Battledress

[graden1]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
And yes the tank does carry a bigger gun than the guy in Battle Dress. But, the infantryman in Battle Dress shouldn't be as well armored as a Heavy Tank designed at the same Tech Level. The description of Battle Dress on page 209 of the THB states "Battle Dress is an advanced and powered version of combat armor.".

To have a 300vl set of personal armor be as heavily armored as a 30,000vl tank of the same TL, is completely absurd.

TL15 Battle Dress may be better armored than a TL8 M1 tank, but it should not be as well armored as a TL15 Intrepid grav tank.

Caution: RANT follows!

[rant mode] I believe that, if the rules make it possible in the OTU, then it's not "absurd" in the OTU. This technology is a staple of Traveller, not to mention science-fiction in general. In the "real world", footmen aren't armored like tanks because the armor's simply too heavy. But if you're willing to postulate a 1.5-vl fusion plant (15 liters!) powering a 300-vl armature, then carrying that much armor isn't so much of a stretch.

I think a better test of "absurdity" would be to attempt to design a TL-8 battle dress, and see what happens. It probably won't work, because the tech level is too low. And if it does work somehow, then yes, I'd call that an absurdity. However, to say that a design at TL-15 is "absurd" because it can do something which isn't possible at TL-8 is, well, absurd. That's what technology advancement is all about, isn't it? --to expand the definition of what is possible.

The THB p209 description of battle dress seems contradictory; if it's "an advanced and powered version of combat armor", then why is it designed as a vehicle, when non-powered combat armor isn't? It makes me wonder if T20 simply takes the wrong approach to battle dress. In CT and MT, it wasn't treated as a vehicle, and there wasn't so much confusion. [/rant mode]

Okay, I'm done. I've got my fire extinguisher; flame if you must.

 

[Libris]

TL8 Battledress
400vl. Agility 5, 20kph, AC22, AR8 Cr51704 (with discount). STR20, DEX8 arms. Turbine powered with 10 hours endurance, full life support, 800m Video with LI/IR. 12vl Cargo. No computer (too big at this TL).

Low endurance but fairly cheap and quite nasty. The DEX8 arms will give most firing a penalty to hit though.

Of course, TL14 Battledress is only 225vl, has AC31, AR14, can fly at 200kph, walk at 30kph, has a nice computer with some ECM, full life support, 7vl cargo and is battery powered for 75 hours.
Nice.

 

[justacaveman]

Not "armored like tanks".

"A suit of TL15 Battle Dress can be as heavily armored as the heaviest tank in the Imperial arsenal."

Give it a heavier, grav compensated weapon (Quite possible since an FGMP-15 weighs only 3kg before grav compensation, and it does 4d20 to vehicles, and it has a better threat range than the vehicle weapons do.), and it is as powerful as a Heavy Tank (It won't have the same weapon range of course).

A squad of 8 infantrymen armed in such a manner would outgun a platoon of 4 Heavy Grav Tanks at close range.

And just because it's OTU, does not mean that it is without error. Look at the stats, compare them to real world examples, if the system won't approximate the real world, the system is wrong and requires correction. I know there are a lot of minchkins out there who want to keep their baby tanks as powerful as possible, but please get real.

 

[justacaveman]

Minchkins?

I think I meant munchkins.

I don't have a problem with Battle Dress outclassing tanks of several TL's lower, but they should not be as powerful as tanks of nearly the same TL. A little tweaking of the rules is definitely in order here.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
Someone is going to have to make up there mind if Battle dress is armour or a vehicle.
If its armour then the engine supplies strength modifiers so you can carry the armour (the armour limit is your strength plus the suits mods).
If its a vehicle then you should need the DRIVE feat not armour feat, and if its a vehicle what does it matter if its as good as a tank (it is a tank) with short range weapons and sensors and endurance and slow speed.
If you want something that goes fast has a big gun and can see far build a tank, if not build battle dress.
Bye.

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
Not "armored like tanks".

"A suit of TL15 Battle Dress can be as heavily armored as the heaviest tank in the Imperial arsenal."

