Urban Combat Team

[maxcarrion]

Looking for proposals/considerations for a space mobile force specialised to urban combat.  The assumption being that where your forces are expecting heavy urban combat you can tack on a UCT dropper or two to support your main ground forces or they can deploy independently to deal with issues of urban pacification e.g. civilian rebellions or armed infiltrators.

As such I am looking for considerations to include in a unit OOB to deploy a specialised urban combat team.  It is reasonable to assume
 - They will almost always be deployed in Urban environments and can afford to be highly specialised
 - They will only be responsible for providing elements for a short urban engagement (days) - long term logistics, support, air superiority etc.  Will all be the responsibility of other units
 - This unit is independent of in BT Universe considerations (no house restrictions, no concern for tech introduction dates, availability or political preferences etc.) but is an IS tech unit from any era.
 - It will be assumed that they will primarily be deployed against urban militia/light military, heavily skewed towards PBI, Hetzers, SRM carriers and other common urban combat units.
 - As an offensive military unit collateral damage is acceptable but not encouraged (e.g. mines and artillery are unlikely to see heavy use but flamers might be excusable)
 - As a space mobile unit c-bill cost will be much more generously approached than it would be for a ground based team but will still be a consideration.  However the dropper does not require infrastructure for prolonged periods in space (e.g. bays will

My initial thinking is for a force of approximately 100 battle armour suits and a company of vehicles mounted per dropper and I intend to put together custom designs for the various elements but before I start seeking specifics I'm seeking opinions on the general composition.

[truetanker]

IS or Clan?

Then I'd include a minimum of a Lance/Star of Medium weight jump capable mechs for both support and for assaults, when needed.

Center around wheeled vehicles and a few tracked ones, both as MBT, Recovery and Support missions.

Motorized, Jump, BA Infantry, but include bog Foot platoons to encourage local patrols.

VTOLs for Fire support and Recon, don't forget to include a few cargo...

Maybe assign some Aero, conventional and space...

But a Company made up of Vehicular assets, a Mech contingent and PBI/BA with Aero/VTOL support should fit into this unit pretty well.

TT

[Retry]

Urban combat unit with dedicated transport assigned, so that's a Scout-class with some sort of dropship at absolute minimum.  Something bigger if you need more than 1 DS.

100 BA, 25 IS squads, is about 8 platoons worth or nearly a battalion.  That's about small enough to be carried by three Charon small craft or equivalent.  Minor problem is there's no canon equivalent, so you'd have to refit existing designs or make an entirely new one for the mission set.  But it's worth considering using Small Craft to transport your BA (and light vehicles if there's few enough of them) deployed from a large dropship, instead of the traditional groups of Dropship directly landing planetside.  In addition to being cheaper in C-Bills and requiring fewer dropship collars, dispersed small craft let you land at multiple locations and are a bit safer in the sense that you don't have all your (armor-clad) eggs in one basket.

A refit Mammoth might be effective at this mothership role: The BA and support personnel need to breathe, and Mammoths have plenty of space to upgrade the life support (adding quarters) that will be necessary for expeditions.  Mules are more available but you may need more than one, especially if you want to add fighter support and, well, the actual Small Craft for transportation.

No small craft, canon or otherwise, can transport a Battlemech (at least not in a bay; cargo is doable), so you're still stuck needing a Dropship to transport that contingent.  A simple Leopard, Union or Overlord should suffice; depends how big you want that 'Mech contingent to be.

Not sure how big this "Urban Combat Team" is supposed to be, but Merchant JS + Union DS (Mechs) + "Mammoth Special" DS (BA + Vee delivered by Small Craft, + Aero Support) might get you close to where you want to be.

[Daryk]

I'd be more inclined to a Fortress class, and load the Long Tom with Copperheads to limit collateral damage.

[maxcarrion]

Thanks for the input so far.

My imagining is that an Urban Combat Team is 1 Dropship - 1 team should be able to deal with a minor situation alone but generally a team would be tacked on to regiments (or lent to militia) that are expecting high intensity urban engagement to add specialisation.  As such they do not need to consider their own integrated Jumper

I am happy (and rather intending because that's why it is in Fan Designs) to custom build as much as I fancy using IS tech.  Custom BA, Custom vehicles, even custom dropper if I can be bothered (or challenge others to do it) - I'm not concerned about fitting this unit into the canon BT verse, it's more a thought/design experiment.  Similarly I am happy to go beyond the tabletop rules in thinking about what makes sense.

