28 replies to this topic

[Mechwarrior 37]

The purpose of LRMs is the same as slingers 5,000 years ago. Or javelin throwers or archers. Later with Guns, howitzers, and mortars to name a few.

Indirect fire. We do not think of it normally. Most people think that missile weapons fire mostly direct. This is false.

For many 1000's of years when two forces met only the first few ranks of men in front could attack the enemy. One thing "Westerners" have to understand is that we were brought up in the old Greek way of fighting as hoplites (Pre-Peloponnesian War).

The early Greek city-states would fight on a picked flat piece of land between two groups of heavily armored infantry. They were often battle of pushing and would often end with little loss of life. These are the first people who made fun of anyone using missile weapons.

If you really understand the fable about the sour grapes, you might understand this

It was not "manly" which considering the Spartans were forced into being homosex...anyway.

The rest of the world used indirect fire and soon everyone would. Or die.

The Norman's archers were one of the main reason behind their victory at Hastings









The Crusades is also a good example. The heavy Crusader Calvary would charge right into the enemy, who would then fake a retreat (a 5,000-year-old tactic) while they would surround and shoot them.

Ah, also...SEE MONGOLS

hehe

[Funk1777]

This is neat and all but are you comparing archers in medieval times to lrm boats and comparing the infantry to what, laser boats? We don't have melee in this game. Just range varying from short to ***-tons of range. Battles with hundreds or thousands with only melee weapons is way different than 12v12 with everyone having guns. If bob can kill an atlas in 3 salvos in under 15 seconds or 15 salvos in 30 seconds which do you prefer bob uses to help your team. Who cares if bob dies, he will magically be alive next round.

[The pessimistic optimist]

Mechwarrior 37, on 21 January 2019 - 09:53 AM, said:

The purpose of LRMs is the same as slingers 5,000 years ago. Or javelin throwers or archers. Later with Guns, howitzers, and mortars to name a few.

Indirect fire. We do not think of it normally. Most people think that missile weapons fire mostly direct. This is false.

For many 1000's of years when two forces met only the first few ranks of men in front could attack the enemy. One thing "Westerners" have to understand is that we were brought up in the old Greek way of fighting as hoplites (Pre-Peloponnesian War).

The early Greek city-states would fight on a picked flat piece of land between two groups of heavily armored infantry. They were often battle of pushing and would often end with little loss of life. These are the first people who made fun of anyone using missile weapons.

If you really understand the fable about the sour grapes, you might understand this

It was not "manly" which considering the Spartans were forced into being homosex...anyway.

The rest of the world used indirect fire and soon everyone would. Or die.

The Norman's archers were one of the main reason behind their victory at Hastings









The Crusades is also a good example. The heavy Crusader Calvary would charge right into the enemy, who would then fake a retreat (a 5,000-year-old tactic) while they would surround and shoot them.

Ah, also...SEE MONGOLS

hehe

Try http://www.sarna.net...g_Range_Missile this is how they should work like lore!

[Koniving]

SirSmokes, on 21 January 2019 - 11:25 AM, said:

Try http://www.sarna.net...g_Range_Missile this is how they should work like lore!

I agree and all and made the case many times...

Lock once per firing, fire and forget ("adapted to the age of ECM"... the missiles do not communicate with the launcher; though Artemis missiles do)...etc..

But PGI has opted for the constant lock... and with it... fast missile slinging... and with that... numerous other "straight rules" without considering the lore of them, aka AC shells that do the full damage per bullet. Lasers that repeatedly are described as having to fire a few times to get the job done, with kilowatt ratings and burn times provided in the 1980s to support that they could burn through armor after repeated shots in real life (but could never hope to do it in a single shot)...

So we have what we have.

Spoiler

(This said.. There's a slight fun thing about Sarna's version; it uses the new LRM definitions started after 1991 to make a clearer distinction between Clan and IS LRMs as well as some issues with the art such as the Catapult.

In the original version, this 'hotloaded' thing didn't exist. LRMs would work at any range, accuracy like today is just reduced. The reason however, is the IS always threw LRMs into the air in order to get that good range due to the falling distance, and hitting something closer involved tilting the mech downward [or arms], in which the guidance system is basically useless.

Thus the accuracy penalty [which gets worse the closer they are as the missile has even less time to react when the enemy attempts to dodge -- dodging and blocking are the reasons shots are "random" in tabletop, with the ability to call a specific body part only provided if the pilot is unconscious (mech can't automatically act without a conscious pilot; it has to do with AI issues and yes BT had AI even in our 1980s, before they had mechs, will share on request), if the mech is immobile (it can't move), or the mech is down (difficult to dodge while laying down). A shot can't be called if the mech has an MP of 0, however, as it can still dodge even if it can't leave that 30 meter space.]

Clan LRMs didn't have the issue of needing gravity to get range, plus zellbriggen and arrogance, so Clans never fired indirectly.

