> One pro to the 9 battlesuit approach, though, was that one hit was highly > unlikely to kill the whole squad, while one hit could easily kill the APC > and everyone inside.
The IFV will be much faster than the battlesuits. So it isn't really suits vs. IFV, it is suits plus rear-end-of-the-battlefield-armored-transport vs. IFV. So go the whole nine years and make it a suit-carrying IFV. The suits will have a hard time following a tank assault. The IFV will be harder to kill. An IFV can have a driver, a gunner and a commander. All suit troopers are multitasked. Nobody to take a breath and wonder what is beyond the next hill while the fight goes on on this side. On an alien world, the IFV can be sealed with room for the troops to take a nap or go to the potty. How large has a tent got to be to get out of a battlesuit, and who carries that tent? Another reason to give the suits a supporting vehicle. A squad of suits will be much lighter than an IFV. For spacemobile ops, it might be a choice between one IFV and a two platoons of battlesuits. Suits can help to unload the dropships. IFVs can't. Battlesuits will be much better in forests and broken terrain (unless they are flying IFVs). If there is relatively easy FTL transport, mankind might spread out thinly over many worlds. > For orbital assault, I think it really depends on the scale. If you are > landing thousands (divisions) of men, you can afford losing 10-15 with one > hit because the logistics and C3 are simpler. For tens of men (platoon or > smaller), battlesuits in stealth capsules are probably better. The issue > is really about hundreds of men (company and battalion) sized units. Is a stealth capsule more stealthy than a stealth dropship? The dropship has a higher size modifier, both are likely to top out at radical stealth and emission cloaking with (TL-4)*2, but the dropship can afford a big deceptive jammer, the capsules can't. At high TLs, does it make sense to make the drop capsule disposable? If not, who collects them? What good is a one-man dropship? A big brother of this one: Stealth Shuttlepod, Single Seat Version v1.0 (TL11) Copyright 2009 by Onno Meyer The Stealth Shuttlepod carries one person from an orbiting starship to the surface of a planet and up again, if possible without detection by local sensor arrays. The spaceframe has a wedge shape with a single seat atop the power cells and engine. The canopy slides up and forward to allow easy access. The cargo compartment can be reached through the open canopy or in flight from the pilot seat (with some contortions). The power cells last for 149 minutes at full thrust, or for several weeks in orbit or on the ground. Subassemblies: Body +2. Powertrain: 4,000-lb. vectored super reactionless thruster; four 450,000-kWs rechargeable power cells. Occ: 1 CCS. Cargo: 10 cf Armor F RL B T U Body: 4/125 4/125 4/125 4/125 4/125 Equipment: Body: Long-range radio with scrambler; medium-range laser communicator with scrambler; 5-mile AESA, LPI; two 5-mile PESAs; 5-mile radscanner; surveillance sound detector, level 5; IFF; inertial navigation system; two C5 hardened small computers; neural induction field; high-security alarm; 0.01 kT self-destruct; 1-man full life system. External: Radical emission cloaking; radical sound baffling; radical stealth; intruder chameleon; radiation shielding. Statistics Size: 7'x4'x4' Payload: 400 lbs. Lwt.: 2,000 lbs. Volume: 50 cf Maint.: 33 hours Price: $371,875 HT: 12. HPs: 300 Body aSpeed: 1,340 aAccel: 40 aDecel: 22 aMR: 5.5 aSR: 2 sAccel: 2 G sMR: 2 Design Notes Body is 50 cf, with underbelly skids, lifting body and very good streamlining. Structure is heavy, expensive and responsive. Armor is expensive metal. Self-sealing. Computerized controls. 0.4 cf of empty space. Empty weight is 1,600 lbs. The vehicle uses the design rules from Vehicles [second edition, third printing, Dec 2004 errata], VXi and VXii (including the armor volume rule) with the text format from Vehicles Lite. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
