Modding a Leopard: infantry and cargo

[Elmoth]

hello all,

I will start saying that I am far from fully understanding construction rules and I have no idea on BT vehicle design, so I am here to ask for some clarifications and sensible suggestions.

I am in the process of modding a Leopard for a small merc unit. The basic design of the unit is 4 mechs (GRF1N, WVR6R, WVR6M, PHX1), 1 infantry jump platoon and 1 or 2 ASF. Nothing out of the ordinary. Since I wanted to carry infantry (and maybe some other supporting vehicles and transports), I tried to look at dropship designs to get an idea on what I could fit in a Leopard, since a cargo position in a leopard seems to be 150 tons.

Reading this and other forums I have found that actually an infantry platoon seems to weigh very little in dropship design. Just 5 tons for the infantry bay ( I trie dto figure it with the official rules, but failed miserably; luckily this was a common thing to infer in the forum here). That seems to be a naval-like triple or quadruple bunk space with the infantry crammed in, though, and since the unit is likely to be flying around quite a bit, I decided to up that total.

what I have no idea is how much weight and what kind of space this would cost to have OK quarters for a military unit that is spending between 15 days and 3 months stowed there in each raid they perform. Any help appreciated. I guess they will be strolling down the mech bay regularly, but having some living space in their own area would be good too I guess.

Also, would the 150 tn "position" in the leopard be able to be shared with other stuff? Like a few hovers or VTOLs? I know I am doing it, but would like to know what the rules say about it.

EDIT: A field hospital with 4-6 beds how much would it weight?

Thanks!

[Liam's Ghost]

For long term transport, you usually want to use steerage class passenger quarters, which weigh five tons per person. It's been a while since I looked at the details, but the standard infantry bays are for short term transport.

Keep in mind that this isn't just bunk space, but also the associated life support equipment, and has a tangible benefit in the amounts of consumables you have to carry to support the personnel. You need one ton of consumables per day for every 20 men you carry in an infantry bay, but you only need one ton of consumables for every 200 men per day if they all have quarters.

A field hospital masses 3.5 tons, plus 1 ton for each operating theater included. It also requires five crewmen for every operating theater.

On the subject of changing the mech bay.... A single light vehicle bay masses 50 tons, so it isn't unreasonable to swap one for three light vehicle bays.

Your entire complement is a bit tight for a single Leopard.

[Elmoth]

Thanks. Seems so. I might need to drop the ASF for some extra space to fit support vehicles.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Yeah, the stock Leopards are really tight on cargo: the "obsolete" version from the 25th Century only has 34 tons normally, and the refit from 3056 has 75 tons.

Each fighter bay gives you back 150 tons, and seems to be the most common way people refit Leopards, especially in small mercenary units: that's basically what your merc unit does in the HBS Battletech PC game. Replacing each with a light vehicle bay, that lets you keep a vehicle combat prepped, would still net you 200 tons towards cargo and additional permanent quarters.

[Paladin1]

Unless you're attached to the Leopard, a better option might be upgrading to a Union and modifying it to suit your needs.

[Daryk]

The break even point for consumables between "bay" and "regular" (e.g. steerage) quarters is 90 days.  If you intend to embark for less than that, bay quarters are sufficient.

[marcussmythe]

The break even point for consumables between "bay" and "regular" (e.g. steerage) quarters is 90 days.  If you intend to embark for less than that, bay quarters are sufficient.

For fluff, without any mechanical impact, I tend to use crew quarters to reflect crew comfort.  'Bay' quarters basically amount to pitching tents next to the tank or hanging hammocks between the levels of the repair scaffold, at least in my head.

[Daryk]

That would be the "camping in the cargo bay" level of discomfort (which uses up consumables even faster).  The accommodations provided by bay quality quarters are closer to modern military vessels (i.e., large berthing areas with bunks stacked three high and communal heads).  Steerage (5 tons per person) is where you start to get staterooms (though probably still communal heads), even if they're shared by two or three.  I don't think "normal" crew (7 tons per person) have more than two per stateroom (with heads shared by fewer staterooms), while officer staterooms (10 tons per) are almost certainly individual (with either individual or "Jack and Jill" heads).

