There can be some changes for infantry?

[Mostro Joe]

If there's any change I'd like to see, it'd be giving conventional infantry two damage values - one for anti-personnel & another for anti-armor. This would elimonate some of the absurdity of things like auto-rifles adding significant anti-armor firepower & would also provide a nice reason to field things like squad MGs or flamers instead of SRMs or lasers.

That's another good idea. Infantry can deliver a damage against non-armored units and another damage to targets that have military grade armors.

[ActionButler]

**MOD NOTICE**

As this conversation has drifted into the realm of fan rules, I have moved it to the Fan Rules section to keep everything aboveboard.

Thanks very much,
AB

[Charistoph]

This "necessitates" the mechanized infantry type when simply making the basic formation a squad, like a BA squad or a 'mech would solve the problem.

Totally disagree.  There is absolutely zero reason that justifies the Mechanized Infantry unit type as it currently exists.  That Platoons became the default does not necessitate an "organic" transporting method when one can still use Squad Deployment (even if it is an "advanced" rule) to answer this concept. 

Even worse is that the "standard" APC line still is far too heavy to justify this concept.  At best, the Mechanized Infantry represents Technicals, Jeeps, Hummers or equivalent.  Yet, the Support Vehicle concept is better at representing those, even if improperly, simply by fact of having a Flanking Speed.  The base Tracked APC has a 100% improvement on Speed over the Mechanized Infantry (Tracked), and that's not even considering the option to Flank, or the Armor to protect the Infantry inside. 

Solution:

• Basic unit of deployment for infantry is the squad. Give the squad the same dispersed formation rule as BA squads. Class foot squads as up to 1T to allow APCs to transport them and otherwise give transports an X squads limit in addition to the weight limits of their bays (usually one per door, but things like Karnovs will need more specificity). While you can stack troops like cordwood, they won't be very combat effective where you need them let alone be able to dismount effectively if you try to pack 28 men in the volume required for 4 IS Standard suits. Do not allow stacking in excess of the normal 2 friendly units; infantry should not be that close.

I partially agree, and partially disagree.

I think using Squads as the base platform of constructing and playing a ConvInf unit is great and should be the way forward.  As I mentioned earlier to Riflemech, having 6 lines of Squads up to 10 each as the stock Record Sheet to be manipulated is the best method.  Different Squads could also be set up such that Squad 1-2 bring HE SRMs, Squad 3 brings Infernos, and Squad 4 brings Flashbang SRMs.

I disagree that the Squads should be a limiting factor for Stacking.  I think Platoons are a sufficient maximum.  However, in order for 2+ Squads to act like one they must be from the same Platoon and (possibly) lose that Dispersed Squad bonus once too many are gathered in that method, but in return, they gain a bonus to Damage due to concentrated fire.

• Remove the mechanized infantry type. Reverting to squads eliminates the need in the ruleset for the type.

While I disagree with you on why they exist, I do not disagree with you that this needs to be removed as a unit type.  The concept of what they want Mechanized Infantry should be should be like a Support Vehicle Squad that is the equivalent of Battle Armor for Combat Vehicles.  Allowing them to be able to Transport Infantry Squads, too, should be an option as well to represent some guys joining a group of Technicals, Hummers, or whatever.

• Revert to basic troopers/x for infantry damage. If "more granularity" is desired, put it in an advanced rules compilation, not the standard construction rules document. When such rules are promulgated, define exactly what the squad's weapons density is and ensure the construction rules can match that.

It should be part of the standard construction rules if it is to exist at all.  I'm fine with a 2 SRM Squad with 5 Rifles doing X Damage at Y range while getting a little more plinkage at Danger Close ranges.

• Reconsider MW3's complete reimagining of infantry weapons. There is a reason to want lasers instead of ballistics and it's more than just range.

Not everyone is in depth on what MW3 (I assume you mean the RPG and not the PC game, right?) has in presenting Infantry Weapons, so you probably need to bring out more.

However, if the difference between 2 different Rifles is negligible in Total Warfare's scale, there is no reason to bring it up in The Tech Manual.  RPG games like AToW or more gamified BattleTroops are fine as they are closer to the Infantryman in question.

• Update BattleTroops for more granular infantry action. Working at infantry scale where this level of detail for infantry should reside, not mech scale play. When looking down at the individual trooper level, we can more sensibly account for how much better are Zeus heavy rifles vs. blazers, etc. We have more control over how many heavy weapons are on the battlefield and where and how they are best employed.

I would like to see BattleTroops get an update and made more in line with current designs.  The closest I've seen is the fan project "Infantry Strike" someone posted their games of a while ago.  They had promise, but they completely screwed anything NOT Infantry by having them keep their Alpha Strike Stats with zero changes in effectiveness in Infantry Weapons.  As an example, a Satyr Protomech should be a monstrous terror to any individual Elemental or PBI, but with only one Structure, anything could take it out.

I agree. Battletech is not napoleonic. And the squads should be of 9 men. I don't know if it's useful or logic to make some "flavour" variants here. And for flavour variants I mean Davion rifle squad and Kurita rifle squad, for an exemple. But perhaps, at this scale, there should not be differences.

You can have squads of 9 men, and there are groups already set up as flavor variants, too.  I don't know why they went with a base 28 when they started years ago, but they also operate in a much different environment than we do today.  As it is Squads of 9 would (currently) only allow 3 Squads of a Platoon in the hex as one cohesive Platoon.

If there's any change I'd like to see, it'd be giving conventional infantry two damage values - one for anti-personnel & another for anti-armor. This would elimonate some of the absurdity of things like auto-rifles adding significant anti-armor firepower & would also provide a nice reason to field things like squad MGs or flamers instead of SRMs or lasers.

Add in a Melee stat and if it works for Anti-Mech, and I think you have something here.  I think going based off a Squad Construction method would actually make this a bit easier to track.


A couple other side notes:

Motorized Infantry is both too slow and should have a more motive type options.  It's a sad thing to think that a motorcyle couldn't outrun an Atlas on flat ground.  If anything converting them in to being considered Light Cavalry isn't a bad idea, either.

Something to field what hole losing Mechanized Infantry might create should just be (for all intents and purposes) just Heavy Motorized Infantry or Heavy Cavalry.  They should be slower than Motorized Infantry, and can be tougher against ConvInf and Burst-Fire weapons, things like that.  That's even assuming that this hole gets filled at all.  Just giving them Armor would probably cover most of that.

Some Special Abilities should be considered to be added or adjusted to include other types.  For example, the Heavy and Light Horse should work with Motorized Infantry (and Mechanized Infantry for as long as they continue).  There should be Abilities to address mounting and/or dismounting Transports, that sort of thing.

[paladin2019]

I disagree that the Squads should be a limiting factor for Stacking.  I think Platoons are a sufficient maximum.  However, in order for 2+ Squads to act like one they must be from the same Platoon and (possibly) lose that Dispersed Squad bonus once too many are gathered in that method, but in return, they gain a bonus to Damage due to concentrated fire.

The bottom line is that a 15m radius is about right for a squad and useful enough for how the board is set up. More is simply too many, too close for modern warfare.

Not everyone is in depth on what MW3 (I assume you mean the RPG and not the PC game, right?) has in presenting Infantry Weapons, so you probably need to bring out more.

Pre MW3e, a laser rifle does 4d6+2 damage per shot. A rifle does 3d6 damage per shot, with a shot defined as a 4-round burst. (And SMG also has the same damage profile as well as the option to fire 10 "shots" to make an area effect attack.) In these systems, MW1e ignores these damage dice when attacking mechs, instead making a check on 2d6 to see if a single point of damage is dealt. For a rifle, this is on a 2 or 12, for a laser rifle, it's 2, 11, or 12, doubling the chances of dealing damage. In MW2e, the damage dice are rolled normally with each 6 or full 6 points of constant damage equaling half a point of damage to a mech. Thus, a rifle might deal 1 point of damage while a laser rifle has an easier chance of this as well as a minuscule chance of dealing 2 points of damage.

MW3e makes the change to the current AToW stats for the weapons, where both deal 4 damage with 4 AP per shot and then the modifier for burst fire is laid over that for ballistic rifles. Where before the laser was the objectively better weapon all around (and you pay for it), post MW3e the ballistic rifle is objectively better in most scenarios.

[Charistoph]

The bottom line is that a 15m radius is about right for a squad and useful enough for how the board is set up. More is simply too many, too close for modern warfare.

For a Squad to minimize being hit and avoiding collateral damage, I agree.  However, there are times where concentrating firepower is more desired.  After all, there's only so much 5-10 dudes are going to be capable of carrying, even if they are unarmored Elementals.  Going back to CityTech, you're only looking at 2-4 for a Squad of 7, and only slightly better for a Squad of 9 or 10.  With TW, we're looking at 2-4 with a Squad of Seven, and still only a little bit more for 9 or 10.

So, Battletech ISN'T Modern Warfare.  We don't have to deal with mechanical kaiju on a regular basis or tanks that can outgun an Abrams, but weigh in half as much, and the tanks that DO weigh in at Abrams weight can take on a whole Abrams Company.

Pre MW3e, a laser rifle does 4d6+2 damage per shot. A rifle does 3d6 damage per shot, with a shot defined as a 4-round burst. (And SMG also has the same damage profile as well as the option to fire 10 "shots" to make an area effect attack.) In these systems, MW1e ignores these damage dice when attacking mechs, instead making a check on 2d6 to see if a single point of damage is dealt. For a rifle, this is on a 2 or 12, for a laser rifle, it's 2, 11, or 12, doubling the chances of dealing damage. In MW2e, the damage dice are rolled normally with each 6 or full 6 points of constant damage equaling half a point of damage to a mech. Thus, a rifle might deal 1 point of damage while a laser rifle has an easier chance of this as well as a minuscule chance of dealing 2 points of damage.

