Originally posted by BetterThanLife:
One other stupid point. Why would you, with either Grav APC's or Grav Belts, Land at the starport and travel halfway around the world to your target. Grav APC's and Grav Belts both can reach or descend from orbit.
BTL,
For pretty much the same reasons all infantry in the Real World aren't paratroopers; Time, Training/Cost, and Enemy Capabilities.
(These are going to be
general observations, observations that take into account
most and
not all. You'll be able to come up with specific situations under which the observations won't work. In fact, I'm betting you'll do just that. You won't, however, be able to come up with situations in which they don't work
most of the time.)
TIME: For an air/raft, time to orbit/deorbit is the world's UPP size in
hours. Grav belts are the same. That's straight out of
Death Station. We're looking at an eight hour 'drop' on a Earth-like world.
Grav vehicles mostly certainly do it quicker, but the poor bloody infantry will spend hours 'floating' down. Hours, as we'll see later, in which they're be vulnerable to all sorts of nastiness.
Those troops will also have to be wearing vacc suits for most of their trip; combat armor is not a vacc suit remember.
Jump troops are the exception to this, as we'll see later.
We could ask the actual infantry combat vets here at COTI what they think about an eight hour 'march' with a battle immediately afterwards. I'm pretty sure I know their answer however. I'm also pretty sure the enemy could get up to all sorts of things doing that time too; as we'll see later.
Training/Cost: We've already seen that the infantry will have to wear vacc suits during your proposed 'orbital march to contact'. What else will they need to wear and learn? Are we going to amr and train all our troops to do this? What will the 'washout' rate then be?
Of course, we can speed up the drop with all sorts of specialized equipment like re-entry kits and the like. Our troops will have to be supplied with that and be trained on it too. The troops that do get that equipment and training are called jump troops. (Funny how that worked out, isn't it?) Whether they wear battledress or not, jump troops have the equipment and skills to drop from orbit safely and quickly enough to matter.
Enemy Capabilities: Generally speaking in high-tech OTU combat; If It Flies, It Dies. Grav vehicles generally operate at NOE, limiting their speed. Even grav-belted troopers, as you yourself have pointed out, normally limit themselves to small hops and dashes. Get too high in the air and the enemy is going to slag you.
How much fun to you think an enemy would have with troops floating down on gravbelts from orbit for eight hours? Grav vehicles at least have armor, speed, and countermeasures. If we give infantry some of those advantages we're back to - surprise - jump troops.
Also, how much trouble can an enemy get up to in the time it takes to deploy from orbit? You've identified an enemy, ordered your drop, and the troops involved show up eight hours later. Will the enemy still even be there?
Troops could very well deorbit by gravbelt and they could very well deorbit by gravbelt right into combat. However, a more likely and more normal situation would have troops - and vehicles - using their full grav speeds for strategic mobility. They'd deorbit or move between theatres along safe/protected routes at high speeds, and the altitudes those speeds require. Once in theatre, they'll go to 'ground' within a certain reaction distance of suspected enemy forces. Then, when their presence in required, they can move to contact within a short enough time to catch the enemy.
Even if they're operating on a friendly world, there is no real reason for a military unit to funnel all it's forces through a starport that may be a hemisphere away from the fighting. However, there is also no real reason for a military unit to spend eight hours dropping nonspecialized troops individually from orbit directly into a battle.
YMMV.
Have fun,
Bill
