Marine TOE

[Ranger]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Ranger:
I'm not sure there would be that much need to fight in the artificial environments. These are relatively fragile places and probably very dependent on some form of outside support. The Imperium could probably compel surrender by using a combination of military and political tactics specifically targeted at denying the artificial environment what it needed to survive. I think fighting inside would be the last choice of all involved. One carefully targeted meson gun blast from a spinal mount would probably be enough to convince those in charge that the Imperium was serious about taking the place back and more than willing to destory it and rebuild it later if they needed to.

I am not so sure about that. After all, if all you really wanted to do was to pound a planet flat then rebuild, why use ground forces at all? A Historic Lesson on that would of course be Mounte Cassino Abbey. The place was pounded flat, not once but three times. Yet it still had to be bypassed. (Remember Anzio?) It took four or five times to finally take it. Airpower can rain down quite a bit of destruction, and these days very accurate destruction, but it still can't take or hold ground. That is why we still have and will probably always have ground pounders.</font>[/QUOTE]

My point was about artificial environments that are dependant on some fundimental resource (such as air) to maintain survival. Those environments are very vulnerable to very specific presures. The German troops at Mounte Cassino Abbey could have been issolated and ignored until the capitulation if the Allies had wanted to, but once again, that is a totally different situation than I was trying to refer to.

So, if you are going to be fighting, it is probably going to be on the surface of a planet where those types of presures are not going to work on the local government.

One other thing you have to consider, suppose it isn't the local government that you are fighting. Suppose that you are dealing with a Counter Insurgency operation on one of these high pop worlds of the spinward marches. You can't threaten to flatten the whole world just to go after 30K-50K insurgents, it doesn't work. You have to go in and dig them out. If Afganistan and Iraq, taught us nothing else, it has taught us that air power is impressive, and deadly, but you still have to send men in to clean up, take the ground and get the bad guys. (And in a Counter Insurgency, the most important asset isn't an aircraft, or a tank, it is good intelligence, especially HUMINT.)

Well, I don't see why the Imperium would be getting involved in a counter insurgency situation in the first place. Under the dual soveriegnity system, local governments rule terrestially. The insugency would be against the local government, not the Imperium. The ladder of responses to an insurgency would be:

1) Use local troops.

2) Hire Mercs to beef up the local troops.

3) Ask the subsector, the the Sector duke for his household troops.

4) Ask for Imperial military intervention.

The problem for the local government is that by the time you get to 4, and maybe even 3, you have essentially waived your right of local government. Any local government retains its right to rule because it can effectivly meet its obligations to the Imperium. As long as the local governments pay their taxes and don't violate high law, the Imperium could care less what is going on surface side.

The only time the local government is going to invite the Imperium in is to justify not being able to comply with its minimal obligations to the Imperium, at which point the government would have to really justify staying in power.

I would imagine that if the Imperium did have to intervien, they would be more likely to compell the local government to make some kind of power sharing agreement with the rebels to stabalize the situation than to go out in the woods or mountains and actually fight the rebals. The Imperium could care less who controls the local government as long as the taxes get paid and the trade flows.

(This has all kinds of potential for local intriege, as local nobels might actually foment an insurgency to crash a local government so they could swoop in and claim more of a planets wealth for themselves. This would of course be a violation of the local governments rights under dual sovereignity, and might even technically be treason against the Imperium if the local nobels got caught, but how else are you going to get those high wealth reprentitive democracies to give an outside elite access to the local economy?)

The question then is, who does that fighting? Is it the IM or the IA. If it is the IM, then you are probably going to have two distinctly different TOE; one for Jump units (infantry focused/vehicle light) and the other for Main Force (heavy/mech-armor) units. The majority of the IM will be Main Force units. If it is the IA, then the IM is basically there to gain a lodgement and open up the planet for IA troops to operate. In this case, the IM will probably be more evenly split between Jump and Main Force troops.

If the IA has its own Jump units, then there really is no reason for the IM to have any at all. I would go for that not being that case because I think part of the logic behind organizing the Imperium's military is to break up capabilities and make it hard for any one commander to operate independantly (to protect the throne from ambicious military leaders).