Give it a heavier, grav compensated weapon (Quite possible since an FGMP-15 weighs only 3kg before grav compensation, and it does 4d20 to vehicles, and it has a better threat range than the vehicle weapons do.), and it is as powerful as a Heavy Tank (It won't have the same weapon range of course).

A squad of 8 infantrymen armed in such a manner would outgun a platoon of 4 Heavy Grav Tanks at close range.

And just because it's OTU, does not mean that it is without error. Look at the stats, compare them to real world examples, if the system won't approximate the real world, the system is wrong and requires correction. I know there are a lot of minchkins out there who want to keep their baby tanks as powerful as possible, but please get real.

Still RANTing

Please. Get. real.

Okay, let's look at some "real world examples" of TL-15 hardware. There aren't any? Then please explain to me how you know what's plausible at TL-15. The design sequence makes battle dress equal to a tank in one respect, and one respect only: AR. In all other ways, it's less capable. Slower, less SI, near-sighted, short-ranged, lighter weapons, lower ammo supply, less computing power (for targeting, ecm, etc.) and any other parameter you can think of. Focusing on the one, and only stat which is comparable to tanks seems misguided. Battle dress simply doesn't compare to a tank of the same tech level, even with the same AR.

As for your "tanks v. battle dress" scenario, you're talking about equipping the battle dress, at 300vl, with a hypothetical weapon that's "as powerful as a heavy tank". How do you reach the conclusion that this is possible? The smallest vehicular fusion gun listed is 4000vl. I'd like to see some stats for this new miniaturized fusion gun, because it sounds even more absurd than the alleged armor problem, even if it's a short-range weapon.

Speaking of range, how do those 8 battle-dress troops get within striking distance of 4 heavy grav tanks? And will they even be able to hit? Remember, some (if not most) grav tanks move fast enough for a sizable AC bonus, (+8 at 201 kph!) which will also most likely prevent the battle dress troops from taking more than one shot at them.

And assuming they could, what sorts of counter-measures against this kind of threat should the tanks be equipped with? A turreted FGMP-15 with a cheap computer running "Return Fire" software would be a good deterrent. (And I'll bet someone here can improve on that.)


DGv2.0

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by Libris:

TL8 Battledress
400vl. Agility 5, 20kph, AC22, AR8 Cr51704 (with discount). STR20, DEX8 arms. Turbine powered with 10 hours endurance, full life support, 800m Video with LI/IR. 12vl Cargo. No computer (too big at this TL).

Low endurance but fairly cheap and quite nasty. The DEX8 arms will give most firing a penalty to hit though.

I knew someone would do this. Thanks for posting this design, Libris. Would something like this actually be possible with "real world" tech at TL-8? I'm doubtful. I don't know about the armor, but the power supply/endurance may be the most "unrealistic" feature. And I'm pretty sure that, in reality, we'd have a useful computer that would fit into 12vl (120 liters?) even at TL-7.

Does this mean the design sequence is flawed? Probably. Does it need to be "fixed" for better realism? Maybe not. The design above might not be possible in "reality", but if it makes for an interesting bit of hardware in a T20 campaign, why not use it?

As far as I can tell, the term "realism" has as much meaning in the context of RPG rules as does the term "common sense"--in other words, none at all.

DGv2.0

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by Lionel Deffries:
Hello.
Someone is going to have to make up there mind if Battle dress is armour or a vehicle.
If its armour then the engine supplies strength modifiers so you can carry the armour (the armour limit is your strength plus the suits mods).
If its a vehicle then you should need the DRIVE feat not armour feat, and if its a vehicle what does it matter if its as good as a tank (it is a tank) with short range weapons and sensors and endurance and slow speed.
If you want something that goes fast has a big gun and can see far build a tank, if not build battle dress.
Bye.

Clearly, in T20 it's designed as a vehicle (for whatever reason) so replacing the Armor Proficiency feat with a Vessel feat would make a lot of sense. And even so, the role of battle dress, as a miniature one-man tank, would still be very different from that of a main battle tank.

thanx heaps,

DGv2.0

 

[mike wightman]

Am I alone here thinking that T20 BattleDress would resemble the combat walkers from T2300? Those things are piloted/driven, not just worn.

the role of battle dress, as a miniature one-man tank

Like the TL14/15 BattlePod in T4 which replaces anthropomorphic BattleDress due to the armouring benefits?

