One thing I"ve noticed. Almost all of the NR troops have a sword and a carbine on their back in addition to their heavier weapon. Just what are they and how often do they use them?
the carbine is a "spare" rifle using kinetic rounds rather than the pulse rifles they are mostly outfitted with. the Power Blade is a common melee weapon all NR troops are issued and drilled with in the same fashion as in the old roman legion.
And a power blade can be a nasty close combat weapon. its also used for things like doors and other utilitarian purposes.
They dont actually have to use them much in day to day operations.
By popular request. Hit the, "next page" button on the right to see all three pages of to this particular comic in Oglaf:
http://oglaf.com/newmodelarmy/
Looks like 2 wasted rounds with 8 hitting targets. Part one survived first contact with the enemy, Still waiting on Mama Bear and Angel Corp, sure Angel Corp can give Nox a very warm welcome, as I recall her Plasma Caster has self repaired. With the plasma caster think she is more than a match for Kali.
We don't know what sort of ammo capacity and expenses they're operating under. Consider that if collateral fire isn't a particular problem it can be more effective AND cost effective to put ten shots of .22LR on a target and miss with half than to hit with one of .454 Casull. Without knowing about the effective range, stopping power and dispersion you really can't comment on whether a bunch of shots missing is a waste or a predictable cost of doing business necessary to guarantee an acceptable probability of sufficient stopping power.
Comparing to the last page, Stacking the Deck and the Tech pages, they are either being hit by the Combat Orbs (weapons comparable to the Bulldog 7) or the E-War Drones (weapons comparable to the NR-ARN-7). By judging the size of each of the weapons and comparing them to the drones, an estimate of capacity can be made.
Only if you understand the weapons systems involved. Frankly, I couldn't begin to tell you what this stuff is besides characterizing it as pew-pew weapons running on distilled Harrypotterium. Real world weapons don't leave giant tracers leading back to where they were fired like that unless they're fixed-emplacement weapons with manual targeting, because... y'know... points the enemy at where the shots came from to return fire, and also wastes stopping power on a light show.
Keep in mind that this is a still-frame visual medium. The special effects that the reader sees may not necessarily be what people can actually see in-story. This wouldn't be nearly as visually interesting if all we showed was the orbs hovering in the air and then dudes dropping dead.
If we're showing things that aren't really there to increase visual interest there's less overused ideas to try: The rainbows and candy variant of pew-pew laser effects to name just one. If you want a better idea than that, well, you only need to ask the internet for ideas and well give you many, many bad ones with a few good ones mixed in.
And it seems that they are being shot by relatively small arms fire here, so they probably have good ammo capacity when it comes to that.
On a sidenote, just how smart are those drones ?
I know it says stuff like "Class 25" intelligence 'n' stuff on the page, but I have no point of reference on wether it's good, bad, or just 'meh'.
Class 25 SID - is smarter than Human it has reasoning capability and can make innovative leaps in tactical planning. They do not however have any emotions.
In the AF, I stood watch in a foxhole overnight once on the base perimeter and spotted a marine recon platoon through night goggles crawling around the rocks in Iceland. Got a nice attaboy for it.
Not only is the glass half empty, it's also poisoned, cracked and it's gonna mess up the biologicals .. aaand then the insurance won't cover it, because 'reasons' and then TeeDee will have to kill CentComm ... again!
If they were the Red Samurai (Renraku elite security forces - Shadowrun reference) the result would likely have been Dr. Silver getting shot down by one of them while the other sounded the alarm...
Actually considering what I know about Shadow run the last thing they would have seen was the flash of the laser emitters as they crumbled to the ground..
I don't know who trained those palace guards but, when in a potential combat situation, you act first then explain later. Trying to do things the other way round means that you may not live long enough to learn that lesson.
{edit} Come to think of it those guys should consider themselves lucky that they were merely killed. If Max found out how unprofessionally they behaved it could have been worse for them.
These are NOT palace guards .. they are run of the mill basic troopers.. and power in Roma Does fail .. esp with all the activity of late of certain rebellious elements. There is a reason the Cassians are so busy.
And truth be told, they reacted quite quickly and realised very fast that there was something up. Only the best would have been faster and even they would have very likely been too slow to actually do anything.
Exactly Lukkai .. By the time there brains realized they were in trouble they were already dead. they cant move faster than C velocity rounds ( yes thats light speed .. )
It says a lot about the current state of New Rome that a guards react to the power going out with mild disappointment rather than instant alertness (and a search for threats). Assuming that power generation, and distribution, is a lot more reliable in the future it says a lot about the quality of the current leadership.
Human nature, HiFranc. If something happens repeatedly, you get to expect it. Very few are disciplined enough to avoid that trap.
