Force Multipliers in Infantry Combat

[Renaissance Man]

Why not use that extra strength to carry more armor?

CT battledress is more like a medieval knight's suit of plate, with this teensy little extra. Maybe it should be more like the battlesuits of various anime features, or the battle armor of the Honor Harrington universe; something you climb into, not something you put on.

IMTU the Imperial Marines wear a powerarmor suit I built using FFS, and it gives twice the protection of Striker battledress, has a complete suite of electronics and sensors, a grav module, and other built-in bells and whistles. it also costs about MCr 1.2 per suit, for the cheap version. Officer and special weapons types cost a lot more.

Let's not forget a very nice that comes with BD from T4... point defence. RAM grenades, rockets and other large, relatively slow, high-payload ballistic weapons will find it difficult to penetrate into "direct hit" range.

I think of BD as a man-sized grav tank. An advanced armoured weapons platform that sacrifices sheer size and bulk for mobility, unity of motion and responsiveness.

As for the armour value - weight issue, we can assume that some form of handwaved materials science has built the better mousetrap. Say for instance a graphene-superdense composite?

 

[aramis]

Good point, Ty.

Which brings up the other issue: when a world has demonstrated it is too expensive to keep in the imperium, and too dangerous to simpy red-zone, it will only take the navy a few months to get enough rocks falling from the sky that the world is an ember. They don't even need to be fast... just big enough to make a big crater. (Estimate diameters of 100-200 m, and just a few dozen of them. Staged a week apart.

The 3I, because of the ability to restrict communications, can work genocides with only minimal uproar. Especially if they are "casualty-free" on the delivery side.

 

[Thunderbolt]

Good point, Ty.

Which brings up the other issue: when a world has demonstrated it is too expensive to keep in the imperium, and too dangerous to simpy red-zone, it will only take the navy a few months to get enough rocks falling from the sky that the world is an ember. They don't even need to be fast... just big enough to make a big crater. (Estimate diameters of 100-200 m, and just a few dozen of them. Staged a week apart.

The 3I, because of the ability to restrict communications, can work genocides with only minimal uproar. Especially if they are "casualty-free" on the delivery side.

Some how it would get out, and you'd have a whole bunch of expatriates unified with "remember Omicron Persei Seven!" as their rallying cry, ready to start a guerrilla campaign against you on other worlds.

And would you really reduce a habitable planet and its resources to rubble?

 

[aramis]

It only takes hitting a couple major cities to silence a world. Ask Japan...

The threat is no good if NEVER done, and no good if often done, but an occasional "blow them back to the stone age" is enough to keep fear present but not driving rebelion. Especially if a red zone is declared first, and a proper propaganda campaign about the blockade is put forth. By the time the truth is found, the fires are out, the dust is mostly settled, and the expats are caught by the navy.

Truth is, a little fear is a good thing. It means only the truly desperate will try anything stupid.

And a couple 10m bore Meson Guns can produce very silent intruders.

It will leak, and that's a GOOD thing, especially since you simply force-reenlist the squadron invoved, giving you at least 4 years to preach about their horrid psionophilic government.

I mean, after all, most people now believe that the Emperor of Japan was mostly a puppet of the Shogunate... even during WWII... rather than being powerful figure and the core of government since the 1880's and until 1945...

 

[epicenter00]

Good point, Ty.

Which brings up the other issue: when a world has demonstrated it is too expensive to keep in the imperium, and too dangerous to simpy red-zone, it will only take the navy a few months to get enough rocks falling from the sky that the world is an ember. They don't even need to be fast... just big enough to make a big crater. (Estimate diameters of 100-200 m, and just a few dozen of them. Staged a week apart.

The 3I, because of the ability to restrict communications, can work genocides with only minimal uproar. Especially if they are "casualty-free" on the delivery side.

I respectfully have to disagree with you aramis. I'm always a little leery of megaforce solutions, especially when the topic of insurgency is involved.

I'd have to say that even though the 3I isn't a democracy, the tone of the 3I in OTU materials has always had the tone that the 3I does care about what its people think and the truth does have a habit of getting out there no matter how much organizations might try to suppress it. There are references to "Freedom of Information" laws in the 3I (see the posts in the Traveller News Agency posts in the last days of MT-->TNE). The kind of megaforce solutions and the cover-up "because this ain't a democracy" are the kind of things that made Lucan vilified, which strongly suggests to me that the Imperium bombarding planets and killing millions is not something that the 3I does on even a semi-regular basis.

