T
Trent
Guest
These sorts of discussions really make you wonder why (other than out of sheer bloodymindedness) anyone would ever even try to go up against a force equipped like the ones here.
At some point, you'd think someone would say, "Um, they have guns that can shoot through and into mountains and sensors that can see you wherever you run to, so why again are we declaring war against the Empire, sir?"
It all reminds me of the battles described in the Lensman series where planets would be burned to ash by the forces unleashed between two opponents trying to capture the place. This is why I try to keep it toned down a little and more "conventional" IMTU. I have to reflect the TL but find a fine line between what is possible and maybe more realistic given the tech available, and something that I can involve the players in from time to time (even if only as caught between two forces) without killing them all off in the first combat round with meson cannons and nuke-firing drones.
Reminds me too, of what my brother used to tell me when he was stationed in southern West Germany in the early to mid 80's: he was on "fence duty" running up and down the Czech translating radio traffic with the Bundeswehr Panzergrenadier unit he was attached to. The Germans used to tell him they figured their lives (including his in his little jeep and radio trailer) could be counted in minutes if the Warsaw Pact rolled over the borders. They'd sell them dearly for thier country but they had no illusions about what the end result would be. And if NATO unlocked the "tactical" nukes because the Soviets started using chemical weapons or overwhelming NATO forces before a Reforger could start working, well, the joke my brother used to say was passed around the unit was that "in Germany you are only 2 kilotons away from the next town."
Now that was just with what we have today and with both sides equipped fairly equally, if not in numbers at least in comparable TL. How could anyone ever even dream of a war in Traveller with the stuff we are talking about being a survivable prospect if you aren’t even close to the same TL?
There was a cold war era joke in Germany that roughly translated to "What's the definition of a 'tactical' nuclear weapon? One that is used on germany."
In all fairness to the russians, though, and not to step on toes but to stand up for the truth, given the scale of atrocities that germans committed against the russians in WW2, killing about 1/4 of the populace, it's no wonder the russians weren't too fond of the germans and would have been willing to use WMDs on them.
The russians used to have a saying about the fact that "Most americans grandparents died in their beds, most of ours died in the great patriotic war." Which basically meant we didn't have any right to judge the russians since our country wasn't invaded and out people subjected to atrocities during ww2. And it was true. Pearls Harbor was attacked but the american mainland was never invaded or occupied.
Yes, yes, I know stalin was a bastard and murdered a lot of people too. It doesn't change what germans did in russia though, or how most russians felt, and had reason to feel, towards germans.
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