 

[justacaveman]

All the same countermeasures available to tanks in T20 is available to Battle Dress because there is no difference between them with the standard design rules.

As for the powerful weapon at that small size. I repeat, an FGMP-15 will do 4d20 damage to a vehicle, weighs 3kg (total), and Crits on an 18+. A guy in Battle Dress could easily carry a weapon 10 times heavier, that would do 7d20 to a vehicle. This weapon need be nothing more than 10 FGMP-15 weapons clustered together and would get the +3 damage bonus for burst fire. Since the weapon part of the FGMP-15 only weighs 1kg, this weapon would only weigh 10kg before grav compensation, and the powerpack would only weigh 20kg. A single Critical Hit from this weapon will destroy any tank.

With chameleon armor, grav thrusters to match the Grav Tank's speed, and a little guile, the infantrymen outclass the Grav Tank in every conceivable way.

For an example of the tanks the infantry must go up against, see TA6: Against Gravity

None of the examples in the THB, or TA6 could stand up to TL15 Battle Dress equipped troops.

By real world examples, I mean that the TL8 vehicles in the THB and TA3 don't measure up to the real world stats of vehicles currently available on Earth. Not TL15 equipment which obviously isn't avaiable at this time. A real world M1A2 Abrams tank weighs over 60 metric tons. A TL15 Intrepid Heavy Grav Tank only weighs 29.25 metric tons (and is much larger). BTW Tech Level has no effect on the weight of vehicles, the only thing that affects weight is the volume of the vehicle (if you use the rules as written).

 

[Libris]

I think the main issue with Battledress is a volume to surface area thing. If you take a 250vl suit, compare it to a 31,250vl vehicle and give both 16% by volume of armour the armour on the 31,250 vl vehicle is five times thicker on the bigger vehicle. However, both get the same AR and the bigger vehicle will actually have a lower AC despite being substantially tougher!
A more diverse scaling rule other than the blanket +5/+10, -5/-10 rules is needed. Also as the rules stand it is much more sensible to design a small spacecraft than a grav tank; it's a spacecraft, it gets +5AR vs vehicles and its pulse laser will toast most vehicles.

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
All the same countermeasures available to tanks in T20 is available to Battle Dress because there is no difference between them with the standard design rules.

You mean, no difference other than the tank being at least ten times larger.

Originally posted by LordRhys:
As for the powerful weapon at that small size. I repeat, an FGMP-15 will do 4d20 damage to a vehicle, weighs 3kg (total), and Crits on an 18+. A guy in Battle Dress could easily carry a weapon 10 times heavier, that would do 7d20 to a vehicle. This weapon need be nothing more than 10 FGMP-15 weapons clustered together and would get the +3 damage bonus for burst fire. Since the weapon part of the FGMP-15 only weighs 1kg, this weapon would only weigh 10kg before grav compensation, and the powerpack would only weigh 20kg. A single Critical Hit from this weapon will destroy any tank.

Hey, nice toy! But it's still got a range problem vs. the tank: 45 meters vs 3 km. That's a serious disagvantage. Also, I've just noticed the vehicle weapons table doesn't have any info on critical threat ranges. (More errata!) The man-portable fusion gun crits on 18-20, and the starship version crits on 16-20. If I had to guess, I'd think the vehicular model 'splits the difference' and crits on a 17-20. Advantage would go to the tank there, too.

Originally posted by LordRhys:
With chameleon armor, grav thrusters to match the Grav Tank's speed, and a little guile, the infantrymen outclass the Grav Tank in every conceivable way.

Okay, prove it. Show me a battle dress design with better speed, armament, sensors, computers/software, range, endurance, agility, AC, SI, than a tank, superior in "every conceivable way." After that, please explain to me why infantry men have more guile than tank crews. (The tank crew are not amused! )

Originally posted by LordRhys:
For an example of the tanks the infantry must go up against, see TA6: Against Gravity

None of the examples in the THB, or TA6 could stand up to TL15 Battle Dress equipped troops.

