senior officer Mikael van Atta

Nah, you're not being difficult, you're doing exactly what I asked you for: making out rulings on how things are going to be handled in game. 

I came across these ideas / questions while thinking over the last few brawls, and decided it will be better to ask and have guidelines drawn beforehands, rather than have it sorted out in the middle of a brawl.

We're good there.

Right, the couple martial arts questions I wanted to ask you for a ruling. Given the team's skill in unarmed combat, these may come handy to others, too:

1. How do we handle situations, when a martial arts throw is performed, but the thrower intends to hurl the opponent at other people? I'd guess it'll cause less damage to the person being thrown than being slammed against the ground, but can cause quite some disruption (and maybe soem damage) to the epople who had their buddy just land on them. Also, how would that work, difficulty-wise?
2. Does a disarm maneuver require a prior catch / grab? All the techniques I've been shown back in the day (which, granted, weren't many) for dealing with knife or handgun-armed opponent, when I was dipping my feet in the martial arts topic, required you to get the control of the weapon hand first, so I'd say yes...
3. Should I want to pull my punches / cripple the opponent without killing him by, for example, dislocating a joint / breaking a limb (one can't really do much with a messed up ankle or knee... but it isn't going to kill anyone in a short-term perspective, though it is pretty likely to eliminate the person as an effective combatant for weeks at the very least) - can I do that, and how we handle it, from a game-mechanics point of view? I am sure this can be done either from a hold (all the levers and joint locks are, essentially, about bringing the target to the point where pain from pressure on their joints or bones forces them to stop resisting... but you canalways put more pressure there, and cripple the limb / neck...) or from a kick (not so sure about punches, but probably there are martial artists and techniques capable of that).

Your house-rule is fine and dandy, Fuzion used a similar concept (and I nicked it at one point for my CP2020 games, though let it go later). Also, it explains why armor vests and helmets are an obvious thing on a modern battlefield, but armor sleeves and pants aren't. Though if you want to stick to realism, upper tighs and shoulders should be considered risky as well: there are major arteries there, if damaged, once can bleed out real fast. 

Ah, you're envisioning a Normandy-like opposed landing again. And I again tell you, nobody does it that way anymore.

If you have adequate air and naval superiority (in tech and numbers), you can supress the opposition on the beach, if they are on the beach at all (because if you can, you choose a place where they aren't: they have limited resources and manpower, too). And beyond the beach.

If you don't, the enemy troops dug in on the beach with machineguns and infantry heavy weapons are the least of your problems. Enemy airforce and land-based anti-shipping missiles will be coming to hit your armada, and these can reach - depending on the model - to around 200km, sometimes more. And many of the launcher types are truck-mounted, so given adequate road network, they can pack up and move the entire missile battery at the rate of 100km per 2 hours. And that's a realistic estimate for a military convoy, 60kmh, plus some time to pack up and some delays along the road. You really don't need to build concrete bunkers on the shore for them, like for the guns in Atlantic Wall. Mobility and camouflage are a much better defense for them. 

We didn't had any seaborne landings recently, but check what happened when the Russians tried fording Seversky Donets at Bilohorivka in early May this year - with amphibious vehicles and pontoon bridges.

Regarding weapons - I guess 8-Ball will ask to be cleared for a ranged taser (Militech Taser Mk.1 -equivalent) or another ranged, non-lethal weapon, given his role as a bodyguard. 

When he has to kill people, he does that - but he prefers to knock them unconscious otherwise. Not to mention, there's usually less bureaucratic screaming about someone zapped and wrapped, than over a dead body.

Regarding the shrapnell - I'd say it should be to one location. The projectile has a finite mass and generates, therefore, a finite amount of fragmentation. Even if we count in secondary fragmentation (from whatever stuff it hit and sent flying). It has to fill with them the 5-meter-radius sphere (in case of the 75mm we're discussing here). Which is quite a lot of volume. And some of them should fly even further, as per explosives rules (LYUPS sourcebook).

Now, per historical accounts, this may mean getting hit by several fragments. Or actually no fragments at all. So, to be fully realistic, we would need to build a probabilistic model for "how many fragments of shrapnell & debris you are getting hit by", which I consider an utter nonsense from a gameplay POV, for it would take ages to process at the gaming table.

The other element however, is the blast itself. Shockwave of the explosion. Rapid pressure change. And this affects the whole body, with body armor doing very little to protect you (although it always did very well against shrapnell). I don't really have an answer for how we should be treating this. 

