Composition of armed forces in pocket empires
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Condottiere
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But not always in place.
Close air support can be more discriminating in target selection.
Close air support can be more discriminating in target selection.
Technically, Meson IS direct fire -- very direct. It's just direct fire that over the horizon, or perhaps better said, under the horizon.
Timerover51
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This is for Milieu Zero, so Tech Level 15 is a long ways away.
Except for a few odd worlds, the ancients, and the Darrians...
... and around 10% of home generated worlds.
Timerover51
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Your transport needs to have the landers carried by it, not another ship. The US tried that in the Torch invasion, admittedly in World War 2, and discovered that getting landing craft to the right ship was a bit of a nightmare. How many men can the landers carry? Multiple trips with the transport in orbit are going to be a problem, or is the transport essentially hovering in one spot with contragravity lift?
Your cargo space is borderline for that number of troops. A commander is going to want as many supplies as possible landed with him, as additional supplies are going to have to come from another star system, with no guarantee of arrival. I would agree with LiNeNoiSe that you are going to have one battalion and supporting troops carried, and not two battalions.
Timerover51
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If a World is Tech Level 15 at Year Sero of the Imperium, why would it still be Tech Level 15 One Thousand Years later? One of the big hooks Cleon has to get planets to join the Imperium is the following.
If the planet is already at Tech Level 15 at Year Zero, they already have the cold fusion plant, and should be able to mop up any forces the nascent Imperium can send at them. Realistically, they would be selling the cold fusion technology in competition with Cleon.
In One Thousand years, I would assume some minimal Technological development, like to at least Tech Level 20, a rate of one Tech Level every two hundred years on the average. According to The Traveller Book, page 86, the Average Imperium Tech Level is 11 to 12, with a maximum Imperium Tech Level of 15. Darrian is rated at Tech Level 16. This would be circa Imperial Year 1000. For a planet that is Tech Level 15 at Year Zero to still be at Tech Level 15 a thousand years later means a thousand years of technological stagnation.
Sure, but even a larger Fusion plant (or solar panels, or even the own planetary power gird, if you take some of it intact), as the one on a landed ship, may be used to recharge energy weapons.
I'm not an expert on logistics (to say the least), but AFAIK getting food from local sources (foraging) has been historically done.
I understand it can not be used if you're having huge numbers of troops in a relativelly static front, but in this case we're talking about a plane wide battlefied with (relatively) low numbers of troops and proably in quite a fluid "front" (if any).
Even in Invasión Earth, one of the largest such opperations in Traveller OTU history, the Imperium deploys (among Imperial, Colonial, Marines and mercenary troops) about 4100 battalions. Assuming about 500 men per battalion (in LBB4 it standard is 452 men pr battalion and 635 per reinforced one), that gives us just above 2 million men. I guess this is not too much a burden in Earth food production, as Earth has billions of inhabitants.
Of course, if those 2 million people are concentrated in a small part of the Earth and remain tehre for a long time, there will be food problems quite soon, but fighting alon the whole planet in mobile opperations, I guess not too hard ones.
But Imperial planners sure have to...
Sure, energy weapons must be recharged, and I guess changing the backpack battery takes more time than changing a clip from a rifle (if it's specified in any Traveller source, I have not read it, or I have forgotten it), but it must be posible nonetheless. And, after all, a laser rifle battery would last for about 100 shoots. IDK how much ammo an infantryman uses to have Handy, but I guess this will be enough in most engagements...
I always asume you need orbital supremacy to begin an invasisn. That means you have ortillery and fighter support that can take this role.
IDK in Stiker, but in MT (direct descendent of it, for what I've read), most starship weapons (and that means both, ortillery and fighers' weapons) ar quite deadly against ground targets...
You're not saving much supply with CAS. Guns are a lot cheaper than aircraft
Sure, but you're quite likely to have fighter's in the supporting fleet, and they can act as very effective fighter-bombers in ground combat.
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As I said many other times, I don't believe they are widely used, as they are too destructive for routine use. I see them (when available, as I agree with others this is not the case in Millieu 0) more as nukes, a disuasion weapon that needs political will to be used, and that means politial will to accept the retaliation. Once they are used, the combat (and probably the civilization in the planet, at least if the enemy has retaliation capacity) is over.
Timerover51
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That might be enough for one fire fight of twenty minutes to an hour.
The following quote comes from The Traveller Book, page 42, and is for Laser Carbines.
I think that Starter Traveller gives shorter recharging times, but I would have to check on that.
