[VehicleMaker] Marine APC Family of Vehicles

[Reban]

Introduction

I’m going to use this thread to outline how I go about using T5’s VehicleMaker to build a fully fleshed out family of vehicles. For this I’m going to use the vehicles from the JTAS 12 article “Imperial Marine Task Force Organization” by Loren Wiseman. The article lists 8 APC variants and 5 Grav Sleds an air/raft and a Meson Gun Vehicle.

What follows are strictly IMTU re-imaginings and re-interpretations of the CT vehicles into T5. I’m going to re-access the roles of some of the vehicles and combine a few into new vehicles but leave the TO&E outlined in the article largely unaffected. For example the Computer APC comes from a time before the era of networked warfare and integrated computing, so I’m going to try to combine it with the Command APC for a C4I* platform. The “Imperial Meson Artillery Vehicle” also poses a problem because the smallest Meson Gun I can design in ACS is 67tons. This means that in T5 the Imperial Marines will need dedicated ships to provide meson support fire.

I’m not going to detail the final armament for these vehicles because Gunmaker still requires a lot of errata. I will indicate the type of weapon expected to be mounted. The beauty of VehicleMaker allows a wide variety of weapons to be substituted in the mount without major vehicle redesign.


*C4I: Command, Control, Communications, Cyber and Intelligence.

 

[Reban]

Requirements - APCs

Requirements - APCs

Let’s look at the requirements for the different vehicles and from that set a specification that the VehicleMaker output will have to closely match.

Grav APC
The article says this is a heavily armored grav vehicle armed with a fusion gun and missiles. From this we can say in T5 terms it should be a Military Grav Carrier with its pre-installed Turret mount and perhaps an extra weapon mount for the missiles (Striker mounts both in a remote turret).

It carries a crew of eleven broken down as a driver, a gunner, a squad/vehicle commander and 2 four-man fireteams. For this reason and to match other sources I’m going to aim for a 12ton vehicle (Striker says its 12.44tons). According to VehicleMaker a medium vehicle has operators and passengers equal to its tonnage, so I can have the eleven crew detailed above, with room for an extra passenger.

Okay 12tons is big. It’s about twice the size of a contemporary MBT . However several versions of Traveller have 12ton Marine APCs, such as TNE, and I have a pre-existing TU with 12ton and 24~25ton Marine AFVs. I could use a smaller vehicle and turn its Load into accommodation for 5 passengers and satisfy the crew requirements that way. IMTU Marines like big ‘n’ scary and don’t mind getting shot at.

Marines are protected forces expected to function and fight in exotic environments. My Line Marines will be expected to fight in a wide variety of atmospheres and vacuum so their family of vehicles should at minimum have the Sealed option but in addition being a grav vehicle they’ll be able to function within 10 diameters of a planet, ship or space station (yes even a ground grav vehicle if you read the Driver/Flyer skills). Giving them the Double Sealed option includes an airlock useful for such situations and docking and transfer with Marine/Navy assault ships and logistics vessels.

VehicleMaker allows the designer to define a number of items on the vehicle without needing a cost or volume. For this family of vehicles we’ll have Powered Controls, Autopilot, and a Grid connection. All Imperial Marine vehicles will have at minimum a Battlefield Communications suite R=6 with the Relay option. C4I vehicles will have a Command communications Suite R=8, relay option and a LR LOS suite R=10 allowing communications with satellites and ships in orbit. In addition they should have CommPlus fitted for covert communications and keeping contact with motherships screened by the planet.

Finally we come to Tech Level. As per JTAS and IMTU the Imperial Marines are equipped to TL15 standards so this family of vehicles should be TL15.
A range of other options are available from other Makers and chapters.



Support APC
The article says this is identical to the APC above with the exception of a larger fusion gun for direct support. In the CT version provision for 4 passengers is removed to accommodate the larger weapon. In T5 we may be able to retain the full crew complement despite the larger weapon.

Command APC and Computer APC
JTAS says this is identical to the APC but with 3 passengers removed and map table and command equipment substituted. I’m going to try and squeeze in 4 computer consoles and a map box to cater for the command section and some signals and electronic equipment to cater for the functions of the Computer APC. I’m going to call the new vehicle a Command Post Vehicle or CPV.

Point Defence APC
Based on the APC the JTAS version loses six passengers and uses the same fusion gun with point defence added. I think this can be improved upon.

Nuclear Damper APC
Based on the APC the JTAS version loses six passengers and gains a Nuclear Damper. I’m going to investigate if the vehicle volume and the rules allow me to put two Nuclear Dampers on one vehicle. The Marine Task Force has a section of 4 ND APCs, so if I can pull this off it’ll double this section’s effectiveness.

Nuclear Damper Control APC
JTAS says this is a Point Defence APC with add communications gear. Okay we can probably do that, but the ND Control APC should probably have sensor capable of detecting and tracking potential threats.

FDC APC
Based on the APC the JTAS version loses six passengers and gains a Fire Direction Center. What is an FDC in T5 terms? Right now I don’t know but I think it will have to have sensors for observation and acquisition of targets for the Artillery Vehicle. IMTU the Marines will have access to drones so the FDC may carry and control some of these.

 

[Reban]

The Base Vehicle

The Base Vehicle

In this post I’m going to design what I’m calling the “base vehicle”. This will be an unarmed version without any special equipment or added sensors.

