What's old is neu: Relighting the Fringe with old guns and new wars

[Daryk]

As long as you remember to scoot right after you shoot, a mortar carrier shouldn't need armor... ;)

[chanman]

In the Fringe, the only thing that stop you is you.

Well, that and an APFSDS-T penetrator.

Let 'em rip, Trace, DOC, and anyone else! There are many, many worlds that have been mentioned but have no more than a line or three written about them. Those situations would be considerably more constraining than your own, but there are a wealth of options.

Okay, so the Settled Words is, well, settled. Fair enough about "Known Space". I never really read any of Niven's stuff (aside from The
 Mote in God's Eye with Pournelle--and that because of Pournelle), but it is something I should know about. If we had to give the mid-line worlds an appellation, what should it be? Inhabited Worlds? Established Worlds? Stable Worlds? Naming them is not a requirement. Just an idle thought.

"VEESS" stands for "Vehicle Engine Exhaust Smoke System"; basically injecting diesel into the exhaust system to emit smoke.

I had considered "Mryian Royal Aeronautics" but was getting conflicting translations: "Mriyan Korolivka Povitroplavannya" which made sense (but makes it the MKP(P?), but also "mriyan korolivka aeronavtics" (so, MKA).

Tell you what, Kamas: Give me a list of the intro dates for all the AFVs we have constructed so far and what you want your helos called and I'll see about getting them set to rights.

I am not entirely sure Mriya would get smashed, at least not initially. But, if the Novos got spanked hard so soon before the fight--and by their eventual enemy to boot, I suppose they might make a return-visit on their march to fiery dissolution. I would love for chanman to weigh in on this since he made Novosibirsk in the first place. But Mriya could be in for it, at least a little bit.

I wouldn't be so sure that 2565 is out. I mean, after the Great Interstellar War, the Second Troubles took a while to shake off. This one will be worse. I know not exactly what will happen, other than Hochstadt and much of the HPK will die under falling rocks and other unpleasantness. It will be borne from hubris, and human frailty, even self preservation--when faced with a failing system at home, the Novosibirsk Duma will embark on a foreign adventure to prop up their economy and content the proles back home. And when things start to get serious, they just keep going. But so does everyone else, and that's when neighbors start trying settle old scores on the side...

Novosibirsk was a set of Soviet-esque set dressing to support a bunch of Cold War East Bloc designs. I don't recall much if any backstory other than they were jerks with a lot of heavy industry and commoditized AFVs for sale 

[Failure16]

See, I knew you would sum it all up: "Novosibirsk...were jerks with a lot of heavy industry and commoditized AFVs for sale". That is about the Fringe in a nutshell, if you ask me.

The Fringe already has light mortar carriers, Daryk...



Oh, you meant on wheels...

Kamas, thanks for the intro dates. Very appreciated. I can knock together that light squad vehicle, the Karacal, and the MPP-6N when I redo the shebang. Give me some time, though. More to come.

[Daryk]

LOL!  But those light mortar carriers would have a hard time hauling a 120 around... :D

[ANS Kamas P81]

Shoot and scoot is the game to play especially when you're dealing with counterbattery radars.  The question is how long you can shoot before you need to dislocate to avoid incoming strikes - a mortar that only fires once and then has to move is not going to provide much in the way of support fires.

I wonder if Novosibirsk is where the Mriyans got the MTP-304 APC design from.  Built locally of course, but it could be a cheap knockoff of a Novo APC.  It breaks their Not Invented Here syndrome but it's their first APC - they didn't have the knowledge or experience to design their own at the time; the infantry was motorized or light only.

Chanman, any thoughts on what the Jerks With Industry would do to Mriya?  I'm still on board with them getting hammered hard and forced into the HPK at gunpoint for a while; nuking half of Novy Zemlya and a chunk of Gensoukyo is fine with me.  It'd explain why the future Mriyan military is well equipped with CBRN recon and decon troops, following that light infantry organization chart.

LOL on the light mortar carriers, that's one way to do it.  The M224 only weighs 47 pounds assembled, and breaks up into nicely sized packages for its three man crew.  Reposting the light mortar infantry that F16 made here.

