Mass Combat, tech levels and other matters

[Crzyraccoon]

So I was reading the Mass Combat and I found that higher TL adds far too much TS to a unit then it should, maybe that just realisitic but it seem that a low tech army could never beat an ultra tech army even if every other factor was at the advantage of the low tech army.

In my "fantasy" space campaign (for the sake of comparison, the old Star Trek meet Heroscape?), there is a intergalactic war between two expanding TL9 galactic empires with TL13 space technology and they have other worlds of many varieties as part of their empires. One of them have a TL3 utopic world with powerful defensive magics and angels. They have mastered many forms of war and are having an economic boom. The other empire have a TL11 world that really don't have much war experience and are at an economic depression with a very corrupted society.

I just see the TL3 world being able to beat the TL11 world with not much problems, but the mass combat rulebook doesn't seem to rule that out very well.

The exact TL of each of those worlds is TL3 (Architecture 4, Energy 2) and TL11 (Material 12, Energy 12, Mining 12, Psi 12, Robotic 10, Transport 10, Weapon 10, Biology 10)

P.S. It 4e Tech Level with an addition of TL13 and TL14

[mlangsdorf]

Compare a typical TL6 tank like the M4A Sherman at the back of High Tech with a typical TL8 tank like the T-72 at the back of the same book. The T-72 has 6 times as much DR to the front than the M4, and twice as much DR on its sides as the M4 has to the front. The T-72 gets +1 on unaimed fire thanks to its gunnery computer, and +12 on aimed fire thanks to its scopes and range finders (and has stabilizers to allow it to aim and fire on the move). The M4, in contrast, gets no bonus on unaimed fire and only +6 on aimed fire. Assuming skilled (Skill-14) gunners, the M4 has a 50% chance of hitting the T-72 at 500 yards, and the T-72 has a either a 98% chance of hitting at that range, or a 50% of hitting at 3500 yards. The M4's gun can barely penetrate the T-72s side armor, while the T-72's gun reduces the M4 to -2xHP on a front hit. The T-72 is more of a threat to the M4 than the dreaded WWII Tiger was, and 5 Shermans versus 1 Tiger was close to a fair fight.

Increasing TL radically improves combat ability, so yes, it's reasonable that a TL difference means x4 the TS in Mass Combat terms.

Similarly, stat up just about any kind of dragon, giants, or similar low-tech magical critter and have it fight that M4 tanks. Unless the monster is diffuse or insubstantial, it'll be lucky to close the range before being blown apart by 76mm shells or chewed to pieces by .50 and .30 caliber machine gun fire. Fantasy monsters are rarely built on the scale that would let them deal with with modern, much less ultra-tech, weapons and defenses. Canonically, even Cthulhu went down when attacked by a WWI destroyer.

The TL11 society, even in a depression, has a population and a per capita GDP (and thus, total GDP) that the TL3 society can only dream of. Even in an economic depression, probably less than 1% of its population is performing agriculture, compared to more than 50% of the TL3 world.

So what assumptions of magic and ultratech are you making that allows the TL3 society from keeping the TL11 society from sending fleets of robot produced spacecraft (SM13-SM15, 300ktons to 1mton) to conquer low orbit around the TL3 world and then pound it into rubble with brilliant rocks dropped from orbit?

[Kalzazz]

TL 3 starting wealth is 1k
TL 10 is 50k

Your TL 10 heavy battlesuit retails for 210k
A full suit of mail and plates retails for 3k

TL 10 commando battlesuit (and helmet) retails for 90k

Your TL 11 guys (with TL 10 weapons) can afford commando battlesuits a whole lot easier than TL 3 guys can afford plate harness

Now, a good caliber wizard, mystic knight or whatnot can handily defeat a normal goon in a battlesuit. But, skill 10, stat 10, random mook in a commando battlesuit can put paid to entire companies of the flower of chivalry. A ST 21 weapon master with an AD 2 magic sword . . . . goes bonk against a commando battlesuits limb.