I still see the Imperial Marines as vehicle light, mostly because they are shipboard assets first. Also they are the units tasked with securing the high orbitals, boarding actions, shipboard security, starport security, etc. Given the typical Marine mission you can't use vehicles in many of those missions. At least not full sized armor vehicles.

To take it a step further, does the 82nd (Airborne) or 101st(Air Assault) have a large number of armored vehicles? More importantly do they have many ground vehicles at all?

No, not because, if they had them they wouldn't use them, but because they have limited transport capability. You take the equipment into combat that you can get to the fight. Further for most of their mission parameters the vehicles are either not needed or can't be transported there. So instead they have non-vehicular workarounds where most other units would use vehicles.

Actually, the 82nd had quite a few more vehicles than any other light division because of their mission profile. They have to be perpared to fight alone for an extended period, so they have an organic, mounted anti-armor company of 5 four vehcile platoons in each battalion.

The 101st is even heavier because of its organic lift assests. It takes as much space to move the 101st out of theater as a regular mech or armor division.

The Imperial Marines are the same way. (Again IMTU, YTU may vary.) There is limited transport space, certainly for a typical Fleet Marine unit, because the typical Marine is not on a specialized transport but happens to be on a Cruiser, a Destroyer, a Drednaught, or a Corvette. These ships have a different main role than to take combat forces to a combat zone. Think back a few years to WWII, Marines were on Battleships, matter of fact usually one of the main gun turrets was usually manned by Marines. Speciality vessels were developed for assaulting beaches, but the majority of those were actually developed during WWII. Yes you, today, have ships like the Wasp or Tarawa, where you put a whole batalion+, including equipment on board, but those are relatively recent ships. Until fairly recently, US Marine units were light forces. Matter of fact it was the Marine Divisions that the US Army Light Divisions were based on, so while the Marines were getting heavier and more mechanized the US Army was deploying Light Divisions. Go figure.

Well, it is true that the Army became lighter while the Marines became heavier after Vietnam, but a large part of that is mission adaptation. The Army picked up the mission for security in Central America and the Caribbean (which had traditionally been a USMC mission). Conversely, the Marines became more focused on the Middle East and particularly the Gulf. With that mission change the Army needed two force structures, one heavy to fight in Europe, and one light to fight in Central America.

Force structures adapt the the missions they are given. The 3I's military has had 500 years to adapt to the post civil war defensive posture of the Imperium. That's plenty of time to develop large assault carries (though my guess is that they had those long before the Civil War period).

As I recall the only country, until fairly recently, that had mechanized Marine Divisions, was the Soviet Naval Infantry. (And even their Airborne Divisions were Mechanized.)

Actually, the USMC can be as mechnized as any Army division, they just don't have as many tanks. The Marines in the ground war in Iraq rode into battle on USMC amtracks, the entire division. The difference between the Army and the USMC in this regard is that in the Army TOE the vehicles are organic to the companies, in the USMC the vehicles are not organic to the rifle companies, but have their own seperate command structure.

You don't have alot of heavy equipment in the 82nd because you don't have the transport craft for it.

True, but you do have enough heavy equipment for the division to fight independantly for several days, and more than any other light division (which are designed to fight with external support).

There is a huge difference between lifting the 82nd and the 1st ID. (Not even sure if you could lift the Big Red One by air faster than you could get it deployed by sea, even if it was the only division in the world that you were trying to deploy at the time.)

You can cut down on that significantly by pre-positioning unit sets of equipment, so that all that needs to be transported are the troops themselves. That was the concept behind the POMCUS sites in Europe and the USMC equipment storage ships in the Persian Gulf.

Imperial Marines, by the nature of their primary missions and by the nature of their normal mode of transport, are more likely to be light forces. There will be heavier forces, even within the Marines, but they will tend to be lighter overall.

But even the Type T cruser has space for a Grav APC to move the squad it carries. Also remember that another mission of the IM is to provide security for naval bases. Those forces would probably have enough vehicles to move the entire garrison rapidly to the perimeter or respond to a particular threat if they needed to.