F16, no sweat on the dates.  Take your time on the vehicle stats, I'm not in a rush for stuff.  I just get ideas and spam the thread with them, and chew on concepts until I spit out something I like.  This video from Battle Order shows an ISV with a mounted 81mm mortar and a few dozen rounds onboard.  It's supposed to be a light unit, so go with an 81mm instead of the 120mm and see how much ammo you can cram onboard.  The 120mm mortar will remain with the mechanized infantry and their Otselots.

For the MPP-6N, push for ten dismounts aboard the helicopter along with the door guns.  That'd let me airlift an entire light infantry battalion with three rifle companies and a weapons company, plus an HHC, with a single transport battalion of 30 choppers.  I'm sticking with the six-man "heavy rifle teams" for the army, so I can fit one rifle squad or two HWTs per helicopter.  It'd also be enough for an aviation battalion to airlift a Karakal company with its command section, 14 vehicles plus their squads.

LONG EDIT IS LONG

Planetary Report: Mriya (2530)

The world of Mriya is one of combinations and revolutions, with a history of warfare not unlike other planets among the Settled Worlds.  Initially named Mriya Slaviya by the colonists, a group of 15,000 dissidents of the socialist structure of Cherkasy, the world was settled in 2251.  Months later, a colony ship from Tomokomai appeared over the planet, bringing 5,000 settlers from that world.  What might have been a fight for supremacy was handled with skill and aplomb by the negotiators of each colonial faction, and what might have been the birth pains of war for the colony instead became the dream of a unified society.

The Cherkasian settlements formed a new nation, Novy Zemlya, taking up the farmlands of the eastern coastal region.  The colonists from Tomokomai settled in the northern mountains, naming their new home Gensoukyou.  Novy Zemlya's capital, Zoryane Misto (Star City) became the planetary capital.

Over the next fifty years, Mriya Slaviya would grow at a fair pace, with an average of two percent annual population growth per year.  The nascent industry on the planet was centered around farming, with the social pressure to have large numbers of children leading to the rapid growth of both segments of the population.  What was a peaceful, slowly integrating world balance became upset in 2302, with the arrival of a colony ship from one of the Core Worlds.  Novosibirsk sent 8,000 colonists to Mriya Slaviya, with the intent of setting up a pro-homeworld colony on the mineral-rich "outback."

Relations with the democratic societies of Novy Zemlya and Gensoukyou and the communist organization of Novosibirsk's colony, Novaya Mechta, were strained at best.  There was little agreement between the two, though the small populations had no great means of making war with each other.  The three colonies grew, shifting from subsistence to success as they made use of the abundant natural resources of the world and fought to pacify the wild regions of the outback.

This would not last; in 2350 Sapporoan forces invaded and swiftly conquered the world as part of its early expansion of the Great Interstellar War.  The occupation would last thirteen years, with a consistent insurgency among the colonists that eventually led to a punitive bombardment of the settlements by the Sapporoan starships in 2363, as they pulled out of the planet and retreated to their own worlds.  Mriya Slaviya found itself blasted back to a pre-electrical level of technology, and would begin the long, slow climb up the ladder once more.  Mriya Slaviyan civilization fragments over the next thirty years, splitting up into small city-states across the continent.

From 2389 to 2398, war scoured the weakly-populated world, the city-state of Zoryane Misto having rebuilt itself into a monarchy centered around a popular military leader.  Reunification was the goal of the king, and Andriy I would accept no other option from the rest of the world.  Some regions bowed to the throne peacefully, others required pacification from the Zoryane Misto Royal Army.  With the planet united once more by 2400, the king formed the Duchies of Gensoukyou and Novaya Mechta along with Novy Zemlya, the highest populated region on the world.  Citing the mixture of cultures on the planet, and with a mind to a new start, the world was renamed to Mriya by royal decree. 

Many noble titles were handed out after the Reunification War ended, establishing a strong peerage and the potential of the commonfolk having accession to their ranks.  Noble titles such as knighthoods are common rewards for service to the nation, and can be inherited by a designated successor to the original title holder.

It would be 2460 before another starship would visit Mriya, and bring with it stories of the Great Interstellar War and the general collapse of the Settled Worlds over the last century.  Stories of Mriya's mineral wealth soon spread, and in 2463 a mercenary unit sought to conquer the lightly-populated world and make it their own.  The Devil's Herd set down in the outback, quickly overwhelming what defenses the Mriyans had and taking over the mines.  A guerilla war followed, with harassment by civilian militias and constant night and water raids finally being successful in convincing the Herd that there were better options elsewhere.  The mercenaries left the planet, but not before wrecking everything they held.