I agree, the vehicles in THB aren't worthy of being considered combat vehicles. I haven't purchased TA6, so I'll take your word that it's more of the same. However, in the OTU, battle dress is a threat that tank designs must account for. Therefore, a properly designed TL-15 main battle tank should be able to deal with battle dress. And I'm willing to put that concept to the test; give me some specifications, and I'll design a worthy TL-15 grav tank.

Originally posted by LordRhys:
By real world examples, I mean that the TL8 vehicles in the THB and TA3 don't measure up to the real world stats of vehicles currently available on Earth. Not TL15 equipment which obviously isn't avaiable at this time. A real world M1A2 Abrams tank weighs over 60 metric tons. A TL15 Intrepid Heavy Grav Tank only weighs 29.25 metric tons (and is much larger). BTW Tech Level has no effect on the weight of vehicles, the only thing that affects weight is the volume of the vehicle (if you use the rules as written).

Point taken. I think the T20 authors made some compromises in the vehicle design sequences, favoring simplicity over realism. However, I haven't yet run across any insurmountable game balance problems with battle dress. Yes, it's extremely powerful at TL-15. (and lower) But hey, it's supposed to be.

thanx heaps,

DGv2.0

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by Libris:
I think the main issue with Battledress is a volume to surface area thing. If you take a 250vl suit, compare it to a 31,250vl vehicle and give both 16% by volume of armour the armour on the 31,250 vl vehicle is five times thicker on the bigger vehicle. However, both get the same AR and the bigger vehicle will actually have a lower AC despite being substantially tougher!

I think you just nailed it, Libris! Looking at some other RPG vehicle systems which track surface area, I can see the difference this makes. We're back at the "simplicity v. realism" problem again, I guess.

Originally posted by Libris:
A more diverse scaling rule other than the blanket +5/+10, -5/-10 rules is needed. Also as the rules stand it is much more sensible to design a small spacecraft than a grav tank; it's a spacecraft, it gets +5AR vs vehicles and its pulse laser will toast most vehicles.

I think it wouldn't be difficult to convert a ship-board laser (or other weapon) to a vehicular mount. The volume and cost are easy; what's the conversion factor for energy points?
Looking at the fusion plants, I get 450 vehicle EP's to 1 ship EP. Is that correct? If so, I'll have another option for that grav tank I'm designing....

thanks heaps,

DGv2.0

 

[justacaveman]

If the weapon doesn't list a critical hit value, then the value is automatically 20/x2.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough. I was continuing the example of an infantry squad (8 men) vs a tank platoon (4 tanks). This is a very reasonable TOE. A better example would be an infantry platoon (24+ men) vs a tank platoon (4 tanks). This is also a very reasonable TOE. Most wargames using point systems make the cost for Heavy Tanks 2-3 times that of infantry.

An Intrepid grav tank has a Fusion gun that does 9d20 vs vehicles if it hits a suit of Battle Dress with AR15, the fusion gun will do 1d20 - 7 damage (a maximum of 13 points of damage). This is not enough to disable the Battle Dress with a single hit. The FGMP-15 will do 1d20 - 12 with a hit (max 8 points). The AC of the Battle Dress is actully better than the tank AC. This is the equivalent of a TL8 infantryman withstanding a hit from an M1A2's 120mm cannon and firing back with his M16A2, and having a good chance of knocking out the tank.

Each individual suit is not quite as powerful as an Intrepid, but they are way too close.

Each fully equipped infantryman will cost less than Cr500,000. While each tank costs Mcr13.74. A fully equipped 8-man squad would only cost Mcr5 to equip. Give these guys a few fire-and-forget missles a bit of range on them (2 each?), and any infantry squad could toast a couple of grav tanks easy.

