Dark_au

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I meant to add that if you start to analyse it some of the base maps are extremely suspect in their strategic concept. The prime example to me is Dead Gulch, Frankly this is a ridiculous strategic concept. You have the ability to drop anywhere and you are fighting for a bridge because it is strategic HOW exactly?. Especially when the attacker can leave half dead vehicles and troops at the bottom of the gorge which count as "Capturing the zone". My comment about chess and checker BTW was intended to mean if you guys want people like myself to make scenarios for you give me chess. If all you give me is checkers then I can't come up with anything. Checkers has a sollution which is finite, chess doesn't.

Squid, you wonder why I lose the plot and want the thread pulled:- Lets expand apon this to see why maybe i find this an inane comment. If we follow this line of reasoning then ok I'm gonna make my tanks role an air superiority fighter.... oh no wait I don't have wings. Ok I'm gonna make my tanks role to be a babies crib oh no lack of toys and the mean looking warriors hanging out the top just scare the baby. This is interspersed with comments like oh this doesn't apply cos its FAR FUTURE. Well we are far future to the greeks, does that mean that if I put a greek bireme next to a modern battle ship you can't see past the technology difference and see that for their time and technology their role is the same. Or that you can't compare the role of a tank to the role of hanibals elephants, or greek / roman war chariots?. Tanki,. Unfortunately it goes deeper than that. All historical analogies fall apart and because we have no foundation in the made up world of DT there is no relevant historical battle to work from. IE we don't live in that world so how can we invent scenarios for it when we have no experience from which to draw except the way it is played. The way it is played limits your 2 starategic tags to the ones I listed. Aittam, same applies, I won't be making anymore scenarios because all i have to base it on is realistic and real strategic concepts. These don't apply.

what I am saying without any cheesey cartman voices is that the game you lot seem to want to play is not what I want to play nor what I thought i was buying. Here is the sum total of strategy as possible by this way of thinking. 1. If there is air defence fight over its possesion because it is all powerful. 2. If there is no fixed AAD then control the map with your own AAD thats it, that is the sum total of tactics that a scenario designer can plan for, how much playability do you think this really has. Not what I'm interested in, I graduated to Chess I'm not interested in checkers. Mods I ask again please delete or lock this thread. I tried to do something creative and it is pointless. [ August 12, 2006, 02:21 AM: Message edited by: Dark_au ]

if all you want to do is play games of AAD superiority and supression then all you are doing is turning DT into this Missile Command. The difference being that MC requires some skill on the players part to perform AAD. In the example you quote there were 4 of us and we were already trying to battle 1 AAD between us. You dropped the galaxy into our flank and start hammering us from under protection too. With that few people its hard enough to supress 1 AAD let alone 2. All I did was swap to a bot that had landed to try and put some pressure on. Whats the option land my own galaxy. Is that what you want to deteriorate it to just who can dominate with a galaxy?. You had the choice not to play in such a manner and maybe play within the spirit of the game but as ALWAYS you are hiding behind the galaxy.

Fine OK I give up. Mods please delete this thread or if that isn't possible just lock it and let it die. This is purile and inane. I feel like Albert Einstein trying to explain basic relativity to Kindergarten kids when I'm not even Albert Einstein. If you guys are so against any concept of tactical warfare why the hell did you buy this game. I will point you to the Overview page:-DT Overview Note no mention of the overpowering AAD. Note all the Most of the pictures are of tanks in their natural hunting ground. Notice how many tanks there are there to say Herpes and Galaxies and AAD towers. Wonder why someone like myself might consider this a game of tactical armoured warfare with tanks. Tanks are not a prey animal They are a hunter and a killer. I've gotten to the point where I can't be bothered making anymore missions. Cornered rats is abandoned as far as i am concerned. Anything I'm going to try and make would have some tactical basis to it. There is no point in that when all you guys are going to do is use loopholes to defeat any tactical concept it had. Anything I can come up with all I can think of is all the ways people will find to destroy the spirit and the tactical idea of it.

Er No.... AT guns don't have armour (significant to battle other armoured units). A tank in a purely static role is a mobile bunker... Ask the french circa 1940.

The role is reflected by the design. A tank thats not designed to move is called a bunker. If its a tank then its role is that of a tank, if that is not its role then it isn't a tank. If its not designed to manaeouver in rough, broken, uneven terrain then it doesn't need tracks. If it isn't supposed to engage targets with fire superiority at long range it wouldn't need a turret with a huge gun in it. If its no longer required for this role then why is most of the firepower in the game in the form of Thors and Appollos. That like a modern army equiping its forces with Trebuchets. If its no longer of value in its intended role then you wouldn't spend so many "resources" on it.

