Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Have a player group run it, then add in fog of war and communications lag.
How they wish they didn't cheap out on the comm gear.
How they wish they didn't cheap out on the comm gear.
military budgets
- Thread starter Ishmael
- Start date
As to fire team size - historically more than 13 is too large to command (i.e. Marine Rifle Squad). I recommend a 9 man squad (aka Stryker or Bradley).
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Depends on span of command, and average human capability, which optimizes around three primary subunits.
Also, as I recall, Bradley capacity dictated the infantry squad size.
Also, as I recall, Bradley capacity dictated the infantry squad size.
Back to the original posting... I seem to remember budget discussions over personnel et al on the TML back in the 90s. I don't think any satisfactory resolution was found. I suppose that meant that there's no model to compete with Trillion Credit Squadron to describe fleet costs.
It also seems reasonable that the average TL of recruits is the average TL of the source worlds, or perhaps lower by a TL or two. All those High Pop pre-interstellar worlds have kids itching to get off of their homeworld and see the stars...
Hans made the point that the largest efficiencies are with the largest starships -- certainly something to think about when designing a strategy game too. He used the Type T (MCr 220, crew 10) as a low-efficiency ship as well.
Some time in the murky past I wrote a javascript function that enumerated the ships in a battle squadron. If a "typical" squadron could be guesstimated, then we'd have squadron cost C and personnel count P, and could reason about them.
It also seems reasonable that the average TL of recruits is the average TL of the source worlds, or perhaps lower by a TL or two. All those High Pop pre-interstellar worlds have kids itching to get off of their homeworld and see the stars...
Hans made the point that the largest efficiencies are with the largest starships -- certainly something to think about when designing a strategy game too. He used the Type T (MCr 220, crew 10) as a low-efficiency ship as well.
Some time in the murky past I wrote a javascript function that enumerated the ships in a battle squadron. If a "typical" squadron could be guesstimated, then we'd have squadron cost C and personnel count P, and could reason about them.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
A lot of that adventurism, curiousity and wanderlust may be satisfied by virtual reality.
The higher the world's technological level, the more realistic the experience.
The higher the world's technological level, the more realistic the experience.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
A lot of that has to do with economies of scale. Certain factors (like bridge and computer) do not necessarily scale up linearly at 1000 tons and below. In other words, 2x 500 ton starships will tend to cost more than 1x 1000 ton starship with the exact same capabilities ... in part because you're paying for 2 bridges instead of only 1 bridge as well as 2 computers instead of only 1 computer. Also, depending on how the drive allocation adds up you may wind up with 0-2 fewer engineers needed on the 1x 1000 ton ship compared to the 2x 500 ton ships.
It doesn't make a huge amount of difference, but it does make enough of one to actually MAKE a difference on the margins of overall performance when doing a cross-comparison. As always, the dæmonology is in the details ,,,
Found it. But I have no idea if it's even close to ... well I'll say reality, but you know what I mean.
I'll attach it here, if COTI will let me, and you can look at it and think. You'll have to rename it to ".html", then it'll work in Chrome.
For the "Spinward Marches", which I take to mean "pretty much all fleet ships in the Marches", I suggested there are:
6 Tigresses (4534 crew each = 26,124 crew)
12 Plankwells (1163 crew each = 13,956 crew)
24 Kokirraks (1643 crew each = 39,432 crew)
20 Lurentis (2086 crew each = 41,720 crew)
140 Nolikians (690 crew each = 96,600 crew)
4000 fighters (2 crew each = 8,000 crew)
140 Sloans. (40 crew each = 5,600 crew)
20 Lift Infantry Regiments (2646 people each = 52,920 officers + troops)
240 more Sloans (40 crew each = 9,600 crew)
180 Seh light cruisers (no idea... assume Gionetti crew levels = 231 crew = 41,580 crew)
180 Wind strike cruisers (755 crew each = 135,900 crew)
Just the above ships total 767 million tons, and TCr 378.5, and appx 471,432 officers, troops, and crew. If the maintenance costs of the ships were like that of player ships -- 1% of the purchase cost per year -- then the maintenance budget is BCr 3,785. If I just wildly guesstimate the average pay is Cr10,000 per year, and furthermore assume four support personnel for each of those people mentioned above, also receiving an average of Cr10,000 per year, then the personnel budget is BCr 23.5....... or 0.6% of the maintenance budget. As Hans mentions, that is so tiny it's below the error rate of the numbers I'm crunching. It is tiny enough to be safely ignored.
But it's not complete. I didn't guesstimate any of the supporting vessels for the BatRons. Surely there are a large number of supporting ships there, including cruisers, destroyers, escorts, and fighter wings.
But maybe it doesn't matter: maybe Hans' point stands, that personnel cost really is minuscule compared to ship cost.
I'll attach it here, if COTI will let me, and you can look at it and think. You'll have to rename it to ".html", then it'll work in Chrome.
