Where there is A LOT OF extant images of "Official / Pseudo-Canon" Art for Infinity Flyers (such as Jetbikes owned by Humans in various Illustrations of Modiphius R.P.G. when the general consensus is that "Star Wars Landspeeders" are TOP-TIER Technology even for the Combined Army) there is not so much for Land Vehicles that seems NOT to be some sort of "Generic Cyberpunk Streetcar". . . There was some discussions about "Blade Runner" styled "Flying Hovercars" but I COULD swear it was notated (honestly DO NOT remember if was signed by C.B. Staff or the R.P.G. Team !!) that rather the Philip Dick's "Deckards' Flycars" those SHOULD be JUST "Maglev Railcars" like the one seen in the latest of the "Total Recall" Movies (the most recent, protagonist Colin Farrell with the "Earth Core Lift" traversing from Australia to Britain, rather than "Mars Colony" shehanigans with Arnold Swarzenegger) and so capable of LIMITED levitation JUST on pre-planned Magnetic Road-Tracks, and ONLY on the MOST advanced Metropolitan Areas of O12 (Concilium and Neoterra, along with Jade Palace Precints of Yujing, surely YES; the Green Reserve of Acontecimento or Bourak Deserts decisively NOT !!). . . When there are "Flying Hovercars" SHOULD be "Flying Hovertanks" but this could be JUST a discussion of preferred levels of "Hitech Stuff" for a given Roleplaying Campaign rather than YES or NOT for the Tabletop Wargame for potentially "Canon / Non-Canon" pieces of Vehicle Scenery. . . But there is EXTANT Art of a Paramilitary / Full-Military Armoured Vehicle of Infinity; in N2 Basic Manual Bostria had drawn a three-vignette deployement of the Halqa Mechanized Infantry of Haqqislam, from their signature "Luzige" A.P.C. ; the Armoured Personal Carrier in the Art resemble the most heavy "Centaur" Prototypes developed by European Joint Committees (I use those, rather than U.S.Army / Russian Vehicles as I saw some Real-Size Mock Ups in a Military Weapon Fair in Italy). . . Judging from the Art of Bostria (and so I BELIEVE PERHAPS inspired by something of the Spanish Army and / or Police that He saw in R.W.) these are rather large 6-wheeled "Combat Trucks" with a Cargo-Van Height ranging from 2m. to 3m. (capable of holding a 4-6 members squad of Halqa Infantry Troopers) and a total lenght of more-or-less 6-8 m. (or maybe even 10m., the perspective is a little confusing); armed with a twin-linked couple of Haqqislamite H.M.G. these seem quite the Standard of "Low Key Engagements" in Infinity (being Haqqislam relatively LESS advanced than Pan-Oceania or Yujing, but able to BUY everything useful with Silk-Based Money !!). . . I plan to try to draw in a relaistic manner some newer iterations of the Luzige A.P.C. for My Game, as a Vehicle that My Players could use, or that they are faced off in a Heavy Engagement; will try to stick to "Real World A.T.V." Proportions, even if I will employ as inspirational concepts something taken from Hitech Sci-Fi Mangas / Animes (especially Gundam Series, where there are nasty Army Vehicles zipping around Mobile Suits Legs !!). . . . . . . . Also TOTALLY subscribe to the idea that Maghariba "Akreps" War-Walkers are the SMALLEST of a serie of Quadraped Arachnoid Tanks employed by the Armies of Infinity; clearly inspired by the various works of Masamune Shirows those have ALL the usefulness of a Tracked / Wheeled Light Tank with the Urban Mobility of a Humanoid T.A.G. (try to climb a steep serie of Stairs in an "Agora" Corporate Main Plaza with an A.P.C. !!). . . While Shirow has drawn some NASTY critters for the titanic, devastating City-Leveling "Multilegged Mobile Cannons" of Appleseed, I will rather stick with the more smaller "Walking Tanks" of Ghost-In-The-Shell MAYBE a little, JUST a little inspired by the more "Realistic" Metal Gears of the Videogame Franchise (the Rex and the Russian Prototypes employed in Afghanistan, YES; the Rays are a tad too much "Organic Anime Mecha" to be realistic for something that is NOT an "Assault M.B.T." of the Tohaa / Combined Army). . . . . . . . Of course for the typical "Weaponized Vehicle" of the Infinity Opponents (Submondo Criminals or Petty Smugglers) something that is LARGER than a 4x4 Dune Buggy with some Extra Armour and a Pintle-Mounted "Spitfire L.M.G." or a Riot-Squad Drum Grenade Launcher are A LITTLE TOO MUCH for the typical "O12 Investigative Squad". . . If You instead plan to represent Paradiso Frontlines those "Armed Buggies" should be REAR Garrisons material. . . . .!!!