MW3e makes the change to the current AToW stats for the weapons, where both deal 4 damage with 4 AP per shot and then the modifier for burst fire is laid over that for ballistic rifles. Where before the laser was the objectively better weapon all around (and you pay for it), post MW3e the ballistic rifle is objectively better in most scenarios.

Simply saying that you want Laser Rifles to be superior would address this, but you're trying to push RPG fiat on to the Classic considerations where it's pulled out.  The RPG side has enough variation that one can include singletons out of the norm, but wouldn't really be normal for up to 30 guys to be carrying around.

So what would you be willing for Infantry to give up so that Laser Rifles are superior to Ballistic Rifles in Classic?  BV isn't high enough for ConvInf to make that much of a difference.  Having a little more Range can be quite nice, particularly for Foot who generally can't choose the Range to their targets.  It also seems like the Ballistic Rifle is meant to be the standard to go by, as you generally have to go to Support Weapons (which slow the unit down) to add in any more firepower.

[Daryk]

Since this has been helpfully moved to the Fan Rules section, I don't have to worry about a warning here... >:)

Battletech is a system that has the potential (since we're not there yet) to work from the mano-a-mano level to interstellar empires clashing with each other.  The sina qua non for that to happen is procedural rules to move from one scale to the other.  Total Warfare is the closest we've come yet, and I think we can get closer.  Don't sweat the wide variety of AToW scale weapons: abstract them procedurally for pure Nirvana!

With respect to infantry mobility specifically, I agree that "mechanized" should be eliminated entirely.  "Mechanized" is simply foot infantry embarked in actual "combat vehicles".  Motorized should cover the "micro" vehicles that improve mobility, and that should totally include exoskeletons (which it doesn't right now).  I also think Motorized should have tactical and operational movement modes: a dirt bike won't go as far from a standing start than it will from a position where it's already at full throttle.  The "Poor Performance" trait for vehicles starts to get at this aspect.

[Cavgunner]

There waa nothing realistic about the old infantry rules that allowed a single 200mm Gauss Slug to richocet around a forest & kill 15 men. I greatly prefer Total Warfare's method for tracking infantry damage.

Amen. Whatever happens, let's not go back to that. In general, I like the place that infantry sit in at the moment, particularly where combat is concerned.

If I had a wishlist, it would be for two things. First, I'd like an infantry unit's anti-vehicular firepower to come primarily from its heavy weapons, not its small arms, and I'd like those heavy weapons to generally be equivalent to mech-scale weaponry. Second, I'd like to remove the strange dissonance of having abstracted "mechanized" and "motorized" infantry while also having "mechanized" foot infantry that ride in vehicles.*

*And oh by the way, you can technically re-create the very small vehicles that the abstracted units are using with the Support Vehicle rules, and doing so gives you a vehicle that is superior in every way.
*And don't forget, the abstracted mechanized and motorized infantry can also ride in vehicles (with certain restrictions).

Sigh. After a while one just looks at this babushka doll nonsense going on with infantry and it's like... wtf?

[paladin2019]

So, Battletech ISN'T Modern Warfare. 

Then bunching up infantry is even less tactically useful. The dangers of that are even more pronounced.

Simply saying that you want Laser Rifles to be superior would address this, but you're trying to push RPG fiat on to the Classic considerations where it's pulled out. 

The "RPG fiat" of 1999's MW3e directly drove the differentiation in BT of energy and ballistic weapons in TW. Prior to this, rifles were rifles for infantry. I don't want laser rifles to be better at mech scale, I don't want the extra complication of two different types of rifles.

[Charistoph]

Then bunching up infantry is even less tactically useful. The dangers of that are even more pronounced.

It depends on why you are bunching up.  If you are bunching up because you always have to be bunched up, yeah it's less-effective.  If you are bunching up to concentrate firepower, it's more effective.

The "RPG fiat" of 1999's MW3e directly drove the differentiation in BT of energy and ballistic weapons in TW. Prior to this, rifles were rifles for infantry. I don't want laser rifles to be better at mech scale, I don't want the extra complication of two different types of rifles.

Sorry, it was coming out as something different from what you're saying.

However, I do like there is an option for Riflemen who want to have a little more range.  The balance to that, like with many things, is reduced Damage.  It probably doesn't have to be so severe as LRMs aren't even punished like this, and the range improvement isn't good enough to justify the Damage nerf, but reduced Damage for Range is a common gaming consideration.

[DevianID]

Since this is in the fan section, I doubt anything will come of it now.  I rather liked it in the general section where maybe TPTB would it it and perhaps impliment some changes.

For my 2c fan rule wise, if I ever run infantry on my terms, it will be with the battle armor rules.  Motorized infantry is quad battle armor, and we have jump/foot battle armor representing squads.  A quad BA squad with 5 MP, 5 total health and a recoilless rifle or machine gun or SRM launcher, functions exactly how I want a toyota hilux squad or hummer squad to operate.  I'd throw some weight/movement stuff in, but yeah, making infantry heavier then battle armor, but yeah.

And for squads/platoons, well i love that trooper 1 is the heavy weapon team in battlearmor, which works perfect for actual rifle squads/platoons, where they often have 1 support weapon.  The dedicated weapons teams, like real life, would each get a weapon.

Ruleswise, a 7 strong team with 2/2/2/1 pips of health does a great job of showing why you dont bunch up, while a 7/7/7/7 health full platoon brings more weight to the party.  A gauss that hits a team cleanly, whether its 2 guys in a foxhole or 7, obliterates that team, but BA dont have damage crossover, so that is the big boon for spreading infantry out.

The idea that a gauss rifle only deals 2 damage when 28 soldiers are bunched up doesnt make physics sense.  We know how heavy a gauss is, we know it's very fast, and kinetic energy is explosive when its fast and hits the ground.  That gauss coming near you might kill you just from the pressure and heat of it passing by.  A gauss slug has UNBELIEVABLE energy.  To say infantry get a damage divisor versus gauss rounds greatly underestimates its energy I think... I'd love someone to prove me wrong here, and show its cool to be within 5 meters of a gauss shell hitting and be totally fine.

[Charistoph]

The idea that a gauss rifle only deals 2 damage when 28 soldiers are bunched up doesnt make physics sense.  We know how heavy a gauss is, we know it's very fast, and kinetic energy is explosive when its fast and hits the ground.  That gauss coming near you might kill you just from the pressure and heat of it passing by.  A gauss slug has UNBELIEVABLE energy.  To say infantry get a damage divisor versus gauss rounds greatly underestimates its energy I think... I'd love someone to prove me wrong here, and show its cool to be within 5 meters of a gauss shell hitting and be totally fine.

Remember that is 2 guys when they are in cover.  If they are out in the open it's 4, so basically it goes through one guy per Squad.  Nor is it like that a Gauss Slug is actually explosive.  It might shrapnel out, but that's relatively minor when compared to HE rounds.

[RifleMech]

Still, it's starting to get in to Fan Design in order to implement them.

For some infantry we have to. There's no transport bays for Field Gun Infantry, Field Artillery Infantry and Beast Mounted Infantry.

You ask, "So?", but you're not thinking the aspect through.  Part of it is, how much do you want to track Ammo expenditures for a PBI unit?  Even if we are looking at just Squad Rules, once they are unified, it becomes more difficult to track without completely changing the PBI chart to be more reflective of Battle Armor sheets.  Not a bad idea, but still Fan Design realm.

Battledroids gave ammo for SRMs and Machine Guns. I don't know why we can't track them and other support weapons now. And if infantry are going to be changed, this would be a good time to change the record sheets as well.

You say there are available in ATOW, then ATOW provides the Accounttech for those options.  If they aren't a reasonably deployable option on a Battletech Map, there is no reason for Total Warfare-level Accounttech to consider it.

Not so. We have rules for tracking training but the board game doesn't allow us to use training rounds. That's kind of a problem. We also track ammo as cargo. And why wouldn't the infantry ammo types be usable in Total Warfare? Depending on the game of course. If mechs and tanks can have Fragmentation rounds why can't infantry have anti-personnel rounds? If I have a game in a city with rioters, why can't I have my infantry use rubber bullets while playing Total Warfare? Or when using more advanced rules from TacOps?

MHQs have an officer's office which has a cot available for sleeping in.

Fluff wise? That'd depend on the MHQ. Rule wise, nope.

So leave them in AToW where other things that don't translate well go.

The Collapsible Command Modules.didn't get left out. If there's room for a Mech to carry and deploy a collapsible building why can't Mechanized/Motorized Infantry tow a trailer? Granted I think those infantry should be using vehicles but question is still valid. Why can't there be a very light trailer that could be used as quarters that vehicles can tow and drop off?

Not true.  You're conflating quantity of removal with methods of notation.  PBI platoons have always been a stretch of men across a line, which is how those bubbles get marked off.

It's the same as armor on a tank. So much damage, so many bubbles get marked off.

A change of method would be like having 5 lines of 10 available on a sheet, 1 line for each potential Squad, and 10 possible for each potential size of a Squad.  You roll for which Squad you initially Hit and then it adjust remaining to the next Squad available (maybe?).

I'm going to need a quote on that.  As far as I can determine, they've NEVER been the same.  PBI Missiles have always been shorter ranged.  They also need to be lighter as each normal SRM tube basically costed half a ton.  That's a LOT of people to devote to just lifting one.  While the abstraction of the Ammo may suggest to some that a Heavy SRM used in Vehicles, 'Mechs, and Aerospace are 10kg, that is VERY heavy for a person to carry across a battlefield.

