On Fri, Jan 03, 2014 at 03:45:29PM +0100, Onno Meyer wrote: >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's a workable assumption, I think. A guy in a suit (or indeed a guy not in a suit) can react to a threat warning by getting under cover quickly, in a way that's not accessible to conventional vehicles. This doesn't help him if he doesn't have cover to get into. >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? There are lots of tech assumptions here. Classic 3e-style is just one technology path. It depends on how hard it is to produce an effective battlesuit trooper, and to a lesser extent how much the suits cost (that can be ignored in a high-intensity conflict). Take the training plus equipment budget for one battlesuit trooper. How many unpowered infantry does that give you? Can unpowered infantry even make a useful contribution to the battle any more? Conversely, how many crewed tanks does that budget give you? How does allowing for maintenance change that? And can you build combat robots smart enough to make the battlesuit obsolete? All that you need to add to your battlesuit tech is strong AI and the willingness to use it. (In the right electronic environment, you can even remote-control the things with human operators, removing the need for AI.) In either case, the battlesuit that doesn't need to contain a squishy human (and consequent life support mechanisms) will be able to outfight one that does, mass for mass. To me the battlesuit says "organic" in the organisational sense -- i.e. it implies a soldier with a built-in share of the platoon's transport and fire support assets. When the brass says "we need you over THERE on the other side of town", they can do it immediately, without having to load onto APCs and re-deploy. When they need some anti-armour missiles, or mortar rounds, they've already got them to hand. So they're more flexible than unpowered troops. You could build AFVs on a similar basis, but those will probably die when they meet dedicated anti-tank tanks. Personally I suspect that military verities will continue: the higher-ups will continue to find more and more equipment for the suited soldier to lug around. >Do you put powered armor into sustained operations, or are they for short, >sharp fights like commandos? Tech assumptions, this time power requirements and power storage (for life support as well as everything else). >* How do you recharge a battlesuit in the field, anyway? Induction! R _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