Such also needed to change, due to some disadvantages this brought for Clans, and some lore shifts post 3060, where the Clans are less arrogant and more willing to use less honorable tactics. As such the lore was rewritten. Ask and I'll share the original stuff.)

Edited by Koniving, 21 January 2019 - 11:44 AM.

[Prototelis]

This is an action team play game, not a war simulator.

[TheArisen]

If you really understood war history you would know that mechs wouldn't function like ancient foot soldiers, especially considering we only get 12 mechs per side. There are some parallels to more recent times in that yes, the artillery needs to be protected but again we only have 12 mechs per side and sharing armor is a key component of winning.

Also LRMs are not the exclusive ranged weapon on the field so the examples presented really fall apart quickly.

[HammerMaster]

Prototelis, on 21 January 2019 - 11:56 AM, said:

This is an action team play game, not a war simulator.

[LordNothing]

if you cant apply 'the art of war' or any other tome of battlefield tactics to the game of mwo, then you truly are a permatater. most of the players in the game wouldn't recognize a tactical advantage if it bit em in the ***. the number of times i saw a team piss away a tactical advantage is absurd.

Edited by LordNothing, 21 January 2019 - 04:13 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Look at them, now they are trying to justify their sad existence.

[OmniFail]

Y E O N N E, on 21 January 2019 - 04:15 PM, said:

Look at them, now they are trying to justify their sad existence.

We're not sad bro. We're rich. Lurm boats print c-bills. But, I understand why your bitter bro. I would be mad too if I were a poor mechdad.

[Y E O N N E]

OmniFail, on 21 January 2019 - 09:32 PM, said:

We're not sad bro. We're rich. Lurm boats print c-bills. But, I understand why your bitter bro. I would be mad too if I were a poor mechdad.

And now they are trying to project. LuL.

[OmniFail]

Y E O N N E, on 21 January 2019 - 09:35 PM, said:

And now they are trying to project. LuL.

Its not projecting if you have almost half a billion c-bills. Its giraffe money

[Prototelis]

LordNothing, on 21 January 2019 - 04:10 PM, said:

if you cant apply 'the art of war' or any other tome of battlefield tactics to the game of mwo, then you truly are a permatater. most of the players in the game wouldn't recognize a tactical advantage if it bit em in the ***. the number of times i saw a team piss away a tactical advantage is absurd.

https://leaderboard....h?u=LordNothing

Evaluate yourself. Now evaluate what you just said.

It should now be evident that you might not know what you're talking about.

HammerMaster, on 21 January 2019 - 03:57 PM, said:

Oh nice, a thematically correct meme response. Much better than the random vids you post. A for effort.

Battletech isn't a war games simulator either. It's a board game set in a science-fantasy universe that tries to approximate the feel of an actual battle between giant robots. It takes a lot of liberties in regard to how actual armed conflicts actually play out.

Edited by Prototelis, 21 January 2019 - 10:49 PM.

[Khobai]

if battletech even tried to be realistic thered be no mechs in the first place. because mechs are absolutely terrible compared to tanks in real life.

battletech is an alternate universe where people only pilot impractical mechs because they think they look cool and theyd rather look cool while dying than not look cool and stay alive.

[Vellron2005]

Funk1777, on 21 January 2019 - 10:01 AM, said:

If bob can kill an atlas in 3 salvos in under 15 seconds or 15 salvos in 30 seconds which do you prefer bob uses to help your team. Who cares if bob dies, he will magically be alive next round.

If I'm Bob, I care if I die, and I would rather take 15 seconds to kill a target if it means I don't die myself and live to take another 15 seconds to kill another target..

[YueFei]

While archery shaped the battlefield, it was rarely decisive on its own.

It's also technically still direct-fire, because you have LOS on your targets.

Even moderately good armor is going to stop arrows fired at great distances.

Hell, for a long time, pike blocks (where the soldiers don't have shields) would deal with arrows by just angling their pikes to deflect most of it.

The fact that Pike and Shot co-existed, when firearms were significantly more lethal and effective than archery, should tell you something about the level of effectiveness that archery had. Even firearms alone couldn't stop a determined enemy from closing to melee.

Even during the American Civil War, when it was almost exclusively fought at range, with pikes and spears having fallen out of use, one of the most important factors in an infantry assault was momentum. Units that slowed down to hunker down and take pot shots instead of continuing to advance would actually suffer far more casualties, since human psychology is a funny thing, and a unit could stay in place trading shots for hours, at the end of which they'd have taken 40+% casualties, and keep fighting. But if that same unit continues forward, it might suffer higher initial casualties, but if they carry the assault home, the shock of the attack causing even 10% casualties to the defenders could send them reeling and fleeing. It'd be a successful attack while suffering far fewer casualties.

Or, if you want to point to WW1 as the ultimate example of the dominance of indirect fire (from artillery)... it's actually not that simple. The pop history lessons were that machine guns plus artillery made the front static, a stalemate. The reality is that there were various tactics and counters and counter-counters that attackers had developed to attack an entrenched enemy:

• A heavily-manned trench line with MGs and rifles is murderous against any open assault.
  
