epicenter00
SOC-13
I've always imagined mercs in the Third Imperium to have skills and small arms and maybe Battle Dress; they'd love to have grav transport and such but with their income and transport, it's just out of reach. However, their man-portable equipment is probably top-notch and superior to an Imperial Marine's. I'd imagine that some merc outfits are "Bring Your Own Gun If You Want" and their weapons have all the doodads; like the FGMPs have the the rails to mount a flashlight, the foregrip, and grav mass offset generator. Each person probably has a rifle, some sort of "can opener" to deal with armor, a gauss pistol, a laser pistol, and so on. They'd mostly be used for cadre purposes (to train the indigenous forces in how to use all the ACRs and Plasma Guns their government bought them) and "commando" raids where their skills and individual firepower will mean the most. I don't imagine mercs actually fighting on the line in "world war" scenarios or doing counter-insurgency (both situations where the number of boots in the theater mean more skills.
I've always been a little leery of mercenary portrayals in sci-fi because I personally find the equipment levels of famous sci-fi merc examples (Hammer's Slammers and Battletech) to be unrealistic. I just find it unlikely that merc outfits will be able afford these grav tanks, g-carriers, and Broadsword cruisers to carry it all around in. Where do they get the money to do all this? If it takes a month+ in Jump space to get such lucrative tickets, what kind of market really exists for such mercs? A lot of the crises you'd hire mercs for instead of just mobilizing would be over by the mercs show up. For instance, even if you assume that there's 3-4 such hotspots in the Spinward Marches, even in a J4 Merc Cruiser it'd probably take like 3-4 jumps to get to your point since refuelling points won't let you use your full J4 with every jump. It's even worse if you're using J1 or J2 transport.
I've always been a little leery of mercenary portrayals in sci-fi because I personally find the equipment levels of famous sci-fi merc examples (Hammer's Slammers and Battletech) to be unrealistic. I just find it unlikely that merc outfits will be able afford these grav tanks, g-carriers, and Broadsword cruisers to carry it all around in. Where do they get the money to do all this? If it takes a month+ in Jump space to get such lucrative tickets, what kind of market really exists for such mercs? A lot of the crises you'd hire mercs for instead of just mobilizing would be over by the mercs show up. For instance, even if you assume that there's 3-4 such hotspots in the Spinward Marches, even in a J4 Merc Cruiser it'd probably take like 3-4 jumps to get to your point since refuelling points won't let you use your full J4 with every jump. It's even worse if you're using J1 or J2 transport.
