The Sohei: O5P Warrior Monks

[DOC_Agren]

I have to be honest all I did was to swap Plasma riffles with PPC of course that was years ago.. before the "upgrades" personal weapons

I would like "listen" the the Daryk Armourer to tweak my forces of sweet loveable girls.

[Daryk]

Doc: for the BEST girls, you want Div 2 armor without a movement penalty (however you get it in the Combine, probably generic Ballistic Plate Vests) plus the best weapons you can get.  Sadly, none of them are Combine sourced.  You want two Sniper Rifles with 7/14/21 range (either Davion or Liao), and Standard weapons that do at least 0.60 damage (Lyran or Marik) for the Heavy Burst Special.  Platoons that do Heavy Burst
 (and probably max 4 per squad/16 or 17 per platoon in two-point groups damage) at 7/14/21 range are straight SCARY!  8)

[Ice Hellion]

Keep forgetting to post this outline I started last weekend off the three infantry platoons based on TRO 3085 section. Please add your thoughts (especially if you are the creators) and relevant construction info. Thanks!

Do you need me to build a platoon?

[Daryk]

I'd go with Marik Standard Weapons (Sunraker Laser Rifles) and Davion Sniper Rifles (Bartons with AA ammo, modified with extended magazines if allowed), Ballistic Plate Vests (which can look like standard Kurita body armor) with standard Kurita helmets, gloves and boots.  Add camo (or maybe ghillie suits) for extra penalties for your enemy to hit you.

[Takiro]

Yes, Ice. That is my aim here. Daryk can u walk us through it?

[Daryk]

Gladly!  :thumbsup:

Ballistic Plate Vests have M/B/E/X ratings of 4/6/5/4 and cover the torso (only).  At the TW scale, only torso armor counts for Armor Divisor, and since the ratings add up to 19 (which round to 2 when divided by 10), 2 is the Armor Divisor (AToW Companion, page 171 refers).  Also note that while the full suit of Ballistic Plate is encumbering, the vest is not.  It seems the Kuritas knew what they were doing with their body armor after all... ^-^

Weapon-wise, I'm relying on Shrapnel here.  I've posted the full range of weapons from the various issues (linked in my sig block for the curious).  As I noted, the Marik Sunraker Laser Rifle is a prime choice.  It has a shorter range than the Steiner DWS L5L Laser Sniper Rifle, but it's more efficient (only 10 power points per shot vice the L5L's 15).  Because it's being used as a Primary Weapon, its range doesn't actually matter, so the energy efficiency wins (Tech Manual, page 152).

For Secondary Weapons (which determine the squad/platoon range, same TM ref as above), there's really no substitute for the Barton Sniper Rifle.  The Anti-Armor ammo is the way to go (0.59 damage standard), and if you can afford the mod for it to take a larger magazine (x3 cost), you can get a 0.74 damage weapon at 7/14/21 range (Secondary Weapons aren't limited by the 0.60 damage cap).  Bartons are 1E crew though, so you take a penalty at 0-hex range (the table at the bottom of Tech Manual page 149), though no mobility penalty (because Sniper Rifles aren't Support Weapons... Tech Manual page 215 refers).

Let me know if you have any questions! :)

[DOC_Agren]

Doc: for the BEST girls, you want Div 2 armor without a movement penalty (however you get it in the Combine, probably generic Ballistic Plate Vests) plus the best weapons you can get.  Sadly, none of them are Combine sourced.  You want two Sniper Rifles with 7/14/21 range (either Davion or Liao), and Standard weapons that do at least 0.60 damage (Lyran or Marik) for the Heavy Burst Special.  Platoons that do Heavy Burst
 (and probably max 4 per squad/16 or 17 per platoon in two-point groups damage) at 7/14/21 range are straight SCARY!  8)

So Daryk. how would you upgrade this Heavy Infantry to do the same job.   

[Daryk]

If you're looking for raw damage, you can go with 6 modified Bartons and 1 actual Support Weapon per squad.  That will keep the range at 7/14/21 with the Heavy Burst special.  For the Support Weapon, it's hard to beat an Auto-Grenade Launcher (unless you can lay your hands on a clanner Bear Hunter or Heavy Auto-Grenade Launcher).  With 3.6 as the base, the AGL's 1.49 gets you up to 5 damage per squad (20 per platoon).  A straight Heavy Grenade Launcher's 1.76 won't change the damage per squad (5.36 rounds to 5), but you do get another point at the platoon level (21).  The clanner weapons can make it 22 (Heavy AGL) or 24 (Bear Hunter).  None of the above options inflict a mobility penalty, and sticking with Ballistic Plate Vests (from my post above) will get you the Armor Divisor of 2 without one either.