 

[BetterThanLife]

The US Marines being as Mechanized as the Army, is a relatively recent development. (Within the past 30 years.) Over the history of the Marine Corps, even in a Country as young as the US, that is still a fairly short period of time. Besides Mechanized means more than APCs. It generally includes SP Artillery, and lots of tanks.

A US Army Mech Brigade is two Mech Batalions and a Tank Batalion. A US Mech Division is usually Two Mech Brigades and a Tank Brigade. (Though the 1st Infantry Division (Mechanized) in the second half of the 80s early 90s was 2 Armor Brigades and one Mech Brigade.) I am not sure what happened when the 3rd Brigade (Forward) was brought home after the wall came down. A Mechanized Division also includes a Cav Squadron (Batalion Equivalent). Because of weight after the Army went to the M1A1 the capacity of a C5 went from two tanks to one tank. (Since there were only 77 C-5A's ever built, and they aren't all still in service, it makes deploying a Division like the 1st ID by air virtually impossible.) With the number of C5s in service it would take more than 2 trips, using all the C5s in the inventory, to deploy the tanks in one Brigade. (And remember Bradley's don't fit on C-5s, at least without building sepcial ramps, lowering the suspension and clearing everything off of the turret. Stupid vehicle design!) You can package 3 Chinooks or 6 Blackhawks or 6 Apaches (It might be 9, I forget) on one C-5. And a Blackhawk can be shipped in a C130. (Part of the design specs.) It is a whole lot easier to move the 101st, aircraft included, by air than it is to move a Mech Division.

USMC units, to this day, don't carry on their TO&E, that many tanks. Though they do carry significantly more than they did 30 years ago. SO even if they are 100% equipped with APCs and/or ICVs they are still lighter than an Army Mech Division, and everyone in the world is lighter than a typical US Armored Cavalary Regiment, though the US is down to two of those and I am not sure how much of an ACR the 11th at Ft. Irwin is today.)

As far as a local government calling in the Imperial Army and Marines for Counter Insurgency, according to canon sources, the Imperial Army and Marines were involved in fighting the Ine Gvar before the start of the 5th Frontier War in the coreward end of the Spinward Marches. (Don't remember if it was Pixie or MENORB or both.)

Also don't discount Marines on Counter Insurgency Missions, it can be a significant portion of generating a Marine Character. (LBB4 about 20%, 10% in T20, though it isn't available as a Marine assignment in MT.) I guess our rules neutral setting doesn't quite match up.

The Type-T is a poor choice for comparison. First it doesn't have a Grav APC, it has a G-Carrier, not quite the same thing. Second the Type-T is a TLC vessel, which means it was designed before Battle Dress (TLD). Third it doesn't have enough Marines to form a full squad and crew the G-Carrier, even at, my small, 8 man squads. Though the Type-T is my justification for 8 man squads in the first place.

Again, I am not saying there aren't Lift Marine Units. Even IMTU, where my Marines definitely are Light forces, well light in terms of vehicles, technically IMTU, BD equipped Infantry is Heavy Infantry, Imperial Marines have Lift Infantry and even Armored Units. (Exclusive of the MMMFV.) In those units they do use Intrepid Tanks and Astrin APCs. Some of these units may even be equipped to less than TLD, though IMTU there will never be Imperial Marines equipped to less than TLC. (I just haven't decided where to place any Imperial Marines equipped at less than TLE, if they exist at all, yet.) An exception being something like a Marine Commando "A Team" that has "gone native" because of mission parameters.

Again YTU may vary. But Imperial Marines, IMTU, even without APCs, and even without supporting MMMFVs, are a force to be feared and reckoned with. I just don't see a typical Fleet Marine unit having a bunch of vehicles, because they are there to support the Navy and not, generally, the other way around. I also, based on the typical Marine Mission Parameters IMTU, don't see that as being a weakness. (They don't have the vehicles because they don't generally need them and rarely have the space to carry them anyway.) A Naval Vessel Captain (Position not rank) would typically rather carry another battery round of missiles than an APC, or a Light Fighter than a Tank. Since the Marines are part of the Imperial Navy, Naval views tend to win out, and the Marines adapt, improvise and overcome.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Bhoins, I can't remember if it was 3d or 1st Bde that was on the homefront in 96-98, but it still had 2 Mech and 1 Armor, plus the 1/4 Cav Sqadron. I also think the bde that was stateside had a battalion in Europe. Ironically, until 96, it was 3d Infantry Division that was still in Germany with 2 bdes. They swapped standards late 95/early 96.