I'm liking the idea of mounting BA in small craft and having a couple of small craft bays in the dropper allowing us to keep the dropper further out of the way.  This also is useful if you want the UCT to assault the space port before bringing in the droppers for example.  Jump capable BA and aerodyne small craft allows for good in atmosphere mobility and airdrop deployment too, or spheroid ones with vehicle bays....

General Strategies -
Light resistance will be smashed with Battlearmour and direct fire
Moderate resistance will have precision munitions brought in under TAG guidance
Heavy resistance will be flattened with indirect fire.

I am mostly in line with True Tankers observations on composition I think, so an initial outline might be

Dropper
Shuttles

BA - something like
Recon BA - 8x4 recon BA, fast, light, primarily to locate significant pockets of hostiles
Infantry BA - 16x4 infantry BA, main engagement/sweep, excellent anti-infantry, some anti-armour
AT BA - 8x4 anti-tank BA, ambush vehicles in urban environments

Mechs - I hadn't planned on mechs initially but I think TT is right, a lance of Medium Jumpers would bring a lot of punch, resilience and mobility to this force

Vehicles -
Fire support lance -
2 x Arrow IV carriers (wheeled?) - AAA,  Precision Indirect & AOE where required.
2 x Missile carriers (wheeled?) MMLs?  SG LRMs and dangerous SRM close range punch

Mobility lance
2 x Transport VTOL (at least 1 with enough winch to lift one of the mechs for recovery)
2 x BA APC/IFV

Recon/EWAR Lance
2 x recon VTOL
2x EWAR tanks?

[truetanker]

Mobility lance
2 x Transport VTOL (at least 1 with enough winch to lift one of the mechs for recovery)

Modify the Tonbo to your specific design.

Better armor, more weapons, whatever...

TT

[Hellraiser]

I'd probably go with an Overlord-2 variant & then customize that a bit to drop a 2nd Mech company for the BA Bays.

Leaves you with 12 Mechs, 12 Heavy Vees, 6 ASF,  Lots of BA, and Plenty of Added Cargo space.

An added option also might be to bulk up 2 of the ASF Bays into Shuttle Bays to allow you to pack in a couple small transport shuttles for BA Deployment.

As for the mechs.......

JJ using close combat models like the GrassHopper, Guillotine, Victor for the big boy lance.
For the smaller lances,  Spiders, Firestarters, Wolverines, Wraiths.
I feel like Streaks should be swapped out for any of the SRM Racks to save on collateral damage.  Pulse Lasers too.

[maxcarrion]

I'd probably go with an Overlord-2 variant & then customize that a bit to drop a 2nd Mech company for the BA Bays.

Leaves you with 12 Mechs, 12 Heavy Vees, 6 ASF,  Lots of BA, and Plenty of Added Cargo space.

An added option also might be to bulk up 2 of the ASF Bays into Shuttle Bays to allow you to pack in a couple small transport shuttles for BA Deployment.

As for the mechs.......

JJ using close combat models like the GrassHopper, Guillotine, Victor for the big boy lance.
For the smaller lances,  Spiders, Firestarters, Wolverines, Wraiths.
I feel like Streaks should be swapped out for any of the SRM Racks to save on collateral damage.  Pulse Lasers too.

The Overlord seems a little... excessive for the size I've been considering.  An Overlord has got like 6300T of bays on it.  My previous outline was for, what, around 2200T of bays depending on sizes?

For me the core of the force is the BA with a reasonably minimal amount of armour and support vehicles to add capability to the BA force, an Overlord fits an armoured battalion, it seems like a lot to commit to a specialization.  I was thinking more... Union scale and being able to deploy 2-3 UCT for the cost of a Overlord Battalion.  Adding smaller but significant specialist groups to conventional regiments as required that will already have plentiful armour and air assets and need to be skewed and reinforced towards urban fighting.  Likewise if they were deployed to a civilian, pirate or counter terrorism deployment as a lone unit a full armoured battalion is likely to be overkill.