[Elmoth]

I am using a leopard because this is both an experiment and a test (and I do not like spheroids very much). It is the start of our Illyrian campaign, where a detachment of a larger mercenary command is sent abroad (to another planet). They have to do with the smaller dropship since the larger dropship is used by the rest of the company.

it seems I can fit the following in a leopard removing the ASF bays. it is somewhat extreme, so I am not sure I will go for it, but per the rules it fits.

BAY 1 (140 tons used, 10 remaining)
1. 21 man jump infantry squad in steerage quarters (105 tn)
2. 7 man paramedic squad in stererage quarters (35 tn)

BAY 2. Cargo bay. All material packed up and in need of preparation before it can be used. Except the medics, of course.
- 5 man Medical team in steerage quarters (25 tn)
- Field hospital (1 operating threatre) (4.5 tn)
- 4 Ripper VTOL (2 normal, 2 infantry)   (40 tn)
- 4 Ferret VTOL (2 normal, 2 cargo) (20 tn)
- 2 flatbed trucks (20 tn)
- 4 hover APC (40 tn) or equivalent transport vehicle


People: around 120 including the Leopard crew and technicians. 40-50 of them are likely to see combat (mechs, infantry, combat vtol)


The 4 Ripper Helicopters are modular. They can be switched between the 2 models (combat and transport) adding SRM racks (an dinternal ammo) or removing them to get more transport space.

The field hospital can be deployed on a truck if necessary (it is a container) but they prefer to deploy it in a building.

The Ferrets act as the general utility craft to transport suplies in and out, and do recon (they are Hueys after all, with sensor dispensers)

The flatbed trucks could be removed, but having a pair just in case you do not find suitable haulers around is always a precaution.

Unsure about the hover APC, but some way of moving people around on the ground is always welcomed.


And those are the numbers I have run so far. It is a much larger proportion of stuff than I expected to be able to fit in, really. It looks quite cramped in any case xD so I might need to switch to a larger vessel. But it is interesting and can fit an idea I have.

[marcussmythe]

That would be the "camping in the cargo bay" level of discomfort (which uses up consumables even faster).  The accommodations provided by bay quality quarters are closer to modern military vessels (i.e., large berthing areas with bunks stacked three high and communal heads).  Steerage (5 tons per person) is where you start to get staterooms (though probably still communal heads), even if they're shared by two or three.  I don't think "normal" crew (7 tons per person) have more than two per stateroom (with heads shared by fewer staterooms), while officer staterooms (10 tons per) are almost certainly individual (with either individual or "Jack and Jill" heads).

Thank you!

[Hptm. Streiger]

BAY 2. Cargo bay. All material packed up and in need of preparation before it can be used. Except the medics, of course.
- 5 man Medical team in steerage quarters (25 tn)
- Field hospital (1 operating threatre) (4.5 tn)
- 4 Ripper VTOL (2 normal, 2 infantry)   (40 tn)
- 4 Ferret VTOL (2 normal, 2 cargo) (20 tn)
- 2 flatbed trucks (20 tn)
- 4 hover APC (40 tn) or equivalent transport vehicle

unless those vehicles are completely dismantled - so that they count only as cargo.... you have an invalid cargo bay.
You need 14 light vehicle bays otherwise.

Speaking of the Leopard.... we have a very cramped drop ship for 4 Mechs and 2 ASFs to start with. The only good part about a Leopard is that your crew/passengers of 15 have a berth for themselves.
When you remove the ASFs  for troop quarters you will have a mutiny in no time (not to mention that you need to install much better life support systems)
When you are a good boss, you should drop the Leopard and look for a Triumph 

[Elmoth]

unless those vehicles are completely dismantled - so that they count only as cargo.... you have an invalid cargo bay.
You need 14 light vehicle bays otherwise.

