Imperial Marines IYTU

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Kaale Dasar:
I don't think tanks/APC/air combo would really be used. APCs carry soliers and give them some extra firepower. Tanks kill things on the ground like infantry, buildings, and other tanks. Fighters are used to kill things in the air, and have to be fast and manuverable.

First of all APC are designed to rapidly get troops to the point of battle at a higher rate of speed than they can walk and with some armor protection. Generally lightly armored and generally equipped with a suppressive fire weapon. If your troops have equivalent armor (T20 Battledress for example) and equivalent speed (Grav belts for example.) there is no need for an APC. In fact losing the dependence on the APC and the vulnerability of having all your troops in one relatively easy to kill target means that even if you have to give up some armor protection but gain protection because of dispersal, as long as you can maintain the speed of the rest of your units then APCs at that point are obsolete and no longer required. (So as long as your Grav Belts provide equivalent speed, combat armor and battledress troops no longer need an APC regardless of the version of Traveller you are playing.)

The big reason there is a major difference between attack helicopters and tanks are because of weather and the weight allowances required and still be capable of flight. This is true to a lesser extent between all aircraft and Tanks. Grav drive eliminates that distinction. Further Grav Drive, at least in Traveller, eliminates any weight requirements.

Today multi-role fighters are used for Close Air Support, air to air combat, strategic bombing, and AA suppression. They already kill armored vehicles, they just can't sustain themselves in the target zone and are vulnerable to enemy fire. Give them tank armor, low speed capability and greater endurance and someone will replace tanks with them, without giving up the high speed air combat aspect of their mission.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by alanb:
I'm dubious about the combination too.

Of course, "realistically" it is highly likely that there would be a lot of drones used, with various degrees of autonomy.

Regardless of this, however, there would still be humans somewhere in the loop, and they would need to be transported. Furthermore, they would need to be able to operate in *all* environments, whether in vacuum, in insidious atmospheres, underwater, or in a city, and do so on an extended basis.

To me that implies something along the lines of an APC. A fully sealed, all-environments, Grav APC, equally capable of operating at the bottom of the ocean, or on the moon.

Variant models can be used to carry drones (and "other stuff") or to carry drone operators.

Since Combat Armor and Battledress are already both fully sealed, about the only thing you would have to worry about for Hostile Environment operations would be things like field hospitals, quarters and mess halls. All of these require a bit more than an APC. Perhaps 30 ton Cutter Modules? Though ambulances and supply carriers might be a good idea and would probably be equivalent to APCs you don't need APCs for battlefield troop movement.

Also remember that Grav Vehicles, in most versions of Traveller, only work in a gravity well and in virtually all versions of Traveller don't do well in things like sand storms and hurricanes. So in an Asteroid belt, aboard a Space Station or a Starship, or during boarding actions Armored Vehicles are pretty useless.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by The Oz:
IMTU the Imperial Marines use two 50dton vehicles/small craft. One is the Marine Support Vehicle (MSV) which is sort of an APC, but more like a mobile base for a Marine squad. It has bunks and battledress recharge stations, life support for a month and is armed for self-defense.

The other vehicle is the Marine Combat Vehicle, which is a flying battlefield meson gun with full indirect/direct fire control.

Both vehicles also mount nuclear dampers and (my own invention) battlefield meson screens.

Now I use 15 ton light fighters for Fleet Marines and leave the heavy fire support to the Navy for most situations. (Why bring your little Meson gun to the party when the Navy can bring a bigger one.)

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
(Why bring your little Meson gun to the party when the Navy can bring a bigger one.)

Because the Navy don't like having their ships exposed to the even bigger Meson guns buried inside the planet.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
Since Combat Armor and Battledress are already both fully sealed, about the only thing you would have to worry about for Hostile Environment operations would be things like field hospitals, quarters and mess halls. All of these require a bit more than an APC. Perhaps 30 ton Cutter Modules? Though ambulances and supply carriers might be a good idea and would probably be equivalent to APCs you don't need APCs for battlefield troop movement.

APCs aren't going to be able to handle all these roles, sure. But infantry operating in hostile environments are definitely going to require vehicular backup. They aren't going to be able to operate by themselves on a sustained basis.

Incidentally, Battle Dress and especially Grav Belts are hugely expensive under most Traveller versions, especially the early ones. Handing them out to all your troops will only be possible if expense isn't a consideration.

That may actually be the case with the Imperial Marines, but they are still going to have all the Big Toys as well. You can't carry out all missions with commando units - and that is all they would be without their vehicles.