There's also the matter of honor in the 3I, especially amongst nobles. While it's never expressly explained, I've always sensed that the honor of the 3I I sense would be outraged at callously scrubbing people off of worlds because it's handy and safe. Once someone starts with brutality like that, it's almost addicting and it would leak into other kinds of relationships. Worlds that are untenable the Frontier Wars would have been scrubbed clean in a "scorched Earth" tactics rather than give them to those "filthy Zhos", Norris would have had little problem nuking worlds that the Aslan Ihatei had overrun in the MT era and so on. That such tactics were referred to in MT as the "Black War" and seen with disgust and as a "new low" (before everyone started doing it) shows that there was a point where the Imperium felt itself above such methods, however effective they might be.

 

[castiglione]

It only takes hitting a couple major cities to silence a world. Ask Japan...

I think this applies when the technology used to hit those cities is either new or hasn't really been "felt" before.

The atomic bomb as applied to Nagasaki and Hiroshima certainly apply. However, early in WWII, conventional bombings which were relatively light compared to what European cities later endured during the war were enough to cause countries to surrender since this was a new experience for them.

However, if a country gets over the first major "hump", then resolve sort of sets in.

 

[tbeard1999]

I respectfully have to disagree with you aramis. I'm always a little leery of megaforce solutions, especially when the topic of insurgency is involved.

I'd have to say that even though the 3I isn't a democracy, the tone of the 3I in OTU materials has always had the tone that the 3I does care about what its people think and the truth does have a habit of getting out there no matter how much organizations might try to suppress it. There are references to "Freedom of Information" laws in the 3I (see the posts in the Traveller News Agency posts in the last days of MT-->TNE).

The argument that the media will be relatively ineffective rests on far more than an ability to suppress the media. The absence of immediate media communications, rather than any government suppressive ability, is the main reason I think that the 3I media will be unable to be used by insurgents they way they are in the 20th and 21st centuries. In addition, there's the basic fact that the 3I, however well intentioned, is an autocratic state. Popular opinion *must* be far less important in such states than in Western liberal democracies.

Consider the greatest insurgent media victory of the last 100 years -- the Tet Offensive. This operation was a military disaster that essentially destroyed the Viet Cong. Yet, US news media reports transmitted during the offensive successfully portrayed the battle to the US people as a US defeat (much to the amazement of the North Vietnamese, who admit that they believed that they had suffered a major defeat).

Would the same result occur if the press had to wait weeks or months to get the story out? I seriously doubt it. The news would be stale by the time it reached a significant percentage of the populace and even if the populace got inflamed, how could it meaningfully hold the Imperium's leadership accountable?

Also, insurgent media manipulation relies heavily on self-criticism (and self loathing, seems to me) by the population of the invading power. This phenomenon is a very recent development and (so far) is confined to liberal Western democracies. I see no reason to impute this trait to an autocratic society like the 3I.

EDIT: I'd also caution Traveller referees about the conventional wisdom that "insurgencies can't be defeated". This claim is a statement of *belief* and is manifestly *not* supported by the historical record. There are ample historical examples of insurgencies being defeated, just as there are examples of insurgencies prevailing. In my opinion there's 1 key factor that explains the success of insurgencies in Vietnam and Afghanistan--the existence of an uninterruptable supply source for the insurgents (in Vietnam, the USSR and China; in Afghanistan, the US). Insurgencies that have lacked this advantage have generally failed (Malaysia, Iraq).

There's also the matter of honor in the 3I, especially amongst nobles. While it's never expressly explained, I've always sensed that the honor of the 3I I sense would be outraged at callously scrubbing people off of worlds because it's handy and safe.

Given the obliteration of Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg, Berlin, etc., I wouldn't count overly much on self-restraint, if the stakes are high enough. My essential point bears repeating--the insurgencies of the last 70 years against Western democracies are abberations (in historical terms) and are not useful models for how an autocratic society like the 3I would fight them.

Of course, this does not mean that insurgencies are impossible in the 3I. It just means that they probably won't be fought along the same lines as (say) Vietnam. Referees who want plausible insurgencies will have to create an environment where the 3I's superior firepower and technology (particularly in reconnaisance assets) are neutralized to a significant degree. Myself, I favor settings in which the occupying power is severely restricted in resources. Like France in Vietnam, for some reason they just can't deploy overwhelming assets. This is the typical setup in my Commonwealth campaign--most brushfire wars are fought by company troops and sepoy auxilliaries, rather than by Commonwealth Marines. (And since the Commonwealth is a democracy, the media does have some influence and can occasionally inflame public sentiment against a particular war).

