On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 2:19 AM, Greg Chalik <mrg3105@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes Richard, which is why today the USMC and the US Army are irrelevant as operational (former) and strategic (latter) military forces.

That depends HUGELY on the type of battle you're fighting.

If it's the sort of battle where a few innovative fighters can potentially make a substantial difference - e.g. the sort of battle in which PCs *should* always be involved (or else that RPG session is better run by hauling out a tactical boardgame to represent the battle) - then a standard military force could be considered "irrelevant."

But if it's not that sort of battle - because the above "few innovative fighters" were vaporized by the time-on-target artillery barrage that levelled their jumping-off point just as they were boarding their transport - then the USMC/USA would probably come out alright. 

After I realised how anti-grav platforms SHOULD BE used, the rest of the tech levels were all obsoleted.

And - IIRC - this is pointed out in the Classic Traveller rules, in the comments on the tech level tables. Once grav vehicles become common place, all other types of combat vehicles become irrelevant.

The purpose of the Striker rules was to allow GMs mix and match tech levels, for dramatic effect. Perhaps a merc unit's budget didn't allow them to buy enough grav transport for their entire force. Or perhaps the Imperium (or some other body which they didn't want to tick off) were imposing restrictive rules of engagement on the mercenary forces involved. Or perhaps the particular Patron wanted the mercs not to use tech which wasn't available locally, for reasons of his own (he could get those items at cost rather than expensively import them, he could claim that the mercs weren't from "off-planet thugs" but local hirelings, when political opponents cried foul over his use of off-world tech that they couldn't match he could prove this wasn't the reason he won, etc).
 

This is what I mean about Gordon R. Dickson's Tactics of Mistake. Mercenaries get paid for the deliverable, not the operational process.


And since they're expendable (and if they get expended you don't have to pay them), there will always be Patrons who don't want to pay for expensive max-tech equipment, if they believe the mercs can get the job done with less.

 
No one cares how a project is managed as long as there is a deliverable at the end of it, preferably under budget and on time.

See above; cheap Patrons will want cheap [e.g. underequipped] mercs . . . at least until it's proved that the lack of top notch equipment is what led to failure.
 
Its the regular militaries that do things 'by the book'. However, some wars devolve into warfare that is more 'mercentary'

It that a typo? Or a deliberate reference to cost/benefit analysis? Because - if it is deliberate - it works quite well with Patrons who want to hire the cheapest mercs they can find that they believe can do the job.
 
My argument would be that enticing the opponent to make a mistake was new to Dickson because 'cheating' is against the US military culture. However, it isn't against all military cultures.

Uh????

We're talking about the same U.S. military that has the tradition of Revoluntionary War "minute men" and the U.S. "army" that defended New Orleans during the winter of 1814-15 (composed mostly of local volunteers and pirates offered pardons . . . which were the same people in many cases) behind them?

I think you're getting the tendency of ANY established bureacracy composed of humans to resist innovation confused with national identities.

  
 The Red Army in desperation of the 1941-42 battles learned that  . .


The nascient American resistance in desperation in 1775 learned that . . .

The tiny U.S. Regular Army in 1813 learned that . . .

It's the situation, not the nation, that matters.

--
Richard Aiken

"Never insult anyone by accident."  Robert A. Heinlein
"A word to the wise ain't necessary -- it's the stupid ones that need the advice." - Bill Cosby
"We know a little about a lot of things; just enough to make us dangerous." Dean Winchester