 

[Richard Saunders]

Hello.
I cant see were the discusion about Battle dress V Tanks is going.
Today infantry can kill tanks and they only have Mk1 skin, so if in the future they get powered battle dress it changes there servivability not there tank killing ability.
Yes if you bolt 10PGMP's together you can fire a very big gun and probably melt yourself and battle dress into the ground.
Apparently over the next 5000 years the imperium has forgotten that you dont send tanks anywhere without infantry support or they die (ask the Israelis, Americans, Russians, Germans).
Vehicle guns require massive energy and mounts to carry them (something your not likely to find on battle dress, this makes Battle dress troops very hard to kill but not that good at killing armoured vegicles.
In mtu i have taked the MRL med and with a single tube allowed it to be used like an anti tank missile (not a laws you would get burnt by the missile engine more like a sagger) seperate launch, laser designater.
Bye.

 

[mike wightman]

I think it wouldn't be difficult to convert a ship-board laser (or other weapon) to a vehicular mount. The volume and cost are easy; what's the conversion factor for energy points?

Cost, yes, it's listed, but what about volume?
The d-tonnage for a ship mounted laser is for fire control, that's why you can have one two or three of them in a "1 ton" turret.
It's a peculiarity of the system being based on High Guard/CT B2 design.

Looking at the fusion plants, I get 450 vehicle EP's to 1 ship EP. Is that correct?

I agree with your math, but the only book reference I can find is in the computer standard designs which imply 1 ship EP is worth 10 vehicle EP.

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by LordRhys:
If the weapon doesn't list a critical hit value, then the value is automatically 20/x2.

I'm aware of that. However, the weapons tables in T20 have a " (x2) " note after the damage stat for weapons with the 20/x2 default. But on the vehicle table, no defaults are shown, which leads me to believe there might be some missing info. I'll post a question on the errata board.

Originally posted by LordRhys:
I'm sorry I wasn't clear enough. I was continuing the example of an infantry squad (8 men) vs a tank platoon (4 tanks). This is a very reasonable TOE. A better example would be an infantry platoon (24+ men) vs a tank platoon (4 tanks). This is also a very reasonable TOE. Most wargames using point systems make the cost for Heavy Tanks 2-3 times that of infantry.

An Intrepid grav tank has a Fusion gun that does 9d20 vs vehicles if it hits a suit of Battle Dress with AR15, the fusion gun will do 1d20 - 7 damage (a maximum of 13 points of damage). This is not enough to disable the Battle Dress with a single hit. The FGMP-15 will do 1d20 - 12 with a hit (max 8 points). The AC of the Battle Dress is actully better than the tank AC. This is the equivalent of a TL8 infantryman withstanding a hit from an M1A2's 120mm cannon and firing back with his M16A2, and having a good chance of knocking out the tank.

I hardly think there's any comparision between a M16A2 and a FGMP-15! What's the point?

And as usual, the example above focuses only on the maximum damage dice, and ignores everything else. Range is a huge factor; energy weapons lose a die of damage with every range increment, so that FGMP only does full damage (4d20 to vehicles) within 45 meters, after which it drops to 3d20. At ranges over 225 meters, it's at 1d20-1, and so on. The tank, on the other hand, does full damage out to 3km, 8d20 up to 6km, and so on. Same rules apply to accuracy; the trooper takes a -2 attack mod every 45 meters; the tank gunner doesn't. The grav tank is likely to detect battle dress long before there's any danger. Granted, detection range depends on the situation, and there are many situations in which tanks are vulnerable, and we can't account for all of them just by looking at design stats. But I'd put my money on the tank's sensors in most cases.

Originally posted by LordRhys:
Each individual suit is not quite as powerful as an Intrepid, but they are way too close.

Each fully equipped infantryman will cost less than Cr500,000. While each tank costs Mcr13.74. A fully equipped 8-man squad would only cost Mcr5 to equip. Give these guys a few fire-and-forget missles a bit of range on them (2 each?), and any infantry squad could toast a couple of grav tanks easy.

We started out talking about fusion guns, and now you're talking about missiles. We already know missiles can kill tanks, but that has little to do with our discussion up to this point.

