Moon wargaming - some thoughts.

[Rick]

Interesting stuff, but the bit that got me was Nap of the Moon or NOM

It is of course made of cheese

Yes but what sort of cheese is it? 
It's a very important question.

[Commander Roj]

Yes but what sort of cheese is it? 
It's a very important question.

Wenslydale of course! (Or was it cheddar in "A Grand Day Out?" )

[Cat]

It's a cheese worth fighting for!

[JonGZG]

I'm keeping a very interested eye on this thread, for ideas and inspiration....   

Jon (GZG)

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Won’t surface launched aerial drones be less useful to the satellites and spacecraft already in the sky?  Air support might well be a bit higher but I imagine unmanned pinnaces, some as small as suitcases, will be readily available making an infantry type drone somewhat unnecessary.  No atmosphere means high altitude observation by space craft is even easier.  Nuke’m from orbit as it’s the only was to be sure!

As for dealing with recoil, every infantry soldier’s weapon will have a swinging anchor tail that digs into the surface behind the soldier or vehicle.  Think artillery tails on a smaller level. Most of these weapons will be drones as well. Manned equipment in vacuum will be KIAs where a robotic or Remotely controlled weapons platform doesn’t have that sort of overhead to protect.  I doubt that any manned combat ever occurs on a moon or even in space. Cold War what ifs maybe but there is no versimilitude about future manned combat in space or on the moon

[Rick]

I'm still unsure about aerial drones at all - it all seems like a lot of faff for very small gains - same with putting a tail on an infantryman; why go to all that bother when it would be far, far easier to do it with a tracked drone instead?
Also, as far as I'm aware, a pinnace is a crewed ships boat so trying to fit even one crewman into a suitcase sized one would be a problem, let alone engines, fuel, etc.
As to spy/observation satellites why would you need them when you could sit in Earth orbit with a decent telescope and see as much?
There will be manned combat on the moon for 2 very good reasons - first, it's in our nature to go places even if conflict breaks out afterwards and those drones will need maintenance and supervision. The second reason is that Jon has already got the figures made and it'd be a criminal waste not to use them.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

I’ll readily agree with the second reason.

[Pattus Magnus]

One reason for using sensors orbiting the moon to support surface operations, rather than parking telescopes in Earth orbit, is that only one side of the moon ever faces Earth (the moon doesn’t spin relative to the Earth). There’s also the issue that a telescope in Earth orbit only provides a directly overhead view of objects that are in the regions facing toward Earth - as the object gets farther around the curve, the angle of vision from Earth gets closer to the horizon, so things behind hills or in low ground or trenches become hidden (geostationary satellites orbiting Earth’s equator face the same problem keeping line of sight to objects on the ground in northern or southern latitudes- hills start blocking signal…).

Depending on the scale of the conflict, on a strategic scale belligerents may be able to destroy each other’s orbiting sensors (in Earth orbit and/or moon orbit). If that capacity is part of the background, it would be useful if ground troops have equipment to give them tactical recon through drones or launched sensors when satellite views are unavailable.

As far as ‘bots completely replacing human combatants on the moon (or filling that role before human combatants ever get there), I have mixed feelings. On one hand, the practical benefit of not having to provide a livable environment are pretty high. On the other hand, remotely piloted platforms can potentially have their control lines jammed, physically cut (if wire or fibreoptic), or (not very likely) hacked. And the remote pilot still has to be somewhere close enough that signal lag doesn’t handicap the ‘bot in combat. You won’t be sitting at the Pentagon and piloting a combat bot on the moon… Alternatively, the ‘bot is fully autonomous, which brings its own (admittedly hypothetical) openings for nightmare scenarios. Humans are fragile but we can still keep going (at least for a while), when all the digital tech goes haywire. I mean, picture remote piloting a ‘bot in a firefight and Microsoft or Apple, or whoever the tech supplier is gives you a “mandatory update” pop-up 

[zrunelord]

Valid points.
Though commands can be given from human manned orbital stations . Again these are very prone to attack & damage even if they are self sustaining ( i.e. having autonomous air & water generators ).

