Mortar's

[Legbreaker]

Provided of course it's on target, otherwise it's ineffective at best, catastrophic at worst.

[jester]

I once drew up a Mortarman for a game. I had him retain the cannon with the M8 small square baseplate the sights and about a dozen mortar rounds with a M4 and small amount of ammo plus bipod. Spend some time trying to recall how many rounds the vest for mortarmen carried.

I myself trained as a mortarman, was made a rifleman for a few years then transferred back to mortars.

With the current 60mm mortar with the trigger, with an M8 baseplate, the built in level for ranger near the trigger, one man can fire the system and keep it on target easily with line of sight and even with a decent spotter.

In some of my games, I have gifted my players with 120mms or 105s and they created havoc with a decent amount of WP or even worse RP. Once on target you can do ALOT of damage.

Remember the scene in Kellys heroes? Where they bribe the mortar section to lay down fire so they can get through? Anyone under mortar fire will take cover and give you a chance to move in. And with the 60mm used in LIGHT units, it is man portable. In my unit, we carried them fully assembled less the round baseplate which was easily positioned, then the ball from the guntube locked in, bipods splayed and aimed in. Easy peasy! For us, we could do a large gun deflection in the max time for a minor, and for a minor, under 9 seconds was the norm.

If you folks aren't using mortars, you are missing out.

[rcaf_777]

Originally Posted by Legbreaker

Given the lack of GPS and other electronic devices in working order in T2K

How do you figure that?

The Original Block I GPS was deactivated on 9 October 1985, but the last Block I satellite was not taken out of service until 18 November 1995, well past its 5 year design life.

http://space.skyrocket.de/doc_sdat/navstar.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USA-85

The first of the nine satellites in the initial Block II series was launched February 14, 1989; the last was launched October 1, 1990. The final satellite of the series to be taken out of service was decommissioned on March 15, 2007, well past its 7.5 year design life.

ftp://tycho.usno.navy.mil/pub/gps/gpsb2.txt

Originally launched between 1997 and 2009 to add capabilities to the GPS constellation and to replace other aging satellites, today 12 GPS IIR and eight IIR-M satellites – designed and built by Lockheed Martin -- help deliver precise positioning, navigation and timing services to more than one billion global military, civilian and commercial users every day. These satellites represent about two-thirds of the current GPS constellation.

http://www.lockheedmartin.com/us/products/gps.html
http://www.navcen.uscg.gov/?Do=const...t=Type&dir=Asc

As for other electronic devices, military stuff will be hardened against EMP as are radios. Batteries would be the biggest problem, but some items could run on recharged batteries

It’s implied in the game that some systems may be damaged in the nuclear war but not actual written out.

GPS and other electronic devices are not talked about in the game a lot because under the original concept they don't serve a purpose.

GPS: Yes a GPS when you’re trapped behind enemy lines is great but, the PC's are on there own nobody coming to rescue them. A GPS will only tell you where you are and which way to go…but so will a MAP. This is why you don't see GPS or a Compass in the Basic Equipment Section

Radios: Beyond communicating between PC's and Vehicle to Vehicle, a radio doesn’t play a big role in Game play either. Most vehicle radios have ranges of 30-50 km but what would the PC’s do with a Long Range SATCOM radio? Contact Corps HQ which would say or do what?

In short it’s not practical for game play not because it’s not working.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by rcaf_777

How do you figure that?

Umm, "Satellite Down" and almost everything in it.

Just one quote (of many):

Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk.

[rcaf_777]

[QUOTE=Legbreaker;69038]Umm, "Satellite Down" and almost everything in it.[QUOTE]

No Satellite Down is about a group of PC's that are trying to track down DP 201 which fell to earth, they only mention of other satellites is in the opening player brief given by Colonel Darren Darvish USA which says "Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk" Page 4

Nowhere else dose it given any other details, not in satellite down or any other publication I looked at. In Version 2.2 at the bottom of page 14, it mention spaces stations being abandoned but not any satellite being shot out of the sky.

