Yes, the current move to add women to combat units, but also the need to
load soldiers with more and more, and the result being soldiers with
injuries due to over packing of them.
Exo-skeltons are in the works to allow for more and more added on and better
response to what they are already carrying.. Something not to obvious I
hope?
Not all are ready to see a soldier with an obvious exo-skeleton or like on,
let alone full battle suit and like, but yes, one aspect is not having to
wear a flak vest or like body armor, or more like better placing and more
usage of body armor. Knee pads and like are only good to a point.
Also as sadly seen by a police officer I knew of in North Pole Alaska, who
went in to deal with a perp and ended up getting shot but for some reason,
either his armor did not have its plates in or there was a spot under his
arms that was not armored and he was killed.. With full body armor it might
not have been an issue but how much can armor help and powered armor at
that? or ..
Can it also be a pain and issue, maintenance is going to be a pain or what?
Mike
Former 11B Infantry
----- Original Message -----
From: "Roger Bell_West" <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, January 05, 2014 12:57 PM
Subject: Re: [gurps] Battlesuit TO&E
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
_______________________________________________
GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]>
http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