If you REALLY want to explore edge cases, you need five, six-trooper squads per platoon...  >:D

[Daryk]

And I just realized I didn't give platoon level damage for the Sunraker/AA Barton combo: 17 for unmodified Bartons, 18 for modified ones (both are 4 points per squad).

[Ice Hellion]

I am real partial to the Motorized Heavy Infantry.

[Daryk]

The lack of mobility penalties I outlined above applies to them too...  ^-^

[Takiro]

Here is what I am basically basing the Second Platoon on;

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Heavy_Support_Infantry

And now for a few questions which can be summed up in one - how do you create a (custom) infantry platoon?

2. Transport Weight. I assume this is calculated by taking everyone's weight, weaponry, kit, and importantly here for us (as we are all motorized) our vehicles. Which leads us to consider again what each platoon is using to move around. Likely something generic and ultra light I am thinking. In this case of 2nd Platoon (and possibly the entire company) would likely be transported by a single Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) which weighs 10 tons and would likely be Wheeled in regards to motive type.

https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Wheeled_APC

3. How do we calculate Battle Value?

4. How do we calculate Tech Base?

5. How do we calculate To-Hit Modifier (Range in Hexes)?

6. Maximum Weapon Damage (# of Troopers)?

I already figured since 2nd Platoon which again is based on Heavy Support Infantry from TRO 3085 would be some kind of similarly inspired corporate infantry force (SWAT) in this case from Luthien Armor Works or some other Draconis corporation.

Furthermore, armor I had already factor as Ballistic Plate (2 Armor Divisor which I presume allows each infantry man to take 2 hits rather than 1) for 2nd Platoon but I figured this would slow their MPs but it doesn't (still a 1) however they can't execute anti-Mech attacks. The standard DCMS Infantry Kit would grant only a 1 Armor Divisor but they would be able to execute anti-Mech assaults.

[DOC_Agren]

If you're looking for raw damage, you can go with 6 modified Bartons and 1 actual Support Weapon per squad.  That will keep the range at 7/14/21 with the Heavy Burst special.  For the Support Weapon, it's hard to beat an Auto-Grenade Launcher (unless you can lay your hands on a clanner Bear Hunter or Heavy Auto-Grenade Launcher).  With 3.6 as the base, the AGL's 1.49 gets you up to 5 damage per squad (20 per platoon).  A straight Heavy Grenade Launcher's 1.76 won't change the damage per squad (5.36 rounds to 5), but you do get another point at the platoon level (21).  The clanner weapons can make it 22 (Heavy AGL) or 24 (Bear Hunter).  None of the above options inflict a mobility penalty, and sticking with Ballistic Plate Vests (from my post above) will get you the Armor Divisor of 2 without one either.

If you REALLY want to explore edge cases, you need five, six-trooper squads per platoon...  >:D

So AGL as a support weapon with Barton for everyone else, if we got the HGL do we get a mobility penalty?
and I argued early on for 5 man fireteams, but I could work with 6...   

I'm glad to have you around Daryk, but if I ever get to play inf again locally I will be coming to you to make them scary and evil..

[Daryk]

DOC: A single Support weapon per squad doesn't impact mobility, no matter how heavy it is.  :)

Takiro: Conventional Infantry construction is in Tech Manual (pages 144-155), and infantry armor is in TacOps.  If you want to move a full platoon in a single vehicle, you need a Heavy APC (20 tons).  I made at thread to cover "Medium" ones too (stock Heavies can actually carry TWO platoons).  Page 155 of Tech Manual also outlines weight per trooper.

BV I'm less sure of, but it's in Tech Manual/TacOps in the usual places.

Tech Base is whatever you want it to be.  All the equipment has availability ratings/introduction dates.

Range is determined either by the Primary Weapons (if there is 1 or less Secondary Weapons per squad) or by the Secondary Weapons (if there are two per squad).  The table on page 149 of Tech Manual gives the to-hit numbers for various ranges.

The trick with Ballistic Plate vests (vice suits) is that they're NOT encumbering.  The only thing that bars infantry from conducting Anti-Mech attacks is being of the "Mechanized" kind.  Foot platoons embarked in real APCs aren't barred.