With purely kinetic 20mm's, I think the 8d10 is there purely to put it into perspective. On average roll, that's ~44 points of damage, so anyone hit by just one of these bad boys gets their Hit Box row under 2020 rules filled out. If you were wearing MetalGear, that's still 19pts that you need to soak with your BTM and Hit Box track, so it lands you in Mortal anyway. Your BTM defines if it was Mortal 0, or Mortal 1.  And it takes out your limb, mangling it beyond repair. Nota bene, here's a problem I have with SP-based armor system: I pretty much suspect a 20mm autocannon round wouldn't even notice Metal Gear armor. It wouldn't make a difference to it, not enough of a difference to make a difference anyway. Just like soft body armor (NIJ IIIa or less) against projectiles rated NIJ III or IV. 

At a minimum, that's of course 8 points of damage, but I'll let someone else count the possibility of rolling 8x1 on 8d10. Theoretically a 20mm autocannon round could just have nicked you, sure.  

The only historical account I can recall from the top of my head was WW2, a Polish fighter pilot (can't recall the name, I'd have to check the books. Likely in T. Rolski's "Attention, all aircraft!") flying from British airbase. An autocannon round from a German fighter hit him during a dogfight over the Channel, mangling his arm above his elbow "so it hanged on a bit of skin"). He managed to return to Britain and crash-land in a pasture before passing out. Luckily for him, some Home Guard outfit got to him, and knew enough of first aid to improvise a tourquinet, and rush him to a hospital. But there was no saving the arm.

I don't recall the specs of the GSh-23-6 on the MiG-27, but it is a Gatling-system gun (rare in Soviet designs), and those can be fast. After all, the M61 Vulcan is a well-knonw example. And, yes, US-made fighter jets armed with M61 can expend their ammo supply within seconds. Which is why the pilots are trained to use these in short bursts. After all, on modern figter jets, autocannon is basically a backup weapon. Also, MiG-23 was cosnidered to be so-so, and it's derivative, the -27, as generally not a good aircraft. So I can believe the reports about it getting badly shaken by the GSh-23-6, especially given the guns on the 23/27 family are in a gondolla under the bell, so relatively far away from the aircraft's longtitudal axis...

As for type 05, that's not a tank. Not construction-wise: it is a fire support vehicle, build on an amphibious IFVs hull. Essentially the same idea as M1128 MGS Stryker, except the vehicle was buildt from the get-go as tracked and amphibious. Then, the designers took the plans for the original troop carrier, gutted it out of troop compartment and related stuff, and installed a gun turret on top. Basically, a vehicle I was suggesting to you at the start just without naming the exact model.

5 hours ago, Cybernetic Jesus said:

A 75mm cannon does 8D10, so, a 20mm-round does as much as a 75mm cannon?  

Don't look at me, that's what Maximum Mike & Co. say.

That being said, autocannon round is primarily a pure kinetic projectile. Sure, it is considered big enough to carry a payload (explosive, incendiary etc) so it can be used to lay waste to targets susceptible to HE. But it relies on kinetic effect most of the time. 

75mm, on the other hand, is definitely big enough to have a HE payload. 

Per Maximum Metal, p.18:

• light autocannon (20-25mm) has 8d10 damage / PEN 4, no burst, 500m range. Being kinetic, it loses 25% Penetration at Long range (over 250m), and 50% at extreme range (over 500m).
• 75mm gun can use:
  • HE, with 8d10 damage / PEN 4, burst 5m, and 750m range
  • HEAT, with 8d10 damage / PEN 8 (HEAT - burst 2m is largely omittable here) and 400m range... but it doesn't lose any PEN over range (since it all demends on HEAT shell). It is also a little inaccurate, with -1 to hit.
  • something else, (I assume APFSDS): PEN 7 (likely still "rated at" 8d10 damage, but this makes no sense. Yuo really should use the "big gunse hitting people" rules rather than follow the dice damage code), and 750m range (though again losing it at long range by 25% and so on).

...plus you could have many other types of ammo for 75mm - smoke, etc. Definitely more utility in this gun (though it is of course way bigger, at 4 spaces comapred to 25mm's one space).

5 hours ago, Cybernetic Jesus said:

A RoF of 10 is like, 200 rounds per minute; most MGs and auto-cannons are 550 rounds and above, per minute.  

Yup, you got me here. Legacy data in my head, sorry: I was an aircraft afficionado in my teens, some of related data still lingers upstairs  - aircraft autocannons, like ADEN and DEFA (or the Soviet GSh-23), have way faster RoF. I guess it simply isn't practical in ground combat (it would waste a lot of ammo), which would be why the ground vehicles use slower-firing autocannons. In the air, where it at some point became all about target area saturation, you needed to spew lead out quick. 

Which, by the way, brought us Gattling-system guns in the end...

Hmm, some weird weapon, this M48 chaingun of yours

4d10 damage is for this odd 20/9mm APFSDS Barrett-Arasaka Light 20 used. Which is a gun Maximum Mike pulled kinda out of his backside, if you ask me.

.50cal machinegun is rated 6d10, and light autocannon (in the 20-25mm range) at 8d10. Though, true, the "RoF 10" listed in Maximum Metal is a so-so representation of the real autocannon's RoF.

