Blimus!
At last. Someone who does not display any sign of
being a cretin. Senility perhaps......
Cheers
Rich
--- Alan Reynolds <gfy07@...> wrote: >
Colours, Pipes, Drums, Whistles and Bugles were all
about command and
control. The introduction of radio nets improved the
battalion/company
co-ordination but not the Platoon/section situation.
The use of musical instruments by the British is
symptomatic of their
Regimental structure, platoons from different
regiments would probably want
to fight each other rather than co-ordinate an
attack against the enemy.
The German army was used to forming ad hoc fighting
groups from all arms
that fought as a co-coordinated unit without the
need of the dreaded MkVI
alpine horn or it's paratroop equivalent the
airborne airhorn, incidentally
the tactical symbol for this elite support platoon
is often confused with
the Army Post Office.
As to the Gurkha's, the thing that scared the shit
out of their opponents
was that at night you couldn't hear them coming and
when you could see them
they all seemed intent on cutting your head off with
a large knife.
Assuming our rules reflect the various command and
control characteristics
of the different nationalities it seems appropriate
to include the factors
that contributed to them.
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: Richard Clarke
[mailto:richardclarkerli@...]
Sent: 11 April 2003 11:01
To: Toofatlardies@...
Subject: Re: [Toofatlardies] Re: The skirl of the
pipes
However getting into national characteristics is
what
the rules are about. We use a number of factors
to
differentiate each nation, giving certain bonuses,
using different numbers of Big Men to reflect the
effectiveness of their command and control.
Indeed
certain cards are unique to specific
nationalities, so
why come to a sudden stop when we come to the
pipes.
These Scots troops will already have better
factors as
they are good troops, but I still feel that the
pipes
should receive some benefit on the tabletop.
Indeed
if you show me another musical instrument that was
used in a similar fashion then I'll apply it to
that
as well. In fact on D-Day there were plenty of
officers who took hunting horns along, not just
for
some show of bravado, but because it was an
effective
way of communication. Major Howard at Pegasus
bridge
being a classic example.
I am less bothered about the pluses in melee than
I am
about the co-ordination effect, all that will do
is in
lessen the chance of the attack bogging down by
allowing an officer who is leading an attack by
his
Platoon to use the pipes to move all of that
unit.
He could use this for no actions other than a
general
advance, and only if all of his Platoon was in a
fairly tight radius. Equally I would say that
this is
not something he would be able to switch on and
off.
Rather like the old "It's a Knockout" Joker it
should
only be used once, i.e. for the main attack.
Again, with Ghurka's these would have the bonuses
of
being elite troops (a bit like the aggressive
troop
bonuses that the White Russian Officer Regiments
get
in TOW) but they would lack the co-ordinating
benefit
that musical accompaniment brings. As such they
would
only move en masse when their Platoon card was
played,
and not on any Big Man card.
I like the idea of Nick's comments being well
researched. He probably got that quite from this
week's copy of The Victor in which his latest fish
supper was wrapped!
Rich
--- mikeqchromeuk@... wrote: > Lards
>
> I tend to agree with Dazza, getting into
national
> characteristics is a
> minefield. We can find similar descriptions for
> other troops eg Ghurka's who
> didn't need pipes for the bad guys to be
panicking!
> Nick's well researched
> descriptions are classic descriptions of
aggressive
> troops going into action,
> so aggressive troops bonus would seem correct.
> Mick
>
>
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