How common is Battle Dress?
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mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Considering how things are going in the real world I would think the initiative/sensor bonus to CT BD is a result of in-suit sensors and a swarm of sensor micro-drones.
TNE BD, being only TL12 and therefore quite primitive by comparison with later TL models probably lacks the extensive sensor suite that later models have as standard - hence the lack of a bonus.
T4 Emperor's Arsenal does a good job of describing the evolution of BD, and includes a lot more 'toys' on the basic model as TL advances - point defence lasers and the like.
TNE BD, being only TL12 and therefore quite primitive by comparison with later TL models probably lacks the extensive sensor suite that later models have as standard - hence the lack of a bonus.
T4 Emperor's Arsenal does a good job of describing the evolution of BD, and includes a lot more 'toys' on the basic model as TL advances - point defence lasers and the like.
TNE FF&S has completed Battle Dress designs up to TL14 (and has a design-your-own system up to TL17). The agility and initiative penalties only go away at TL17 but they do reduce as TL increases.
Greg Porter in T4 Emperor's Arsenal had Battle Dress being introduced at TL9. I'm not aware of any other Traveller version where it is so early.
BTW, is Fusion+ still canon?
Greg Porter in T4 Emperor's Arsenal had Battle Dress being introduced at TL9. I'm not aware of any other Traveller version where it is so early.
BTW, is Fusion+ still canon?
I believe it is a terminology issue. "Battle Dress" (or "Assault Armor") in T4 Emperor's Arsenal is what was previously called Combat Armor, and Battle Dress "Proper" is called "Augmented Battle Dress".
Unaugmented Battle Dress (Assault Armor) appears at TL-9. The first "Augmented" Battle Dress appears at TL10, but it is only augmented in terms of the legs, not the upper body. Full Augmented Battle Dress appears at TL11.
In each case this is still 2 TL earlier than in CT/MT.
It is in T5.
They way I did it, was there was one subunit in each Marine unit (Squad, Platoon, Company, etc) which had battledress, the rest had combat armor. Exceptions were Marine Commandos, Jump Troops, and Special Forces which were 100% battledress equipped. So if a cruiser had a Marine Company assigned, one of the three platoons would be battledress equipped as a general rule.
I equated Colonial and Planetary forces with the Reserves and National Guard, which was one tech level below Imperial standard (15). The local guys got the older equipment after the Imperial troops were done with it. Which led to a hilarious scenario where the players were acting as advisors to a local unit, and had to scrounge (steal) equipment to keep the stuff working.
I equated Colonial and Planetary forces with the Reserves and National Guard, which was one tech level below Imperial standard (15). The local guys got the older equipment after the Imperial troops were done with it. Which led to a hilarious scenario where the players were acting as advisors to a local unit, and had to scrounge (steal) equipment to keep the stuff working.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
You can get lost in military terminology and acronyms,
It seems that everyone has agreed the coordinating unit is now at the brigade level. The battalions are organized as battle groups, and I think the push is to make the reinforced company the Small Unit of Action,
There's some question as to the optimal size for subunits, that is fireteams and squads, which most seem to agree depends on the task and for how long they'll be deployed at the frontline.
It seems that everyone has agreed the coordinating unit is now at the brigade level. The battalions are organized as battle groups, and I think the push is to make the reinforced company the Small Unit of Action,
There's some question as to the optimal size for subunits, that is fireteams and squads, which most seem to agree depends on the task and for how long they'll be deployed at the frontline.
It depended on who was running the game, but for my sessions it was common for certain segments of the military. Marines who guarded big important and expensive starports and starships got BD. Army soldiers (yes, there is an Imperial Army) got BD depending on what kind of hazard they were facing. Imperial guards wore BD.
Typically I figured it would be mostly frontline troops doing hard fighting against armor in very difficult terrain, or guarding important assets. Most regular soldiers (marine/army, maybe the navy equivalent of "SEABEES" and a few other fighting forces) wore a kind of armor or Environmental Combat Suits which may or may not have plates or hardened sections.
One guy tended to put BD on all his NPC soldiers. Whereas another guy just completely forgot about any kind of armor whatsoever...I can't remember what we did for his encounters.
BD was not terribly common IMTU, but if you were wandering around a subsector in the Marches, you would probably see a few troops wearing the stuff, but most others would be wearing something less expensive.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Firstly, it depends on how effective you want to make the point of the spear, and you have to recall, there's about five thousand Marines covering one subsector, and whenever you plan to deploy them, you'd want to make them able to accomplish their mission as fast as possible at a minimal cost.
Then it depends on how much the military wants to protect it's investment in time and money in that Marine or soldier, calculated more by expense of training and caring for him, and transport to the place where he's deployed, rather than the pin money he gets on allowance day.
Then it depends on how much the military wants to protect it's investment in time and money in that Marine or soldier, calculated more by expense of training and caring for him, and transport to the place where he's deployed, rather than the pin money he gets on allowance day.
