Composition of armed forces in pocket empires

[LiNeNoiSe]

Are there figures for fuel, ammunition, and spare parts? Might be something in Striker.

From Striker, Book 2, Page 37, Rule 68d Supply Troops:

The unit's basic load of food is equal to 14 kilograms per man (two weeks rations). The unit's basic load of ammunition is enough ammunition to supply each weapon in the unit with 80 fire phases. The unit's basic load of fuel is enough fuel to supply the power plants of every vehicle in the unit at full output for 24 hours. After determining the weight of the unit's basic supply load, add 10% to the required vehicle tonnage for ferrying supplies and restocking supply points.

More on topic are Rules 72 & 73c:

Personnel cost Cr10,000 per year for militia, Cr20.000 per year for conscripts, Cr30,000 per year for long service professionals, and Cr50,000 per year for picked troops. This cost includes upkeep on all supporting facilities, salaries, civilian support personnel, pensions, training costs, etc.

Somebody in the GNP thread said that the Striker rules were invalidated. I find that hard to believe. There were similar rules in a couple of TNE books and one or two of the GT books. They also included similar tables to the one Aramis posted.

I'm gonna have to go dig through them now.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

TNE Path of Tears, pp. 95-97 has force composition rules similar to Striker, Book 2 and Trillion Credit Squadron.

World Tamer's Handbook, pp. 33-35 has rules somewhat similar to Striker and Pocket Empires.

More force composition rules in Striker II on pp. 50-53. More support rules on pp. 54 & 55.

GT Ground Forces, pp. 68-70 discusses supply of fuel, water, ammunition, spares, sundries, life support, and shipping.

Pages 77-82 discuss "How to Build an Army." Aramis's table, modified for GURPS, is on page 77.

I'd forgotten how much stuff is in WTHB. The Colonial Economic Model is reminiscent of both PE and The Great Game.

 

[kilemall]

From Striker, Book 2, Page 37, Rule 68d Supply Troops:

The unit's basic load of food is equal to 14 kilograms per man (two weeks rations). The unit's basic load of ammunition is enough ammunition to supply each weapon in the unit with 80 fire phases. The unit's basic load of fuel is enough fuel to supply the power plants of every vehicle in the unit at full output for 24 hours. After determining the weight of the unit's basic supply load, add 10% to the required vehicle tonnage for ferrying supplies and restocking supply points.

More on topic are Rules 72 & 73c:

Personnel cost Cr10,000 per year for militia, Cr20.000 per year for conscripts, Cr30,000 per year for long service professionals, and Cr50,000 per year for picked troops. This cost includes upkeep on all supporting facilities, salaries, civilian support personnel, pensions, training costs, etc.

Somebody in the GNP thread said that the Striker rules were invalidated. I find that hard to believe. There were similar rules in a couple of TNE books and one or two of the GT books. They also included similar tables to the one Aramis posted.

I'm gonna have to go dig through them now.

I believe the discredit has to do with applying the tables to the OTU, not for the purposes originally envisioned within the game, to run a cost-effective profitable merc operation.

It's the ground pounder equivalent of building ships and fleets and seeing if you know what you re doing by the trial of combat.

 

[Tamuz]

Now that is inbreeding statistics on the supply side of things. Presumably the unit would need resupply with that load every two weeks

I don't have striker. Does it contain much useful material?

 

[McPerth]

Are there figures for fuel, ammunition, and spare parts? Might be something in Striker.

See that ammunition may be taken out of equation if you use energy weapons (e.g. lasers) and you have power sources...

Of course, lasers have other problems...

 

[kilemall]

Now that is inbreeding statistics on the supply side of things. Presumably the unit would need resupply with that load every two weeks

I don't have striker. Does it contain much useful material?

The load I mentioned is per week.

Striker is basically a heavy equipment arty/gun/tank plane design system and a campaign system for building player sized merc units and putting them into mercenary ticket/adventures, geared towards tabletop miniatures warfare.

So for that, yes. For a 50,000 man force, it certainly will let you build your TO&E in detail and financing of same, but it's not abstracted units at all for combat.

I should mention I am talking about CT Striker, not Striker II. I've glanced through the latter but I am not sure how compatible they are. I do have the T4 CSC which has a full set of vehicle power and sensor design, and they are spiritually the same but the numbers don't match, judging from the armor values alone if nothing else.

 

[aramis]

I should mention I am talking about CT Striker, not Striker II. I've glanced through the latter but I am not sure how compatible they are. I do have the T4 CSC which has a full set of vehicle power and sensor design, and they are spiritually the same but the numbers don't match, judging from the armor values alone if nothing else.

They aren't. Striker II is the Traveller edition of Frank/GDW's Command Decision.

 

[Timerover51]

Are there figures for fuel, ammunition, and spare parts? Might be something in Striker.

I have a fair amount of that sort of data in my various supply manuals if you are interested. Currently, an armored division of the US requires 1000 tons of supplies per day, most of which is fuel. A back up rule of thumb is about 65 pounds of supplies of all sorts per man per day. That includes fuel, ammunition, food, spare parts, construction materials, PX supplies, and medical supplies. That is WW2 and Korean War data, it is a might worse now when it comes to fuel and ammunition. I would put it at about 100 pounds per man per day.