EDIT: An interesting alternative model for how the 3I might fight an insurgency might be the Soviets in Afghanistan. Of course, you have to correct for circumstances. In particular, a key reason the insurgency was successful was that they were armed by the US and the Soviets could not directly interdict or threaten that supply chain. (The same was true of the US in Vietnam--it couldn't interdict or threaten the Chinese and Soviet supply lines that kept the North Vietnamese armed). Such a condition would be *far* harder to justify, given the naval superiority of the 3I. Unlike 20th century Terran insurgencies, there are no overland lines of supply.

 

[epicenter00]

tbeard - you bring some interesting points.

A lot of adventures are about getting the "truth out there" even if it takes weeks or months. Stories like the Tet Offensive would certainly become spun away from insurgent victory to occupational force victory. However, a story where a planet is bombarded from orbit where the IN hits every insurgent base, every suspected insurgent base, and every place where the IN figures there would be insurgents? That's going to essentially be "indiscriminate bombardment" which would result in the scenarios that aramis is suggesting - millions dead. A story like that gets out to the greater 3I and I think even the "not-democracy" of the 3I would have hell to pay - not from "liberal voters" but nobles who are disgusted at the dishonorable action, or if the effort was being made to keep things secret, high-ranking Imperial Nobles who weren't in the know asking, "Why wasn't I told about this?"

No you're not going to run into Tet Offensive situations, but I'd argue those wouldn't really occur, because yes indeed, the 3I isn't a democracy. Insurgencies go on even without what we recognize as a modern democracy. I think a more apt analogy with the 3I and insurgents would be like the Battle of Mogadishu ("Blackhawk Down"), where a mission is yanked, not because it's unpopular with the citizens, but it's unpopular with the leaders. Some situation might occur where the 3I takes losses and suddenly nobles are asking, "Wait, what the heck are we doing there, anyway?" Other good insurgencies to look at are things like Ireland vs. England and Scotland vs. England.

However, I also believe that insurgencies in the 3I wouldn't be like insurgencies today, nor would the 3I's attitude towards them be like those of the interventionists today. They'd be more like your insurgencies (tbeard).

The insurgents would be unhappy with Imperial rule (for whatever reason) and want to eject them. The reasons would vary, perhaps they just don't like the idea of outsiders "ruling" them, megacorpate abuse, corrupt nobles, abusive world governments given power by the Imperium, etc.

"Realistic" insurgents (the ones who recognize that total independence from the 3I is impossible) would basically fight enough so that Subsector or Sector nobility would take notice and ask, "Okay, what exactly is the problem there?" and start looking in deeper even when the local nobles reply with something like, "Well, you know how these indigs are..." Their goal ultimately is to get the 3I to talk to them seriously and ask: "Okay, how can we make things better for you guys and gals?"

"Unrealistic" insurgents would be your typical revolutionary firebrands who want to destroy all evidence of the 3I on their world and desire total independence. In this case, the 3I would occupy the planet (obviously the world has to be worth it for some reason) with a holding force. This is where the "not a democracy" thing comes into play. The 3I doesn't have to worry about having to pull the Marines out after a decade or three. They can leave Marines on the world for however long is necessary. The Imperium's co-in troops essentially present a target (themselves), then kill off the hotheads when they attack, and specifically targeting the firebrands for assassination. The 3I can wait however long is necessary (generations, even) and keep offering to talk and perhaps occasionally offer concessions until the insurgent leadership changes from "unrealistic" to "realistic" insurgents. That is: the insurgents agree to talk or fractures (between people who want to negotiate and those who don't). Conversely, the insurgents could keep hitting high-value economic targets to force the 3I to give them better concessions.

Finally, it can also be argued that the 3I wouldn't have insurgencies against it in reality, given how diffuse its power is. Most insurgencies wouldn't be against the TL14/15 military of the 3I itself. It'd be against the world governments. The goal of insurgents might not be to extract the 3I itself. They might be fighting to topple the local government. They know that the 3I is cynical enough that if they take over, the 3I will start talking to them instead of the (now former) world government. Even if the don't reach there, the insurgents want to be taken seriously enough so that the 3I intervenes and forces the world government to reform itself, include the insurgents into the power structure, or change the world from a single-government model to a balkanized state.