I guess because there was not an option to make it partially-amphibious

Maximum Metal, being a set of relatively simple game rules, doesn't (and can't be reasonably expected to) take into account all the possible engineering tricks the guys apply to the vehicles. Eg. Korean K-21 IFV uses inflatable pontoons to provide it with buoyancy, and thus amphibious capability. But whether these pontoons will remain reasonably effective in combat, remains kinda questionable.

6 minutes ago, Cybernetic Jesus said:

Go right ahead and use it!  Just let us know how the combat went.  As the Company's Board of Directors has assured us, the tank's armor, firepower and state-of-the-Art fire-control computer will win the day!!! 

Frack. I need to stock up on HATGMs...

As for the discussion (please keep in mind - I'm arguing for argument's sake here ).

Water Buffalo? You mean the LVT(A)-4?

Sorry, not an MBT. That's a tracked amphibious APC, thinly armored (6-14mm) - good enough to shrug rifle fire and artillery fragments in its day, and armed with a short-barreled howitzer (i.e. good for lobbing HE and smoke rounds in infantry support role against enemy infantry and strongpoints). 

I don't know of any Soviet WW2-era amphibious tank with a 45mm gun. You had the classic PT-76 (with a 76mm gun), but that was the typical light amphibious tank intended for scouting role - and it wasn't developed until late 1940s. 

Not to mention - the very concept of an MBT is something that didn't really came up before the end of WW2 (Centurion being rather widely considered to be the first MBT, it entered service in 1945- a moment after the war ended).

As for survivability - if memory serves me, current standards for ATGMs call for these having to be able to defeat over 1000mm RHA if they are to be considered effective against modern MBTs. That's it: you need to be able to blast through an equivalent to one meter thick wall of rolled homogenous steel - although, true, ATGMs generally carry HEAT warheads, and composite armors plus reactive armor that many modern vehicles are equipped with are pretty effective against these.

...and no, I don't agree with the picture looking like an amphibious vehicle. It looks much more like a full-fledged MBT, likely tracing its lineage to Leopard 2 (before Leo 2A5 got those applique armor panels on the front of the turret)  

Oh, we could dispute that for ages  

But the point stands, I think: there are no amphibious MBTs. There are amphibious light tanks, and amphibious "fire support vehicles" (APCs or IFVs carrying a large gun, primarily to support own infantry from a distance with more oomph than the standard IFVs autocannon). Modern MBTs main gun, in the 120-125mm caliber, is considered instantly deadly to anything that's itself not an MBT... and even then, things are hairy. Expected to be even more so with the next generation of tank guns (which are supposedly to be in the 140mm range). 

Moreover, even with lesser IFVs, fewer and fewer are made with the requirement of being amphibious. First, it is considered to be an ability of lesser importance (exception being for seaborne assault forces, but it is a narrow specialization). Second, it forces a number of compromises, especially ones affecting the armor protection. Thus, many modern IFV designs - especially those buildt for first-world armies - do away with amphibious capability, and take more armor and defensive systems instead (to better protect the professional soldiers inside: these men took years and heaps of money to train!).

Actual amphibious vehicles seem to be relegated to special duties where this capability is likely to really come into play - like reconaissance, where you can reliably expect your scouts to need to get across a water obstacle from the get-go, without calling in major engineering resources like a pontoon bridge battalion (and, likely, alerting enemy reconaissance!). 

The problem, again, is that there aren't amphibious MBTs for a reason: it doesn't really agree with physics. 

There aren't many amphibious IFVs, even. Because this puts a serious limitation on the design of the vehicle. Especially if the vehicle is to be well-armored.

Have you noticed how IRL militaries deal with amphibious operations and delivering heavy armor to the shore? They use landing craft. Be it hovercraft (LCAC), barges, or landing ships that can come close enough to the shore that the armor can wade ashore.

Not to mention, opposed landings like in WW2 are no longer a thing. So there's really no need to have heavy armor accompany the landing, providing direct fire support against enemy strongpoints directly at the beach...

Well, as far as I know, there are no fully amphibious main battle tanks IRL. So at least Maximum Mike wasn't wrong there. Amphibious tanks, when they existed, were, IIRC, exclusively classified to be "light" tanks (edit: well, supposedly the Swedish Strv 103 could swim... and some classify it as a MBT. Sherman DD used a very fragile floatation screen...). The recent few modern ones I've heard about offered armor protection against things like .50cal or 14,5x114mm heavy machinegun, and that was it.

Reaistically speaking (as I've been watching some pretty serious guys discussing the new IFV being tested by the army here), you need a lot of volume, and not too much weight if you want an amphibious vehicle. Which, in turn, means you can't make it out of slabs of heavy armor, exactly because it is heavy. And the volume needed to offset this weight makes the armor thinner, as it needs to cover more volume with the same weight. So, it either is well-armored, or it floats.

