalry against Infantry. Not tanks. They were counter-attacked by german vehicles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charge_at_Krojanty
ghostrider
06/05/16 10:30 AM
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Wait. Didn't elementals come about to try and cover all aspects of combat, so they don't need 20 different suits?

How many mechs fit in a union dropship?

Gee, the unit sent into combat, doesn't have anti tank weapons. I guess they disobey orders and leave the battlefield.
It is obvious, understanding only generals get any choice of what to use, and where. And even then, that depends on the enemy. The average soldier is given gear and told to do the job. They are not handed the button for a nuke. They are not consulted if the swamp will bog down tanks.

The pacific campaign in world war 2 is a great example of this. None of the allies wanted to fight on the islands under those conditions.
It is obvious, you think soldiers have a choice in orders. Maybe you should talk to people that have been overrun like people living under the IS or boko haram Maybe visit somalia and a few others where pirates and gangs rule.
But I will suggest this. Stop saying soldiers have a choice on where they fight, because the options are fight where you are told, weither you have what you want or not, OR be courtmarialed and risk being shot.

And while your at it, talk to the soldiers in Afganistan, Iraq, and Pakistan. Ask them how much choice they have.
Akalabeth
06/05/16 03:57 PM
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Not sure if you're aware of this, but in battletech you don't play a soldier. You play a commander. Often you play a mercenary commander who doesn't follow orders and just does a job to get paid and is more concerned with his own skin than the needs of his employer.

So equating Battletech to a GI Private is a false equivalency.

Anyway it's fairly apparent you're just grasping at straws at this point. And given how blatantly you misrepresented the details of the Polish cavalry charge, all of your real-world examples are now suspect. And I don't really feel like spending 5 seconds on google to prove 'em wrong.

So have fun dude
ghostrider
06/05/16 06:07 PM
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Gee. How many hurricanes does Norway, or Finland have?
Gee. Adapting to tactics and tailoring units to fights on the fly are 2 different things.
But has you have warships with transporters in space that instantaneously send you what ever you want, I can see why there is no reason you can't change equipment in the middle of a battle.
Most, if not all units have things like supplies. And no army has enough to pull a dozen new tanks out of it just because they are now going into a river.
And if your orders are to assault the town across the river immediately, that is what you do. But obviously doing what you were told is not a strong suit for you.

And it seems you are used to playing the leader of a unit, not just a pilot in it, because that is what a majority of mech warriors are. Simple soldiers operating the equipment. The people playing with you allow you to disobey orders and still be hired for more jobs is unrealistic. And for almost all of the rest of the players in battle tech, they would tell you this as well.
The leader you describe is a thug or pirate. Your unit would be destroyed or atleast have bounties on their heads after a few times you did this.


And not all information on the net is correct or complete. The polish knew the germans had armored vehicles in the area. They had orders to stop the convoy at all costs. They actually followed their orders. Why? That is what soldiers do.
Those that run away without orders or ignore orders to begin with are shot as cowards. No choice.

It seems all your play is limited to just the game on hand, not a real campaign where you get orders and have limited resources. The fact you think disobeying orders is something most units do. It is sad.
Retry
06/05/16 08:37 PM
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Quote:
Gee. How many hurricanes does Norway, or Finland have?


Finland had ~10 during the war, but I don't see how that's relevant since neither country is a desert.

Quote:
Gee. Adapting to tactics and tailoring units to fights on the fly are 2 different things.


Only the smoke thing revolves exclusively on tactics (assuming they had smoke in the first place.), the rest were tailoring of equipment.

Quote:
But has you have warships with transporters in space that instantaneously send you what ever you want, I can see why there is no reason you can't change equipment in the middle of a battle.



You usually can't literally switch out equipment in the middle of a battle. However, reserves and reinforcements are a thing.

Quote:
Most, if not all units have things like supplies. And no army has enough to pull a dozen new tanks out of it just because they are now going into a river.



The U.S. currently have hundreds of spare M1 Abrams collecting dust thanks to Congress.

Nearly enough T-34s and T-34 based SPGs were produced to place have one on every square mile of Germany, if not for most of them being destroyed during WWII.

Quote:
And if your orders are to assault the town across the river immediately, that is what you do. But obviously doing what you were told is not a strong suit for you.



And you do. Unless you can't. If said town turns out to be guarded by a tank or ten, no one will blame your rifle platoon for failing or even evading conflict altogether.

If an army as you say doesn't have enough reserves to pull out "a dozen new tanks", then why in the hell would they waste what they DO have on a folly?

Quote:
They actually followed their orders. Why? That is what soldiers do.
Those that run away without orders or ignore orders to begin with are shot as cowards. No choice.




Wow, really? I hope you genuinely don't feel that way.