For the "Spinward Marches", which I take to mean "pretty much all fleet ships in the Marches", I suggested there are:
6 Tigresses (4534 crew each = 26,124 crew)
12 Plankwells (1163 crew each = 13,956 crew)
24 Kokirraks (1643 crew each = 39,432 crew)
20 Lurentis (2086 crew each = 41,720 crew)
140 Nolikians (690 crew each = 96,600 crew)
4000 fighters (2 crew each = 8,000 crew)
140 Sloans. (40 crew each = 5,600 crew)
20 Lift Infantry Regiments (2646 people each = 52,920 officers + troops)
240 more Sloans (40 crew each = 9,600 crew)
180 Seh light cruisers (no idea... assume Gionetti crew levels = 231 crew = 41,580 crew)
180 Wind strike cruisers (755 crew each = 135,900 crew)
Just the above ships total 767 million tons, and TCr 378.5, and appx 471,432 officers, troops, and crew. If the maintenance costs of the ships were like that of player ships -- 1% of the purchase cost per year -- then the maintenance budget is BCr 3,785. If I just wildly guesstimate the average pay is Cr10,000 per year, and furthermore assume four support personnel for each of those people mentioned above, also receiving an average of Cr10,000 per year, then the personnel budget is BCr 23.5....... or 0.6% of the maintenance budget. As Hans mentions, that is so tiny it's below the error rate of the numbers I'm crunching. It is tiny enough to be safely ignored.
But it's not complete. I didn't guesstimate any of the supporting vessels for the BatRons. Surely there are a large number of supporting ships there, including cruisers, destroyers, escorts, and fighter wings.
But maybe it doesn't matter: maybe Hans' point stands, that personnel cost really is minuscule compared to ship cost.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
You forgot needing to pay for life support.
50 weeks of life support per 52 week year is 25x Cr2000 per person or MCr0.05 per person.
Call it 472,000 persons embarked each year (to keep the math simpler) and you're starting to almost round up towards BCr9.5 per year, which added to crew salaries brings the personnel budget up to BCr33 per year.
And like you said, that's not even accounting for all the "smaller ships" in the fleets (destroyers, escorts, tankers, etc.) and their personnel costs ... plus all the base facilities and transport services for logistics tails ... and the money drain just never stops.
Fortunately, there are the economies of an entire sector to support those expenses amortized over an entire year ... but still ... not cheap!
Hairy Jim DeGriz
SOC-12
I was looking at this from a wholistic Planetary / Pocket Empire budget perspective, and this is what I found in NATO's annual report
My Eureka moment was this: you only get 9% - 26% to spend on capital expenditures, i.e. TOYS! Starships, Spaceships, Grav Tanks, Combat Armor and FGMP-14s. It reduces the size of fleets and armies, which is where I want MTU to be. It also makes the math simple, everything else is Handwavium, like all budgets.
No more counting salaries, maintenance, ammunition, meals or housing.
Neither TCS nor Striker did a good accounting of the logistics needed to field a fleet or an army.
Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2013-2020)
| Defence Expenditures | ||||
| Grouping | 1980 | 2000 | 2020 | Troops |
| US | 7% | 3.50% | 3.60% | 0.41% |
| NATO ex US | 1.51% | 0.31% | ||
| NATO Total | 2.56% | 0.34% |
My Eureka moment was this: you only get 9% - 26% to spend on capital expenditures, i.e. TOYS! Starships, Spaceships, Grav Tanks, Combat Armor and FGMP-14s. It reduces the size of fleets and armies, which is where I want MTU to be. It also makes the math simple, everything else is Handwavium, like all budgets.
No more counting salaries, maintenance, ammunition, meals or housing.
Neither TCS nor Striker did a good accounting of the logistics needed to field a fleet or an army.
| Budget | Equipment | Personel | Infrastructure | Other |
| United States | 26.50% | 38.60% | 1.40% | 33.50% |
| NATO Lo | 9% | 75% | 9.30% | 11% |
| NATO Hi | 25% | 35% | 0.80% | 40% |
Defence Expenditure of NATO Countries (2013-2020)
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
You can also pretty much write off twenty percent of the budget for repairs and maintenance, and let's assume another twenty percent for operations.
Traveller military economics doesn't really relate to current Terran ones.
Traveller military economics doesn't really relate to current Terran ones.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Those percentages can be off by quite a bit.
One off the top of my head, a lot of that 'other' is going to be fuel use, for ships and planes and vehicles. Traveller assumes ubiquitous fusion and relatively cheap 'live off the land' fuels for that, or something like fuel cells for low end gear. That means more expense in the equipment category, a lot less in other, and likely less cost to do 'the job' overall then doing things by fission or hydrocarbons.
Another is cost of personnel. The current US cost is predicated on volunteer forces, but for most major wars throughout US history it's been a draft force with much lower per person costs.
If you want to get into modelling that, probably best to go into the TCS government war/peace budget modifier and either make for a larger differential for certain government types, or have a volunteer/draft choice that increases 'maintenance' costs but yields some kind of morale or skill bonus for more expensive volunteers. Also probably should be more force limits due to the smaller personnel pool with vols, or vol force peace/draft force war.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
In Traveller, energy is practically free, and spaceship maintenance one tenth of a percent per annum.
