[Ultra Tech] Layering Armour

[Railstar]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

It can be, but I think thats partly because in reality a lot of time spent soldiering doesn't involve combat even if you're in a combat zone*, but rather humping you kit around the local environment, which maybe particularly unforgiving.

On top of that is a visibility issue. Smart strategy often means attacking soft targets and avoiding hard targets, but we don't see all the fights that didn't occur (and were prevented by the soldiers appearing too strong to launch an effective attack against) - so all the individual warrior sees is a day without an attack.

And people didn't go about thinking "well that line of chaps aren't going to be more than ST11 and they have broad swords which means there's a 66% chance they wont beat my DR (unless they do an AOA which everyone knows is an sub-optimal attack in the system so no one does it), so yeah I'm good on average"

One way of mitigating that situation is for spear formations to have their Perks in formation fighting (Teamwork? Shield Wall? Sacrificial Parry?) allow the front ranks to defend the line behind them so the second line could make AOAs.