I'd suggest going a different way (if you want to wrestle with Maximum Metal again).

1. Build on an IFV template.
2. Make it amphbious.
3. Give it enough armor to protect it against autocannons (typical guns used on modern IFVs... also, on attack aerodynes / copters).
4. Make the armor composite. t offers better protection against HEAT rounds - including anti-tank missiles.
5. Add explosive reactive armor.
6. Add laser (and for good measure, radar) warning systems, so it won't be easy to paint the tank for an ATGM.
7. Add defensive countermeasures - anti-laser aerosol, smoke grenade launchers and chaff launchers. Again, to make landing a hit on the tank difficult. Nb. many modern tanks use laser rangefinders, too. So it'll help your survivability in a tank-on-tank fight.
8. Add a hardkill defensive system against missiles (either Gatling or the explosive one). 

Yes, if squaring against an actual, up-to-date MBT, this light tank can't do much. But when acting as fire support vehicle for own infantry, or facing enemy IFVs or infantry, it has pretty good chance of survival: the main danger there are vehicle or man-portable ATGMs, and we put on our light tank everything we could to deal with these. 

It has a good chance of dealing with an out-of-date MBT, too. 

Good to see these summaries back

True, writing a detailed game report is something that takes one hell a lot of time and effort! 

I guess you could do a short summary of the rest of the Night City 2nd arc and of the Nevada Arc, though?There's quite a gap between the beginning of the Detroit job, and the effectively epilogue to the Nevada arc we did in #59...

Shiny.

Well, there's some logic to that deployment policy. OK. Not gonna meddle in that.

As for vehicles & equipment: I actively dislike the Patria "light tank". We need to modify it with some form of defence against missiles / rockets. Can we add, say, an AEAMS kit (MaxMetal, p.24) to it...?

OK, as for parachute training:

• Angel would be interested (given his interest in AVs, it may prove useful at some point) - provided he can find the time. 
• the Swede will definitely take it.
• 8-Ball will show up for a refresher course (he had undergone parachute training ages ago, and didn't had a chance to jump since then). He won't be gaining any XP from that - I'm doing it for fluff reasons only.

As for Mitzi's investment scheme, 8-Ball would want in. Exact amount depending on the state of his finances at the moment it becomes available (and the results of talking it over with Mia. It's family budgeting now, y'know). Angel might get interested, depending again on how his finances look like at that point (it is on the lsit behind him paying his tuition, and getting himself an AV, and still having enough money to his name to not worry much about it).

Edit: as for things to do during the gap, 8-Ball is going (assuming he can find time) to offer the Shoshoni of the Wells Colony to train their militia force. Sure, the Wells are may be really safe nowadays (due to the Wells Militia becoming a force to be recogned with these days, as well as Whyte Hats main facitlity there, and several neigbouring town being allied with Wells / Whyte Hats (and having their own militias - and/or Whyte Hats presence), but that's not a reason why Wells colony shouldn't have their own militia force, if they're willing to train as such.

I estimate - given the size of the settlement - they could field ~10 people storng militia. Maybe ~20, if they are really oriented towards that (but given the above, I dubt it). 

He's not going to make that offer to other Native communities in the area, but if they ask for it (likely, through the Wells Colony), he's not against that. Of course, his schedule is likely quite busy in Wells, but the idea wouldn't be bad, and if it can be arranged...

Speaking of which: 8-Ball is going to suggest Mitzi that Whyte Hats run a leadership school / course for civil community leaders in Elko County. Sure, it would be pretty much a military-styled leadership, but leadership is leadership. 

There would definitely be not enough people interested for it to be ran year-long, but we could run a weekend seminar / one or two week course on that every couple of months. And make it really affordable for those people (or make it pricy, and offer discounts / stipends to the people we want in): the real point is giving the communities a backbone of people trained in the art of leadership, and prepared to step in should SHTF. 

That would also increase our soft power in the area. 

If we want to go really overboard, we could also ask the Wells School to allow us running classes on civil defense / crisis preparedness for the older kids there (IRL, it was a mandatory course in high school where I live - in a somewhat modified form, it still is. We might, I guess, want to keep shooting and grenade throwing out of the curriculum, but things like first aid, firefighting, crisis preparedness and reaction - on the level suitable for the age, i.e. how to avoid getting into a dangerous situation, what to do to keep things from getting worse, and whom of the adults should you inform plus what do you need to tell them - should be doable).

But we could always name the HoverTransport a "Desserted Devil" with some paintjob to boot

Well, it is good to know the Dessert Devils  are down and out. In 8-Ball's opinion, there was enough glory to share some of it with the Nevada State forces. Especially given they shown up when we could really used some reserves to, in military terms, exploit the success - and we were flat out of these.

