OBT Forum

Or they were not meant to move across the universe.
Perhaps, infantry support was meant to be provided by local forces.

This is perhaps not the most efficient way of ensuring the needed coordination between the different forces but that could be an explanation.

Infantry as cargo is covered in the Strat Ops rules.  They just take a higher cost of "food" which is in fact a stand-in for "Life support".  With normal quarters (crew, officer, gunner, or various passenger types) 1 ton of "supplies" is good for 100 people over 1 day (or 1 person for 100 days), and with "bay personnel" quarters it's 1 ton for 20 people per day (or 1 person for 20), with straight cargo 1 ton only supports 5 people for a day (or 1 person for 5 days).  This is to reflect the less efficient facilities of each level of quarters.  Strategic Operations, 43-44.

Modern aircraft are a poor example, because what's listed for their carrying capacity is always a "theoretical" capacity.  I've been on many, and the way to get the maximum capacity is to 1) pack people in like sardines, and 2) not travel very far.  Distance/payload tables don't exist for BattleTech, because everything is always assumed to be at maximum capacity.  A Warhammer which loses both its arms is still treated like a 70-ton 'mech, even though it's lost more than twenty tons of mass and thus its 280-rated engine should move it 5/8 (or even 6/9, depending on how much armor its lost elsewhere). 

Now, passenger bays.  Since a single Marine gets 5 tons of living space, it's to be expected that the life support systems for that single Marine are far more efficient than an 28-man foot infantry bay, which also masses 5 tons.  Honestly, that infantry bay is a steal; 28 times the personnel capacity while only paying five times the life support cost.  The difference is that that single Marine can live in the 5-ton bay for long periods of time, and, at least for the fluff, people should get really tired of that 5-ton infantry bay.  Visit a Navy town right after a ship returns after 6-9 months on deployment and ask the sailors (or Marines, if you live near San Diego or Norfolk) how much they liked their accommodations. 

The real reason that C-130s can carry 96 "troops" but only 64 "paratroopers" is because paratroopers have bulkier gear, and unlike regular troops, they require the ability to stand up while the aircraft is moving.  Otherwise, Herk passengers are forced to alternate knees, and the crew will walk on this floor of knees to get from the front of the aircraft to the back.  Clearly, not the most comfortable of seats for the passengers!  (The jump seat in the cockpit, however, has a great view.)

I agree that, rather than making different costs for types of infantry bays, it would make more sense to give, say, a single 50-ton light vehicle bay for each, say, company of mechanized or motorized infantry.  However, this would necessarily increase the time it takes to get the infantry off the ship and into the fight, because the personnel and equipment are no longer stored in the same area.

Sorry -- may be showing my ignorance here, but 4 platoons equals a battalion? The listing for the Intruder in the original DS/JS TRO lists it as carrying a (small) battalions-worth of troops (listed as 'commandos' in the text). With infantry, a 'small' battalion would be 300-ish people, in 8-10 platoons (mostly infantry, with some support troops). Four platoons is barely a company, which should have 5 or 6, minimum.

To me, the Intruder should be carrying 300-500 troops. Even allowing for improvements in technology, you can't really deploy fewer than 500 troops and expect to do anything with them. Ask the US Army in Iraq. Infantry are there to control the population and act as scouts in the field -- it's only insane people like Grayson Carlyle who actually have infantry fight 'Mechs -- and appearance is everything.

Hammer:  I'm not seeing anything like that in my copy of Drops & Jumps; do you have a page number? 

Pins: I proposed doing just that back at the beginning of the topic.  Per the creation rules, a Small Craft carrying infantry should be rather more survivable than most dropships, and certainly will cost less.  Of course, then you'd need a DropShip (or WarShip) able to host such a large number of parasite craft, but that's pretty minor as complaints go. 

Hammer:  I'm not seeing anything like that in my copy of Drops & Jumps; do you have a page number?

Don't have my dead-tree copy at hand, but the link here: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Intruder has the same general info.

Unless they're special ops or Jump troops, there's no point in transporting less than a battalion of 300-600 troops, minimum.....

Quote from: Halvagor on September 16, 2011, 08:05:52 PM

Hammer:  I'm not seeing anything like that in my copy of Drops & Jumps; do you have a page number?

Don't have my dead-tree copy at hand, but the link here: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Intruder has the same general info.

Unless they're special ops or Jump troops, there's no point in transporting less than a battalion of 300-600 troops, minimum.....

Well, Sarna.net's referencing TRO 3057 (both) with that line about battalions, but the line about a battalion is also in reference to the Intruder's sophisticated command center, which makes it sound as if an Intruder is able to coordinate the movements of a force up to a battalion in size.  Those forces don't have to come from the Intruder itself, even though it also mentions being able to strip out cargo space to hold a company of light vehicles; 1 company of infantry + 1 company light vees could equal a "small battalion" to non-military personnel.  Sarna.net's entry has all this information, but not in the same order as 3057's entry, which doesn't help its readability.  Drops & Jumps mentions the command center, but doesn't qualify its capabilities at all -- it's just "well-equipped" and able to coordinate the three organic platoons and "any other units operating with the Intruder's troops."
 
The exact text from the 3057s is: "The Intruder also carries a sophisticated and well-equipped command center, from which the marine [sic] commander can control the activities of his troops and any others operating with them.  These extensive facilities rival those of the command versions of the Union and Overlord, although they are best suited to operations involving forces of battalion size or smaller." 

I added the boldface for emphasis.

Whoever did the Sarna.net profile tried, but what they've got carries a slightly different meaning than what's written in the actual TROs.