I would disagree that everyone is lighter than the cavs, though. The US still has a couple of armored divisions, which have 2 armored and 1 mech bde.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
Bhoins, I can't remember if it was 3d or 1st Bde that was on the homefront in 96-98, but it still had 2 Mech and 1 Armor, plus the 1/4 Cav Sqadron. I also think the bde that was stateside had a battalion in Europe. Ironically, until 96, it was 3d Infantry Division that was still in Germany with 2 bdes. They swapped standards late 95/early 96.

I would disagree that everyone is lighter than the cavs, though. The US still has a couple of armored divisions, which have 2 armored and 1 mech bde.

In 89, when I went back to DLI for another language, The Big Red One was a "Mech Infantry Division." But the two Brigades that were at Ft. Riley were both 1 x Mech BN and 2 x Tank BN. The Third Brigade was at Goppingen (SP?), Germany and had Two Mech Bn and one Tank Bn. IIRC The Infantry BNs were 1/16th (3rd Bde), 2/16th (2nd Bde) 4/16th (3rd Bde) and 5/16th (1st Bde). The Armor Bns were
1/34 and 3/34 (2nd Brigade) 2/37 and 4/37 (1st Brigade) and I don't recall the armor BN in 3rd Brigade.

1st IDs mission, before the fall of the Soviet Union was, on order, to deploy to Germany, draw its second set of equipment, prepositioned in Germany, link up with 3rd Brigade, and conduct counter offensive operations against Soviet units that had crossed the West German Border within 72 hours of receiving the order. (Usually beginning with an opposed river crossing.) I personally believed that the mission parameters were a bit, shall we say, ambitious. Ideally the unit was to be deployed before the start of hostilities, however we trained for doing it the hard way.


A Armored Cav Squadron has (Or at least had until the drawdown took full hold) almost as many tanks as a Tank Batalion and almost as many Bradleys as an Infantry Batalion. (As I recall it was about 80% of the tanks and 75% of the Bradleys.) Armored vehicle wise it has about half again as many armored vehicles as any other equivalent sized unit.

IMTU, there are uses for such units, and the Imperial Marines do have a few of these types of units. However they, in the Marines, are the exception not the rule. If an Armored or Lift Infantry Division is required then usually aan appropiate Local (Local of course being relative) Army units are tasked with the mission and are deployed into LZs that the Marines have secured.

For a full up planetary invasion, the Navy secures the system, the Marines, secure the High Orbitals, if any, then the Landing Zones for Army units. The Marines will then fight in conjunction with Army Units, each exploiting their relative strengths.

Heavy Infantry for things like MOUT, Lift Infantry and Armor for Desert Warfare, etc.

 

[Ranger]

The effective difference between an Armored division and a Mech division is exactly 1 battalion in the US Army. Armored divisions have 5 tank and 4 Mech battalions, Mech divisions have 4 tank and 5 Mech. At the division level, the difference is purely semantic. That iw why the Army sees the distinction os Light or Heavy, not Infantry or Armor. IIRC the USMC division in the last Iraq war had 3 tank battalions (which is pretty much all the tanks in the Corps), so it was only one tank battalion short of its US Army Mech counterparts.

As to IM or IA participation in counter insurgancy, I don't recall that much involvement in the Efant situation, which is clearly a major insurgancy. There may be references to Imperial units fighting along side the local army, but I don't recall reading them. Then again, I haven't read all of them either. Ine Gvar arn't exactly domestic insurgents anyway, they are a foreign supported movement, so Imperial forces would be well within their right to intervien even without the local government requestion or even aproving their presence.

You're of course correct about the Type T, I should have said Grav Carrier rather than Grav APC, but my point was that even that squad has organic vehicle transport carried on board the ship.