Now as for Colonel Darren Darvish saying "Now, during the height of the war, just about every satellite on both sides was knocked down or rendered worthless junk" How would they know if ever other satellite has been knock out, if you have no satellite to confirm this? or are a group USAF Officers watching the skies from the ground with a telescope.

There are also many other issues that both the Soviets and US would have overcome to knock every other satellite in Low, Mid and High orbit. And why would the Soviet Union waste a Anti-satellite weapon just to knock out Telstar 401 out of commission is Fox News that offensive?

Please post your reply in a new thread so we don't over take this one, and do list your pages number for your many quotes I'm sure you will find.

[Legbreaker]

There's LOTS of information in there actually.

On 13 November 1995, the Soviet Union launched the last of its high-orbiting weather-tracking satellites, named DP 201. With the widening of hostilities, the expected life of such a satellite was less than a few days. Still this device managed to survive longer, dodging even the most adamant attempts to destroy it, for reasons which have never been completely understood.

When the United States employed its orbital ASAT (antisatellite) network, it had suffered years of battles in Congress and hundreds of budget cuts. Still, what finally was put into space functioned well enough. Most Soviet spy satellites were downed in the first few months of conflict. Likewise, the USSR also made use of advanced space technology in the downing of most of America's surveillance systems in orbit. The war was a simple one of attrition: one in which neither side had an upper hand or really hoped to win.

Despite all these odds, DP 201 stayed in space, taking its pictures of all the world's weather patterns and trends, dutifully recording all information it was exposed to. It was originally designed to monitor the ozone and jet stream patterns, as well as other wind and weather patterns, but this role was expanded as time passed and more nuclear weapons were launched by both sides. The spread of fallout across the world determined which countries were to survive, and during the peak of the nuclear exchange, DP 201 was hovering over the world tracking the weather patterns.

The satellite would have given the Soviets a strong advantage during reconstruction of their nation if not for a crippling shot by one of the few automated SDI systems still in space.

While this specifically talks about US ASAT weapons and capabilities, is it really inconceivable that the Soviets didn't have something similar?
Why would both sides be so desperate to recover one downed satellite if ANYONE had anything still up in orbit?
It just doesn't make ANY sense for operational satellites to still exist and be available for GPS.

We also know from the background materials (all versions) that "orbiting space laboratories, are abandoned as the war drags on".

Also from the nuclear target lists: "Vandenbelp AFS. CA: Recon satellite launch facilities (1 Mt ground burst)", "Spacefight Center, Cape Canaveral FL: Recon satellite launch facilities (1 MT ground burst)", "Houston, TX: Oil refining and storage facilities (1.5 Mt)", "Plesetsk, RSFSR: Recon satellite launching facilities (1 Mt)", "Leninsk·Tyuralam, KSSR: Recon satellite launching facilities (2 Mt)", and "KapustJn Yar, RSFSR: Secondary satellite launching facilities (500 Kt)". There may be other control and launch sites I don't know about, but how likely is it any would have been missed given the extreme value of satellites?

As if that isn't enough, and perhaps more relevant to the thread than all the above:

The M1A2 in the current version of the game is the actual current production variant, and is undoubtedly the most capable tank in the world, particularly if it is operating with its supporting data networks and GPS satellites in place. In a post-holocaust world, of course, those capabilities are considerably degraded, but it's still a very tough tank.

GPS is dead in T2K, plain and simple.

[StainlessSteelCynic]

And something more important about satellites, they need constant monitoring to ensure they stay in the proper orbit.
For GPS satellites, it's critical and they also need their atomic clocks monitored to ensure that they stay aligned with Earth time (because both General and Special Relativity mess with them).
Once a few of them start to drift, so does your GPS navigation. Typically, a GPS receiver will get info from four satellites but it can happily make do with three - once the third satellite starts to drift, you are shit outta luck.

With the loss of personnel to control/maintain them, any high altitude EMP interfering with them, damaged satellites and other debris hitting them and no space programme to correct any problems, GPS would lose needed accuracy within a few weeks to a month and probably be totally dead within one to two years.