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[Aseaheru]

 Not necessarily. Two of the better aircraft of ww2 where wooden. The German one, which never got out of being a prototype, was a jet fighter with stealth, for hevensakes. Also it was a flying wing.
The other, the mosquito, was an amazing light bomber and night fighter.

[Baffler]

I think y'all are counting Moskurg out a little too soon. There's still plenty of opportunity for us to recover.

What I'm wondering though, is how were the Arsetotzkan bombers so helpful in the jungle? The United States dropped hundreds of thousands of bombs on Vietnam to no great effect, and they didn't even have the basing and accuracy problems that both sides are having with aircraft now.

Nevermind, it was the paratroopers. Sneaky Arsetotzkans...

[10ebbor10]

Let's not forget your armor boost ran out, and we developped a working pistol.

[Devastator]

Not quite. See, the interpretation I was referring too is that the Scope is a different thing all together than the bomb sight.  Different name and functioning, after all. But it is unclear; I agree.

Then again, the GM first made the mistake of describing our bomber as very expensive, and those results were kept, so it didn't matter, I guess.

That's amazing.  A bombsight is more complicated and expensive than a scope, and you don't have cheap optics.  But you do have cheap optics, because you say so.    When the GM said it was Very Expensive, you 'correct' him.

That is the key to Arstotzkan strategy.  If you roll bad on a feature, it matters very little, as you can just try again the next turn.  If you have five or six features, you can pretty much count on getting a couple of them, and it allows you to get very lucky.  If you botch it, you get an okay device anyway, not a pile of junk.  There is no drawback to going for more features.. it's simply more features that you can succeed with.  If you go for one feature, such as a radio, a bad roll means you get nothing.

That's very good play, in all honesty, playing the game as it is and optimizing for that.  It might be a bit less of an obvious choice if you had to roll two dice, say, for each feature, with the first one only allowing for the device to be botched, and the second one counting for implementation.

[Andres]

Lastly, many of them would complain bitterly about anything effective on the other side, while ignoring limitations or inconsistancies or inaccuracies in their own designs.  When you are the only source talking nothing but positively about your own designs, you can sneak more things through without getting caught.

It's not like we were doing this maliciously. We just plain can't see the limitations and inconsistencies of our designs. When we did find these inconsistencies, we tended to argue against them, saying they wouldn't work.

(a .60 cal machinegun? Really?)

What was so bad about the Stallion? It had admirable service on all fronts in the war, outdoing our 1910 in urban and Mountain warfare. If they stuck those big guns on their planes instead of the little .30 cal guns, they could've messed us up.

we generally went with things that worked and were cheaper(and thus could be fielded by more troops).

Except for that one time where we had an awesomely effective CQC gun that we decided would be worthless if it was common...

Also, your recoilless rifle were quite important, I think.

Only in your mind.

No, it was said multiple times that they were useful on all fronts. In the Mountains, they were great at assaulting positions. In the Jungle, they were the only real portable AT weapon for a while and they had decent effectiveness against infantry. In the Desert they didn't get too much use due to their short range, but they still got some kills. It's actually been a lot more useful for Moskurg than our RPG has been useful for us.

I've also had another tactic of Arstotzka pointed out to me. Arstotzka would shove a load of new tech into a design (turbos and fuel injection being examples) and thus get several new techs to apply to things in a single design phase.

Those new techs ended up making that tank a National Effort. We had to go through two Revisions to cheapen the fuel injection and then another Revision for the turbocharger.

Now that we're airing our dirty laundry, was the Moskurg side ever worried of us making our SMG cheap before they got the design themselves?

[Elfeater]

The game isnt over yet.

[10ebbor10]

When the GM said it was Very Expensive, you 'correct' him.

Well duh, he had forgotten to take into account extra resources given to us by Chinese rebels.

A bombsight is more complicated and expensive than a scope, and you don't have cheap optics

We don't have a cheap scope. Optics strangely, doesn't appear to be a tech, and hence, don't appear to have a cost.

That is the key to Arstotzkan strategy.  If you roll bad on a feature, it matters very little, as you can just try again the next turn.  If you have five or six features, you can pretty much count on getting a couple of them, and it allows you to get very lucky.  If you botch it, you get an okay device anyway, not a pile of junk.  There is no drawback to going for more features.. it's simply more features that you can succeed with.  If you go for one feature, such as a radio, a bad roll means you get nothing.

It doesn't always work. Look at our tank, which we couldn't use due to expense of added features.

[Baffler]

The game isnt over yet.

Yeah, really.

What I wondered though, is how Moskurg infantry didn't have more of a leg up than they did. The MK-47 is cheap enough to give to everyone, and the assault rifle was historically a pretty big boost. Hell, it completely changed the face of infantry combat. Even with its recoil problems I feel like it didn't have the effect it should have.

[Taricus]

Also, when did Arstotzka start developing parachutes and equipment to give their soldiers on a jump at all?

[tryrar]

Also, when did Arstotzka start developing parachutes and equipment to give their soldiers on a jump at all?

We're using the kind of parachutes pilots use, i.e. not very good. We can only use pistols for our troops, and ONLY pistols. Funny thing about that, we only found out that we could only drop pistol equipped people AFTER we revised our pistol

[andrea]

well, we remembered that our pilots had parachutes, since in a report our fighter ace was said to have used one.

