Force Multipliers in Infantry Combat

[Renaissance Man]

To take a potentially incendiary example... Osama bin Laden to date still forswears nuclear weapons as against the rules of Islamic just war. Whether or not that means that individual "al-Qaeda" franchises actually follow that rule is a separate story.

The Sadrists have observed highly restrictive ROE while under attack by US-Iraqi aligned Sunni tribals... an amazing feat under the circumstances.

As for the 3I and ROE... they still have them, not necessarily to appease democratic constituencies, but rather to defeat an enemy while retaining a planet's population and industrial base. This obviously requires certain restrictions on the use of force tantamount to ROE.

 

[tbeard1999]

To take a potentially incendiary example... Osama bin Laden to date still forswears nuclear weapons as against the rules of Islamic just war. Whether or not that means that individual "al-Qaeda" franchises actually follow that rule is a separate story.

The problem though, is that there is absolutely no evidence that Osama *has* such weapons. So I'm not sure that the example is apt. Ditto individual examples of purported restraint by individual small groups of Islamist savages. Such anectdotes do not make the case that there are widespread "Rules of Engagement" among the savages.

And I would add that it is pointedly absurd to condemn nukes while explicitely targeting masses of civilians with other weapons.

As for the 3I and ROE... they still have them, not necessarily to appease democratic constituencies, but rather to defeat an enemy while retaining a planet's population and industrial base. This obviously requires certain restrictions on the use of force tantamount to ROE.

Agreed. But prohibitions on using WMDs and carpet bombing don't seem to be the kinds of ROEs that will likely benefit insurgents very much.

 

[Thunderbolt]

While my initial thoughts had been around the individual firefight, the geo-political discussion has been very interesting, and it seems very true that democracies always seem to fight with one arm tied behind their backs.

At the fire fight level though, I started the discussion because I saw some very intriguing technical developments taking place right now, such as 'situational awareness' through sophisticated communications and computers, drones, robots, smart ammunition and all kinds, and it made me wonder if Mercenary (CT and MGT) have simply extrapolated weapons and armour and not been bold enough to postulate fundamental shifts in capability and technology in the future.

For example, how cool would be to have those little spiders from "Minority Report" to scout out the insurgents, or the smart spheres that follow Charlize Theron around in Aeon Flux blowing out the doors for you.

 

[tbeard1999]

While my initial thoughts had been around the individual firefight, the geo-political discussion has been very interesting, and it seems very true that democracies always seem to fight with one arm tied behind their backs.

At the fire fight level though, I started the discussion because I saw some very intriguing technical developments taking place right now, such as 'situational awareness' through sophisticated communications and computers, drones, robots, smart ammunition and all kinds, and it made me wonder if Mercenary (CT and MGT) have simply extrapolated weapons and armour and not been bold enough to postulate fundamental shifts in capability and technology in the future.

While Mercenary was a tour de force (IMHO) in its projection of future combat trends, it did miss a few significant developments. Like most science fiction before the mid-late 1980s, it dramatically underestimated developments in electronics and their military uses. This was more of a timing issue--things that are now in the US arsenal were projected by Mercenary to appear at TL 10+.

It also failed to fully extrapolate the impact of brilliant munitions, satellite guided weapons, battlefield data nets, and of remotely piloted reconnaisance assets. And it underestimated the improved performance of KE antitank munitions, and, to a lesser extent, the improvement of tank armor protection and HEAP penetration. Nor did it project the development of top attack munitions.

That said, it's still a tour de force and stands up remarkably well after 29 years.

For example, how cool would be to have those little spiders from "Minority Report" to scout out the insurgents, or the smart spheres that follow Charlize Theron around in Aeon Flux blowing out the doors for you.

And given the developments in robotic miniaturization, similar systems may be deployed and within the next decade (probably within 5 years). However, since contragrav hasn't been developed, they won't fly as well.

But the bottom line is that most of the likely developments will benefit the regular troops far more than the insurgents. But at the end of the day, the infantry will be necessary.

In my own Commonwealth campaign, several active guerilla wars are going on. The reason that they are viable is that the Commonwealth military is seriously underfunded and a lot of the fighting is done by sepoys--native troops commanded by Commonwealth officers in units usually formed by "development companies", which are analogues to the British East India Company and its ilk. The planets are also very primitive and lack technological infrastructures. So a lack of money and certain political/economic conditions make insurgencies more viable than they otherwise might be.