Fifty years of peace would pass, as Mriya once again found itself among the Settled Worlds, trading on the value of its mineral resources and rapidly growing the planet.  By 2510, however, conflicts simmering on the planet between the Novosibirsk-aligned Novaya Mechta and the independent duchies of Novy Zemlya and Gensoukyou came to a head.  With support from the Core World, Novaya Mechta overthrew its government and rebelled, creating the Novaya Mechta People's Republic.  The ill-equipped Mriyan Armed Forces fought the rebels to a stalemate that would last ten years.

While the Mriyans modernized as best they could over that ten year period, the NMPR was doing the same and eventually smuggling in heavy weapons and troops from Novosibirsk itself.  Pro-communist forces surged out of the NMPR, smashing aside Mriyan defenders for several years and sacking the cities of Novy Zemlya.  The royal government retreated to Gensoukyou, and in its desperation called for the help of the Black Devils and Foreign Service Regiment mercenary forces.  Their appearance rapidly turned the tide of the war, which ended with the former NMPR in smoking rubble and King Volodomyr I unquestioned as leader of the planet.

With the fear that it would happen again present in everyone's mind, the government spent profligate amounts of money rebuilding its military industry and the military itself, with Hero Projects declared to maximize output and reform the Mriyan Armed Forces as rapidly as possible.  These efforts would come to fruition in 2529, giving the Mriyans a heavy mechanized army just in time for the eve of the Second Interstellar War.

The geography of Mriya is relatively simple.  The planet has one large continent approximately 900km east to west, and 1,450km north to south.  The land is loosely rectangular, stretching from 20 degrees latitude on the southern edge to 45 degrees on the north.  To the east, a series of volcanic islands dot the ocean along the seam of two tectonic plates, forming an atmospheric disturbance that often spawns large scale storms that move west to the coastal region of Novy Zemlya.  The three moons exhibit quite a bit of pull on the world, so it gets some active quakes; the main continent of Mriya Slaviya is in the center of its plate so it doesn't ride the edge and suffer quakes like Earth's "ring of fire" does.  The volcanic islands off to the east are on a mid-ocean ridge, which makes for significant seismic and volcanic activity in the area.

The axial tilt is less than that of earth, making the difference between summer and winter less pronounced.  The jet stream is strong and bisects the continent, providing cold and snowy winters for the mountain region of Gensoukyou while keeping temperatures slightly warmer than Earth's average for Novy Zemlya and Novaya Mechta.  The outback plateau gets few storms, which expend themselves against the eastern coast; it remains an arid near-desert landscape. 

The Great Divide mountain range reaches the sea on both the northern and southern edges of the continent, extending to a small group of islands from both edges of the range.  This mountain range reaches peaks of 12,000 feet, and acts as a weather shield for the interior highlands, keeping the heavy cyclonic storms pouring much of their rain on the coastal region.  Because of these storms, much of the construction of Novy Zemlya is concrete and steel, with the simple efficiency of brutalist architecture popular among the builders.  Resisting the destructive storms is a major consideration of life on Mriya.

The interior of Nova Zemlya is a highlands averaging approximately 2,000 feet above sea level.  This land is mostly basaltic lava from a number of now extinct shield volcanoes that make up the Great Divide and a few low peaks in the highlands.  The highlands slope downward to the west, reaching approximately 1,000 feet above sea level before reaching a small mountain chain that makes up the western coast.  Temperatures average as much as ten degrees higher than the coastlines, and with the mountains blocking most storm activity the plains receive only scattered rains.

Wildlife on Mriya Slaviya is similar to that of the African savannahs.  Megafauna exist and are plentiful, with carnivorous analogues to the rhinocerous of Earth at the top of the food chain in the outback.  Lesser animals, including poisonous avians and reptiles, are commonplace outside of the carefully controlled farms and ranches.  Because of this dangerous level of wildlife, hunting is common and firearms ownership among the population is only moderately regulated - most rural households have rifles capable of stopping such animals.  Handgun ownership is rare and wrapped with more legal complications, however.

