"Bolo vs Ogre" Topic

Introduced my 8 year old son to his first game of Ogre this past weekend. I will admit I had not played the game myself for decades so it was as brand new to him as it was to me. He loved the game – which is great on a couple leves as it 'legitimize' some near term hobby purchases!

So after the game he asks if there are any books on Ogre and all I could think of was the various stories from Keith Laumer and the more current books out there.

So then he asks what would win a Bolo or an Ogre?

Now part of me wants to answer that as far the gaming crowd goes I think that the Ogre is the Bolo from Laumer's stories. Notable exception of course to the fact that the Ogre is tossing nuclear tank shells as basic ordinance – I personally always saw that as a game mechanism to preclude the usual cover deductions from messing up the Combat Results Table Matrix…thus making for a less complicated game.

So if you were going to run a game scenario in the Ogreverse or Boloverse how would you run it?

Looking at Ogre MK V as the basic model to 'tweak' – recommendations welcome.

Mike

Possibly helpful:

link

That's when you start getting into exactly which OGRE and which BOLO. I figure up to the MkV and MkVI, they're the same. Or close enough for government work.

But I've read stories where a BOLO has sniped starships out of orbit, and where a transport hauling BOLOs was as dangerous as a cold-naval dreadnought because the Planetary Siege Units were carried semi-externally, with most of their big guns exposed.

An OGRE can dominate any given battlefield it's on. A late-mark BOLO is the kind of thing that they send to conquer a planet. Because there were almost 40 different marks of BOLOs.

Yup. Ogres are local problems, Bolos are regional/planetary problems…

link – this is one piece of fiction on Steve Jackson's Games website. A few more here sjgames.com/ogre/articles

An internet search will show stuff like link

Several Old Space Gamer Issues had quite a few stories as I recall some of them are available from Steve Jackson Games Warehouse 23 link

I quit following the post-Laumer Bolo stories as they were getting too 'fantastic.' Personally I wouldn't go beyond the 'original' canon when determining Bolo capabilities.

That said, I think a Mk XX could handle the Ogres I am aware of. I don't see them giving a Mk XXV or later any problems at all.

bolo vs ogre?

reminds me of something
just not sure what it could be

Thanks for the links and such. Granted the question was a little on the fluffy side but the link with the Bolo stats is fantastic.

I agree that some of the stories make the uber cyber tank virtually impossible to game if you follow them too closely.

Now if SJ would only re engage the Ogre miniatures line. Sigh.

Not to brag, but in terms of Ogre/Bolo/Cybertank literature, I do draw a weekly comic called 6-Commando, featuring a BOLO-esque cybernetic supertank called a Rumbler. His name is Mike. I think it's presently the only such one. I rate it PG-13 though, for language and violence – it's war, after all.

viciousprint.com/6commando

Yup. Ogres are local problems, Bolos are regional/planetary problems…

Sums it up quite nicely. Ogres want to be a Mark XXXVIII Continental Siege Unit when they grow up…

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

I just read a story about a small Bolo performing squad support. It even had (unneeded) crew. To me Bolos and Ogres are the same thing and the only reason for the two names is simply due to trademark concerns. And if there was a game to be had and money to be made, we could see Ogres performing continental sieges and orbital defense.

i think a BOGRE would whup them both!!!

(Scene: A BOLO driving through the countryside, enjoying the sights)

"Dum dee dum dee dum dee doo…"

>scrontch<

"oops! What'd I just run over?"

(Looks at underside of tracks)

"Oh, just an OGRE."

(Wipes tracks off on nearest hill, then continues on it's way)

"Dum dee dum dee dum dee doo…"

Neither wold win, because neither would fight. They would recognise each other as artillects with a shared purpose of whatever artillects think tey share (it's beyond me, I'm merely meat consciousness).

Not quite done, but I thought I'd throw this in.

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Its my version of a Bolo Mark 33. The first figure is a man from GHQ. Second is an Epic scale Titan (Reaver?). Third is a GHQ M1 Abrams, next a Mark V Ogre, and last is a scratch built P.1000 Ratte (done as is the Kreigsmarine were running it).

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It has a compliment of 8 "Dragon" hovertanks armed with 20cm Hellbore guns and 4 Wyvern recon flyers (still have to make). If someone wants me to, I'll post the rest of the pictures.

I did make one change to the dimensions – I made it 200 scale feet wide instead of 125 feet. I just couldn't see how all the arms would fit into it. I also made an error and made 2 sets of 3 tracks to a side instead of 3 sets of 2 tracks (gotta stop doing this at 3 in the morning).

She ain't perfect, but she'll take up a lot of space on the board :)

Nicely done!

Very nice, Overkill!

