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Message no. 1
From: jjmach@**********.com (Jeffrey Mach)
Subject: Marines learn urban combat
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 2002 22:42:43 -0700
As long as we're piling on Paul....

> -----Original Message-----
> From: shadowtk-bounces@*****.dumpshock.com
> [mailto:shadowtk-bounces@*****.dumpshock.com] On Behalf Of
> Paul J. Adam
> Sent: Tuesday, September 17, 2002 2:24 PM
> To: shadowtk@*****.dumpshock.com
> Subject: Marines learn urban combat

-----SNIP-----

> Cpl. Jennings and his 10-man squad were on their own.
> On an open battlefield, young squad leaders like him can usually
> maintain eye contact with senior officers. Often they communicate with

> hand signals. In cities, the many buildings and walls make that
> impossible.
> Thirty minutes passed before Lt. Lee even realized that Cpl.
> Jennings's squad had fallen behind. Frantically, the lieutenant began
> calling for Cpl. Jennings, who, because of his baby-face looks, had
> been saddled with the unfortunate radio call sign "Pedophile."
> "Pedophile! Pedophile! Where are you, Pedophile?" Lt. Lee
> yelled into the radio. No answer. It's a common problem. Military
> radios, designed for fighting in open terrain, don't work
> nearly as well in cities full of obstructions.

What about BattleTac?

If Merc units can afford it, what about the UCAS-MC? I suppose
we can debate funding and/or availability. You could argue the military
would be hard pressed to cyber every soldier with a Smart Link, but in a
few short years from right now the US military is going to be fielding
Land Warrior, which is the inspiration for BattleTac (if not better than
what FASA had in mind).

The primary reasons they are adopting it are for spec.ops (small
units spread out over larger territory) and urban combat (where
maintaining line-of-sight on your squad mates is difficult). I would be
willing to accept that your trainees might be forced to go in without it
during an exercise; i.e. you don't want your troops to get too reliant
on technology, when there may be circumstances where it will fail.
Maybe that is what you had in mind, but in a real operation, I highly
doubt they wouldn't go in with something as good as a SOTA BattleTac
system or better.

For the machine gun nest, wouldn't they have something
equivalent to the Ballista man-portable mortar or some 206X equivalent
of the OCSW? (For everybody other than Paul, the OCSW-Objective Crew
Serviced Weapon is the OICW's big brother, where one guy carries and
fires the gun, and his crew-mate carries the tripod and ammo canisters.
It fires 20mm mini-grenades (the same ammo used for the upper half of
the OICW) which can be programmed for precision fragmentation air-burst
at, in, or around a target for anti-personnel duty or have a different
warhead for armor-piercing duty. Designed to replace the SAW (Squad
Automatic Weapon--man-portable light machine gun), it has a relatively
high cyclic rate (>100rpm ?) and is electronically and mechanically
compensated for recoil and range.

Don't get me wrong, Paul, the post was a fun read, but I guess I
have a more favorable impression of how jarheads 61 years hence could
handle themselves in urban combat. (Not that a very treacherous band
lead by a certain Running Wolf wouldn't still be able to hand them their
collective hineys, he'd just have to work a little harder at it and
cheat more.)

--My two
yen

Jeff

P.S. I wonder if now is a good time for Hephaestus or Stainless Steel
Rat to try and sell Lynch on some Ares Arachne--Urban-terrain Individual
Assault Vehicles ([M.N.] read: Fuchikoma)? (I don't want to bother
digging through my old paperwork where I did one up with the Rigger 2
rule set.)
Message no. 2
From: loneeagle2061@*******.com (Lone Eagle)
Subject: Marines learn urban combat
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 08:38:43 +0000
>From: "Jeffrey Mach" <jjmach@**********.com>
> What about BattleTac?
>
> If Merc units can afford it, what about the UCAS-MC? I suppose
>we can debate funding and/or availability. You could argue the military
>would be hard pressed to cyber every soldier with a Smart Link

Communication problems, their radios aren't working well so BattleTac would
only be as effective as the tactical communications gear it's rigged to.
Plus a smartlink's cheaper.

