Logistically Viable Weapons AtE

[Rupert]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

*that said I always thought one of the hallmarks of such units (and good training in general) was flexibility and adaptability to an ongoing situation

It is. Effective spec ops troops are adept at creating and exploiting chaos and confusion, and at exploiting that chaos even when someone else created it. Things tend to get very confused and very messy when operators from multiple entities are operating in the same area (and there is probably some poor third world regular military and/or police in there trying to keep things under control as well, to add to the chaos). A great situation to throw a bunch of PCs into...

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Rupert

It is. Effective spec ops troops are adept at creating and exploiting chaos and confusion, and at exploiting that chaos even when someone else created it. Things tend to get very confused and very messy when operators from multiple entities are operating in the same area (and there is probably some poor third world regular military and/or police in there trying to keep things under control as well, to add to the chaos). A great situation to throw a bunch of PCs into...

...

V.true!

[acrosome]

Originally Posted by safisher

If you go here and see his vitae, you'll see that he presents year after year, month after month to professionals in the military and in law enforcement. You may disagree with him, and there are those that do. But that doesn't mean listening to Grossman is being a "victim."

https://www.killology.com/copy-of-vitae

YEP! Not a single peer-reviewed publication in there!

One is forced to wonder why...

Not to mention that I could post an equally long CV for Dr Phil.

Originally Posted by safisher

Just a random sample:
SOCSOUTH, Homestead, FL, 5 Dec 2014
10th Mountain Division, Fort Drum, NY, 24 Nov 2014
Australian Military tele-presentation, 26 Oct 2014
Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA 20 Oct 2014
Air Force Combat Control Unit, Panama City, FL, 6 Sep 2014
Australian Army, Tele-Presentation, 11 Aug 2014
Lackland AFB, San Antonio, TX, 24 Jul 2014
USMC MCAS, Cherry Point, NC, 17 Jun 2014
10th Sustainment Brigade, Fort Drum, NY, 9 Jun 2014
3rd Brigade 101st Airport, Fort Campbell, KY, 12-13 May 2014
US Navy SEALs, Little Creek, VA, 10 Mar 2014
US Navy SEALs, San Diego, CA, 20 Feb 2014
USCG Maritime Force Protection Unit, Silverdale, WA, 7 Feb 2014
US Coast Guard, Camp LeJeune, NC, 18 Jan 2014
US Navy SEALs, San Diego, CA, 5 Nov 2013
Special Operations Forces, Tampa, FL, 17 Dec 2013
Navy Seals, Norfolk, VA, 23 Sept 2013.
US Coast Guard, Camp LeJeune, NC, 24 Aug 2013.
Scott AFB, Scott AFB, IL, 1 Aug 2013.
US Border Patrol, Tucson, AZ, 21 June 2013.
Marine Expeditionary Warfare School, Quantico, VA, 1 May 2013.
USAF AFMC 72 ABW/HC, Tinker AFB, OK, 5 Apr 2013.
Joint Maritime Training Center, Camp LeJeune, NC, 1 Apr 2013.
7/20th STG, Hurlbert Field, FL, 26 Mar 2013.

Indeed, he has done a great job peddling crap to the military and law enforcement. (As have many others.) He basically feeds them what they want to hear- which don't get me wrong, it admittedly is a great technique. And I'm not just talking about On Killing- though Lord knows he twisted that data all to hell- he's also a proponent of "Warrior Policing". As if we don't have enough problems with the militarization of police in the United States. If you've ever heard him speak he's a bit of a sensationalist fear-mongering freak. Go watch half-a-dozen random YouTube videos of him.

I'm not saying that everything the guy has ever said is false. He does have some insight, and so long as he doesn't veer off into "killology" he seems to be a decent historian. And I guess you can just write it all off as him being a "motivational speaker" or something. But he has also peddled a lot of crap. And for better or worse the best-known of his peddled crap is this bit about normal humans being psychologically incapable of killing other humans. Sure, yes, obviously training (i.e. conditioning) will help shed some of the simple socialization that most westerners have against killing, but it's not a case of trying to transform 'natural pacifists' into warriors or some such tripe. Or at least certainly not for the huge fraction of humanity that he claims!