A 40mm grenade flings 2d shrapnel all about which can do non nonexistent damage through DR 5 mail and plates, and an underbarrel 40mm grenade launcher can fling these things 200 yards away

[Kalzazz]

Heroic Champions can of course slaughter higher TL foes if said foes are not heroic champions themselves

Multi Shot, Penetrating Strike, Cutting Strike, bodkin arrows, brawny mystic knight with an elven bow with nifty enchants on it (such as Penetrating Weapon) can reduce a Sherman tanks DR to nothing and riddle its HP away through generous helpings of cutting damage.

But that is a high point value Hero of Awesomeness.

And a high point value TL 11 Hero of Awesomeness wearing his Heavy Battlesuit and swinging a gatling laser will be even scarier than his low TL foe

[Andreas]

Originally Posted by Crzyraccoon

So I was reading the Mass Combat and I found that higher TL adds far too much TS to a unit then it should, maybe that just realisitic but it seem that a low tech army could never beat an ultra tech army even if every other factor was at the advantage of the low tech army.

In my "fantasy" space campaign (for the sake of comparison, the old Star Trek meet Heroscape?), there is a intergalactic war between two expanding TL9 galactic empires with TL13 space technology and they have other worlds of many varieties as part of their empires. One of them have a TL3 utopic world with powerful defensive magics and angels. They have mastered many forms of war and are having an economic boom. The other empire have a TL11 world that really don't have much war experience and are at an economic depression with a very corrupted society.

I just see the TL3 world being able to beat the TL11 world with not much problems, but the mass combat rulebook doesn't seem to rule that out very well.

The exact TL of each of those worlds is TL3 (Architecture 4, Energy 2) and TL11 (Material 12, Energy 12, Mining 12, Psi 12, Robotic 10, Transport 10, Weapon 10, Biology 10)

P.S. It 4e Tech Level with an addition of TL13 and TL14

It does of course depend on the specifics of how powerful the low TL world's magic is, but assuming that it is not much more powerful than what is the case for magic in Mass Combat it is definitely realistic that the high TL world would have a massive advantage. I would even argue that Mass Combat underestimate the advantage of higher TL in many cases.

The difference between individual vehicles mentioned in mlangsdorf's example where the number of late TL 6 (or early TL 7) tanks a TL 8 tank can defeat is probably limited by it's ammunition is only part of picture. The higher TL armies shave far better intellegence gathering and strategic maneuverability etc and that is just a difference of one or two TL levels.

Another example would be to look at some of the colonial battles of European TL 5 forces. The European forces could often be expected to win even when very heavily outnumbered. Even if outnumbered 10 to 1 by a force that also possesed some 'modern' firearms did not necessarily mean that they were at a disadvantage.

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Heroic Champions can of course slaughter higher TL foes if said foes are not heroic champions themselves

Multi Shot, Penetrating Strike, Cutting Strike, bodkin arrows, brawny mystic knight with an elven bow with nifty enchants on it (such as Penetrating Weapon) can reduce a Sherman tanks DR to nothing and riddle its HP away through generous helpings of cutting damage.

It is true that heroes with powerful enough magic can make them competitive, but you would of course need much more than just that even against a TL 6 force. Without anything else the hero would most likely just be killed by machine gun fire before destroying the tank.

[Ulzgoroth]

A world that's actually anything like TL3 can't possibly fight against a world that's actually anything like TL11. The TL11 world will have orders of magnitude more population, lots of orders of magnitude more wealth, and can just churn out war robots. And from a TL3 perspective the robots are practically invulnerable and have guns that shoot through castles. From the TL11 perspective, the robots are fairly cheap infantry.

However, a world with enormous magical power may not actually be anything like TL3. It could have ridiculous amounts of magitech, making it, say, TL3+8^. Alternatively it might actually be TL3, but with archmages and supernatural protectors ludicrously out of scale to their home environment and packing effective TS thousands of times higher than the fantastic elements table in Mass Combat...or more likely with characters that make Mass Combat irrelevant and inappropriate by being quasi-divine reality warpers.