Yes, the USMC mechanization is less than 30 years old, but then again, the US Army's mechanization is only about 60 years old. The Imperium has had 500 years to experiment and develop TOEs.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Ranger:
The effective difference between an Armored division and a Mech division is exactly 1 battalion in the US Army. Armored divisions have 5 tank and 4 Mech battalions, Mech divisions have 4 tank and 5 Mech. At the division level, the difference is purely semantic. That iw why the Army sees the distinction os Light or Heavy, not Infantry or Armor. IIRC the USMC division in the last Iraq war had 3 tank battalions (which is pretty much all the tanks in the Corps), so it was only one tank battalion short of its US Army Mech counterparts.

As to IM or IA participation in counter insurgancy, I don't recall that much involvement in the Efant situation, which is clearly a major insurgancy. There may be references to Imperial units fighting along side the local army, but I don't recall reading them. Then again, I haven't read all of them either. Ine Gvar arn't exactly domestic insurgents anyway, they are a foreign supported movement, so Imperial forces would be well within their right to intervien even without the local government requestion or even aproving their presence.

You're of course correct about the Type T, I should have said Grav Carrier rather than Grav APC, but my point was that even that squad has organic vehicle transport carried on board the ship.

Yes, the USMC mechanization is less than 30 years old, but then again, the US Army's mechanization is only about 60 years old. The Imperium has had 500 years to experiment and develop TOEs.

Granted the difference between a US Armored Division and a Mech Infantry division is relatively minor, when you put it that way, but the firepower difference between an Armor BN vs an Infantry BN is rather impressive.

But the Imperium has only been at TLE, in the time of gateway, for around 100 years, rough guess. TLF in the time of the Golden Age, for about 100 years. (Based on the fact that the Imperium is borderline TLF in 993, but not quite there. Though it is a mature TLF max in 1100.) The advent of efficient battle dress at about TLE changes the dynamic of combat. Especially what it does for Infantry Combat. I would think it would take a little while to get rid of the older schools of thought and fully embrace the new tactics that are possible with the advent of Battle Dress. After all it took a while for the Navy to adopt aircraft.

 

[BetterThanLife]

I noticed that several people bashed my Marine TO&E. While there is that nice list in LBB4 it doesn't state that it is Marine Organization. (Can't be if the Astrin is the Standard Marine APC or if Marines routinely travel on Patrol Cruisers, Or High Lightnings.) I was under the impression that the numbers in LBB4 were approximations.

An Astrin based Lift Infantry Squad is less likely to be set up as sections, though it can be. Mostly because a Lift Infantry Platoon is likely to be spread out a little farther than a Ground Platoon.

An Astrin Squad is likely to be 11-12. Squad being 2 fireteams, including or not including the Squad Leader, and the Vehicle crew of 3. That leaves a seat or two open for an additional passenger. So that in a Platoon of three squads you have room for the Platoon Leader, Platoon Sergeant, and Platoon Medic to fit in the Platoon's vehicles. Or in a 4 Squad Platoon, you can also add a Platoon Commo Specialist. If your platoon consists of 2x25 person sections (Includes vehicle crews) then you have room for the Platoon Leader and Platoon Sergeant in your Platoon's vehicles. Your Companies are going to be quite a bit bigger as are your Batalions.

Since everyone liked bashing my concept of Marine TO&E, though nobody mentioned my justification of it based on sizes, just didn't like me setting my Marines up vehicle light, I am curious how everyone else has the Imperial Marines organized in their Traveller Universe and the reasoning that they used to organize it that way. (I gave you a hint as to how an Astrin based Platoon is likely to be organized. G-Carrier based units can be bigger, (perhaps 6 person Fireteams like David Weber's Royal Manticoran Marines or 3x4 person Fire teams per squad, making Squads 14-15 people each.))

 

[Ranger]

I hope you didn't take my comments the wrong way. I actually like your concept a lot. I was just arguing that there would probably be two different types of IM regiments, a Light/Jump regiment (like the one you designed) and a Heavy/fully 'mechanized' one. The one thing I would add is a battalion of Empress Grav APCs at the regimental level that would be a combination Armor and Lift unit. It could be used as a tank battalion (Empresses have an RFY-15) or as transport for one infantry battalion.

As to the TOE for a Heavy Marine unit, I would go with the Empress there as well, as it is a combination APC/Tank, so you eliminate the need for separate Tank units.

