Skyefox, on 29 June 2012 - 03:08 AM, said:
Beazle I'm quite aware of the logistics. As you said, Jumpships are by no means common, and to a lesser extent, neither are DropShips. If you have 4 Dropships but only 2 can carry Mechs, would you really not take the other two simply because they won't carry your best weapons.
Dropships aren't the limiting factor, jumpships are. If you could only bring 4 dropships, would you really bring 2 full of vehicles when you could bring Mechs? Apparently your NOT familiar with the logistics, because you completely forget to address the issue of FUEL for your 2 drop ships full of vehicles, which was one of the primary points of my entire post, and one of the most important considerations any time you are talking logistics.
Quote
You can't win with just Mechs. You need infantry to control built up areas, and get into all those hard to reach spots that Mechs just don't fit.
There will always be infantry, simply because they are the most numerous, the fastest trained, and the easiest to arm. Training a MechWarrior takes years and is a huge investment for EACH ONE. Infantry can be trained in a matter of months, have the easiest supply chain to maintain (food and water, found mostly everywhere you'd be waging a war, small arms ammunition)and are necessary to the success of any campaign.
Please read my post again. I specifically stated that a limited number of infantry makes sense, however you once again show a less than perfect understanding of logistics. In BT water is often listed as a RARE resource, control of which often determines who controls a planet. It's like fighting in the middle east more often than not. If you increase your water requirement that much, you put yourself at a significant strategic disadvantage. (we aren't talking a small increase here, but rather orders of magnitude)
Small arms ammunition can vary in caliber. There is TONS of ammo in Iraq, but good luck getting it to fit in a NATO spec rifle.
Keep in mind also, that there is no way am infantry man can keep up with a mech or vehicle over strategic distances with out some sort of motorized assistance, at which point a commander is forced to decided between giving up the advantage of maneuver, abandoning a fraction of his force to stationary defensive roles, or taking on the burden of supply that goes along with mechanizing an infantry force.
Your point on training is valid, but i offer the counter argument that it takes HUNDREDS of infantry to equal the firepower that ONE mechwarrior can manage. I'd debate that the total man hours is in the Mechwarriors favor. Add to this the fact that a Mechwarrior will, more often than not, survive the loss of his mech, while an infantry man who is hit will likely die, and if he does survive will require significant medical care (more logistics to manage) and still be out of the fight.</p>
Quote
Vehicles fit the role that infantry are too light for and Mechs are too valuable for. The slowest hovertank is still as fast as you standard light Mech, and cost (including maintenance and training) are much lower. In a harsher view, vehicles can also be seen as mildly expendable because losing a lance of Goblins will hit your bottom line much less severely than losing a medium lance. Vehicle crews can also be trained much quicker, along with their mechanics and engineers (where those ICE engines you were quick to point out could be repaired/replaced much quicker than a fusion engine). I'd be willing to bet there would be more fuel depots on Random Invasion Location than there would be fusion engine repair specialists. In other words, they're cheaper, more plentiful, and while not as flexible as infantry or as powerful as Mechs, a column of armor is still a weapon on the battlefield that an enemy has to account for.
Your willing to bet an entire planet on the enemy not burning their fuel rather than allowing it to fall into your hands? It's not like diesel is lostech.
I don't think anybody plans on capturing technicians of any sort, or would trust enemy techs to service any of their vehicles.
I don't argue that armor isn't a weapon, I just don't think that from a logistics and strategic stand point they make sense to bring on an assault across interstellar distances. Leave the tanks to guard home, and take the Mechs when you go to war.
While vehicles are "expendable" to the national budget, that is not my point. I concede the point that vehicles (provided they are ICE not Fusion) are cheaper, and give you more bang for your C-Bill (house bill, whatever). My points on this issue are three in number.
First, that they are MORE expensive from a LOGISTICS stand point. The need to supply more crew (see my point on water) and fuel (which you believe will be found on site easily, i disagree) forces you to spend a larger slice of your very limited transportation tonnage in order to get the same level of combat effectiveness.
Second vehicles are less versatile on a strategic level. The mobility of Mechs is it's greatest advantage. In BT it is often noted that maneuvers are the key to victory. (Just consider the size of a planet and the numbers of troops involved on both sides and i think it's apparent why this is so.) Any commander worth his brass will attempt to take this into account by deploying his forces in an area that highlights this disadvantage. You bring hovers, i'll fight you in a forest or hilly region, you bring tracked or wheeled, I'll try to fight at rivers or wetlands. If you bring a combination of both, then your losing a fraction of your effectiveness before the shooting even starts.
Third, any commander who treats any of his troops as "expendable" will quickly find himself without troops to command.
Quote
Aerospace assets IMO have the same worth as a BattleMech. I wouldn't feel comfortable attacking or defending without some sort of aero asset.
I agree completely. I didn't mention Aerospace assets because i take this as a given. It's vehicles and, to a lesser extent, infantry that i take issue with. My primary point is that the RCT in BT was put into the game in order to give the fiction writers the number of troops needed to make the story line advance, and help to characterize Davion rulers as strategic geniuses without having to actually write much fiction on a strategic level (not the details anyway, which is what maters to strategy, and generally makes for horrible reading)
Quote
Also, when you say "Combined arms is a strategy that fell out of use hundreds of years ago"; I'm hoping you're referring to the BattleTech timeline and not today, having spent 6 years in a BCT and deploying in a mixed unit of Infantry, Tanks, Engineers, Logistic/Medical personnel, and Artillery.
Yes, I am referring to the BT time line.
If you've served in a modern day RCT, then I'm sure you've seen the number of fuel and water tankers required to keep that RCT in the field. (not to mention food, ammunition and medical supplies, which are a smaller fraction by far) Now picture hauling those tankers out of a gravity well and across the gulf of space. I won't even get into the strategic liability of fuel carriers, and how they make your supply lines that much more vulnerable to enemy raids and air strikes by increasing the size and frequency of convoys. (A mech with no ammo fights at reduced capacity, a tank with no ammo and no fuel surrenders) Nor will I rack my brain to come up with figures to represent the concept of diminishing returns as it applies to fuel and supply convoys (since exact numbers wouldn't be valid in a Sci-Fi setting anyway)
In closing, the RCT is a concept that makes sense at first glance, but doesn't bear up under scrutiny. It's sufficient to suspend disbelief for the length of a novel, but hardly what I'd call a stroke of genius. They seem viable within the confines of the BT TT game because the very factors that make them NON-viable are not tracked by the simplified logistics of the game.
They exist because the FIction writers need them to exists in order to explain why Davion forces had the firepower to accomplish what they previously could not. The size of mech forces was published fact, vehicle and infantry forces weren't published, and this gave the writers an opening. The RCT was a tool for the fiction that was required for the scripted story line. (Later editions of the game included minor rule changes to make vehicles and infantry more viable, in order to mesh with the fiction, but that's an entirely different discussion.)
*Edited for format.
Edited by Beazle, 29 June 2012 - 11:24 AM.
5
