Author Topic: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport  (Read 2322 times)

kaliban

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Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« on: 04 December 2019, 13:24:56 »
I am totally newbie in Battletech Spacecrafts. I commonly see Dropships being used to deploy combat units but I suppose combat units can be transported also in civilian cargo spaceships if they have conditions to land in a friendly location.

Is this actually used in Battletech lore to move large combat formations from one planet to another?

AlphaMirage

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #1 on: 04 December 2019, 14:19:40 »
Yes, It would have to be for any formation larger than a regiment of Battlemechs. 

The distinctive military carrier, the Union and its clones, only carry a company or so of units with very little room for cargo.  A single basic Mule can carry REGIMENTs of tanks and battlemechs along with all the support personnel and vehicles for an extended invasion.  There are rules for it but the cargo unloading takes a while compared to the ready to launch bays of dedicated troopships.

kaliban

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #2 on: 04 December 2019, 15:53:39 »
Just going one step further, combat vehicles like tanks or VTOLs are more compact and easier to arrange in a cargo spaceship than Battlemechs.

Is there any source to find how many vehicles, mechs an/or troops a specific cargo vessel can transport? Or can I just consider the equivalent weight in Tons?
« Last Edit: 04 December 2019, 15:55:42 by kaliban »

pheonixstorm

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #3 on: 04 December 2019, 16:03:33 »
They are transported as cargo so it goes by weight.

dgorsman

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #4 on: 04 December 2019, 19:29:49 »
The hardware, yes.  Crew, techs, etc. need to be counted as passengers.
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Colt Ward

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #5 on: 06 December 2019, 16:10:47 »
The fun part is where we get into fluff that X cargo dropper has one or two CargoMechs set up to offload cargo when it lands . . . and by description goes immediately to that job.  By description they are a very rough gantry to lock the Indimech in place during travel, hard to imagine its a full up battlemech cubicle.

We also get plenty of fiction bits where cargo droppers are offloading military equipment out in the boonies, but at a 'safe' landing zone.  First that comes to mind is By Temptations & By War, a MWDA book by Loren that has one of the local insurgent leaders detailed off to a shift in a CargoMech unloading a Mule or Mammoth that brought in the combat unit's supplies.  Instead of meeting with the Cappie commander as originally arranged he gets the detail . . . poor planning on the MAC officer's part b/c he never said where stuff was supposed to be unloaded.  Since the insurgents were supposed to be getting some gear that was sent along on the DS for them, and the MAC officer was hostile . . . well the insurgent leader, Evan Kurst- future member of House Ijori, unloaded cargo into his VTOL . . . to include IIRC some BA suits along with munitions and parts.
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glitterboy2098

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #6 on: 30 December 2019, 21:19:52 »
The hardware, yes.  Crew, techs, etc. need to be counted as passengers.
which is usually where the calculations get a lot more complex, since few dropships have sufficient quarters for the large numbers of personnel in such military units, and figuring out how much extra food, water, and air have to be loaded to keep them all alive for the trip can quickly hit the point of diminishing returns on supplies vs passengers+hardware.

Frabby

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #7 on: 31 December 2019, 03:29:57 »
Keep in mind that the classic 'Mech carrier DropShips - the Leopard, Union, and Overlord and ultimately almost every designated military DropShip - are Higgins Boat style delivery vehicles to deploy their load of combat units to a hot landing zone or even orbital-drop them into battle. They are poorly suited for extended comfortable travels.

The prevalence of such relatively small but sturdy military delivery vessels among the DropShip fleets throughout the Inner Sphere is presumably an artifact carried over from the succession wars.

Reasonably comfortable berthing seems to be the bottleneck of DropShip transportation.
« Last Edit: 31 December 2019, 11:30:14 by Frabby »
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Colt Ward

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #8 on: 31 December 2019, 11:21:02 »
The Aurora which had limited production starting in '62 and full by '69 actually went to address this a bit as a new design.  A couple of the 'new' old designs also helped.

Some of the 'early' dropships like the DroST IIA were reported to carry X-amount of vehicles, but they were transported by the DS as cargo b/c the bay system was not really set up.  Or so it seems.
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Daryk

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #9 on: 31 December 2019, 18:20:49 »
For "passengers", infantry bays are possible if not truly "comfortable".  At the very least, it's more comfortable than "camping" in the cargo bay...

bluedragon7

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #10 on: 31 December 2019, 19:28:19 »
Passengers as cargo is only viable for a few days, infantry bays even after 90 days are still more economic than steerage quarters.
Weight after 1 year of travel including consumables per person in tons:
Steerage           6,825
Cargo           73,11
Infantry Bay   18,43

Daryk

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #11 on: 31 December 2019, 19:33:01 »
That looks right... 90 days is the break even for bays vs. quarters as I recall...

bluedragon7

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #12 on: 04 January 2020, 11:55:42 »
108 Days onwards steerage is best.
So if you expect your troops to travel less than 54 days one way to target, you should equip your vessels with bays.

SCC

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #13 on: 01 March 2020, 04:52:51 »
The REALLY interesting thing is the SL tech didn't reduce the amount of tonnage needed for quarters. That probably shounds strange until you remember that when the SL fell water purification and other terraforming tech was lost, which translates pretty well to life support tech.

Daryk

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Re: Civilian cargo ships for combat unit transport
« Reply #14 on: 01 March 2020, 08:28:26 »
In the rules' defense, life support is more than just food, water and air.  There's only so much even the Star League could do to meet the sanitation, exercise, and recreation needs of passengers and crew.

 

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