Sanitizing the battlefield is going to take days, if not weeks. Find the dead, take off their ID marks and get rid of the bodies (either by conventional burial or cremation, whichever is more sensible, all considerations taken into account). I guess we do have a (non-full-time, likely) chaplain of some sort in the White Hats roster by now: a very busy person, these days. 

Of course, we aren't going to find all of them: if someone was trying to break on their own, and succumbed to wounds, there's simply no chance of finding them, apart from dumb luck. Nothing that would interrupt 8-Ball's sleep: he's making sure White Hats put a reasonable effort, maybe a bit more than that, into this task, but no reason to break our backs over it. so no-one would accuse us of lack of due diligence.

Also, clean up - demine / remove unexploded ordnance. We'll have to comb the regions we were shelling with metal detectors, probably using some form of small, inexpensive drones for that: the safest and most cost/time-effective method, I guess. And especially - where cluster ammunition was used (IIRC that'd be mainly the remains of the DD base near Alpha). Battlefield contmaination with unexploded ordnance is a nasty thing.

Salvage whatever makes sense in the process. I assume you've listed all the potentially interesting bits above: yes, Paneurope Gladiator Armored Car is a great add-on to our fleet, being far better equipped than the bare-bones Patria. It is relatively fast, relatively well-protected againt typical threats, the 75mm gun offers adequate firepower (until there are real tanks around...), and it is way more budget-friendly to run than an actual tank. 

The Piper Cub-equivalent... no idea what we'd be using it for

A correction as for Whyte Hats platoons deployment: they are getting rotated between duties, spending about a month at a given station / duty. Only exception being the recently formed units, which are assigned to Wells facility (for training) and convoy duty until we have enough confidence in their skill to post them elsewhere. 

Who is running the train line rebuild? It could be beneficial to lay it as a high-speed railway (as in, smooth , profiled curves). Railway transport is a way cheaper method of moving goods than road transport (well, provided the infrastructure exists for that!).

We'll have to estabilish the relationship / pecking order with Elko County Sheriffs. Luckily, if memory serves me, we had a nice working relationship with them before, so we can base off that. 

With Desert Devils, Montello Madmen, and several smaller bandit outfits out of the game, Northern Nevada - at least as far as our area of operation reaches - should be becoming much more trade-firendly. BTW, how is the City of Jackpot doing these days? And Trade Town? 

If we want to further our "nation building" effort, we should be actively helping the county government in attracting business. There doesn't seem to be much space for large corporations, but small and maybe a handful mid-sized operations can perhaps open up their business around. And if we could stimulate the local people to start businesses, it could act as a nice flywheel for the local economy (I guess with his Stock Market at +2, 8-Ball has a general idea how an economy works...?).

For clarity's sake: what is the status of the Ranger Platoon? They were originally raised by Teresa, so I assumed they were some form of an US Marshall-affiliated militia / permanent posse comitatus. Or are they a part of the Whyte Hats troops now...?

One thing 8-Ball would like to have these guys trained for is airmobility.  Our Twin Otters are likely too small to accomodate horses, but the Mi-26 Halo is certainly big enough. Perhaps some other aircraft we use can work for that as well (though I really doubt). Of course the most difficult part would be to train the horses to embark / disembark & not to freak out onboard of an aircraft (perhaps even when slung under one...?), but given a skilled trainer and enough time, that can be done (as well as securing the animals so they wouldn't hurt themselves / anyone else). Historically warhorses were trained to stay calm in the thick of battle, including firearms being discharged by the rider, so, let's say, there's a precedent .  This would give the Rangers the ability do be air-deployed wherever they are needed, rather than riding there (and back) for days.

Any perspective of Suzy getting released from the mental hospital? Also, where is it located - maybe we should pay her a visit once every so often? Since she's legally considered to be incapable of representing herself (on mental health grounds) - if I understood it right - we should find her an adequate custodian to look after her stuff. Also, make sure the "private mental hospital" is actually putting adequate effort into making her feel better.

And definitely a no-no in 8-Ball's view. Therefore, I guess, we'll have to stick to them being dessert to coyotes, and whatever else lives there.

Except of course for those we managed do find and bury while sanitizing the battlefield. I have a feeling the Feds and Nevada cops had a couple of names written off their wanted lists once we sent them the ID data. 

Because we did, right, Mitzi?

And thus the Desert Devils have been turned into Dessert Devils  Plus, they should have paid attention to weapons maintenance. But the bucketloads of fumbles they rolled while shooting us claim otherwise. Oh well. Not gonna look a gift horse in the mouth, eh?

Cossack had his field day in the limelight  

And 8-Ball has fought his largest battle to-date. With, it seems, no major casaulties on our side (although J.J. was... close).

