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Fuchs
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ May 19 2008, 02:44 PM) *
Actually, you have no real reason to block said position in the first place. Power plants, military bases, and airports cover most of what you need to hold. With helicopters and airplanes the ground in between 2 locations is relatively unimportant. Supply's can likewise be airlifted.


I beg to differ. Air transport and power can't handle everything.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Fuchs @ May 19 2008, 09:04 AM) *
I beg to differ. Air transport and power can't handle everything.

The power is because that if you control the power than that Sprawl is at your mercy. Air Transport already handles a lot of the US's supplies. And the only real supplies needed for an infantry force are food and ammo, at least in the short term. A single transport can bring in enough MRE's to feed a brigade for well over a month. Ammo can be brought in in similar quantities.

What it's infeasible to move by air is gas. The US Army can currently deploy a full tank division by Air if it has too (it's a bitch but they can). What it can't do is supply the fuel or reloads for those tanks.
Fuchs
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ May 19 2008, 03:56 PM) *
The power is because that if you control the power than that Sprawl is at your mercy. Air Transport already handles a lot of the US's supplies. And the only real supplies needed for an infantry force are food and ammo, at least in the short term. A single transport can bring in enough MRE's to feed a brigade for well over a month. Ammo can be brought in in similar quantities.

What it's infeasible to move by air is gas. The US Army can currently deploy a full tank division by Air if it has too (it's a bitch but they can). What it can't do is supply the fuel or reloads for those tanks.


And spare parts for all the vehicles (maintenance is a bitch), medical supplies, batteries, construction material, etc.

No modern force runs on food and ammo anymore, unless you're talking small squads of SF operating independently. In SR, this will be even worse, due to all the high tech every soldier is wearing or has implanted, and all the vehicles, drones, and electronics.
Kyoto Kid
QUOTE (Kerberos @ May 18 2008, 10:35 PM) *
What is RiS?

...Rhapsody in Shadow. It was a campaign arc I developed under 3rd ed that was set in Europe, focusing on the Balkans.
hyzmarca
QUOTE (WearzManySkins @ May 19 2008, 06:56 AM) *
I disagree on using or not using weapons of species/ecological suicide. Since the possession of such is by itself an act of terrorism, which most governments of 2070 will give lip service to not supporting acts of terrorism. I do not agree with the Balance of Terror today or in the future, no government is WORTH the results of species/ecological suicide. That is a capability of the same minds that produced the Death Camps and other nice things that semantics claim were necessary for the good of the people.

WMS


So you'd rather that the Russians killed every man woman and child in the US of A? Because that really is the only other option. We should kid ourselves. They wouldn't have hesitated to do it then and they wouldn't hesitate to do it now. And we'd have done it to them and we'd still do it to them because they're Russians, dammit.

But, the great thing about this equation is that two amoral baddasses effectively neutralize each other as neither can attack without facing the wrath of the other. And once you factor in the nuclear winter resulting from a continent being leveled, this is a situation where caring about the survival of the human race effectively dooms the human race. So the people who care most about the survival of the human race won't give a crap at all.
WearzManySkins
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ May 19 2008, 02:24 PM) *
So you'd rather that the Russians killed every man woman and child in the US of A? Because that really is the only other option. We should kid ourselves. They wouldn't have hesitated to do it then and they wouldn't hesitate to do it now. And we'd have done it to them and we'd still do it to them because they're Russians, dammit.

But, the great thing about this equation is that two amoral baddasses effectively neutralize each other as neither can attack without facing the wrath of the other. And once you factor in the nuclear winter resulting from a continent being leveled, this is a situation where caring about the survival of the human race effectively dooms the human race. So the people who care most about the survival of the human race won't give a crap at all.

rotfl.gif rotfl.gif rotfl.gif
This chain of thought processes sounds like lines from "Dr Strangelove". grinbig.gif

WMS
Kyoto Kid
General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless *distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty million people killed.

President Merkin Muffley: You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!

General "Buck" Turgidson: Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending on the breaks.

...yep, kinda does ...

The strategy was called Mutually Assured Destruction and the acronym said it all.
hyzmarca
It is, however, a mathematically perfect strategy which history has proven to been very effective. Dispassionate annalysis using game theory shows that it is the most effective way to prevent conflict.
Adarael
It's not mathematically perfect... It's mathematically perfect within set bounds. The math does not take into account certain factors, such as despair, abject desperation, or madness. Granted, in practice, it's done okay.

I'm just making the point that math does a poor job of predicting people. Societies, yes. Individuals with the ability to make such decisions, no.
Rajaat99
QUOTE (Earlydawn @ May 18 2008, 10:13 PM) *
True, although you're talking about using very expensive, specialized anti-orbital weapon systems that tend to create a very big intelligence footprint.


I wouldn't think so. We can shoot down satellites today. And even if they wouldn't want to use a land based weapon, they can always send runners... with a bomb.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Rajaat99 @ May 19 2008, 09:48 PM) *
I wouldn't think so. We can shoot down satellites today.