BAY 2. Cargo bay. All material packed up and in need of preparation before it can be used. Except the medics, of course.

They *do* count as cargo. they are packed up and have parts unassembled. Like VTOLS not having the weapons mounted and needing to have the rotors assembled. That was the whole idea of a cargo bay instead of a vehicle bay: packing stuff in containers and needing to reassemble them. The CON is that it cannot deploy them immediately. The PRO of that is that it allows you to use the whole 150 ton capacity space of the bay.

Speaking of the Leopard.... we have a very cramped drop ship for 4 Mechs and 2 ASFs to start with. The only good part about a Leopard is that your crew/passengers of 15 have a berth for themselves.
When you remove the ASFs  for troop quarters you will have a mutiny in no time (not to mention that you need to install much better life support systems)
When you are a good boss, you should drop the Leopard and look for a Triumph 

And this is important and relevant. I am not sure that background (and real world navy people, that have quite cramped conditions from what I read) would agree, but it is something to consider. I think it is OK for a small unit, even if it will be cramped and everybody will want to leave it ASAP after 2 weeks or more inside it.

A triumph is above what I want for the unit (since they are part of a larger unit themselves) but something like a Drost IIA might be there even if it does not allow combat drops.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Wait, who's crewing the vehicles?

[Elmoth]

Well spotted! I missed that. Back to the calculations board since I need to account for them at least the VTOL pilots (if I assume that the infantry will drive the ground vehicles, that this a big "if" in itself)

[Elmoth]

BAY 2. Cargo bay. All material packed up and in need of preparation before it can be used. Except the medics, of course.
- 5 man Medical team in steerage quarters (25 tn)
- Field hospital (1 operating threatre) (4.5 tn)
- 4 Ripper VTOL (2 normal, 2 infantry)   (40 tn)
- 4 Ferret VTOL (2 normal, 2 cargo) (20 tn)
- 2 flatbed trucks (20 tn)
- 4 hover APC (40 tn) or equivalent transport vehicle

OK, there are 8 VTOL and 6 ground vehicle drivers to account for. That would need a grand total of 12*5=60 tons. Removing the Hover APC (and turning the whole support force into an airmobile one as a consequence, plus 2 trucks) we only need space for 10 pilots (50tn). We had 10 tons remaining from the infantry, and the removal of the 4 APC provides the other 40 necessary tons.

So it is feasible. Cramped, but feasible.

[NullVoid]

When you are a good boss, you should drop the Leopard and look for a Triumph 

Before a Triumph, I'd go to a militarized Buccaneer. It requires a bit more work, but with 2,300 tons of cargo bay, it can fit a whole Leopard within it, and it is one of the most common civilian classes around the 'sphere.

[Atarlost]

unless those vehicles are completely dismantled - so that they count only as cargo.... you have an invalid cargo bay.

Battletech cargo bays don't volume out.  The ship densities are too low.  Bays include quarters for the technical crew and spare parts and the equipment to actually work on a vehicle or mech, but there's nothing to stop you from driving tanks straight into shipping containers, tying them down, and then treating it like any other shipping container.  Volume doesn't matter until you start trying to fill your entire mass budget with styrofoam packing peanuts.

[Liam's Ghost]

unless those vehicles are completely dismantled - so that they count only as cargo.... you have an invalid cargo bay.
You need 14 light vehicle bays otherwise.

You don't need to completely dismantle the vehicles for them to be cargo. All combat units can be transported intact as cargo, it just takes longer to unload them and get them ready for combat.

Strategic operations provides the relevant rules, it takes 2.5 minutes per ton to unload a vehicle from a cargo bay, and a flat fifteen minutes for a tech team to ready it for combat. You can unload a number of vehicles simultaneously equal to the number of cargo bay doors. Mechs take twice as long to unload from cargo, and infantry can just march down the ramp ready to fight.

The mech and vehicle bays just let you deploy quickly and conduct maintenance and repairs in transit, they're not required to transport units. 