But shipping bots ( as in for e.g. The Murderbot series ) to space is way cheaper as they are cargo, so bots are a better choice. Plus they can be built in almost any size & form and may also be easily replacing ( 3d printed? ).
So the countries or corporations who have the best supply systems will have an edge.

Again this depends on the technological level.

I would think that burrowing machines in lunar regolith are also possible, which opens other possibilities as they won't be visible.

Z

[Rick]

Very good points, very difficult to contradict. The main reason I originally mentioned the 'telescope in Earth orbit' idea was because, if a conflict occurs on the moon (however limited), it's going to be fairly visible to anyone who wants to look, military or civilian.

[Pattus Magnus]

Unless the area of operations is on the far side, of course    You could set off a nuclear bomb on the far side of the moon and a telescope in Earth orbit won’t detect it, except maybe as a flash reflected off Mars or another planetary body that has line of sight to both the explosion site and the telescope…

I agree overall with zunelord’ point about the relative advantages of ‘bots over people for space operations. ‘Bots have downsides, but probably not as many.

In real life, the versatility of non-humanoid robots leaves me scratching my head about why anyone would invest in developing humanoid ones, except maybe as a novelty. Human locomotion is pretty inefficient compared to quadrupeds or tracks or wheels in most situations. And even then, why limit the two-legged design to anything shaped like a person - design the damned thing for its function… If you need a human, hire a human, there are a lot of us - the price is usually pretty low.

[Rick]

I rather envisaged tunnelling bots being used mainly for mining work, rather than combat, unless things go very badly wrong of course! Wheels, tracks or multiple legs on a drone make little difference in most conditions but each has it's own advantages in specific terrain types. And, as I've mentioned, I can't see them completely replacing human combatants (and I rather take the view that a single human life is worth more than any number of drones, thank you very much!  ) because, fragile as we are, we still haven't been able to produce a drone as versatile or adaptable as a human in a wide variety of situations.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

I would think if we could justify a technical capacity to be on the moon in numbers that require infantry combat with humans at all, the tech on drone and RV control will be just as advanced. Semi autonomous AI for non-anthropomorphic weapons platforms will be in place to control when remote operators from orbital, terrestrial or lunar command posts are not in direct control. That’s pretty much a given. The overhead of extremely fragile humans in vacuum will be a logistical nightmare as well as making the equipment they use and fight in, tactically inefficient and bulkier and much more expensive to get to the moon in the first place .  Manned equipment is turning into liabilities even in terrestrial fights today.   Tanks and manned planes are pretty much obsolete imho. Economic efficiency is how wars are fought nowadays, build the cheapest, least expensive to lose, weapons with means to get through in the greatest numbers possible and flood counter measures. Humans will just be controllers from afar and targets.


That is, if there can be any justification that can be devised for surface lunar combat in the first place. I think any strategic reasons to fight on the moon probably can better addressed by interdiction of the spacecraft needd to get there or back.   If you have supremacy in the surrounding space, surface troops/civilians are at your mercy. They either starve, asphyxiate, or are unable to export whatever reason you are there for in the first place. At worst you bomb them from orbit. Tossing a asteroid will be fairly cheap.

[Rick]

Awf - these are strategically interesting points for general sci-fi conversations, I feel; however they are, with respect, completely and utterly irrelevant for the purposes of this topic.
This topic was set up as an off-shoot of the discussion of the GZG Moongrunt figures and, as such, has a couple of built-in biases which, although I may not have explicitly stated them, are very much at the core of this topic. The first is that GZG has a range of Moongrunt figures and, although there aren't any specific rules to use them, many of the posters would like to use them with a set of rules. The second is that we are discussing ideas for the very purpose of soldiers battling across the surface of the moon, discussions of why they are doing that are largely irrelevant to the subject at hand, viz - getting 18mm figures onto a wargames table with good scenery and terrain.
So, although these are very good ideas, better ones would assume people in space suits, wargame rules and drones are going to be present. Cheese is optional.

[Aethelflaeda was framed]

Sure, but the conversation got severely in the weeds when recoil and real physics entered into it. Build a sci-fi foundation on sand and it takes a lot of rationalization to get any verisimilitude.  I would still happily play the game and admire the figures, much as I do just about any sci-fi game nowadays, which are not really “hard” sci-fi at all but fantasy in sci-fi garb. This one too.