Unfortunately, the Empress only has room for 8 passengers, so one of your 8 man dismount squads would work, but I would prefer a 9 man squad of 2 x 4 man fire teams and a separate squad leader. You could go with a heavy and light team concept, so one team has 3 members and the other has 4 and the squad leader is still on his own.

A platoon would be one mounted section of 3 vehicles and one dismounted section of 2 'rifle' squads and one support squad of 2 x 2 man tac missile teams. That leaves 4 seats open for the platoon HQ. One for the Platoon Commander's gunner (the guy who takes over the command APC when the PC dismounts to lead the 'rifle' squads), one for the Platoon Sergeant, one for the medic, and one for the FIST (Forward Indirect Support Team) member assigned to the platoon. If you really wanted, you could have the FIST or the Platoon Sergeant also be the PC's 'gunner', and that would free up one more seat for an add on at some point.

At the company level I would have 3 platoons plus a 3 vehicle company HQ of one command APC and a two vehicle indirect fire section, maybe Empresses with the troop compartment replaced with an MRL launcher or rapid fire RAP mortars.

P.S. Sorry about the lousy editing of my last post.

 

[jwcarroll60]

Marine TO&E, how about the basic Marine battalions organized as a light role unit (foot mobile), and the vehicles being held at regiment or brigade level. This way if A Co 2Bn 42nd Imperial Marines is to be deployed as ship's troops, they just grab their gear and board the shuttle. If, however, they are to be deployed as grav-mobile, the APCs are attached to them for mobility (and tanks for mobile firepower). This way you can task organize and have the best of both worlds

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Ranger:
I hope you didn't take my comments the wrong way. I actually like your concept a lot. I was just arguing that there would probably be two different types of IM regiments, a Light/Jump regiment (like the one you designed) and a Heavy/fully 'mechanized' one.

I wasn't offended by your comments. Not in the least.

Actually IMTU there are heavy units, though they aren't assigned to Fleet Marines. They are Assigned to Ground Forces Marines. (IMTU the Imperial Marines are broken up into 4 branches. The Fleet Marines (The most common and the ones described originally.) Ground Forces Marines. (In LBB4 you had to cross train to get into Cav or Artillery as a Marine.) Marine Commandoes and Marine Support. (Generic sounding but includes interesting aspects such as Intelligence, Military Police, ETC.)

The one thing I would add is a battalion of Empress Grav APCs at the regimental level that would be a combination Armor and Lift unit. It could be used as a tank battalion (Empresses have an RFY-15) or as transport for one infantry battalion.

Actually at Batalon Level I have a Squadron of MMMFVs, 10 of them, at Regimental Level an Armor Wing (50 of them). In the earlier incarnations of Battledress the idea of Grav APCs is an important one. Compared to my T20 Battledress APCs are obsolete. They don't offer better protection, and they aren't any faster. Matter of fact the Lift Squad in Combat Armor, in T20, plus the cost of an Astrin or an Empress (though I haven't converted the Empress to T20 yet) costs more than the same squad in my Marine Battle Dress. So except for the firepower, which can be provided by the MMMFVs, there is no real reason for APCs in Fleet Marine Units.

As to the TOE for a Heavy Marine unit, I would go with the Empress there as well, as it is a combination APC/Tank, so you eliminate the need for separate Tank units.

Unfortunately, the Empress only has room for 8 passengers, so one of your 8 man dismount squads would work, but I would prefer a 9 man squad of 2 x 4 man fire teams and a separate squad leader. You could go with a heavy and light team concept, so one team has 3 members and the other has 4 and the squad leader is still on his own.

A platoon would be one mounted section of 3 vehicles and one dismounted section of 2 'rifle' squads and one support squad of 2 x 2 man tac missile teams. That leaves 4 seats open for the platoon HQ. One for the Platoon Commander's gunner (the guy who takes over the command APC when the PC dismounts to lead the 'rifle' squads), one for the Platoon Sergeant, one for the medic, and one for the FIST (Forward Indirect Support Team) member assigned to the platoon. If you really wanted, you could have the FIST or the Platoon Sergeant also be the PC's 'gunner', and that would free up one more seat for an add on at some point.