 

[Renaissance Man]

It would be unusual to destroy a fairly functional, life-supporting planet. The 3I has inherited the long view from it's antedecents. Why obliterate a planet rather than interdict and embargo for a few decades and then move in when things are quieter? And if a planet is too marginal to be worth fighting for at all, the Imperium will simply leave.

Remember, dropping rocks on a planet is a bit more drastic than the Athenian destruction of Melos or the Roman obliteration of Carthage. In those cases, the women and children could at least be sold into slavery, and the riches of the cities could be pillaged. And in the case of Melos, the island could be recolonized. The empires of old never had the massive destructive power of the 3I at their disposal -- the cruelty of the powerful will find itself limited by the degree to which the mega-violence denies them what their avarice demands.

The only exception is where the Imperium is dealing with the threat of a broad based, multiple world rebellion or significant interstellar war and needs to send a message. Or when it's back was to the wall. In those cases, cost-benefit analysis might push them toward a Death Star approach -- but only if they felt the other side could or would not reciprocate.

I think that the majority of cases of the 3I's Imperial genocides would occur earlier in their history, like the Pacification Campaigns and initial outward expansions.

 

[flykiller]

It only takes hitting a couple major cities to silence a world. Ask Japan...

I think this applies when the technology used to hit those cities is either new or hasn't really been "felt" before.

it especially applies if the enemy can't hit back. but in traveller, somebody definitely can hit back in the same manner. the best reason that the imperium doesn't destroy worlds is because it can't protect its own from such an act. no need for altruism or nobility there, it's simple self-defense.

 

[ThunderChilde]

Chiming in

Getting back to an earlier point, some of us have also been active on other threads so it should come as no surprise that I am a huge fan of Shirow Masamune.

Landmates, as envisioned are information warfare combat platform. Fully integrated with its comabt team, very high situational awareness, and scouting capabilities are the norm. High mobility, some having anti-grav units btw, is a hall mark. AG is used for flight, and in some cases a low stregth AG is used simply to reduce the effective mass/wieght/groundpressure of a landmate or other combat unit. The use of high tech materials dratimally lowers thier ground pressure. Weapons are scaled up versions of the common infantry weapons: sidearms, subguns, assault rifles, heavier battle rifles and sniper weapons as well as assault arms, missiles and knives as a last resort. LM heavy weapons also exist.

Combat Armour is also power assisted, mostly on the level canceling its own weight, allowing a moderate increase of the wearers str, and beacause its cyberlinked to the user, absolutely mirrors the users intended physical actions. After all that, add in decent sensors and some built in features like commo, some kind of semi active camo is common, full up optical stealth also exists, but is a SF type set of gear. All this is in the common infantry armour for heavier combat troops. Lighter units have improved versions of what we use today.

Masamune's treatment of armour is to some extent driven by the storyline, but he does deal with technological gaps in effectiveness, specialty ammo, Electro Thermal Propellents and other odditities like rail guns.

 

[Renaissance Man]

it especially applies if the enemy can't hit back. but in traveller, somebody definitely can hit back in the same manner. the best reason that the imperium doesn't destroy worlds is because it can't protect its own from such an act. no need for altruism or nobility there, it's simple self-defense.

This idea of escalation and reciprocity in nuclear warfare is addressed by Robert Nye, an International Relations egghead. He calls this "the Crystal Ball Effect." Basically, because belligerents can see with a high degree of certainty ahead of time what will happen if they press the big red button -- everybody dies -- none of them do it.

If the Imperium wants to start lobbing rocks, (it ain't hard), they've got to be willing to take rocks. Now, I don't agree with Flykiller that it's easy to lob rocks at Imperial planets that have any kind of naval protection -- you have to control intrastellar space in order to hit planetary targets with mass-kill weapons (nukes, rocks, whatever) and one of the reasons the 3I is the 3I is because it has credible control over it's star systems. But if you have a real challenger and they're willing and able to take it to the mat that hard, it helps to have a bi-lateral or multi-lateral doctrine that leaves those weapons out of the equation. All it takes is a single "Napoleon" to permanently ruin a bunch of colonies and everyone will get the message.

Interstellar war then comes to superficially resemble 19th century Concert of Europe war -- limited, brokered engagements between well established belligerents. All war is political war. All war is economic war. There are no purely military solutions, nor purely military "force multipliers."

 

[flykiller]

Now, I don't agree with Flykiller that it's easy to lob rocks at Imperial planets that have any kind of naval protection ....

game it out.

