Re: Victory through Bug Power

From: Loren Miller <loren_at_wharton.upenn.edu>
Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 12:57:36 +0000


James Frusetta <gerakkag_at_wam.umd.edu> writes:
> I said, David Weihe suggests:
>
> > How in the world would you fight other airborne opponents?

Well, at first airplanes had no guns mounted on them... this was before they figured out how to time the bullets so you didn't shoot out your propeller. And the way they were used in war was for reconaissance. They were not used in actual battle at all, except to drop lightweight bombs (sticks of dynamite and so on). It didn't take long to develop them into fighting vehicles, but I doubt that Glorantha has the technology to convert flying mounts into fighting mounts. Rather, I'd think that trollkin would go up on trained wasps and attack any birds (possible allied spirits) they saw over the battlefield, while swooping low over the enemy so they can get close enough to see what's going on. Trolls do have a distance vision problem, after all, and value trollkin on flying mounts might be the most effective way of "seeing" what the enemy is up to on that hilltop over there.

I'm not sure what flying enemies trolls would be fighting, other than wind children (extremely rare) and other troll bugriders. I'm certain that when they do face bugriders they release a swarm of flies or bees to attack the bugriders and/or their mounts, forcing them to take evasive action which is more than likely to result in barrages of plummeting trolls.

In fact, that's the problem as I see it. Flying bugs are so fragile that it is trivially easy to wound them badly enough that it will either crash out of the sky or drop its bugrider and make an emergency landing. The only way to make sure that bugriders don't fall when their mounts are attacked is to attach them to their bugs extremely securely, with lots of knots and ropes and straps and so on, and that makes it very hard for them to dismount, or even to move. And if they can't dismount or move then they can't fight easily when they reach engagement range with the enemy.

Summing up, I don't see flying bugriders used as combat troops. I see them used as scouts and for reconaissance, especially given weak trollish distance vision. And I see the largest bugs used to deliver and recover small units of uz fighters for guerilla warfare, like choppers in modern warfare.

Cheers,
Loren
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Loren Miller <loren_at_wharton.upenn.edu> A priest, a rabbi, a Penn student, and an elephant walk into a bar. The bartender says, "what is this, some kind of joke?"

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