military budgets

[Hairy Jim DeGriz]

and furthermore assume four support personnel for each of those people mentioned above, also receiving an average of Cr10,000 per year, then the personnel budget is BCr 23.5.......

To expound on @Drew 's point, the support numbers are probably off because it's not just salaries, there's a ton of training and other overhead for the support crews.

Two years ago my son was an assistant manager at Staples. Today he's one of Uncle Sam's Misguided Children, in Hawaii, repairing flight components. He's making less than he did at Staples, but he's substantially better trained and educated.

The Traveller rules were not written for macroeconomic modeling. But we (myself included) keep trying to jam microeconomic gaming rules (1% maintenance?) into a macroeconomic model.

 

[Condottiere]

Let's take Aliens.

The organization of the rifle platoons represents the USCM doctrine of small, autonomous infantry units capable of independent action on a non-linear battlefield.[7] The platoon commander, a lieutenant, is assisted by one or two Synthetics as technical and scientific advisers, medics and drivers. The platoon is divided into two sections, which are further divided into two squads of four Marines each. Each section is led by a sergeant and includes a driver for the M577 Armored Personnel Carrier. In addition, during Drop operations each section is assigned a UD-4 Dropship from the aerospace company team. Including the platoon commander and crews for the dropships and APCs, a full-strength rifle platoon would number twenty-five Marines, though in practice the platoon often operates with fewer personnel.[7]

Organic support weaponry for the platoon includes eight M240 Incinerator Units, eight UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns, two M78 PIGs or M5 RPGs, eighteen M83 SADAR rockets, and one M402 Multiple-Launch Mortar, along with sufficient sensor equipment to establish an overlapping detection matrix with a frontage of over one kilometer.[8]

...

The rifle squad consists of four Marines: A Corporal, a Lance Corporal, and two Privates/Privates First Class. The squad is broken up into two fireteams, the Rifle Team and the Gun Team. The Rifle Team consists of two riflemen armed with M41A Pulse Rifles, while the Gun Team consists of a gunner armed with the M56 Smartgun and a rifleman armed with a M41.[8]


1. Ratio of officers to enlisted seems increased.

2. Considering the abilities demonstrated by various Marines, probably quite a bit of training included vocational skills.

3. Sections, or squads, are basically eight Marines, a sergeant and a driver; and then you have the dropship crew.

4. I'm guessing one of the section sergeants acts as platoon leader.

5. Lots of automation; the driver might also be an android.

6. Attrition is implied, and no immediate replacements.

 

[Condottiere]

1. And speaking of attrition, I don't think armies are willing to risk more than a rifle section in one armed fighting vehicle.

2. Grav versions can be built larger, better protected, and faster, but that rule of thumb may still apply.

3. Nearest equivalent would be the Hind.

 

[whartung]

1. Ratio of officers to enlisted seems increased.

These teams are much more autonomous that normal military, at least as portrayed. Under higher level control, in larger deployment situations, they don't necessarily need this level of capability.

 

[Drew]

Let's take Aliens.

The organization of the rifle platoons represents the USCM doctrine of small, autonomous infantry units capable of independent action on a non-linear battlefield.[7] The platoon commander, a lieutenant, is assisted by one or two Synthetics as technical and scientific advisers, medics and drivers. The platoon is divided into two sections, which are further divided into two squads of four Marines each. Each section is led by a sergeant and includes a driver for the M577 Armored Personnel Carrier. In addition, during Drop operations each section is assigned a UD-4 Dropship from the aerospace company team. Including the platoon commander and crews for the dropships and APCs, a full-strength rifle platoon would number twenty-five Marines, though in practice the platoon often operates with fewer personnel.[7]

Organic support weaponry for the platoon includes eight M240 Incinerator Units, eight UA 571-C Automated Sentry Guns, two M78 PIGs or M5 RPGs, eighteen M83 SADAR rockets, and one M402 Multiple-Launch Mortar, along with sufficient sensor equipment to establish an overlapping detection matrix with a frontage of over one kilometer.[8]

...

The rifle squad consists of four Marines: A Corporal, a Lance Corporal, and two Privates/Privates First Class. The squad is broken up into two fireteams, the Rifle Team and the Gun Team. The Rifle Team consists of two riflemen armed with M41A Pulse Rifles, while the Gun Team consists of a gunner armed with the M56 Smartgun and a rifleman armed with a M41.[8]


1. Ratio of officers to enlisted seems increased.

2. Considering the abilities demonstrated by various Marines, probably quite a bit of training included vocational skills.