The question is, "which typical"
Mean: sum then divide by number... also called average.
Median: array them linearly ordered by value. Pick the one in the dead center.
Mode: data point which is most common in the set.
Center of range: (Max+Min)/2 - test of idealized fit. If the center of range is the same as the mean, median or mode, it indicates a relatively classic distribution.
Centralized Mean: lop off the ends, then find the mean of the central bulge. Ususally a second stage calculation; first stage is to find the standard deviation, then trim everything past ±2σ, and refigure the centralized mean on the now extracted data set. Only normally used for Single-long-tail distributions. Alternatively, divide the range into 3 equal blocks and average the central block. Either method is flawed, but closer to what people think of as "typical" than the actual range of data in many cases... Especially with single-long-tail distributions.
Unitized mean sets: modern use: average the data in subset, usually quartiles or quintiles, then compare the various subsets publicly.
Well, I figure it depends on strategic necessity, which is how I kitted out my NPCs way back when. If you go into the core regions of the Imperium, then you're more likely to see duty uniforms than armor. Of course, if you have tensions between archdukes, then the units on "border worlds" might have BD.
For MEUs I would certainly outfit my marines with BD, but probably only along areas where I would expect they would need it; near Zhodani, Aslan and Solomani space, maybe Vargr, but probably not around void regions, or regions with scattered independent states, as their tech base probably isn't all that high.
Just my take.
For MEUs I would certainly outfit my marines with BD, but probably only along areas where I would expect they would need it; near Zhodani, Aslan and Solomani space, maybe Vargr, but probably not around void regions, or regions with scattered independent states, as their tech base probably isn't all that high.
Just my take.
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I have always immagined its not very common.
IMTU, BD is for high-tech shock troops and infantry tasked with heavy weapons support. Its too expensive otherwise. Given that Imp. Marines are shock troops, they use BD. Its occasionally seen for ceremonial guards due to the intimidation factor.
IIRC, in T20 (the version I am most familiar with), if BD is treated as personal armor, an ACR (IMTU the standard high-tech infantry long arm) can almost penetrate it with TL10 AP ammunition and an ACR-LMG that scores multiple hits can knock it out. If its treated as a vehicle, a heavy weapon is required to penetrate the armor. I lean towards giving it less DR than a vehicle but not treating it as personal armor.
IMTU, I'd assume that most MEUs are issued BD, but most noble house troops (Huscarles) do not. IMTU, Most high tech worlds with a significant military budget do use BD in a few smaller formations. Rich high-tech worlds with ongoing rebellions or external security threats tend to have larger numbers of soldiers with BD. Only a rare few boutique mercenary units are equipped with BD and they charge top dollar.
IMTU, BD is for high-tech shock troops and infantry tasked with heavy weapons support. Its too expensive otherwise. Given that Imp. Marines are shock troops, they use BD. Its occasionally seen for ceremonial guards due to the intimidation factor.
IIRC, in T20 (the version I am most familiar with), if BD is treated as personal armor, an ACR (IMTU the standard high-tech infantry long arm) can almost penetrate it with TL10 AP ammunition and an ACR-LMG that scores multiple hits can knock it out. If its treated as a vehicle, a heavy weapon is required to penetrate the armor. I lean towards giving it less DR than a vehicle but not treating it as personal armor.
IMTU, I'd assume that most MEUs are issued BD, but most noble house troops (Huscarles) do not. IMTU, Most high tech worlds with a significant military budget do use BD in a few smaller formations. Rich high-tech worlds with ongoing rebellions or external security threats tend to have larger numbers of soldiers with BD. Only a rare few boutique mercenary units are equipped with BD and they charge top dollar.
epicenter00
SOC-13
Going by the MT Rebellion-era materials (which IMO seem to paint the most complete picture of the Imperial military, YMMV), Imperial Marines don't operate at TL15. They operate at TL14. The Astrin and Trepida are both TL14 vehicles. I think only the Imperial Navy operates at TL15 and only for the primary fleets.
I'd think that Imperial Marines would operate TL14 battledress with TL14 weaponry, not TL15.
That said, I've always found the pricing of battledress to be a bit suspicious. I suspect the high cost isn't some semi-logical way to explain the technology and manufacture, but instead it is just there to keep it out of the hands of player characters. I think it's more reasonable if you drop a zero off of the cost (it should be 250k ~ 500k credits).
I do imagine that every Imperial Marine rifleman on the line (or whatever the equivalent is) would wear battledress. It'd lack of a lot of the bells and whistles of a lot of the typical "shopping list" features like adaptive camo. More elite Marines would actually wear less armor - BD requires batteries, and Marines whose roles might be less about "kicking in the door" and more about infiltration or extended recon couldn't afford the battery-dependency of BD and would wear combat armor.