[sir_pudding]

I still don't see how it makes any difference. If you have a company of rifles with Reluctant Killer, shooting at cavalrymen with Reluctant Killer the only things there that don't have the penalty are the horses. In fact, riflemen with Reluctant Killer can still shoot the horses and also combine their RoFs for suppression without penalty, so the net result is it is just overall worse for the cavalry.

The GURPS disadvantage definitely doesn't make any exceptions for melee attacks. Personally, I think the idea that most people are generally able to cut a man a man down at saber range (where you can see his face, hear his scream, and get his blood on your jodhpurs) but would be reluctant to shoot him at 300 yards is probably the least tenable formulation of this hypothesis, anyway..

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

...

The GURPS disadvantage definitely doesn't make any exceptions for melee attacks. Personally, I think the idea that most people are generally able to cut a man a man down at saber range (where you can see his face, hear his scream, and get his blood on your jodhpurs) but would be reluctant to shoot him at 300 yards is probably the least tenable formulation of this hypothesis, anyway.

Actually it makes a little more sense, because while you might be wavering on the whole going for the kill, you don't know if the other chap is. Which is a bit more of an immediate concern and a bit more in doubt when he's bearing down on you with a sword shouting a war cry etc. Cavalry charges look and are fierce, the psychology of which works on both sides here.
As opposed to when teh other chap is a couple of hundred yards away from you and may not even be aware of you let alone potentially about to kill you (or your mate standing next to you) in such an immediate chain of events. I.e. preserving your own and your mate's life in the immediate situation can override a lot of other concerns

Then there's the point made earlier, when shooting at a bunch of chaps 200 yards away it's going to be pretty hard for your mates to tell if you are shooting 3 yards over the heads of the targets especially if they are also concentrating on their shooting, and of course the general chaos and confusion of war. But it's a bit harder to go unnoticed when you're fighting hand to hand next to your mates. That knowledge of letting your mates down is a powerful motivator.

That said people did freeze or didn't fight in close combat, but as pointed out freezing and not fighting can be for a lot of different psychological and physiological causes many of which not related to a concious reluctance to kill!

And that's the problem with all this, yeah there's going to be lots of conflicting* drives from psychological and other sources. And they are going to interact in potentially very complicated ways. But that means simplistic** assertions like the ones Marshall and Grossman made are not likely to be right (especially when they weren't backed up with much proof). Even more so when you consider that as has been said we've managed to successfully wage war, and kill each other in other circumstances pretty successfully for a long time!

So not only was there little positive proof for the assertions made, the methodology of both getting and assessing the data was suspect, and the assertions not only didn't fit but were counter to the general and measurable experience in question.



*as you say there's potentially the counter drive of putting a face to the person rather more easily when they right in front of you, as opposed to 200 yards away. There's lots of factors here (including psychological one regarding dehumanising that face)

**and even before we get to the psychology reasons there are lots of practical reasons why not every soldiers manages to successfully shoot enemy soldiers in every combat situation

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

As opposed to when he's a couple of hundred yards away from you and may not even be aware of you let alone potentially about to kill you (or your mate standing next to you) in such an immediate chain of events. I.e. preserving your own and your mate's life in the immediate situation can override a lot of other concerns

In this case he is a horse charging you with an armed rider across open terrain along with dozens of his fellows. There isn't any doubt here it is an immediate threat, and no doubt you aren't shooting at a person directly either.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

In this case he is a horse charging you with an armed rider across open terrain along with dozens of his fellows. There isn't any doubt here it is an immediate threat, and no doubt you aren't shooting at a person directly either.