3. Sections, or squads, are basically eight Marines, a sergeant and a driver; and then you have the dropship crew.

4. I'm guessing one of the section sergeants acts as platoon leader.

5. Lots of automation; the driver might also be an android.

6. Attrition is implied, and no immediate replacements.

So there is basically an Ash or a Bishop in each team?

 

[Condottiere]

Bishop in preference to Ash, and either in preference to David.

I think they have the capacity to be mission specialists and Jack of All Trades.

 

[aramis]

These teams are much more autonomous that normal military, at least as portrayed. Under higher level control, in larger deployment situations, they don't necessarily need this level of capability.

Moreover, they're envisaged as an absurd extension of current US Military operation changes...

2 man fireteams and 2 team squads... realistically, that's not a good choice, unless also rolling back the independent maneuver unit from squad back to platoon. (USMC units in African peacekeeping actions in the 90's and 00's were doing patrols at the squad level; this is a deviation from the general doctrine that the independent maneuver element is supposed to have a commissioned officer (O1 & up, or, since Korea, CWO2 & up)

The USCW company was only 8 squads... of 12 to 20 men each. Due to reloading, the normal independent maneuver element was officially the company... but Platoons were sometimes doing so. The 4 squads of a platoon were basically rotating through firing... one fires, while the next is ramming, the next after balling, the last powdering. When cased ammo came to use, rotational fire was no longer needed, and the sections became "dependent maneuver elements" - that is, still under direct control of the platoon officer...

 

[Condottiere]

Command and control was within the range of earshot.

In Aliens, each Marine was under constant surveillance from the armoured personnel carrier, to the point of micro management.

Opinions can vary on the size of small units, but last I looked, six was considered the minimum number required to accomplish a squad level objective.

 

[Drew]

Thank you all for the input. It's very useful in working out my plans.


Free Energy is an equation changer.



I prefer the Striker model to the TCS model because the TCS budget is fixed at 500 Cr per person ~ 27,777 per capita GWP (500 Cr / 3% military budget / 60% Navy Allocation) regardless of the UWP. Striker adjusted GWP by TL and trade codes making the worlds less monolithic.

TCS rules are supporting a starship slugfest game, whereas Striker rules support equipping and fighting at the battalion level downwards. Both are independent games in that sense.



The Modern Terran model is not optimal, but it's real, and offers insights into a military budget at the national scale, which TCS and Striker glossed over, as it was out of scope for the games.



I've read Pocket Empires, it's a great resource, but far more detailed than I want. And the Resources don't map to T5 RUs. I've also read GURPS Far Trader, but I didn't like the baseline per capita GWPs (likewise with Striker).

What I liked about the NATO data is that with countries like Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia and Norway in the mix, you can see how different economies allocate resources and a range of differences.

For MTU, set over in the Gateway Sector, I'm trying to scale down the navies from the TCS model and set a simple, but consistent means of measuring (estimating) military strength across dozens of independent worlds and federations. I created a formula for personnel, other, infrastructure and equipment derived from the NATO data. No more accounting for each ship and grav tanks's annual maintenance, or the number of troops AND support staff.

Part of the change to operation (OPTEMPO) from the 1960 through the late 1980s was the methodology used in calculating the dollars for a unit. Spares (read as Depot Level Repairables) were basically given out to most units. The Battalion Level Training Model initiated by the Army (original contract was to SAIC now an SBA called Tape) in 1992. It takes the maintenance data scrubbed from the ULLS system to the SARSS to the CTASC. It is rolled into the Operation & Support Management Information System (OSMIS) data for each of the 1400 systems. The data is able to be parsed in a variety of ways. The Army's Planning and Guidance Memorandum (APAGuM) then allocates the dollars per weapon system and the training miles (Active Duty is set at 800 miles and the Reserves vary around 150 miles). It then multiples it by the number of onhand pieces of equipment. That and the indirect OPTEMPO becomes the OPTEMPO for a unit. I then would issue it out to the various units and States.

 

[robject]

That's good info. What you're noting is that the air force needs 22-24 personnel per fighter.

