According to the rules in Mass Combat, the TS doubles with every TL. All
other things being equal, a TL10 battalion or a TL12 company may be able
to defeat a TL8 brigade combat team. Let's see:
TL10 SPACEBORNE BATTALION
The battalion should be a self-contained force, capable of organizing
several company or even platoon battlegroups. Lots of C3I, then. Weight
is a major issue for space transport at TL10 or even TL10^, so it will be
mostly infantry, with just a few tanks. With the Sealed and Airborne
features, they're capable of orbital drops.
ELEMENTS AND UNITS
The battalion consists of three infantry companies, one tank company,
one support company, and one base support company. The support company
moves with the various battlegroups, while the base support company is
going create a logistics base. The rules subsume most of these support
troops under the logistics force, but some are actually elements.
A, B, and C infantry companies: Each with three rifle platoons (four
Light Truck elements, three Riflemen elements, one MANPAD element, and
one HSW element), one weapons platoon (six Light Truck elements, three
ATGM elements, and three Mortar Team elements), and a company HQ (two
Light Truck elements, one Command Post element).
D armored company: Three tank platoons (four MBT elements each), one
mechanized mortar platoon (four SP Mortar elements), and a company HQ
(one APC element, one Command Post element).
E support company: One engineer platoon (three CEV elements, three
Light Truck elements, three Combat Engineers elements), one repair and
recovery platoon (subsumed under logistics), one transport platoon
(also subsumed under logistics, even if it has some Light and Heavy
Trucks), and one AD platoon (four Mobile SAM elements). Controlled by
the battalion HQ.
F base support company: One depot maintenance platoon (subsumed under
logistics), one quartermaster platoon (also subsumed under logistics),
one hospital platoon (also subsumed under logistics), and one MP platoon
(eight Light Truck elements and eight HSW elements, plus others subsumed
under logistics). Their command and control is also subsumed under
logistics.
Battalion headquarters: Two separate command posts (each two Command
Post elements, one APC element, and one Light Truck element).
All are Good-quality troops with Very Fine equipment and the Airborne,
Night, and Sealed features, for a total of +360% to raise and +230% to
maintain. TS of these options is +200%.
SPACEBORNE BATTALION ROSTER
Elements Total TS Class Wt. Mob. Raise Maint.
12 MBTs 144,000 Arm, Cv, F 12*8 Mech 32,400,000 828,000
4 SP Mortars (19,200) Art 4*4 Mech 2,880,000 92,000
3 CEV 7,200 Arm, Eng 3*4 Mech 1,620,000 51,750
3 APC 7,200 Arm, Cv, F, T1 3*4 Mech 2,160,000 69,000
4 Mobile SAM (76,800) (Air) 4*4 Motor 14,400,000 460,000
73 Light 35,040 Cv, T1 73*2 Motor 6,570,000 419,750
Trucks
27 Riflemen 51,840 F, Rec 27*1 Foot 5,832,000 745,200
3 Combat 5,760 Eng, F 3*1 Foot 648,000 82.800
Engineers
17 HSW (40,800) F 17*0.5 Foot 3,060,000 391,000
9 Mortar (21,600) Art 9*1 Foot 810,000 103,500
Teams
9 ATGM (51,840) (Arm) 9*1 Foot 1,458,000 186,300
9 MANPAD (21,600) (Air) 9*0.5 Foot 1,215,000 155,250
8 Command (19,200) C3I 8*1 0 2,880,000 368,000
Posts
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTAL TS 274,224 75,933,000 3,952,550
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Land Logistics 19,762,000 1,976,275
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Air) TS 98,400
Armor TS 159,400
(Armor) TS 51,840
Artillery TS 40,800
C3I TS 19,200
Cavalry TS 186,240
Engineer TS 12,960
Fire TS 249,600
Recon TS 51,840
Transport 76*1 (required: 69)
The combat elements have 12 vehicles at weight 8 (tracked 50-ton MBTs)
14 vehicles at weight 4 (all variants of the 25-ton tracked APC[1]), and
73 vehicles at weight 2 (perhaps 5-ton lightly armored 4x4s).
The logistics force will have three 25-ton tracked recovery vehicles,
a couple of 25-ton heavy trucks, and plenty of 5-ton light trucks.
Open questions:
* Should the MPs be represented by Light Trucks with HSWs, or would they
be Motor Recon? I'm thinking of patrol cars and convoy escorts here.
* Do I need the mobile SAMs, or should I get four Scout Aircraft (i.e.
UAVs/UCAVs)? They'd have TS 1,920 Air at TL10, better than an ordinary
TL7 CAS aircraft and close to a TL7 fighter. Right now, my force has
almost 20% ADA.
* Would spaceborne logistics count as naval or air?
* By the rules, MBTs plus truck-carried infantry looks better than the
same weight of IFV-carried infantry. Am I missing something?
* Should the MBTs become nuclear? The Mass Combat rules don't cover that
in detail.
Next steps (not necessarily for me):
* Task-organize the force.
* Write the defenders. How does a modern NATO corps look in Mass Combat?
:-)
Regards,
Onno
[1] Technically, the SAM is Motor rather than Mech, but I'm going to
ignore that.
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