Edit Note 2: Starter Traveller gives two different charger times. On page 25, it gives eight hours, on page 26 it gives one hour. I remember sending this to Don for his errata, but I do not know if he managed to include it. It appears that the consensus is eight hours to recharge a laser rifle or carbine battery pack.
Edit Note: The following is from Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition, page 100.
I assume that holds true for Laser Rifle battery packs.
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AnotherDilbert
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I agree with you for meson spinals, but meson artillery has a fairly limited destructive radius, no worse than really heavy artillery.
I certainly let Marines use meson artillery at TL15.
Thanks for the quotes. I only looked at laser rifles, where it is not specified (in TTB), and did not check the laser carabines
. So I guess some spare batteries must to have also taken in, and that they may be changed...In any case, what I moslty meant was how long would it take to change the battery, not only to recharge one. No mention is given (or at least I0ve not found it) in TTB about that, but I guess it must be posible (why else are they listed separately form the rifle?).
Changing an ammo clip on a rifle, SMG or automatic pistol takes one round, on shich the character is considered evading, revolvers take two rounds if evading, one if not (TTB page 48), but about laser batteries it only say they can be recharged, not exchanged by a charged one, so, I don't know how can it take to deattach the battery and change it...
And just curious, how many ammo rounds does have a soldier's rifle (I understand support weapons, including MGs are different) handy (let's say at battalion level) as standard allotment nowdays?
I don't own Stiker, so I can only talk for what I've read in this board, but IITR that the grav sleds are considered as a meson bay. If so, according MT
M (the only source I own about it), the burst radius is factor x 15 m, so, at TL 15, a 50 ton bay (factor 4) will have a 60 m radius (so a 120 m diameter) effect area that is left as moon surface. I'm not an expert on artillery (to say the leat), but I guess that's heavier damage than any heavy artillery. And that does not count any radiation damage it might produce...
And in any case, I don't expect the Imperial Marines to have many meson sleds support, at least for offensive opperations, even in only due to the cargo space they need. OTOH, as they act supported by fleet units, some ortillery ships may be equiped with meson bays to support them if needed.
Another thing is in defense duty (IDK if there exist any equivalent to the Marine Defense Battalions in WWII), but I guess using those highly trained troops in defensive roles is not what it is expected (yet, they have garrisson duty, both in LBB4 and in MT).
And in any case, I always expect their use against surface targets to be limited at best, used moslty as tactical nukes (I hope with less fallout). Of course, if the defenders use them agains your own landed marines, things change...
AnotherDilbert
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Meson artillery is not a bay, at 15 m³ they are much smaller.I don't own Stiker, so I can only talk for what I've read in this board, but IITR that the grav sleds are considered as a meson bay. If so, according MT
Burst size is selectable, up to 100 m. (I had to check, I remembered smaller.)
Striker gives a 60 m radius burst size for heavy artillery (25+ cm, HE), but that is no auto-destruct.
A starship TL14+ fusion gun would have a ~200 m secondary splash radius that would have a good chance to destroy everything in it, including armoured vehicles. Anyone not behind 1 m or so of armour will be incinerated.
Very heavy artillery in WWII, rail guns and ship guns could leave craters that were 10s of m even if the destructive radius was larger.
You are right, that is far smaller than 100 m radius.
Radiation is produced when the mesons decay, but I don't think they leave much radioactive material, hence not much lasting radiation.
Timerover51
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The effective burst area, which means that 50% of exposed standing personnel will become casualties for the US Army 240mm howitzer firing a 360 pound High Explosive shell was 100 yards laterally and 25 yards in depth. For the US Army 280mm howitzer firing a 600 pound High Explosive shell the effective burst area was 200 yards laterally and 60 yards in depth. The effective burst area of the 16 inch gun was comparable, despite the much heavier High Capacity shell at 1900 pounds because the explosive load was half that in proportion to shell weight for the 280mm howitzer, and the explosive used was Explosive D, highly insensitive to impact detonation, but less effective than TNT for fragmentation. Some of the fragments of the 16 inch shell would go as high as 10 pounds in weight. If one of those hits a person or an unarmored vehicle, it is "Lights Out".
During the first Gulf War in 1991, the US Air Force discovered that contrary to their weapon effectiveness manuals, unless a tank was within the crater radius of a 2,000 pound bomb, the tank was essentially undamaged although the crew would be shaken up. The Air Force assumed that any bomb within 16 meters/50 feet of a tank would destroy the tank. For the 500 pound bomb, only direct hits counted.