• But, the attacker can launch a concentrated artillery barrage against the enemy's positions, causing devastating casualties to the enemy, and then follow-up with an infantry assault.
  
• The defender's counter to this is shelter in bunkers, and leave only a sparsely-manned trenchline, minimizing the casualties from the artillery barrage. A smaller number of men would man a set of interlocking MGs, sited to defend to either side of themselves, putting attackers in a deadly crossfire. If the attackers do manage to get troops into the trenchline, the defenders then send their own riflemen to get out of the bunkers to repel the assault.
  
• The attacker's counter to this counter is packet movement. Smaller groups of men moving in short sprints, while others cover them, watching for and putting fire on the MGs. In this way, the attackers take less casualties on the way in, so that by the time they get into the trenchline, they haven't been all shot to ****.
  
• The defenders quickly figure out that while packet movement is great, it's slow... which means that the counter-counter-counter is to once again more heavily manning the trench line, more rifles on the line, more eyes watching for runners, more chances to shoot at and hit the attackers, and more men to take over at an MG if the gunner is hit. Which is really just the same as the original setup.

It's akin to rock, paper, scissors. The right tactic depends on the situation and depends on what the opponent is doing.

Truth is that the stalemate had more to do with logistics and transportation. Rail and truck-transported infantry reinforcing the front meant that a defender could always surge more troops to the point of a breakthrough faster than an attacker reinforce his push to exploit it. The stalemate wasn't due to the dominance of indirect-fire (which makes sense because the attackers also had access to and used artillery!).

[Hauptmann Keg Steiner]

Mechwarrior 37, on 21 January 2019 - 09:53 AM, said:

For many 1000's of years when two forces met only the first few ranks of men in front could attack the enemy. One thing "Westerners" have to understand is that we were brought up in the old Greek way of fighting as hoplites (Pre-Peloponnesian War).

Hoplites in relation to archers in the classical era? Let's see what wiki says, because it's late and I'm too lazy to care about better sources.

Quote

Hoplites were citizen-soldiers of Ancient Greek city-states who were primarily armed with spears and shields. Hoplite soldiers utilized the phalanx formation in order to be effective in war with fewer soldiers. The formation discouraged the soldiers from acting alone, for this would compromise the formation and minimize its strengths.

Man imagine if you could do that last line in most games.

Quote

In the 8th or 7th century BC, Greek armies adopted a military innovation known as the phalanx formation. The formation proved successful in defeating the Persians when employed by the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC during the First Greco-Persian War. The Persian archers and light troops who fought in the Battle of Marathon failed, because their bows were too weak for their arrows to penetrate the wall of Greek shields that made up the phalanx formation.

Whoops!

[Appogee]

Funny, I don't recall those ancient armies having arrows, stones and spears that guided themselves to out-of-sight targets...

[Burning2nd]

This is a tactical first person shooter...

With out comms, Its just a First person shooter

[PhoenixFire55]

Mechwarrior 37, on 21 January 2019 - 09:53 AM, said:

The purpose of LRMs is the same as slingers 5,000 years ago. Or javelin throwers or archers. Later with Guns, howitzers, and mortars to name a few.

And that purpose is annoyance. Given a javelin or arrow couldn't pierce a heavy greek phalanx armor to begin with, lets see a more modern artillery example. At the beginning of battle of Kursk during WWII, both sides utilized an unprecedented heavy artillery barrage that lasted for several hours. Casualties resulting from that barrage amounted to whooping 0.2%, yes, 0.2% of total casualties from the battle.

Mechwarrior 37, on 21 January 2019 - 09:53 AM, said:

The Norman's archers were one of the main reason behind their victory at Hastings

Yeah sure. Because marching and fighting up the boggy hill with heavily armored cavalry is totally a great idea.

Mechwarrior 37, on 21 January 2019 - 09:53 AM, said:

The Crusades is also a good example. The heavy Crusader Calvary would charge right into the enemy, who would then fake a retreat (a 5,000-year-old tactic) while they would surround and shoot them.

Again, you need to be lucky to take down a knight with an arrow since it can't pierce plate or heavy mail armor to begin with. Heavy crusader cavalry died not from arrows, but from sheer exhaustion of their mounts, since chasing lighter non-armored arabic cavlary around the desert in full metal armor is a bit of a ... bother.

Mechwarrior 37, on 21 January 2019 - 09:53 AM, said:

Ah, also...SEE MONGOLS

Not too difficult to fight against unarmored infantry while on horseback. As soon as they've met heavy hungarian cavalry and infantry formations they ran really fast since they couldn't do anything against them.

But mongols example does bring a good point. Indirect works well when you are faster than the enemy and can skirmish. In case you can't figure it out on your kids it means that 100kph LRM Trebuchet = good, and 50 kph LRM Supernova = bad.