If we just went the simpleton's route and assumed (!!!!) that's 2 people per 1 ton of Traveller ship, then we need 1.5 billion people for the ships listed above.

Assuming (!!) an average salary of Cr 10,000 per person, the personnel budget is 15 trillion credits.

Note that this is a very rough approximation.

Also note that the fleet "price" is a rough approximation.

The result is that these values are very rough, and I think the personnel budget would have to be more like 30 trillion credits to make a noticeable bump in the naval budget.

I think we can freely ignore personnel cost.

***

On the other hand, we have to hire 1.5 billion trained people. Maybe fleets have a skill gap problem.

 

[robject]

I see the point was already made that there's skill requirements.

I suggest that "money is no object" for personnel, and that the real problem is finding skilled people, and training draftees through the career process.

This becomes a logistical problem during warfare, and THAT is a more useful tool than "money".

 

[aramis]

That's good info. What you're noting is that the air force needs 22-24 personnel per fighter.

If we just went the simpleton's route and assumed (!!!!) that's 2 people per 1 ton of Traveller ship, then we need 1.5 billion people for the ships listed above.

Assuming (!!) an average salary of Cr 10,000 per person, the personnel budget is 15 trillion credits.

Note that this is a very rough approximation.

Also note that the fleet "price" is a rough approximation.

The result is that these values are very rough, and I think the personnel budget would have to be more like 30 trillion credits to make a noticeable bump in the naval budget.

I think we can freely ignore personnel cost.

***

On the other hand, we have to hire 1.5 billion trained people. Maybe fleets have a skill gap problem.

Marc at one point (during T4 publication time) specified the median income was CrL4 per hour...
assuming a 50 week work year at 40/week, that's 2000 hours/year, and kCrL8 per annum.
I believe Marc also pointed this out during T5 playtest.

Which means only TerraCredits 12...

The F15 - the standard USAF fighter at present, is about 194m³ (fuselage bounding box, and assuming the wings and tail surfaces are about euall to the voids of the fuselage bounding box... or about 14 Td.
22 per 14 is 1.6, not 2. So, if using the USAF "tail," about TCr9.6...
Given the over 50 billion people in the imperial portions of the SM alone...

 

[Spinward Flow]

Given the over 50 billion people in the imperial portions of the SM alone...

With the Five Sisters subsector quite literally administered by the Imperial Navy ...

 

[robject]

In short, even with overestimating a personnel count and budget by an order of magnitude, it still doesn't make a dent in the naval budget.

I think it's safe to say that personnel costs are "included".

Moreover, unless there's an obvious correction to make, I think the breakdown in budget -- the budget allocations -- in general are correct. We can argue over how big the budget is, but I think we're okay assuming the allocations are fair enough.

 

[aramis]

So there is basically an Ash or a Bishop in each team?

The official breakdown, in both the Aliens Tech Manual and in the ALIEN RPG Colonial Marines...

The 4 standard types of team:
Rifle Team: Rifleman, Corpsman (rifleman & medic)
Gun Team: Smartgunner, Combat Technician (rifleman/armorer)
Tactical Team: officer (Commissioned or warrant) or Section NCO (Sgt), driver and/or gunner, and the APC
Support Team: Dropship with Pilot and Crewchief.

Marine Squad: 1 rifle team, 1 gun team, including a corporal and a lance corporal as team leaders, with the corporal also the squad leader
Section: 2 squads, a tactical team, and a support team.
Platoon: 2 sections, one with the Platoon Officer (usually LT), and the other with the platoon SSgt.
Company 2+ platoons, with a captain and a gunny in an additional tactical team, and a support team for them. Plus at least a couple additional enlisted and warrant admin who don't deploy.

It's a very sparse organization.
There are also specialty teams which can be added or substituted into platoons.
Recon: Forward Observer and Marksman (=Sniper)
Assault: Breacher with RPG, Combat Technician
CBRN (Chem, Bio, Radiological, Nuclear): CBRN Defense specialist, combat technician.

The Synthetic is a platoon level asset and a non-combattant warrant officer. (Ripley is commissioned as a warrant officer to be allowed on the mission in ALIENS. She's doubling Bishop's spot as tactical advisor.)

ALIENS is pretty unique amongst action sci fi flicks by having developed a TOE before shooting....
Not a great one, but at least they had one, and made it available to the secondary publications authors.

