"
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought,
but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones."
   
-
Albert Einstein

 

MUSINGS AND THOUGHTS ON THE LAST WAR AND THE TECHNOLOGY FOUND THEREIN ...
 

____________________________________________________________
 

The following are my own thoughts on the OGRE and GEV universe ... tidbits of insights, short essays, questions I have that I try to answer and a host of other ramblings gathered together from over 40 years of playing this solid little game.

"Conventional Cannon" vs Railguns? or "Do I still need to fire tactical nuclear shells if I've got a mass driver?!"

One thing that I always liked about OGRE was that the background fiction was somewhat plausible ... but that seemed to go away little by little as the decades went by and the game "evolved" (or devolved, as some might argue).

In the original fictional background given in the Microgame "OGRE", we postulate that we had a suitable leap in armor material which allowed an armored vehicle to again rule the battlefield under the regained ability to be impervious to all the weapons that had, just a few years or decades ago, threatened the extinction of the tank as a viable combat unit.  On the tail of this amazing material advance, or perhaps in parallel development, we had an equal, maybe even greater advance in ECM and ECCM which made a mockery of all the sophisticated over the horizon type weapons which all nations came to depend on in the late 20th century.  

The result?

Armored vehicles that could only be taken out by tactical nuclear weapons ... and ... a return to World War II type detection and combat ranges.  Sure, we made some incredible advances in armor and electronics, but that pretty much took us straight back to the early 20th century when it came to warfare.  In essence, as I've always understood it, OGRE uses very high technology as a crutch to postulate very advanced combat units limited to, more or less, World War II engagement parameters.  Without all the jamming and electronic spoofing, combat units in OGRE would make a mockery of traditional 20th century combat units. 

In the OGRE and GEV rulebooks, the old pocket-sized editions, the "guns" of armored units and OGREs are described as "conventional cannons firing tactical nuclear shells."  Okay, we're to assume that we need to fire tactical nuclear shells from all vehicular "guns" because the armor (BPC) is now so tough that only a few centimeters of it will stand up to a nuclear blast (wonderful material, that ...).  As such, we have tanks and hovercraft and OGREs all zipping around the battlefield and blazing away with rapid fire cannon shooting tactical nuclear shells while mobile infantryman, missile tanks, howitzers and OGREs all also fire nuclear missiles.  We get around the fact that all of this tactical nuclear warfare would quickly bake the battlefield by using tactical nuclear rounds that are "shaped-charges" and which have an amazing ability to leave only a fraction of the radiation that 20th century devices would leave.

Okay.

Heading a bit into science magic but ...

Hey!  

It's your game!  

You decide the fiction!

Which brings us to the point where we have to ask the question of just what are the "guns" in OGRE and GEV?

We're told (at first and up until OGRE Miniatures) that all cannon in the game are "conventional" in design but that all cannon fire tactical nuclear shells which, in the fiction part of the OGREverse, are just fancy HEAT rounds using nuclear explosions in a (somehow) shaped charge effect to replace the traditional Monroe effect of the high explosive anti-tank rounds.  These "shaped charge" nuclear rounds exist as a fictional reason to keep small battles from inadvertently radioactively polluting large areas with fallout.

Now, when I think "conventional" in design cannon, I think of modern cannon firing individual, cased rounds.  I think of an individual round (be that sabot, HE, HEAP, beehive, whatever ...) being loaded into the cannon, the cannon firing, and a spent casing being ejected before another round is inserted into the cannon.  The standard of such weapons is currently the 120mm Rheinmetal cannon found on such modern tanks as the M1A2 Abrams and the German Leopard 2.  This gun fires a variety of ammunition at velocities of 1.5 to 1.7 klicks a second.  Given that conventional cannon would have an upper limit on the velocity that their rounds could achieve, and that we are probably pretty near that limitation in 2020, it would be understandable that an epic advance in armor material might render "conventional" cannon obsolete ... or at least require "conventional" or "traditional" guns to fire tactical nuclear rounds in order to defeat this new armor.  Indeed, the 120mm Rheinmetal cannon was created when the older 105mm cannons were found to be unable to penetrate advances in Soviet armor.