 

[Timerover51]

The following data comes from FM 101-10, Staff Officers' Field Manua-Organization, Technical,and Logistical Data, the February 1959 edition. It is the unclassified data, and is based on WW2 and Korean War experience.

For every man shipped overseas, the initial equipment tonnage per man was 1.33 Long Tons of 2240 pounds per ton, slightly more than a metric ton. The volume occupied by this averaged 160 cubic feet, or about one-third of a Traveller Displacement ton. Thirty days maintenance was broken down between dry cargo and bulk POL, with 0.60 Long tons of dry cargo per man, and 0.26 long tons of bulk POL. The dry cargo is about the same today, but the Bulk POL would run about 1 long ton per man per month, as a minimum. This is based on the assumption of a divisional slice of 40,000 men, with 15,000 in the division and 25,000 overseas support troops, and 2 air force wing slices of 5,000 men overseas or 10,000 additional troops. Those wings would be comprised of 75 fighter-bombers each. Remember, this is just the supporting cargo, this does not include the tonnage and space requirements for the men going overseas.

This does assume that the troops are going to a European type of theater, without extremes of climate. Supply needs for troops going into a hot, tropical environment increase some, while supply needs for troops going into an Arctic or cold-weather environment increase by about a third.

As you are looking at Pocket Empires at Year Zero, you are not looking at very high Tech Levels, while the above breakdown would work for Tech Levels up to 9 or so. I have not seen anyone design troop transports for Traveller beyond the 800-ton Broadsword-class of Mercenary Cruiser. Looking at the specs in The Traveller Book, it probably could, in theory, manage about 60 men, their initial equipment and 30 days of maintenance. I say in theory because a lot of the equipment would require much larger amounts of space than the 4 measurement tons or 160 feet per man. One M-48 tank would require 68.4 measurement tons of volume, as an absolute minimum, for shipment, which at roughly 12 measurement tons per Traveller Displacement Ton, would be 5.67 Traveller tons of volume for shipment. There were 54 Tanks in a Battalion, with 17 per company, and 3 battalion HQ tanks. The crew was 4 men.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

I have a fair amount of that sort of data in my various supply manuals if you are interested.

Thanks. I've got a bunch of them I could dig through. I used to collect FM's. The MAGTF Staff Training Program used to provide a little more modern data for MEB's. Dunnigan's "How to Make War" is a little less boring.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

I don't have striker. Does it contain much useful material?

It's mostly miniatures rules for company-level and below.

 

[kilemall]

Ok reviewed the Striker campaign rules, and boy its detailed.

You gotta have medics and cooks, and equipment/space for each, else your unit takes morale hits before combat.

You have to have mechanics with tools and workshops and x amount of maintenance per vehicle type, electronics, etc. that effectively tracks on man-hour costs.

Damaged vehicles lose weapons and parts, and since they all have a literal cost, that subsystem's replacement price is known.

They also list veterinarians if you are using ponis or the equivalent.

The supply troop section is about of course delivering supply. It's listed as 1kg of food per person-day, fuel for 24 hours of continuous use (so could stretch for days depending on movement), and ammo for 80 fire phases for each weapon.

So what that works out to will depend on your force mix. Energy weapons will reduce ammo needs but be offset by more fuel for more power plant.

For assault ship design, the jump capsules can be a good starship troopers option.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

The following data comes from FM 101-10, Staff Officers' Field Manua-Organization, Technical,and Logistical Data, the February 1959 edition. It is the unclassified data, and is based on WW2 and Korean War experience.

Archive.org has both volumes of the '87 edition. The C&GSC used to have Vol I, but only an abstract of Vol II.

https://archive.org/download/FM101-10-11

https://archive.org/download/FM101-10-12

Volume II is the good stuff

I believe some of the old 55-series Transportation manuals contained shipping data.

 

[McPerth]

The following data comes from FM 101-10, Staff Officers' Field Manua-Organization, Technical,and Logistical Data, the February 1959 edition. It is the unclassified data, and is based on WW2 and Korean War experience.

For every man shipped overseas, the initial equipment tonnage per man was 1.33 Long Tons of 2240 pounds per ton, slightly more than a metric ton. The volume occupied by this averaged 160 cubic feet, or about one-third of a Traveller Displacement ton. Thirty days maintenance was broken down between dry cargo and bulk POL, with 0.60 Long tons of dry cargo per man, and 0.26 long tons of bulk POL. The dry cargo is about the same today, but the Bulk POL would run about 1 long ton per man per month, as a minimum. This is based on the assumption of a divisional slice of 40,000 men, with 15,000 in the division and 25,000 overseas support troops, and 2 air force wing slices of 5,000 men overseas or 10,000 additional troops. Those wings would be comprised of 75 fighter-bombers each. Remember, this is just the supporting cargo, this does not include the tonnage and space requirements for the men going overseas.