 

[Renaissance Man]

The problem though, is that there is absolutely no evidence that Osama *has* such weapons. So I'm not sure that the example is apt. Ditto individual examples of purported restraint by individual small groups of Islamist savages. Such anectdotes do not make the case that there are widespread "Rules of Engagement" among the savages.

And I would add that it is pointedly absurd to condemn nukes while explicitely targeting masses of civilians with other weapons.

Let me be clear: although I'm using examples from RL, we are talking about hypothetical conflicts in the TU. I'm not attempting to suggest any particular equivalence between US and their enemies, but rather that the ROE (or lack thereof) assumed by either side affect the advantages derived from a superiority of arms. On this I don't think there's much disagreement.

I'm also trying to say that successful ROE are generally a product of a disciplined army with a strong command structure under ideal circumstances. Most irregular armies, regardless of whether they care to or not, have a limited ability to enact widespread ROE's. However, do not put ROE's past the various belligerents in Iraq. A successful ceasefire ultimately rests on the success of a single rule of engagement -- namely "fire only when fired upon." And the current positive trend in Iraq depends on just such a ceasefire.

Bringing us back to the 3I, they may find themselves constrained not just in WMD use and widespread orbital bombardment. Military occupations that don't have rules of engagement that prevent the arbitrary use of force on civilians typically fail. That was true in the time of Alexander the Great and that's true today. You want obedience from the occupied population. To do this they need to feel that they can live relatively unmolested as long as they follow the rules. If the 3I army just hangs around raping everybody and using them as target practice, it doesn't bode well for the Imperium's future on that planet.

 

[tbeard1999]

Let me be clear: although I'm using examples from RL, we are talking about hypothetical conflicts in the TU. I'm not attempting to suggest any particular equivalence between US and their enemies

Fair enough. I overreacted a bit; sorry.

but rather that the ROE (or lack thereof) assumed by either side affect the advantages derived from a superiority of arms. On this I don't think there's much disagreement.

Agreed. My contention is that ROE are unlikely to be significant factors in the defeat of a conventional force by insurgents. My own fairly extensive review of guerilla warfare has led me to value logistics and force committment decisions more.

That said, *policies* (or really operational decisions) can lose an insurgency or result in its defeat. The US decision in Iraq to focus on limiting casualties very nearly led to a US defeat, although this was only possible because of a bitterly partisan US political divide over the war. As General Patton was famously aware, reducing casualties is often the nonintuitive result of taking the most dangerous actions. Once the US decided to take the fight to the insurgents in Iraq (the "surge"), the insurgents were decisively defeated and US casualties dropped to record lows.

The Viet Cong decision to seek a Dien Bien Phu-type victory in the Tet Offensive was one of the worst military decisions of modern time IMHO. It should have resulted in a complete defeat of the Viet Cong. Unfortunately, the US media managed to convince the US people that the battle was a US defeat. The Viet Cong leaders have candidly admitted that they did not expect this outcome. However, for various reasons, I think that the media will rarely be in a position to pull this kind of stunt off. And in an autocracy like the Third Imperium, the media's ability to sway popular opinion will be far less important.

So, if your definition of ROE includes operational decisions like these, then we are somewhat in agreement.

I'm also trying to say that successful ROE are generally a product of a disciplined army with a strong command structure under ideal circumstances. Most irregular armies, regardless of whether they care to or not, have a limited ability to enact widespread ROE's.

Agreed.

However, do not put ROE's past the various belligerents in Iraq. A successful ceasefire ultimately rests on the success of a single rule of engagement -- namely "fire only when fired upon." And the current positive trend in Iraq depends on just such a ceasefire.

Sure. But I still contend it's quite a stretch to equate a willingness to observe ceasefires with having well developed ROEs.

Bringing us back to the 3I, they may find themselves constrained not just in WMD use and widespread orbital bombardment. Military occupations that don't have rules of engagement that prevent the arbitrary use of force on civilians typically fail.

Sorry, I don't agree. Certainly, the Nazis behaved barbarically to occupied populations and were ejected by the application of overwhelming conventional firepower. French delusions about Le Resistance notwithstanding, I am unaware of a single insurgency that ejected the Nazis. The same is true of Japanese occupations of China and the Phillippines.

In fact, I can't think of many insurgencies that by themselves ejected occupiers other than Vietnam and Afghanistan in the 1980s. And as noted, I believe that there were other factors that were far more important than ROEs in both of those wars.

