Re: Battle for the Lytherian astroid

>   That was a pretty interesting post on asteroid combat, even though im
>unfamiliar with the ballista box thing.

I'm fairly certain Toby's writeup is on Static's Beyond the Moons site,
under equipment.

>During the report part, I was  rooting for the Scro to break through the
>>defensive fire and board the station which would have been pretty cool.

Since I was playing the elves I was rooting for the opposite:)

>I wasn't sure about a couple of  things though, like how many militia
>there >were to begin with (a typo inspired nit pick probably)

Yes, the casualty figures were reversed. 140 imperial troops died, and all
60 of the militia.

>and why exactly near the end did the admiral note to himself to demote the
>poor >commander of the rock?  It looked like  beside the heavy elven loss
>of life, he >won.

He allowed his outpost to be surprised with all of their vessels on the
ground, and tried to blame the near loss on a spy.  Also, considering the
loss ratio, I considered the battle a marginal scro victory.

>On the overall battle tactics,  I've never really understood why invaders
>don't >just attack the bottom of  asteroids

Oops! I didn't make it clear but in this case both sides of the astroid
were defended.  The "bottom" side was ignored by the scro forces, which
pretty much kept its weapons out of the battle.  The IEN marines were at
the "edge" and could have been used to reinforce either side.

"We look on the same stars,  the sky is common,  the same world surrounds
us.  What difference does it make by what pains each seeks the truth?  We
can not attain to so great a secret by one road..."
Symmachus,  "Memorial on the Occasion of the Removal of the Altar of
Victory from the Senate House" (392 AD)

Paul Westermeyer,  westermeyer.3@???.edu
Phd Candidate, History, Ohio State
Adjunct Faculty, Humanities Department, Columbus State Community College