[UT] Tactical & Operational Ground Combat V2

[Tzeentch]

Continuing this thread: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread...dy+exoskeleton

Originally Posted by Luke Bunyip

Has anyone had any thoughts on similar high tech combat in GURPS? Not just PC combat, more military formation vs military formation combat. What could MBT, air support, and artillery look like? Mass drivers vs beam energy weapons, OGRES and GEVs....

[Tzeentch]

Originally Posted by Joseph Paul

All Comm equipment is assumed to routinely use encryption. There are radios, IR communicators, and lasers.

-- Well, Basic Encryptionn (p. UT46) is probably what standard tactical communications will use (i.e. for squad radios and messaging on the tactical intranet) to avoid comm delays. Between frequency hopping and normal security measures even if you crack the message in an hour it will probably not provide a military advantage. If hacking a message breaks the entire scheme (e.g. it's not a message by message attempt) then you will probably have to suck it up and use Secure Encryption that changes every day or two.
-- If the time delay stands, note that this makes it difficult to use for some forms of teleoperation, which provides some openings for man-in-the-middle attacks to spoof operator commands.

The rules for decryption make a quantum computer supreme since it can decrypt in real time the most secure encryption if it can arrange bonuses to Complexity 14 (at TL9). So if Quantum comps are available TL 9 SigInt is going to have them. If it is Quantum and Fast it is expensive so this may be at Division level.

-- A TL9 Genius Quantum Megacomputer is Complexity 11. It's also 50 billion dollars and 40 tons! Not something that will be readily available except at the most secure locations, in limited numbers (meaning that they are not going to be wasting their time cracking Private Bob's messages).

Regimental and Battalion SigInt assets may be grunts riding herd on drones that are doing signal interception and IDing of units and passing that along.

-- I see a huge "big data" problem here. A lot of this collection is going to effectively be noise without really capable and scalable analysis capabilities (which really means strong AI). God forbid you have to store this stuff for later review, even multi-petabyte storage units will fill up FAST.

Interception of signals has to happen first of course. IR and Laser comms are very hard to intercept but the units using them need to stay in LOS of each other.

-- They just need to be in LOS of a relay or switch. If you can keep them in air you can have a fairly monolithic relay center flying around at high altitude. Aerosols and clouds are going to be a limiting factor though, so radio is probably the way to go for most serious business.

This flies in the face of current experience where we have built missiles that, when their tracking of the intended target is interfered with, will target the loudest ECM and paste it instead.

-- Targeting an expendable jammer or its antenna is likely to be a waste of resources, so the jammer will come out ahead on that piece trade.
-- The lack of an endurance is an oversight.

EMP warheads may affect unarmored/unshielded radios. GM call as to whether or not an unsealed helmet’s DR is effective against the HT-8(2) attack. It may affect ETC/K guns, lasers, EM guns, battery powered scopes, and other powered equipment that a soldier has. Your ESM is now broken, fancy MEMSwear fails (does this mean that uniforms fall off of soldiers? Talk about getting caught with your pants down!), would powercells in ammo mags be affected?

-- Rugged gadgets are difficult to affect, and Hardened Rugged especially so. But EMP is a decent choice . . . if you can put up with the fact that it has atrocious range, is very expensive, and only disables the target for a few seconds.

Electromagnetic Smoke impairs radar and imaging radar. Blinding your opponent just before you strike is probably good for you. Probably need to use Radiant Prism to foul up all of the extended senses that troopers and drones have available to them. I think this is an effective counter to forward PD. Blind it (possibly with infantry weapons firing smoke. A TML Nebelwerfer?), then let Arty pound it.

-- It still has the same problem as any aerosol system in that it depends a lot on the vagarities of the weather and is only temporary. Using it to interfere with point defense has the problem that it has to defeat that very same PD before it can work in many cases. I'm not sure grunts or mini-drones running up to pop smoke is something that is generally applicable.

One unit handles smoke assets, one unit handles jamming assets, one unit handles EMP.

-- Low level jamming is almost certainly ubiquitous (arguably built into the Ultra-Tech stats) but many of these systems have troubling questions with regard to delivery and persistence.