Food and Supplies

[Armitage72]

Back during the Open Beta of the force creation rules, I asked about the cost of food and other consumables.  In the original Mercenary's Handbook, these supplies cost 500 C-Bills per squad per month.

I didn't see food anywhere in the monthly expenses.  Is it included as part of the consumption of spare parts, or will it be part of a general overhead cost in the force operation rules, like in ATOW Companion?

The answer was:

Food is handled out of salaries. If troops want to eat, they get money to pay for it.

That works fine if you're between missions or on a defensive assignment on a friendly planet.  It doesn't work so well if you're conducting an extended campaign on an enemy planet or spending a lengthy period of time in space.

"Bad new everyone.  We had a malfunction in our KF-Drive, and we're going to be stranded in this uninhabited system for about two months while we make repairs.  Don't worry.  We have plenty of cash on hand, so everyone will still get paid.  You'll be able to...buy food...at...oops."

So I was thinking.  If salary includes both pay and consumable supplies, you could pre-spend "x" months of salary, representing both setting cash aside for payroll and stockpiling enough supplies to keep your force fed and clothed.

e.g.
The sample force it the Open Beta rules has a monthly salary cost of 102,160 C-Bills and 210 personnel.  Spending 612,960 C-Bills would cover the force's salary for 6 months as well as buy 6 months of consumables.  This would be 37,800 man-days of supplies.  Since 200 man-days of supplies takes up 1 ton of cargo space, this supply cache would take up 189 tons of cargo space.  22 tons would remain on the Jumpship, since that's what the crew would consume in that time.  The rest would be wherever the force stores the rest of its supplies.

If you don't pay your force's salary, morale starts to suffer, not just because they're owed cash, but because they're scavenging the countryside for food, patching worn-out uniforms, and going without soap and other toiletries.

It also creates the possibility of raiding an enemy's supply depots for more than ammunition and parts. 
"Autocannon shells?  Who cares?  That warehouse over there has 200 tons of fresh beef in it."

[boilerman]

Sounds reasonable. Planning ahead is always a smart move in my opinion and some amount of stockpiling is necessary.

[Colt Ward]

Well, contract are supposed to include overhead/incidentals cash at the start so the cost can come out there . . . IMO it sort of depends on the size of the command . . . and your paranoia level.  If you are the garrison on a hostile planet do you really want them eating on the local economy?  Besides active attacks/threats, you also have problems with differences of diet and sanitation . . . one of my close friends had a condition misdiagnosed in a sandy part of the world because the medics he kept seeing just assumed it was because he was bending rules and eating local food.  Because that is what usually matched up with his conditions.

Honestly, I separate food stores into fresh, bulk rations and iron/survival rations . . . and morale varies based on what the troops are eating.  Those ideas came from a old WEG Star Wars book, made a lot of sense before I got in the forces and a WHOLE lot more sense after I was in (learned to bring 90 second rice packs in the field, fit the MRE heaters).  I also track what gets captured in rations the same way.  As for organizing cooks . . . twenty-eight of them together make up a really really green platoon if it all heads south in your base.

To be honest, uniforms, issue clothing and issue equipment I have not given much thought to yet but will be looking at since my infantry component is about to grow . . . before it likely gets burned up in the Jihad.

[pheonixstorm]

Sounds like someone screwed the pooch with the answer you got  ::) If nothing else you could use the old food rules or just wing it (Overhead). One thing I was disappointed with the newer rules was you don't need to buy IS parts to repair a damaged arm. Huh?? The 3055 merc book has parts kits that include X number of IS points for repairs. Nothing (that I've found anyway) comes close to that. How can you repair a mech arm w/o spare parts?? Oh well, at least the books keep up with the rules I guess. I actually enjoyed the accounting most days...