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Message no. 3
From: PlotD@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam)
Subject: Marines learn urban combat
Date: Thu, 19 Sep 2002 21:26:10 +0100
In message <000001c25f9f$60e58ad0$2a81f5d1@********>, Jeffrey Mach
<jjmach@**********.com> writes
>>No answer. It's a common problem. Military
>> radios, designed for fighting in open terrain, don't work
>> nearly as well in cities full of obstructions.
>
> What about BattleTac?

Needs a working, high-bandwidth link. Urban areas are tough for radio
work anyway (the section-level radios we had, the PRC-349s, were good
for 3-4km in the countryside, but were patchy in urban areas) and trying
to maintain a network like BattleTac over those conditions could be...
interesting.

I've been peripherally involved with some "battlespace digitisation",
albeit in a naval context, and it's... interesting.

> If Merc units can afford it, what about the UCAS-MC?

I'd assume they'd have it, but I'm not sure down to what level. Life
gets _very_ complicated (and networks very crowded) when every soldier
has a voice radio, to say nothing of when they're all keying in contact
reports...

However, given the dodgy propagation of an urban area, the high
concentration of non-targets (how do you input a description of a
civilian into BattleTac?) and the use of some barrage jamming, its
effectiveness could be reduced.

> The primary reasons they are adopting it are for spec.ops (small
>units spread out over larger territory) and urban combat (where
>maintaining line-of-sight on your squad mates is difficult).

From what I've seen of the equipment, it's not going to help much in
urban combat. At squad/section level, you shouldn't be that spread out
and electronics won't help: things just happen too damn fast.

> For the machine gun nest, wouldn't they have something
>equivalent to the Ballista man-portable mortar or some 206X equivalent
>of the OCSW?

An antitank rocket does the same job just as well, and is more versatile
and flexible. (And easier to swap between men, take off a casualty, et
cetera). A Ballista needs the launcher and ammunition and ties up a
soldier: Predator is a one-shot weapon that isn't much heavier than a
Ballista reload would be, but is a fully functional weapon that's either
a top-attack tank-killer or a direct-fire bunker-buster, and you can
issue one, two or many Predators per section as needed.

(Same arguments as to why we binned the venerable but effective Carl
Gustav 84mm, and went to single-shot LAW80s. We keep the 51mm mortar at
platoon level, but it and its ammunition are )

OSCW is too chunky to be a platoon asset, and wouldn't be up front in
the fighting - too heavy. It's to replace the Mark 19, which is a hefty
asset. Might be useful to cover the perimeter, though.


>(For everybody other than Paul, the OCSW-Objective Crew
>Serviced Weapon is the OICW's big brother, where one guy carries and
>fires the gun, and his crew-mate carries the tripod and ammo canisters.
>It fires 20mm mini-grenades (the same ammo used for the upper half of
>the OICW)

25mm, actually, and not common to OICW.

>Designed to replace the SAW (Squad
>Automatic Weapon--man-portable light machine gun),

No, designed to replace the Mark 19 grenade launcher and supplement the
M2 heavy machine gun.

(Sorry, Jeff, not meaning to pick on you)

> Don't get me wrong, Paul, the post was a fun read, but I guess I
>have a more favorable impression of how jarheads 61 years hence could
>handle themselves in urban combat.

I ripped this off from a real news article - but I was impressed by how
well the Marines actually did in the real-life version. Urban warfare is
a meatgrinder.

I'm distinctly sceptical about how well technology can transform urban
warfare, though, especially when the defenders know and understand the
technology. Training matters much more in my experience.

BattleTac relies on (a) clear airwaves and (b) troops having time to
enter information on enemies that are busy trying to kill them.


What I _do_ see BT doing (and what would have completely stopped Lynch
playing one of his favourite games) is warning you that you had friendly
troops in the same building but two floors above you as of thirty
seconds ago. Thus, greatly reduced 'friendly fire'. (The Chechens were
very good at getting Russian units to shoot each other up in Groznyy,
Lynch has often done the same to his foes, the Marines here were able to
avoid that sort of blue-on-blue)


>P.S. I wonder if now is a good time for Hephaestus or Stainless Steel
>Rat to try and sell Lynch on some Ares Arachne--Urban-terrain Individual
>Assault Vehicles ([M.N.] read: Fuchikoma)? (I don't want to bother
>digging through my old paperwork where I did one up with the Rigger 2
>rule set.)

