Tactics for adversary near-future soldiers

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Michele

Therefore, even if the action takes place in a city, it won't be infantry, even in powered armor, against supers; it will be tanks and aircraft against supers.

Tanks, at least as they are typically configured, are not well suited to urban combat. Their main guns do not elevate enough to attack targets above street level at even moderate ranges, nor track fast enough to target moving supers at close range. Against infantry, though, they make decent mobile pill boxes and bunker busters.

Something like a tracked anti-aircraft cannon would be better, but likely not as well armored. Small, vertical launch guided missile carriers might be a cheaper but equally effective alternate.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by thrash

Tanks, at least as they are typically configured, are not well suited to urban combat.

Our, TL8, tanks are that way. TL9 ones, just to make one example, probably will have each their own point-defense anti-missile system, which can track fast-moving supers, and can aim at a target at any elevation.

That said, note I wrote tanks and aircraft. If a target is on top of a tall building, and the tanks for some reason can't eliminate it in the way suggested above (collapse the building), then attack aircraft will.

[ericthered]

I suspect you want TL8^ tactics rather than TL9, given what you've described and the fact that you're working with a supers setting.

Fighting vehicles, including tanks and planes, rule the open battlefield. This may include counter gravity tanks and exotic space fighters, but they will act like tanks and planes. You have a limited number of these heavies, so they will get call on to hit difficult targets.

At Higher TL's cities are much more important targets than countryside. Tanks are useful for taking cities, but you've got to deploy infantry. Infantry can enter buildings, interrogate or terrorize civilians, and have much better all around vision than a tank.

If I was equipping "space infantry" at TL8+1^ I'd see if I could get my hands on the following:

• Cheap personal flight, perhaps in the form of jet packs, but flying bikes will work in a pinch. This is fantastic for dealing with buildings
• As much in the way of visibility enhancement as I could get. The ability to see through walls is nice, as is heat vision, night vision, and so forth. Chemical sniffers can be dead useful as well. Even if all these upgrades are too much for one soldier to process, giving one in each squad a different upgrade is nice.
• Communications gear is somewhere between nice and essential. Radios are good, but you can add vitals signs information, the ability to track your allies without looking at them, and the ability to see through another's visor or HUD.
• Powerful weaponry and armor, but I wouldn't overdo it: these soldiers are the eyes and ears of enemy, not its fists.

Infantry will try and take positions by themselves first, but if they need to call for backup, they shouldn't hesitate too much. Surrounding and pinning down a foe will be their backup plan if they can't take a position. The Bigger guns brought in may be a combat helicopter, a tank, the tracked anti-aircraft gun, or just enough explosives to demolish the building. They don't want to level cities, but destroying enemy strong points is good enough.

If powers are resistant to those tactics, they'll probably form dedicated anti-supers squads. The odds of running into one of those randomly are very low, and they may look like investigations more than military squads until they know exactly what sort of super they are gunning for.

[Michael Thayne]

Originally Posted by PTTG

The supers have psi-based powers, but they don't use the Psi system, just advantages. They also will eventually have a powerful special tool at their disposal: an ancient alien psi amplification center, more accurately named an "empathy telescope." It allows a number of psi agents to effectively possess targets at ranges of hundreds of light-years -- a feat that in both specifics and scale far exceeds everything psis are known to do in this setting. The space nazis aren't stupid, but if the PCs play their cards right they can turn them against one another before their infiltration is discovered.

Before that, though, the PCs will face the troops in the combat that will drive them to _find_ the Empathy Telescope. Even without it, their psi powers will give them a slight edge because the space nazis see Psi powers as a sign of corruption and non-humanity, and therefore most don't understand them well, and fear them. (Not to say they don't keep pet psis on a close leash for dealing with especially severe problems...)

Given this setup, I suspect the preferred method for dealing with psis will be "don't put anyone whose life you care about near them on purpose, locate them using surveillance drones and paid informants, and hit them with a striker missile (Ultra-Tech p. 168) from 30 miles away." Snipers are a viable alternative when a missile would be inappropriate. For a typical mission setup, I might have the grunts make fright checks as soon as they observe psi powers being used, and make the real challenge dealing with the one sniper nearby who the PCs can't see initially.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Michele

TL9 ones, just to make one example, probably will have each their own point-defense anti-missile system, which can track fast-moving supers, and can aim at a target at any elevation.

A tank main gun that can fire at any elevation is going to require a significantly different armor and recoil-managing configuration -- essentially nothing like a current tank at all, and more like an anti-aircraft gun. With the right kind of contragravity you could have a spherical Happy Fun Ball that fires in any direction, but that's why I said "as typically configured." That's not just a TL8 vs. TL9 distinction, however.

If you're counting on the anti-missile system to take out the supers, skip the heavy armor and go with the point-defense vehicle directly.

That said, note I wrote tanks and aircraft. If a target is on top of a tall building, and the tanks for some reason can't eliminate it in the way suggested above (collapse the building), then attack aircraft will.

I didn't address aircraft because that isn't my field of expertise, but they aren't terribly useful in urban environments, either. Fast-movers have a very limited ability to detect and fire on targets (who will quickly learn not to stand on top, in the open) between, among, and inside buildings; slower aircraft are vulnerable to (e.g.) thrown debris and other counterattacks.

