For military logistics this is a show stopper though. No force can properly maintain itself on that kind of long train. As clearly shown by the Clans.
Battletech What if the Pentagon Cluster was made of 5 Garden Worlds?
- Thread starter The Whispering Monk
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For military logistics this is a show stopper though. No force can properly maintain itself on that kind of long train. As clearly shown by the Clans.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Didn't stop the British from turning India into a colony or France turning much of Indochina into a colony before the advent of steam though.
But it was essentially a major contributing factor in the defeat of the Clans.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
While I'd agree with that in general, BattleTech Ragnorok-proofing makes logistics easier in general. It doesn't help with actual consumption but storing stuff in caches for later use can greatly ease a planned invasion later... or lead to somebody popping the cache open 200 years later for the lostech, I'll grant.
If anything like sane logistics is applied to BT logistics no force should be able to invade anybody else period. We've already run their population densities and shipping issues into the ground. Every planet should be able to readily pack together enough tanks, artillery, and infantry that trying to land a Leopard on the surface and attack with your four Battlemechs should be a non-starter. I mean, if we assumed parity of technology freaking Saint Kitts and Nevis (that's a single country despite the And in it's name) have a navy with five ships in it along with a rifle company with light vehicles and mortars, a reserve company, and support platoon. This is a tiny two-island nation with a population of 50,000 and tourism and sugarcane as their economic backbone. They'd still give a Leopard's worth of invasion force one hell of a fight.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Yeah invading stuff in Battletech without Warships to provide the metaphorical surrender or else stuff will be bombarded even if only in a limited fashion really doesn't make any sense. And even then you'd probably need the equivalent of a sizable chunk of a successor state's military as occupation forces on any world with a decent population
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
It is probably largely due to the fact that 1) the Age of War (and for the Inner Sphere, the first two succession wars) kind of annihilated the idea of guerilla warfare out of the populous, 2) the centralization of manufacturing and the near annihilation of said manufacturing, 3) after Tintevel the various powers codified some basic rules of war that reshaped how things were done long enough to have a cultural impact, and 4) the whole set is built around the board game after the game was developed.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
I will say I don't think BattleTech supports guerrilla warfare in general. A cornerstone of such warfare is that three guys in a truck with a cheap rocket launcher can destroy or disable an AFV, and you can improvise an explosive device powerful enough to do similar damage using a machine shop and household goods.
In BattleTech this is no longer true. The balance between armor and weaponry has shifted far towards the armor side. When two combat vehicles or 'mechs meet each other, the first one to shoot doesn't win, they exchange fire for five solid minutes hitting each other multiple times before one manages to get through the armor and eventually take out enough critical systems. Your IED won't stop a 'mech unless you've planted hundreds of them and the 'mech is dumb enough to walk through your professional-grade minefield. Shooting a surprise rocket can kill only the cheapest of infantryman and any Battle Armor will probably tank it, much less a tank or 'mech.
That's beyond looking at how obscene 'mech sensors are (I recall they can detect a lit cigarette at several miles in the Grey Death Legion books, Carlisle is speaking with one of his trainers and they comment on how there's no way for the infantry they're training to approach a 'mech undetected, they can only hope it's distracted enough to discount infantry before they get close enough to swarm it).
Normal guerrilla tactics simply fail unless you've got a 'mech company of your own to do it with, and at that point you're not really a guerrilla force but a similarly-equipped professional army.
In BattleTech this is no longer true. The balance between armor and weaponry has shifted far towards the armor side. When two combat vehicles or 'mechs meet each other, the first one to shoot doesn't win, they exchange fire for five solid minutes hitting each other multiple times before one manages to get through the armor and eventually take out enough critical systems. Your IED won't stop a 'mech unless you've planted hundreds of them and the 'mech is dumb enough to walk through your professional-grade minefield. Shooting a surprise rocket can kill only the cheapest of infantryman and any Battle Armor will probably tank it, much less a tank or 'mech.
That's beyond looking at how obscene 'mech sensors are (I recall they can detect a lit cigarette at several miles in the Grey Death Legion books, Carlisle is speaking with one of his trainers and they comment on how there's no way for the infantry they're training to approach a 'mech undetected, they can only hope it's distracted enough to discount infantry before they get close enough to swarm it).