Manpower pools for interstellar polities, for all intents and purposes, are bottomless.
Manpower pools for interstellar polities, for all intents and purposes, are bottomless.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
If we were to be simulationist about it, shouldn't recruitment and/or commission minimum char-stats be a thing then?
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Militaries can, in theory, afford to be picky.
In my alternate vision, Confederation Army and Navy rejects can volunteer for the CAVALRY, who have to accept anyone, within reason.
In my alternate vision, Confederation Army and Navy rejects can volunteer for the CAVALRY, who have to accept anyone, within reason.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Or Heinlein's citizenship volunteers- just may not be in the MI.
Hairy Jim DeGriz
SOC-12
Thank you all for the input. It's very useful in working out my plans.
I prefer the Striker model to the TCS model because the TCS budget is fixed at 500 Cr per person ~ 27,777 per capita GWP (500 Cr / 3% military budget / 60% Navy Allocation) regardless of the UWP. Striker adjusted GWP by TL and trade codes making the worlds less monolithic.
TCS rules are supporting a starship slugfest game, whereas Striker rules support equipping and fighting at the battalion level downwards. Both are independent games in that sense.
The Modern Terran model is not optimal, but it's real, and offers insights into a military budget at the national scale, which TCS and Striker glossed over, as it was out of scope for the games.
I've read Pocket Empires, it's a great resource, but far more detailed than I want. And the Resources don't map to T5 RUs. I've also read GURPS Far Trader, but I didn't like the baseline per capita GWPs (likewise with Striker).
What I liked about the NATO data is that with countries like Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia and Norway in the mix, you can see how different economies allocate resources and a range of differences.
For MTU, set over in the Gateway Sector, I'm trying to scale down the navies from the TCS model and set a simple, but consistent means of measuring (estimating) military strength across dozens of independent worlds and federations. I created a formula for personnel, other, infrastructure and equipment derived from the NATO data. No more accounting for each ship and grav tanks's annual maintenance, or the number of troops AND support staff.
Free Energy is an equation changer.
I prefer the Striker model to the TCS model because the TCS budget is fixed at 500 Cr per person ~ 27,777 per capita GWP (500 Cr / 3% military budget / 60% Navy Allocation) regardless of the UWP. Striker adjusted GWP by TL and trade codes making the worlds less monolithic.
TCS rules are supporting a starship slugfest game, whereas Striker rules support equipping and fighting at the battalion level downwards. Both are independent games in that sense.
The Modern Terran model is not optimal, but it's real, and offers insights into a military budget at the national scale, which TCS and Striker glossed over, as it was out of scope for the games.
I've read Pocket Empires, it's a great resource, but far more detailed than I want. And the Resources don't map to T5 RUs. I've also read GURPS Far Trader, but I didn't like the baseline per capita GWPs (likewise with Striker).
What I liked about the NATO data is that with countries like Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia and Norway in the mix, you can see how different economies allocate resources and a range of differences.
For MTU, set over in the Gateway Sector, I'm trying to scale down the navies from the TCS model and set a simple, but consistent means of measuring (estimating) military strength across dozens of independent worlds and federations. I created a formula for personnel, other, infrastructure and equipment derived from the NATO data. No more accounting for each ship and grav tanks's annual maintenance, or the number of troops AND support staff.
But you have to consider that many of these economies are not isolated, and that this affects their budgeting and manpower decisions.
I have commanded both Army and Marine Platoons in the past. I found that the older H Series MTOE for light infantry was far more adequate than the Marines). My squad leaders were able to effective use the 11 men far more efficiently with the 2 team leaders then the 3 team leaders in the Marines (my opinion only). The problem of a six-man dismount team with 3 sitting in the Bradley is that it can be quickly become ineffective in combat. Granted a nine-man team sitting in a Tech 11 GRAV APC could handle pretty much a platoon or company of Tech 7 or 8 soldiers. But against a near or equal peer force it is based on survivability and maneuverability. He who acts first wins.
You are partially correct on the Bradley capabilities. BAE just couldn't pull it off (see the movie "Pentagon Wars". The emphasis was the weapons being considered were basically the key weapons (automatic, LMG and M203). But it reduces the close quarter combat with a reduction of strength. I fielded Bradley's early in OIF. They were far better riding than 9 guys jammed into an M113. However, I prefer dismounted forces.
I think that the support number is weigh off. For example, the United States Air Force has approximately 5400 aircraft of all types. The total AF strength (Active, Reserve and ANG) is 532,000. The maintainers for an F16 range from 22 to 24 personnel. There are over 65,000 maintainer slots just in the Active force. It kind of skews the numbers. I can work up the HBCT numbers for ground forces, but for example, there are 1400 positions in the HBCT Spt Battalion, but that includes medics, personnel and other air thieves. Even though there would be advantages such as 3D printing; it still requires a replacement at the LRU level for everything. Just thinking out loud since I used to do this for a living for the Army as well as budgets.