One of the more troublesome (for the rebels) pieces of USMC kit were
some Steel Lynx drones, though they had to be used with care because of
the heavy civilian presence. Yet another reason never to stand and
fight, but to melt into the civilians...

Lynch's troops spent rather a lot of their time "shooting" surveillance
drones, too.

You want to have Hephaestus make a pitch, go for it. Lynch doesn't have
purchase authority but he's willing to indulge in unclassified debate on
an open forum...


--
Paul J. Adam
Message no. 4
From: jjmach@**********.com (Jeffrey Mach)
Subject: Marines learn urban combat
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 00:45:33 -0700
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plotd-bounces@*****.dumpshock.com
> [mailto:plotd-bounces@*****.dumpshock.com] On Behalf Of Paul J. Adam
> Sent: Thursday, September 19, 2002 12:26 PM
> To: ShadowTk Plot and Administrative Discussion
> Subject: Re: Marines learn urban combat
>
>
> In message <000001c25f9f$60e58ad0$2a81f5d1@********>, Jeffrey Mach
> <jjmach@**********.com> writes
> >>No answer. It's a common problem. Military
> >> radios, designed for fighting in open terrain, don't work
> >> nearly as well in cities full of obstructions.
> >
> > What about BattleTac?
>
> Needs a working, high-bandwidth link. Urban areas are tough for radio
> work anyway (the section-level radios we had, the PRC-349s, were good
> for 3-4km in the countryside, but were patchy in urban areas)
> and trying to maintain a network like BattleTac over those conditions
> could be... interesting.

Hmmm. I won't disagree with your point about urban areas making radio
transmission more difficult. I guess I made the arguable assumption
that sufficient advances would be made in communications technology to
render bandwidth a "solved" problem for anything other than proper
Faraday caging. If you have a cagy opponent who is up to using jamming
designed with their opponent's comm system in mind, the advantage will
be quickly lost.

I suppose, if you are really cool, you can even try BattleTac MIJI, and
try to insert false information into your opponent's battle net, but
that would probably be overkill for what Lynch had in his "lesson plan"
for the young jarheads.

> I've been peripherally involved with some "battlespace digitisation",
> albeit in a naval context, and it's... interesting.

"There is no knowledge that is not power" or something like that.

> > If Merc units can afford it, what about the UCAS-MC?
>
> I'd assume they'd have it, but I'm not sure down to what level. Life
> gets _very_ complicated (and networks very crowded) when
> every soldier has a voice radio, to say nothing of when they're all
> keying in contact reports...
>
> However, given the dodgy propagation of an urban area, the high
> concentration of non-targets (how do you input a description of a
> civilian into BattleTac?) and the use of some barrage jamming, its
> effectiveness could be reduced.

Agreed. Again, I suppose it is a question of available, useable
bandwidth, a question I don't feel qualified to debate, given the large
number of unknowns.

> > The primary reasons they are adopting it are for
> spec.ops (small
> >units spread out over larger territory) and urban combat (where
> >maintaining line-of-sight on your squad mates is difficult).
>
> From what I've seen of the equipment, it's not going to help much in
> urban combat. At squad/section level, you shouldn't be that
> spread out and electronics won't help: things just happen too damn
fast.

Not that I've had a good look-see, I wrote based on just a few tech
programs on TV describing the system and the little bit on results from
recent trials conducted by the military. From my understanding, it
provided a massive advantage, allowing a squad to easily defeat an
entire platoon, since the members were not required to have line of
sight on each other at all times. It also made it much harder for their
opponents to ambush the squad, because any member of the team could
quickly notify the others with something as simple as pointing their
weapon at the target, and tapping a button to log the position as a
hostile unit (given GPS location of the squad member, and range /
bearing readings taken from the gun's laser rangefinder).

> > For the machine gun nest, wouldn't they have something
> >equivalent to the Ballista man-portable mortar or some 206X
> >equivalent of the OCSW?

> An antitank rocket does the same job just as well, and is more
> versatile and flexible. (And easier to swap between men, take off a
> casualty, et cetera). A Ballista needs the launcher and ammunition and

> ties up a soldier: Predator is a one-shot weapon that isn't much
> heavier than a Ballista reload would be, but is a fully functional
> weapon that's either a top-attack tank-killer or a direct-fire
> bunker-buster, and you can issue one, two or many Predators per
> section as needed.

