BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Game Systems => Aerospace Combat => Topic started by: snewsom2997 on 23 July 2019, 13:52:57
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So we know that the Star League had around 2000-3000 Warships at its height, Probably 4 or 5 times that in Jumpships maybe more, without dragooning merchant Fleets.
What kind of Transport Dropship numbers do you think we are looking at. 20,000? 30,000? More? Or vast numbers less because most transport happened in Warship Bays and Dropships were just Higgens boats?
Thinking up an AU where Kerensky up and left with the Star League Army when the Amaris Coup happened, leaving the House Lords to deal with the mess, not after defeating it and burning through 3/4ths of their manpower and equipment.
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More, certainly. The Star League was awash in money, and rather less common sense...
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"Admiral, how many dropships can you commit?"
"How many do you need?"
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Heh... perfect! :thumbsup:
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Consider the Confederate. Would any logistics professional in their right mind transport an army 4 Mechs at a time?
Those lance carrying DropShips are tactical units. They are for getting lances into position on a planetary scale. After their initial deployment some my never dock with a JumpShip again. Now think about the potential numbers of those.
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As others have said, transports that size are Higgins Boats at best...
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Consider the Confederate. Would any logistics professional in their right mind transport an army 4 Mechs at a time?
Those lance carrying DropShips are tactical units. They are for getting lances into position on a planetary scale. After their initial deployment some my never dock with a JumpShip again. Now think about the potential numbers of those.
The Whole Army, no, but enough to transport 16 divisions or so of that army sprinkled all over the Inner Sphere, perhaps. I don't think it out of the realm of possibility that 10-15% if any given division, might have the tactical lift to move things all over the place.
So do you think that something like the Confederate is disposable? Use once, then leave it grounded or as a Planetary Transport or as a Supply/Repair Depot, with some Command and Control Ability. I think you would be better served demilling them and selling them as surplus cargo transports.
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You don't abandon them, you deploy them as a tactical element, use them on-planet to reposition forces as needed for the duration of the operation, and then take them with you to the next planet to invade. If not, then you've got to build replacements for them for every world where you fight. The factories may build extras for use by the planetary militias after the SLDF forces leave, but the ones brought by the SLDF would almost certainly leave with them.
The majority of the landing forces would arrive in system on the Warships, some on the accompanying larger dropships, and would be ferried within the system from the Warships to the planet aboard those dropships. The smaller Leopard and Confederate class dropships would mostly be dedicated to operating in close cooperation with the forces on the ground.
Additional supply dropships would follow later, using civilian-type dropships, in sufficient numbers to support a planetary invasion with food, ammo, spare parts, and reinforcements as needed. With the Warships being priority targets, and almost all lost during the Succession Wars, only those civilian jumpships and various dropship types remain.
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With the huge cargo loads in many of the Warships....Im sure hundreds more could be thrown in a Warship with and unload it on the drop ship and use it for a invasion.
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I doubt you'd even want to use a Leopard or Confederate in a balls-out invasion if you can help it. Those are spec-ops platforms for stuff like knocking out a lunar radar station.
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Or any other suitably peripheral target... they could be planet bound, but remote from the main effort.
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Lance transports to me are for small target operations in a larger scale conflict or for raids.
I don't need to deploy an entire battalion of mechs to take over the power grid, I need a lance of mechs for a show of force against any militia that get brave & a company of infantry to secure the objective.
So I need a Leopart w/ Converted ASF Bays into Infantry, or a I need a Confederate & a Vampire, etc etc.
I don't need 20 of them assigned to my division/RCT. 3 will do. I won't have THAT many special targets to hit all at once. And the bigger ones can use a Union.
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Also the SLDF used head-hunter units. A Confederate would be perfect for such a unit.
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Also recall that the Star League came with Terran Hegemony philosophy . . . the folks who ordered DroST IIa transports, and would retire them after 20 years to be sold to the secondary/civilian market so they could keep refreshing the fleet (and keep contracts flowing to people's friends). Such a program SHOULD do great things for commerce, some what like the sell off of Liberty ships after WWII, in that you constantly have a fresh supply of 'new' hulls entering the market for individual or corporate purchases.