This does assume that the troops are going to a European type of theater, without extremes of climate. Supply needs for troops going into a hot, tropical environment increase some, while supply needs for troops going into an Arctic or cold-weather environment increase by about a third.

See that POL needs would be greatly reduced with most Traveller vehicles at higher TLs, as most of them can function in Hydrogen, and they use to have several weeks supply of it.

As said above, ammunition may be in a similar situation if you base your firepower in energy weapons (lasers, etc), as they mostly need power.

Other needs will mostly depend on the kind of environment they must fight in. If they fight in a hospitable planet, they will probably be able to obtain food, and they will not need oxygen supply. OTOH, if they must fight in a vacuum (or hostile atmosphere), they will have increased barracks needs, as they must be presurized (or at least with air filters), and they will probably need watr purification systems at least...

One of the problems any such tropos will find is that, unlike any current or past Terran military manual, that is fully applicable on Earth, they must be ready to work in many different enfironments, with gravity, atmosphere, water and food supplies, temperature and many more things variable.

And if the forces may include more than one race, things only go worse for the por Quartermasters...

I have not seen anyone design troop transports for Traveller beyond the 800-ton Broadsword-class of Mercenary Cruiser.

Well, I designed one for planetary invasions (MgT rules). You can find the link in my blog.

 

[Timerover51]

Archive.org has both volumes of the '87 edition. The C&GSC used to have Vol I, but only an abstract of Vol II.

https://archive.org/download/FM101-10-11

https://archive.org/download/FM101-10-12

Volume II is the good stuff

I believe some of the old 55-series Transportation manuals contained shipping data.

I have some of the Transportation Reference data manuals as well. There is a lot of shipping data in there.

I have the 1987 Edition as a download from the Combined Arms Research Library. The earlier versions have better format for first-order estimates of what might be required. They also are easier to find the data in. I am not a fan of the new format with pages by chapter when in comes to finding things.

 

[Timerover51]

See that POL needs would be greatly reduced with most Traveller vehicles at higher TLs, as most of them can function in Hydrogen, and they use to have several weeks supply of it.

As said above, ammunition may be in a similar situation if you base your firepower in energy weapons (lasers, etc), as they mostly need power..

As this takes place in Milieu Zero, I looked up the following in the book.

Cleon had an idea that he hoped would change that. Professor Aldin Zhunastu (who headed the advanced technology research facility at the Cleon-owned Zhunastu Labs) had invented a new technology: cold fusion. This advancement allowed for the creation of very small fusion
plants, useful for a wide variety of purposes: from civilian transport to small, fast, and deadly fighting ships. Cleon planned to use this new technology to solve the problem of piracy. He also saw it as a way to make decentralized government more effective

Based on this, the Imperium has the very small fusion plants, while no one else does. If you are using Hydrogen for fuel in internal combustion engines, that complicates the fuel supply situation considerably. You are either storing it in very large high-pressure containers as a gas, or in cryogenic containers as a liquid.

Other needs will mostly depend on the kind of environment they must fight in. If they fight in a hospitable planet, they will probably be able to obtain food, and they will not need oxygen supply. OTOH, if they must fight in a vacuum (or hostile atmosphere), they will have increased barracks needs, as they must be presurized (or at least with air filters), and they will probably need watr purification systems at least...

Getting food supplies from a war zone has historically been pretty near impossible. You are putting very large numbers of men in a limited area, which is experiencing major disruption from the war. The food comes with the troops, along with everything else. You also have the problem of the availability of the correct food and food preferences. The US Army in Europe towards the end of the war had 11 different food supply lists for different groups of troops, including French Muslim troops from North Africa.

One of the problems any such tropos will find is that, unlike any current or past Terran military manual, that is fully applicable on Earth, they must be ready to work in many different enfironments, with gravity, atmosphere, water and food supplies, temperature and many more things variable.

And if the forces may include more than one race, things only go worse for the por Quartermasters..

.
As a former supply officer, I would rather not give myself nightmares considering such things.

Well, I designed one for planetary invasions (MgT rules). You can find the link in my blog

I will have to take a look at that. Thank you for the information, McPerth.

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

See that ammunition may be taken out of equation if you use energy weapons (e.g. lasers) and you have power sources...

Of course, lasers have other problems...

Energy weapons still have to be recharged. I guess portable fusion generators wouldn't need much fuel.

You'll still need artillery. Energy weapons can't do indirect fire.

 

[Condottiere]

Ortillery, manned close air support, and/or drones.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

You'll still need artillery. Energy weapons can't do indirect fire.

Meson Accelerators at TL15...

 

[LiNeNoiSe]

Well, I designed one for planetary invasions (MgT rules). You can find the link in my blog.

I'm thinking your transport would hold closer to one of today's Battalion Landing Teams. The Marines aren't going to land just a rifle battalion. They'd have an attached artillery battery, tank, LAV, AAV, and engineer platoons, air defense and electronic warfare sections, and an MP squad. Plus whatever logistics units are attached.

If it's just a troop transport for follow-on troops, they could fit two TL 15 battalions with room to spare. But, if it's an actual assault ship, the battalions would be task-organized.