Active Battle Dress

[kilemall]

As noted in the BD thread, SPI had StarSoldier, the grunt part of the StarForce trilogy, which postulated psionically shielded soldiers in 2500 mph battle dress fighting it out to 'take ground' from defenses and government personnel not suppressed by the attacking StarForce.


An overview of the equipment and milieu-
http://www.spigames.net/MovesScans/Moves32/Moves32STSS.pdf

I'm not interested in recreating the StarForce experience, but it does occur to me that the 'average' BD setup is not exactly what most players have in mind strapping on a powersuit, but a heavier harder hitting survivable piece of equipment.

So, what I have in mind is something that won't work in a starship boarding/corridor action, but would be useful for a jump action, as effectively a light tank/support unit.

It would need to be the size of a jump capsule, i.e. one ton or 14m³, so it could be fired out a standard infantry jump ship.

The goal would be at least several hours of operations, a robot assistant, high-G grav thrust, high armor (preferably starship grade), surplus power for a weapon, powered strength in excess of the BD range, and a modular mission package, which could be recon, AD, comms support, battle command support, light artillery, airspace control, drone ops, or assault packages.

 

[Quint]

Sounds like what you are talking about is the "projected" Battlepods (aka TL15-ish "Battledress") from T4's Imperial Armory...

Truthfully, you can build exactly what you are talking about using MgT's Vehicles book pretty easily.

D.

 

[kilemall]

Sounds like what you are talking about is the "projected" Battlepods (aka TL15-ish "Battledress") from T4's Imperial Armory...

Truthfully, you can build exactly what you are talking about using MgT's Vehicles book pretty easily.

D.

Ah, I had noticed upon perusal that some of the newer versions had legs and the like. Didn't like the feel of the MgT vehicles though.

What I'm going to do here is do it through Striker, with using robot brains/frames and power plants from LBB8.

 

[kilemall]

We're going to go with two 1 square meters and 3 meters height, which is darn big but still should fit in the jump capsule form factor (we don't want point defenses to be able to pick our heavy suits out for special treatment during the jump).

That works out to 6 m³ total volume, 6,000 liters. We're going to assume this is the first generation of powered suits supporting combat armor troops, so TL 12.

Design goal is overall armor 40, as this very large suit is going to be a primary target for weapons. Multiplier for Superdense armor is x7, don't want to go to 35, so it's 6 or thickness of 1.5 cm for a value of 42.


Using a top and bottom value of 1m x 2m, sides value of 1x3m and a front and back of 2m x 3m and superdense armor values, we get .045 m³ for each side, .03 m³ for top and bottom and .09 m³ for front and back- adds up to .3 m³.

Weight is 5 tons, cost is 4200 Cr.

So we have 5.7 m³ left.

Let's do the human driver space next.

We aren't designating a turret on this suit, so the human is considered to take up 2m³ standing as per the crew space rules. 100 Cr.

Life support .5, 1000 Cr.

3.2 m³ left, or 3200 liters.

At this point we know we aren't going to fit any Striker power plants into this thing, and we know we want to fly and have legs work plus have leftover power, so ballpark power estimates are in order.

Tonnage is 5 tons now, lets ballpark 7 tons total (although this may be low and we have to double back on this), target 3 Gs worth of thrust, so we know we want 4x7 tons for 28 tons of thrust. That's .56 m³ of space, 1.12 tons of weight, and 2.8 MW required. 56,000 Cr.

Now down to 2.56m³ left.

Oh man, no way am I powering those grav generators off the 1m³ power plant I can fit in. At TL13 I have increased power, but the weight means more grav generator needed. And I want to save 1m³ for a modular missions package.

Okay, going to have to go with a Robots mini-plant/battery setup (Robots fusion plants are in line with Striker, and become more inefficient with the smaller plants).

We'll give it a Type 8 plant, .5 MW 2 tons weight .5 m⁵, 250,000 Cr, 1 liter fuel per hour.

100 liters fuel capacity, that gives us 100 hours with integral suit power.