And I'm not sure about the costs you list; the battle dress in the THB costs around kcr95, and a fusion gun costs kcr400, plus kcr300 for the power pack. Total cost per soldier is kcr800. Still cheaper than a tank, but not as cheap as other anti-tank systems (such as those missiles you mentioned.) From a cost standpoint, battle dress and fusion guns aren't all that great a tank killer. The ten-pack FGMP you described earlier gets expensive real fast; Mcr7 per unit!

thanx heaps,

DGv2.0

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by Lionel Deffries:
Hello.

Apparently over the next 5000 years the imperium has forgotten that you dont send tanks anywhere without infantry support or they die (ask the Israelis, Americans, Russians, Germans).

I wondered about this myself, and did a little research. Striker II has an org. table for an Imperial cavalry regiment; it includes an entire battallion of battle-dress-equipped infantry, probably for exactly the support role you're talking about. The best counter-measure against a trooper in battle dress is another trooper in battle dress--almost a verbatim quote from Starship Troopers.

Originally posted by Lionel Deffries:


In mtu i have taked the MRL med and with a single tube allowed it to be used like an anti tank missile (not a laws you would get burnt by the missile engine more like a sagger) seperate launch, laser designater.
Bye.

I designed several systems like this with Fire, Fusion & Steel. Tac missiles were great tank killers in TNE.

 

[graden1]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr /> I think it wouldn't be difficult to convert a ship-board laser (or other weapon) to a vehicular mount. The volume and cost are easy; what's the conversion factor for energy points?

Cost, yes, it's listed, but what about volume?
The d-tonnage for a ship mounted laser is for fire control, that's why you can have one two or three of them in a "1 ton" turret.
It's a peculiarity of the system being based on High Guard/CT B2 design.

Looking at the fusion plants, I get 450 vehicle EP's to 1 ship EP. Is that correct?

I agree with your math, but the only book reference I can find is in the computer standard designs which imply 1 ship EP is worth 10 vehicle EP. </font>[/QUOTE]Yes, volume is a problem; I assumed two tons (2800vl) per fusion gun, but that may be wrong. This results in a much lighter, cheaper weapon compared to the vehicle version, and I thought "This can't be right." Then I remembered that space combat rounds are much longer (20min) so I'd guess that the starship mount would have a lower rate of fire, making it much less useful as a vehicle weapon.

The EP conversion for starship computers represents power requirements for additional hardware, not necessarily a vehicle/starship conversion factor.

thanx heaps,

DGv2.0

 

[justacaveman]

You're right about the cost, I was looking at the wrong line, the correct cost is about 800k.

There is no errata covering the vehicle weapons on page 247 of the THB as of version 6.

Energy weapons lose damage only at 5+ range bands (page 203-204).

This still does not address the fact that you have INFANTRY THAT CAN WITHSTAND A POINT BLANK HIT FROM THE MAIN GUN OF A HEAVY GRAV TANK, in order to to destroy the tank, all the infantry have to do is swarm the tank, plant demo charges on it's hull and blow it up. And, there is no weapon that the tank could possibly bring to bear that has much of a chance of stopping the infantry. And other Battle Dress equipped infantry can't stop them either, because their weapons have even less of a chance against Battle Dress than the tank's do.

Battle Dress is so heavily armored, that almost nothing can stop Battle Dress equipped infantry as long as the troops can keep moving.

You don't have to take my word for it, take some infantry and tanks, and playtest it. Try ambushes, attacks, and meeting engagements. Take 2 tanks and 8 Battle Dress equipped troops, vs 16 Battle Dress equipped troops. See if the tanks can survive the battles. Try variations of the above, and see what the actual results are.

I'm not trying to be contentious just for the heck of it, I'm trying correct some defects in the system.

With the rules as written, tanks are completely redundant. The only reason that tanks even exist, is because infantry has trouble surviving assault on heavily fortified positions. If the infantry are as hard to kill as tanks, then you don't need tanks (they're just big expensive targets). You don't need the range of their guns either. That's what artillery is for (meson or conventional). A few heavier/long-range man-portable weapons can make up whatever difference there is between tank's and Battle Dress).