 

[Eamon]

I believe that you need to separate the narrow definition of a military victory from the broader aspect of a true political victory. A true political victory would have the majority of the people still loving the Imperium. After all the United Kingdom, a democracy, murdered millions of innocent people winning their empire. Ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, destruction of native culture were all copied by the Nazis from the British.
As far as Game-play goes running a CI without overwhelming military power might be a very interesting campaign. Having to use a party's social skills and scientific knowledge to combat an Insurgency would really challenge the PCs.

 

[aramis]

Gentlesophonts: This thread is very close to a pit move.

Ty: 'nuff bout current geopolitics...

 

[tbeard1999]

As far as Game-play goes running a CI without overwhelming military power might be a very interesting campaign. Having to use a party's social skills and scientific knowledge to combat an Insurgency would really challenge the PCs.

Agreed. What I had to do to make insurgencies plausible in my campaign was to limit the technological edge of the Commonwealth forces. This was pretty easy, since the Commonwealth military and company forces are seriously underfunded. Using sepoys also made the regular forces less formidable. In addition, I took realistic notice of the troop densities involved. When a continent the size and complexity of Africa is garrisoned by only 8 battalions of airmobile troops, insurgencies become very plausible. And in my campaign, there are no grav vehicles. So airmobility is far more limited than in a typical Traveller campaign. In 20th century insurgencies like Vietnam and Afghanistan, helicopters were extremely effective against insurgents (particularly when the insurgents lacked effective AA missiles). Grav vehicles would be several orders of magnitude more effective--they carry far heavier armor, are much less vulnerable and (most important) can remain on station for far longer than helicopters. They can also fly much faster than helicopters and have effectively unlimited range.

In a Traveller campaign, grav vehicles and sophisticated reconnaissance assets will allow relatively small (by 21st century standards) forces to effectively patrol very large areas.

 

[epicenter00]

Just two side-wards interjections here, one more on-topic than the other:

1) Guerilla warfare and terrorism (really, they're the same thing for the most part - it just depends on who you're talking to) is a kind of fighting adopted under specific circumstances. That is, it is one possible answer to the question: "Okay, we don't have a chance of defeating them fighting in the open field conventionally, so how can we fight them -- how can we hurt them?"

If the results of fighting in this way no longer fulfills any kind of cost-benefit ratio due to advancing technology, there's a good chance that it will be abandoned by the "insurgents" in favor of some tactic that will produce better results. Unfortunately, a hacker war over datanets generally isn't that fascinating to players who want to be in the dirt and grime fighting against guerillas, which brings me to my second point...

2) I've seen a lot of posters on here going into conjecture that the 3I would be more successful in combat against insurgents than a modern democracy because the 3I doesn't have voters or a media that might disagree with the unpleasant things the troops (and those who sent in troops) and that because it's the 3I ordering such things, the insurgents wouldn't have a chance because there's no massive external power supporting them.

I don't entirely agree with these conclusions.

The 3I is not a monolithic entity, nor is it a totalitarian regime with total "Big Brother" like control. Seen in abstract (that is, on the level of players and GMs and other readers of the source material), it seems that the Emperor's will is inviolate. It's important to remember it's not inviolate. The 3I is not the modern United States (or wherever you might live) except that the President is now a total monarch who coincidentally only does things that lean to your RL political biases.

The 3I is run by the Emperor, yes ... but really by local nobles and megacorporations. Both of them seek profit, one of the groups is just more open about it than the other. In particular, these nobles really only have their own sense of responsibility keeping them following orders. That these orders are going to be outdated by the time they show up due to communication lags means that orders are often deliberately vague or there is a tacit understanding that the "spirit" of the order is to be held over the "letter" of the order. In addition, wars may be organized and persecuted on the sector or subsector level, which again might not involve top-line TL14 units, but assuming they are...

What if these local nobles are corrupt? Or, much more interestingly, what if they're well intentioned men and women of honor except that their idea of "right" disagrees with that of the local Duke, or Archduke, or even the Emperor?* Even more horribly, what if the Archduke or Emperor is aware of such conflicts and lets a garrison of troops languish in a known conflict zone against well-supplied insurgents because wiping out the insurgency would in some strange way show some other power group that the Emperor "acknowledges" the existence of the problem (and therefore the grievance)? What if the Emperor just wants his Salusa Secundus to blood his troops? Empires, especially ancient ones can do things that often seem like a case of the "right hand working at cross purposes to the left hand." In addition, historically, aggressive Empires (of which the 3I definitely is) traditionally treat a people who fought well with more respect and honor than people who just roll over, even if those people are defeated, so paradoxically, fighting the Imperium might be a way for a people to hope for a better place in the 3I once they're conquered.