So, we have "conventional" cannon firing tactical nuclear rounds because armor has advanced to the point where several tons of TNT are required to breach even a few centimeters of the wonder-armor.  That's all well and good ... until you introduce a series of weapons, "mass drivers" and "railguns" where the velocity of the round (and thus impact energy) is several times that of "conventional" cannons.  You do this because, hey, it's the future and railguns are really cool.  Yeah, sure ... throwing a tactical nuclear round at a target at twice the velocity of a "conventional" cannon might relate to shorter travel times and thus lower windows of opportunity for the target to evade or use point defense systems to intercept the round but it also brings into question impact energy.  The point here is, if you have armor that cannot be penetrated by "conventional" cannon but later you magically replace those "conventional" cannon with hypervelocity railguns ... why do you need tactical nuclear shells anymore?

Is BPC armor capable of protecting against 17 megajoules of direct impact energy directed at a spot measured in, at most, a few centimeters?

I'll leave all the voodoo arithmetic here because I'm not a math teacher and I'd fall behind pretty quick in any engineering foreplay laced discussion that strayed outside of all but the simplest calculations and examples of impact energy, muzzle velocity, etc.

"Historically" ... In J.D. Bell's short story "GEV", we're told that when it comes to (then) contemporary impact velocity that "six klicks a second and even the best armor flows like wax.".

Looking at some stats for the current 2020 USN railgun project, we see an achieved projectile velocity of 5400 miles per hour, hypersonic (and I still wonder ... what is the speed range past hypersonic called?).  That, ladies and gentlemen, is flat out hauling ass!  That also translates into 8690.5 kilometers per hour or a velocity of ((8690.5 * 1000 to get meters per hour) divided by (3600 to get seconds per hour)) roughly 2418 meters per second (about 2.4 klicks per second or noticeably less than half of what J. D. Bell had implied ... maybe his railguns fire at 10,800 miles per hour but even that would translate into only 4.8 klicks a second ...).  Using J. D. Bell's projectile velocities, each projectile would have to be traveling at 21,600 kph or about 13,400 some-odd miles per hour to achieve a velocity of "six klicks a second".  

Personally, I think a shell moving that fast would start to ablate some simply due to atmospheric friction.  One of my basics in my short stories is to use railguns, when railguns are used, that fire rounds rated in two different diameters such as 6.0/4.5mm.  The first number is the diameter of the round when it leaves the barrel of the weapon and the second number is the diameter of the round at the range where energy and thus speed starts to drop off, the difference in the diameters being the difference in material that burned off due to atmospheric friction.  In other words, at maximum range, the railgun round leaves the barrel at 6mm diameter but when it hits you down range, it's only 4.5mm in size (and very, very hot ... probably turning the air behind it to plasma!).

I guess my real question for this little essay is ... if "conventional" cannon, due to the limitations of their armor penetrating power based on their limited muzzle velocity imparting inadequate impact energy, required tactical nuclear shells to breach BPC armor ... does that requirement and limitation still apply when we're now supposedly using direct fire hypervelocity railguns?  What is the upper limit for muzzle velocity for the railguns in the OGREverse?  3 klicks a second?  4 klicks a second?  

Five?  

Six?

Would the introduction of hypervelocity railguns completely replace the need for tactical nuclear shells being used to breach BPC armor since the railgun's muzzle velocity and impact energy of armor defeating, non-nuclear rounds would be far greater than that of "conventional" guns?  

Do "modern" railguns now have BPC armor killing impact energy in a non-nuclear manner where as before it took a small nuclear round from a more conventional cannon to do the hard work or is even the hypervelocity imparted impact energy of a single round of APFSDSDU from a OGREverse railgun still not enough to penetrate even that few centimeters of BPC armor as carried by most light vehicles and hovercraft?


"DOOMSDAY" - Circa 2080 A.D.

I guess being born of the Cold War era (and growing up during the '70's when so much post-apocalypse glitz was out there in the mainstream media) caused me to see (the first time) the scenarios of OGRE as something other than what they have come to be.  I always thought of the scenarios included with OGRE to be Doomsday type situations, man vs. machine where the last humans alive (some soldiers and command personnel, the only survivors of an all out nuclear war) faced their greatest and last challenge, a preprogrammed war machine, cybernetic and all powerful, that had survived the exchange as well and was now carrying out its last mission, destroy all enemies. 