Could also be that hover tech is either not up to the weight requirements of combat vehicles bar some small scout ones, or not currently able to be sufficiently ruggedised for military use. Not just for taking enemy fire, but also for maintenance requirements - if hover cars are more like sports cars than a family sedan in either the amount of babying necessary to keep them happy or the design tolerances of how precisely machined everything has to be, let alone a proper bush-ready 4WD, it may be be a losing proposition to attempt to make combat vehicles out of them. Now, all of those are things that could potentially be solved with enough time, money, and sweat, but it may turn out to be a decades-long project that is only able to be completed once advances are made in some entirely unrelated area to what the people you tasked to do it were working on. How long did it take for a supersonic VTOL fighter jet to be created, after all? To say nothing of how many failed attempts and lives went into creating the first successful VTOL-capable fighter jet at all, which was still a widowmaker until decades after its first flight, when advances were made in entirely different areas that finally allowed for effective computer assistance for hover mode. Just because something can be done at the consumer level, doesn't mean the tech is near ready for military use. And the opposite is also true - just because something can be done if the military throws enough resources at it, doesn't mean the civilian sector will see it any time soon.
Yes, concur totally with the assessment of too costly prototypes not useful for any kind of Miltary / Paramilitary / Heavy Police engagements. . . Here in Italy a couple of top-level sportscar (a Ferrari and a Porsche) were converted to be "high speed cruisers" with Road Police Livery, sirena and spotlights. . . While those were considered JUST a "Prop Move" the officinali explanation was to be able to chase at 200+ Km.h. some drug couriers with the same big modified customized sportscars. . . Similarly an excellent Space Car Flyer, while excellent to pare il the premises of the Hexaedron or the Jade Imperial Palace will be quite unsuitable to many "Black Ops Response Team" kind of engagements. . . Is for this that I Think that many successful vehicles of Ariadna tends to be more 20th century rather than 21th. . . Even if the first Dawn Colony Ship was filled with Blueprints of the most advanced N.A.S.A. Prototypes of 2030 once You are in rural Caledonia, outside the big industrial "Kombinats" of Matr, something more akin to a 1975 Jeep will be FAR more useful than a fancy Mars Rover Truck. . . And if a Teseum 12,7mm. Bullett is lethal ANYWAY who cares if it is NOT fired by a fancy Plastic-framed Sci-fi Zap-gun but rather a venerable Browning Machinegun with a project older than three centuries!!
Yes, the military pushes reliability pretty hard. You've heard that most military vehicles have speed governors on the engines, right? Those are mostly there to prevent grunts from breaking the driveline by putting too much power through it. The original XM1 prototype got a speeding ticket during testing. The engineers would drive it around, figure out what changes needed to be made, drive all the way back to the shop to make the changes, and have to drive all the way back to the range to test it. They got tired of doing 60kph between the shop and the range, so they bypassed the governor on the engine. Their speeding ticket was for going over 160kph! You know what the first thing done to a vehicle in a combat zone is, even before installing additional armor or guns? The troops remove or bypass the governor to get that extra speed to escape an ambush. Hurting the transmission in the process just means you replace the transmission back at the base. But the troops are still alive! The military also is willing to accept some levels of dangerous operation that would be completely unacceptable risks to civilians. Say, a 1% chance of injuries during training is acceptable to the military, but that would get a civilian product recalled and probably banned!
The RPG actually has quite a bit of info regarding vehicles. The Ariadna book particularily has some interesting info on SUV-style cars they use One thing I always thought the game would do great with is things like air support call-ins
Alas, no tanks or other stuff - they're restricted to things that are more likely to pop up in an RPG (though a goddamn tank would be amusing, imagine an RP where your team of crims restores an old museum piece T-14 to escape an ambush... ) As for air and arty support, be a bit danger close at Infinity ranges, but certainly plausible. Maybe use a similar system to airborne deployment, impact is 8" from centre of template because bigger shell... and hope to hell it don't scatter onto your guys :P Probably only for narrative missions though as it'd be pretty unbalanced.
I don't think there are many howitzers in use in Infinity. Even today only North korea uses them in wast numbers. Everyone else will use preferably Rocket artillery. If the have enough money. The time for Bombardments like in WWI and WWII is over. And this should be especialy true in infinity. These are Black Ops operations. Go in, get the job done, goe out. Preferably without much noise and in short time. Geting a Howitzer 30km near the target, use it, get it away would contradict this. Also Airstrikes. I would say, most of the targets are behind enemy lines. We have not declared war yet and a bomber in enemy airspace would be really hard to explain and get us nearer to war. And your bos is up to prevent this in sending a deniable Black Ops team.