To use heavier weapons and full grav capacity, we'll load up on the batteries. 400 megawatt-seconds of battery capacity at TL12 yields 400 kg of weight, .4m3 of volume and a cost of 340,000 Cr.

Well heck we have to up the grav generators. More like 4x10 tons, for 40 generators, .8 m³ of space, 1.6 tons of weight, and 4 MW required, 80,000 Cr. 100 seconds of full flight is a bit confining too.

Hmmm. this is going to take some tradeoffs, as we haven't even got to legs much less weapons, sensors and comms. May have to treat the aerial recon/superiority role as a mission specialization, make the mission package be 2 m³ or so with a lot of the weapons built into the arms.

 

[Vargas]

As noted in the BD thread, SPI had StarSoldier, the grunt part of the StarForce trilogy, which postulated psionically shielded soldiers in 2500 mph battle dress fighting it out to 'take ground' from defenses and government personnel not suppressed by the attacking StarForce.

Rather more like the combatants you'd see in a Iain M Banks Culture novel than Traveller, not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

[flykiller]

So, what I have in mind is something that won't work in a starship boarding/corridor action, but would be useful for a jump action

if you're not in an inhabited space, why use battle dress instead of armored vehicles and artillery?

 

[kilemall]

Rather more like the combatants you'd see in a Iain M Banks Culture novel than Traveller, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Not familiar with that series or milieu. Please feel free to elaborate.

 

[kilemall]

if you're not in an inhabited space, why use battle dress instead of armored vehicles and artillery?

I'm not following your distinction vs. mine.

I'm saying this thing is too darn big to get inside most starship hallways, so it's not going to be usable there.

I am looking for a jump troop light tank/support design that can drop with the regular troops but won't get PD attention from the planetary defenses that can also do the StarSoldier zoomy thing as a 3G+ air superiority platform. Light expeditionary stuff that's easier to store and deliver then a full size grav tank, and the functional equivalent of the heavy weapons team if need be. The sort of firepower edge you want to have once you get on the ground.

I'm anticipating fitting this thing with optional tac missile packages, integral PD lasers, guns/launchers in the arms, possibly a turreted head, an automortar package option, command/commo/recon/scout options, and some sweet pop-up capability.

The weight is getting me down though- may have to back off the starship grade armor.

 

[flykiller]

I'm not following your distinction vs. mine.

I'm saying this thing is too darn big to get inside most starship hallways, so it's not going to be usable there.

oh. you said

We're going to go with two 1 square meters and 3 meters height, which is darn big but still should fit in the jump capsule form factor (we don't want point defenses to be able to pick our heavy suits out for special treatment during the jump).

so I thought you were talking about external ops. same question still obtains though. why do you want battledress that can't fit into inhabited areas of any kind, when you can use much larger weapons just as easily? if a habitat or a ship are disabled to the point where it can be boarded at all then a few factor 9 meson bays would be more than sufficient to compel surrender. why battledress at all?

 

[kilemall]

oh. you said



so I thought you were talking about external ops. same question still obtains though. why do you want battledress that can't fit into inhabited areas of any kind, when you can use much larger weapons just as easily? if a habitat or a ship are disabled to the point where it can be boarded at all then a few factor 9 meson bays would be more than sufficient to compel surrender. why battledress at all?

Because having high powered comms, sensors, and close-in fire support organic to your formation can be a lifesaver and get the mission done, and it needs to be a higher level of armor then BD so it can stand up to man-portable missile and energy fire.

This is a one man suit, but it's role is more as light tank/air support.

 

[jec10]

I achieve the same effect you say you want through having a combat robot assigned to each squad or fireteam. It has heavy weapons, sensors and communications. It also has point defence fire control and so provides the squad with protection against artillery, missiles and grenades.

 

[flykiller]

This is a one man suit, but it's role is more as light tank/air support.

so why not have a light tank and air support?

