Tactics for adversary near-future soldiers

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

So you end up with an APC that an ETC Heavy Chaingun can tear apart in one turn with APEP ammo? At least the Armored Hovercraft has better mobility.

Well, it's an APC, not a tank. Most modern day designs are rated to be "protected" against heavy machineguns, but not anything heavier, except on their frontal armor. Recent experience in some conflicts has shown that lightweight APCs have poor survivability. Yet the combination of low cost, mobility, and protection they offer their infantry keeps people buying them and fielding them.

But the ETC chaingun does 78.5 damage. Against the frontal armor, which is the preferable aspect, APEP means you're confronting aproximately 60DR after divisor. Which means about 18.5 damage. With 150 hp, that chaingun needs to land 8 shots in one turn, with a RCL of 2 and a ROF of 12. That means you need to succeed by about 14 of so when firing at it, in order for the "one turn kill". Front the side, have about 43 damage after armor, and the rear, bottom and top are basically tissue paper.

And that's completely realistic: if you took a 25mm or 30mm autocannon and hosed down a BMP, M113, BRDM, BTR or LAV, I'm pretty sure the end result would be exactly what we're talking about: a dead vehicle. And it's a 10 ton vehicle, not a 30 ton vehicle. And its a quarter of a million bucks, maybe half a million if you trick it out with Chameleon, IR stealth and Radar Stealth.

The 18 ton IFV sports 198 frontal armor, 144 on the sides, and 72 on the bottom, rear and top. As well as a few more HP.

The 30 ton Heavy APC has frontal DR 700, side DR 360, and over 230 DR on everything else.

Compared to the hover craft, the Hussar has more armor, more hit points, more troop capacity, and, more weapons. And it's less than half the cost. Giving it a Chameleon surface, Infrared cloaking and Radar Stealth would add about $140,000 to the price tag. Also, it's smaller, and therefore a little bit harder to detect and shoot.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Michele

Yes, this is most likely another TL8 issue. At TL9, you probably have a pretty advanced AI managing the thing, and the reprogramming might be just "engage any roughly human-shaped target that moves at more than X per second, or that is able to fly".

I submit that you won't have that until the upgrade after your early encounters with supers. Before then, such flexibility would be unnecessary, and cost extra, and therefore why would you bother?

Also, the sensors used for an anti-missile/shell point-defence are quite possibly going to be quite useless for detecting relatively slow moving humans.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Which puts me back at square one: I haven't done HTML coding in fifteen years. So, more or less, yeah, I have no idea how to create a decent looking table on the forums.

Surround your text with the CODE tag, as suggested. Inside that CODE tag, it's all plain text created by you, that doesn't get reformatted. So, you manually align the columns with spaces. You'll want to use a fixed-width font like Courier in your favorite text editor to do that alignment, and paste the text into your CODE block.

It's not like an HTML table with tags for every element of the table, formatted by the web browser. It's formatted by you, with the CODE tag telling the forum software _not_ to format it (which in untagged normal text would strip the leading spaces, compressing the space between the columns, and so on). Less BB-coding than a QUOTE, even, since it's missing the backlink reference bit.

[Verjigorm]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

Surround your text with the CODE tag, as suggested. Inside that CODE tag, it's all plain text created by you, that doesn't get reformatted. So, you manually align the columns with spaces. You'll want to use a fixed-width font like Courier in your favorite text editor to do that alignment, and paste the text into your CODE block.

It's not like an HTML table with tags for every element of the table, formatted by the web browser. It's formatted by you, with the CODE tag telling the forum software _not_ to format it (which in untagged normal text would strip the leading spaces, compressing the space between the columns, and so on). Less BB-coding than a QUOTE, even, since it's missing the backlink reference bit.

Yeah, in retrospect it's the easiest thing ever. Many thanks to ou and Anthoney for that.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by thrash

If you can achieve lock with the weapon's own sensors, I agree that it's unlikely to miss.

I was referring back to the positioning problem: how long does it take from when the sensor network tags a target to when the launch platform is in position to deliver a weapon? If the super is able to change buildings (e.g., cross the street) in that interval, the shooter-to-target geometry may have changed enough to disrupt the current run-in, forcing a go-around and starting the cycle all over again.