AnotherDilbert
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Thanks, real numbers are always nice. Is that air burst or ground burst? I have only seen numbers for 15.5 cm howitzers, and they are of course far lower.
The Striker 60 m burst would have a penetration of 6, so near 100% casualty rate against unprotected humans in the open, and very little effect on battle dress or armoured vehicles. A 50% kill radius would be larger. That is perhaps not to bad for a game compared to the numbers you quote.
This would suggest that Meson guns have some, at least limited, capability of being tuned.
"Up to 100m", does that mean as low as 1m?
Is there anything to suggest the inherent inaccuracy of a Meson gun? Normal artillery has to deal with the simply dynamics of a projectile in flight, and all of the environment affects. A Meson gun? Not so much. I can see, perhaps, the Meson gun being limited to the mechanical accuracy of the mount, perhaps? Limited to the resolution of navigation?
Not quite sure how a Meson gun is aimed. Do you think field guns are basically in big mounts, like Dobsonian telescope (only taller), and a rotating platform, to give them a full 360 deg range of motion? I guess a field gun has little need to point straight down at the ground, since their range is probably limited that they simply may not be able to "hit the other side of the planet", but who knows.
Do Meson guns irradiate the area? I know they cause radiation damage. But does it cause lingering radiation damage? Nuclear weapons do, but mostly from residual radioactive particles, not the radiation itself.
I've never considered the Meson gun to be some coarse grained blunderbuss of a weapon. Always seemed to be rather precise to me. A gunner should be able to place the center point most anywhere he wants, easily within a meter or two. Add in some tuning to the burst radius makes the Meson gun a very powerful battle field weapon, that can even be used in close support (especially for troops in battle dress).
Now a spinal mount may simply not be able to be tuned down to that level. The bay guns should be, though I'd think. I can certainly see dedicated Meson ortillery ships with several mounts, producing scary rates of fire anywhere on the surface.
But the battle field is a big space, and there's certainly a plethora of targets where 100, 200, even 500 meter radius are useful sizes. 500m...there goes Camp X-Ray. So, I can see the big spinals coming in handy as well.
I would like to see some rules on Deep sites, notably how they're attacked. FF&S I think actually has some noted in the design sequence on pricing a Deep Meson site. But I'm curious how they're attacked from orbit.
That puts them more or less the size of a spaceship turret...
If so, I guess they could be also mounted on spaceships as turrets, but no mention to them (at least that I found), neither in HG nor in MT (even at hiogher TLs).
Does it specify how could they be used against spacecrafts?
Timerover51
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Those are for ground bursts. I might have some data on World War 2 airburst, which would still be valid today for the 155mm and 105mm howitzers. I have a large amount of data on weapon effects for my consulting business.
AnotherDilbert
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Burst size is variable, no minimum or step size is specified.
Meson guns are treated as indirect fire, but is more accurate than barrelled artillery. The entire indirect fire procedure is time-delayed and rather inaccurate, you can easily be off target by 500 m in the first round.
They have no stated maximum range, but a Striker battlefield is only a few km across so that does not say much.
They are always indirect fire weapons, with the implied inaccuracy that entails.
They are much smaller, cheaper, and use less energy than shipborne mesons, there has to be a reason for that. I've always considered them too slow and clumsy to be used against flying targets.
If they hit a landed spacecraft, it is destroyed.
Striker II (TNE) presents a ToO for an Imperial Marine Task Force (~rifle battalion) and a Marine Armoured Cavalry Regiment both with integrated meson artillery as the only artillery, so it seems they are intended to be used, in canon.
The Battlefield Meson is high TL - TL 15, and a 10 cm on the tabletop (=100m) burst. Note that, based upon some other rules, in can be implied that the actual mount size as a turret would be a barbette mount, as the volume should double, which puts it at 60 cubic meters for a pair mounted.
The TL15 factor 9 100 Td Bay probably has much longer range, and we know from Mayday that that range is half a LS or more... with a 9 cm radius. (90m)
The TL13 factor 3 bay again has that 0.5 LS or more range... and only a 30m burst.
See Striker Rule 76, and CT Bk 5 p24, and Mayday 2nd printing or later.
The TL15 factor 9 100 Td Bay probably has much longer range, and we know from Mayday that that range is half a LS or more... with a 9 cm radius. (90m)
The TL13 factor 3 bay again has that 0.5 LS or more range... and only a 30m burst.
See Striker Rule 76, and CT Bk 5 p24, and Mayday 2nd printing or later.
