Normally, I'm a big lurker here, but since I was included in the opening and feel like I can talk intelligently about parts of this topic...
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. So for clarity, Battlesuit equates to what most other high-tech games call Power Armor and Exoskeleton would be more akin to Ripley's suit in Alien/Aliens (I can never remember which one it was)? Back in the 90s Oh lord, I'm going to be nice and not touch this...mainly because I'm that old too and had I known about the list, I would have been here. :-D Other branches would have their own legends. However, the debates back then were mostly centered on TL8 or TL9. My only issue, and I'm sure the debates in the 90s acknowledged, Heinlein isn't the only school of thought where battlesuits/powered armor are a story feature. I hate to weigh my products against his one vision of how they would be if real. How heavy can a suit be if minor damage to residential buildings is acceptable? If weight is the limiting factor, then that has to be determined by the construction materials and methodology of the populace where the suits are being used. Not knowing where you're going to be deployed though, you have to make a decision based on what you consider your average environment will be. More after the boarding/urban question... does it make sense to equate boarding actions with urban combat? Or does that require smaller suits? Yes, you can equate them. While the techniques to establish your foothold are different in boarding actions vice MOUT, the principles are the same. Establish foothold, then clear room by room, section by section. If one hallway is smaller than another hallway, you have to adjust your tactics but the fundamental doctrine will be the same. Again, the size of what you anticipate will be your size determinant. One thing to take into consideration though, as an infantryman, I like to be small and light so I can move quicker but present a smaller target. If I were to be wearing a suit of armor that makes me immune to AK-47s, I'd still probably want to watch out for .50 cal., 12.5mm, 20mm, etc. If someone were to give me a suit in real life, I'd hope they would consider those threats as well (which coincidentally does lead back to the mecha vs. tank argument, I think). 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? The easy answer is it depends. The driver in a Bradley, Stryker, or Abrams is usually the newest private. In the late 90s when the US Army started adopting the M4 carbine outside of special operations forces, it went to infantry unit company commanders, first sergeants, platoon leaders, platoon sergeants, and squad leaders first. Then RTOs, then others as the Army acquired enough. Then it started making its way out to other branches until it's almost impossible to find an actual long-barreled M16 in most active duty units. Typically they can be found in brigade level headquarters and non-combat arms fields and Reserve/National Guard units. The same with body armor. So I'd say that based on the maturity of the technology in your setting would be the metric to answer that question. What happens to the main weapon in the squad if the dedicated gunner breaks a leg? This would be the same thing as in real life. You have other people trained and qualified on the weapon system (be it a machinegun, a railgun, or a powered armor system). He goes down, you go to your alternate. Of course, if it's anything like real life, I want to know when Division Headquarters is going to give us slots for the training and when I'm actually going to get another one of my guys/gals through the funnel of the Brigade Command Sergeant Major so I can have some redundancy in my Company. Do you put powered armor into sustained operations, or are they for short, sharp fights like commandos? I see the answer to this question like the US Army's Stryker family of vehicles. The engineers had a clear intent when they designed the Stryker that was quickly changed by the intent of the generals and colonels in charge of the program and completely thrown out of the window by those of us using them on the ground. However, it is performing well above all predictions by the naysayers and experts. Would it fight off a Russian horde? Meh, without getting into the weeds of what I assume the power armor vs. tanks thread was, in the right circumstances, sure, in the wrong ones, not so much. But as a combat leader and tactician, it would be my job to assess that risk and either mitigate it or avoid it. I'd look at anything that can increase my guys' strength and endurance (and hopefully firepower) as an argument to go farther, longer though. * How do you recharge a battlesuit in the field, anyway? I suddenly have a vision of a WWII grunt on a propped up bicycle complaining about the duty roster... 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. Are you talking real world? Not in my Army. There are two schools of thought at the moment...the first that I had happen to me, "Hey, here are all of these different MOS soldiers. Give them a job and a place to live, Company Commander!" Nevermind that I had too many people and not enough living space on my FOB. The second is we have to maintain X number of troops in Blah Theater, we can't go over that number or the Easter Bunny will beat the Tooth Fairy. Can you have your gunner load and drive the tank at the same time?" The whole more multifunctional soldiers with less mentality. * 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? Here we're getting into doctrinal debates that are still going in my real life. For us, the US Army, we've found that a 9 man squad is the optimum configuration for maximizing firepower and maintaining command and control. Certain Army units and the USMC are similar but they add a third fireteam, I believe the machinegun team. More later... * Does the firepower of a battlesuit allow smaller squads? Potentially, but squad configuration isn't just about firepower. FREX, the US Army classifies a 9-man squad with only 7 personnel as combat ready. Six or less as combat ineffective despite having their full load-out. That six man squad is still bigger than a four-man fire team that is expected to fight. * Can a squad fight with fire and maneuver, or does it take a platoon to maneuver different squads? Absolutely. That's why we have the composition that we do. One team provides fire, while the other maneuvers and kills the enemy. That said, we have strict doctrinal standards of what a fire team, a squad, a platoon, a company, or a battalion or higher can effectively engage with a probability of winning. The belief is not to overcommit your forces while at the same time balancing that with not biting off more than we can chew. * OTOH, even a nine-man squad will have problems if it takes casualties. Yup. But that applies all the way up. It's all based on ratio of casualties to able-bodied soldiers. What do you think? I think I've pretty much addressed everything I had a thought about. Bear in mind, a lot of my responses were doctrinal based (which is the ideal in the absence of enemy and terrain) and based on my own experiences. That said, I've been doing this (without battlesuits, power armor, or mecha :'( ) since 1996, I'm not an expert but I worked with/for some pretty smart people in my time. Eddie _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