It didn't matter if the OGRE didn't have a command structure to report back to, it was simply a machine, carrying out its orders in the way that any machine would.  Together, the last humans alive face the last enemy robot tank which has found them and is intent on carrying out its programming even if it means that the human race becomes extinct.  The idea of a post-nuclear battlefield, glowing craters, no vegetation, people in NBC protected suits, armor and vehicles, all throwing their selves against a merciless robot enemy is a story that is older than OGRE itself.  The idea that the scenarios take place a day after a major exchange is easy to imagine.  The last surviving elements of one nation's military forces, which can be measured in a command post, some armor and some power suited infantry, are amazed that they are still alive but the amazement turns to deep sobering reality as they come to understand that they may be the last humans on Earth.  As these survivors come to grips with their situation, their worst fears come true.  The enemy may be dead, but he's left behind one fully intact, fully functional legacy, a cybernetic weapons platform that feels no pain, knows no mercy and is intent on carrying out its last mission directives; destroy all enemy units .. even if this means the destruction of the last examples of the human race.

When the full color version of GEV appeared (my first copy of GEV), I was amazed at the green and blues of the map, the intact cities and the swamps; it was so full of life compared to the desolate OGRE map which looked like Cheez-Whiz and pepperoni spread out on pizza dough.  In fact, we used to laughingly refer to the OGRE map as the "pizza" map when we were sorting through all of our maps looking for one to play on.

So, with a little imagination, the scenarios in OGRE can take on a whole new, darker lining.  This isn't just another battle in The Last War, this is The Last Battle in The Last War, man vs machine, the last military units of their respective kind left in a world that is now little more than a burnt cinder floating in space.  At least that's what I thought when I first played the game nearly three decades ago.  It wasn't until GEV appeared on the scene that I understood that the author was fighting the third world war with what amounted to teeny-tiny tactical nukes rather than great big strategic ones.

 

The OGRE Tower

The OGRE tower is at the same time both unique and intriguing in its simple design.  The tower supposedly contains sensors for the giant cybertanks to perceive their world through and to aid them in both in navigation and combat.  The tower is a characteristic design inherent to the massive OGREs but I always wondered about the fragile nature of the design.  The tower in the artwork on the front of the OGRE Miniatures rulebook looks like it has taken a pretty hard beating and some parts of it look hollow meaning it might be just for decoration.  The thin tapering lines of the tower, matched with the mysterious black all-seeing, all-knowing orb-like assembly on top always seemed to give the OGRE a very cyclopean look to an already aggressive stance.  The sensor tower, as it stands, looks incredibly fragile and one would assume that the OGRE does not have all of its sensors installed in that one tower alone (don't put all of your eggs in one basket, as the saying goes) but rather that the sensors are spread throughout the body.  If not, then the tower is a very tempting target and the ability to blind such a juggernaut completely with one well placed shot would not be an opportunity that the enemy would forego.  OGRE hunting might consist of a long range precision sniper shot to destroy the tower then a rapid assault by armor units around a behemoth that, even if it had not been suddenly struck blind, it was at least hampered in its ability to gather info on its environment (and acquire targets).

My own thoughts on the OGRE tower were that the tower itself was retractable and when I found a copy of the original Mark V OGRE blueprints (the original run from long, long ago), I was rewarded with the fact that Steve Jackson apparently had the same idea though not much has ever been discussed about this in the many years that followed.  Fully extended, the OGRE tower is fine for high speed cruising, fording deep water and looking for targets of opportunity but once the battle begins, the tower would retract, like an old car radio power antenna, back into the body of the OGRE thus presenting a much smaller target and giving the OGRE not only a lower profile, but also a "head down" appearance, like a charging bull.

Here are some rather quick and simple diagrams showing how the tower might retract when the OGRE gets into an offensive / defensive situation...  I claim no great artistic talent and these renderings were done in MS Paint as a matter of convenience and with an eye towards time conservation.

Frontal, head-on view of OGRE Mark III and higher tower retraction

Side view of OGRE tower retraction

OGRE tower retraction in action, from cruise and search mode to full combat mode.

 

 

Why is it called a "Cybertank" if it has no integral organic parts? 

Good question. 

I've never quite figured this bit out either.  

The OGREs are listed as "cybertanks" but there seems to be very little if any cybernetics about them.  A cybernetic organism is a fusion of mechanical and organic parts, the latter of which the OGREs do not have.  The Cyberdyne Systems T-800 Model 101 "Infiltrator" Terminator seen in the movie "Terminator" (1984) is a cyborg because it has a microprocessor controlled hyperalloy endoskeleton covered in an organic sheath ("skin") that allows the Terminator to pass as a human when in fact it is a death machine.  The cyborg "Hector" in "Saturn 3" is a cyborg because it is a robotic chassis that is controlled by an organic brain (not a human brain, but an organic brain).  