Even the Russians dropped the kill-the-runners part of the "Not One Step Back" order 227 within a year. It turns out that unconditionally killing your own men for walking in an unapproved direction is bad for morale.

Quote:
It seems all your play is limited to just the game on hand, not a real campaign where you get orders and have limited resources. The fact you think disobeying orders is something most units do. It is sad.



Keep in mind that there's a difference between
"I'm not going to follow orders because I don't feel like it."
and
"I'm not going to follow orders because there's a god damn tank in the way!"

The latter is just not going to happen either IRL or in-game sans a drafted militia unit. The former is extremely common, particularly in a lopsided battle, because being inflicted upon with pointless casualties is not a good thing.

COs and NCOs receive orders from the higher-ups, as the Generals are primarily acting in a strategic position. They have full discretion on how to carry them out. Soldiers under their command also have a form of discression, such as the "can't, there's a tank in the way" deal. In which case the NCO or CO has to phone in, "Hey, there's wrench in the plan and we need it dealt with soon". In which case the higher up can dispatch something on the strategic scale to the position for use at the tactical scale, such as an air strike.

Or, if he can't find a way to deal with it, he can scrap his current plan and find another strategy to achieve his goals.

OR, he could ignore the plight and tell his underlings to take it anyways, resulting in either the very reasonable disobeying of orders or the senseless and unproductive death of the rifle platoon, which leaves him right where he started minus one rifle platoon. But if he's lucky, he might become famous for the folly and the butt of many a political cartoonist for years to come, so I suppose that's one thing he could have going for him.

--------------------------------------------

What's this about anyways?

Ah, BV 3.0

I really like the Offensive/Defensive BV idea. Certainly gets rid of the strange issue of the skyrocketing BV of a fisticuff 'Mech whose pilot happens to be a better shot with the nonexistent guns.


Edited by Retry (06/05/16 08:47 PM)
ghostrider
06/05/16 10:52 PM
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The issue with the hurricanes was trying to show not every army has every piece of equipment known to mankind. The U.S., Russia, and maybe a few others do, but most don't.

Adapting tactics is using what you got to deal with your situation. Tailoring units means an artic fighting unit will not have shorts and suntan lotion. And this goes towards changing units in the middle of a campaign, as it was suggested.

The number of vehicles was trying to suggest them being in the U.S. means they can not be deployed in Iraq in an hour. Campaigns do not change out the assault mech used to attack a city, when the next scenario is a break out. Continuity is the issue here.

Sending in troops when you can't support them has been done quite often in wars. Most of the time they are diversionary forces. And I agree it is stupid, but more then a few dictators continue this process. Especially when the loyalty of the unit is in question.
How many troops were sent to slow the allies when germany realized it lost world war II? And that goes for Russia at the beginning of the war.

Ignoring orders has fine lines to them. I can't get in the city because there is a tank in the way, and the response comes back to 'use the anti tank weapons you got, now get to it' does come up. Also a single tank can not guard an entire city. Spreading out and finding cover would be the logical response to that. And since the army in question has everything known to man with each platoon, smoke grenades to cover the advance would be another way to continue the mission. But from the sounds of the scenario, they just didn't want to get their feet wet. Let's face it. Spec ops do this crap all the time.

Now remember this statement.
Often you play a mercenary commander who doesn't follow orders and just does a job to get paid and is more concerned with his own skin than the needs of his employer.
This sounds too much like, I might get my units dirty, so I won't do it. Give me my money and a new mission.

And you are right. This has drifted a long ways from needing to update bv. Sad thing is when it was suggested to change plains to open terrain, someone didn't like that idea. As plains are not always small patches of cover. Some are completely covered with trees and such. Forest are on mountains, but they are still mountains, not forest.
Akalabeth
06/06/16 03:21 AM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

And you are right. This has drifted a long ways from needing to update bv. Sad thing is when it was suggested to change plains to open terrain, someone didn't like that idea. As plains are not always small patches of cover. Some are completely covered with trees and such. Forest are on mountains, but they are still mountains, not forest.



So if by your logic a flat area fully covered in trees is called a plain.
And if a hilly or mountainous area fully covered in trees is called hills or mountains.
Then what is a forest? Because evidently it neither exists in flat or in hilly areas which rules out pretty much every type of terrain on the planet.
ghostrider
06/06/16 11:54 AM
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Forest is land cover, not terrain.

Just like snow is not terrain. It is land cover.

Granted both can cause issues when trying to move thru them.

Otherwise things like cities would have to be considered terrain. As they can even be on lakes.

This also applies to woods, though most consider them one and the same as forests.
Jungles are another type of land cover as well.
Akalabeth
06/06/16 02:21 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

Forest is land cover, not terrain.

Just like snow is not terrain. It is land cover.

Granted both can cause issues when trying to move thru them.

