Red Factories miscellaneous stuff

Sparafucil3

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Facing PFire is a constant; avoiding DFire reduces the number of Fire Phases a DEFENDER is subjected to. In scenarios that meet the current 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am' milieu, it adds pressures to the ATTACKER. Players would, obviously, accept facing PFire in order to perform DFire of their own. It doesn't create a scenario-long game of hide and seek.
So the smart player recognizes his best chance for solid DFire is now called Advancing Fire and plans accordingly. If you maneuver strongly, you can also use your Prep Fire to cut off his skulking paths. It takes a lot more work--and is a lot more skillful--than just rolling a 3 on DFire. -- jim
 

djohannsen

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I not all that long ago was skimming the US medical services statistics from WWII in Europe. Fewer than a third of all combat injuries and fatalities were caused by small arms or grenades. Fragmentation was, by a HUGE margin, the number one cause of combat injury and deaths. Just a fact to bear in mind when discussing "realism" of ASL. (I wouldn't change the game, but I don't think that it is in any way a simulation of combat.)
 

jrv

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I not all that long ago was skimming the US medical services statistics from WWII in Europe. Fewer than a third of all combat injuries and fatalities were caused by small arms or grenades. Fragmentation was, by a HUGE margin, the number one cause of combat injury and deaths. Just a fact to bear in mind when discussing "realism" of ASL. (I wouldn't change the game, but I don't think that it is in any way a simulation of combat.)
ASL scenarios skip all the parts of combat which are not very interesting game. You don't spend several hours performing a battleship bombardment of Japanese in bombproofs before beginning the first turn of your Tarawa CG. ASL scenarios edit those parts out. That doesn't mean that ASL is or is not "realistic" (by a measure no one has defined); it's just not necessarily a good criticism. If your measure of goodness of fit is only based on the parts that are covered in a scenario, ASL might still be "realistic."

JR
 

jrv

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If ASL were truly realistic, you'd have to spend tens of thousands of dollars repairing damage to your home after you played a scenario. And for therapy for your traumatized cat.

JR
 

djohannsen

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ASL scenarios skip all the parts of combat which are not very interesting game.
Oh, I agree. Having a few mortars pinning down a battalion for an afternoon hardly makes for a riveting gaming experience. Nor does having a few well-placed machine guns that decimate an attack. ASL is a fantastic game, and I have no desire to "play" a simulation.

The description of ASL that I think is very near the mark is: "It's a simulation of combat, as depicted in war movies of the 1960s and '70s."
 

Paul M. Weir

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Fewer than a third of all combat injuries and fatalities were caused by small arms or grenades. Fragmentation was, by a HUGE margin, the number one cause of combat injury and deaths.
That's something that is too often overlooked. WW1 was similar with something like 2/3 - 3/4 of combat casualties caused by artillery. Of course don't forget disease. If I remember correctly, WW1 was the first major war in a long time where disease was not the main killer. In the US Civil War, of 365k Union total deaths only 110k were combat related, the Confederate figures were 290k and 94k respectively. So for every combat death or later death from wounds there were two deaths from disease.
 

djohannsen

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Of course don't forget disease.
I don't have the document in front of me here, but I am certain that disease was the number one non-combat related cause of death and injury. I can look when I get home, but think that disease was still the number one leading cause of death (i.e., as compared to any single combat-related cause). It would be interesting to track this statistic across the two World Wars, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam war, through today's conflicts and see how the percentage has evolved over time.
 

stuh42asl

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I don't have the document in front of me here, but I am certain that disease was the number one non-combat related cause of death and injury. I can look when I get home, but think that disease was still the number one leading cause of death (i.e., as compared to any single combat-related cause). It would be interesting to track this statistic across the two World Wars, the Korean Conflict, the Vietnam war, through today's conflicts and see how the percentage has evolved over time.
Just after the end of WW1 the worst outbreak of Spanish flu started. The chief cause is related to returning soldiers from the front lines having the disease, then dispersing it throughout North America,Europe etc.
 

stuh42asl

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I not all that long ago was skimming the US medical services statistics from WWII in Europe. Fewer than a third of all combat injuries and fatalities were caused by small arms or grenades. Fragmentation was, by a HUGE margin, the number one cause of combat injury and deaths. Just a fact to bear in mind when discussing "realism" of ASL. (I wouldn't change the game, but I don't think that it is in any way a simulation of combat.)
I have experienced combat...............I will take the ASL version 100% over the real thing any day :(
 