In order to be a true "cybertank," the OGREs would have to, logically, have one or more organic components and the most logical organic component would be a living brain.  

Even trying to take in the scope of "artificial intelligence" and the fact that during the Last War many generations of OGREs became sentient and self-aware, I doubt you could call the OGREs "cyborgs" or cybernetic organisms.  They may very well be Artifints, but they are not cyborgs.  Perhaps the definition is "stretched" somewhat in the game to mean that when the OGREs truly become self-aware that the act of machines imitating organic thinking requires a new branch of science and psychology to understand.  Perhaps the "cybernetics" in OGRE and GEV are not the traditional study of human and machine parts but rather the study of human behavior in machines.

In response to my musing, Michael Scott Beck sent me his interesting interpretation of the term: 

"In science fiction, "cybernetics" refers to man-machine integration.  But in science fact, cybernetics is that study of all forms of communication and control, especially those involving feedback.  (origin is kybernetes, Greek for pilot or steersman).  One example of a cybernetic system is the human body, the brain does the controlling and the senses provide feedback, which is probably how science-fiction came to adopt the term, but in the real world cybernetics applies to organisms, mechanisms, and even organizations.  For example, a plane's autopilot is a cybernetic device -- it controls the plane in response to feedback from sensors.  And it certainly contains no organic parts.  This is probably the context in which cybertank is meant in ORGE and in GEV."

Good call.  I hadn't thought of it that way.  

Thanks, Michael.

"The GEV-PC (aka the "Magic Bus") or "It can carry how many strength points of infantry?!"

"Thank you, driver, for getting me here (too much, Magic Bus)
You'll be an inspector, have no fear (too much, Magic Bus)
I don't want to cause no fuss (too much, Magic Bus)
But can I buy your Magic Bus? (too much, Magic Bus)"

- The WHO


The one thing I didn't understand in SHOCKWAVE was the GEV-PC.  It was capable of carrying up to three squads or 30 heavily armored power infantry!  That seems a bit illogical.  To carry 30 full armored MI and their equipment and their drones would require a huge hovercraft, one not really set up to survive for long on the battlefield.  It would be big, hard to maneuver (with 30 MI on board!), and an easy target.  Since in the 20th century, most infantry squads were 8 soldiers assigned to a APC or IFV, I'm basing my logic on that approach.   Now, imagine the typical battle kit for today's soldier, his / her gear, and how much space this takes up.  

Have you ever been inside a Bradley fighting vehicle?   

Its huge on the outside, but cramped on the inside.  

Designing a hovercraft or even a heavy track layer to carry 30 MI would require a vehicle three times or more the size of the average 18 wheeler truck, easy!  If each powersuit, according to official canon is 7 feet tall (a little over 2m) and weighs 1500 pounds without the soldier inside or any spare equipment, then we are in trouble!  Let's look at the Paneuropean GEV-PC.  It carries 30 MI soldiers, each at 1500 pounds and 7 feet tall.  1500 x 30 is 45,000 pounds worth of MI infantry onboard!  

See where I'm going with this?   

GEVs are light, you would need a huge hovercraft with a lot of lift to carry 30 Paneuropean MI into battle quickly, and that hovercraft would be so big, it would be an easy target.  The enemy would brew it up before the infantry could ever get out ... and then there's the problem with the GEV(PC) being fully loaded with three SP of MI becoming one of the fastest and most powerful armor units in the game (or it was at one time).  The GEV-PC seems, to me, to be just another cheap Band-Aid applied to the inherent problem and weaknesses of infantry in the OGRE game.

The REAL SHVY Tank - AKA "The Tank Destroyer"

When I first saw the SHVY way back in the '80s, it seemed like we had finally gotten a tank destroyer after all, a behemoth and a real terror on the battlefield ... and then reality set in.  At first glance the SHVY is an awesome unit ... compared to the HVY tank, it's bigger, it's got heavy armor (tougher to kill than a HVY), it's got two main guns and two AP batteries (why?).  What really caused some head scratching was the SHVY had TWO guns, each WEAKER than the ONE gun on the HVY tank!  The SHVY isn't really a "tank destroyer" unless you upgun it a bit.  