I'd think that Imperial Marines would operate TL14 battledress with TL14 weaponry, not TL15.
That said, I've always found the pricing of battledress to be a bit suspicious. I suspect the high cost isn't some semi-logical way to explain the technology and manufacture, but instead it is just there to keep it out of the hands of player characters. I think it's more reasonable if you drop a zero off of the cost (it should be 250k ~ 500k credits).
I do imagine that every Imperial Marine rifleman on the line (or whatever the equivalent is) would wear battledress. It'd lack of a lot of the bells and whistles of a lot of the typical "shopping list" features like adaptive camo. More elite Marines would actually wear less armor - BD requires batteries, and Marines whose roles might be less about "kicking in the door" and more about infiltration or extended recon couldn't afford the battery-dependency of BD and would wear combat armor.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
The cost mechanism certainly can be a limit, but consider the firepower increase, not just the socket business but also the strength to just able to haul around Very Big Guns (my fave is the Rapid Pulse A gun).
Most of the BD illustrations and conceptions show a relatively form fitting suit, which makes the suit highly flexible in ergonomics and ability to move through any space regular infantry can.
So we are talking about a very sophisticated and miniaturized type of 'power frame' rather then a bulky exoframe. That has to be costly.
As some of you may have been following, I have been doing some reverse engineering on the Striker standard equipment designs, and I found that Battle Dress armor as valued is consistently within a certain specific thickness that yields the 10 and 18 armor values when the base material technology is upgraded.
However they are very heavy, depending on how you value the surface covered from 60-120 kg.
So either the suit can carry that much more weight, or the armor material BD is made from is lighter, more flexible and far more costly per square meter then the conventional grav tank/starship armor.
Either way, justifies a higher cost then first blush might indicate.
Most of the BD illustrations and conceptions show a relatively form fitting suit, which makes the suit highly flexible in ergonomics and ability to move through any space regular infantry can.
So we are talking about a very sophisticated and miniaturized type of 'power frame' rather then a bulky exoframe. That has to be costly.
As some of you may have been following, I have been doing some reverse engineering on the Striker standard equipment designs, and I found that Battle Dress armor as valued is consistently within a certain specific thickness that yields the 10 and 18 armor values when the base material technology is upgraded.
However they are very heavy, depending on how you value the surface covered from 60-120 kg.
So either the suit can carry that much more weight, or the armor material BD is made from is lighter, more flexible and far more costly per square meter then the conventional grav tank/starship armor.
Either way, justifies a higher cost then first blush might indicate.
Sorry if I'm repeating myself but if you look closely you'll see that in CT and MT you'd only ever use FGMP14 with Battle Dress. Even at TL15 when the FGMP15 is available.
1. Their combat stats are exactly the same.
2. The grav compensated FGMP15 costs vastly more than the FGMP14.
3. You don't need grav compensation if you've got power armour.
I don't recall being able to manhandle a pulse gun of any type, even wearing BD.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Take a gander at TL15 RP-A in Striker. 14 kg, a cinch for even a strength 7-8 soldier in plain old battle dress, and Striker has the carry capacity for BD at 100kg.
14kg is lighter then a TL6 HMG. 63.5 MW input so power generation is an issue, power plant is too big so it has to be batteries. 20kg of battery yields 500 megawatt-seconds, or about 8 shots. Of course, that's rapid fire shots, so a lot of stuff is going to be destroyed very quickly- 40 potential targets.
That's penetrating armor-0 starship hull.
I would probably go TL14 RP-B, gets you 13 shots at 4 targets at a higher penetration for 20kg for the gun plus 20 kg for the battery, again good enough for a double strength strong crew and very easy for the 100kg valuation if you go that way.
Interesting. I never got Striker, so that's one of those tidbits that snuck by me. But wow. That's like Japanese mecha territory.
But while we're on the subject of battledress (even though I should be getting back to writing) if BD is such a stabilizer for a firing platform, then would this not mean that a trooper could carry a minigun? I only bring it up because we had a discussion about it more than once (harkening back to Predator and Jesse Ventura).
Anyway, I really need to get off the BBS and get back to writing. Will check back later.
But while we're on the subject of battledress (even though I should be getting back to writing) if BD is such a stabilizer for a firing platform, then would this not mean that a trooper could carry a minigun? I only bring it up because we had a discussion about it more than once (harkening back to Predator and Jesse Ventura).
Anyway, I really need to get off the BBS and get back to writing. Will check back later.
3I is loaded. I mean they have a relatively huge military expenditure per other threads. Front line marines could easily be BD ready. Yet we see in military character creation that not everyone picks up the skill.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Striker has em, I usually bypass them for the higher tech levels, but theoretically yes with the 100 kg capacity, the 80 kg + ammo 5.5 gatlings would work. Low penetration but good for killing lots of underarmored opponents with 16 targets per fire phase and lots of pluses. Or possibly man-portable ersatz point defense.
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