QuickQ: is the Predator from ShadowRun or Real Life (tm)?

I agree that individual rockets are versatile. I suppose I imagined a
fire team having designated "heavy gunners" as specialist who would be
devoted to an anti-armor role, but I suppose Marines can't afford as
much specialization as perhaps the Army can.

> OSCW is too chunky to be a platoon asset, and wouldn't be up front in
> the fighting - too heavy. It's to replace the Mark 19, which
> is a hefty asset. Might be useful to cover the perimeter, though.
>
>
> >(For everybody other than Paul, the OCSW-Objective Crew
> >Serviced Weapon is the OICW's big brother, where one guy carries and
> >fires the gun, and his crew-mate carries the tripod and ammo
> canisters.
> >It fires 20mm mini-grenades (the same ammo used for the upper half of
> >the OICW)
>
> 25mm, actually, and not common to OICW.

Hunh. Really? Watched a program featuring it and they specifically
said that the weapon was designed to fire the same round as the over
barrel launcher on the OICW so that the armed services would only have
to by one size of ammo that could be used on both weapons and keep the
logistics simpler. Maybe that's changed. The program was not that
recent.

> >Designed to replace the SAW (Squad
> >Automatic Weapon--man-portable light machine gun),
>
> No, designed to replace the Mark 19 grenade launcher and
> supplement the
> M2 heavy machine gun.
>
> (Sorry, Jeff, not meaning to pick on you)

Just going on the latest info I had. Same program that I got the
common-round info from also stated that the concept was to replace both
the two-man machine gun AND the man-portable grenade launcher with the
single OCSW. Relatively-rapid fired airburst mini-grenades were said to
be considered as, if not more effective than a blaring heavy machine
gun. Mind you, last I checked, there was not that much out on either
weapon, since they are still largely experimental and again, due to the
design/validation process, the OCSW may be a different beast than the
prototype I saw being fired.

> > Don't get me wrong, Paul, the post was a fun read, but I guess
I
> >have a more favorable impression of how jarheads 61 years hence could
> >handle themselves in urban combat.
>
> I ripped this off from a real news article - but I was impressed by
how
> well the Marines actually did in the real-life version. Urban warfare
is
> a meatgrinder.
>
> I'm distinctly sceptical about how well technology can transform urban

> warfare, though, especially when the defenders know and understand the

> technology. Training matters much more in my experience.
>
> BattleTac relies on (a) clear airwaves and (b) troops having time to
> enter information on enemies that are busy trying to kill them.

There's no way I'd argue urban combat isn't going to be a meat grinder
or that an underequiped, but dedicated and thoroughly-trained unit
shouldn't be able to beat an inexperienced, but well-equipped unit. On
the other hand, this isn't the first and I seriously doubt it will be
the last time you and I disagree as to how far technology can be used to
tip the balance.

One thing LandWarrior, and presumably BattleTac can also rely on is the
fellow, or group of fellows in the truck/AWACS/bunker monitoring them
and keying in information for them from each other and outside sources
(drones, satellite data, new intel, etc.).

> >P.S. I wonder if now is a good time for Hephaestus or Stainless Steel
> >Rat to try and sell Lynch on some Ares Arachne--Urban-terrain
> >Individual Assault Vehicles ([M.N.] read: Fuchikoma)?

The concept here is possibly best thought of as the analogy:
Truck:Motorcycle::Tank:Arachne

The "Fuchikoma" concept design (invented by author/artist Masamune
Shirow for his comic _Ghost in the Shell_) was for a single-person
assault vehicle with a footprint no bigger than your average car, but
designed for high maneuverability in an urban environment. Armor and
weapons significantly less than a true tank, but fully resistant to
light weapons fire and capable of handling a small amount of modular
heavy-weapons capable of taking out targets from personnel up to
APC/IFV-class vehicles. Shaped something like a four-legged tick or
spider, the "abdomen" clam-shells around the pilot who rides in a manner
reminiscent of a motorcycle. The legs end in "feet" that allow it to
traverse excessively rough terrain but also contain partially retracted
wheels for road use.