Now, take the SHVY, yank out the dual 3/2 guns, drop in two heavy guns from the HVY Tank (4/2), and strip the 1/1 APs (which really seemed an OGRE "thing") and you've got a real tank killer!  According to Henry Cobb and his GEV unit calculator, it's 12.00 VP (12.02 actually) and 2 AUs.

 

Infantry battlesuits operating in different environments and the fallacy of so called "MARINE" battlesuits

I am constantly amazed at the different "types" of mobile infantry that people suggest should be included in the game (as well as some of the rules that are official for the use of the standard MI units).   Lately, it seems that you have a specialized version of mobile infantry for everythingSuggestions from gamers have included new types of MI used for close assaults only, another type of MI that could carry and fire a single missile tank type missile and a load of other very specialized (and totally unnecessary) infantry.  Having different suit types is not the same as having different infantry types.  Different types of suits might include a light scout version, a standard combat version, an upgraded combat version, and a command version (which would really be little more than a standard combat version with additional / upgraded communications gear).  I think the desire to introduce additional MI variants into the rules hinges on the fact that while the other units in the games have been fleshed out, the MI have always just kind of been pushed to the side and forgotten.  Part of the history and story of OGRE and GEV is a future conflict devoid of unnecessary designs.  If armored units are kept few by the nature of military thought in the future, then I would also think that the types of mobile infantry would also be kept to a minimum.  The more types of suits you have in your theater of operations, the wider range of spare parts you're going to need to keep on hand at the repair depots.  Logistics becomes a nightmare fairly quickly.

One of the most humorous (and illogical) rules of the whole game series is rule 6.137 of the GEV handbook.  Rule 6.137 states that "An overrun between GEVs and 'swimming' infantry destroys the infantry (they cannot fire back).  Hostile infantry units and OGRES may occupy the same water hex without combat."

Swimming Mobile Infantry?!

I can't even begin to imagine what that would look like ... but it might be close to dropping a brick into a pool and expecting the brick to float.

Power suits used by MI are multi-purpose, easily configurable for different roles.  I see the weapons and electronics as being modular, network capable with easy plug and play type interfaces.  The Combine and the Paneuropean forces didn't make one suit for the forest ops, one for snow ops, one for the desert ops, and one for underwater ops.  That would be way too expensive!  The very nature of the power suit makes it a jack of all trades type of personal armor unit able to carry and protect the user while operating in a wide variety of environmental conditions and I think that this single fact is what people miss the most about the whole MI concept.  The battlesuit, power suit, battle armor, power armor, battledress, powerdress or whatever you choose to call it, the armored combat ready exoskeleton unit is a very incredible piece of hardware and it most likely evolved from deep sea diving suits or haz-mat construction and labor ops units to begin with.  As such, if a suit of power armor was designed to operate in a pressurized state in a NBC environment with its own dedicated air supply then I think that a suit of armor like that can operate on the bottom of the river bed or in the hot sand or the ice cold snow drifts with equal ease.  Since it is powered by a small nuclear reactor and groups of rechargeable batteries, that should provide ample power for life support (heating and cooling) as well as the myriad electronics onboard and any power required to operate the weapons systems.  SCBA type air provision would be part of the design and since the power systems don't require air to operate, the suit could operate underwater as equally as it could in a vacuum.

In the GEV game, it is stated that MI "swim" in rivers and water, somehow giving the image that the MI are on top of the water, or swimming just under the surface in a snorkeling fashion.  That statement couldn't be further from the truth.  MI don't 'swim' or 'dog paddle', their suits are too heavy!   They don't use special blow out flotation balloons on their armor (like kids use arm "floaties" in the pool).  They don't cut down trees and hollow out canoes and they don't use big inner tubes and go tubin'.   MI enter the water via river banks or deltas or deep creeks and simply walk along the bottom (if they don't just light up the fans and fly over to the other bank to begin with).  They don't swim, they walk, following the contours of the river or creek bed.  Their progress isn't that much slower than normal, water provides some resistance, but it's the myomers, hydraulics, and actuators that are doing the actual work, not the wearer.  The MI sensors and scanners work just as well underwater as they do on dry land (remember, the suit is sealed...).  The images they see in their holorgraphic tanks are just as crisp and detailed underwater as they are on land.  I see drones working underwater as well, as the drones that I see operating in OGRE and GEV are ducted fan models and a fan is just a type of propeller.  I'm sure that a scientific base that can build power suits can build ducted fans that will move air as well as water.  To enter the water, all a drone has to do is soft land on the water and sink to the proper depth.   You can feed water through the ducted fan just as well as you can air.  Adjust the angle of attack and the pitch, and you can control to some degree the noise and cavitation created.  The same goes for the MI thrusters that allow them to jump and bounce all over the battlefield like big armored fleas...   Instead of hot air, underwater they would flow water through their fans, creating thrust when needed to propel them along.