Besides Battledroids? MechWarrior 3 says the Heavy SRM Launcher fires the same ammunition and vehicles and mechs and that each missile weighs 10 kg.  Combat Equipment has a table having the SRM (and other support weapons) being the same as BA weapons and they use the same SRMs as vehicles and mechs. TRO:3026 gives the SRM shorter range but it still does the same damage. And then there's AToW. The infantry standard SRM and BA SRMs are both Ordnance E. BA SRMs do 6X/12S damage up to 270 meters. The Infantry Standard SRM Anti-Vehicle round does 8X/12A with a range of 740 meters. I'm not great with AToW but to me it looks like the infantry Standard SRM is better than the BA but in TW it's the opposite. And that's just the SRMs. There's other mentions about other BA weapons being the same as infantry weapons and are only heavy do to mounting brackets and feed mechanisms. So why isn't that reflected in TW?

The tube also has aiming gear that tie into targeting systems. The Infantry gear isn't going to be as powerful so I can understand them having an increased modifier based on distance. That shouldn't mean an infantry SRM shouldn't hit at 9 hexes. Just that it's harder to do so.

[RifleMech]

Yup.  And you're asking about all the different ammo types. I hope you realize that the alternate ammo types are there to bring back the full weapon damage against infantry in a limited fashion.  It's purely a rules for rules sake effect.  Which, to me, shows a regression in technology when you look at the meta. 

(snip)

The thing about regression of technology is that there has been a lot of that. Even if it isn't caused by war technology is still lost. It happens all the time now. Why shouldn't it in the future when people's concern's are keeping a colony going? They may have weapons for hunting but military hardware isn't going to be on their minds until pirates start showing up. Then they'll be reinventing things because no one there currently knows how to build them. Also not everyone is going to be a the same tech level. It'd be immersion breaking if all worlds were at the same tech level.

As for damage, I do think TW takes the way infantry take damage to the other extreme. There should be a middle ground. Maybe a Gauss round will hit multiple troopers or maybe it'll just hit one.

I also think the quality of the infantry should vary and they can. We have ratings for how good/experienced the troops are and a variety of equipment to give them. We can have a wealthy militia with the latest equipment but be totally inexperienced and experienced mercs using ancient weapons.

I'm of mixed feelings about how infantry weapons do damage in TW. On the one hand a hand gun shouldn't damage a tank but having a damage chart per armors BAR level would be a lot. I did like the older rules were non-support weapons had a chance to do damage against tanks and mechs but it wasn't a sure thing. To me it's like the rounds damaging a view port or going through a vent to hit a heat sink or breaking a light. Things like that.

[Daemion]

Remember that is 2 guys when they are in cover.  If they are out in the open it's 4, so basically it goes through one guy per Squad.  Nor is it like that a Gauss Slug is actually explosive.  It might shrapnel out, but that's relatively minor when compared to HE rounds.

I heard somewhere that you get a solid object of to at least 3km per second, it will do its weight in TNT explosion on impact.  So, you aim at the ground, you're delivering an artillery blast with that hit.  Even better if that crater happened to have stuff to turn into shrapnel.

Since this is in the fan section, I doubt anything will come of it now.  I rather liked it in the general section where maybe TPTB would it it and perhaps impliment some changes.

For my 2c fan rule wise, if I ever run infantry on my terms, it will be with the battle armor rules.  Motorized infantry is quad battle armor, and we have jump/foot battle armor representing squads.  A quad BA squad with 5 MP, 5 total health and a recoilless rifle or machine gun or SRM launcher, functions exactly how I want a toyota hilux squad or hummer squad to operate.  I'd throw some weight/movement stuff in, but yeah, making infantry heavier then battle armor, but yeah.

And for squads/platoons, well i love that trooper 1 is the heavy weapon team in battlearmor, which works perfect for actual rifle squads/platoons, where they often have 1 support weapon.  The dedicated weapons teams, like real life, would each get a weapon.

Ruleswise, a 7 strong team with 2/2/2/1 pips of health does a great job of showing why you dont bunch up, while a 7/7/7/7 health full platoon brings more weight to the party.  A gauss that hits a team cleanly, whether its 2 guys in a foxhole or 7, obliterates that team, but BA dont have damage crossover, so that is the big boon for spreading infantry out.

The idea that a gauss rifle only deals 2 damage when 28 soldiers are bunched up doesnt make physics sense.  We know how heavy a gauss is, we know it's very fast, and kinetic energy is explosive when its fast and hits the ground.  That gauss coming near you might kill you just from the pressure and heat of it passing by.  A gauss slug has UNBELIEVABLE energy.  To say infantry get a damage divisor versus gauss rounds greatly underestimates its energy I think... I'd love someone to prove me wrong here, and show its cool to be within 5 meters of a gauss shell hitting and be totally fine.

I like this!
Although I'm tempted to go with a 2/1/1/1/1/1 set-up with most squads that have a team-based squad weapon*.   That way, the squad is better dispersed, and the damage can be rolled on a d6 BA squad sheet.

And, for any additional Squad Weapons in the squad you would combine two ones into a two. So a squad with two squad weapons would be 2/2/1/1/1.  A squad with three squad weapons would be what you suggested.   

I'd probably rule that the squad weapon teams get a special marker on the sheet, but could be placed in any slot in the squad.  As long as it's clear.  That way, a two-weapon squad might be arrayed as thus:

1. 2 (SW)
2. 1
3. 1
4. 2 (SW)
5. 1
6. -

*= I'm gonna start calling the 'support weapon' a squad weapon based on the definition of a SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon.

In the past, I've looked at rolling a critical chance check to take out the squad weapon when a platoon or squad took a hit.

And, I had even gotten to the point where I was looking at just saying that any unit could target the squad weapon directly.  Even with an Aliens-style support harness, a large anti-armor squad weapon is easy to pick out.  And, killing the weapon wouldn't eliminate everyone in the squad.  It would just mean that they had one less weapon to use to attack armored units.  Very similar in a lot of ways to the BattleDroids rules, but with a simple fluff concept change. 

I may mix in a bit of all three to show different levels of training and equipment.  I elaborate in another post below.


Regarding damage dealt by infantry:
I have no problem with Squad weapons doing vehicle scale damage at the listed vehicle scale ranges.  None whatsoever.  It makes sense. 

The infantry rifles, on the other hand, I do have a problem with. Especially if they can do it in perpetuity.  I might be okay with one or two shots of a specialized ammo mag or special charge clip designed for the purpose, but that should be a rarity that doesn't get handed out very much, up there with anti-Mech training. (Damage-wise, I'd probably limit that to 1 per trooper, and rolled on the cluster table for the number of troopers to see how many actually hit.  But, again, one or two shots tops.)

[Daemion]

The thing about regression of technology is that there has been a lot of that. Even if it isn't caused by war technology is still lost. It happens all the time now. Why shouldn't it in the future when people's concern's are keeping a colony going? They may have weapons for hunting but military hardware isn't going to be on their minds until pirates start showing up. Then they'll be reinventing things because no one there currently knows how to build them. Also not everyone is going to be a the same tech level. It'd be immersion breaking if all worlds were at the same tech level.

As I said, I would have been okay with that if they had at least allowed for the option to use the old style rules as a form of Tech/alternate ammunition.  But, they didn't.  I have to do that at my own table because they retconned the Mech performance forwards and backwards to all BT ages.

And, it's one of the reasons I want to see a mix of glass-jawed infantry and specialist anti-armor infantry that are deployed in small numbers.  Glass-jawed squads would have a single squad weapon like an SRM Launcher which can get picked off, mission-killing the squad on the game board of a Game of Armored Combat, with an optional rule to let the survivors run around shooting at other infantry if one so desires.  The elite anti-armor squads would be deployed like a BA unit, whether it's as a single squad or as a full platoon.  They would most likely have the fullest compliment of anti-armor squad weapons allowed and could also potentially have heavy armor to give them some extra longevity.

This is why I asked for Infantry Pogs or Battle Squad or both. 

Battle Squad, so named since somebody coined that down in the general fan rules and proposed the same idea, is treating conventional infantry like BA squads on BA squad record sheets. 

Infantry Pogs is an idea I came up with making for the smallest record sheet possible inspired by MW:DA Artillery Pogs.  A quarter-sized pog could fit on a standard hex map and have enough room for the few things glass-jawed infantry squad would require.  Gunnnery and weapons stats. That's all. And maybe some specialist skill for a scenario objective.  I'd even go so far as to make it two-sided, so if you want to continue to use the squad in an anti-infantry capacity, you flip it over to its AnInf side once the squad weapon has been eliminated or ran out of ammo. 

[Charistoph]

For some infantry we have to. There's no transport bays for Field Gun Infantry, Field Artillery Infantry and Beast Mounted Infantry.

Battledroids gave ammo for SRMs and Machine Guns. I don't know why we can't track them and other support weapons now. And if infantry are going to be changed, this would be a good time to change the record sheets as well.

Keep perspective.  When I posted that, this thread was still in General.  It wasn't a disagreement with the concept, just that bringing up the idea is Fan Design territory.

Field Gun infantry aren't a unit type, they are another unit type with specialized equipment.  You do have a point about Beast-Mounted Infantry, which may be addressed here now that it has moved.

I disagree that Ammo should be tracked (outside of Field Guns) for ConvInf as they are a dedicated weapon system.  Sure it would be possible with a redesign matching Battle Armor, but I don't agree with the practicality as the unit (be it Squad or Platoon) is designed around such Support (aka Secondary) Weapons as an identifying feature, nor are they as strong as what a Battle Armor unit carries.

Having Platoons being designed around Squads would offer an opportunity for each individual Squad to be carrying different Ammo or even different Support Weapons.  This is a solution that doesn't bog things down too much minutiae.

Not so. We have rules for tracking training but the board game doesn't allow us to use training rounds. That's kind of a problem. We also track ammo as cargo. And why wouldn't the infantry ammo types be usable in Total Warfare? Depending on the game of course. If mechs and tanks can have Fragmentation rounds why can't infantry have anti-personnel rounds? If I have a game in a city with rioters, why can't I have my infantry use rubber bullets while playing Total Warfare? Or when using more advanced rules from TacOps?