Normal guerrilla tactics simply fail unless you've got a 'mech company of your own to do it with, and at that point you're not really a guerrilla force but a similarly-equipped professional army.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
There are two ways to kill guerrilla warfare: sensor density and armor advancements. Battletech mostly has armor advancements in its court (but does have some particularly insane sensor tech as well, likely due to the fact that the armor is designed against DEWs in general) but in RL and my future-history setting's case, its sensor density. As sensor density increases, the ability to do guerrilla warfare decreases (alongside what I would call the 'minimum firepower requirement' for combat operations, but that is useless without the ability to get that firepower where it needs to be, usually via knowing where that firepower is most useful).
Essentially, when any major force can literally know when you take a shit as you're doing it, guerrilla warfare kind of vanishes... and if armor makes that incredibly hard as well (via pushing the 'minimum firepower requirement' to such levels that some dudes with MGs and rockets won't cut it), then it is a certainty.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
Of course guerrilla warfare need not be directed at the occupiers alone. They need collaborators to get anything done after all
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
And the fancy sensors on the mech mean little when guerrillas just melt into population after an attack.
Brits mostly relied on local troops commanded by the British officers during the conquest of India, while conquest of Indochina was done at greater technological difference than that between lvl. 1 and Clantech and pacification. However this is a tabletop setting, so real life rules don't necessarily apply.
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
The problem is that again, the armor and sensor density don't allow that. The guerrillas aren't going to get the chance. Imagine that you've got, say, the US in Iraq but this time they have 'mech sensors. Magscan means they can pick up anything metal at a kilometer away or more (BT ranges being wonky), so as your guerrillas are sidling towards the compound, they detect you all have guns and sound the alarm. 'Mechs also come equipped with chemsniffers so if you think you're going to smuggle in explosives or incendiaries with no metal, good luck with that. You also have to bring a hideous number of troops, 30 guys with SRM launchers are going to need three or four turns of pounding on even a Wasp before it goes down (source: I ran a brief Megamek test just now). That's a lot of guys to throw together and have sneak up, sensors or no. Try to do it with just a squad and you might as well just squish them all yourself because your main effect is going to be the enemy having to hose your men off the foot of the Wasp.
As @Knowledgeispower says, guerrillas can try to target collaborators. However that's not particularly useful in BT either. We see pretty consistently that the ruling powers simply cut out the local government entirely and use their own people. Com* f'rex pretty much always uses a walled compound studded with sensors with only Com* employees allowed inside (past the lobby), and said employees live inside as well so in a pinch, they can just button down and wait it out. In the second Gray Death Legion book the Dracs took over Verthandi and abused the locals, but for their actual mining operation they brought in their own people, surrounded the mine with fences, 'mechs, and sensors, and used their own DropShips to haul the goods out so no native could get within miles of it. The same was done with their walled city, there was simply no native crowd to melt into.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
Not when sensor density approaches yes...
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
BT universe does not have the computing power to achieve omnipresent efficiency of the sensor density, pretty much everything that is done is still done by human operators, so response to collaborator getting blown in his car, shot at home by a sniper, stabbed fatally in a bar... will be likely too late. HUMINT is still the key in counterinsurgency. Which means Watch. Who usually suck at their job.
Aaron Fox
Well-known member
You would think, but really they have some rather impressive computer capabilities, given that the neuro helmet is able to read a wearer's thoughts in real-time.
Knowledgeispower
Ah I love the smell of missile spam in the morning
And yet the main limitations on how many weapons a warship or dropship can mount is fire control systems of all things.
PsihoKekec
Swashbuckling Accountant
And targeting computers are multi ton devices (granted, some of it is extra servos and wiring).
The only thing we currently have that approaches the precision of a spaceship fire control system is deep space telescopes. Those aren't exactly consumer good.
As to 'mech targeting computers, aside from extra servos and such, it probably also includes extra sensors and ECM-penetration aids and such. Plus, just straight game balance...
As to 'mech targeting computers, aside from extra servos and such, it probably also includes extra sensors and ECM-penetration aids and such. Plus, just straight game balance...
Bear Ribs
Well-known member
At least in the tabletop game, the default assumption in BT is that everybody knows precisely where everybody else is before the first shot is fired.
And there's not really much in the way of collaborators. Look again to the aforementioned Gray Death Legion campaign on Verthandi, about as close as BT gets to guerrilla warfare. There were no collaborators, no attempts by Grayson to snipe, bomb, or poison anybody. They couldn't do so before making it past the Draconis Combine sensors and walls and into the main city, which required underground tunnels, surprise, and distractions to even pull off that.