So, 3-3,5m (approximately. For my on-the fly conversions, I find it easiest to think that 10 feet are almost exactly 3 meters. 10,05m exactly) tall walls then. Yes, bring in an adequately big bomb (technically, a wall-breaching charge. A length of detcord if that seems that would do, or a custom plastic-on-a-frame rig with The Big Boom if it won't), have Angel do the math. Remind him the assault on the Voodoo Boys Central where a charge he prepared turned out to be too weak (yes, OOC I recall it was a failure on the Demolitions roll. But in game, it was too small to do the job), and tell him we can't afford to kick the door down this time.

• We can bring one such Big Boom. Add a couple door charges (good enough to pop a door if necessary).
• Bring two assault ladders in case it turns out we have to go over the wall (I guess a 19" model is a bare minimum, given we need to cross a 10-12" wall: these things are placed at an angle, preferably at 45 degrees).
• And bring a pair of solid wirecutters. There seems to be aplenty of wire obstacles around. If we're unlucky, it is concertina / razor wire, if not, your basic, animal pasture-grade barbed wire (which, I assume, is available locally in effectively unlimited quantities). Either way, wire obstacles are going to be PITA if we don't have the right tool to handle them. Nb. 8-Ball on point will have a good eye out for wire traps, animal traps (no, a bear trap is not a sensible solution as far as military area denial goes. But that doesn't mean that no Desert Devil had ever an idea of laying one out, right?), booby traps (because someone might have been feeling clever after watching some ol' 20-th century war flatvid) or actual landmines.
• Grenades. At least two Scatter Smoke hand grenades per person. We need to cover the entries if we are to get inside and not get massacred on entrance, as they will (most likely) know we're coming (excluding a situation in which we rudely wake them up by explosively breaching their outer wall. That would be perfect. 8-Ball doesn't plan for perfect. He plans for it went a bit sticky, and for it went somewhat rough). At least one thermite incendiary per person (to be used as demoliton / scuttling charge for whatever we decide we want completely, irreversibly messed up. Throw these only if there's no other option - the idea is that whoever gets to the radar shack, places an unpinned thermite grenade on the electronics and GTFO). Additional grenades as per personal preference. I'd suggest one flashbang too, again to be used in conjunction with scatter smoke for distraction.
• It might be useful for the team to wear Echolocation Goggles, it would make us able to "see" in the smoke, too.

Yup, IR-shielded armors, then. 

Stepan on overwatch. He's there to make sure no-one is peeking above the wall once things get in gear. Or at least not peeking and staying alive long enough to tell his buddies. If he has nothing better to shoot at, he may as well make a few holes in the radar antenna. With luck, he'll mess it out of commission all on his own before we get to the electronics underneath it.

The sapper (demo expert) pulls a secondary duty as medical orderly. As in, we brig in a med bag, leave it as deep in the forrest as Stepan is going to take position, and once the demo expert has done his job on the Big Boom charge & the wall, he is to retreat into concealment, retreive the medical bag, and be ready to patch up any of us who needs to be patched (that's assuming we can't do it ourselves). He's not to get engaged in combat on the inside of the wall.

That'd be it for the radar outpost raid.

As for the broader picture: if we have forward observers in the area (be it people on the ground, drones in the air or whatever else), we might try to break the DD counterattack before it is launched. Simply pound them with howitzer fire as they try to get organized / amassed for the counterattack.

I mean, they have to get their stuff together and then start moving. Keep pounding at them. Assuming their command bunker is out of commission (likely with a good portion of thier command structure gone along with it) I pretty much expect to see some headless chicken antics....

The wall in the picture seems to be about as tall as these inner defenses. Which, judging by the cargo pallets used as a wall here and there, are 2 meters tall, or even less. 

The towers seem to be about 4 meters tall. In short, a 12m wall all around the outpost as shown doesn't fit together. 

BTW, there is a steel girder construction to the right of the picture. I'd assume it to be the tower with radar antenna, radio antennna and what-not. 

If we want to get through the wall, we'd need breaching charges. Explosive breaching is the only thing that'll work - no point trying to go through the gates. My personal gut feeling would be guesstimating the amount of explosives neened to get through the concrete wall roughly as thick as this one seems to be (taking into account that it likely is reinforced), then doubling it. P is for Plenty. 

Use hand grenades to distract the defenders. 

Use smoke to cover our entry once we have a breach. 

Once we are inside, go with small arms and hand grenades, and play it by ear. 

If we can bring 2 Airjeeps worth of troops - i.e. about 8 people - for each outpost, we should try doing 2 breaches. If less, stick to one. 

It wouldn't be bad idea to try and surprise shot everything that sticks over the wall (watchtowers, also, the radar tower) to pieces with HE rounds from an RPG before we get to the wall. One, to get rid of any watchmen on the towers (also, to secure our objective in case of the radar tower), two, to deny high ground to the enemy (I really don't think these guardtowers would wisthstand a few good kicks, judging by the looks. A solid HE charge should turn them to scrapwood).