You brought them up as being AToW, but now you're saying that they aren't?  Which is it?

Infantry DO have anti-personnel rounds in their Primary Weapons.  Of course, this was more about do they have a place in certain areas.  As it is, even Infantry are just considered "casualties" when you mark them off, and it is other resources which declares them "dead" afterward.  Training/Riot Rounds are no different other than anything else other than they aren't actually dead afterward.

Fluff wise? That'd depend on the MHQ. Rule wise, nope.

There are also no rules for the Foot Rifleman's sleeping bag.  If it doesn't need to be actively represented on the board, then it can be abstracted away.

The Collapsible Command Modules.didn't get left out. If there's room for a Mech to carry and deploy a collapsible building why can't Mechanized/Motorized Infantry tow a trailer? Granted I think those infantry should be using vehicles but question is still valid. Why can't there be a very light trailer that could be used as quarters that vehicles can tow and drop off?

Because the Command Modules have an impact in scenarios and missions.  Sleeping bags do not.  Nor have you properly provided a case other than "I wanna have a camper trailer", while providing no military equivalent of such.

It's the same as armor on a tank. So much damage, so many bubbles get marked off.

Missing the point of the statement, as usual.  This method of marking damage has not changed through the years because the Infantry Record Sheet hasn't really seen much change throughout the years.  How much of Damage gets applied has changed, but not the marking itself.  You can't even distinguish between individual Squads without having a separate sheet for each one.

Besides Battledroids? MechWarrior 3 says the Heavy SRM Launcher fires the same ammunition and vehicles and mechs and that each missile weighs 10 kg.  Combat Equipment has a table having the SRM (and other support weapons) being the same as BA weapons and they use the same SRMs as vehicles and mechs. TRO:3026 gives the SRM shorter range but it still does the same damage. And then there's AToW. The infantry standard SRM and BA SRMs are both Ordnance E. BA SRMs do 6X/12S damage up to 270 meters. The Infantry Standard SRM Anti-Vehicle round does 8X/12A with a range of 740 meters. I'm not great with AToW but to me it looks like the infantry Standard SRM is better than the BA but in TW it's the opposite. And that's just the SRMs. There's other mentions about other BA weapons being the same as infantry weapons and are only heavy do to mounting brackets and feed mechanisms. So why isn't that reflected in TW?

The tube also has aiming gear that tie into targeting systems. The Infantry gear isn't going to be as powerful so I can understand them having an increased modifier based on distance. That shouldn't mean an infantry SRM shouldn't hit at 9 hexes. Just that it's harder to do so.

Just examples, no quotes.

TRO: 3026 doesn't support your statement.  It doesn't carry the SRM support weapon or describe it.  It has the LAWs, and Heavy SRM, which is just described as "a more powerful version of the smaller weapon used by infantry units." (pg 122).

Meanwhile, I could do damage in a 1 point Cluster with an Infantry SRM, and not within Rifle Range, since at least CityTech.  Now, you can still have SRMs, but not as many so not slowing the unit down, representing a Light SRM team, and those are still effectively doing only 1 Damage.

It sounds more like your problem is more with AtoW than with Total Warfare's infantry rules.

I heard somewhere that you get a solid object of to at least 3km per second, it will do its weight in TNT explosion on impact.  So, you aim at the ground, you're delivering an artillery blast with that hit.  Even better if that crater happened to have stuff to turn into shrapnel.

It's the base energy equation, energy = mass * speed².  Even then, the only difference between a Gauss slug and an old school cannon round used in ACW and older is elevation of the gun, size of the ball, and muzzle velocity.  As I said, it might shrapnel out on a hit, but that doesn't compare well when compared to proper High Explosive rounds.

Although I'm tempted to go with a 2/1/1/1/1/1 set-up with most squads that have a team-based squad weapon*.   That way, the squad is better dispersed, and the damage can be rolled on a d6 BA squad sheet.

And, for any additional Squad Weapons in the squad you would combine two ones into a two. So a squad with two squad weapons would be 2/2/1/1/1.  A squad with three squad weapons would be what you suggested.   

I'd probably rule that the squad weapon teams get a special marker on the sheet, but could be placed in any slot in the squad.  As long as it's clear.  That way, a two-weapon squad might be arrayed as thus:

1. 2 (SW)
2. 1
3. 1
4. 2 (SW)
5. 1
6. -

Easily workable, I think, and similar to what I had in mind what I presented building Platoons by the Squad concept.  However, I do think that most Support Weapons in the Squad (baring more advanced gear), so in most cases the last two guys to die will be carrying the Support Weapons, unless Officers are the last?

*= I'm gonna start calling the 'support weapon' a squad weapon based on the definition of a SAW, or Squad Automatic Weapon.

Or SRM, or LRM, or Flamer, you know any of those Secondary/Support Weapons listed for Infantry right now.

In the past, I've looked at rolling a critical chance check to take out the squad weapon when a platoon or squad took a hit.

And, I had even gotten to the point where I was looking at just saying that any unit could target the squad weapon directly.  Even with an Aliens-style support harness, a large anti-armor squad weapon is easy to pick out.  And, killing the weapon wouldn't eliminate everyone in the squad.  It would just mean that they had one less weapon to use to attack armored units.  Very similar in a lot of ways to the BattleDroids rules, but with a simple fluff concept change. 

I may mix in a bit of all three to show different levels of training and equipment.  I elaborate in another post below.

Or it could just be another dude picking up the Support Weapon to take it over, so shooting Joe 4 doesn't mean anything in the long run because Joe 2 picked it up.

Still, a Crit Hit MIGHT be looking at the Support Weapon being too damaged to be recovered and fired so useless for Joe 2 to pick up Joe 4's BFG.

Regarding damage dealt by infantry:
I have no problem with Squad weapons doing vehicle scale damage at the listed vehicle scale ranges.  None whatsoever.  It makes sense. 

The infantry rifles, on the other hand, I do have a problem with. Especially if they can do it in perpetuity.  I might be okay with one or two shots of a specialized ammo mag or special charge clip designed for the purpose, but that should be a rarity that doesn't get handed out very much, up there with anti-Mech training. (Damage-wise, I'd probably limit that to 1 per trooper, and rolled on the cluster table for the number of troopers to see how many actually hit.  But, again, one or two shots tops.)

I look at it this way, it's a trade off in the type of Armor being used.  In order to make the Ammo from Rifle Cannons (and I suppose old missiles like Mavericks) the Armor became ablative to hamper their abilities to out-right penetrate.  The trade off was that if enough Rifles hit one of those panels, it would pop off, and nothing really changed that till Hardened (and even then, just required more hits to accomplish the same task).

Still, if a Squad had 3 types of Damage rating in Support, Rifle, and Melee, I'd largely be fine with it.  I think the Ballistic Rifle Damage is a bit excessive as it is when it matches SRM Damage in all but Range.  But I guess they thought if Rifle Damage was so nerfed (look at Energy), nobody would bother taking them on to the field at all baring story scenarios.

[Daemion]

I may mix in a bit of all three to show different levels of training and equipment.  I elaborate in another post below.

So, right now, this is for my own table, but this is how I think I'd handle conventional infantry with the BA sheet to satisfy my tastes.

The biggest thing is that I have a full head-canon that looks at the fact that there's an immobile modifier, among many other things to explain why ranges are the way they are, and why Mechs and other armored vehicles take damage to seemingly random damage locations.  I believe in an inherent defensive mobility factor that I can't see regular people pulling off.  As such, I'm not keen on mandatorily requiring that all attacks be rolled randomly at all times. 

Targeting a BattleSquad Conventional Infantry Unit
For the most part targeting should work as for targeting a Battle Armor squad with some following exceptions:

If a BattleSquad or platoon is caught out in the open, any unit may target one or more Squad Weapons teams without having to roll randomly on the squad sheet to see which trooper/team is hit.  If declared a squad weapon team so targeted does not get the +1 modifier for squad dispersion. Any additional targeted squad weapon team by the same attacker is treated as a secondary target, and gets the secondary target modifier. 

Special note on Platoon deployment:  If a team hit on a Platoon 'squad sheet' isn't completely wiped out from the damage, the targeted squad weapon is lost as part of the attack. 
- - -

Damage to Platoon-deployed Conventional Infantry
If a team on a platoon isn't eliminated from an attack, Roll a critical hit chance to see if one or more squad weapons have been damaged by the attack, apply a modifier based on the amount of damage the team has sustained.

(I'm also thinking there should probably be a minimum 'crew' requirement if a single platoon squad has two or more squad weapons.)

- - -

Damage from Machine Guns and Other Anti-Infantry Weapons

Each point of damage from a Machine gun is rolled on the squad sheet separately, once the amount of damage has been determined.  Any shots applied to a dead trooper or blank slot stick for the attack, and don't get rerolled.


- - -

I'm also looking at Armor kit having some effect on range for the anti-infantry weapons mounted on Armored Combat units and carried by conventional infantry forces.  (That includes the rifle issued to each trooper in a squad/platoon.)

They should get some kind of boost for any kit that isn't full body coverage.  I'm thinking full body coverage imparts the standard ground ranges we see in the Game of Armored Combat.  And, then Heavy Armor imparts a crit check with modifiers based on damage versus cover, especially for platoon deployments in addition to a damage divisor.

- - -

Troop Loyalty could also play a part in whether a squad that looses its last squad weapon sticks around to fight or is removed from the board as they depart the battle.

- - -

Using this version of BattleSquad assumes that each trooper also has some sort of ECM kit, complete with laser blinder devices to aid in taking advantage of cover on my part.  Otherwise, the squad weapon is easy pickings, even in cover. 

[Daemion]

Still, if a Squad had 3 types of Damage rating in Support, Rifle, and Melee, I'd largely be fine with it.  I think the Ballistic Rifle Damage is a bit excessive as it is when it matches SRM Damage in all but Range.  But I guess they thought if Rifle Damage was so nerfed (look at Energy), nobody would bother taking them on to the field at all baring story scenarios.

