Hermit, this was the first time EVER that ANY coordination between vehicle art and vehicle writeup happened AT ALL (well, at least in any noticeable way).

Much as I respect anyone pointing out obvious flaws and much as I am of the opninion that EVERY product can be made even better, I have to stress your own point that some of the art is "old" and -- as such -- any problems between stuff shoen in art and stuff described in text are really "old issues". Correcting stuff that has been published before will always upset people (hey, why was the art changed? hey, why were the stats changed?) and I am not the person to decide how to best approach this problem, but for all intents and purposes MilSpec Tech is a GIANT step ahead from ANY earlier vehicle publication of the SR line, all Rigger books with their often crappy art, mismatching vehicle features, missing perspective etc. included.

I am TOTALLY with you that coordination between artwork and text has to evolve to the point where both are really one and the same – knowing the process behind MilSpec, I have to defend the other people involved, however, as the whole idea of redoing the artwork to this extent (even with text that indicates what is what) came rather late in the process, and esp. Peter and Brent have done a great job to establish this wholly new approach to presenting equipment.

I sincerely hope that the fans like the direction SR is taking with MilSpec, as this would mean that additional efforts will be made to establish a new "modus operandi" in developing text and art, maybe even to the point we FINALLY (and for the 1st time) get real infographics in SR (and if we can steal some ideas for this from BT, all the better).

(Speaking of BT: No BT design was used or re-used for MilSpec tech)

On a personal note: what do you guys think of the NEW designs in MilSpec, esp.
– Mixcoatl
– Paynal
– Centurion
– Woodstock
– Arbalest
– Popocatepeti
– Ahuitzotl and
– Huitzilopochti?

Fields of Fire, to an extent (and the old SR1 rulesbook, which coordinated Cybertech images pretty well; SR4A did the same, IIRC). Usually, I agree, vehicle art has been lackluster to downright horrible.

Not saying MilSpec is bad for it - I like this direction much, much better than war's, with it's lacklusterlisting of stats that make no sense and descriptions that don't go well with the stats. And that was written by the same person, to boot. Just saying that more coordination would have been nicer and should happen for future product (like acknowledging the Devil Rat has a turret). But compared to the issues I had with previous releases, that's inor. As you say, there's always room for improvement, but that doesn't necessarily mean any product is bad.


That is good to know. I hope this way of doing things will be pursued instead of War!'s.


Good; with few exceptions the designs there are horrible and make WH40K designs look sensible, sleek and pretty. Maybe I'll buy this ebook to see the other art and stats. At least, it's a step in the right direction, though seeing it in print would be much better.

Iirc, printers work with a set number of pages. Go above one set and you have to fill up the next (or pay extra for some custom job). And the price of the end product follows from that.

Yes, for instance:

set 1: 50 pages.
set 2: 120 pages.
set 3: 200 pages.
set 4: 320 pages.

You might as well print 205 pages but you will pay for 320, you might as well add 115 more pages to since they are already paid.

considering that WAR is priced same as Running Wild witch is 38 pages longer, that shouldn't have been a problem.

It's usually a multiple of 8, 16, or 32, due to the way things are printed. They print several pages on both sides of a large piece of paper, then fold it and press-cut the pages to size.




-k

Well, I don't know exactly how the numbers are. I was just giving an example. But I see your point. They might use A1 paper now that you mentioned.

I was going to say something here about War! and how it was laid out, but I can't yet.

So I'll just say I was going to say something, and leave it at that.

The Shadowrun "Striker" was first introduced in Fields of Fire in 1994. The Real Life Stryker received its name in 2002. It was previously know as the "Interim Armored Vehicle" and the program itself was initiated only in 1999, after the Kosovo War.

So you're saying they stole it from SR? Somebody get the lawyers.

I never got a copy of FoF. Good to know, though. Even so, the design of the Striker is 20 years old between FoF and MST.

Suggesting new CGL marketing strategy:
1) make a book describing vehicles with all possible names;
2) sue when someone makes real-life vehicle with a name already used;
3) ???
4) PROFIT

Yeah, it's weird. It's almost like the developers were listening to complaints, and immediately integrated changes to parts of the editorial process to get more eyes on every product in order to improve the final quality.

Unpossible.

A little more serious, I'm curious to see how the next 'big' release fares with the new process. This was an excellent start on that front, but I do want to see a full 'stress test' involving a larger page count.

So, are Canadian dimes worth more than US dimes yet? I've got a few canadian quarters....

And the concept of an armored car is older than that. Try pre-WWI (circa 1902).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_car_(...ry)#World_War_I

The modern version is just updated armore/electronics, and engines. (It goes faster, stops bullets better, and hey got this neat electronic stuff in it so you know where your guys are and the opposition is.)

While commendable that the developer seems finally aware of certain shortcomings, it is not the point I was making.


So is the basic design of nearly all military equipment currently in use.


