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Author Topic: Plausible weaknesses for "bad guys"  (Read 409 times)

Dominus Nox
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Plausible weaknesses for "bad guys"
« on: February 02, 2007, 04:16:23 PM »
I was reading a failry mediocre military SF novel called "Jump Pay" that was done in fairly black and white terms. One side was good, the other bad.

Anyway, the good guys took reasonable care of their troops, treated them as humanely as possible, etc. The bad guys treated their legions of conscripts like shit, cared nothing for their welfare or even survival, etc.

An interesting situation came up when the accord troops attacked the hegemony on a planet they were using as a staging area for an assault on the accord. The planet was a bit on the warm side, in face it was so hot that it was at the extreme edge of "habitable". The accord forces were having a hell of a time dealing with the heat, even tho some of their vehicles had at least minimal environmental control, I.E. air conditioning on the heavy mobile artillery and such.

As they were attacking a heggie base during the day they noticed that none of the heggie forces were using their dreaded nova tanks. The accord troops weren't sure why, then someone had a thought and suggested that if the novas didn't have air conditooning it might be impossible for crews to function in them during the day on that planet no matter how much they were theatened.

Well, no one in the local accord forces knew if heggie novas had air condictioning, and apparently no one up the chain of command knew either. After taking the base and getting a ferw intact novas, it turned out that nope, the heggies didn't even put in a simple air conditioner for the crews comfort.

So, the hegemony is ran by a bunch of assholes who treat the troops like shit, hence their tanks have guns and armor but no airconditioners, hence they could not function under extreme temperatores, hence they couldn't use them in battle on this staging area planet and lost the battle, and the war.

The book was definitely no "Hammer's Slammers" novel, but at least I got one idea out of it: How something as minor as not putting an airconditioner, like the one in your car probably, into a tank could have a real effect on major military actions.

Next time I'm doing up some 'bad guys" and want to give them weaknesses to be exploited, I think there'll be a note in there about "No air conditoning on their tanks!"

BTW, the writer did a good job of not just saying it openly, but letting the characters figure it out, kind of like a good GM would not tell the PCs why the gennie tanks were not being used and let them take some good guesses.

I think this was a realistic and plausible example of a "bad guy weakness" that wans't overdone and that only came up in certain conditions, hence explains why the baddies never fixed it until it was too late. Good tidbit for a game design.
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Wil

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Plausible weaknesses for "bad guys"
« Reply #1 on: February 02, 2007, 04:30:39 PM »
It is not, in fact, anywhere near plausible or realistic. It's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard of. The investment in the development of advanced armor vehicles, not to mention the construction cost, precludes failing to install simple environmental controls. Why? Because not being able to use the most advanced armored vehicle that a force can field because of it is the height of idiocy. It's like not being able to fly an advanced fighter because they neglected to include a windshield.

That doesn't mean that vehicles aren't occasionally designed in such a way that they suffer in different environments. Our Apaches had a hell of time in the first Gulf War. But instead of sitting back and saying, "Oh well, we can't use the Apaches today..." we fixed the problem. Not because we're nice to our troops, but because it makes sense.
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Dominus Nox
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Plausible weaknesses for "bad guys"
« Reply #2 on: February 03, 2007, 01:01:29 AM »
Quote from: Wil
It is not, in fact, anywhere near plausible or realistic. It's the stupidest fucking thing I've ever heard of. The investment in the development of advanced armor vehicles, not to mention the construction cost, precludes failing to install simple environmental controls. Why? Because not being able to use the most advanced armored vehicle that a force can field because of it is the height of idiocy. It's like not being able to fly an advanced fighter because they neglected to include a windshield.

That doesn't mean that vehicles aren't occasionally designed in such a way that they suffer in different environments. Our Apaches had a hell of time in the first Gulf War. But instead of sitting back and saying, "Oh well, we can't use the Apaches today..." we fixed the problem. Not because we're nice to our troops, but because it makes sense.


Actually I didn't make myself clear enougn on this. No one had ever fought a war on a planet this hot before, and the heggies were not expecting an attack on it because they didn;t even know the corders knew they were on it.

The tanks were being accumulated for transport to attack the accord, not to fight on the planet.

People have made dumber mistakes in war, even with tanks. The much touted nazi panzers really had no provision to communicate with troops outside the tank in any useful way. The sherman tank, often sneered at, had a phone handset in a box on the side read of the hull.
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Wil

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Plausible weaknesses for "bad guys"
« Reply #3 on: February 03, 2007, 01:18:34 AM »
Quote from: Dominus Nox
Actually I didn't make myself clear enougn on this. No one had ever fought a war on a planet this hot before, and the heggies were not expecting an attack on it because they didn;t even know the corders knew they were on it.

The tanks were being accumulated for transport to attack the accord, not to fight on the planet.

People have made dumber mistakes in war, even with tanks. The much touted nazi panzers really had no provision to communicate with troops outside the tank in any useful way. The sherman tank, often sneered at, had a phone handset in a box on the side read of the hull.

So how does the inability of the enemy to anticipate the need for the tanks to fight on the surface of what amounts to a transport depot translate into this being only something "bad guys would do"? It's obvious that, like Soviet T-72s, these nova tanks were never intended to fight in those conditions. That oversight could happen to any fighting force whether they cared about the welfare of their troops or not.

I understand that you want to think of ways that being "the bad guy" might be an exploitable weakness but I think the example is a little flawed. Of course, I have a hard time thinking in "good guy/bad guy" terms and might not be the best person to comment on this.
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