The apex predator in Mriya Slaviya's great ocean is the Giant Anglerfish, which feeds on shark and whale analogues and other large wildlife.  I mean, it's one butt-ugly fish to start with, so it makes for a good 'bad guy' sea life.  There'd also need to be something akin to the blue whale, some truly massive sea life feeding on MS's equivalent of plankton.  They don't come close to the shores, though, because there's a continental shelf that makes things rather shallow for sea life.  Once you get offshore in the deep, though, there's some wild stuff to be found.  Octosharks are a thing as well, because why not give a shark tentacles and camouflage abilities.  They need the latter to hide from the Giant Anglerfish.

With Mriya Slaviya technologically being at around 1980 in the year 2520, oil is in high demand.  Oil reserves are sufficient for the needs of the population, with large fields offshore being discovered and drilled.  The storms often disrupt the rigs, but the Mriyans have learned to adapt to the heavy winds and rain and work around the hurricanes.  Storm Stalker aircraft often fly reconnaissance patterns through the storms, determining their strength and direction before they reach populated areas.

Information architecture is pretty basic; PCs exist, but mostly for business applications - they're expensive, and local software development has its limits.  The most common form of computer system is a mainframe and terminal rather than a home microprocessor, though the new, Gensoukyou-built Ringo IIC is popular among consumers.  There are, of course, rare imported computers much more advanced than that, but they're luxury items for the wealthy and of limited use with the state of Mriyan computers.

Public transport covers much of Mriya Slaviya, between buses and trains in the cities and a rail and road network that connects many of the small settlements in the outback to the coastal cities.  Car ownership has its own culture, though it is heavily regulated by the government.  Light aircraft are popular, used in various roles but mostly for agricultural and transport duties.  Many small airports dot the nation, some of which are the only way to reach distant villages.

Governmentally, the planet is a constitutional monarchy in the executive with a democratically elected House of Lords for the legislative branch.  Every three years the population chooses those among the nobility to represent the general population in the House of Lords; the small size of the population means that the elections are planetwide instead of by region.  The High Court is appointed by the House of Lords, and forms the national-level judiciary.

The major religion on the planet would be the Mriyan Autocephalous Orthodox Patriarchate, primarily in the Novy Zemyla region.  The Gensoukyouans practice a  postmodern Shinto animism; the colony ship from Tomokomai left the Buddhists behind.  The MAOP is heavily sponsored by the Mriyan government, and is recognized as the official religion of Novy Zemlya.  Attempts to proselytize in either direction have been limited and unfruitful; both regions of the planet stick to their own beliefs.  60% of the population follows the MAOP, with 20% Shinto and 14% Novaya Mechtan atheists.  Other religions make up the remaining 6%, none with more than a political handful of followers.

The Mriyan Autocephalous Orthodox Patriarchate is popular with the army, even as half of the military are Gensoukyouan Shintoists.  There's a bit of syncretism going on as both belief systems grow alongside each other, but they're still both independent religious structures and both are recognized by the crown as national religions.  The MAOP and the Gensoukyouan Shinto Shrine Association (Jinja Honcho) have embraced the military, and frequently are seen giving divine blessing to military equipment and personnel outside of normal services.

The concept of self-reliance, as well as veneration of the military and the leadership, is a significant mode of thought on Mriya.  Plenty of patriotic music and movies to watch about the glory of service and the tales of great soldiers, and plenty of propaganda to spread around - especially with the separatists in Novaya Mechta.  Self-reliance has its limits, and the King knows the Mriyans are recovering slower than they should from the Great Interstellar War.  With the experience of the Novosibirsk-Mriya war fresh in their minds, and the performance of the technologically advanced star mercenaries, the freeze on foreign technologies and ideas is thawing as Mriya looks to bootstrap itself to the level of the Settled Worlds.  Military technologies come first and foremost, with civilian applications left to grow at a slower rate.

Shooting culture on Mriya is a thing, with the widespread ownership of long guns to deal with Mriyan fauna.  There's competitive riflery that's commonplace, and a lot of rural areas where a good rifle can be a lifesaver - so most recruits have at least some experience with a rifle.  I could see a mindset of "every soldier is a rifleman first" like the Marines, with training in long-range shooting being part of basic training.

The Mriyan military is focused primarily around its Land Forces, with the Air Force as an adjunct arm of the military.  The Land Forces fought for mechanization on their own terms after learning from their Black Devil advisors, building their own vehicles in factories on their own world rather than buying and relying on foreign suppliers.  By 2530, this has given the MLF two full fighting divisions of combined-arms troops, plus a special forces battalion.