Well, mortars and small guns/launchers are a little easier to smuggle, plus mortars and guns are generally cheaper than rocket counterparts. With modern artillery too they can keep up better sustained fire - rocket and missile systems have some range advantages, plus the ability to fire massive salvos quickly with some platforms , but they're slow to reload in most cases. There's also the fact the "howitzer" may actually be firing a rocket assisted shell and blurring the lines. Finally, with railgun and mass driver tech being a thing, arty versions likely exist. Airstrikes can also come from, or be small drones with stealthy capabilities, a little more subtle than an actual bomber. The close air support role doesn't really need a huge bombardment, just the precision and ease of getting into place.
This should be covered by Smart missile launchers, Katyushas and Uragans. The rest is still not that what i understand under deniable black ops.
Except; Finland, USA, Israel, Russia, France, Germany, South Korea, Japan, etc etc and most articles I can find notes the gun-howitzers being the primary weapon of the artillery/support batteries. However, you are correct in that technically they aren't howitzers since they have too long barrels - however, this technicality also begs specifying that there are a long range of cons compared to a few pros of using MRLS over gun artillery, most notably that the main advantage of rocket artillery is the shock effect of firing a large volume at the same time, for precision work you'll either use stupidly expensive rockets or the significantly less expensive conventional long gun systems.
What i meant is the amount of Artillerie that is in use. The Bundeswehr has 153 Panzerhaubitze 2000, the US Amry around 2500 Paladins. This is not very much given the size of the armed forces. Only North Korea has around 4700 Selfpropelled howitzers and 20.000 Artillerie guns. And all these systems have one big problem. It is a huge logistical effort to get them in range. Nothing that makes any sence in a situiation where you have 10 operators infiltrating a factory behind enemy lines. Maybe on a real battlefield like Paradiso. But i thing at the time from Infinity, miniaturization and cost efficiency alow this to be made by the remotes i mentioned before.
Let's not forget that almost ANY Underbarrell Grenade Launchers that fits under an Infinity Combirifle (from relatively primitive, contemporary-styled "40mm. One-Shots" like the F.N. / M203 exemplars seen under Ariadnan Cased Ammo Assault Rifles, to the multi-shot "Riot Drum Grenadier" shooting smaller ordnance, from 20mm. to 30mm., seen under Pan-Oceanian and Yujing higher technology weapons) are capable of shooting "speculative arching fire" over walls and intervening buildings. . . A whole 10 man squad of Basic Infinity Troopers (the most basic level "Cheerleaders" like Alguaciles, Zanshis, Fusiliers, Kazak Soldiers) could be a big numbers of them (current U.S.Army doctrine seem to have JUST 2 Grenadier Trooper in a 10 man team, but Elite Special Forces could have far more "Combirifles" if mission parameters need flexibility). . . Also Riot Squads follow a similar parameters, with JUST 2 or 3 "Shooters" employing Tear Gas Warheads in revolver-styled drum-clip launchers; from what I have seen of Israeli Soldiers doing Anti-Riot duty on Palestinian Borders they have a far wider pro-capita trooper number shooting 40mm. Rubber Bullets. . . . . but those examples refer to straight-line shooting of special nonlethal ordnance rather than blanketing and area with Fragmentation Warheads. . . A similar team could be enough devastating to become LIKE a Mortar Team in the right circumstances. . . CURRENT Spetsnatz Doctrine often have a 10 men team, ALL loaded on a Hind Attack Helicopter, split into a "forward assault" and "rear support" squads; often the support squad is left on a risen structure / hilltop, higher than Target Zone and deploy a "Flamya", semi-automatic belt fed Russian Grenade Launcher shooting the smaller 30mm. "Soviet Red Army" (same caliber of the small "Pistol Underbarrell" sometimes seen under Kalashnikovs) warheads to cover advance. . . . . . . . I have seen recently the amusing "Venom" movie and there is a scene in which the protagonist, BARELY starting to "Master" the symbiotic synergization with a "Biotech Suit" that will be the ENVY of ANY Tohaa, escaping Corporate P.M.C. on a car; they release from the back of their vans some small swarms of "Rocket-Enhanced" Gyrocopter Drones, not only to do an effective Air Surveillance but also devastating "Kamikaze Dive Attacks" (I don't know if they are fitted with Suicidal D-Charges or is simply their Rocket Fuel, burning a bright chemical bluish fire, to do the trick). . . A similar tactics could be well INSIDE acceptable Black Ops Parameters in Infinity. . . . .!!!