The Steel Lynx may have been somewhat inspired by the Fuchikoma, but
they are true drones, and not piloted.

> Lynch's troops spent rather a lot of their time "shooting"
> surveillance drones, too.

A wise endeavor, indeed.

> You want to have Hephaestus make a pitch, go for it. Lynch
> doesn't have purchase authority but he's willing to indulge in
> unclassified debate on an open forum...

Or pass up a test-drive, even if he knows it isn't what he or his group
needs....

--My two
yen

Jeff
Message no. 5
From: mneideng@*****.ugcs.caltech.edu (Mark L. Neidengard Ph.D.)
Subject: Marines learn urban combat
Date: Fri, 20 Sep 2002 12:56:09 -0700 (PDT)
According to Jeffrey Mach:
[BattleTac]
>> Needs a working, high-bandwidth link. Urban areas are tough for radio
>> work anyway (the section-level radios we had, the PRC-349s, were good
>> for 3-4km in the countryside, but were patchy in urban areas)
>> and trying to maintain a network like BattleTac over those conditions
>> could be... interesting.
>
>Hmmm. I won't disagree with your point about urban areas making radio
>transmission more difficult. I guess I made the arguable assumption
>that sufficient advances would be made in communications technology to
>render bandwidth a "solved" problem for anything other than proper
>Faraday caging. If you have a cagy opponent who is up to using jamming
>designed with their opponent's comm system in mind, the advantage will
>be quickly lost.

For one thing, I imagine a force in an urban environment supported by aerial
drones. Shadowrun's description and rules for remote-rigging such beasts
under "normal" conditions makes it seem like radio reception is at least
rather better by gametime than the spotty cellular stuff we experience
today, and military gear should probably have better RF characteristics to
partially offset battlefield jamming. More significantly, a set of drones
operating in concert should be able to act as repeaters for each other,
greatly improving signal fidelity (especially where LOS methods are
available).

>I suppose, if you are really cool, you can even try BattleTac MIJI, and
>try to insert false information into your opponent's battle net, but
>that would probably be overkill for what Lynch had in his "lesson plan"
>for the young jarheads.

It's certainly something that should be conceivable by that day and age, if
not a lot sooner. OTOH, encryption should have advanced quite a bit by
then as well. From a "decking" standpoint, most tactical networks should
presumably have rigid but brittle defenses: very strong encryption but not
many layers of it: efficiency is a high priority for the actual traffic the
nets have to carry.

>> I'd assume they'd have it, but I'm not sure down to what level. Life
>> gets _very_ complicated (and networks very crowded) when
>> every soldier has a voice radio, to say nothing of when they're all
>> keying in contact reports...

OTOH, look at the staggering number of cellular calls that are handled at once
in our existing big cities. As Jeff said, interference may or may not be an
issue, but bandwidth itself I doubt would be.

>> However, given the dodgy propagation of an urban area, the high
>> concentration of non-targets (how do you input a description of a
>> civilian into BattleTac?) and the use of some barrage jamming, its
>> effectiveness could be reduced.
>Agreed. Again, I suppose it is a question of available, useable
>bandwidth, a question I don't feel qualified to debate, given the large
>number of unknowns.

In this case, I think Paul has the right idea - it's probably more about
usage difficulty than actual transmission bandwidth. IFF of all the possible
objects in an urban environment will be a real beast... although it's
implied that at least the ability to say distinguish people with and without
guns is quite feasable in SR times.

>One thing LandWarrior, and presumably BattleTac can also rely on is the
>fellow, or group of fellows in the truck/AWACS/bunker monitoring them
>and keying in information for them from each other and outside sources
>(drones, satellite data, new intel, etc.).

*nod*

>> >P.S. I wonder if now is a good time for Hephaestus or Stainless Steel
>> >Rat to try and sell Lynch on some Ares Arachne--Urban-terrain
>> >Individual Assault Vehicles ([M.N.] read: Fuchikoma)?
>
>The concept here is possibly best thought of as the analogy:
>Truck:Motorcycle::Tank:Arachne

Hey Jeff, remember my "Urban Combat Platform" from back in the Shadowtalk day?
I doubt Ares has discontinued them. ^_- And they're probably smaller now
too. ^_^ Call it an offshoot?

