(Answered UPDATED) Infantry Fuel Consumption

[gomiville]

Under "Fuel Consumption (All Units)" on p35 in StratOps, it says motorized and mechanized conventional infantry use 0.25t of fuel per maintenance period.  This is compared with 1 or 2% of engine mass for combat vehicles (depending on combat/SAR or non-combat use).

In Campaign Operations, under "Determining Operating Expenses" on p24, it says jump, motorized and mechanized infantry have a fuel capacity of 2% of their total mass.  This is compared with 10% of engine mass for combat vehicles.

A motorized infantry platoon is 6 tons.  Their fuel capacity is therefore 0.12t.  But if their combat consumption is 0.25t, that means they would have to be refueled halfway through a combat "day"?  In comparison, a combat vehicle can handle roughly 5 combat "days" before being empty.

And, since monthly peacetime consumption in Campaign Ops is 4x capacity, that allows combat vehicles to run for 20 days non-combat and 10 days on maneuver in a month.  But a motorized infantry unit could move around for just under 2 days in a month?

[cray]

That connection was missed when I wrote the Campaign Ops' section, and thus is unintentional.

It'll probably be a lot faster and less painful to edit StratOps to match Campaign Ops than vice versa, because the force examples would need extensive rewriting to adjust infantry fuel use.

[gomiville]

Moving in parity with combat vehicles, that would mean an infantry unit in combat would use 0.4% of their total mass in fuel, and 0.2% in non-combat operations.  This would allow them the same operating periods as combat vehicles, and the same peacetime operational tempo with a 4x capacity monthly allowance.

However, that would mean a motorized platoon would consume only 12kg of fuel during a non-combat maintenance period, which is below the threshold of most game accounting, I'd imagine.  Even a mechanized/tracked unit, as the heaviest infantry unit, would use 112kg of fuel during a combat period, less than half the previous value.

[Xotl]

The text of Campaign Operations will be updated to reflect the rules in SO, so the SO text is correct.