And this fact was probably counted on by Marcus when planning this op. I'm sure it wasn't needed, but it gave team New Troy more leeway to make mistakes and survive them.
That's my point exactly -- in a well run state things like that should not happen often enough for people to treat them as normal! It says a lot about Decimus's priorities that that has become routine.
The Palace has power, HiFranc. As do the homes of the rich and powerful. So who cares about the little guy? If they don't like it, they can rise up in revolt!
Oh wait, I think that may be what they ARE doing. :- D
Are we any different? We could be attacked by terrorists at any time. (It used to be the Russians.) When my power goes out, I don't think enemy attack, I think another damn squirrel got too close to the transformer, (again. It used to happen twice a summer. It finally got squirrel proofed a few years ago. about time!)
it was definitely something that I put in to the equation.. not something I rely on but human nature is human nature. its like the car alarm that keeps going off at random... eventually you stop checking on it because its its always been a false alarm.. or you turn it off because you think its malfunctioning.....
True DLK, except in this case I think the first sign for the guards was when the drones prepared to fire. Before that, their stealth field covered them.
And someone recently penetrated the air space in Washington. The gyrocopter back in April. The Secret Service swarmed it only AFTER the fact.
The Nova Roma guards aren't going to get the chance here. Doctor Silver's drones came to chew gum & kick ass. And she didn't include a mouth to chew the gum. Which made the drones even MORE ready to kick ass!
once again.. it depends on how often stuff like that happens... if you get joyriders constantly invading your airspace and it being nothing but stupidity... they start to get lax... or.. the simple audacity of something coming your way... its a cake job.. and a boring one at that... when shit starts flying.. not every one is able to be as level headed.. especially in a all conscripted military
@DLK: Actually I disagree on that one. Look at their reactions to spotting the incoming. Obviously, things like that happen rather often, with aircraft straying off path. And yet it took them only a very few seconds to realise this wasn't one of those. And that it was on an actual run aimed for the palace.
That was actually quite quick for human standards. Not elite guard quick, but certainly better than average.
and also Nova Roma has a older power grid .. and due to Aeneas being hacked away from the systems it tends to fail without support. so its a regular ( sadly ) occurrence ..
I remember way back in 85 when I was going through Basic at Ft. Sill, we had power to over half the base go out because a semi lost it on an icy road and took out the substation. They pulled almost EVERYONE on base out of bed, issued us weapons with LIVE ammo, (with the exception of troops who hadn't gone through weapons training yet) and set us out at almost every intersection on base with a radio and a call sign with instructions to stop any non military or non escorted vehicle. I spent several hours standing in the freezing sleet trying to keep my weapon and my radio dry and never saw anything but the MP's and my Drill Sergeants.
And from time of the accident to the time I was standing in the sleet with my rifle and my radio was about 15 minutes. It took longer to get the radios than it did for anything else, we were out of bed, dressed and being issued our rifles and live ammo in less than 8 minutes.
Yes Mark. Two points though, one Ft. Sill is a training base. The instructors took that incident as an impromptu training exercise. And rightly so. See what type of soldiers they had to work with.
Second point, against the assault Major Ramesy & Doctor Silver are running, 8 minutes would be too long. They would be carving the troops up as they tried to get int position. They have set up themselves to minimize their casualties, by maximizing their ability to inflict casualties on Nova Roma's troops.
Oh I know that Storm, I was referring to HiFranc's comment about the state of Training.
I know that if we ever lost power, the first thing we were instructed to do was to radio higher then take up defensive posture until otherwise notified.
The two up there, just figured "Meh, it'll come back on in a bit" And they paid for that nonchalance.
Yeah, after how many times when NOTHING happened though Mark. I get the feeling it is dozens of times. It isn't the way it SHOULD be done, but it is all too often the way it is done by human beings.
At helios Tower that was a warbot.. who literally has no emotions and can not get tired. or bored. If you recall officer Alley was getting rather fed up with Vinnies false alarms .. Humans make mistakes. considering how fast they realized they were in trouble im calling it good on there parts.. ( they are still dead though )
I was kind of expecting a small throwback to the RvB series. Like :
Goon 1: "Hey..."
Goon 2: "Yeah?"
Goon 1: "You ever wonder why we're here?"
Goon 2: "Probably because of the shortage of men we had after those that got eaten earlier"
Goon 1: "Oh yeah.. Wait that actually happened?"
I'd have to go with energy weapons. However in truth you wouldn't see energy weapon "trails" any more than you see the trail of a laser-pointer. Instead these guys would be bleeding from "magically" appearing holes in their armor.
Yes, you would. With energy levels you're going to need for weapon use you're going to ionize the atmosphere in anywhere human-breathable. What it specifically would look like is another matter, though...