>> Lynch's troops spent rather a lot of their time "shooting"
>> surveillance drones, too.
>
>A wise endeavor, indeed.

Especially for the commo reasons above.
--
/!\/!ark /!\!eidengard, Ph.D. http://keyframe.cjas.org/~mneideng/
"Fairy of sleep, controller of illusions" Sr. Component Design Engineer, Intel
"Control the person for my own purpose." "Don't mess with the Dark
Elves!"
-Pirotess, _Record_of_Lodoss_War_ Anime Fanatic at Large
Message no. 6
From: PlotD@********.demon.co.uk (Paul J. Adam)
Subject: Marines learn urban combat
Date: Sun, 22 Sep 2002 21:28:04 +0100
In message <000001c26079$b4431640$5668f4d1@********>, Jeffrey Mach
<jjmach@**********.com> writes
>> Needs a working, high-bandwidth link. Urban areas are tough for radio
>> work anyway (the section-level radios we had, the PRC-349s, were good
>> for 3-4km in the countryside, but were patchy in urban areas)
>> and trying to maintain a network like BattleTac over those conditions
>> could be... interesting.
>
>Hmmm. I won't disagree with your point about urban areas making radio
>transmission more difficult. I guess I made the arguable assumption
>that sufficient advances would be made in communications technology to
>render bandwidth a "solved" problem for anything other than proper
>Faraday caging. If you have a cagy opponent who is up to using jamming
>designed with their opponent's comm system in mind, the advantage will
>be quickly lost.

Bingo. Lynch wanted to attack into the notion that you don't need your
basic drills, because the Battletac will handle it. (He hammered on this
point when he was deriding the FRAG, for the exact same reason)
>
>I suppose, if you are really cool, you can even try BattleTac MIJI, and
>try to insert false information into your opponent's battle net, but
>that would probably be overkill for what Lynch had in his "lesson plan"
>for the young jarheads.

The idea is to teach them, not obliterate them :) Lynch's opinion is
that technology works best as a final layer, over a solid foundation of
tactics, training and doctrine. There's something of a tendency in the
current US experiments to see technology as the solution in and of
itself, rather than as a means to the end.

>> I'd assume they'd have it, but I'm not sure down to what level. Life
>> gets _very_ complicated (and networks very crowded) when
>> every soldier has a voice radio, to say nothing of when they're all
>> keying in contact reports...
>>
>> However, given the dodgy propagation of an urban area, the high
>> concentration of non-targets (how do you input a description of a
>> civilian into BattleTac?) and the use of some barrage jamming, its
>> effectiveness could be reduced.
>
>Agreed. Again, I suppose it is a question of available, useable
>bandwidth, a question I don't feel qualified to debate, given the large
>number of unknowns.

It's not so much data bandwidth as "how many people can talk on one
network"? For voice comms (likely to predominate in an actual firefight)
a company net with barely twenty users (section commanders and 2ICs,
platoon commanders, company HQ) got very busy during an attack on Imber
Village.

Some of the out-of-contact traffic could be shifted digitally to clear
the voice net, but there's a limit to that too ('enemy thataway' is of
some utility, but is it one or two stragglers with rifles or the leading
elements of a motor-rifle regiment?)

>> From what I've seen of the equipment, it's not going to help much in
>> urban combat. At squad/section level, you shouldn't be that
>> spread out and electronics won't help: things just happen too damn
>fast.
>
>Not that I've had a good look-see, I wrote based on just a few tech
>programs on TV describing the system and the little bit on results from
>recent trials conducted by the military. From my understanding, it
>provided a massive advantage, allowing a squad to easily defeat an
>entire platoon, since the members were not required to have line of
>sight on each other at all times.

Neither are the platoon, who have three times as many eyes. Urban
warfare really exemplifies the problem that you're usually killed by
someone you never saw: most casualties in urban warfare are caused by
defilade fire while moving between buildings (according to the training
handbooks, anyway) and you learn about it when troops fall down
bleeding.

> It also made it much harder for their
>opponents to ambush the squad, because any member of the team could
>quickly notify the others with something as simple as pointing their
>weapon at the target, and tapping a button to log the position as a
>hostile unit (given GPS location of the squad member, and range /
>bearing readings taken from the gun's laser rangefinder).

