MGT Only: 1,200-ton medium troop ship

[Brandon C]

See that in a small ship universe, any invasion would need a lot of transport ships, as the ground troops will still be the same (according to population/TL/government, etc.).

So the troops needed for nearly any misión will be the same than in a large ship universe, but the tropos carried by each transport ship will be fewer.

I was going to try to make sure there were no really high pop worlds (I'm going to generate new subsectors rather than use old ones), with a Pop of 8 reduced by 1 and a Pop of 9+ reduced to 8. Still, the idea of most empires having one world that is invasion-proof does create an interesting dynamic as all the other worlds are routinely fought over.

Oh, and I have GURPS Traveller: Ground Forces, which does go into some detail on invading worlds of various classifications.

 

[Brandon C]

good adds

Thanks, and I didn't have to make the ship much larger.

By the way the Sulaco was not carrying her full compliment according to some things I read..she was on a special operation run..investigate and report...basically hired out to Weyland Yutani.

I knew it was under-crewed, but it seemed like it normally carried a platoon of marines based on the empty space we saw. Then again, I never saw and physical data on the Sulaco.

 

[McPerth]

I was going to try to make sure there were no really high pop worlds (I'm going to generate new subsectors rather than use old ones), with a Pop of 8 reduced by 1 and a Pop of 9+ reduced to 8. Still, the idea of most empires having one world that is invasion-proof does create an interesting dynamic as all the other worlds are routinely fought over.

Oh, and I have GURPS Traveller: Ground Forces, which does go into some detail on invading worlds of various classifications.

Ok, so the main planets would have Pop 7 (the population of the large EU countries like Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland or UK) or 8 (the population of Russia or US), but more dispersed, as this population is the planetary one, not just one country.

How many troops would you need to invade one such planets, even counting on the advantages of orbital supremacy (I guess this is a sine qua non condition to initiate the invasion) and force concentration (as you know where you will launch your assault)?

If we asume each large transport can carry a battalion (about 600 men), a full division will need about 10-12 ships for the combat units alone, plus whatever is needed for the tail...

 

[Brandon C]

Ok, so the main planets would have Pop 7 (the population of the large EU countries like Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Poland or UK) or 8 (the population of Russia or US), but more dispersed, as this population is the planetary one, not just one country.

How many troops would you need to invade one such planets, even counting on the advantages of orbital supremacy (I guess this is a sine qua non condition to initiate the invasion) and force concentration (as you know where you will launch your assault)?

If we asume each large transport can carry a battalion (about 600 men), a full division will need about 10-12 ships for the combat units alone, plus whatever is needed for the tail...

Part of the problem is that ready soldiers needs 2 tons of space each (half a stateroom) at minimum. If you have the time to wake them up, you can carry four times as many in low berths.

A ship with mostly ready soldiers (as in this thread) would have to secure a beachhead so that ships with unready soldiers could put down their larger force. As you mention, space superiority would have to be established first.