Over the years I haven't spent a lot of time really thinking about the experience of combat vehicle crews in Battletech. So I'm looking to plug that gap.
I'm wondering how vehicle operation in Battletech is different than what a tanker in real life might experience. How the technology differences might impact vehicle operations for the crew. For example, thinking about of the more obvious questions. If tankers make use of anything akin to neurohelmet tech. How the inclusion of fusion reactors might impact their experience or necessary tasks as well (like if the reactors require a bit more hands-on maintaining or control than that for mechwarriors). That's just two areas that feel like they beg the question but I'm sure I'm missing other areas.
This could be in RPG terms but I'm also thinking about the details that would matter to a fan fiction writer trying to write a scene depicting a vehicle crew in detail.
How many guys do you need to fix/break track in the field? how many do you need for security while the crew are doing basic PMCS maintenance?
Consider this: Abrams has a main gun (two guys-gunner and loader), a driver's position, and a commander.
Pretty much the same layout as the M-60, late model M-48...but the M-47 had a bow machine gun in addition to the coax and the turret-roof external mounts (which require either a cupola, or an open hatch for the commander and loader to operate).
every additional gun requires maintenance, just like every other part of the machine, and not just rear-area or depot level maintenance, but the basics when you're in the field. Failure to maintain your shit gets you killed. Parked, with hatches open, in the field makes you vulnerable, it's good to have overwatch, and it's good to have extra hands for jobs like replacing track plates or stringing your tracks back together and replacing the pins, because that's hard-ass work, and you're not always going to be able to do it with a nice overcoat jacket of friendlies to deal with random encounters.
same would likely go for wheeled vehicles-tyres are HEAVY, especially the kind that are rated to carry the kind of loads BT armored vehicles impose, and you don't always have benefit of a HMMTT with a crane-sometimes you have to do it with the really primitive tools in the stow bins, it's nicer if you don't ALSO have to be keeping an eye out for that squad of enemy troops who got separated or lost and are looking to kill you and steal your ride.
just sayin', sometimes the reasons aren't instantly apparent because Battletech glosses over things like 'making field repairs so you don't die'.