Yllamana, I'm talking about tactical manaeouver warfare. Your talking about static defences. The 2 have very little relevance to each other. No you can't hide an ION tower. But players don't drive ion towers either. You say its not a true rule cos its only applicable now and not in the games time.. What crap. If you have a "tank" then its for the role of a tank. The role of the tank is tactical manaeouver warfare in irregular, broken or otherwise difficult terrain. If there is no need for tactical manaeouver then you don't need a tank. If you aren't expecting it to get out in the wilds and move then you'd design it differently. If what you seem to want to play is it then the tank is useless. You would be better off with some 8 wheeled Haul-pac sized vehicle with a massive gun and its own AAD.

Yurch. There is a band of green around the objective and along the route up the hill. I wanted the cutter as an option for people to dig fighting positions along the route. There are only 5 jammers per side to stop too much of those. Aittam... you know a way to make towers non-capturable?.

Could the squad leader be made to have a bit more value to him?. Like some way to designate targets for the rest of his squad or some such. Something to make him worth the name squad leader. Maybe even something simple like take a leaf from heinlein and give him more powerful jump jets. I think it would be nice if you could get your squad into positions and then trigger an ambush by designating a target.

OK here is a nice example of a problem with the misuse of this. Where Eagles dare. The intention of that was to have battles of control over the roads up to the top. From the first time it got played online it became obvious that the AAD makes it a race to see who can get a cutter in the fastest and capture the enemy AAD. Once one side has done so they can defend with such ease that the other team has no hope of getting anything in to the area. Now I can't take the AAD away or it just becomes about who can get the Herpes or the galaxy into the zone quickest. If I replace the Ion Towers with Missiles its a great idea because the missiles force people to come in from further out. But of course if I do that then its going to be about who gets in a galaxy quickest to nullify the Missile towers so they can land other stuff straight into the zone. If I take out the cutters then there is no chance for digging defences.

Aittam, diversion is truly one of the finest arts of warfare. I can't remember how Sun Tzu phrased it but I always refer to it as the "Look at the monkey.... Slap" technique. The beauty of it is that it works both directions. If the enemy expects the slap hit him with the monkey.

Yllamana... Castles don't move. Its not like you can hide their presence... It strikes me that if I am the only way that thinks this way the terrain in this game is wasted. Might as well have a big flat map with **** loads of AAD and hermes and engage in tactic-less long range sniping at tanks which are stationary under AAD towers. Whilst of course sitting stationary under your own AAD.. Ohh apart from the hermes backstabbing the dumb bots. I thought maybe this thread might be a good idea obviously i was wrong on multiple levels.

LOL Mace... which fine print did you read that said i could spell for nuts

Hull down has little to do with concealment and a lot to do with cover. Your enemy can't hit bits he can't see. The apollo is an obvious candidate for Hull down because the most heavilly armoured part is the turret and its a tiny little target. The thor its usefull for too to keep something other than thin air between an enemy and that weak spot over your battery.

Dan, You are right, but modern armours have a ceramic layer which can negate a lot of this. Most of those effects apply only to single layer armour like say a T-72 or a bmp.

the penetrator isn't 5" in diameter. The round as loaded may be but that is not what hits the target. The Penetrator is a DU / Tungston tipped dart which is more like 40mm in diameter. The shell is called APFSDS Armour Peircing Fin Stabilised Discarding Sabot. The last part is the important bit there. Discarding Sabot refers to the "shoes" around the penetrator which allows it to fit in the barrel and gived it the initial power as delivered to a 120mm diameter round. Once clear of the barrel these Sabot fly off leaving this dart to fly towards the target. withh all the energy imparted to a seemingly larger object.

Shrike question, no I haven't done that much research. I was laughing with someone on DP server the other day I think it may have been Bigweez. We were defending and a shrike came running in towards us. I put my first HEAT into its frontal armour about 2000m+ out. Hit was just below the drivers "window". Second round hit was at about half that distance. Hit was lower right side just under the side door window. The little bugger went past me, the was already a bot tank hitting it with what looked like AP. I hit it again in left side. The other human player was hitting it with 20mm and the thing sat still launched an ATGM and killed the Bot tank. The bot tanks last AP round killed the shrike. If this was just an isolated case I'd not have commented on it but many times i see Shrikes seeming to ignore heat especially at longer range shots. I still see the shower of sparks though. I think we may have been talking at cross purposes based on the reply though Clay. I thought your comments were implying that a bigger heaver vehicle will suffer more spall damage than a lightly armoured vehicle. In a heavier vehicle there is more space to put in layers to defeat spall and fragments. Thus the effects of this are amplified in a lighter vehicle, the only thing that saves it usually is that its lighter armour allows the round to punch through. The 2 should therefore even out. Most of my comments though were to do with the transfer of motion to the target. It if you hit a shrike/paladin at close range with an AP it should go flying off not just absorb the damage and carry on firing at you. or at least spin around disorienting the crew. Especially based on how precarious they are whilst driving.