The rules state that MI underwater cannot attack other units but that they can be attacked by GEVs on the surface and by OGREs underwater.   That doesn't seem very fair (or logical).  The rules don't mention if other MI moving underwater can attack underwater MI, so I'm going to clear all of that up right now.  The rules state that line of sight (LOS) doesn't really matter for the weapons used in OGRE and GEV since all vehicles and units are capable of both direct and indirect fire.  Since weapons in OGRE and GEV are supposedly mass drivers and railguns, these types of weapons would operate underwater as equally as on land. 

So, can MI, regular MI, suits fight and move underwater?  Yes.  MI may attack and may be attacked by any unit or weapon in the rules while the MI unit is moving in a water hex.  MI moving underwater may attack any other units in range normally.  MI may engage in overrun combat only with other MI moving underwater or against OGREs moving underwater (and vice versa).  Any unit may fire on infantry moving underwater and infantry moving underwater may fire on any unit in range, regardless or not of if that unit is moving underwater or not.  All weapons (including OGRE AP and all missiles) work equally well in water or on land.

Marine battlesuits?  Yes, the Marines have battlesuits, but they are pretty much the same as the Army battlesuits...  As for nautical or specialized underwater fighting battlesuits, you better go ask the Navy, another branch for which I have no canon or tech base to go on.  I don't see a lot of need for a battlesuit designed just for fighting underwater, not given the myriad impressive capabilities of the traditional battlesuit which is fielded by each side.  The "marine" as opposed to "Marine" battlesuit is just a strange bit of unnecessary fluff.  Lose them and simply adopt the so-called "marine" battlesuit advantages to your regular battlesuit units at no additional cost.  Trust me, it won't upset the game in the least and you're doing away with a bit of unnecessary game fat in the bargain.

 

Infantry riding tanks

One of the primary indicators that the MI in OGRE and GEV are poorly designed (if not broken) is the fact that even with power suits the infantry in this set of games is still movement handicapped directly because the infantry (short of the Mobile Howitizer or a severally wounded OGRE) is one of the slowest units in the game.  One "cheat" to try to circumvent the poor design of the MI is the rule in GEV (5.11) that allows Mobile Infantry to "hitch a ride" on armor units all in order to get them to the battle quicker.

Infantry riding tanks. 

Infantry riding tanks ... into battle.  There's a term for infantry that ride tanks into battle and that term is ... "tank shields."

Infantry riding tanks into battle is a really, really, really bad idea and how it ever made it past play-testing would be a very good question to ask, especially since this one rule seems to completely defeat the fiction that supports the rest of the story.  I understand the premise of the rule (to get infantry moved around quicker) but the execution makes no logical let alone tacitcal sense and it's basically just another not-so-well thought out Band-Aid to cover up the inherent weakness of the MI in the game.

Infantry, even with their power suits, are still the slowest units in the game (short of perhaps a mobile howitzer or a mobile command post).  Now, how you get infantry to ride tanks while they are in full MI dress, I have no idea, but the official game rules allow for it.  Tanks are low today and as compact as they can be for good reason; increased survival.   If you break up a tank outline with five or six full geared MI scattered all over the surface hanging on (not to mention their drones and weapon packs) and the tank won't be able to fight very effectively.  Add in the fact that in an age of electronic warfare and detection a heavy tank with five or six MI suits on the exterior is going to show up pretty well on an enemy sensor. 

Put a squad of infantry on a tank today and go into battle! 

Note the reactive armor ... this is primitive point defense nevermind the highly advanced point defense
found in the OGRE timeline.  Now do you see why putting infantry on any armored vehicle is a very bad idea?