Sure. And as soon as you shoot down the first Thor Shot all the others are used on you under the use them or loose them policy.

QUOTE
And even if they wouldn't want to use a land based weapon, they can always send runners... with a bomb.

Um...no. Read Target: Wastelands. You won't be getting a bomb anywhere near those satellites or their command center.
Kerberos
QUOTE (Adarael @ May 19 2008, 07:11 PM) *
It's not mathematically perfect... It's mathematically perfect within set bounds. The math does not take into account certain factors, such as despair, abject desperation, or madness. Granted, in practice, it's done okay.

I'm just making the point that math does a poor job of predicting people. Societies, yes. Individuals with the ability to make such decisions, no.

Well there are really two distinct question in MAD. One is whether you should retaliate and the other is whether you should pretend you would retaliate. If the enemy lunches their missiles you could argue that you shouldn't retaliate, because you're dead anyways and two wrongs don't make a right. That however doesn't mean you shouldn't do your uttermost to convince the enemy that you would retaliate, because their belief that you will is what's keeping you safe. The detterent should be fostered whether or not you would actually do it if push came to shove.
Zak
Which is one of the reasons the Corporate Court is way more efficient at preventing another world war than a fragile balance of power between two, three or more nutjob nations.
An all out war is simply bad for business. Small scale conflicts however maintain a certain customer base.
Rajaat99
QUOTE (Emperor Tippy @ May 20 2008, 03:33 AM) *
Sure. And as soon as you shoot down the first Thor Shot all the others are used on you under the use them or loose them policy.

Um, I'm sure thor shots take time to prep, which would give you time to destroy them. Anyway, countries don't own them, corps do.
QUOTE
Um...no. Read Target: Wastelands. You won't be getting a bomb anywhere near those satellites or their command center.

Obviously you haven't been playing that long. Runners can do anything! grinbig.gif
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Rajaat99 @ May 21 2008, 12:14 AM) *
Um, I'm sure thor shots take time to prep, which would give you time to destroy them. Anyway, countries don't own them, corps do.

And the Corp's have every incentive to keep all out war from happening in North America.

QUOTE
Obviously you haven't been playing that long. Runners can do anything! grinbig.gif

Ok, maybe FastJack level runners could take out said C&C center. But thats about it and its a big maybe.
Earlydawn
QUOTE (Rajaat99 @ May 19 2008, 08:48 PM) *
I wouldn't think so. We can shoot down satellites today. And even if they wouldn't want to use a land based weapon, they can always send runners... with a bomb.
Both of the recent, well-known attempts cost a very serious chunk of change. That creates a pretty nice papertrail. Look at how much the U.S. pours into missile defense. Don't you think foreign powers knew we were going to attempt it before the media did? C'mon.
Emperor Tippy
QUOTE (Earlydawn @ May 21 2008, 12:41 AM) *
Both of the recent, well-known attempts cost a very serious chunk of change. That creates a pretty nice papertrail. Look at how much the U.S. pours into missile defense. Don't you think foreign powers knew we were going to attempt it before the media did?


The recent one by the US was small fry. We could do it back in the 80's from an F-15. And hitting a geosync bird is a lot harder than a LEO bird.

Ship born lasers should actually be the SR weapon of choice for satellite killing, hell there description says they can whack them.
Earlydawn
True enough. I'm emphasizing the fact that anti-satellite technology is either big enough to be visible to anyone who wants to notice, or widespread enough that the orbital battlespace is going to be a very different place.
Cantankerous
QUOTE (hyzmarca @ May 20 2008, 12:19 AM) *
It is, however, a mathematically perfect strategy which history has proven to been very effective. Dispassionate annalysis using game theory shows that it is the most effective way to prevent conflict.



Ohhh, come on. History has never tested this strategy. Not on the scale the WMDs employ. It is madness, or more correctly, if less politically correctly, idiocy, to think that where WMDs are involved that there can ever truly be any real balance, even in terror. The ONLY thing that dispassionate analysis using game theory could show is that both sides WILL LOSE ...

...and so will everyone else around them.



Isshia
reepneep
Yes, it sounds positively looney. But it was tested and the entire cold war proves that it works when you're dealing with a rational opponent. The presence of large nuclear weapons and the ability to deliver them without fail kept the US and the USSR from shooting at each other. If one side has them, both need to.

That bit about rational opponents is the most important part however. It won't really work today when any number of religeous nutcases can potentially get their hands on one. They would be more than happy to trade their lives for yours.

Once you open Pandora's box, you can't close it again. We should all consider ourselves very lucky that the world didn't end. The Documentary 'The Fog of War: Lessions from the life of Robert S McNamarra' had an absolutely chilling anecdote about the Cuban Missile Crisis that really does illustrate how close we came to a shooting war.
Emperor Tippy
Yeah, its happened a few times. 4 that I know of. 2 of which came within about 5 minutes of launching.
Kyoto Kid
[ Spoiler ]

...grinbig.gif
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