 

[kilemall]

I achieve the same effect you say you want through having a combat robot assigned to each squad or fireteam. It has heavy weapons, sensors and communications. It also has point defence fire control and so provides the squad with protection against artillery, missiles and grenades.

Perfectly valid approach, probably more logical in most instances. I am losing 2m³ to a human in there after all, space that could be used for more power or equipment, or size it down.


I want a man in a suit though for those decisions and tactical creativity a bot just isn't going to have.

 

[kilemall]

so why not have a light tank and air support?

Made this pretty clear I thought. Immediate jump support that can be carried as a normal jump pod sized capsule, without a separate signature saying 'big grav tank kill this first' to PD targeteers.

So portable firepower that is handier, provides more platforms per ton, is organic to the BD squad/platoon, and is more likely to make it down on an opposed jump in one piece.

 

[flykiller]

so why not have a light tank and air support?

Immediate jump support that can be carried as a normal jump pod sized capsule, without a separate signature saying 'big grav tank kill this first' to PD targeteers.

so why have light tanks at all then?

seems to me the "battle dress" you speak of has all the limitations of a "light tank" with none of the advantages, and all the limitations of battle dress with none of the advantages.

 

[kilemall]

so why have light tanks at all then?

In some situations you wouldn't.

If we are talking OTU, if the situation is bad enough that you are executing an opposed drop with Imperial Marines, this already implies you can't risk shuttles or grav APCs yet you want firepower on tap when they arrive and hold the initial spacehead.

seems to me the "battle dress" you speak of has all the limitations of a "light tank" with none of the advantages, and all the limitations of battle dress with none of the advantages.

You would be wrong then. At the very least I am designing for armor to stop RAM GLs and not explode when hit with PGMPs/FGMPs, which means deliverable firepower to get an edge especially in an assault.

BD suits also are not set up for 2500kph flight, STR 50-100 for on-tap combat engineering work, and carrying heavy tac missiles/mortars.

 

[flykiller]

At the very least I am designing for [man-sized] armor to stop RAM GLs

(blink) ... well, if the rules say so ....

BD suits also are not set up for 2500kph flight, STR 50-100 for on-tap combat engineering work, and carrying heavy tac missiles/mortars.

why not? just change the rules.

 

[kilemall]

(blink) ... well, if the rules say so ....

Striker rules are pretty clear on this, I didn't really catch it the first time through in the 80s, those RAM GLs are some brutal light tank killing stuff, any heavy grav assault tank expecting to get in range of ACR/Gauss armed troops best be thinking about heavy armor, preferably in the High Guard armor-1 range.

I had serious Californium issues, no doubt from many a traumatic Ogre/GEV session.

Anyway, BDs are not the supreme items one expects, a good CES/gauss equipped force can make them into sushi, except for the range/ammo advantage with PG/FGMPs.

why not? just change the rules.

Well certainly I am no wallflower in that respect, but I like considering the entire ecosystem/combat biome before I start monkeying with systems.

One of my design goals with this exercise is to consider an armor shield either BD or an ABD user would use to get that upper level of armor in an assault situation. Particularly angling them.

Could be BD troops advance in formations like phalanx or maniple or tercio.

 

[mike wightman]

Why not take the man out of the suit entirely?
If it is for squad support as you say then it could easily be a warbot under local human command - the Zhodani version of this probably is.

In the Zhodani military I can imagine there would heavy weapon versions of their warbots - one per fireteam for drop troops.

The Imperium really is at a disadvantage by insisting all of their gear is manned.

I recently found out why tele-operating drones may be a waste of time on the future battlefield:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34475158

 

[kilemall]

Why not take the man out of the suit entirely?
If it is for squad support as you say then it could easily be a warbot under local human command - the Zhodani version of this probably is.

Already answered this to Jec-

[FONT=arial,helvetica]Perfectly valid approach, probably more logical in most instances. I am losing 2m3 to a human in there after all, space that could be used for more power or equipment, or size it down.


I want a man in a suit though for those decisions and tactical creativity a bot just isn't going to have.[/FONT]