[TML] Molding Ships

[Charles Prevatte]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: tml-bounces at travellercentral.com
> [mailto:tml-bounces at travellercentral.com]On Behalf Of
> shadow at shadowgard.com
> Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2007 5:33 PM
> To: The Traveller Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [TML] Molding Ships
>
>
> On 2 Oct 2007 at 8:59, Charles Prevatte wrote:
>
> > Doubtfull.
> >
> > I was assuming a helecopter closer to the Vetnam era Huey's armed with
> > gatlin guns on the skid and in the doors.
>
> That's "Gatling" (it's the name of the inventor).
>
> And the motorized versions aren't usually referred to as "gatlings".
>
> Thing is, the main reason the Army used helicopters in combat was
> that they needed air support that *they* controlled. /In a more
> rational setup, they'd have been using A-10 Warthogs for a lot of
> that.
>
> > The tracking speed of a flank panzer was not all that great
> even for it's
> > time and against pop up attacks with 6000 RPM cyclic rate 7.62 MM rounds
> > that open turret would quickly become a coffin.  The Flack
> panzer was not
> > very effective even against contemporary aircraft and tactic.
> Also, such a
> > helecopter could carry combat teams with snipers, bazzookas,
> and demolition
> > teams to ruin an enemies day from behind the lines.
> Helecopters unlike WW2
> > gliders and paratroopers can move after they land, and provide
> their troops
> > a lot of close support firepower even inside towns.  It would
> also not have
> > taken much to adapt the recoilless rifles of that day for use on these
> > Helecopters for anti tank work.
>
> Warthogs are much better for anti-tank work 20mm (or is it 30?)
> autocannon tend to do that.
>

30mm, and they just got a new refit, called I believe the A-10A.  All new
electronics and a new gun, but I think the new version of the gun was part
of an older refit.  I do not recall exactly.

> And unlike a helicopter, they can fight off the fighters that would
> be sent against them.
>
> If the VC had had an air force we'd not have used helicopters
> *nearly* as much.
>
> > As for the nepalm idea, bomb sites would not have been all that
> necessary in
> > WW1.  A low pass with a single large bomb, that spread on
> impact like modern
> > naplam dropped weapons would open a large whole in the lines.
>
> Actually, that's not as likely as you think. Not more than once or
> twice. WWI trenches after the first few gas attacks were set up with
> a lot of shelters that would have saved a lot of the troops for at
> least a bit.
>
> And getting the side *using* the napalm to exploit the hole is going
> to be a problem. Note the trouble that both sides had exploiting
> holes like that after poison gas came into use.
>
> speaking of which, it'd likely be easier to use one of the skin
> contact nerve gases. Even if the existing masks will work against it,
> you need a full coverage suit to be safe.
>
> If it's low persistence, you can move in your troops without
> protective gear.
>
> > You would only need a few such surprises to gain a tactical
> advantage that
> > you could turn into a strategic victory.  And remember that the
> "space men"
> > would have all of history including what we would consider the
> furture to
> > use for reference.
>
> But exploiting them requires that the *locals* be flexible enough to
> exploit the advantages. History shows that this is *not* easy.
>

Depends on the people.  Some people are more flexable than others, but you
are right that mind set does come into it.  It also depemd on theleadership
capacity of the "space men".  If they have a strong leader, and the local
see them as the prophised savours then a little fanaticizm could be enough
to get them to go even very strange things like marching arround a city
blowing horns to make the wall fall down......

>
> > Think about operation Market Garden.  What would a dozen Huey's gunships
> > with gatlin guns have done to hold the "bridge to far"?  Each helecopter
> > could have brought in 12 new soilders and equipment per trip
> and provided
> > close air support on the way out.  Add to this that they could
> have deployed
> > combat engineers behind the enemy to take out bridges that allowed
> > reinforcement to reach the bridge and overwhelm the partroopers
> trying to
> > hold it.
>
> Except the Luftwaffe would have shot the hell out of them.
>
> Hueys are *not* terribly survivable against even WWII fighters.
>

No, not in the day time, but at night with pathfinders, that would be a very
different story, especially with a day time press to suppress the German
fighters which was in process anyway.  Also, by that time in the war, the
allies had air superiority.  If they had not the original attack (which was
by paratroopers) would have failed as the transports would have been shot
down.  Sorry, on that point history, does not bear you out.  By the time of
Market Garden, the Luffwaffe, was almost out of the war.  IIRC they were
dispersed and fighting form secondary fields to prevent being bombed out of
existance.  If the Germans could have called on significant air support then
the road race that was part of the Market Garden plan would have turned into
a blood bath and the LuftWaffe could have straffed the length of the narrow
road and turn it into a graveyard.  No at that point we would have had to
have air superiority or Market Garden would have been to risky to even try.

I checked what references I could, The German air support at that point was
pretty thin.  The only listed effect they had in Operation Market Garden was
their attack on the polish paratrooper drop that was to reinforce Arnham
bridge.  The attack cause the reinforcements to be dropped off target and
slightly dispersed.

The real problems were ammo shortages among the paratroopers and lack of
anti tank rounds.  Both of these could have been solved by helecopter drops
at night as the copter could have landed right amoung the defenders to
resupply them.

The paratrooper's biggest problem with the enemy was the enemies overwheming
number of heavy guns and artilery.  The Germans litterally leveled the
buildings the paratroopers where using for cover systematicly to drive them
back onto the bridge, and once the armor could draw a line of fire onto the
bridge, the paratrooper could not hold.  If their reinfircements (both
dropped and driven) had arrived they could have held.  If the second and
third wave of paratroopers had been dropped as was part of one proposal they
might have held, but it was decided to send reinforcement mostly by road as
that was considered more prudent and by the time their mistake was obvious,
bad weather prevented the second and third waves from being dropped.  (They
were scheduled originally to be dropped as soon as the transport planes
returned from the first drops.)  It was a lack of planes that limited the
size of the first drop.  It would have taken 3 trips to drop all the
paratroopers they had available for that mission.  If they had sent the
transport back out as fast as posible they would have gotten all three drops
completed before the weather shut them down.  As it was they "waited to see"
and the weather prevented later drops, inculding the badly needed supply
drop of ammo and anti tank weapons.

Close air support was apparently not to be had by eather side.  In the
reference I have available here, it's use was minimal if it was use at all.
Probably fuel limits for the allies (shortage of near by bases) and limited
aircraft for the Germans.  Almost all of the fighting was by the ground
forces of both sides.

Charles L.
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