In a more open environment or with slower-moving weapons platforms this isn't a problem, but makes it troublesome to use aircraft against mobile point targets in an urban area. Multiple fast-movers cycling in on a clover-leaf pattern might be able to overcome the issue, but it would be a coordination challenge (and a target-rich environment for the supers).

Well, it seems you thought this through more thoroughly than me.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by Rupert

I submit that you won't have that until the upgrade after your early encounters with supers. Before then, such flexibility would be unnecessary, and cost extra, and therefore why would you bother?

Also, the sensors used for an anti-missile/shell point-defence are quite possibly going to be quite useless for detecting relatively slow moving humans.

Well, yes. I was thinking in terms of a whole array of possible supers, which might include guys like Flash or Superman or Quicksilver or other fast fliers/runners. It now seems we're talking about psis, which, I suppose, reduces the top speeds. If so, more ordinary anti-personnel weaponry would suffice.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by PTTG

Regarding strategy judgements: true... but my initial question was mainly about the second-by-second decisions they use in combat when they are forced to clear room by room. I'll definitely take a look at tactical shooting for that.

I think that they'd classify the psis and try to come up with doctrine for dealing with each class of them.

Psis who can create physical effects, chiefly telekinetics, aren't actually that much different from TL9 technology that can produce homing mini-missiles, and will probably be dealt with by standard infantry tactics: fire and maneuver, probably lots of suppressive fire by supporting arms, and lots of overwatch.

Psis who can meddle with the minds will be dealt with by... more overwatch, in a sense: the enemies will come up with ways to keep tabs on the behavior of their own soldiers, and possibly interfere with it. After all, they are in powered armor. If there is a remote switch, a soldier who is in that armor can be effectively immobilized by his own side. The armor suits will have biosensors, the enemy might come up with detectable indicators that a soldier is trying to resist a telepathic takeover, or some such, and then the lieutenant will switch the armor and weapons off from a distance.
Stand-off weapons, already discussed above, will make sense, as well as sneaky snipers (who are stand-off weapons).

Precognition will probably require creating a no-win situation, which is probably not in the field of tactics. Identify the psi and take his Dependents hostage.

Ordinary grunt squads won't have more than this, but psi-hunting special teams will probably field their own quisling psis, too.

[Rupert]

Unless the supers decide to actually make a stand and fight it out, catching them is going to be more of a security/police matter than a military one.

I would expect military units that do run into them will be whatever is handy to reinforce the security forces when things get out of hand. According to the OP they know supers exist, so they'll have some drills to deal with the more common categories (whatever they are in this setting), but they probably won't be dedicated anti-super forces. Those come in later if the PCs haven't won or cleared out yet.

One problem is that a soldier in a TL9 powered suit with gear is comparable to a low-end super in blasting power, is probably tougher, and almost certainly has more reach and better sensors than a low-powered blaster-brick has. And there are many of soldiers, all in communication with each other and trained to co-operate. Thus low-end supers will need powers that can let them fight in ways other than direct confrontation. Thus psis and illusionists messing with soldiers' heads, and the like. One that can dampen high-tech gadgets over an area (or drain their power) would be awesomely useful.

[Polydamas]

Originally Posted by Rupert

Unless the supers decide to actually make a stand and fight it out, catching them is going to be more of a security/police matter than a military one.

I would expect military units that do run into them will be whatever is handy to reinforce the security forces when things get out of hand.

The good thing about that is that it gives the GM an excuse not to show what happens when a modern military has to fight inside a city. Aleppo, Mosul, and Marawi are three recent examples, but you can trace the same pattern back to the First World War. Gratuitous property damage is a supers trope, but "*rattle of dice* as you debate your next move, an airstrike lands on your building, killing you and 30 bystanders ... five minutes later there is another barrage of 155 mm shells which cause further casualties" is not so fun.

[AlexanderHowl]

In this case, I think the classic bricks are a liability and will likely end up being killed during the initial invasion. After the initial invasion, the resistance would be comprised on the subtle supers, though some abilities are better than others. For example, Invisibility needs to work on machines to allow supers to bypass power armored soldiers, as the soldiers will be depending on their suits sensors instead of their own senses, and will likely need to work against UV and IR vision as well.