Ogre Minis Revision Issue: Mark VII

[Steve Jackson]

A hypothetical unit for a future in which the Last War went on longer . . .
These stats come from GURPS Ogre. The Mk. VII has not been sufficiently tested on a miniatures table to assign a point value – it must be at least 350, despite its slow speed.

Ogre Mark VII
Points: unknown!
When the Mark VI was in early production, Combine engineers becan working on plans for the Mark VII. Many thought the VII would be a waste of funds; it was clearly big enough and expensive enough that the enemy could use a strategic nuclear missile on it (or several) and justify the expense. Similar arguments had been made about the Mark VI, and this fear was rarely realized . . . but the huge Mk. VII was both a bigger and a slower target.
Plans were completed for the Mk. VII and templates created. However, the Manila Accord ended the Last War before any had been produced.
The Ogre Mark VII would have had four main batteries, 12 secondary batteries, 24 antipersonnel batteries, four missile racks, and 32 missiles carried internally.
Top speed would only have been about 60 mph (4”), with 96 tread units.

[Tickled to Death]

Nevermind the points cost I'll take a dozen (well, at least 3 then)!

I think though that Ogres look better with an odd number of mains, so it might be better with 5 Main Batteries rather than only 4 ;)

[rozumcrans]

Sounds a lot like the hypothetical Klingon A11 of SFB fame. This thing is worth 60 armor units, I'm well-justified sending 20 armor units' worth of Cruise Missiles at it to kill it. harry it first with LGEV's to wear down the armamanet, then salvo fire the missiles!

[piningforthefjords]

Weighs in at 254 points according to CP Gamma. See http://tank.osaurus.us/yacd-mini.html

The slow movement means it will always be at a huge disadvantage vs a Mk VI or Dopp. Let's take a Dopp for example. The Dopp will get in the first shot - 6 missiles. Odds are you'll lose 2 racks (6 1-1 attacks). The VII moves up and fires off 4 mains and 2 missiles. Scratch 2 racks on the Dopp (again 6 attacks at 1-1). The slow movement means that the 12 secondaries on the VII will not be in range.

The Dopp then moves up a hex and fires off 2 mains, 4 missiles, and 8 secondaries. The mains and the missiles (6 more 1-1 attacks) kill off the last racks on the VII. The 8 secondaries will fire on 8 secondaries on the VII, odds are they'll get 3 secondaries.

The VII now has 4 mains, 9 secondaries (!), and no racks. An overrun is out of the question (13 guns vs 14 guns) so the VII unleashes it's broadside.

The 4 mains wipe out 2 racks on the Dopp, and 9 secondaries destroy the last 2 racks.

Now the Dopp has 2 mains and 8 secondaries vs 4 mains and 9 secondaries. The tide of the battle is turning against it. Depending on how you combine attacks, you might get 2 mains.

On the next turn, the Dopp will likely lose it's mains. The Dopp is down to 8 secondaries, the VII has 2 mains and 9 secondaries.

The Dopp will have a hard time getting 2 mains on it's turn, while odds are the VII will kill off 3 secondares on it's next turn.

The Dopp is down to 5 secondaries, while the VII might have a main left, and 9 secondaries. The VII can now dispatch the Dopp in a few more turns, but there won't be alot left of it when all is said and done.

This was a longer post than I intended - sorry! Also there may be other ways to combine attacks that are theoretically better.

[Glenn Jupp]

For what it's worth, the Cobb Formula put the Mark VII at 334 points. Definitely strat-nuke bait. What kind of situation would be needed for a MkVII to actually pay for itself?

[Apache]

It's too slow.

Waaaay to slow.

For what it costs (334 pts according to the Cobb Formula, which works out to approximately 57 armor units.....), you can take 50 GEV's (IRL, that's about 2 battalions worth of combat vehicles) and kill it with minimal losses (once the missile racks die...) using the now-infamous Fuzzy Wuzzy tactic.

Definitely worth a ICBM, if you can get one to hit....it's effectively immune to cruise missiles, due to its firepower (altho attacking this thing with 20 cruise missiles would be an interesting math exercise....anyone up for it?)


Probably only the large cyberships (navy Ogres....I propose that naval cyberships were referred to as Krakens....) were as heavily armed as a Mark 7, and given they were ships/subs, were probably much faster.

[FireHorse]

32 missiles are a useless waste of weight if you never get the chance to fire them; so I'd be willing to sacrifice quite a few of them in exchange for more launchers. Give it, say, 24 missiles, but with 6 launchers instead of 4?

[Mack_JB]

I'm dredging this post up from ages ago:

Originally Posted by Glenn Jupp

For what it's worth, the Cobb Formula put the Mark VII at 334 points. Definitely strat-nuke bait. What kind of situation would be needed for a MkVII to actually pay for itself?

So in a classic "Smash the SP" game scenario, the defenders would get something like 55 AU and INF to fight with.

Has anyone ever tried that basic scenario to see how it worked?

[offsides]

Originally Posted by Mack_JB

I'm dredging this post up from ages ago:

So in a classic "Smash the SP" game scenario, the defenders would get something like 55 AU and INF to fight with.

Has anyone ever tried that basic scenario to see how it worked?

The closest I've come is playing Super CP with 2 Mk V's attacking vs 2 Mk IIIs and some armor defending. IIRC, the Mk Vs won handily, but partially due to some luck (good on their part, bad on the defenders) and partially due to a serious tactical error on the part of one of the defending players (IIRC each Ogre was 1 player, plus 1 for the rest of the defenders). But I would think that it would be easier to gang up on a single, slow Mk VII than it was against a pair of Mk Vs.

[Toltrin]

Check out my blog for more details concerning this Mark Here.

The Mark VII would be a missile bus with an ability to shoot down cruise missiles. I would behind the Mark IVs and Mark 3s supporting their advance and shooting down any cruise missiles that happen to slip through.

Mark VII (Re-engineered by Toltrin Industries)
Points: 246
Size: 10 (It's BIG)
12 External Missiles (6/5 D3) 00000 00000
4 Main Battery (4/3 D4) 0000
24 Antipersonnel (1/1 D1) 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000
96 Tread Units (DEF at 1:1)
00000 00000 000000 00000 00000 000000 00000 00000 000000 M2
00000 00000 000000 00000 00000 000000 00000 00000 000000 M1
Personal note:
I have play tested this unit against 250 VP worth of infantry and armor (25% INF, 25% GEV, and the rest MSL TNK and HVY TNK with a few SprHVYs). Surprisingly over the 6 games I played it was 3 games won and 3 lost.
Personal suggestion:
Make missile racks shoot 2 internal missiles a turn instead of just one. People would not load their back chassis with 1-shot externals if missile racks packed punch. Additionally, lets add one more defense to the missile rack (D5) to make it more survivable - there are, after all, many many unfired missiles inside ready to find their targets.