Dear GURPSnet, I'm putting the finishing touches on the vehicles for the gate setting, and Eddie has asked a question about battlesuits. As usual that got me thinking, and as usual I'm casting my net wider than the original question.
When I talk about battlesuits, I'm thinking about human-shaped vehicles where the operator puts his limbs into the limbs of the vehicle -- that requires a human-compatible size and shape. Larger sizes would be called Mecha, and I'm not sure if small, non-human-shaped vehicles have a name. The difference between battlesuits and powered armor is tricky; GURPS 3E had the Battlesuit and Exoskeleton skills and Battlesuit was required for the use of integral weapons. Back in the 90s we had long debates on battlesuits vs. tanks, mecha vs. tanks, and so on. If I recall correctly the consensus back then was that battlesuits could fight tanks in broken or urban terrain, but not on open ground -- it seems the narrator in Heinlein's Starship Troopers was wrong, but then he had been through the brainwashing of the M.I. bootcamp. Other branches would have their own legends. However, the debates back then were mostly centered on TL8 or TL9. There was Pauli's Bigfoot, and the responses it generated. To make use of the urban terrain, the battlesuit should be light enough not to fall right through to the basement. How heavy can a suit be if minor damage to residential buildings is acceptable? Half a ton? One ton? That depends on the contact area, too, but chairs put a lot of weight on a few small points, too. I guess the total weight is the limiting factor here. Battlesuits go with space marines like peanut butter goes with jelly -- does it make sense to equate boarding actions with urban combat? Or does that require smaller suits? One thing I've been wondering about, the usual assumption in literature seems to be that battlesuits are issued to privates fresh from boot camp, and that battlesuits replace unpowered troops at one for one in an infantry TO&E. How reasonable is that? * Heinlein had a normal-sized platoon for his day, all suits, which drew on the navy for most maintenance support (while they were proclaiming loudly that "everybody jumps" -- yeah, sure). * In Battletech, powered armor "points" are much smaller than regular squads and platoons. * Some Traveller editions had one "battledress" trooper with a fusion gun in an otherwise unpowered fire team or squad. What happens to the main weapon in the squad if the dedicated gunner breaks a leg? * In the first Honor Harrington stories by David Weber, one platoon in the marine company of a cruiser had powered armor, the others were unpowered. Unpowered marines would help those in power armor with their checklists. But there were all-armor assault battalions, too. * In the Attack Vector game, there were "hardsuit" platoons with eight suits, nine HMMWV-like trucks, and 28 soldiers, and individual "hardsuits" with one suit, one truck, and four soldiers. It seems each battlesuit had his own truck driver and mechanic. Do you put powered armor into sustained operations, or are they for short, sharp fights like commandos? * Heinlein's M.I. did both, on different worlds, with optional recharge packs. * Weber's armor could be reconfigured, for maximum endurance or for maximum firepower. * How do you recharge a battlesuit in the field, anyway? There seems to be a trend these days to reduce the number of rifles at the sharp end and to increase the number of headquarters people, even at the company level, with intel and operations staff. * A small squad could consist of the squad leader and two four-man fire teams. The team members specialize -- team leader, grenadier, automatic rifleman, rifleman. Would battlesuits specialize that way, too? * Does the firepower of a battlesuit allow smaller squads? * Can a squad fight with fire and maneuver, or does it take a platoon to maneuver different squads? * OTOH, even a nine-man squad will have problems if it takes casualties. What do you think? Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