So we thought: hey, why don't we get soldiers to jump from our new bombers? maybe it works, lets ask our soldiers to do it.
as for equipment, our soldiers only carry their pistols. Because we don't actually have proper gear.

So, basically parachutes were always available to everybody and we don't have any gear to give our soldiers.

I am as surprised as you that we could actually get such a success with this little equipment. I was expecting a few attempts with limited effect, more to test if it was a viable tactic to invest a design/revision on.

[Andres]

well, we remembered that our pilots had parachutes, since in a report our fighter ace was said to have used one.

Before that, we had a report of Promised Crucible escaping from Sandworm via the use of parachute pants.

[andrea]

parachute pants. That is something I should remember, but I don't.

I do remember a fight between the spies ending with parachutes however.

[Taricus]

I also remember that one due to the use of Arstotzka's bad pistol

[evilcherry]

Honestly, I think that the reason moskurg is doing as badly as it is, besides not throwing everything they could think of on a design in hope that most of it turned out OK, is that you guys did not capitalize on your bonuses soon enough. I mean, extra oil for getting your CQC loving troops Into close combat faster would have been a massive issuefor us, as would have you guys getting aircraft slightly sooner.

When did we ever get extra oil?

We did, but our Struunk I is honestly shit, and remained that way. Then they decided that a motorcycle is a better idea.

I think main Moskurg problem is  ignoring resource shortage while designing stuff. When you have less ore then your opponent your way is wooden aircrafts, light tanks\open tank destroyers and so on.

Wooden aircraft, we did that with our Wasp. Which GM permanently make that shit. Hence the Yellowjacket which the GM doesn't seem to buy into (and he's definitely lawyered to believe in "the bomber always get through" doctrine).

Lastly, many of them would complain bitterly about anything effective on the other side, while ignoring limitations or inconsistancies or inaccuracies in their own designs.  When you are the only source talking nothing but positively about your own designs, you can sneak more things through without getting caught.

It's not like we were doing this maliciously. We just plain can't see the limitations and inconsistencies of our designs. When we did find these inconsistencies, we tended to argue against them, saying they wouldn't work.

(a .60 cal machinegun? Really?)

What was so bad about the Stallion? It had admirable service on all fronts in the war, outdoing our 1910 in urban and Mountain warfare. If they stuck those big guns on their planes instead of the little .30 cal guns, they could've messed us up.

we generally went with things that worked and were cheaper(and thus could be fielded by more troops).

Except for that one time where we had an awesomely effective CQC gun that we decided would be worthless if it was common...

Also, your recoilless rifle were quite important, I think.

Only in your mind.

No, it was said multiple times that they were useful on all fronts. In the Mountains, they were great at assaulting positions. In the Jungle, they were the only real portable AT weapon for a while and they had decent effectiveness against infantry. In the Desert they didn't get too much use due to their short range, but they still got some kills. It's actually been a lot more useful for Moskurg than our RPG has been useful for us.

Yes and it still cannot stop Tank steamrollering. We only get a real push in the desert when we got the breaker.

I've also had another tactic of Arstotzka pointed out to me. Arstotzka would shove a load of new tech into a design (turbos and fuel injection being examples) and thus get several new techs to apply to things in a single design phase.

Those new techs ended up making that tank a National Effort. We had to go through two Revisions to cheapen the fuel injection and then another Revision for the turbocharger.

Now that we're airing our dirty laundry, was the Moskurg side ever worried of us making our SMG cheap before they got the design themselves?

When the GM said it was Very Expensive, you 'correct' him.

Well duh, he had forgotten to take into account extra resources given to us by Chinese rebels.

A bombsight is more complicated and expensive than a scope, and you don't have cheap optics

We don't have a cheap scope. Optics strangely, doesn't appear to be a tech, and hence, don't appear to have a cost.

That is the key to Arstotzkan strategy.  If you roll bad on a feature, it matters very little, as you can just try again the next turn.  If you have five or six features, you can pretty much count on getting a couple of them, and it allows you to get very lucky.  If you botch it, you get an okay device anyway, not a pile of junk.  There is no drawback to going for more features.. it's simply more features that you can succeed with.  If you go for one feature, such as a radio, a bad roll means you get nothing.

It doesn't always work. Look at our tank, which we couldn't use due to expense of added features.

Ah, yes. The Recoilless rifle which is subjected to some horrendous lawyering. I still can't see why we can't get something as simple as a peforated tube right after 4 phases. Hell it can even be homemade while a rocket motor is much more advanced science!

well, we remembered that our pilots had parachutes, since in a report our fighter ace was said to have used one.

So we thought: hey, why don't we get soldiers to jump from our new bombers? maybe it works, lets ask our soldiers to do it.
as for equipment, our soldiers only carry their pistols. Because we don't actually have proper gear.

So, basically parachutes were always available to everybody and we don't have any gear to give our soldiers.

I am as surprised as you that we could actually get such a success with this little equipment. I was expecting a few attempts with limited effect, more to test if it was a viable tactic to invest a design/revision on.

To be fair GM is a firm air superiority = GG to the other side fan. But then shouldn't Moskurg got air superiority while Arstotzka got the bombers through occasionally?