Just bear in mind that anything that can fight TL11 military hardware outclasses a pretty much infinite amount of actual TL3 military. Anything that couldn't casually destroy any force on Earth prior to...well, probably prior to the 20th century, at a bare minimum...is not going to cut it.

[mlangsdorf]

For a mere $1 million, your mystic archer can have a bow which ignores DR. At which point, yeah, he can kill the Sherman. How many mystic archers are you fielding with that kind of bow?

On a more reasonable level, a bow with Penetrating Weapon (2) is $10K, cheap compared to the same bow with Puissance +2 ($40K). Assuming an effective ST19 archer with Weapon Master, fine arrows, and the above spells on the bow, firing bodkins with Penetrating Strike (3) at the top deck of the Sherman (using Arcing Shot), damage is 2d+9 cu (12) versus a top armor of 70, so it will take 11 arrows to reduce the M4 to 0 HP. (Against the front armor, the M4 takes an average of 0 damage per shot...) And the archer needs to be within ~400 yards of the M4, well within range of its .30 and .50 caliber MGs.

So even an elvish super archer struggles against a mere TL6 tank. A TL10 tank, which presumably has some kind of laser point defense system, might just shoot those arrows out of the sky or have some kind of spaced / laminate / electromagnetic / I don't know what armor that interferes with some or all of those tricks. And use laser or particle beam anti-personnel weapons, which means even if the elf is protected by Missile Shield he's still in for a bad day.

Which further reinforces Kalkazz's point that only the mightiest of TL3 heroes are going to have a chance and the TL10 side is going to have more mooks than the TL3 side has heroes.

[Kalzazz]

It does also depend where you are fighting. Late TL 6 Sherman tanks were able to hold up against early TL 7 Soviet armor in the nearly melee combat ranges of Korea. And woefully obsolete Israeli Sherman tanks fought in defense of Israel much later on vs superior numbers of higher TL tanks through sheer (nearly suicidal) fervor of the Israeli crews often fighting at melee range in the mountains

Of course TL 7 T-72s squared off against a mix of American TL 7 and 8 armor in nice open desert arenas in Iraq and the Iraqi tanks died in wholesale lots often without even realizing the Americans even existed

[RGTraynor]

Originally Posted by Kalzazz

Now, a good caliber wizard, mystic knight or whatnot can handily defeat a normal goon in a battlesuit. But, skill 10, stat 10, random mook in a commando battlesuit can put paid to entire companies of the flower of chivalry. A ST 21 weapon master with an AD 2 magic sword . . . . goes bonk against a commando battlesuits limb.

I'm not remotely as sanguine about the chances of that wizard against a battlesuit. Generally speaking, the range of GURPS spells other than missile spells just plain sucks, and the half-damage limit of the longest missile spell in the book is half the length of a football field. Never mind battlesuits, I'll happily put an unarmored TL7 infantryman with an assault rifle up against your average wizard. Somehow I think that battlesuit wearers aren't going to be so daft as to routinely close to melee range of swordsmen.

Another factor no one's mentioned is learning curve. That TL3 society is expert at war, yes? THEIR war. Done THEIR way. Meanwhile, the inexperienced TL11 society gets a lot tougher with a little bit of learning; warfare tends to be a stern and swift teacher, and it wouldn't take the TL11 society long to get a clue.

That it's economically depressed isn't a biggie. When WWII struck, the world was still feeling the effects of the Great Depression, and that changed pretty darn fast.

Honestly, I'm with the majority: this is going to be a curb stomp by the TL11s.

[Kalzazz]

Wizards are very quickly going to want Missile Shield or Reverse Missiles if fighting TL 7 infantry

That said it probably requires 'More than good caliber' wizards and mystic knights to fight goons in battlesuits, not merely good caliber

Notably another consideration is while an elf ranger of good caliber could likely sneak up quite handily on a TL 6 Sherman tank, which is very noisy and gives poor field of view, TL 10 armor likely bristles with all manner of fun sensors to make it hard for sneaky elves