 

[veltyen]

APCs aren't going to be able to handle all these roles, sure. But infantry operating in hostile environments are definitely going to require vehicular backup. They aren't going to be able to operate by themselves on a sustained basis.

The thing is that Marines are limited by carry space.

You can have your 30 marines with 2 50 dTon vehicles, or you can have 250 marines all in battledress. Those companies of marines are going to be much more flexible.

 

[epicenter00]

Originally posted by Kaale Dasar:
I don't think tanks/APC/air combo would really be used. APCs carry soliers and give them some extra firepower. Tanks kill things on the ground like infantry, buildings, and other tanks. Fighters are used to kill things in the air, and have to be fast and manuverable.

My point is that in the future, this idea that APCs should be lighter armored will go away. The only good argument I've heard so far from military and ex-military people about why APCs are more lightly armored is because APCs have lighter ground pressure and can go places where tanks can't. I think that's a justification made after the fact - my personal opinion is that APCs in the modern day are more lightly armored because people in the military don't value the lives of infantry that much and armored APCs would be expensive.

What if that perception changes?

If you're giving infantry battle dress, you're already making a significant investment in them. The APC/tank/support aircraft idea is a natural evolution of technology in my opinion. With grav technology, ground pressure is either widely distributed or nullified in the way that most people think of it, so the ground pressure/crossing civilian bridges issue goes away. You can also pile armor on these new APCs to the limits of what the CG lifters can be powered to lift. With Traveller's assumption of tiny fusion reactors, I don't see this as a problem. So you can roll your tanks and APCs into a single vehicle at that point which sounds like putting your eggs into one basket, but it's not.

The US military tried that "Infantry Tank" and "Tank Destroyer" idea in WW2 - it didn't work well (I think other militaries did as well, the US is the only one I know of). If you're sending in tanks for close support, why not have the tanks carry infantry? The APCs could (assumably) carry infantry at a greater speed than grav belts and protect them from fire before they're deployed. If the enemy has plenty of anti-tank weapons of a quality to hurt APCs the infantry would just have to deploy and disperse early.

With CG, you also don't need close support and air transport as separate vehicles. Since your tank/APCs can fly, make re-entry and so on, they can provide the hovering/flying role if need be.

The Navy certainly might still have fighters for CAS, but I doubt it. With the bias of the Traveller tech level system towards big ships, a destroyer or similar ship could be easily protected well enough to be immune to anything tiny fighters could do and simply swat annoying fighters out of the air from orbit over vast swathes of the surface with the lasers whose ranges are measured in tens of thousands of kilometers - since Traveller lasers have overcome the inverse square law, I don't see why compensating for atmospheric dispersion enough to kill fighters would be that big of a problem at TL14+.

That's assuming that's even needed. With fusion and plasma guns with advanced targeting in Traveller (MT's RFX targeting) and a range that's basically constrained by the horizon, fighter aircraft as we think of it today are going to be meat. If you start armoring aircraft to survive such hits and start hopping around at Tree-Top level to evade detection and popping up just to fire, they're no longer "fast and maneuverable." Just use grav tanks/APCs again, I should think.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by veltyen:
You can have your 30 marines with 2 50 dTon vehicles, or you can have 250 marines all in battledress. Those companies of marines are going to be much more flexible.

For the first 24 hours. Then logistics starts to bite them.

In fact I don't have a problem with using Battle Dress rather than Combat Armour. My big problem is with Grav Belts.

Of course, drones presumably aren't going to be much cheaper than Grav Belts, since they use much the same technology. They may be smaller, but miniaturisation may actually add to costs rather than reduce them. Attempting to make them autonomous really sucks up the cash too.

 

[Jamus]

How useful would any armored vehicle be in a future where they could be tracked targetted and killed from orbit?

Ground wars in traveller will be won in space.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by alanb:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
Since Combat Armor and Battledress are already both fully sealed, about the only thing you would have to worry about for Hostile Environment operations would be things like field hospitals, quarters and mess halls. All of these require a bit more than an APC. Perhaps 30 ton Cutter Modules? Though ambulances and supply carriers might be a good idea and would probably be equivalent to APCs you don't need APCs for battlefield troop movement.

APCs aren't going to be able to handle all these roles, sure. But infantry operating in hostile environments are definitely going to require vehicular backup. They aren't going to be able to operate by themselves on a sustained basis.