[Hellraiser]

So you don't want any mechs at all from what I'm not seeing, I missed that before.

In that case, I'd just use Auroras that have bays that carry both Infantry & Vees & don't require any custom DS work at all.

2 of the BA Bays, a Light Vee Bay & a Cargo Bay seems about right

Bay #1 & 2 = BA
Light Vee,  12 Squads BA,  4 Cargo  (*2)
Bay #3 = Light Vees  (x3)
Bay #4 = Cargo - 150T

24 Squads of BA is 6 Platoons, 2 Companies.
5 Light Vees
Cargo is there to support all the Food/Water you'll need for that many people.



If you feel those are too small then I suggest looking at a Condor & using Cargo Space to carry the BA Suits while the troops travel in Infantry Bays.

[truetanker]

May I suggest Aurora?

Dropping two of these into combat loaded with 2 Mechs, Lance of light vehicles and 100 tons of Infantry and BA, the other two Mechs, a Tonbo in Heavy Vee bay, a Lancebof light vehicles.

4 Mechs Cubicles
8 Light Vehicles Cubicles
100 tons Infantry / BA Bay
1 Support Tonbo VTOL in a Heavy Vehicle Cubicle

Should fit your UCT profile.

TT

(Can't add... )

[truetanker]

Aurora carries 5 Bays...

Fifth is cargo, internal 164 tons.

But otherwise liked minds think the same.

Each modular bay is 150 tons each... Custom modules Areca thing.

TT

[Hellraiser]

Aurora carries 5 Bays...
Fifth is cargo, internal 164 tons.

Each modular bay is 150 tons each... Custom modules Areca thing.

Yeah, I know, but when you start to do the math on the Food/Water, you realize the standard bay is going to disappear fast especially when you have ammo & spare parts there too, hence why I dropped 3 Vees from the standard BA-Aurora layout & added a Cargo Module.

The existing bays are pretty good so that you don't need to "custom" them, but I do like "customizing" the mixture of bays.

[maxcarrion]

I like the idea of making the team smaller and using an even smaller dropship like an Aurora or modified Leopard or similar.  The BA take up a small amount of room and it really focuses on making armour/vehicle elements lean and essential.  I'm thinking mission profiles and for me the UCT fits in a few missions -

31st Mechgrenadiers are assigned with securing [urban area] while assaulting [planet] As a regiment they have a battalion of Mechs, one of Tanks, one of light vehicles and one of mechanized infantry, supported by their air wing of 3 Overlords with their attached squadrons plus a vulture for the infantry and a mule for logistics.  While they are expected to be more than sufficient at engaging the enemy armour in the area and repelling attempts to reinforce the area they may have difficulty in clearing the urban area of concealed units such as infantry so they are reinforced with UCT-4 who will lead the building to building fighting assisted by the 31st mech inf while the rest of the 31st secure the perimeter.

The governor of [backwater planet] successfully destroyed the pirates dropships while they were on the ground, now the pirates have dug in among a civilian population and the governors attempts to root them out have been met with failure and significant civilian casualties.  UCT-7 has been despatched to sweep and clear the megabuilding complexes the pirates are taking refuge in.

[Subjugated industrial planet] are rebelling against their new masters saying they preferred life under the previous regime.  They have gotten hold of caches of weapons (assumedly provided by agents of [previous regime]) and our governors forces are now hard pushed by the local insurgents.  UCT-2 will arrive shortly to reinforce local peacekeepers.

The enemy armour regiment is commencing its assault on [urban area], our forces are over-matched and unlikely to be able to hold the perimeter, we are despatching UCT-3 to disperse within the area and ensure their forces must exercise caution while advancing to give our forces opportunity to regroup and counterattack.

These mission profiles that I have been thinking around are why I am loathe to deploy entire companies of mechs and heavy vehicles on a single dropper.  A UCT is meant to enhance existing conventional forces within an Urban theatre, the large investment of mechs and tanks should be (mostly) on another dropper as part of a more conventional force (IMO).  The UCT should bring only the armour elements it requires to do its job.