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Michele

Our, TL8, tanks are that way. TL9 ones, just to make one example, probably will have each their own point-defense anti-missile system, which can track fast-moving supers, and can aim at a target at any elevation.

A point-defence system will need to be reprogrammed to be useful against supers, otherwise it'll ignore them unless they're looking very like incoming missiles. Depending on who its programmed and what the sensors are this may or may not be simple to do.

The suggestion of using self-propelled AA guns seems sensible to me.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by thrash

A tank main gun that can fire at any elevation is going to require a significantly different armor and recoil-managing configuration -- essentially nothing like a current tank at all, and more like an anti-aircraft gun. With the right kind of contragravity you could have a spherical Happy Fun Ball that fires in any direction, but that's why I said "as typically configured." That's not just a TL8 vs. TL9 distinction, however.

If you're counting on the anti-missile system to take out the supers, skip the heavy armor and go with the point-defense vehicle directly.

I think I'll keep the heavy armor given that the conventional enemy may still have LAWs, and supers may have focused AP attacks too. But that's for surviving enemy attacks, while the point-defense system is for taking out fast-moving, possibly flying targets.

Rupert:

A point-defence system will need to be reprogrammed to be useful against supers, otherwise it'll ignore them unless they're looking very like incoming missiles. Depending on who its programmed and what the sensors are this may or may not be simple to do.

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 didn't address aircraft because that isn't my field of expertise, but they aren't terribly useful in urban environments, either. Fast-movers have a very limited ability to detect and fire on targets (who will quickly learn not to stand on top, in the open) between, among, and inside buildings; slower aircraft are vulnerable to (e.g.) thrown debris and other counterattacks.

The above assumes the jet aircraft will have to do their own target designation, which can often not be the case even today; and that they won't be able and/or willing to just take down the entire building inside or behind which the ground troops have located a target.

[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.

Originally Posted by ericthered

I suspect you want TL8^ tactics rather than TL9, given what you've described and the fact that you're working with a supers setting.

Fighting vehicles, including tanks and planes, rule the open battlefield. This may include counter gravity tanks and exotic space fighters, but they will act like tanks and planes. You have a limited number of these heavies, so they will get call on to hit difficult targets.

At Higher TL's cities are much more important targets than countryside. Tanks are useful for taking cities, but you've got to deploy infantry. Infantry can enter buildings, interrogate or terrorize civilians, and have much better all around vision than a tank.

If I was equipping "space infantry" at TL8+1^ I'd see if I could get my hands on the following:

• Cheap personal flight, perhaps in the form of jet packs, but flying bikes will work in a pinch. This is fantastic for dealing with buildings
• As much in the way of visibility enhancement as I could get. The ability to see through walls is nice, as is heat vision, night vision, and so forth. Chemical sniffers can be dead useful as well. Even if all these upgrades are too much for one soldier to process, giving one in each squad a different upgrade is nice.
• Communications gear is somewhere between nice and essential. Radios are good, but you can add vitals signs information, the ability to track your allies without looking at them, and the ability to see through another's visor or HUD.
• Powerful weaponry and armor, but I wouldn't overdo it: these soldiers are the eyes and ears of enemy, not its fists.

Infantry will try and take positions by themselves first, but if they need to call for backup, they shouldn't hesitate too much. Surrounding and pinning down a foe will be their backup plan if they can't take a position. The Bigger guns brought in may be a combat helicopter, a tank, the tracked anti-aircraft gun, or just enough explosives to demolish the building. They don't want to level cities, but destroying enemy strong points is good enough.

If powers are resistant to those tactics, they'll probably form dedicated anti-supers squads. The odds of running into one of those randomly are very low, and they may look like investigations more than military squads until they know exactly what sort of super they are gunning for.

Nice observations, I'll definitely make use of some of those.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by Michele

The above assumes the jet aircraft will have to do their own target designation, which can often not be the case even today...

Even with a hand-off from other sensors, the aircraft's weapon systems have to be positioned to engage the target. TL9 munitions are good, but they still require a relatively clear run at the target. A missile that impacts an intervening building because it couldn't turn fast enough is still a miss.

... and that they won't be able and/or willing to just take down the entire building inside or behind which the ground troops have located a target.

The problems with this approach are reaction times and BDA. If the target can change buildings faster than they can be engaged, you could rubble the entire central business district and still not get a kill -- and how would you know whether you'd succeeded?

[AlexanderHowl]

Which is probably why infantry in powered combat armor with ETC Heavy Chainguns would probably be the standard anti-super equipment at TL9^ (the ^ would be in whatever anti-super technology that they possess). Since the weapons could fire biochemical gases rather than solid munitions, you could have a fireteam open up on a group of civilians without causing any casualties. At TL9, sleep gas is completely safe, so the first fireteam could hit everyone in a room with sleep gas while second fireteam secures everyone who is asleep and deals with anyone who is not asleep. It would also be amusing to see a flying brick get knocked down by sleeping gas before being gunned down with APEP rounds.