That is something I actually want.  Should have made that clear from the start. 

The rifle and melee would be solely from one infantry squad against another.  I could see special accommodations for specially equipped rifles with, say, underslung grenade launchers, or a specially charged clip or setting for a laser rifle.  Again, limited supply so a very small ammo count.

[Charistoph]

The rifle and melee would be solely from one infantry squad against another.  I could see special accommodations for specially equipped rifles with, say, underslung grenade launchers, or a specially charged clip or setting for a laser rifle.  Again, limited supply so a very small ammo count.

But we're back to Rifle Infantry not being taken at all except to be fodder for everyone but other Infantry.  In order to be effective they MUST take a Support Weapon of some kind.  That would probably mean a restructuring of how such units are represented, such as the removal of all "default" Rifle units in Total Warfare.

[Daemion]

Edit: Slight restructure in order of thought.

But we're back to Rifle Infantry not being taken at all except to be fodder for everyone but other Infantry.  In order to be effective they MUST take a Support Weapon of some kind.  That would probably mean a restructuring of how such units are represented, such as the removal of all "default" Rifle units in Total Warfare.

Absolutely.  One of the reasons I advocate for a Revised BattleTroops. 

See, Before Tech Manual came out, I had always envisioned that the different classes of Platoon were doing damage based on their squad weapon.  It was still a little weird that they weren't doing damage equal to their Mech and Vehicle versions when it came to Flamers or Lasers or MGs when you look at how a platoon took damage, but I could mostly ignore that. 

Then Tech Manual came out, and cast that all into a new light, and it soured me to Infantry as depicted in Total Warfare.   

I look at it this way, it's a trade off in the type of Armor being used.  In order to make the Ammo from Rifle Cannons (and I suppose old missiles like Mavericks) the Armor became ablative to hamper their abilities to out-right penetrate.  The trade off was that if enough Rifles hit one of those panels, it would pop off, and nothing really changed that till Hardened (and even then, just required more hits to accomplish the same task).

So, novels trump sourcebooks, right?  Wasn't it stated in a Gray Death Novel that his Marauder's GM Whirlwind cannon fired off a 10-round burst?  And wasn't it a 120mm cannon?  For a moment, let's assume it took all 10 rounds to do a full 5 points of damage.  (I have reason to believe that's the case.  I've come to conclude, especially in light of how the Rotary Autocannon groups damage in solid 5- or 2- point clusters depending on the type, and not something weird like with LRMs, that the cannon rounds have built-in homing capacity. Combine that with the excessive recoil compensation built into the guns weight, and viola!  Solid damage grouping from a rapid-fire gun with consistency.)  With that assumption, each shot in the burst is only doing 1/2 a point of damage.  With 20 Bursts per ton of ammo, that's potentially 50kg per burst, or 5 kg a single shot.

According to sarna on the Auto-Rifle, if I'm reading it right, a 30-round clip is only 480 grams, or .48 kg.  (I'm assuming the rifle, itself, weighs the listed 4 kg. If I'm wrong, by all means correct me on this.)

Granted, there are range differences. The soft target range for a single round from the Auto-Rifle is between 13 and 14 BT hexes. Against Armor, it's only out to 60, if I recall right, maybe 90.  Depending on if you bring in AT ranges, the AC round could go out to 18 BT hexes,  12 BT maps in atmosphere, or either 216 km (AT2) or 117,000 km (AT1) in vacuum.  (Let's disregard AT1 ranges for now.  )

Even with that range performance in consideration the amount of damage being equivalent by weight doesn't add up. Especially when it's a human that has to brace and land all or a large portion of the shots on target in a presumably tight grouping.  But, if my assumption about the AC round is correct in its application of damage, any stray shot would negate the damage inflicted down to zero.

You see where I'm coming from, now? 

Also, look up the equivalency chart Sarna listed for the different BAR ratings.  BAR 10 is listed as Rock.  I'm guessing stuff as hard as granite or diamond.  See if anyone has done emptied a 30-round clip of 5.56 NATO into a granite boulder and let me know what kind of damage was inflicted. It's probably not much and/or not very deep. 

It's the base energy equation, energy = mass * speed2.  Even then, the only difference between a Gauss slug and an old school cannon round used in ACW and older is elevation of the gun, size of the ball, and muzzle velocity.  As I said, it might shrapnel out on a hit, but that doesn't compare well when compared to proper High Explosive rounds.

Yeah, but a gauss round is most likely going muuuuuch faster than 3m per second. or 3km per second.  Assuming the same style of Gauss on a mech or tank is the one which can be used by Aero Units, then a Gauss has an Aero range of Long which is 20 hexes.  That's either 10 km on the ground, or 360 km in space.  I'm not going to concern myself with how drag effects things, and focus on the space range.  In either instance, it takes all of a second or two to change orientation and present an oblique armor face and turn a sure, damaging hit into 0 points of damage sustained.  Anything longer than that, and the velocities at which spacecraft are moving at out in space means a simple change in direction will put your fighter out of the transit line of your gauss round once its fired.  So, in space, the shot needs to arrive on target inside 2 seconds, in my opinion, to even score damage.  Let's be generous and say two. 

So, the Gauss round is moving at a minimum muzzle velocity of 180 km a second. The round is nominally 125 kg.  Do the energy math on that, then let me know what kind of explosive impact that would have with just the ground under a soldier's feet. 

There's a reason that even small meteors which hit the ground leave massive craters.

[Cannonshop]

Edit: Slight restructure in order of thought.

Absolutely.  One of the reasons I advocate for a Revised BattleTroops. 

See, Before Tech Manual came out, I had always envisioned that the different classes of Platoon were doing damage based on their squad weapon.  It was still a little weird that they weren't doing damage equal to their Mech and Vehicle versions when it came to Flamers or Lasers or MGs when you look at how a platoon took damage, but I could mostly ignore that. 

Then Tech Manual came out, and cast that all into a new light, and it soured me to Infantry as depicted in Total Warfare.   


So, novels trump sourcebooks, right?  Wasn't it stated in a Gray Death Novel that his Marauder's GM Whirlwind cannon fired off a 10-round burst?  And wasn't it a 120mm cannon?  For a moment, let's assume it took all 10 rounds to do a full 5 points of damage.  (I have reason to believe that's the case.  I've come to conclude, especially in light of how the Rotary Autocannon groups damage in solid 5- or 2- point clusters depending on the type, and not something weird like with LRMs, that the cannon rounds have built-in homing capacity. Combine that with the excessive recoil compensation built into the guns weight, and viola!  Solid damage grouping from a rapid-fire gun with consistency.)  With that assumption, each shot in the burst is only doing 1/2 a point of damage.  With 20 Bursts per ton of ammo, that's potentially 50kg per burst, or 5 kg a single shot.

According to sarna on the Auto-Rifle, if I'm reading it right, a 30-round clip is only 480 grams, or .48 kg.  (I'm assuming the rifle, itself, weighs the listed 4 kg. If I'm wrong, by all means correct me on this.)

Granted, there are range differences. The soft target range for a single round from the Auto-Rifle is between 13 and 14 BT hexes. Against Armor, it's only out to 60, if I recall right, maybe 90.  Depending on if you bring in AT ranges, the AC round could go out to 18 BT hexes,  12 BT maps in atmosphere, or either 216 km (AT2) or 117,000 km (AT1) in vacuum.  (Let's disregard AT1 ranges for now.  )

Even with that range performance in consideration the amount of damage being equivalent by weight doesn't add up. Especially when it's a human that has to brace and land all or a large portion of the shots on target in a presumably tight grouping.  But, if my assumption about the AC round is correct in its application of damage, any stray shot would negate the damage inflicted down to zero.

You see where I'm coming from, now? 

Also, look up the equivalency chart Sarna listed for the different BAR ratings.  BAR 10 is listed as Rock.  I'm guessing stuff as hard as granite or diamond.  See if anyone has done emptied a 30-round clip of 5.56 NATO into a granite boulder and let me know what kind of damage was inflicted. It's probably not much and/or not very deep. 



Yeah, but a gauss round is most likely going muuuuuch faster than 3m per second. or 3km per second.  Assuming the same style of Gauss on a mech or tank is the one which can be used by Aero Units, then a Gauss has an Aero range of Long which is 20 hexes.  That's either 10 km on the ground, or 360 km in space.  I'm not going to concern myself with how drag effects things, and focus on the space range.  In either instance, it takes all of a second or two to change orientation and present an oblique armor face and turn a sure, damaging hit into 0 points of damage sustained.  Anything longer than that, and the velocities at which spacecraft are moving at out in space means a simple change in direction will put your fighter out of the transit line of your gauss round once its fired.  So, in space, the shot needs to arrive on target inside 2 seconds, in my opinion, to even score damage.  Let's be generous and say two. 

So, the Gauss round is moving at a minimum muzzle velocity of 180 km a second. The round is nominally 125 kg.  Do the energy math on that, then let me know what kind of explosive impact that would have with just the ground under a soldier's feet. 

There's a reason that even small meteors which hit the ground leave massive craters.

Simplify!! there's a rabbit hole here. (robot screaming 'caution!!")

See, there's a LOT of problems with the abstraction that is infantry in Battletech, like the 'averaging' of ranges to the point that a platoon of pistols and long bows can do damage at absurd ranges to armored opponents.

or, how a .50 caliber vehicle mount machine-gun has the same effective range against naked men in the open, that it has of penetrationg/ablating armor on a main battle tank.

which is about 90 meters at BEST.

[Daryk]

I think the Support Machine Gun is the 0.50 cal equivalent, so figure 180 meter Long range if using TW scale rules.  It has longer ranges at AToW scale, of course.