I think it is reasonable that they could do the job at half the size I have initially rounded out - the sort of size that would fit into Aurora or Leopard scale transports, and where a larger contingent is desired we can of course deploy 2 teams.  I think I'd rather fiddle the bays of a Leopard at 930T of carry weight than an Aurora at 764 would give us just that little bit more wiggle room (and I am totally redesigning the Tonbo to at most 50T.  50T with 4 hoists can lift 100T and fit in a light vehicle bay)

[maxcarrion]

So, given the mission profiles and tonnage constraints - assuming we have the 931T of a Leopard to play with we could possibly go

300T - 2x mech bays - I would guess jumping, medium, close range mechs.  Something like Wolverines
300T - 6xlight vehicle bay
150T - BA compartment - we can still bring a battalion of BA....
181T - Cargo (ammunition, food, consumables etc.)

This outline would put us at around 120-140 personnel, so life support would be costing us 6-7T per day in space. 

So possibly 100T BA compliment and 231T cargo, we'd likely drop to 100-120 personnel, we could run is space for 20 days in space without resupply and still have over 100T of supplies when we hit planet side.

[Daryk]

For maximum flexibility, put LAMs in your two 'mech bays... ;)

[Hellraiser]

150T - BA compartment - we can still bring a battalion of BA....

At 8 Tons per Squad for BA Bays your looking at more like 1-2 Companies depending on Squads/Platoon/Company

[RifleMech]

If you go with OMNIs you can carry your BA externally on your Mechs and Tanks while your conventional infantry ride inside.

Tripods would also be good. They can torso twist 360 degrees and lateral shift like a quad. Both are useful things in the confines of a city.

And LAMs for flexibility like Daryk said.

I would also go with at least 1 lance dedicated to urban pacification. The other Mechs and tanks can handle the bigger defenders and and reinforcements. This Lance or lances, would have more machine guns, A-pods, VGL, Vehicle flamers, Sprayers, and Fluid Guns, as well as alternative ammo for any missile launchers and autocannons. This would give your unit flexibility in the damage they do. You want to defeat the enemy, not inspire them with lots of civilian casualties. You could even put out fires started by the enemy.

An engineering unit, Infantry, vehicles, mechs or all. They'd let you clear or block roads with debris, build or destroy bridges, and take care of mines.

I would also have some medical and food supply units (MASH units and Food Trucks) to help the civilians. That would help make some of them more neutral towards you if not turn towards your side.

[Retry]

There's not enough room to fit all that in a Leopard or Aurora in addition to everything else.  You'd have to go larger to fit the extra support companies/lances for the unit.  That's part why I recommended modifying a Mule: Plenty of cargo space for stuff, and you can add plenty of life support for your 100+ personnel to reduce consumable consumptions instead of relying on your bays (though even bays are much better than relying on cargo).  And for most factions the war crimes are a feature, not a bug.

LAMs would have the additional benefit that they can deploy and be retrieved from orbit.  Then everything could feasibly be either deployed from shuttle (vees, BA) or self-propelled (LAMs, ASF).  Depends how "alternate" that alternate universe is since LAMs are deader than disco canonically. (or depends on era I guess; if it's a Star League force LAMs for a specialist UCT would be available.)

[DOC_Agren]

For maximum flexibility, put LAMs in your two 'mech bays... ;)

While I love me some LAM, they are not something you want in a conflict where they might need to go toe to toe with enemy units. 

[Daryk]

That's about last on the list of things you'd use a LAM for, yeah.  But everything else they can do can be of use to an Urban Combat Team.

[maxcarrion]

OK, I think I'm going to push things up to the design boards for specific designs.  I think nailing down the OOB below gives us a place to develop from.

Urban Combat Battalion
2x Urban Combat Teams mounted in Modified Leopard Dropships

Leopard - Crew 9

Company of Battlearmour
4 Platoons of 4 Squads of 4 Suits = 64 Suits = 128T of BA Bays - 64 Troopers + 32 Techs

Light Vehicles Lance
4 x Light Vehicles - 20 bay personnel

Mixed Lance
2 x Light Vehicles, 2 x Battlemechs - 14 bay personnel

139 personnel per dropship - 278 battalion personnel

That leaves 209T for cargo