What happens when the tank has to traverse its main gun or swing its turret around?  The infantry get in the way!  I'm sure the problem would be compounded in the future if the tank is loaded down with several thousand pounds worth of additional baggage onboard riding on the outside and on the top.  Infantry riding a tank is just not a good idea by any stretch of the imagination.  Even if they could hold on they would be quick meat for nearby high explosive hits and the meat grinder that we call "shrapnel."  One explosive hit to the exterior of the tank might not damage the tank very much, but its going to completely scrub off any infantry foolish enough to be riding the tank.  And if tanks, or any other armored vehicle operating on the 21CB, as I have postulated, use some form of point defense system, then that system is not going to work very well with a handful of infantry hitching a ride on top... now is it? 

Imagine infantry today trying to hitch a ride on a MBT outfitted with reactive armor!  How long are you going to have a squad on top of your tank?   Not very long, just until the first shell is fired at your tank at which point your own reactive armor will take care of the friendly squad up top rather messily!

Infantry riding tanks (or any armored vehicle) in a combat situation just doesn't make sense.  In a non-combat situation, yeah, and it makes for some pretty good wartime pictures but once the shells and missiles start flying let alone nuclear shells and nuclear missiles?

No.

See the optional rules for Infantry Riding Tanks.

 

Disabling OGRE components

OGREs seem to have one huge advantage (no pun intended) over their opponents in that their opponents can be disabled while OGREs (and their components) cannot.  I don't think that makes a lot of sense and with a pair of optional rules (and a little bit of extra bookkeeping), the game can get a lot more interesting (especially for the OGRE player).  Two optional rules which I came up with allow for the OGRE to suffer from both disabled components (weapons) and disabled treads.  Disabled components (weapon systems) will temporarily lower the total firepower of an OGRE while disabling the treads may temporarily lower the movement point allowance of an OGRE. 

These temporary handicaps can add a lot of interesting situations for both players to even the basic game.

 

The highly improbably named Combine "Ninja" Cybertank

Sigh.

Why in the hell does the Combine have a class of cybertank called "Ninja?"  

The term "Ninja" comes from feudal Japan and using the term makes little sense if the Combine is fighting the Nihon Empire (and probably causes a great deal of confusion on both sides).  The truth is that the Combine would never create and deploy a Western cybertank with the class name of "Ninja" any more than the Nihon Empire would deploy an Oriental cybertank with the class name of "Alamo."  

What we have here is a mixing of two different cultures (and two cultures that are at war, nonetheless) and for no really good reason other than the term "Ninja" possibly (and probably) "sounded cool." 

If there ever is something like a stealth capable Combine cybertank, it won't be called a "Ninja."  Not if it is built in the West and in North America.  In Datapulse, the Combine "Ninja" has been replaced with the more Western sounding class name of "Black Horse."

Transporting OGREs

We're told that OGREs are so big that the giant cybertanks really can't be easily transported around the world.  While that may be a bit of amateur writing, seemingly mostly written just to put some arbitrarily unnecessary hardship into the background fiction, in reality this bit of design theory doesn't make a lot of sense from any angle that you look at it.  Do you really think that a national power such as the Combine would invest the tremendous resources, money, time and effort to create a weapon system like an OGRE without also creating a way to get that weapon to where it is designed to operate?  When I first read the paragraph in OGRE MINIATURES about how the Mark III rolled out of the assembly line and the designers were suddenly aware that they had no way to get the Mark III to Europe I thought to myself ... "That's got to be the dumbest group of military engineers that ever drew breath."

Let's build an ultimate weapon that can't get to the battlefield!

No.

In science fiction we're always seeing fantastic combat vehicles with equally fantastic vehicles designed to transport those combat vehicles.  In DUNE, the massive spice Harvesters were supported by giant Carryalls which could land, pick up, and ferry the massive Harvester to another area (or away from the danger of an approaching sand worm).  In Mobile Suit Gundam, we see many forms of MS carriers, some even air-mobile!  I doubt that it will be any different in the world of OGRE.  

Even in the early 20th century we (America) had the capacity to build giant ocean going sea transports, even combat transports (we called these "aircraft carriers") that not only displaced tremendous amounts of mass and weight but carried tremendous amounts of fighting gear.  Aircraft carriers were, esentially, floating cities.  In 1975 through the 21st century, the Nimitiz class aircraft carrier generally displaced about 106,000 tons fully loaded.  A Mark V OGRE (according to GURPS OGRE) weighs 2,345 tons ... or a lot less than the maximum weight of what the technology that America, in 1975, could field and put out to sea.  I imagine that purpose-built ocean going transports, resembling something like an amphibious assault ship would have been designed and built right alongside the Mark III and larger OGREs.  Why would the Combine ever build a weapon that it couldn't field or get to the battlefield?  