Essentially this is what VehicleMaker outputs for the designer. For now I’m just going to call this the “12ton Marine APC”. Each variant will receive a descriptive name such as Squad Vehicle and Command Post Vehicle.

This was a lot more difficult than I thought it should be. When setting out with two fixed attributes in mind, in this case TL15 and 12tons, VehicleMaker makes it hard to balance everything. Load and or Speed seems to suffer a lot. I’ve got it to TL15 and 12tons, with a reasonable speed and fairly good protection. This is how I put it together.

Vehicle/Mission/Motive

Having prepared a blank FillForm I started out with the following basic vehicle; a Grav Troop Carrier.

code: GTC

type: Grav Troop Carrier

TL: 10   q: -   vol: 4   spd: 5   ld: 2

AV: 40 {ca:10, fp:10, rp:10, sp:20, ps:0, in:20, se:20}

KCr: 1500

Motive power was naturally going to be Grav, Carrier had the better armor and volume. Troop isn’t really necessary but added 1ton of volume which might be useful.

Bulk
Having played around with the different Bulks I decided to leave this as a Medium vehicle. Grav vehicles are slow and adding Heavy or VHeavy reduces them to a crawl. Unless you have lots of spare load and a high tech base to include Fast or High Powered options its best to grow the size other ways.

Stage
Likewise with Stage I tried both Improved and Advanced versions. Both reduce the overall volume of the vehicle, which would usually be a benefit but I need to triple the volume to get to 12tons. So this will be a Standard Stage vehicle when its final TL is calculated.

Environment
This is where things get a bit nebulous. On the FillForm there is only one line available for Environment, but if you look at the options on p.300 there are several that could be taken together or multiple times. There is also the issue of the “Enclosed” descriptor. Now so far I’ve designed an armored floating box that has protection Sealed 20. On my initial readings of VehicleMaker I didn’t spot Enclosed or think about its relevance. I thought if you had an open topped vehicle you could design an enclosed version by applying this option, but then why the TL -1? After using Robject’s Omni-VehicleMaker though I saw his implementation of it. Essentially this says vehicles are either open to the air or enclosed and the Enclosed option is default. Until someone tells me otherwise I’m following his lead but its still puzzling how my Carrier is sealed before I make it Enclosed and making it Open does nothing except drop the TL. So we make the vehicle Enclosed which bumps up its armor and protections and reduces it to TL9.

Due to their mission and user I need to Double Seal the vehicle. Doing this adds 1ton which represents the airlock and its equipment. Marines can now exist the vehicle without depressurizing it.

Finally the original description says the Marine APC is heavily armored so I’ve chosen to use the Alt Armored option to bring the Armor to 112 which will be comparable to most Heavy Tanks in the T5 universe. It is equivalent to 1.6cm of steel according to p.620.

The Marine APC base vehicle is starting to look like this:

code: GTC

type: Enclosed DoubleSealed AltArmoured Grav Troop Carrier

TL: 12   q: -   vol: 7   spd: 5   ld: 2

AV: 112 {ca:34, fp:50, rp:40, sp:66, ps:0, in:92, se:70}

KCr: 1555

Options
I can gain 5tons during this step but my vehicle Speed is only 50kph (Speed 5) so anywhere I gain volume I’m likely to lose speed. This is where my eye is drawn to the Cargo Module. Cargo Modules are essentially void space which is within the hull of the vehicle (they increase volume and load but don’t affect armor). They have a penalty to Speed because it is assumed they will be filled with cargo or a shipping container. So what if I cheat a little and introduce more volume in my vehicle hull and then fill it not with cargo but with the High Powered option?

By adding 2 Cargo Modules I get 2tons extra volume and 2 tons of Load but with a -2 penalty to speed leaving me at Speed 3. However I have gained enough Load to drop in 3 High powered options bring my final APC to TL15 and Speed 6.

code: GTC

type: HighPowered Enclosed DoubleSealed AltArmoured Grav Troop Carrier

TL: 15   q: 0   vol: 12   spd: 6   ld: 1

AV: 112 {ca:34, fp:50, rp:40, sp:66, ps:0, in:92, se:70}

KCr: 1895

Endurance will remain the default “hours” which results in a range of “Regional”. The Quality calculation makes me wonder if its errata. In real world terms the Marine APC base vehicle has a range of 1000km and an endurance of almost 24 hours.

Quality = 5 + Motive TL minus Actual TL = (5+10)-15 = 0 which is “Very Bad”. Was this changed to reflect Q=5 being average?

Calculating the occupants for a medium vehicle is straight forward. It’s a 12ton medium vehicle with default hours endurance so its 1 occupant per ton or 12 occupants. As the designer I decide that is made up of a Driver, a Gunner, a Vehicle/Squad Commander and eight other passengers. Note I could also convert the 1ton Load to carry 5 additional passengers.

So this is the Marine APC “Base Vehicle”. Next I’ll fit out and equip the Marine APC “Squad Vehicle”. At this point comments, corrections and questions are welcome.

 

[Warwynd]

this is pretty cool. I think I found one small miscalculation though.

Carrier starts as 4 tons. Troop adds 1. Alt Armor, DoubleSealed, Cargo Module (x2), and High Powered (x3) collectively add another 8 tons. that brings your total vehicle tonnage to 13, not 12.

 

[robject]

Great so far, Reban! I think you should be composing these posts into a "how to" document, and at the same time as a campaign resource document.