Right there you have the makings of long-running insurgencies that don't have to be TL0 vs. TL14. Insurgent troops can be supported surreptitiously by megacorps or nobles. They might even be supported by branches of the Imperial governmental apparatus. I mean, we're often told that the Imperial Scouts and Imperial Navy come to odds about travel restrictions. What happens if they conflict? Exactly how far would Imperial Scouts who go "partially native" go to fight the IN's institutional arrogance? In such ways, ostensibly low-tech insurgents could be more easily armed with weapons that could hurt battle dress and perhaps methods to baffle the high-tech surveillance** to somewhat offset the 3I's tech advantage to a more interesting (and playable) level.


* "The Emperor has sent fourteen battalions of his Imperial Cavalry here to stamp out the insurgency of these people. Yet, it was 300 years ago that Zhunastu Corporation evacuated them off of their homeworld to turn their planet into a giant algae farm their ranching operations one jump away to provide gourmet beef for Capital. Now the Imperial Navy, spurred on by some Vilani megacorps wants to seize the marginal planet they were exiled to because they found Lanthinum there? These are my people, part of my district. The honor of the Imperium has failed them. The Moot is in the pocket of the megacorps and my petitions are ignored. I can help these people no further, except by funding their resistance to this gross miscarriage of Imperial justice. Perhaps if enough Imperial Marines die, the Emperor will take note..."

** "You now will be rubbed with the thermal scattering paste. Know that to rub this substance directly onto your body will cause illnesses and cancer that will take your life within five years. Do all of you submit, knowing this? Leave now, and we will think nothing less of you. Very well, then. Know that you are all Death Commandos, consecrated martyrs to the cause..."

 

[jappel]

One thing that conceivably helps the guerrillas, at least a little, is an idea we kicked around a few years ago, prompted by a posting Tod Glenn made about the LOSAT - a hypervelocity AT missile using KE to kill the target instead of a HEAT warhead. This lead to me playing around with Striker's tac missile design tables, and I discovered that it was really, really easy to build a man-portable HVKE missile that took out battledress with ease.

I've linked the original thread below. Tod came up with a pretty nifty weapon based on the RW stats and some SWAGs, while I came up with a Striker design (didn't post the actual design, unfortunately) that had a Striker penetration of 39. This was enough to take out any Battle Dress, and had the potential to take out TL-13 APCs.

We were thinking of manned weapons, but remote-fired variants would be easy to come up with. Since it's an aimed munition, your main problem becomes targeting, but in some situations this won't be as hard to deal with as others.

http://www.travellerrpg.com/CotI/Discuss/showthread.php?t=5446&highlight=LOSAT

 

[Thunderbolt]

Manga fans may be familiar with the works of Shirow Masamune, and an armoured suit concept known as a "Land Mate". Somewhat bigger than a person, but not the kind of giant robot that is often associated with manga and anime.

Big calibre rifles also feature in "Appleseed" and "Stand Alone Complex" and it would seem to be likely counter measure against Battle Dress too. Probably not a weapon to be used in close quarters though.

 

[epicenter00]

A manpack anti-satellite missile would be very interesting - especially if they were relatively cheap to manufacture. Hobby telescopes available to amateur astronomers in the 3I would be very important to insurgents to locate satellites and orbiting starships.

Inspired by the "Crunch Gun" in TNE, it's entirely possible the 3I itself might produce plans for a relatively low-tech weapon that could hole battledress. For instance, some sort of 20mm "sniper rifle" with a length of 1.5m or something that could be deployed by a single man, but would more commonly be deployed in a two-man team. It would be manufactured at TL8+ (or something) where locally produced ammunition would give decent performance, but not enough to defeat Imperial Marine issue battledress (it was originally developed on the Marches to help insurgents fighting against the Sword Worlds or Solomani, but since then the technology and tooling have been copied by the Solomani, Zhodani, and megacorps for their own purposes).

However, TL12+ factories could produce special ammunition that could give decent performance against battledress (say, being able to get killshots at ranges of 3km and a decent chance of a wound out to 5km). Precision tripod technology and local optics tech could make it so that the "gunner" would actually be controlling the guns via a 2km long fiber-optic cable at a remote location. Several guns could be arrayed and fire be fired remotely. The Imperial Marines would of course pulverize the location, perhaps before the shots hit. But of course, as they react to that threat, another set of remote snipers might open up...