That makes absolutely zero sense.  

An OGRE, even a big OGRE like the Mark V, could easily be carried in a ship the size of something like a Wasp class Amphibious Assault Ship.  

The Wasp is much smaller than a Nimitz class aircraft carrier and can carry 41,500 tons at full displacement.  Given that a fully loaded Mark V OGRE weighs about 2,345 tons.  If a Wasp class assault ship can carry 41,500 tons worth of equipment and vehicles, it could, theoretically, carry 17.65 Mark V OGREs.  Building an OGRE naval transport the size of the current Wasp class, and giving it two decks for storage, it looks like you could easily get six Mark V OGREs onboard, 3 in a row, 3 top, 3 bottom, assuming that like I propose the towers retract or telescope into the body.

Getting an OGRE to Europe or some other country wouldn't be a problem at all ... a country that can design and produce something as complex as an OGRE can easily build an ocean going transport to carry that OGRE ... a nuclear powered ocean going transport bristling with defensive weapons designed to protect the transport and what it was carrying.  That transport would probably, by tactical necessity, only carry one OGRE at a time (one large OGRE, say Mark III or larger) or a few smaller OGREs (several Mark Is, a couple of Mark IIs).  The transport would also carry spare parts, ammunition, the support personnel (technicians, mechanics, and OGRE command staff.  Such a transport wouldn't have to be that much bigger than a Wasp class AAS, but it would be well protected as well as well escorted ... as much or maybe even more so than a modern American aircraft carrier group.  The OGRE transport itself may even be controlled by its own dedicated AI!

Loading an OGRE would probably be done in dry conditions using ramps and a wet / dry dock for the transport.  The OGRE would be carried inside a dry dock within the transport.  When the transport reached waters near the destination, the dry dock would be flooded and it would be easy for an OGRE to roll out of the (now) wet dock at the back of the ship and simply drive ashore.  Cheap flotations devices could be attached to the OGRE's hull to provide tempoary flotation assistance or increased bouyancy assistance then the "balloons" would be mechanically jettisoned when the OGRE drove ashore.  If the flotation devices were jettisoned in a non-combat situation, tech crews would probably spend the time to recover the flotation assist devices for reuse, folding and repacking the devices before taking the devices back to the ship for the return trip home (and possibly a turn around ferry trip for another OGRE being brought into the theater of operations).  Multiple OGREs would probably be transported at once and the size of the convoy would be large to be sure ... and very well protected.  Some of the escort ships might even be sea-going versions of OGREs, AI warships all too aware of their duty and responsibility to protect their land-bound counterparts from enemy warships, submarines and other ocean going AI warships.

So, the idea that it's really hard, if not impossible, to get an OGRE from North America to Europe (or any other country in the world) is pure bunk.


The Combine "Vulcan" Engineering Cybertank 

One solution given in OGRE in regards to transporting something the size of the OGRE around the world is to make the cybertanks modular, air drop the modules, then have a giant engineering cybertank (with big robot arms where the main batteries normally would be) put the OGRE together in the field ... like a cybertank was nothing more than a big set of Legos.

Bwahahahahahahahaha!

No.

So not happening.

If you haven't seen what a Vulcan looks like, you need to go and look it up.  I won't post a picture here because it's just too ridiculous.  Not only does the Vulcan have two large manipulator arms to put an OGRE together, it also carries three or more "drones" which are basically heavy tanks with a single robot arm instead of a turret.  The obvious question is ... if an OGRE is so big that it can't be easily transported and must be air dropped in pieces then put back together from the pieces by something just as big as the air dropped, disassembled OGRE ... where did the Vulcan come from?  If the Vulcan itself was modular and airdropped ... who or what put the Vulcan together in the first place so that the Vulcan could in turn, put the other cybertanks together.  There's been a couple of really dumb things to come out of the OGRE universe over the many decades but, sheesh, the Vulcan really takes the prize ... hands down, as the dumbest thing to ever be included as canon let alone part of the rules and game.  

Your opinion may vary. 

 

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