Incidentally, Battle Dress and especially Grav Belts are hugely expensive under most Traveller versions, especially the early ones. Handing them out to all your troops will only be possible if expense isn't a consideration.

That may actually be the case with the Imperial Marines, but they are still going to have all the Big Toys as well. You can't carry out all missions with commando units - and that is all they would be without their vehicles. </font>[/QUOTE]In early Traveller, (CT and MT) don't get BD, just get Combat Armor. There is no practical difference and certainly not any difference that justifies the price. In CT even a G-Carrier costs less than equipping a squad with Grav Belts.

Just because you want to give them vehicular support doesn't mean those vehicles are APCs. Light Fighters fill the vehicle support role quite nicely and you aren't restricted to planetary close support roles.

As for sustained operations, all you need vehicular wise is supply lines.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by alanb:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by veltyen:
You can have your 30 marines with 2 50 dTon vehicles, or you can have 250 marines all in battledress. Those companies of marines are going to be much more flexible.

For the first 24 hours. Then logistics starts to bite them.

In fact I don't have a problem with using Battle Dress rather than Combat Armour. My big problem is with Grav Belts.

Of course, drones presumably aren't going to be much cheaper than Grav Belts, since they use much the same technology. They may be smaller, but miniaturisation may actually add to costs rather than reduce them. Attempting to make them autonomous really sucks up the cash too. </font>[/QUOTE]But APC's don't carry sustainable supplies either. Further having APC's increases the amount of supplies that you need to sustain operations, it doesn't decrease the requirements.

Originally posted by epicenter00:My point is that in the future, this idea that APCs should be lighter armored will go away. The only good argument I've heard so far from military and ex-military people about why APCs are more lightly armored is because APCs have lighter ground pressure and can go places where tanks can't. I think that's a justification made after the fact - my personal opinion is that APCs in the modern day are more lightly armored because people in the military don't value the lives of infantry that much and armored APCs would be expensive.

As for APCs having lighter armor, most of that is so there is room to carry troops. The heavier armor in a tank, has to be accounted for with more powerful engines and more fuel. The concept that an APC is lighter for lower ground pressure is incorrect. In fact an M-1 tank has lower ground pressure than an infantry soldier on foot.

(At least the original M-1 did, they have gotten heavier since they were introduced and I don't believe the tread got any wider. Though it is likely they still have lower ground pressure as they had quite a bit less ground pressure than a soldier.)

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by Jamus:
How useful would any armored vehicle be in a future where they could be tracked targetted and killed from orbit?

Assuming they can.

There are some rather obvious low-tech counter-measures. Presumably there are higher tech ones as well.

Presumably your space vehicles would need to be in a fairly close orbit in order to keep response times under control. That makes them vulnerable.

Planets can carry more and bigger weapons than any starship.

We could also ask: "how useful would an unarmoured vehicle be in a future where they could be tracked targetted and killed from anywhere"?

Ground wars in traveller will be won in space.

Like the war in Iraq is being won in the air.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
But APC's don't carry sustainable supplies either. Further having APC's increases the amount of supplies that you need to sustain operations, it doesn't decrease the requirements.

But it increases the ability to carry supplies, as well. It allows the infantry to have access to stuff beyond what they themselves can personally carry.

Perhaps "APC" is the wrong term. "Armoured" is definitely necessary, though. You can't drop a truck into the Marianas Trench, or the surface of Venus, and expect it to function. Furthermore, in the incredibly more hostile military environments we are dealing with, armour would be a necessity to allow any chance of survival.

Maybe a better term might be something like "Armoured Support Vehicle". It could be a Logistical Support vehicle, a Firepower Support vehicle, or whatever.

At least it would be a place where the infantry can crack open their suits, recharge their fuel cells, and store anything beyond the equipment they can immediately carry.

 

[flykiller]

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jamus:
How useful would any armored vehicle be in a future where they could be tracked targetted and killed from orbit?

There are some rather obvious low-tech counter-measures. Presumably there are higher tech ones as well</font>[/QUOTE]even if there are, the troops with ships overhead will be able to call in lots of cost-free artillery at will.

Presumably your space vehicles would need to be in a fairly close orbit in order to keep response times under control. That makes them vulnerable.

Planets can carry more and bigger weapons than any starship.

if they've spent the money and personnel to install it. most budgets are limited and defense can't be strong everywhere. and too, size also works against a planet. 10,000 factor 9 laser batteries may sound like a lot, but on an earth-sized planet that amounts to one battery every 88 miles or so. a bit thin.

and, 'pends on the ruleset, but in high guard terms, once a planet gun is found it is agility 0 and the agility 6 ships will eat it up.