The Mriyan Air Force exists to support the Land Forces, with its tactical aviation focused around homemade "Hryf" (Vulture) turboprop ground attack aircraft built by hand.  Transports dot the country, primarily to deal with logistics for the military and the occasional VIP transport when the king is visiting other parts of the world.  Training requirements dictate a number of small light aircraft for beginning pilots that join the Air Force.

There is no navy as most other worlds might have, though there is a coast guard primarily for civil protection and law enforcement.  There are few places to travel to by boat with the vast majority of the world covered by water.  Nor are there any real threats on the water; the outlying islands have small populations and they mostly just want to be left alone.  That is, as long as they don't need rescuing from Mriyan hurricanes, at which point the Sea Patrol steps in.

Most of the military's officer corps are volunteers in long-term service, the great majority of them members of the noble families of Mriya.  There's strong social pressure for the nobility to serve in the military; those who don't tend to be among the lower strata and are sometimes considered politically unreliable.  Meanwhile volunteerism born from heavy propaganda fills in the enlisted ranks and the remainder of the officer corps, as those with high scores in the intake evaluation are routed to OCS.  Service terms for the volunteer are four years of active duty service followed by a four year reserve status, with remaining as part of the mobilizable pool until the age of 40.

Gensoukyouans are an outsized portion of the military.  Their population is a little under a third of the total country, though they make up nearly half of the fighting forces.  Women in the military make up about 20% of the total personnel, with the fewest in the Marauders special forces battalion, and the highest percentage in the Air Force.  Physiological advantages of the female body make them excellent pilots with superior situational awareness, and many aviatrixes have gone on to distinguish themselves among the Storm Stalker aircraft that fly the most dangerous missions.

An independent federal police force monitors the country, with armored SWAT vehicles surplus from the MSLF.  Mriya Federal Police units use Eland 60 armored cars for dealing with riots and rampaging megafauna.  Use the gun-mortar for firing smoke or tear gas shells against rioters or explosive rounds against oversized wild animals, and load the twin 7.62mm MGs with rubber bullets for crowd dispersal.

During the NMPR insurrection, illegal checkpoints and toll stations were set up across the outback as a means of extorting money and hostages from the population.  The Mriyan Federal Police was forced to mobilize road patrols with civilian models of gun trucks, jeeps with FN MAGs, and the AMLs they inherited from the MLF.  Patrolling the highways of the country was critical to keeping the mines open and successfully shipping their ores, and the regular pursuit and interceptor cars of the MFP were supplemented with their own cavalry forces in the AMLs and gun trucks to enforce these patrols.  After the war, the MFP heavily patrols that side of the country, watching carefully for signs of a resurgent insurrection again.  They will be first ones to respond to such a resurgence, as the Mriyan military rebuilds

Mriya is a planet of mixtures, with the combined cultures of Novaya Mechta, Gensoukyou, and Novy Zemlya slowly coming together in the high arid plateaus of the only major landmass on the planet.  It finds itself slowly healing the scars of several civil wars, and has rebuilt its armed forces twice now - most recently at great expense.  Sizeable amounts of the mineral wealth of the world were signed over to the Interstellar Bank as a means of paying for the world-saving star mercenaries.  It is a world where one may rise or fall, elevated to planetary nobility or have titles stripped away for malfeasance at the whims of fate.  Technologically, the Mriyans have made the long, hard crawl out of the darkness on their own, but now look to others for a future.

[chanman]

Chanman, any thoughts on what the Jerks With Industry would do to Mriya?  I'm still on board with them getting hammered hard and forced into the HPK at gunpoint for a while; nuking half of Novy Zemlya and a chunk of Gensoukyo is fine with me.  It'd explain why the future Mriyan military is well equipped with CBRN recon and decon troops, following that light infantry organization chart.

That's a question of how the Novos perceive their relations with Mriya; if they owe them or have some associated kinship of history or culture, all fed through whichever blinders or self-aggrandizing propaganda they marinate in. Notably, those can change with the political tides and economic fortunes too and the ways identities are constructed or formed and who's helping who against what third (fourth, fifth, sixth) interlopers.