 

[Drew]

That's good info. What you're noting is that the air force needs 22-24 personnel per fighter.

If we just went the simpleton's route and assumed (!!!!) that's 2 people per 1 ton of Traveller ship, then we need 1.5 billion people for the ships listed above.

Assuming (!!) an average salary of Cr 10,000 per person, the personnel budget is 15 trillion credits.

Note that this is a very rough approximation.

Also note that the fleet "price" is a rough approximation.

The result is that these values are very rough, and I think the personnel budget would have to be more like 30 trillion credits to make a noticeable bump in the naval budget.

I think we can freely ignore personnel cost.

***

On the other hand, we have to hire 1.5 billion trained people. Maybe fleets have a skill gap problem.

Here is the listing of aircraft without drones (Wikipedia). Considering that there is a requirement for approximately 67K worth of maintainers it comes down to a 12 to 1 ratio. I am thinking what is needed. For example, I suspect that the number (came from a Quora question and replied by someone who "was" familiar. I am thinking that the 1 per ton for a space craft is far too high.

Consider this for a System Defense Boat that is out for a patrol for 60 days, what would be needed to replenish and repair. 1) You would need X number of personnel for the drives. The logic would be only a few to do minor adjustments or inspections for so many hours; 2) Hull repair, there would be definitely a few to inspect the hull of the craft for micro meteorite impacts (maybe a slap and patch for the damaged sections); 3) Weapon replenishment if needed at all. I think a Quality Assurance Specialist would be needed to inspect the missiles at least; 4) Ammunition humpers to replenish any missiles/sand, not many maybe 1-3 for a small craft 5) Environmental; somebody has to empty the head or at least replace that green mint disc. I suspect that there would be at least two to replace the filtration system mechanisms which would be a short duration; 6) Support Services - someone has to replace the food packs and the new entertainment discs; 7) Avionics Repair would be a simple diagnostic report from the computer to replace any modules that were damaged or failing (I am making the assumption that access to the consoles would be relatively easy); 8) Radar/Communications would again be based on a computer report/diagnostic kit (some internal some external); 9) The IT guy would do a trouble shooting and replace those modules that were failing; 10) the Fuelers (grapes) would have simply top off the tanks, check the oil and clean the windshield. I would think that there would be a schedule of when the craft would be expected back. So, you would have a Team of 20 or so spending 2-3 days topping off a craft. They would have probably a schedule of 9 or 10 craft per month to service. Also, remember that there are personnel on the ship that would also be working with the crew to get it up and ready.

For blown drives or maneuver drives, would be a pull and replace with a spare with the damaged drive being shipped back to a 2nd or 3rd level of repair. If they would follow suit like the Army does, there would be 40-50% credit for the old core which would be applied to the new core cost and shipped back to the post. To put it into practice an SBD squadron of 10 ships probably could be support by 20-40 personnel: with probably a few more in the backroom handling tools and inventory management along with updating the database.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Outside of the fact that you could make use of drones in the maintenance and repair aspects, if maintenance is a two week period every year, the tail aspect of that shrinks remarkably fast.

2. Colonial Marines seem to have adopted the buddy system, and what looks like a bilateral organization.

 

[Drew]

The problem is that if you applied real world economics, Tables of Organization, funding/maintenance to a game; it makes it more like something from Dumkempf (Army minature warfare taught back in the 1970s). Maybe the economic scales make it reasonable for Traveller, you just don't run into the Imperial Fleet in every hex, but you could see smaller show the flag operations in some star systems.

 

[Hairy Jim DeGriz]

Marc at one point (during T4 publication time) specified the median income was CrL4 per hour...
assuming a 50 week work year at 40/week, that's 2000 hours/year, and kCrL8 per annum.
I believe Marc also pointed this out during T5 playtest.

Could you help me translate to accounting style or maybe English? Median income 400 per hour or? What is kCrL8?

 

[kilemall]

I'm not sure I buy the personnel argument given robots are part of the picture and apparently rendered an advantage along with Jump-2 for the Nth Interstellar Wars.

OTOH how much more maintenance and support is required for TL5 biplane vs. TL6 monoplane vs. TL7 jet vs. TL8-9 grav vs. TL15 starfighter?

If we are wedding ourselves to RL verification of theory at least, well we have 3 points on the above 5 to graph, should give us a trend to apply.