| From: | WILLIAM FRIERSON <will1am@*****.ASU.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Re: Rigged Banshee Drivers |
| Date: | Tue, 13 Jun 1995 01:15:29 -0700 |
>When you look at the millions it costs to train a fighter pilot, Y300,000
>before bulk government discount is peanuts for the combat edge a Level 3
>rig provides.
Yeah, but the scary part is that the military uses a low-bid system. And
they tend to be behind the development cycle. Procurement is always
behind the technology curve, at least when you start getting down to
average tank driver. Pilots would get the rigging gear, I'm certain.
That's the premise behind some of the earliest "cyberpunk" stories
by Gibson and others.
[SNIP] [Much good stuff about crewing tanks]
I concur with the crew staying at 4. That's pretty much a standard among
NATO armies. And there are never enough people for guard duty, especially
in the winter at 02:30 in some West German forest :).
>Besides, the Russian autoloaders have a habit of shoving the gunner's arm
>into the main gun, then closing the breech with hydraulically-assisted
>force. Crunch.
The Russians have a whole different philosophy concerning how their units
fight. They pretty much use them like bullets, so the 3 man crew allows
them to field more tanks per unit. They don't worry about the incidentals
that the western armies do.
>Gurth's argument re. casualties is also spot on: having driver and commander
>rigged, at least, provides redundancy in the case of casualties. The other
>crew member(s) would at least have datajacks: again, the cost is trivial
>compared to the benefits.
>
>In my game the military makes extensive use of cybernetics, to bridge their
>numbers gap. Considering the effect four cybertroops can have on a night
>infiltration into a battalion position (NVA sappers squared) they need to.
Yeah, the datajack would be standard, but I don't know about full rigging
for every mechanized/armor trooper.
I tend to think of the militaries of SR as small, elite forces. The tip of
the spear type. Special Operations and small rapid deployment forces,
with armored brigades rather than divisions. The policies will determine
the force levels, but I think the large armies of the Cold War are a
thing of the past.
>Expensive compared to what? You could put some really good 'ware (Boosted III,
>cybereyes, smartlink) into a soldier for Y100,000 before the bulk discount
>for wiring up a battalion at a time. If that means you need fewer troops, that
>amounts to a *big* saving overall in salaries, training, food, vehicles...
>Also it greatly increases their chance of surviving: vital to politicians :-)
Of course, this would mean that enlistment lengths would increase greatly.
And they might disable the cyberware on termination of service. They don't
let you leave with wepaons and gear now, so I doubt they'd let you leave
with any really hot cyberware.
>If the enemy is non-cybered, you *own* the night. If they are wired up then
>you had better be too...
Well, there's also the inherent inertia of large bureaucracies (like armies)
to be overcome. The SAS and SF would probably love to get advantages like
that (if _they_ didn't think that it was a temperamental, never before tried
piece of hardware that was going to leave them high and dry when the balloon
goes up). It would take awhile before it became standard enough for all
soldiers to get chromed upon enlistment.
(For a good read about chromed soldiers and their problems try _Cobra_ by
Timothy Zahn. There's a good lesson of how society feels about having these
highly trained and enhanced guerilla fighters running around with abilities
intact).
>Given the Banshee's speed you might: do a LAPES-type drop out of the back
>so nobody's sure where the troops landed, if at all. The speed does change
>the equation.
The Banshee doesn't have that much room. And I think that I envision the
Banshee a little differently than everyone else does :). But that method
is used by the USMC with OV-10 Broncos. The plane flies at treetop level
occasionally climbing up steeply. The Marines fall out of the back with
specially rigged parachutes, that open immediately (no reserve chute).
The OV-10 does this pop-up several times during it's flight, so the exact
location of the drop is not known.
Later
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William Frierson Internet: WILL1AM@*****.asu.edu
