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What’s the US gonna do? Slink away in the middle of the night again?

  • 4zi [he/him, comrade/them]
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    442 years ago

    You could sneeze on the American navy and it would collapse, from the extremely aged and decrepit ships to the intensely overworked sailors

    • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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      382 years ago

      Remember when they fired that commander for actually giving a shit about his crew during one of the early COVID waves? Pinnacle of strategic thinking is turning your navy into coffin ships.

      • edge [he/him]
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        352 years ago

        Remember when they lost a war game against Iran so they called time out and just changed the rules to make themselves win?

        • Saeculum [he/him, comrade/them]
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          242 years ago

          IIRC, the rules they changed were that motorcycle messengers could instantly teleport across the map without being intercepted, and that the fleet of missile motorboats he was using to attack the US navy couldn’t actually mount the weapons they were previously allowed to, because the missiles alone were heavier than their actual maximum weight even without an attached launching system.

          Supposedly, a computer error also teleported the US fleet directly into motorboat range.

          It doesn’t really seem like losing a game against Iran rather than the game being extremely flawed.

          • nohaybanda [he/him]
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            282 years ago

            Which is its own kind of pathetic. Imagine running a simulation and you’ve not covered basic things like “causality” and “maximum parameter value means you can’t go above that number”.

            • keepcarrot [she/her]
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              172 years ago

              I’ve noted 40k has a rules commentary that has statements like that, and I know some gamer somewhere has had that conversation.

              I know I’ve seen “it doesn’t say anywhere that a model removed from play can’t act” in the wild, which I feel like is pushing the limits of semantic readability of game rules.

              • SpiderFarmer [he/him]
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                62 years ago

                Hey, it’s out-of-the-box thinking like that that had me dual-wielding Thunderhammers in my Space Wolves back in the day.

                • keepcarrot [she/her]
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                  102 years ago

                  I read a story on 40konline back in the day where someone placed a character on top of another model and then moved the other (much faster) model around. It’s pretty wild what shit people will pull.

                  If I’m doing tabletop rules writing, I try to be clear without getting trapped in the weeds of arguing with that sort of player. :/

              • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]
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                72 years ago

                At least one edition of D&D has had a “the dead condition doesn’t technically say you can’t act” prior to an errata.

        • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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          312 years ago

          There were some legitimate problems with the millennium challenge but it’s still funny how it made them look bad and bootlickers get mad if you talk about it

          • CrushKillDestroySwag [none/use name]
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            18
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            2 years ago

            IIRC the marine general who played as Iran was basically trying to find every rules exploit he could think of because nobody would listen to him when he pointed out that the game was broken, but there is a pretty big overlap between the tactics he employed and what successful US resistances have used.

            • ProfessorOwl_PhD [any]
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              142 years ago

              He was doing stuff like using simulated motorcycles to deliver messages by courier to get around the information blockade, and risky mass attacks to overwhelm individual ships.

              This was deemed unrealistic, because… I dunno, Americas enemies would never be desperate enough to use unconventional tactics? There was a legitimate complaint in him being able to negate some of the systems by having inside knowledge of their workings, but at the same time you should probably be prepared for your enemies to have some sort of intelligence on you and your tactics.

            • GrouchyGrouse [he/him]
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              122 years ago

              Yeah its been ages since I looked up the details but that does sound super familiar to what I kinda remember. And of course being the closest to the old school nobility officer corps the navy brass was pissed off about it when it happened.

              • GinAndJuche [comrade/them]
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                12 years ago

                Example: the motorcycle messengers he exploited to coordinate things travelled at FTL (game rules assumed instant travel) and something else involving the use of mosque speakers that I can’t recall.

        • Tunnelvision [they/them]
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          282 years ago

          It was also before the invention of hypersonic missiles, so the outcome would be even worse now. I don’t think Iran has them, but I wouldn’t doubt China or Russia would provide them.