The Striker is (or at least, was in FoF) a light, cheap tank which was more designed to fight infantry and matter in large numbers. This design is a bit younger, dating back to the pre-WWII-ery when the Germans stuck steel plates and medium machine guns on tractors and called the result a panzer.

Keep in mind how old many of the designs and vehicles we use in modern armed forces are. These vehicles are brutally expensive to research and design, and spend years and years in R&D before being rolled out sometimes. 20 years in the field is nothing.

Bull

Besides, even developing one can take 20 years. Think of the Osprey.

Vehicle-wise, yes. I saw Striker, thought Stryker and grinned.

The Phalanx and the Phoenix, on the other hand - we're talking a platform that's nearing 100 years in service by MST for the Phalanx, and the Phoenix as an AAM was retired in '04. Fluff commentary says both are old designs, despite being updated, but I'm not sure why the corps would continue to use the Phoenix frame from the split when it was only used on one aircraft.

Maybe that's just me being weird. I don't have any real complaints about it, I just found it odd.

Oh, I'm well aware of what your point was, Hermit, and so is everyone else.

And the F-22. they just got deployed, and they are now obsolete. and yet we still fly B-52s and C-130s.

I agree: 60-100 years is quite a while, even given that modern designs can remain in service for 30+ years.

Is the F-22 obsolete, or simply cancelled? One's objective, the other's political.

Beyond that, we don't know how many revisions of the basic design there have been over the years, nor do we really necessarily need to know about all of them in game terms since Shadowrun apparently trucks more in general classes of vehicle/weapon than they do specific models. The difference between the ASLAV, LAVIII, and the Stryker falls under the "Stuff most of us don't really need to know about" pile, particularly in a game where you can customize the crap out of your rides anyway.

As far as the F-22 goes, the argument isn't so much that it's obsolete so much that it is redundant given that the F-35 was supposed to be a bit worse than the F-22 in pure air to air but cheaper and more versatile. I haven't really kept up on it, so I'm not sure how the costs are supposed to stack up. So, I'd say politics, for right now, given the conflicting information out there I heard last time I checked. It's not like military development costs are renowned for their transparency and ability to stay under projected budgets, after all.

More cancelled than obsolete, I think. The stealth tech is nice, but the engine design requires a ton of maintenance, and forgetting to change out the coolant after one flight is enough to scrap one of those planes.

As far as I know they were cancelled.
The contract was for 300+ birds I think, but in the end they ended with less than half, if I recall correctly.
Then the f-35 came along to replace it as the new SOTA dogfighter.

And on the Flip side, they're STILL using P3's
Which hit their end of life cycle in the late 80's.

And that's even running into a lot of problems as they want a versatile platform that the airframe can't currently handle.

And that may end up under projections as well. Tho it has an advantage being pushed for export to NATO members as well as being used by US forces.

Mostly its the VTOL Marines version that seems to lag behind. the airforce and naval versions are more or less ready to go, iirc.

Yeah, I get the impression that it's the cost and lack of a clear need that hurt the Raptor more than its capabilities. Until very recently Russia and China didn't appear to have a clear design for a 5th generation air-to-air superiority fighter that we were particularly worried about, something that rather took the shine off the F-22 program. Plus, I think there was some study that said we need to start worrying more about how we defend airbases from MRBM attacks (or change how planes take off) so that our fancy ass planes can you know, fly. Not much point in worrying about how shiny the new plane is as long as that's a problem.

Here's the other problem.

France's Mirage Fighter Plane.

It's cheaper, it's easier to learn to use, and it's quite effective.

1 on 1 is it better? No.
But it costs 1/5 the price, at least, it requires 1/10 the training.

So you can field 5 Mirage for the Resources (both human and material) of 1 F22.
There's similar math with the MiG

At least one of the concerns of the F-22 is the more recent development of hyper-accurate medium range ballistic missiles. They may be able to take out any reasonably close airfields to a given battleground. Even mobile ones like aircraft carriers.

The F-35 at least has an OPTION to operate out of areas without a landing strip.



-k

Things I learned today: Dumpshockers love them some jetfighter news.

Ideally. If it has similar maintenance requirements to the -22, though...It's not going to be pretty.

As for MBRM's - we has lazors. At least that's the current development track.

Honestly, some planes are still being used because they've been proven stupidly reliable. Specifically Big Ugly, the B-52, is likely to be going on for a very long time. The design was simple and resilient, and it's been easy to upgrade it to keep its avionics current enough to never be an issue.

For land systems, the Panhard AML production started in 1960 and it's still in use in a bunch of countries.

So simple that Stanley Kubrick and a special effects team was able to create one when the design was still classified.

but only good if we have air superiority in the area.
Well, at least we have B-2 bombers that can fly anywhere also and not be detected and hit the SAM and radar sites first before the B-52's and others come in to finish the remaining stuff. The interesting thing will also be the long range drones with even better endurance and stealth capabilities.

But yeah, it's simple and reliable, I love them B-52s, very impressive watching drop endless waves of bombs from the video footages I've seen on tv.