Eagle4ty

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I not all that long ago was skimming the US medical services statistics from WWII in Europe. Fewer than a third of all combat injuries and fatalities were caused by small arms or grenades. Fragmentation was, by a HUGE margin, the number one cause of combat injury and deaths. Just a fact to bear in mind when discussing "realism" of ASL. (I wouldn't change the game, but I don't think that it is in any way a simulation of combat.)
Be advised that work, though not totally debunked, was predicated on statistics of personnel evacuated to field hospitals and other rearward areas of medical care and of graves registration entries and not on all aid station or immediate care facilities and those burried almost immediately or left on a battlefield to be exposed to further bodily injury caused by ordnance. Also note that the data was accrued from the European Theater where records of treatment was maintained quite a bit better than in the Pacific Theater. There have been several studies of late(1990s+) that indicate the incidence of wounds and in some cases of death by small arms was highly underreported. Primarilly this is the case in the incidence of a rather rapid return to duty of personnel treated at forward aid stations or in the field even though the soldier may have been incapacitated for an extended period of time. Now having said all that, I still believe the majority of casualties suffered by fire were induced by ordnance (artillery/bombs/etc.) but not quite as high as initially thought. I also somewhat agree ASL is not a TRUE simulation of combat (heck, no training is either) but is a simulation of some of the conditions of combat as far as the rules and the game allow. I guess it all comes down to what standards one attributes to the term simulation. JMHO:unsure:
 

Paul M. Weir

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Just after the end of WW1 the worst outbreak of Spanish flu started. The chief cause is related to returning soldiers from the front lines having the disease, then dispersing it throughout North America,Europe etc.
Unfortunately the geographical origin of the SF is quite unclear and disputed. Some say it originated in the US, others say it was brought to France by Chinese coolies, others that it was a mutation that originated in unsanitary conditions behind the front in France. Whatever the source, the crowded conditions near the battlefields (hospitals, camps, dumps) combined with central European populations weakened by hunger and deprivation gave the disease a big head start.

Of course if you want an unusual cause of death then there is the story of Ramree Island where possibly 400+ Japanese troops died whilst crossing a Saltwater Crocodile infested swamp.
 

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I guess it all comes down to what standards one attributes to the term simulation. JMHO:unsure:
I have always been an ASL "the game" player rather than an ASL "the simulation" player. IOW, I take "The Game" as it is and play it as it is and don't spend a lot of time worrying about the "reality". It ruins my "suspension of disbelieve" which is vital whenever participating in a form of fantasy.

The only exception is when someone starts with the "reality arguments" in a rules discussion.
 

Tater

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Of course if you want an unusual cause of death then there is the story of Ramree Island where possibly 400+ Japanese troops died whilst crossing a Saltwater Crocodile infested swamp.
Don't mess with the Big Salties...
 

Robin Reeve

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I seem to remember that there was a scenario where the casualties by crocodiles were SSRed.
 

Robin Reeve

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I have always been an ASL "the game" player rather than an ASL "the simulation" player.
War is far too serious to have fun simulating it.
Playing with cardboard is fun.
 

Magpie

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I not all that long ago was skimming the US medical services statistics from WWII in Europe. Fewer than a third of all combat injuries and fatalities were caused by small arms or grenades. Fragmentation was, by a HUGE margin, the number one cause of combat injury and deaths. Just a fact to bear in mind when discussing "realism" of ASL. (I wouldn't change the game, but I don't think that it is in any way a simulation of combat.)
I'd have said that is the one thing that ASL models extremely well given how low the FP of a squad is and the main result of combat is morale checks.
 

stuh42asl

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Same here and couldn't agree more.
Yes experienced a 155mm round from friendly artillery dropped short near a position we were using for field training........I stil have a nice 12"long corkscrew piece of steel that took out two 6 inch pine trees near my trench..........I will never forget that. Anyone ever says.......sure being in a tree line is safe against incoming artillery I will sell them a piece of swampland ......cheap.......If I had been standing, yours truly would have been turned into a lingering red vapour.
 

djohannsen

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If I had been standing, yours truly would have been turned into a lingering red vapour.
Happily, my Battalion had few training related deaths (I remember two negligent discharges in Desert Shield and a drug death in Thailand). The other two Battalions in my Regiment had numerous training-related deaths (I recall helo and truck crashes and a mortar incident). It's terrible to lose a Marine under any circumstances, but especially so due to a training accident.
 
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