TA7 and Ships troops

[Andrew Moreton]

Is there a way to tell from the condensed ship forms in TA 7 the number of marines/Ships troops carried by each ship without going out and redesigning the ship using the stats?
While the number of crew is useful I would find it useful when planning to use a ship in a campaihn to know howm many if any troops are onboard.

 

[clementk]

page 275-277 of the THB details number of crew per position. Ship's troops range from 3 / 100 to 3 / 1000 tons of ship. So you could mark off basic crew using the other categories of crew as a start. I'd suspect there's not a fixed number of ship's troops for every ship in a class.

i.e. when in doubt make it whatever you think is needed within those guidelines

Casey

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

Is the question how many can fit on the ship or how many would be kept on the ship?

A easy way to look at it would be to just look at the number of staterooms avalable and the number of them that the crew would need. Any extra could and most likely do have ships troops in them (On military ships anyway) There is a good chance that some of the troops would be hot bunked as well, if there on duty they dont need the room so why not make use of it. that alows you to keep the number of troops somewhat random so the players dont start saying "oh well that ship has 37 marines on board but that one will only have 12"

You can always use the vehicle bunks set up in the cargo hold for short term transport. (they use up 150 vls and if i remember right there are something like 1200 vls per dt. I could be wrong dont have a book on me right now)

That would let someone take a large number of troops with the lest amount of ships for short transport. (even at 1 week the grunts are not going to like it, think of how much room the old subs had for the crew and you get a idea of how cramped they would be.

 

[far-trader]

Just to stick my nose in here, I think he was asking if the designer had actually summed any ships troops into the designs and if so how many. Beyond an answer from the designer all I can say after a quick look is read the descriptive text. I notice the first ship described notes it can carry 2,000 troops. Not sure about the others.

To stray off topic a bit I sense a trend to allowing the use of cargo or other space aboard for ferrying troops. I'd caution allowing that without some thought. It won't be as easy as taking a sea-going ship and filling the holds with bunks stacked several high and 18 inches apart. There the troops can breath air from the atmosphere, don't have to worry about the extreme heat or cold of space, and can put all the waste overboard. Can't do that so well cooped up in a tin can in vacuum. I think the design rules factor life support into the standards for staterooms and other accomodations and rules for stressing them by hotbunking is found on pages 348-9.

I think if you wanted you could install temporary accomodations for the price listed, or ship the troops in low berths carried in the hold, if pressed you could even pack them in emergency low berths for even more troops.

 

[someoneelsehasmyname]

Im not saying packing in troops is a good idea just that some small goverments may need to transport Large bodys of troops quickly and the fastest way I could see that working would be to crame them into a cargo hold. Not the best idea but it would work if you were to "purhace extra lifesuport" and store it with the troops. Once again its not the best idea but it could work.

The low berths would be better in some cases, and cheaper for long trips but for 1 jump trips it could have some prohibitive cost.

Sorry for getting off topic.

 

[veltyen]

OK. How much space do troops (being transported only) take?

Lets take a BattleDress Company. Minimum Kit for a several month sojourn in one or more theatres. Must take all required personal and equipment to operate alone, on in coordination with other forces. Does not require Food and Fuel, carried in additonal cargo space or sourced elsewhere.

5 platoons of 25 men, all in battledress.
Command and Control (25 men)
Sensor and Communication (20 men)
Medical and Maintenance (30 men)

This is a little skimpy on support personel, but I am assuming that there are mechanics and medics scattered in the platoons, and the extra are the specialist mechanics and medical personel.

I am assuming a model of a set of multipurpose battledress, everyone in the company is issued a suit, and the personel who need the armor least are the first to be cannibalised to keep the core force in working order.

I will assume that there are 200 emergency low berths for carrying personel. There would be a handfull of people that would not be low berthed in most situations (CMO,CTO,CEO + support), but I will leave space for them anyway.

I am assuming a large (30dTon == 42,000 vl vehicle ) command vehicle/vehicles. Similar sized medical and repair bay vehicles, effectively mobile hospital and mobile repair base. Additional 30dTon in transport (Ambulance /retreival/repair) vehicles and sensor/comm vehicles.


So
200 Emergency Low Berths 50dTon
200 350vl BattleDress units 50dTon
Mobile Tactical Command 30dTon
Mobile Hospital 30dTon
Mobile Repair Base 30dTon
Recovery/Sensor/Comm Vehicles 30dTon

Total 220 dTon

So you can fit one of these companies in a mercenary cruiser (The modular cutters have to have two of the Mobile bases in them), with a very small ammount of spare space for fuel and food

You can approximately triple the number of troops if you make them all footsloggers (less need for repair, no need for battledress space). A mechanised infantry company (smaller organisational design) would take about the same space. Armored companies would depend on the size of the tanks.

With minimum life support you are looking at 1 soldier per 1 ton, though you can try to push that up to 1.5 soldiers per ton. Any more then this and you start to no longer have sufficient life support, which might be OK for a one week jump, but I wouldn't like to convince a company that this was a good idea for multiple weeks. This is balanced against 4 soldiers per ton in compact/risky low berths, without no where near the same cost in life support supplies. Keeping your soldiers in cargo for the company outlined above would take an extra 150dTons of life support (for multiple jump engagements) or an extra 75 dTon or so if it was definitely only a week.

Returning breifly to topic, the number of ships troops on any ship is purely dependant on the situation at hand. A naval vessel doing active boarding is going to have all possible troops on board, possible even breaching the 3/100 dTon suggested upper limit. The same naval vessel doing ranged interdiction will have less troops on board. A pirate vessel will have whatever is appropriate for their method of hunting. So it comes down to their is no meaningful way to give a statistic for "number of troops carried" though their does need to be a stat for "minimum crew" and "maximum personel (crew+passengers)" which gives you an idea of how many troops can be carried on board at a pinch.

Apologies for rambling.