Points at Top Web comics voting Button
But energy weapons have a effect called "thermal bloom " that happens when the beam interacts with Air . this causes the air to literally flashes as its being incinerated .. in space there would be no beam ., there might be sparkles .. but no constant beam look
Since nobody else said it there's a 'Give her the D' joke in there somewhere.
Let us not forsake the crude jokes at that is what keeps few of us from snapping and waking up the next morning covered in jello and never really knowing why
There's an obvious solution to that problem. You could Google Glass with automatic upload to Youtube:to show the whole world exactly why it is you're waking up in Jello with impaired memory. Doesn't that sound like an awesome idea?
And a power blade can be a nasty close combat weapon. its also used for things like doors and other utilitarian purposes.
They dont actually have to use them much in day to day operations.
http://oglaf.com/newmodelarmy/
Just "Nope - he went that way instead of that way..."
And it seems that they are being shot by relatively small arms fire here, so they probably have good ammo capacity when it comes to that.
On a sidenote, just how smart are those drones ?
I know it says stuff like "Class 25" intelligence 'n' stuff on the page, but I have no point of reference on wether it's good, bad, or just 'meh'.
Are they capable of creative thought?
I guess it is an artform, in an odd sense.
I always stood a good watch. No matter how well protected or boring it might have been. You never know....
Not only is the glass half empty, it's also poisoned, cracked and it's gonna mess up the biologicals .. aaand then the insurance won't cover it, because 'reasons' and then TeeDee will have to kill CentComm ... again!
Moe:(groans) "Hey Larry, are we in Star Trek?"
Larry: "Arrrghhh!"
Moe: "Coulda fooled me." (dies)
... would that be Moe Lester (42) that likes anime and japanese schoolgirls?
(Sorry, couldn't put the link in before from my phone)
The former by virtue of a certain game intro. The latter because it's the only true way to pull of a Highlander Burial.
Well, I think that this is how you do it !
{edit} Come to think of it those guys should consider themselves lucky that they were merely killed. If Max found out how unprofessionally they behaved it could have been worse for them.
Thanks for noticing :D
And this fact was probably counted on by Marcus when planning this op. I'm sure it wasn't needed, but it gave team New Troy more leeway to make mistakes and survive them.
Oh wait, I think that may be what they ARE doing. :- D
"Well, you're not much to look at either!"
Are we any different? We could be attacked by terrorists at any time. (It used to be the Russians.) When my power goes out, I don't think enemy attack, I think another damn squirrel got too close to the transformer, (again. It used to happen twice a summer. It finally got squirrel proofed a few years ago. about time!)
But we're not soldiers and we're not protecting sensitive areas. As a civilian without arms my options are very limited. Those guys, however.
Wanna see what happens if you try to fly a Cessna over the White House?
And someone recently penetrated the air space in Washington. The gyrocopter back in April. The Secret Service swarmed it only AFTER the fact.
The Nova Roma guards aren't going to get the chance here. Doctor Silver's drones came to chew gum & kick ass. And she didn't include a mouth to chew the gum. Which made the drones even MORE ready to kick ass!
That was actually quite quick for human standards. Not elite guard quick, but certainly better than average.
And from time of the accident to the time I was standing in the sleet with my rifle and my radio was about 15 minutes. It took longer to get the radios than it did for anything else, we were out of bed, dressed and being issued our rifles and live ammo in less than 8 minutes.
Second point, against the assault Major Ramesy & Doctor Silver are running, 8 minutes would be too long. They would be carving the troops up as they tried to get int position. They have set up themselves to minimize their casualties, by maximizing their ability to inflict casualties on Nova Roma's troops.
I know that if we ever lost power, the first thing we were instructed to do was to radio higher then take up defensive posture until otherwise notified.
The two up there, just figured "Meh, it'll come back on in a bit" And they paid for that nonchalance.
Their reaction to the power going out is the city's fault because the power is so unreliable that it has become routine.
Their reactions to the aircraft shows poor training. Compare their reactions to that of Mira's arrival at Helios Tower.
Goon 1: "Hey..."
Goon 2: "Yeah?"
Goon 1: "You ever wonder why we're here?"
Goon 2: "Probably because of the shortage of men we had after those that got eaten earlier"
Goon 1: "Oh yeah.. Wait that actually happened?"
But energy weapons have a effect called "thermal bloom " that happens when the beam interacts with Air . this causes the air to literally flashes as its being incinerated .. in space there would be no beam ., there might be sparkles .. but no constant beam look
Let us not forsake the crude jokes at that is what keeps few of us from snapping and waking up the next morning covered in jello and never really knowing why
"Rocking chair"
Work here is well done as usual.