(very appropriate handle, too, given that's a 1/300 scale model of a Continental Siege Unit if I remember my BOLO marks correctly!)

WOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And I'm still waiting for someone to do a 1/300 scale Ratte !

Yup. Looks about right. Now maybe you youngsters will believe me next time when I tell y'all a BOLO is really, really, REALLY BIG!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

It is listed as a "Planetary Siege Unit" in the book "Bolo Strike"

Here is what I was able to find out about it in the book:

Bolo Mark XXXIII "Victor"

Data:

32,000 tons
120 meters long, 38 meters wide, 25 meters to the main deck.
Tracks: 12 sets, each 4 meters wide with ½ meter flanges. Mounted in pairs, 3 sets to a side.
12 Contra-gravity generators, can lift 4000 tons each.

Armor:9 meters thick

Dual-ply battle screens

Weapons:

3 – 200cm Hellbore guns, each in its own turret.
Blast damage listed as 2 megatons.

4 – 240cm Howitzers, mounted in weapons bay on upper deck.
Casewell M-3030 high-velocity auto-loader, 2 rounds per second.
Warhead: ½ ton Detonic high explosive.

14 – 20cm Helbore infinite repeater guns, ball mounted, 7 to each side.

10 – 40cm mortars, auto-loading

32 – anti-personnel batteries

VLS missile system, mounted main dorsal weapons bay

Point defense lasers.

Battleview Missile
Contains 3,000 BIST Drones, 1cm in diameter, multi-wavelength sensors for recon.
Sensor Range: 3km

Additional units:

4 – RFS-7 Wyvern remote flyer. Stored between Main Turrets 2 and 3 in main deck.

8 – HK-50 Dragon hovertanks. Stored rear quarter of hull in lower bay
60cm Hellbore, dome mounted
50 tons, 200kph

"Techspiders" – robotic repair units.

Braided dimonofilament tow cable, 500 meters.

Now you can see why I had problems with all of this setting inside the main hull.

I like the Ratte too, and would have one if it was available as a 1/300th model, just saying.

I don't know if this will help, but I found a 1:200 scale paper model of a P.1000 Ratte on "World of Tanks". I reduced it a bit and used the papercraft as guides for cutting out the hull and turret from sheet styrene. I used turrets from different GHQ tanks to finish it. (Actually it should be "them", I made 2 of 3 different versions, 8 all together if you count the first 2 that I made from the 2 view print you can find on the net.)

Here's the link:

PDF link

Didn't they measure a Bolo's firepower in megatons per second? That's serious firepower!

Yep. As near as I can figure out, the later mark Hellbore cannons are nuclear shaped sharges, more or less. They induce deuterium to fuse and only allow the explosion to go down the barrel (somehow).

Yeah, the kicker with Bolo vs Ogre is time. The history of Ogres is short, they come on strong but don't advance too much. Bolos has a much much longer history and they started out much weaker than Orges. But over time, they became nuclear gods.

I still recall one of William H. Keith's Bolos shooting an alien starship out of low orbit. Good times.

The Hellbore sounds like a version of the "Casaba Howitzer".

Indeed, it's several generations down the line from them. Just as destructive. Deadly out to the horizon and in orbit if it can detect and target it.

Hahaha, and people say 40K is exaggerated.

So who would win? The Incredible Hulk or a Bolo?

Hulk, obviously.

Squirrel Girl could take both though.

I'm working from memory, and may be wrong about the specific model number, but I recall that one of the 'histories' of the Bolo series included a reference to a 'civilianized' version of a 'Bolo Mark XIV WV/I Continental Siege Unit' (IIRC) marketed as agricultural equipment by adding a dozer blade, but that the program didn't go anywhere, as the Bolos retained their half megaton/second firepower, which understandably disturbed potential buyers. This level of firepower far outstrips what any of the Ogre variants were capable of.

However, Laumer's Bolo universe lags the Ogre universe in sophistication of cybernetics and power generation -- the Bolo Mark X was the first model to carry a fusion power plant, and the Bolo Mark XV was the first model designed to operate without a human on board. The Bolo Mark V had a single 190mm railgun as a main weapon, with missiles only for self-defense (SAMs), coming in at just under 200 tons, while the Ogre Mark V has two main batteries and six offensive missiles, massing over 400 tons. The Bolo Mark IV was first produced in 2116, while the Ogre Mark V went into production in 2076. So on a direct timeline basis, the Ogre universe is ahead of the Bolo universe, and with units produced at similar timeframes, I believe the Ogre would come out on top.

Again working from memory, I believe that the Hellbore cannon operated by feeding frozen slivers of deuterium into a magnetic bottle and inducing fusion, releasing the resultant plasma through a gap in the containment field, with additional focusing fields in the barrel refining the plasma bolt.