OK, 8-Ball will be there. In a Softshell armor. And he has to get that adrenalin/endorphin regulator chip in, for this job.

Damn, 12-18 guys in that thing, behind solid cover...? That's going to be hard. I see no way in which we could pull it quietly. Not with a single Airjeep worth of people. Are the Viper armors available for this action? If we can't get the manpower there, we need to bring brute force in. 

Are you positive on the concrete walls being 12-13 meters tall...? The installation in picture seems quite makeshift, with corrugated metal on a wooden framework. Just doesn't seem to get along with 12-13 meters of (possibly reinforced) concerete: that would be about 5 floors high in my money...  

Do we have a good reason to not expect a minefield around these stations?

If we go loud, how much time we have before Desert Devils send in reinforcements (asking 8-Ball's educated guess here. Mainly a matter of distance / terrain in the way, although discipline / readiness of the DDs, if we have any hints about it, will be a significant factor, too. As in, how fast can they drop their cocks, grab their socks and deploy?).

...actually, the smart move there would be to single out the radar antenna (it should be pretty large, and pretty much sticking out. Well above the wall, as it needs space and no obstructing buildings or towers (you don't want anyone near the radar's emitter, eg. in a watchtower: it is a major source of radiation, after all), as these would cast a radar shadow, making the whole radar pointless.

Take something that packs a punch, and mess up the antenna. It tends to be a rather sizeable target, and a very fragile one (wire & electronics). An anti-material rifle will do, an RPG with a fragmentation / HE warhead will reduce the radar array to scrap. 

We wouldn't have to actually attack the reinforced and defended outpost to acieve our goal - just come close enough to it to draw a line of fire to the radar antenna, and land a hit. Maybe a couple, just to be sure. Unless it is one of these modern "wall radars" - they are rather resistant to damage, so msashing it ot pieces with a RPG would be a better option.

Now, it will not solve the problem of a dozen and a half angry Desert Devils inside, nor the rest of the outpost (and the rest of the radar installation), but if they come out to get us, we can handle them one way or another. I mean, they won't be having those walls to protect them anymore. We won't have destroyed the rest of the radar electronics. But without the antenna, the radar will be totally out of comission till they manage to replace it. And we aren't letting them stay in the area long enough to fetch and install a new radar antenna. 

Our job in that case it to make the radar non-operational. Any Desert Devil killed in the process is just an icing on the cake: non-essential to the wider operation.

Question to GM, though: would that work? 

Frack, how close are our gun positons to the DD base camp? 8-10 miles...? That's basically on thier doorstep...

Make sure the AVX-9 pilot knows that they have a rather narrow time window: between the radar stations being (hopefully) disabled, and the DDs getting their shit together and bringing their MANPADS out of storage. 8-Ball's suggestion is to come in as low and fast as possible with given craft and carried ordnance (these tend to have their limitations regarding speed and altitude of use). Shoot your flare dispensers (and chaff dispenser too, just to be sure) in automatic mode. Make a bombing run over the DD base's runway and GTF out of there. 

As for choosing the people to do specific combat: I guess 8-Ball is going to be the person running the show. Fighting another battle armed with a radio (because while he's great with a rifle in hand, we have loads of very competent rifle-people. Not that many competent folks to make them point those rifles in the right direction). This means he'll likely have to be close to the Union Mountain position. 

So, we'll have the Swede doing most of the actual runnin'n'gunnin' elsewhere.

...toss in some Mongolian Metal by The Hu for good measure. When it comes to barbaric steppe raiders, one can't beat the Mongols  

And yes, I was suggesting an armored external loudspeaker since the Voodoo Boys time, I think 

Hovertank showdown on the praire would be indeed very climatic  But that's assuming the DD hover survives the cruise missile strike on the vehicle bunkers: due to its mobility, 8-Ball has listed it on top of the priority targets list, when it comes to enemy AFVs. 

Rather anti-climatic of him. But he's pretty much down-to-earth, practical guy when it comes down to doing battle.

OK.

If we can, it would be advantageous to add a few loads of artillery-deployed mines after the airstrip is hit with cluster munitions. It will deny it to the enemy aircraft (an anti-personnel mine might be not enough to drop an aircraft... but I haven't heard of an aircraft tire that could withstand one. Blow a tire on the runway during takeoff - likely with an entire leg of your undercarriage, I guess - and your aircraft is in a world of hurt...), as well as prevent enemy engineers from making jury-rig repairs to the strip. 