[Charistoph]

Absolutely.  One of the reasons I advocate for a Revised BattleTroops. 

Which is fine, but rather non-sequitur to what you were quoting, and really should be its own topic because it just encompasses so much.

See, Before Tech Manual came out, I had always envisioned that the different classes of Platoon were doing damage based on their squad weapon.  It was still a little weird that they weren't doing damage equal to their Mech and Vehicle versions when it came to Flamers or Lasers or MGs when you look at how a platoon took damage, but I could mostly ignore that. 

Then Tech Manual came out, and cast that all into a new light, and it soured me to Infantry as depicted in Total Warfare.   

So was that a, "Yes I want to see Rifle Squads/Platoons disappear because they will be useless against anything that isn't Infantry.", or were you referencing something else?

If you were referencing something else, I think going back to CityTech or Battledroids would be a step backward, but a few things could be worked out.  Yet, I still think there are some wonky numbers going on the SRM numbers which just don't fly, be it CityTech or Total Warfare, those being the odd numbers that show up every few steps in troop size at the full range of the Support weapon.

Going to a Squad-based construction and general operation concept could work in what I think you're saying (but you weren't very clear), but I still think that the individual Support Weapons would probably still be a little bit weaker for one main reason, and that's mobility and range. 

Let's say weren't not going to address how Support Weapons are added to the group, so that the difference between constructing the TW SRM Platoon now would only be different in how it sets up on a Record Sheet.  You're still dealing with lighter versions of these weapons when compared to Vehicles and Mechs because a Squad isn't going to lift a 500KG Machine Gun.  A single SRM added in to a Squad doesn't affect its mobility, but adding 2 does.  It could also be looked at as adding 2 Light SRMs or 1 Heavy SRM (which counts as 2), but it amounts to the same thing at the end of the road.  But as the Support Weapon count goes up, the Rifle count goes down (Support Weapons are HEAVY).

Currently, 28 men of 4 Squads of 7 putting out a potential 14 Damage on the SRM chart (both CityTech and Total Warfare use this number), means about 1/2 Damage per person.  With Tech Manual Accounting that means 8 SRM 2-shots doing less than 8 SRM hits from a Combat Vechicle or Mech.  The Squad size works in CityTech, doing 4 Damage, but in Total Warfare we're down to 3, largely because they took the 1 person Damage to 0 and just adjusted the line down.

However, if we're looking at a full SRM-8 for a Platoon, or an SRM-2 for a Squad, that could theoretically work.  It actually coincides a little better with how everything works now.

So, novels trump sourcebooks, right?

That's the opposite to what I said or what I was suggesting.  I was going by how the Armor works in game and providing a story-version to justify it.  Sourcebooks guiding the novelization.

According to sarna on the Auto-Rifle, if I'm reading it right, a 30-round clip is only 480 grams, or .48 kg.  (I'm assuming the rifle, itself, weighs the listed 4 kg. If I'm wrong, by all means correct me on this.)

That's a big assumption in thinking that the standard light arm would go up in weight over 1000 years.  Currently the AK-74 and M-4 weigh in gross at 3.5kg (give or take).  The trend has been to go with lighter, but faster, rounds where possible.  Of course, if one is expected to deal with ablative armor, having very fast heavy rounds would be more desirable.

Granted, there are range differences. The soft target range for a single round from the Auto-Rifle is between 13 and 14 BT hexes. Against Armor, it's only out to 60, if I recall right, maybe 90.  Depending on if you bring in AT ranges, the AC round could go out to 18 BT hexes,  12 BT maps in atmosphere, or either 216 km (AT2) or 117,000 km (AT1) in vacuum.  (Let's disregard AT1 ranges for now.  )

Even with that range performance in consideration the amount of damage being equivalent by weight doesn't add up. Especially when it's a human that has to brace and land all or a large portion of the shots on target in a presumably tight grouping.  But, if my assumption about the AC round is correct in its application of damage, any stray shot would negate the damage inflicted down to zero.

You see where I'm coming from, now?

Not really, no.  You spouted a lot of stats and then ask if I see where you're coming from.  You didn't really point a direction where you wanted to go with these stats.

Also, look up the equivalency chart Sarna listed for the different BAR ratings.  BAR 10 is listed as Rock.  I'm guessing stuff as hard as granite or diamond.  See if anyone has done emptied a 30-round clip of 5.56 NATO into a granite boulder and let me know what kind of damage was inflicted. It's probably not much and/or not very deep. 

Probably not.  However, the point isn't to destroy a rock, but to dislodge it from other rocks.  Rocks do bounce if they are light enough or hit with enough force.  And while these maybe 62.5kg rocks we're dealing with on average, I only have to move it enough so the connections to the rest of the Armor no longer work.

Yeah, but a gauss round is most likely going muuuuuch faster than 3m per second. or 3km per second.  Assuming the same style of Gauss on a mech or tank is the one which can be used by Aero Units, then a Gauss has an Aero range of Long which is 20 hexes.  That's either 10 km on the ground, or 360 km in space.  I'm not going to concern myself with how drag effects things, and focus on the space range.  In either instance, it takes all of a second or two to change orientation and present an oblique armor face and turn a sure, damaging hit into 0 points of damage sustained.  Anything longer than that, and the velocities at which spacecraft are moving at out in space means a simple change in direction will put your fighter out of the transit line of your gauss round once its fired.  So, in space, the shot needs to arrive on target inside 2 seconds, in my opinion, to even score damage.  Let's be generous and say two. 

So, the Gauss round is moving at a minimum muzzle velocity of 180 km a second. The round is nominally 125 kg.  Do the energy math on that, then let me know what kind of explosive impact that would have with just the ground under a soldier's feet. 

There's a reason that even small meteors which hit the ground leave massive craters.

You're greatly inflating the numbers with your estimations.  Even Mach 8 is only about 2.7km/sec, depending on air pressure, and I haven't heard of the Gauss Rifle shot going faster.  Try this here.

The funny thing about shooting ballistics in space, it's going to take a LOT to slow it down.  Effectively its range is "till it hits something".  What the Range is for is when you can effectively predict where a target can be in the time it takes the round to travel.  While the 2 second idea is nice, that's still no guarantee as its more about predicting where the shot will hit and make it easier to hit a dodging target.  However, physics being the jerk it is, dodging in space isn't easy as it requires thrust-alone overcoming momentum to accomplish its task.

[RifleMech]

As I said, I would have been okay with that if they had at least allowed for the option to use the old style rules as a form of Tech/alternate ammunition.  But, they didn't.  I have to do that at my own table because they retconned the Mech performance forwards and backwards to all BT ages.

(snip)

I'm not sure if I remember age based ammo or not. I want to say there was a rule for using mothballed ammo but I have no idea where that would be. I suppose there should be  a modifier for old ammo if there isn't but I think most ammo in BT would be newish.


I think we can do glass-jawed and elite special forces infantry ourselves. Like I said, we have rules for rankings, moral, and lots of specializations. We also have rules for squad deployment, so we could improvise a mixed platoon of good and bad infantry.

Keep perspective.  When I posted that, this thread was still in General.  It wasn't a disagreement with the concept, just that bringing up the idea is Fan Design territory.

Field Gun infantry aren't a unit type, they are another unit type with specialized equipment.  You do have a point about Beast-Mounted Infantry, which may be addressed here now that it has moved.

I was hoping we'd stay out of the Fan Rules Forum but that doesn't mean we can't mention problems with the current rules.

I did ask about Beast Mounted Infantry but I still don't have an answer. And while Field Gun and Field Artillery Infantry may be a specialized versions of Motorized/Mechanized Infantry but unless those bays are made by Time Lords I can't see them fitting in an infantry bay or compartment. Maybe it does work that way but breaks immersion for me.

I disagree that Ammo should be tracked (outside of Field Guns) for ConvInf as they are a dedicated weapon system.  Sure it would be possible with a redesign matching Battle Armor, but I don't agree with the practicality as the unit (be it Squad or Platoon) is designed around such Support (aka Secondary) Weapons as an identifying feature, nor are they as strong as what a Battle Armor unit carries.

Having Platoons being designed around Squads would offer an opportunity for each individual Squad to be carrying different Ammo or even different Support Weapons.  This is a solution that doesn't bog things down too much minutiae.

I can see Support Weapons Ammo being tracked. Saying how many rounds they have shouldn't be a problem since that was done in BattleDroids. Counting standard regular infantry weapons may be too much but it shouldn't be for support weapons.

You brought them up as being AToW, but now you're saying that they aren't?  Which is it?

They are in AToW and AToW Companion but outside of inferno rounds, alternative infantry rounds not available in TW even though TW does have very similar alternative ammo, like Fragmentation. I think that's a problem. We don't average all the Mech ammo types together. Why should we do that for Infantry?

Infantry DO have anti-personnel rounds in their Primary Weapons.  Of course, this was more about do they have a place in certain areas.  As it is, even Infantry are just considered "casualties" when you mark them off, and it is other resources which declares them "dead" afterward.  Training/Riot Rounds are no different other than anything else other than they aren't actually dead afterward.

That's true. A mission kill is a mission kill. However, by not allowing us to use Training/Riot Rounds it throws off the budget when conducting campaigns.

There are also no rules for the Foot Rifleman's sleeping bag.  If it doesn't need to be actively represented on the board, then it can be abstracted away.

Because the Command Modules have an impact in scenarios and missions.  Sleeping bags do not.  Nor have you properly provided a case other than "I wanna have a camper trailer", while providing no military equivalent of such.

In that case, I agree. However, somethings should be represented on the board. I can see a quirk for the commander having a bunk in the MHQ. Camper trailers though shouldn't be so abstracted. How comfy the troops sleep is an RPG thing. Stacking limits, speed, and how they're transported in a Bay/Compartment are not. And we do have Tents in TacOps. Why not the campers?