[Elmoth]

Hello there!

I am still working aorund this (while we wrap the Irian Fists campaign).
Some of the players want to use recon infantry mounted in hover bikes or in xenocreatures (read: Star wars taun tauns). The Alpha Strike profile for both puts them at CAR15 or CAR20 (tons). The question is if those would be in addition to the infantry bays that the soldiers occupy (5 tons per soldier), and if I would bneed additional storage capacity for these, either the bikes or the mounts.

Would they require 150 tons of cargo or more? less?


Examples of what I am talking about:

Bike hover platoon:
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/7053/mechanized-hover-platoon-fedcom-laser

Beast mounted infantry:
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/317/beast-mounted-infantry-tariq-mounted-infantry-outworlds-alliance


Thanks

[Giovanni Blasini]

Hello there!

I am still working aorund this (while we wrap the Irian Fists campaign).
Some of the players want to use recon infantry mounted in hover bikes or in xenocreatures (read: Star wars taun tauns). The Alpha Strike profile for both puts them at CAR15 or CAR20 (tons). The question is if those would be in addition to the infantry bays that the soldiers occupy (5 tons per soldier), and if I would bneed additional storage capacity for these, either the bikes or the mounts.

Would they require 150 tons of cargo or more? less?


Examples of what I am talking about:

Bike hover platoon:
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/7053/mechanized-hover-platoon-fedcom-laser

Beast mounted infantry:
http://www.masterunitlist.info/Unit/Details/317/beast-mounted-infantry-tariq-mounted-infantry-outworlds-alliance


Thanks

Per Tech Manual, a transport bay for mechanized infantry masses 8 tons for a 5-trooper squad, or 5 tons/squad for a basic compartment without life support (for when being carried by things like IndustrialMechs, support vehicles, conventional vehicles, etc.).

If the AS stats are treating it as 20 tons for a mechanized hover, I assume it's treating them as requiring 20 tons of transport compartment, and the platoon size then being 20 soldiers, in keeping with Tech Manual construction rules for machanized infantry.

For your hover bikes, you could probably get away with them leaving the vehicles in general cargo without supplemental life support, though as I recall the actual rules state that DropShips have to use bays, not compartments.  The difference ends up being 20 tons vs 32 tons per platoon.

The MUL's beast-mounted infantry are, as the URL notes, mounted on tariqs, which are 0.51 tons a piece, and work in platoons of up to 21 (one trooper per tariq).  I'm going to guess it's largely the same thing, with the 15 tons being the base transport mass in a compartment, not a bay, with no added life support.  Since tariqs need food and water, they'll bneed bay life support, but I can't find the specific rules on that.  Figure most of the time it's about a 60% increase in mass, so probably 24 tons for your beast-mounted infantry, which gives life support in bays for your tariqs.

[Elmoth]

Ok. thanks for the input. Let me get he numbers straight:

1. You are assuming infantry bays with life support for the soldiers and the tariks, but bnot the bikes.

2. The final wreight of the infantry bays + transport method are:
- 32 tons for the bike infantry (soldiers in infantry bays, bike sin general cargo)
- 24 tons for the tariq infantry (soldiers and tariqs in infantry bays)

Correct?

Assuming that the answer is "yes" I prefer my soldiers to be in steerage quarters. There was a very good discussion about this andd korale in another thread (tha tunfortuntely I did not bookmark) and in this thread the point has been made again.

So, assuming that the soldiers ar ein steerage quarters (5 tons per soldier) but tariqs and bikes are not, the weight would be.

- BIKE INFANTRY (20 soldiers): 32 tons - 4 tons (20 soldiers in 5ton/squad quarters) + 100 tons (20*5) for the steerage quarters = 128 tons
- TARIQ INFANTRY (21 soldiers)- 24 tons - 4 tons (as above) + 20*5 /(as above) = 120 tons

Correct again? (I guess not but just asking)


Cheers,
Xavi