Now, note on all the mines (inc. the ones used to close the passes in the mountains): on this level of operations, minefields aren't intended to stop the enemy. Because adequately trained and equipped opponent will eventually make a breach in a minefield (one way or another - unless the minefield is an elemnt of a defensive position, and there is someone defending it from being breached / swept / whatever) or maneuver around it. No: minefields buy us time. Time our opponent doesn't really have in excess, and is forced to waste it either breaching our minefield, or - more often - finding a different way. Longer, less advantageous, and one where we will have him exactly where we want to. 

Regarding the enemy armored assets: I'd expect whatever is left of the DD tank force to be spearheading a counterattack. Our "tanks" carry 75mm guns: that's by far not enough to stop things like M1 or M11 MBT. One of the reasons why I want air assets (drones, the AVX-9) to pack HTGMs, and act as our QRF. In addition to their role as air defense patrol.

I mean, if everything goes perfectly well, two tanks will get nailed with cruise missiles, and the rest will be pounded to death by artillery. Preferably before they manage to stick thier noses out of their hangars, and if not, while still in Alfa and under corrected fire adjusted by our forward observer team. 

But things don't go perfectly well.  And if a tank breaks out, an attack aircraft ready to slam a HTGM into the tank's engine deck from above is just what the doctor ordered. 

Yes, Cossack is on the follow-up and mop-up duty, tearing at their flanks if they run. Or playing our fire brigade along with the Hovertransport, if needed. His is to crush his enemies, see them driven before him, and hear the lamentations of their women (though they'd have to lament really loud for him to hear them in the Dacian Wolf). Y'know, the good stuff ;).

A hover, well, we can do it.

Mr Jones - that could be arranged.

But I'm afraid we're flat out of nukes

7 hours ago, Allen1 said:

Yes, the two "cruise missiles" can strike the bunkers, and each tank has a bunker.  Those tanks are their most powerful offensive weapon.  

As to the airstrip, what kind of specialized ordinance would they need?

Well, it's their time, effort and money  if the wanted to build infividual bunkers... alas. Target priority list remains the same.

Y'know, when you said "cruise missiles", things like BGM-109 Tomahawk pop in my mind. "Loitering munitions" would be more like Switchblade or Warmate - not really powerful enough to pentrate a bunker, but definitely capable of messing up a tank that's not in the bunker.

As for specialized ordnance for a commando squad, I have heard of 3 options:

1. MANPADS set up as "anti-air mines", with a delay mechanism. Set them up, one becomes active every so often. Anything tries lifitng off, one missile launches. 
2. Heavy Claymore-like mines, eg. MON-300. Yes, it is a directional effect fragmentiation mine that sends out shrapnel out to 300m. Unless your aircraft are really well armored (and most of thme aren't), they get a crapload of shrapnel. Of course, it is more useful against parked aircraft. 
3. Anti-material rifles. You don't need much to damage an aircraft and make it un-airworthy with a hit or three from a .50bmg or bigger (especially if you happen to have incendiary ammo). Again, you'd have to have the target aircraft in sight, so preferably parked, and not in a bunker. But hitting them while they are taxing to runway would also work (of course, it would also mean our B-team would be in the neibourhood at the moment, rather than exfiltrated safely. Thus, very dangerous to them). Keep in mind the gun may as well be supressed and firing from really far away: it will be taking on a large target that is either stationary or moving at slow pace (taxing to a runway).
4. I guess camouflaging some "LAW/HLAW mines"  (as Maximum Metal describes these)- essentially any variant of an off-route antitank mine is likely going to work, too. Much depends on whether the terrain allows the B-Team to effectively lay and camouflage these along the runway.

If you're asking specialized air-deployed ordnance, I was thinking Matra Durandal or equivalent. Though cluster munitions (again, air or artillery-deployed) or air/artillery deployed mines would do the job in this case, too. I don't expect the runway to be a heavy-duty concrete one, intended to receive big, heavy (or very fast) aircraft. Still, it is something the satellite reconaissance would surely tell us, so we'd avoid making a miscalculation there.

Covering the runway with a salvo of cluster munitions would likely crater it pretty badly. Not something a dedicated repair crew with right equipment wouldn't repair, but I assume DDs don't have such.

Also, absolutely adequate cluster munitions for NATO-standard 155mm gun-howitzers does not only exist, but is in fact rather standard fare. It is geared more towards engaging dispersed vehicles (armored and not so much armored), and would make minced meat of parked aircraft, but should totally work on a runway. Nb. cluster munitions isn't illegal in the light of the international law of armed conflict. It is problematic (especially the older types) due to contamination of the area with unexploded ordance (older types had... significant amount of failures to detonate individual submunitions, especially if they hit soft ground), and its potential to hit both legal (military) and illegal (civillian) targets if they happen to be in the same area (non-discriminiating attacks, which is actually illegal). 

...which is why 8-Ball was making all those legal-eagle-related remarks towards late Marshal Suarez: those are things you can do in a war. But you'd better observe the right paper trail methodology.