 

[tbeard1999]

The problem is that CT makes planet-destroying WAY too easy. CT's reactionless drives make it possible for objects to be accelerated to relativistic speeds, which would make them outstanding planet killers.

Because the existence of such weapons would completely alter the Traveller universe (and in directions I don't like), I choose to handwave this away. I suggest y'all do the same.

Think about it...in a *real* universe with reactionless drives, no sane government would allow private parties to own starships that could be turned into relativistic kill vehicles.

 

[Icosahedron]

Just thinking aloud here, I've never used c-rocks, but my first thought is that a ship (or whatever) takes a very long time to accelerate to near-c and has to do it in a very straight (predictable) line.
All the defenders have to do is watch the thing coming in and park a brick in its path - incoming object vaporises on contact.

 

[aramis]

Near-C has the advantage of limited reaction time.

However, a 100m diameter rock, at only 10km/s, is lethal to a city, and damaging to the rest of its state.

Same rock, at 150Mm/s (.5C) is going to crack the planet. Massive surface disruptions. (It will still be a planet... most likely...) it's 225,000,000 times as much energy, and thus about 608x the disrupted radius*, and much more hot death raining down.

*due to the radius being a quasi-hemispherical zone, it's a cube root of the energy function, IF I remember correctly.

 

[veltyen]

However, a 100m diameter rock, at only 10km/s, is lethal to a city, and damaging to the rest of its state.

Reaches for handy chart - 100m diametre is between 10,000 dTon (32m Radius) and 100,000 dTon (70m Radius) - approximately 40 000 dTon.

Same rock, at 150Mm/s (.5C) is going to crack the planet. Massive surface disruptions. (It will still be a planet... most likely...) it's 225,000,000 times as much energy, and thus about 608x the disrupted radius*, and much more hot death raining down.

*due to the radius being a quasi-hemispherical zone, it's a cube root of the energy function, IF I remember correctly.

Not quite. If the planet has an atmosphere the rock will be slowed slightly - and probably shatter at that speed. You might want to swap to a tungsten ball. It might also puncture the mantle (if the planet has a molten core) and dissipate the energy as worldwide disruption.

A 1G ship accelerates 0.02 C per week, 25 weeks to get to 0.5C.

Not disagreeing, just being pedantic.

The numbers on the other hand suggest that a free trader dropping a 100 dTon rock (7m diametre) at 0.02C probably isn't a civilisation ending event.

Though I am tempted to design a warship to throw rocks now. Something along the lines of 100,000 dTon specialist Heavy Cruiser with 6G thrust.

 

[flykiller]

Same rock, at 150Mm/s (.5C) is going to crack the planet.

Not quite. If the planet has an atmosphere the rock will be slowed slightly - and probably shatter at that speed.

(smile) yes, the atmosphere will slow a .5c rock - much like a t-shirt slows a .50cal bullet. and yes, the rock will shatter - by the time it has punched through the planet and is on the other side you may even get some fragment dispersal.

seems to me a rock at .5c would simply punch through without much "coupling" (I believe that's the physics term). would it?

 

[aramis]

The shockwaves would be humongous. The energy of a 10km/s 100m asteroid is going to be felt around the planet anyway.

the 150Mm/s is going to be in atmosphere for a millisecond or less, (150km/150Mm is 1/1000), not enough time to shatter... it's going to shed energy into the planet for a centisecond or two, as it converts rock and itself to plasma from impact.

Because it will hit rock of similar density to itself, there will be extensive interaction.... much like a .45-.70 and a lead plate: neither survives the interaction unchanged.

 

[flykiller]

the 150Mm/s is going to be in atmosphere for a millisecond or less, (150km/150Mm is 1/1000), not enough time to shatter

I know, I was just trying to balance my prose.

Because it will hit rock of similar density to itself, there will be extensive interaction.... much like a .45-.70 and a lead plate: neither survives the interaction unchanged.

I dunno man. if the .45-70 is moving 5000m/sec then except for a simple hole the lead plate won't look any different. I'd bet that if a 100m .5c rock hit the earth you'd get nothing but a 100m penetration all the way through, maybe coning a bit on the far side, without much lateral effect at all.

least, 'til the hole collapses and you have magma shock-waving out both ends. no idea how much effect that would have.

if you get a chance take a look at a colored topographical map of mars sometime, noting mons olympus and the far side of the planet opposite that.