 

[Icosahedron]

I suspect you'd need more than a hobby telescope to get a co-ordinate lock on a satellite from the ground...

 

[mike wightman]

You can take out battledress with a RAM grenade.

 

[tbeard1999]

You can take out battledress with a RAM grenade.

It should be noted that the most common source of battlefield casualties are artillery fragments, not bullets. Stopping fragments is the primary purpose of military body armor. I suspect that this will be true in the future as well. This would imply that battledress is designed primarily to stop the far more lethal artillery of the future.

This is supported by the weapon statistics:

1. Combat Armor is first available at TL12 in CT. At that time, the Gauss Rifle replaces the TL10 ACR.

2. Here are the chances of scoring at least one hit at medium range (assuming +1 for weapon skill and taking into account the multiple hits rules in CT and Striker):

ACR DS Single Shot - 3%
ACR DS Burst - 66%
Gauss Rifle Single Shot - 28%
Gauss Rifle Burst - 97%

Unarmored troops would be hit 100% of the time.

In AHL/Striker, the numbers are more complex. The percentages are for Light Wound (3d6 CT damage) and Serious Wound (6d6 CT damage). Note that the burst percentages take into account the autofire multiple hits rule from Striker. Percentages in brackets do not account for multiple hits, which would be consistent with AHL.

Single Shot - 34% 5%
ACR Burst - 63% 15% [72% 7%]
Gauss Single Shot - 42% 10%
Gauss Burst - 49% 36% [51% 15%]

Unarmored Troops will be hit and suffer at least a serious wound 58% of the time with single shots; 83% of the time with an ACR burst; and 92% of the time with a gauss rifle burst.

Although the two systems have significant differences, they both portray battledress as being very vulnerable to the standard small arms of TL10-12, especially if autofired.

In CT, targets in battledress will be hit by HE grenade fragments 17% of the time. Unarmored figures will be hit 92% of the time.

In Striker, targets in battledress are basically immune from fragmentation. Unarmored targets will get hit 42% of the time. If hit, they will suffer a light wound 28% of the time, and a serious wound 72% of the time.

So battledress is useful, but standard infantry weapons of TL10+ can hit it. I'd expect that insurgencies would place a premium on acquiring TL10+ weaponry.

Single RAM HE and HEAP grenades are also effective -- in CT, they will hit (and almost certainly kill, wth 8d damage) targets in battledress 73% and 82% of the time, respectively. Plus, the aforementioned fragmentation. In Striker, they'll hit (and kill) a target 58% of the time.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

A quick point...

Well, all this is rather entertaining. The S/LOSAT is a neato idea...till you find out about the counter-sniper systems being developed right here on good old Terra in the late 20/early 21st Century.

See in the old Irish Republic the British Military was having a problem with getting sniped, so in the spirit of can-do they with IIRC US help have developed a computer tracking system that can detect and trace back to point of origin sniper rounds, in flight. That's right the computer system can find the sniper before the rounds even land.

I think that might put a bit of a damper on the S/LOSAT. Sorry I don't have my sources at the moment, but I suppose that you can google it.

Now put the system in charge of the Auto-sniper system, and now you can pound the sniper with effective counter sniper rounds before the badguys have a chance to change position, and the Imperial Marines don't even have to lift a finger.

How's that for force multiplication?

 

[pendragonman]

If that system works so well, why hasn't it been modified to deal with the rocket problems in Israel and Gaza? There must be a major flaw somewhere.

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

I have some ideas...

For one reason, scale. By which I mean it's one thing to kill one human than it is to shoot down a several hundred to thousand kilo object.

Oh and the tech is new. Or it was about a half a decade ago.

And maybe a possible, and possibly intelligent fear of automated killing machines. Why, Why Oh Lord, Did They Build It and Name "Skynet"? Do They Not Listen? :nonono: Really folks they do malfunction and point the weapons at the wrong people...or do they? o:

 

[Magnus von Thornwood]

I have some ideas...

For one reason, scale. By which I mean it's one thing to kill one human than it is to shoot down a several hundred to thousand kilo object.

Oh and the tech is new. Or it was about a half a decade ago.

And maybe a possible, and possibly intelligent fear of automated killing machines. Why, Why Oh Lord, Did They Build It and Name "Skynet"? Do They Not Listen? :nonono: Really folks they do malfunction and point the weapons at the wrong people...or do they? o:

Could be real nasty reasons like the Secret Masters like it the way it is. *shrugs* Pick one, pick 'em all. Got me.