Sorry it may not have been clear but that line about 200 yards away was more a general point about engaging people further way and not necessarily aware of you, not specifically talking about the horseman charging towards you from that distance


But ultimately we're taking a matter of degrees (or rather a sliding scale of context) e.g.


1). Some chaps patrolling through a town square 300 yards away and apparently not aware of you as you and your mates aim at them from elevated cover in a tree line over looking them. = Less immediate risk

2). Same situation as 1 but those chaps are advancing slowly towards the treeline but without seeming to release your there = bit more risk

3). Same situation as 1 but those chaps are now shooting at your position and seeking cover / trying to move up = bit more risk

4). Some chaps on horse back 300 yards away with open terrain between you, but seemingly unaware of you (but if they chose too could arrive pretty quickly) = More risk

5). Same situation as above but they've spotted you and are forming up = more risk again

6). And they're off here they come definitely charging towards you from 300 yards = more risk again

7). Yeah they haven't been dissuaded by your previous actions they're 50 yards away and about to hit you = even more risk

8). You can see this individual chap's filings, as he leans back to swing his sabre at you specifically = even more

(NB. these are vague examples the exact order in RL may differ!)



And of course that all works in the opposite direction as well. If you are about to charge into a chap with your sabre and you know he know's that, then well you're probably going to think he's going to do his damndest to stop you, and that will more likely involve trying to kill you before you kill him. As opposed to say shooting from cover at unaware targets 300 yards away who upon being shot at have a wider range of options for avoiding being killed by you in the immediate term, and are also less able to instantly return lethal fire at you even if that is their choice.

Basically reasonable options for not attacking to kill narrow for both sides as you progress down that list.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

5). Same situation as above but they've spotted you and are forming up = more risk again

6). And they're off here they come definitely charging towards you from 300 yards = more risk again

7). Yeah they haven't been dissuaded by your previous actions they're 50 yards away and about to hit you = even more risk

8). You can see this individual chap's filings, as he leans back to swing his sabre at you specifically = even more

These are the only ones that matter for the cavalry charge versus rifle company scenario.

Basically reasonable options for not attacking to kill narrow for both sides as you progress down that list.

Reluctant Killer doesn't work like this. Maybe you should reread how it does?

What you are talking about is maybe a Quirk (Pacifism, Reluctant Killer unless my life is threatened) [-1]. It also would only affect this scenario if the cavalry manages to rout the rifles, in which case attacks on fleeing or stunned riflemen by the cavalrymen would be penalized.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

These are the only ones that matter for the cavalry charge versus rifle company scenario.


Reluctant Killer doesn't work like this. Maybe you should reread how it does?

What you are talking about is maybe a Quirk (Pacifism, Reluctant Killer unless my life is threatened) [-1]. It also would only affect this scenario if the cavalry manages to rout the rifles, in which case attacks on fleeing or stunned riflemen by the cavalrymen would be penalized.

Ah sorry, I was talking about RL not GURPS, the conversation about Marshall's and Grossman's hypotheses etc

[tanksoldier]

Considering barely trained conscrips armed with this weapon will be the bread and butter combatant my PCs will be facing I'm not looking for a weapon that's "good", ideally it would be reliable and cheap at the expense of other traits like wounding ability, accuracy, and weight.

Realize I'm late to the party but that's exactly the purpose of the Mosin-Nagant 91/30 and it's variants, and the later SKS.

Most soldiers just fire in the general direction of the enemy.

Demonstrably false.

This myth was created by SLA Marshall who's work has been thoroughly discredited.

Most of the research and interviews Marshall based his "work" on have been proven never to have happened.

Grossman's later work was based on this fictional research by Marshall and is suspect as well.

Humans have little compunction against shooting at each other. At closer ranges hesitation wounds are a thing, where an assailant fails to fully stab or strike their victim for the first several attempts, but are related more to the murders of unresisting victims than life or death fights between armed combatants.

Some humans are hesitant to murder, that does not translate to a hesitation to kill in combat.