Missing the point of the statement, as usual.  This method of marking damage has not changed through the years because the Infantry Record Sheet hasn't really seen much change throughout the years.  How much of Damage gets applied has changed, but not the marking itself.  You can't even distinguish between individual Squads without having a separate sheet for each one.

That's what I said.

Just examples, no quotes.

TRO: 3026 doesn't support your statement.  It doesn't carry the SRM support weapon or describe it.  It has the LAWs, and Heavy SRM, which is just described as "a more powerful version of the smaller weapon used by infantry units." (pg 122).

(sigh)
MW3 page 137

SRM Launcher:  The heavy SRM launcher fires the same ammunition as vehicle and 'Mech-class SRM launchers. It is very encumbering, and each missile weighs in at 10 kilograms, virtually requiring soldiers to set it up in an emplacement and have a vehicle close at hand to haul its ammunition.

Combat Equipment page 110
RPG Support Weapon Conversion Table.
I'm not going to post the whole thing but it does have RPG Infantry SRMs being equivalent to Battletech SRMs.

I did say that TRO:3026 has shorter range. The TRO has the SRM damage being in Mechwarrior. MW1 and 2 has 1 point of damage. MW3 says they're they same as Vehicle scale and on page 143 MW3 also has the BA SRM-2 being equal to the SRM Launcher. I posted what AToW says about them. So it depends on which set of rules you go by and that's for standard rounds. There's infernos. There's rule books having infantry and vehicle/mech infernos doing the same heat. And no I'm not going to try to post exact quotes. Reading the print has screwed up my vision enough already.

Meanwhile, I could do damage in a 1 point Cluster with an Infantry SRM, and not within Rifle Range, since at least CityTech.  Now, you can still have SRMs, but not as many so not slowing the unit down, representing a Light SRM team, and those are still effectively doing only 1 Damage.

If lighter  Light SRMs don't slow the platoon down, and heavier Heavy SRMs do, shouldn't the even heavier 2-shot (standard) SRM be either move or shoot? And shouldn't the L-SRM do a tiny bit less damage than a Standard SRM and the H-SRM do twice as much damage as the L-SRM and nearly twice as much as the Standard SRM?

It sounds more like your problem is more with AtoW than with Total Warfare's infantry rules.

I certainly have a problem with the inconsistency. It isn't just the weapons, which I think are a big problem. It's the Infantry themselves. As was mentioned earlier, the same vehicles TW infantry are fluffed and shown to use have vastly better performance in AToW. So do the AToW infantry pages 339-340. The High-Budget Trooper has a  Bayonet, Pulse Laser Rifle, Laser Pistol, 6x Grenade (3 different types). That's more than weapons than we're allowed per trooper even with TO's Disposable Weapons. Why can't we build infantry with multiple weapons and then use the ones best suited at the time?

[Lance Leader]

If I had a wishlist, it would be for two things. First, I'd like an infantry unit's anti-vehicular firepower to come primarily from its heavy weapons, not its small arms, and I'd like those heavy weapons to generally be equivalent to mech-scale weaponry.

  One thing that would facilitate this are the Battle Armor weapons in the Techmanual.  A lot of them have a 1 to 1 parity with their conventional infantry equivalents in terms of ammunition weight (SRM, LRM, Recoiless Rifles, Mortars, etc.).  Of course the weapons themselves are much heavier in their BA versions but this could be explained as being because you need to factor in the weight of structure and armor needed to accommodate the volume of the weapon in the battle armor suit in addition to weight of loading mechanisms and actuators. 

  So you have a 7 man squad with 2x 30kg Corean LRM launchers as their support weapons that act identically to their BA equivalent, (I'm thinking two 3 man fire teams with a squad leader) or the 30kg Standard SRM launcher as identical to a BA SRM 2.  The squad can either fire its auto-rifles, which are deadly against infantry but useless against heavy armor or its crew served missile launchers.  The only thing I would add is for the SRM launcher is that they should realistically be able to carry only enough reloads for 3 shots total (2x 10kg missile per crew in a 3 man team).  Your LRM squad could act as a LRM2 for 6 turns of fire and your SMR squad would act as an SRM4 for 3 turns before exhausting its ammo.

[Charistoph]

I was hoping we'd stay out of the Fan Rules Forum but that doesn't mean we can't mention problems with the current rules.

It's the bringing of suggestions to those changes which puts it in Fan Rules territory, hence my statement.

I did ask about Beast Mounted Infantry but I still don't have an answer. And while Field Gun and Field Artillery Infantry may be a specialized versions of Motorized/Mechanized Infantry but unless those bays are made by Time Lords I can't see them fitting in an infantry bay or compartment. Maybe it does work that way but breaks immersion for me.

There's a lot of things that are possibly immersion-breaking, such as the range of weapons.  If the weight of a Transport Bay on a ship that you aren't going to be using in a tactical sense is immersion breaking, maybe this is the wrong game to be addressing.

I can see Support Weapons Ammo being tracked. Saying how many rounds they have shouldn't be a problem since that was done in BattleDroids. Counting standard regular infantry weapons may be too much but it shouldn't be for support weapons.

The problem is the, "Why, after all this time, should we?"  It would, potentially, leave them completely unarmed after a few shots.  And if we track Missiles, why not track Machine Gun rounds of fire, Flamer fuel, battery power for energy and gauss weapons, etc?  Effectively speaking, this would largely be a nerf to Infantry on a Total Warfare scale.

They are in AToW and AToW Companion but outside of inferno rounds, alternative infantry rounds not available in TW even though TW does have very similar alternative ammo, like Fragmentation. I think that's a problem. We don't average all the Mech ammo types together. Why should we do that for Infantry?

Because Infantry groups are smaller and not carrying around a literal ton of ammunition (except Field Gunners, of course).  And as I said earlier, if they have a definable purpose in Total Warfare they should be included.  As it is, SRM ConvInf are set up for Anti-Armor in Total Warfare because that's the reason you get SRM ConvInf, to shoot Armor.

That's true. A mission kill is a mission kill. However, by not allowing us to use Training/Riot Rounds it throws off the budget when conducting campaigns.

Which is a Campaign Operations and AToW concern.

In that case, I agree. However, somethings should be represented on the board. I can see a quirk for the commander having a bunk in the MHQ. Camper trailers though shouldn't be so abstracted. How comfy the troops sleep is an RPG thing. Stacking limits, speed, and how they're transported in a Bay/Compartment are not. And we do have Tents in TacOps. Why not the campers?

Again, for the fourth or fifth time, can you demonstrate a military actually using campers?

That's what I said.

Not so...

Each trooper is a bubble of health for the platoon....

"Each trooper is a bubble of health for the platoon. How those bubbles get marked off has changed over the years though. The older weapon hit kills that many troopers may have been too much one way but 1/10 damage goes too far the other. And the mechanized infantry damage is worse. " - Riflemech

You presented to different concepts but conflated them as the same thing.

(sigh)

Sigh all you want, but when someone asks for a quote a vague reference doesn't really help.  Even worse when one of your references turns out to say the opposite.

MW3 page 137
Combat Equipment page 110
RPG Support Weapon Conversion Table.
I'm not going to post the whole thing but it does have RPG Infantry SRMs being equivalent to Battletech SRMs.

I did say that TRO:3026 has shorter range. The TRO has the SRM damage being in Mechwarrior. MW1 and 2 has 1 point of damage. MW3 says they're they same as Vehicle scale and on page 143 MW3 also has the BA SRM-2 being equal to the SRM Launcher. I posted what AToW says about them. So it depends on which set of rules you go by and that's for standard rounds. There's infernos. There's rule books having infantry and vehicle/mech infernos doing the same heat. And no I'm not going to try to post exact quotes. Reading the print has screwed up my vision enough already.

Yet, the TRO one is talking about the HEAVY SRM launcher, and that being heavier than the standard one that Infantry normally get.

The BA SRM being equal is a red herring because it has never operated other than an SRM-2 carried by a Vehicle or Mech.

And yet, within all that time, there are capacities of odd numbers of damage.  That's not a standard SRM at all.  By virtue of experience and capacity, they ARE lighter as it takes 2 per Squad to almost equal a normal SRM.  To top it all off, Tech Manual doesn't say these are the 'Mech/Vehicle equivalent any more.

If lighter  Light SRMs don't slow the platoon down, and heavier Heavy SRMs do, shouldn't the even heavier 2-shot (standard) SRM be either move or shoot? And shouldn't the L-SRM do a tiny bit less damage than a Standard SRM and the H-SRM do twice as much damage as the L-SRM and nearly twice as much as the Standard SRM?

Technically speaking, the "Light" SRM team is just one that picked up a one shot SRM as its Support Weapon while the standard (aka Heavy) SRM team in Total Warfare (and thus previous versions) carries either two one shot SRMs or a single 2-shot SRM as its Support Weapon.

And yes, that standard does have a Move or Shoot capacity with Foot ConvInf while also slowing down the others by 1 MP, and does about twice as much damage as the "Light" SRM team.  Unfortunately, the "Light" SRM team's about as effective as a Ballistic Rifle Platoon, going by MML's calculation.

I certainly have a problem with the inconsistency. It isn't just the weapons, which I think are a big problem. It's the Infantry themselves. As was mentioned earlier, the same vehicles TW infantry are fluffed and shown to use have vastly better performance in AToW. So do the AToW infantry pages 339-340. The High-Budget Trooper has a  Bayonet, Pulse Laser Rifle, Laser Pistol, 6x Grenade (3 different types). That's more than weapons than we're allowed per trooper even with TO's Disposable Weapons. Why can't we build infantry with multiple weapons and then use the ones best suited at the time?

AToW and TW do operate at different levels, though.  This is getting back to the sleeping bag example all too quickly.  Detail for one level of game play does not necessarily need to translate to the same level of detail at a level farther pulled out.  And since AToW is newer, it should be reflecting more of the standards that Classic sets for general concepts.  One offs for an individual are one thing, but that doesn't always translate to a group of 25 to 30.