Yeah, sometimes simple is good and there's only so much you can argue with physics. It's even more obvious when you get away from vehicles and look at small arms. The M2 Browning MG has gotten some face lifts over the years, but that doesn't mean you should feel very comfortable on the business end of the 1930s version.

Dated tech also tends to circulate down; The C-5s here are getting replaced with C-17s and will probably get reultilized in the National Guard (as they were already in AFRC), and of course we just keep seeing the C-130s all over the place. Hell the one in the hanger we got to walk through this week had servered in the last part of the Veitnam conflict. Tose things just keep going and going and...

...then get sent to firefighting organizations where they shear apart in midair.

Happened in northern Nevada a while back, they lost a -130 that had so many cracks in the airframe it came apart on a bank.

After reading the miltechspec file, it had me thinking that I would also like to see a tech sourcebook on some of the real dated classics like the T-55, BMP's and their later variants. It'd be likely there's a few hanging out here and there by the time it hit 2070's in out of the way places that can't afford the price of newer vehicles and just better off maintaining the vehicle.

Not aboslete--cost effective is another question entirely (they stopped production--not exporting it either). Spending that much to get a slight combat edge (the may become obsolete)...probably not worth it. Especially since in the near future drones will be more cost effective at air to air combat.

In terms of spending, no. In terms of silver content, yes.

And then you have the Canadian Armed Forces... Um. Yeah. 30-hours of maintenance for every hour of flight time for our Search and Rescue Helicopters which are the mainstay and primary used vehicle. I am not joking.

Canada just BOUGHT more C-130s. Just wish we had the AC-130 idea going as well.

As for old tech that's still around and still fighting, I'll admit it's in the Militia Units of Third World Countries, or just as training vehicles, but T-34-85s are STILL in use today. They were using Nazi Guts as Track Grease in the Mid-40s, and are still in use TODAY!

I heard of a South American Country that made an upgraded version of the DUKW Amphibious Truck just because their actual DUKWs rusted out at last in the late-70s/early-80s...

There's a Korea-Era Jeep driving around my city. And I don't even want to think about how old the Prime Movers of the Armory and military units of the city and outlying areas are. People are still finding crashed WWI Training Bi-Planes and fixing them up.

"This Old Drone" looks more and more viable every day.

Please note: The F-35 is not a SOTA dogfighter. The F-35 isn't even a dogfighter by nature, although it *can* engage in air to air combat. The F22 and F35 serve distinct and complimentary roles; the F35 is jack-of-all-trades, though it has an emphasis on use as an close air support/interdictor/air-to-ground strike craft, much like teh F/A-18. Much like the F/A-18, it *can* dogfight and do okay at it, but it's not the primary design goal. The F22 is nearly 100% air superiority fighter.

Speaking of air roles, one of the big issues with 'fighters' per se these days is that a turning fight is increasingly unlikely as avionics and missile sensing/automation become more advanced; beyond-visual-range strikes are expected by most analysts to be the norm in the case of modern air warfare between similarly-equipped nations. One of the ways the RAND Corporation thought up to counteract the need for airfields and air refuling in a theoretical war between Taiwan or Japan and China was to retrofit the B-1 Lancer with modern targetting systems and strap it with ten tons of long-range anti-air missiles that would be capable of destroying chinese fighters at ranges beyond their ability to engage.

Yeah, but they said that about air roles in Vietnam, the US stripped the cannons from fighters, and look what happened... They had to bolt cannons back on.

I just remember that most analysts tend to be like me, sitting in an arm chair.

Well,this is true, after a fashion. But I'm not sayind dogfighting is never needed, just that BVR missiles are far and away the biggest threat, because anything that doesn't have BVR capability probably is going to fall prey to something that does. Additionally, Vietnam vs "the now" is very different, if for no other reason than the march of technology and targetting software. I don't think any US aircraft - except the A-10 - has shot down any other aircraft with something other than a missile in close to 20 years. That's a long time without guns. And that's very telling about the state of turning fights in actual combat.

Given the supercruise speeds of most 5th generation aircraft, it would be next to impossible to have a turning fight that didn't start or end as a long-range missile attack.

Edit: Or, to put it succinctly, "BattleTac + Long Range = Hard times when you got a knife and a handgun."

Bah! Fighters should be equipped with Bayonets for some REAL Close Air Support!

Lazors are massively overrated, playing on sci-fi vibe. They are not any more difficult to overwhelm than other CIWS (and minding their energy requirements, might even be easier).


They can also teleport and do other magic tricks I won't list here explicitly (they're classified after all).


BMP is Russian for IFV. And both T and BMP lines are alive an kicking, according to Rigger 2 (listed as "similar models", if my memory serves).


Also, frankly, Shadowrun combat being mostly the same as modern-day one doesn't make much sense. Hell, the very fact that you can fit a cam into a RFID now would change tank tactics massively - the damn boxes would stop being blind after all. Same for magic, drones, rigging, biodrones, nanites - they all should have changed the way wars are fought massively, more than WWI did.