Logistical problem... tell that to the Spectre. In Infinity the job would probably be filled by remote operated drones providing CAS. However, this is more war time SF instead of the Cold War black ops of Infinity. It's important to note that North Korea has a good chunk of those guns pointed at Seoul. They aren't intended for battle field use and more as as a first attack option on their neighbors capital. Also, artillery in most armed forces are kept at a smaller level because the need for large numbers isn't needed anymore. They aren't being used to decimate large formations or shell cities in this age of brush wars.
That is what i intended to say. Only that also a A130 need logistic. Fuel, landingstrip, repairs. That is not easy to hide. And i doubt that even the Infinity equvalent of a Spectre has fuel for 10.000km to use it from your own airspace. Sometimes it your target might be near enough, but most times i doubt it. Also this kind of equipment might be realy hard to hide with stealth, especialy if it is giong to fire.
Well, talking about the A-130 the US Military has enough forward staged airfield it doesn't really mind. That and its a SF asset so it already gets extra treatment. Also, no enemy has eyes every where at once (not even with satellites). Need to get to where somewhere where there is no airfield... well the USAF will set one up on a dirt patch (really) to support the op. Also, the A-130 is only used in non contested airspace and usually against targets with none to low level AA assets. So usually it's not about hiding because the enemy can't do anything about it when it's in the air or at a landing strip. Also, stealth isn't the name of the game in CAS. Better for remote craft cause losing it doesn't mean losing men. So damn the stealth and unleash hell on the enemy.
But that i doubt this is true for some PanO Research fasility or a Yujing Minig operation. Especialy if you know the later is highly illegal on Dawn. And every military base has AA without a doubt. In Infinity there might be a overall radar coverage possible. Maybe not on Dawn, but i think the Ariadans are smart enough to protect everything that might be of interst for the Hyperpowers with AA.
There is an interesting Cyberpunk Japanese Manga that have some good inspirational ideas for "Small Black Ops Teams" against Heavy Gear deployed by big miltary forces. . . "Eden" by Hyroki Endo is a very complex story of Posthumanity and "Post-Singularity Event" with an Alien Intelligence that AT FIRST seem an unexplicable Pandemic Disease, later revealed a Nanoswarm "Envoy" trying to assimilate "What is Core Concept" of Humanity for creating a "New Universe"; meanwhile, outside this lofty end, lot's a cool side-stories with "Normal Veteran Soldiers" struggling to cope with Cyborg Monsters, Gene-Enhanced Soldiers, Advanced Combat Drones and even Biotech Monsters made by reverse-engineering the Alien Retroviral Nanoswarm. . . In one of the first combat stories what could be described as THE BEST HACKER of Planet Earth, a Matematician Girl Genius that made a transition to "Full Body Conversion Gynoid" very early (so technically a "Rogue" Danava of A.L.E.P.H.) support Her "Merc Squad" in a pitched battle amongst Incas Ruins in devastated Southern America by stopping an Enemy Hacker (less advanced Cyborg Frame and less able "Combat Netrunner") to precisely aiming Laser-Guided Submunitions deployed by Multi-Payload Missiles shoot from rearguard. . . While that Character is driving an Armoured A.T.V. she "Disarm" the Warheads of ANY Cluster Bomblet that manage to strike Her vehicle. . . A very interesting other trick of the Manga is to shoot a "Harpoon Grenade" from a Barrett Antimateriel Rifle (so technically a Mk12 of Infinity) that burrow INSIDE the Armour of a Tank-Drone, Attack Copter or Strike Jet and then release "Cyber Tentacles" that interfaces with the Vehicle controls, usurping their guide (AFTER grisly killing the Human Pilots by piercing throat and eye). . . A potential improvement on Infinity "Pitcher / Repeater" launchers mounted on Combirifles. . .
Stealth is relative. An MRLS will leave a contrail pointing exactly to where it was shot from, and if this MRLS is loaded by the more common shorter range rockets the range is within the distance a heavy artillery can reach. Said artillery you'd need radar to shoot back on and depending on how advanced said artillery is you get enough warning that you'll be able to move motorized stuff out of the way (if prepared) and shoot back (thus reducing the number of volleys the aggressor can shoot). If they don't have said radar, well... stealth achieved. Unless you leave a massive cloud of smoke pointing to where you are
Appropriate assets will be deployed for the op. CAS will be there is if makes sense. I bet in Infinity that you'd find CAS assets used in areas of Svarl, Paradiso, and on Dawn. Planets are big and not every mission is to hit military assets deep in enemy territory. We just don't get them in game beyond smart missile remotes.