Still, I have heard what you and others have said, and proposed something regarding that above.

[Cannonshop]

I think the Support Machine Gun is the 0.50 cal equivalent, so figure 180 meter Long range if using TW scale rules.  It has longer ranges at AToW scale, of course.

Do you remember what the effective range of an M240B is? or an M2?  (real world ranges)?

It's a bit more than 180 meters, that's getting down below the effective range of an M4 carbine.

which is kind of the point-applying realism to Battletech is a bad idea that leads to some truly mind-blowing weirdness that the game can't really scale around successfully.  Applying realistic ballistic effects has the same problem.  (your AC/20 has an effective long range of 360 Meters, at 30 meters per hex, using long range.  That's inferior to a 12 pounder napoleon fueled by black powder firing a round ball.)

Trying to insert more realism increases the mechanical complexity of the game, when you increase that mechanical complexity, it has to trade off for some benefit and appeal.  By necessity, you're reducing the attraction for new players, and shedding more casual players.

The abstraction with infantry serves a defined purpose.

[paladin2019]

FWIW, I noticed some chatter about weapons density. Here are some platoon ORBAT charts from BattleTroops. "Enjoy"

[paladin2019]

Do you remember what the effective range of an M240B is? or an M2?  (real world ranges)?

To illustrate the argument, 800+m and ~1800m, respectively. And BT gives us 180m effective range first against 'mech armor (which can be accepted), then in toto (which....) Also, take the Bulldog as an example. It has a 20mm rotary autocannon, basically an M61 Vulcan type weapon, as its bow machine gun.

And this illustrates the point. BT weapon ranges are game stats for menaingful differences in games played on a series of 17x22" boards. Real world range equivalencies would arguably result in line of sight ranges as we have in Pireme Publishing's Hammer's Slammers game.

[RifleMech]

  One thing that would facilitate this are the Battle Armor weapons in the Techmanual.  A lot of them have a 1 to 1 parity with their conventional infantry equivalents in terms of ammunition weight (SRM, LRM, Recoiless Rifles, Mortars, etc.).  Of course the weapons themselves are much heavier in their BA versions but this could be explained as being because you need to factor in the weight of structure and armor needed to accommodate the volume of the weapon in the battle armor suit in addition to weight of loading mechanisms and actuators. 

There is fluff stating that BA versions are heavier do to mounting brackets and such. There's even some fluff about Infantry weapons being equivalent to Mech/Vehicle versions. I've pointed out some instances for SRM but there's other like TRO:3026 page 108

The Support Machine Gun is similar in design to the machine guns used on 'Mechs. In general, most Sp-MGs are a smaller caliber than their 'Mech equivalents, but have a higher rate of fire.

and the table on page 127 gives the support machine gun the same range and damage as Mech versions. So lots of smaller rounds can be just as damaging to ablative armor as fewer larger rounds.

And the weight for Recoilless Rifle is odd. The weight for the Infantry version is per round. The BA version is per 20 rounds. They're not firing bursts so the Infantry version should do more damage. And then there's the AToW damage. The BA version does 6X/12S. The Anti-Vehicle Infantry round does 8X/12A. The infantry support weapons should be a lot more damaging than they are.

It's the bringing of suggestions to those changes which puts it in Fan Rules territory, hence my statement.

Which I had been trying to avoid when this thread was in the other forum.

There's a lot of things that are possibly immersion-breaking, such as the range of weapons.  If the weight of a Transport Bay on a ship that you aren't going to be using in a tactical sense is immersion breaking, maybe this is the wrong game to be addressing.

Agreed the range is an issue. However, TW has all the ranges shortened so it's consistent. At least until you get to Aerospace and the RPG. Then it doesn't make sense. Just like it doesn't make much sense to have an issue with 6 tons of infantry and vehicles to be ride inside a tank but it's okay if they're towing and additional 30 tons of cannon and ammo.

The problem is the, "Why, after all this time, should we?"  It would, potentially, leave them completely unarmed after a few shots.  And if we track Missiles, why not track Machine Gun rounds of fire, Flamer fuel, battery power for energy and gauss weapons, etc?  Effectively speaking, this would largely be a nerf to Infantry on a Total Warfare scale.

I said I'd be okay with it, not that we had to. And why not? It's tracked in AToW. Missile rounds are tracked by BA. I also think that having support weapons be far more effective balances out the nerf. With 2 SRMs per squad doing 2 points of damage each, the platoon could do up to 16 points of damage out to 9 hexes per turn with SRMs alone. If they have 5 rounds that's up to 80 points of damage. Currently, we have the same number of SRMs doing 4.32 damage out to 6 hexes per turn. 20 points of damage after 5 turns. I think having limited ammo for 4 times the damage and increased range is a fair trade.

Because Infantry groups are smaller and not carrying around a literal ton of ammunition (except Field Gunners, of course).  And as I said earlier, if they have a definable purpose in Total Warfare they should be included.  As it is, SRM ConvInf are set up for Anti-Armor in Total Warfare because that's the reason you get SRM ConvInf, to shoot Armor.

They don't need to carry a ton of ammo to change ammo. Infantry have the option to choose between "averaged" rounds and infernos now. Why can't they have the option between anti-vehicle and anti-personnel? And if the only reason to have SRMs is to shoot armor, why do we have alternative ammunition? And Infantry don't have to be exclusively anti-armor. Infantry could fire smoke rounds, anti-personnel rounds, or other types of ammo instead of taking up tonnage in a Mech or Tank.

Which is a Campaign Operations and AToW concern.

And you can use Campaign Operations with TW.

Again, for the fourth or fifth time, can you demonstrate a military actually using campers?

Can you actually demonstrate a military actually using BattleMechs? That's various reasons for a military to use campers. Troopers would be better rested than those sleeping on the ground  They'd make a good temporary base, that is more mobile than a tent city. They're more environmentally secure than a standard tent. No need to bring a food truck as rations and cooking facilities are included.

Not so..."Each trooper is a bubble of health for the platoon. How those bubbles get marked off has changed over the years though. The older weapon hit kills that many troopers may have been too much one way but 1/10 damage goes too far the other. And the mechanized infantry damage is worse. " - Riflemech

You presented to different concepts but conflated them as the same thing.

A bubble is still a bubble. It's how many bubbles get marked off that changed.

Sigh all you want, but when someone asks for a quote a vague reference doesn't really help.  Even worse when one of your references turns out to say the opposite.

I did say where to find them.

Yet, the TRO one is talking about the HEAVY SRM launcher, and that being heavier than the standard one that Infantry normally get.

And the Heavy SRM and it's ammo are the same weight as the 2 shot SRM.

The BA SRM being equal is a red herring because it has never operated other than an SRM-2 carried by a Vehicle or Mech.

Actually it isn't since there are sources that have Infantry and BA SRMs being the same. It also shows how inconsistent the universe is by having different damages for TW and AToW. 

And yet, within all that time, there are capacities of odd numbers of damage.  That's not a standard SRM at all.  By virtue of experience and capacity, they ARE lighter as it takes 2 per Squad to almost equal a normal SRM.  To top it all off, Tech Manual doesn't say these are the 'Mech/Vehicle equivalent any more.

I've said where they were and even quoted sources for you.  Also note the "any more" in your statement. That means at one point, they did. Reducing the damages badly nerfed support weapons in TW. Even rounding up the infantry SRM only does 1 point of damage to all BAR Armor levels in TW. In AToW, the SRMs are more effective against lower BAR levels. I get the need for some abstraction, and that that will reduce weapons damage in TW some but it shouldn't reduce them to being pointless. Why use many of the support weapons when we have rifles doing more damage at the same range or greater? If support weapons are supposed to be the anti-vehicle weapons why are they worse than primary weapons?

Technically speaking, the "Light" SRM team is just one that picked up a one shot SRM as its Support Weapon while the standard (aka Heavy) SRM team in Total Warfare (and thus previous versions) carries either two one shot SRMs or a single 2-shot SRM as its Support Weapon.

Um...no. They're not heavy because the squad gets to carry two of them.

And yes, that standard does have a Move or Shoot capacity with Foot ConvInf while also slowing down the others by 1 MP, and does about twice as much damage as the "Light" SRM team.  Unfortunately, the "Light" SRM team's about as effective as a Ballistic Rifle Platoon, going by MML's calculation.

Why do you keep using MML as a source? Last I heard it wasn't canon. TW page 216 has the ballistic rifle platoon moving and shooting with the same number of troopers doing the same or more damage than the SRM Platoon. The SRM platoon either move or shoot and has greater range.

TM though SRM infantry can move and shoot as long as they only have 1 SRM per squad. I don't know why there being only one would let the trooper carrying it move faster. And then there's the weapons. Since the nerfing of Primary weapons are limited to .60 damage. That is still more damage than the .57 infantry SRMs do. (And I include the 2 shot launcher as it does 1.14 which is .57 for each of it's 2 missiles.) Some primary weapons also have as good a range or better than many support weapons. It makes me wonder why use those support weapons outside of flavor.

AToW and TW do operate at different levels, though.  This is getting back to the sleeping bag example all too quickly.  Detail for one level of game play does not necessarily need to translate to the same level of detail at a level farther pulled out.  And since AToW is newer, it should be reflecting more of the standards that Classic sets for general concepts.  One offs for an individual are one thing, but that doesn't always translate to a group of 25 to 30.

Still, I have heard what you and others have said, and proposed something regarding that above.

Agreed. There are some things in AToW that don't translate or aren't needed in TW. What type of swimwear my scuba infantry wear doesn't matter. Infantry having multiple weapons to choose from should matter. Infantry vehicles providing greater damage, speed, and armor protection should matter. AToW items that can be used in construction, take weight, effect speed, or can limit stacking should matter.