At the company level I would have 3 platoons plus a 3 vehicle company HQ of one command APC and a two vehicle indirect fire section, maybe Empresses with the troop compartment replaced with an MRL launcher or rapid fire RAP mortars.

P.S. Sorry about the lousy editing of my last post.

I like it. I tend to go with 4 squad platoons. And there was more than one reason to go with 8 man squads. (It is what virtually every Grav APC, other than the G-Carrier, is designed to carry.) I dislike the short fireteam concept because it violates the buddy team concept. (Two is one, one is none.) I am overall unimpressed with MRLs as heavy support Artillery at high tech levels. Unless they are remote disposable units. COunter battery would tend to ba a real bitch. And Vehicles have anti-artillery point defense. (No rules but mentioned in LBB4.) Long range direct fire energy weapons tend to work better in that environment. (For example from orbit, naval gunnery.)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by jwcarroll60:
Marine TO&E, how about the basic Marine battalions organized as a light role unit (foot mobile), and the vehicles being held at regiment or brigade level. This way if A Co 2Bn 42nd Imperial Marines is to be deployed as ship's troops, they just grab their gear and board the shuttle. If, however, they are to be deployed as grav-mobile, the APCs are attached to them for mobility (and tanks for mobile firepower). This way you can task organize and have the best of both worlds

Looks good on paper. However there is a major problem with the concept. You train as you fight and conversely fight as you train. Vehicles have to be integrated in the unit at the level they are going to be used or they won't be used properly.

 

[jwcarroll60]

Didn't slow us down when I served in the USMC in the '70s & 80s. Good troops can train for more than one form of warfighting. I didn't exclude training with the vehicles & such, just adopting a basic TO and modularizing the process. I think it exists in the real world, you know swapping companies and cross training and such nonsense.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by jwcarroll60:
Didn't slow us down when I served in the USMC in the '70s & 80s. Good troops can train for more than one form of warfighting. I didn't exclude training with the vehicles & such, just adopting a basic TO and modularizing the process. I think it exists in the real world, you know swapping companies and cross training and such nonsense.

It won't get you anywhere near the capability of a Mech Infantry Platoon where each of the squads have an organic vehicle. YOu know what to expect. It is another part of the team, but it is part of the team. with seperate units you tend to wind up with an Us vs. Them attitude. I am not saying it can't be done, but it will not be as smooth or as capable as someone that does that all the time, with that level of integration.

 

[Rossoneill]

Very interesting and extremely thought provoking discussion .
Thenk you all for the very good ideas .
I will use some of them in my traveller D20 universe

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Rossthree:
Very interesting and extremely thought provoking discussion .
Thenk you all for the very good ideas .
I will use some of them in my traveller D20 universe

You are quite welcome.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Originally posted by Bhoins:

Looks good on paper. However there is a major problem with the concept. You train as you fight and conversely fight as you train. Vehicles have to be integrated in the unit at the level they are going to be used or they won't be used properly.

While doing Cold Weather Trainig in Alaska in 83 we all practiced being "ground" troops and walked carrying our gear on snowshoes. or pulling it behind us on sleds.

In 87 we practiced being "Mobile" troops on Snowmobiles and winterized Jeeps and APC's.

In between these exorcizes we practiced in forests and deserts, mountains and seashores.

Troops in the future will also get a veriety of training experiences in order to be able to perform under any circumstances. Anyone trained to be a ground troop can easily adapt to being mobile (IMHO).

(Semper Fidelis)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by cweiskircher:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:

Looks good on paper. However there is a major problem with the concept. You train as you fight and conversely fight as you train. Vehicles have to be integrated in the unit at the level they are going to be used or they won't be used properly.

While doing Cold Weather Trainig in Alaska in 83 we all practiced being "ground" troops and walked carrying our gear on snowshoes. or pulling it behind us on sleds.

In 87 we practiced being "Mobile" troops on Snowmobiles and winterized Jeeps and APC's.

In between these exorcizes we practiced in forests and deserts, mountains and seashores.

Troops in the future will also get a veriety of training experiences in order to be able to perform under any circumstances. Anyone trained to be a ground troop can easily adapt to being mobile (IMHO).