Otherwise things like cities would have to be considered terrain. As they can even be on lakes.

This also applies to woods, though most consider them one and the same as forests.
Jungles are another type of land cover as well.



Cities ARE considered terrain.

US Military acronym:
Quote:
MOUT - military operations in urban terrain; military operations on urbanized terrain



The US Military and NATO include all man-made and natural features in their study of terrain with respect to military operations:

Quote:
terrain analysis �The collection, analysis, evaluation, and interpretation of geographic information on the natural and man-made features of the terrain, combined with other relevant factors, to predict the effect of the terrain on military operations. (JP 2-03)



http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/new_pubs/jp1_02.pdf

Battletech is a MILITARY game. Not a GEOLOGY game. Why in heck would you be trying to use geology terms in a combat-orientated boardgame.

Battletech: 31st Century Geology!
ghostrider
06/06/16 03:15 PM
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And according to that same military, everyone not in the military is considered collateral damage.
Along those same thought lines, anyone not a personal friend of the government is considered expendable.

For someone that believes they don't have to fulfill contracts, knowing military lingo seems amazing. And disobeying orders means you get paid and more work. And while here, how many people are in command of armies? Not every tank driver is in command. Not every captain or major is in command. They receive and follow orders. So before arguing military language get the basic facts straight.


And as for being a military game, it falls far short in real world issues. Nothing hits reliably outside of 2 kilometers?
I know few thought drones would become such a big part of the real world, but to take out an objective, instead of sending billions of dollars in military hardware, a simple 5 million dollar missile would do the job. But wait, there's more.
Remote sensors would be placed across all avenues to attack a base, and automatic fire would happen. Any area that needs to be guarded would NEVER have forests of terrain that could aid the attacker in any way.
Trenchs and ramparts would help defenders, and provide NO protection from the defenders once the invaders got that far. Mines would not be optional, but done and over with. Only fresh dirt would be new ones replacing the ones that blew up last attack.
It would be easier to hot drop on the target, then get thru defensive rings. Artillery would not be optional for the defenders, and they would have ALL potential hiding points mined if they left anything to run to.
And this crap about not making warships? Costs too high?
Build them without jump drives. System defense ships. Give the enemy NO change to land. Oh that's right. That defeats the purpose of using the expensive mechs to perform attacks. Hmmm. So much for a military game.
ghostrider
06/06/16 03:22 PM
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Second. Not everyone playing is military or ex military. Trying to sound like it, doesn't mean someone is in it.
And since you brought it up, why isn't it listed in the terrains in all books, not just military?
This would also include terrain types for the game.

And for someone that says playing on a flat open terrain is stupid, I guess knowing geography is something anyone in command knows. So keep searching the internet for words even some military personnel doesn't know exists.

Which comes to another point. Learn the correct terminology. Geology is the study of minerals and rocks. Geography deals with surface features. Sheesh.
Akalabeth
06/06/16 03:22 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

So much for a military game.



Then go play ASL. Spare us all your bitching and your constant tirade of off-topic irrelevance.
No one cares.
Akalabeth
06/06/16 03:27 PM
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:

Which comes to another point. Learn the correct terminology. Geology is the study of minerals and rocks. Geography deals with surface features. Sheesh.



The Land Cover Institute is a body of the United States Geological Survey
http://landcover.usgs.gov/whatislci.php

Did you think that erosion from deforestation wasn't a geological consideration?
ghostrider
06/06/16 03:54 PM
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And are we dealing with ground erosion in the game?
We are dealing with mountains, hills, valleys, rivers, trees and such. Except for special circumstances, you do not bring down the mountain side. You can burn down woods. But that deals with geography.
Spin it all you want, geology is not the combat part of the game.
This sounds like a tv tech can fix a nuclear reactor. It deals with electronics and some monitors, but that does not mean you can wire in the control rods or fix the main cables running out of it.
Another example would be saying all succulents are cacti, but that's wrong. All cacti are succulents, but there are other types as well.

Geography isn't concerned about erosion or sink holes until they open up, or move the edge of the water.
Knowing what is there, and knowing what terrain it is, can be related, but not the same.

But keep trying. I would suggest toning it back to a conversation, not an attempt to make others look stupid. It opens up holes to be shown there is alot ot be learned before saying others are wrong.
Akalabeth
06/06/16 04:28 PM
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You're frankly dishonest and discussing in bad faith. When something you've said has been proven wrong, you consistently launch yourself on some absurd tangent.

Flagged and reported.
CrayModerator
06/06/16 05:32 PM
72.189.109.30

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Quote:
Akalabeth writes:

Not sure if you're aware of this, but in battletech you don't play a soldier. You play a commander.



No...very often player characters are individual soldiers. If you're playing the board game without the roleplaying aspect, then you're not a commander or any other fictional player character, you're just a player.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer

Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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