 

[veltyen]

I'd be interested in other peoples' conception of how Imperial Marine units would be configured in your Traveller universe. While it's entirely in keeping with the style of the OTU, I can't help but think that a 57th century Marine battalion, for example, looks an awful like a 21st century marine unit. What do you think is missing from a true TL F setting? Should it be more like the Mobile Infantry from Starship Troopers? Include robots?

I think of the mobile infantry more as army then Marines.

Marines IMTU

Roles

Defence of naval installations. These include naval supply bases, orbiting facilities and the ubiquitous Marine patrols found at Imperial starports.

Ships troops. The primary source of ships troops are the Marines, though some Naval personnel are cross trained to also serve as "infantry-lite". The "Commander of Marines" (the highest ranking Marine on board a vessel) always directly reports to the Captain of the vessel as the Marines also have counter mutiny purposes.

Spearhead. The only time Marines operate in very large formation are in spearhead operations. This is the initial landing to invade (or counterinvade) a planet. The implied threat of a spearhead kept in readiness goes a long way.

Equipment
For most roles the Marines use light armour. Marines spend a lot of time on duty in flak vests or vac suits, only uparmouring to Combat Armour and Battledress when on high alert.

Weaponry is optimised for logistics. Favoured weapons are from the gauss family (gauss rifles mainly, but also VRF and multibarrel vehicle mounted weapons), energy weapons and missile systems.

Vehicles are rare. While a marine company is likely to have a couple of multirole APC's available to them, they rarely have enough armour to behave as an armoured or mechanised force. The vehicle support tends to be for specific limited roles, such as moving small teams swiftly or for artillery, rather then intergrated into the main force.

Battledress on the other hand is used extensively, often with as many as half of some units being so equipped. Variants of Battledress are common, such as support dress to carry heavy weapons, and powered exoskeletons optimised for repair and medical purposes.

Robots are used extensively, including as front line troops. AI and robots are one of the places that I deviate significantly from the OTU, both are common and appropriate technologies are available at lower TL then normal. Even small organic units (squads and platoons) will have some robotic support, normally in the form of weapon platforms, communication relays and scouts. Fully robotised infantry are used, it is common for these to be testing grounds for low ranting officers.

Marines do have spaceships, but in general do not operate starships, apart from the occasional courier used for officer transport. Most Marine spaceships are assault landers and the like. Spearhead units are sometimes equipped with drop fortress, which act as mobile bases for the Marines onboard.

Smallcraft tend to be the only highly mobile craft in the Marine arsenal.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by alanb:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Jamus:
How useful would any armored vehicle be in a future where they could be tracked targetted and killed from orbit?

Assuming they can.

There are some rather obvious low-tech counter-measures. Presumably there are higher tech ones as well.

Presumably your space vehicles would need to be in a fairly close orbit in order to keep response times under control. That makes them vulnerable.

Planets can carry more and bigger weapons than any starship.

We could also ask: "how useful would an unarmoured vehicle be in a future where they could be tracked targetted and killed from anywhere"?

Ground wars in traveller will be won in space.

Like the war in Iraq is being won in the air. </font>[/QUOTE]Ground targets can't dodge. While a Ship might not want to get into range until the heavy stuff is neutralized, you can neutralize it from a long way away. Remember computers are more sophisticated at higher Tech Levels. Sensors can be used Passively at up to 2 parsecs away. (Not sure that does you any good as you can only see what happened 6.5 years ago there, but still.) Computers today can drop a ballistic missile half a world away with an error of a couple of meters. Bombs can be dropped through doors and chimneys.

Remember Missiles and Mass Drivers don't have a maximum range in space. While missiles have a maximum POWERED range, they are still going to continue on a predictable ballistic course. This doesn't do you any good against a maneuvering ship, who can easily get out of the way, but a Planet can't dodge. Further if you accellerate your ship to a high velocity before launching the missiles will boost above that velocity and come in both very fast and quiet. Under that kind of attack, ground defenses are fairly useless.

Deep Site Meson guns are also limited to their sensors. If the sensors are going to be strictly passive then they would be more difficult to hit. But they are also not going to be as good at finding ships, especially those that are not maneuvering and running full EMCON. For that you generally need Active Sensors. (And Active Sensors are just asking to be targeted the same way as other ground weapon systems.) Take out the sensors and the Deep Site Meson is useless. Besides a Deep Site Meson gun has to power up and when it does it can be located and killed by other Meson weapons.