(Semper Fidelis)

</font>[/QUOTE]I never said troops couldn't adapt. I said that they wouldn't be as good as the same troops trained as a team with the vehicles organic as opposed to held at higher echelons. As Tech increases troops tend to become more specialized as well. You aren't going to take a Mech Infantry Company, take away their ICVs, load them up on Helicopters and expect them to be as good as a unit of the 101st, who do that every day. You can't take that same Infantry Company, load them up on a C141 or C17 give them chutes and expect them to jump either. On the other hand you also can't take a Company from the 101st, or the 82nd, give them bradleys and expect them to be anywhere as good with them as a Company from the Big Red One. (Even though many of the Infantry in the 82nd may have actually served in the 1st ID and vice versa.)

Like the doctor told my parents before my brother's open heart surgery. "Any competent surgeon can do this proceedure, but you want someone doing this proceedure someplace where they do it everyday, several times a day." Infantry may not exactly be surgery, but it definitely requires a level of expertise that the average person that never served, much less never served in the infantry, would not expect.

Take that same Mech Company from the 1st ID, take away their Bradleys and give them LAV-25s. They would take months to get up to the same level of expertise with the new vehicle. (And they are "equivalent.")

 

[Chuck Anumia]

So.....The Military can screw up by diverifying our training so much that we are no longer a viyable cohessive unit?

Our specialty was gathering combat intelligence and we carried the same equipment wherever we went and however we got there.

So.....Are you talking about the training they receive with the equipment they use every day or with the mode of transportation they use?

I agree that non jump trained troops will not perform as well at jumping out of an airplane as the trained troops will. This is still just talking about thier mode of transportation to where they will use their equipment.

 

[Ranger]

Well, there are significant differences between transportation and an IFV (Infantry Fighting Vehicle). The USMC tracked transport, the AMTRACK, is much more like a UH-60 than an APC or an IFV. That's why they are organized into seperate battalions like Army Aviation units.

An IFV is a very specialized vehicle, like a tank, that also carry troops. The IFV allows you to lighten up the infantry because it has a main gun, a coax machine gun, and ATGMs on the vehicle. That elimnates the need for the dismounts to carry crew served MGs and ATGMs. So the IFV is more than just transportation, it is an integrated part of the combat power of the infantry platoon. The vehicle crew has to be specially trained to operate effectivly. You can't just take a dismount squad and give them the vehicles to drive. You also want the dismounts and vehicle crews to work regularly because the dismounts will be counting on the IFV's to support them directly in combat, not just drop them off at the edge of the battle.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by cweiskircher:
So.....The Military can screw up by diverifying our training so much that we are no longer a viyable cohessive unit?

Our specialty was gathering combat intelligence and we carried the same equipment wherever we went and however we got there.

So.....Are you talking about the training they receive with the equipment they use every day or with the mode of transportation they use?

I agree that non jump trained troops will not perform as well at jumping out of an airplane as the trained troops will. This is still just talking about thier mode of transportation to where they will use their equipment.

Actually when discussing Infantry, the mode of transportation, if any, is part of the equipment, at least when it comes to Mech Infantry. (Or in Traveller Lift Infantry.) A Light Infantry Platoon is equipped differently than a Mech Infantry Platoon, which is different from an Air Assault Platoon, which is different from an Airborne Platoon. An Infantry Combat vehicle is more than a mode of transportation it is a combat asset. It doesn't just get them to the fight it is part of the fight. It isn't like assigning a couple of Duece and a Halfs, without the Machinegun mount, to take the unit close to the front and let them maneuver from there. A Bradley, Warrior, LAV-25, Marder, BMP, etc. is designed to provide supporting fire to the dismounted squad as well as transportation. It is the Platoon's primary Anti-Armor capability. It is the major suppresive fire resource. There is a reason that a Mech Infantry Squad includes the vehicle crew, it is to make it one unit, a single team.

I was in Intel myself. HUMINT. To me a CUCV/Hummer was just a means to get to the location. Once I got there the job was the job and it didn't really matter how i got there. However when I got out I joined the guard. There wasn't a local Intel unit, so I joined an Infantry unit. It isn't the same at all.