I often mention things like tactical manaeouver in my posts. I thought I'd put down some of the basics in a post for discussion. Before I start I don't want to give the impression that I consider myself a peerless authority on this topic. If any of you are steel beasts players read posts by Gary Owen,Hellhound, Archangel, Shermanswar etc. These are people I still learn things from. These are guys who have had real armour/military experience or are currently serving. Me I've just been playing tank sims for a very long time and been wargaming for longer. I'm not paticularily good with grand strategy but I'm a pretty good from the hip tactician in small unit tactics. Rule number 1... Don't be seen. If you don't want to be killed at long range don't be seen at long range. This is a lot easier than you may think. Firstly it means not running around everywhere at high speeds like a looney. Speed will save you sometimes if you get seen and shot at at long range. However not been seen will save you every time. also our eyes spot faster moving items in chaotic environments ( like a landscape) easier than we can spot a slow moving object. When you are moving from one place to another don't just head in a straight line. Pick your route to give you maximum concealment from the most directions. Ever wondered what all those lovelly little ditches are for in maps like Raid?. Well thats it. If you do get spotted and fired at, displace. Find some cover at least to minimise the target exposure to your enemy. The simplest example of this is the use of a hull down position. choose your own encounter parameters. Sun Tzu talks about this when he says "How do you garauntee meeting your enemy while he is tired and you are fresh. Make the journey his". If you spot a target that is dangerous for you to take on then manaeouver in such a way that they move into your kill zone in such a way that their reaction is limited. The best example of this is a back ambush, find a nice concealed hollow that hides you from their approach until they have passed you. If you've done it right you get a free shot at them in their softest regions. The best form of defence is attack. I think people learn the wrong lessons from how the bots defend. The best way to defend an area is to stop the enemy getting to it in the first place rather than plugging the holes when they do. Active patrolling defences will give you the opportunity to use the rule above. Especially if the attacker is totally fixed on the objective and not looking for moving patrols. Situational Awareness. This is the hardest thing to explain but the most important of all. Scan in all directions. Use the different views to see what is around and react to it. This gives you the ability to do the first 2. OK I've typed enough for now. I will add stuff as I think of it.

which is why you should be using tactical manaeouver and not bieng seen at long range in a way that someone can shoot you.... Even if the technology has changed in a few thousand years I don't think Newtons laws will have.

Clay, there are a couple of errors in your argument here. Firstly the Shrike isn't very susceptible to HEAT either. I'd like a dollar for every shrike I've had to put 3 HEAT into. Now when you talk about the AP causing fragments after penetration you are refering to Spall. Have they suddenly forgotten how to make spall liners?. Anyway light vehicles have light spall liners which catch less of the spall than would a heavy vehicle with subsequently higher amounts of spall lining. This isn't fool proof either and any energy that hits this will be converted into either heat and or motion (every action etc). The bussiness about AP passing through harmlessly is only really applicable to soft skinned vehicles. ANY amount of armour will cause the rounds flight to kink and it will break and tumble. AP rounds are actually designed to break (shear) so that if the end doesn't penetrate the sharp shard will. Lastly your piece of paper analogy. Tell you what you hold up a piece of paper and I'll fire a 120mm DS round through it. When you pick yourself up off the floor you will probably find you are still holding onto the paper... At least a couple of corners of it. The rest will be a long way behind you in peices.. Why.. because you forgot turbulent wake (Hydrostatic shock when it hits a body). a round causes a vacuum behind it, its this which causes the "crack" of the round that you hear. This the air / methane / whatever rushing into this vortexes and causes in some cases more dammage than the round itself. The final answer though is stand an empty tin can on a fence and hit it with a .177 flechette / dart at high velocity. Not only will the tin can crumple it will go flying, even if the round exits the far side.

of course with magic limitless anti-matter (or fusion if you prefer to think of it like I do) Recoil dampening is really easy. All you need to do is put a magnetic coil around the gun and another one fixed to the chassis which is around the gun. Put a charge into the inner coil and shunt the created energy from motion into the outer coil.

Dan your math is a bit suspect. M829APFSDS penetrator weights 4.6 kg @1750 m /s = 7043750 N/m which is a lot more than 9kmh to a 60 tonne tank

Abrams is 60 - 70 tonnes.