Meaning they aren't firing back, if they're 'logging hostiles' instead
of firing and evading.

A good ambush should kill everyone in the killing zone within five
seconds (and the Claymores alone should do most of the job right away)

You might get something by flagging 'friendlies firing', but you can
_hear_ that anyway :)


There's also the basic tactic of surrounding the unit with single
snipers and saturating the net with 'enemy thataway' messages to
disguise the _real_ threat axis and reduce confidence in the warning.


>> An antitank rocket does the same job just as well, and is more
>> versatile and flexible. (And easier to swap between men, take off a
>> casualty, et cetera). A Ballista needs the launcher and ammunition and
>> ties up a soldier: Predator is a one-shot weapon that isn't much
>> heavier than a Ballista reload would be, but is a fully functional
>> weapon that's either a top-attack tank-killer or a direct-fire
>> bunker-buster, and you can issue one, two or many Predators per
>> section as needed.
>
>QuickQ: is the Predator from ShadowRun or Real Life (tm)?

Real life. Narrowly lost a UK competition for a LAW80 replacement.

>I agree that individual rockets are versatile. I suppose I imagined a
>fire team having designated "heavy gunners" as specialist who would be
>devoted to an anti-armor role, but I suppose Marines can't afford as
>much specialization as perhaps the Army can.

Infantry squads can't tie up troops with specialist weapons heavier than
an M203. Light mortars are one-per-platoon for the UK, and company-level
assets for the US. Rifle grenades, disposable AT weapons,

>> 25mm, actually, and not common to OICW.
>
>Hunh. Really?

Yep, really.

>Watched a program featuring it and they specifically
>said that the weapon was designed to fire the same round as the over
>barrel launcher on the OICW so that the armed services would only have
>to by one size of ammo that could be used on both weapons and keep the
>logistics simpler. Maybe that's changed. The program was not that
>recent.

OSCW is designed to shoot out to 2,000m. Needs more poke than OICW
(which has to be fired from the shoulder) so it uses a family of 25mm
ammo.

>One thing LandWarrior, and presumably BattleTac can also rely on is the
>fellow, or group of fellows in the truck/AWACS/bunker monitoring them
>and keying in information for them from each other and outside sources
>(drones, satellite data, new intel, etc.).

To a point, but the movie version of "Black Hawk Down" shows harshly how
quickly that information becomes valueless to the troops at the sharp
end unless it can be reliably and _rapidly_ got to where it's needed
(and _only_ where it's needed)

>> >P.S. I wonder if now is a good time for Hephaestus or Stainless Steel
>> >Rat to try and sell Lynch on some Ares Arachne--Urban-terrain
>> >Individual Assault Vehicles ([M.N.] read: Fuchikoma)?
>
>The concept here is possibly best thought of as the analogy:
>Truck:Motorcycle::Tank:Arachne
>
>The "Fuchikoma" concept design (invented by author/artist Masamune
>Shirow for his comic _Ghost in the Shell_) was for a single-person
>assault vehicle with a footprint no bigger than your average car, but
>designed for high maneuverability in an urban environment. Armor and
>weapons significantly less than a true tank, but fully resistant to
>light weapons fire and capable of handling a small amount of modular
>heavy-weapons capable of taking out targets from personnel up to
>APC/IFV-class vehicles. Shaped something like a four-legged tick or
>spider, the "abdomen" clam-shells around the pilot who rides in a manner
>reminiscent of a motorcycle. The legs end in "feet" that allow it to
>traverse excessively rough terrain but also contain partially retracted
>wheels for road use.
>
>The Steel Lynx may have been somewhat inspired by the Fuchikoma, but
>they are true drones, and not piloted.
>
>> Lynch's troops spent rather a lot of their time "shooting"
>> surveillance drones, too.
>
>A wise endeavor, indeed.
>
>> You want to have Hephaestus make a pitch, go for it. Lynch
>> doesn't have purchase authority but he's willing to indulge in
>> unclassified debate on an open forum...
>
>Or pass up a test-drive, even if he knows it isn't what he or his group
>needs....
>
> --My two
>yen
>
> Jeff
>
>
>

--
Paul J. Adam

Further Reading

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Thwap!