[Ogre] RE: Killing civies

[John D. Gwinner]

> From: "Chris French" <csadn at ix.netcom.com>
> Subject: [Ogre] Re: OGREverse economics

> ... And there are 
> always more civilians (even in wartime) than soldiers, so 
> panicking the civvies is a simpler way to influence your 
> foe's internal politics. (Q.E.D.)
> 
> Sorry, folks -- Conventional Warfare is over. It's the 
> politics of the bomb from here on out. (Fun, eh?)

I disagree - killing civvies has never, and is not ever, going to stop
any war.  It didn't work in WWII (Dresden, bombing England), it didn't
work for the terrorists who piloted the 3 bombs.

You might say it worked for the US vs Japan - but the point there wasn't
that it was civies, it was that to the Japanese, it looked like we had
*a lot more* of those bombs because we didn't kill a militarily or
populationally significant target.  If the aim was to kill civies, Tokyo
would have been the target.

I couldn't find a reference on this, but I saw an excellent Nova (PBS)
special on this that explained that in WWII there was a theory that
taking the war to the civilian, non combatant population would end the
war faster.   I didn't search really long but here's one reference:

http://www.holycross.edu/departments/publicaffairs/hcm/spring03/features
/trainor.html

>From this, "The World War II rationale for bombing civilians is rejected
today."

IMHO it's not just moral grounds, it just doesn't work.

Back to the point - I'm assuming that whatever armor the infantry wears
in the OgreVerse is going to protect against battlefield nukes -
although granted, this may or may not be a place you want to live
afterwards.  It would have to because we know infantry does participate
in these battles.

Granted, after a while it might be 'rivets'.  (which reminds me, that's
one of the few metagames I never bought, much the regret).

		== John ==