So while you can put all sorts of Ground defense weapons on the planet, remember nobody wants to live in an armed camp, whether it is actually useful depends on several factors. The most important factor is to not let the enemy Intelligence know where they are. (Which goes against lots of big weapons all over the place.

) Your ground defenses are in a use them or lose them situation. A local fleet of monitors and SDB's is much more useful than planetary weapon mounts.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by alanb:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
But APC's don't carry sustainable supplies either. Further having APC's increases the amount of supplies that you need to sustain operations, it doesn't decrease the requirements.

But it increases the ability to carry supplies, as well. It allows the infantry to have access to stuff beyond what they themselves can personally carry.

Perhaps "APC" is the wrong term. "Armoured" is definitely necessary, though. You can't drop a truck into the Marianas Trench, or the surface of Venus, and expect it to function. Furthermore, in the incredibly more hostile military environments we are dealing with, armour would be a necessity to allow any chance of survival.

Maybe a better term might be something like "Armoured Support Vehicle". It could be a Logistical Support vehicle, a Firepower Support vehicle, or whatever.

At least it would be a place where the infantry can crack open their suits, recharge their fuel cells, and store anything beyond the equipment they can immediately carry. </font>[/QUOTE]You can accomplish the same mission for a place to crack the suits with Pressure tents and the equivalent.

I don't know how many APC's you have ever been in. But any I have been in, the M113, M2 and M3 Bradley, LAV-25, BMP1 and 2, BTR60-80, and some more esoteric vehicles, barely have room for their assigned troops and a basic combat load for those troops. There is no room for lounging in one. Even the command variants don't come equipped for sleeping the command staff. (Most of a squad's gear for non-combat duties, like Pup tents, sleeping bags, etc., is strapped to the outside of the vehicle.) Mech Infantry troops sleep on the ground, not in their support vehicles. (Though the vehicle crew may get to sleep inside.

)


Yes ways to get logistics to the troops is important but that doesn't imply APCs. In fact, today APC's aren't used for carrying supplies. Fuel for M-1 tanks, which get fuel twice a day, every day, is in unarmored trucks. The only armored ammo carrier in the US inventory is for carrying artillery shells. Logistics, today, is done with mobile but unarmored trucks. APC's are too slow and too valuable to tie up carrying logistics.

Further Marines that aren't Drop Troopers, will have small craft that inserted them, those that are Drop troopers will have recovery craft, which can fulfill the same role. Those can carry supplies to the battlefield much more simply than long supply chains of trucks and armored vehicles. In other words it is easier to support Marines on the ground directly from their starships than it is from a ground based supply dump. (Examples, would be the 50 ton Troop Transport from Sup-7, the Kinunir's Pinace and the Type-T boat. The Broadsword's Cutters and the Javelin's boats could also serve the same purpose.)

Further using small craft to carry supplies is independent of weather and local ground conditions and they can be used for other purposes, like Troop insertions, boarding operations, ship supply runs, carrying people for shore leave, etc. Available volume aboard a naval vessel is in short supply. Armored vehicles take up lots of space and provide very limited capability.

 

[veltyen]

For a campaign I was running I designed a low-mid-tech (TL6, with some TL7) planet that was in revolt.

Tech that is useful.

Mobile deep radar
Anti-Space missile tanks (Think ICBM tanks)
Anti-Air Laser tanks

All of which are believable (more or less) at TL7.

This allows the planet the opportunity to strike a fleet in orbit so that it at least keeps its distance. This still won't stop an earnest assault, sand and armour are enough to counter these defences. It does allow a moment of pause, either the space based attackers need to be willing to perform genocide, or it will suffer losses when trying to assault.

Tanks are cheap. The radars not so much, but still peanuts compared to starships.

 

[alanb]

Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
Logistics, today, is done with mobile but unarmored trucks. APC's are too slow and too valuable to tie up carrying logistics.

You still can't drop unarmoured trucks into the Marianas Trench. You know, where the enemy are?

 

[veltyen]

Originally by alanb:
You still can't drop unarmoured trucks into the Marianas Trench. You know, where the enemy are?

Armoured and pressurised are different things. An unarmoured ship can potentially dive into a gas giant. If your logistics chain includes fetching things from space, even occasionally, then at least some of your trucks will be pressurised.

You don't need your trucks to get to the enemy, just to where your troops are.