As for CBRN gear. No one said colonized worlds had to be particularly habitable. Absent of human meddling, there are plenty of other reasons the atmosphere may be hostile to human physiology.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Well, the Novos have had a pro-homeworld communist colony on Mriya since 2302, which was forced into the monarchy in 2398.  They just lost a war to take over the planet through its colony in 2524.  My thoughts were that they'd want Mriya in the HPK just like the other worlds, and to get rid of the politically degenerate monarchy and bring the world out of an obsolete system and into a proper communist state.  Once IW2 starts, I figured they'd decide to come back, and with nuclear weapons to take out the military in its scattered garrisons and to decapitate the government to prevent them from seeking mercenary help again.  Add in a general bombing to avenge the heavy destruction of Novaya Mechta and break the will of the people to fight...which works, and Mriya surrenders after massive losses to its armed forces.

As far as hospitable planets, Mriya's pretty good - the air's entirely breathable normally, though the wildlife can get pretty threatening with the amount of megafauna in the interior of the continent.  CBRN troops wouldn't be required to live on the world, and is actually a function lacked by the military prior to 2530.  Nobody's building or using nukes or chemical weapons beyond tear gas on the planet, so there's little need for decontamination troops.

EDIT

Attached image: A Gensoukyouan priestess examines an FN MAG for the infantry prior to giving it and others a ritual divine blessing.

Also nixed the helicopter request.  I'm looking to cut back on Mriyan production after the civil war 2520-2524, and give them one Heavy Division equipped with Levs and Otselots and one Light Division having three brigades equipped with Karakals plus a battalion of Levs.  They've got more troops than heavy vehicles, especially in the years after the war.  I was initially thinking of making one brigade a pure light infantry force with an air assault focus, but that'd be too many helicopters in the unit.  As it is I can still mobilize a couple Karakal companies with MPP-6 transports, which is sufficient for me. 

Adding one more request for a Karakal variant, with an RFC/2 on top to be a light antiaircraft vehicle.  Max weight 1990kg, to keep it air-transportable.  Sorry to put so much on you!

Idly I wonder how doable an M8 Armored Gun System with Level II armor would be under Tankreator.  Twenty ton cap, tech Level 4, 5 front armor and turret (protection against 30mm fire), 2 on the sides and rear (protection against 14.5mm fire), speed 5 (max offroad speed 50km/h, road speed 76km/h), an SC/10 with 30 rounds, and a coaxial APW/M with 4,500 rounds.  Add an APW/H on the roof with a few boxes of ammo for the Commander, nothing specified.  Total crew 3 since it's got an autoloader.  Maintenance on the engine is made super-easy because it's mounted on a slide-out tray in the rear of the vehicle.



I'm debating on whether to retcon the TAM with this; it should have solid cross-country performance since it's supposed to go everywhere a light infantryman can go.  It's also 10-13 tons lighter than the TAM, in the same weight range as the Otselot, which means I can use the same infrastructure to support it as well as the IFV.  That's why I'm thinking of the change, that weight limit means a lot.  That's assuming it can be made in Tankreator...

That would require removing the Lev from the 2520 inventory and sticking with an all-mechanized-infantry force for the First Mriya-Novosibirsk War.  The M8 comes out in 1995, which is 2527 by my technology calendar, so I'd have three years to build them before the 2530 Second Interstellar War.  It'd also mean I could get away with producing fewer of them, since the Otselot ARV has a five ton crane and a 25 ton winch, which is more than enough to pull an M8 out of a ditch.



Nothing I do is ever finished, sigh.

Really leaning towards switching the Lev tank from the TAM to the M8 in my head.  Any reason not to outside of "it's not got a lot of ammo for the main gun" and "the armor is shit" from anyone?  It's got that easy maintenance and would have a Mark II version with an SC/12 which would make it an effective tank destroyer as well as pillbox/bunker/nest killer.  I won't lie, I want that SC/12 at 20 tons...can you imagine the recoil from firing that sucker?




Coax MG is visible in the second pic just peeking out of the turret, add an .50 APW/H to the turret roof with about 600 rounds in the tank for it for the TC.

EDIT

The 2530 organization and brigade/battalion names for the MLF:

"Bronʹovanyy Spys"/"Soukou Yari" (Armored Spear) 1st Heavy Division
  "Chornyy Nosorih"/"Kurosai" (Black Rhino) 1st Heavy Brigade (Otselot x120, Lev x42, Pavuk x18, Karakal x9)
  "Bilyy Kinʹ"/"Hakuba" (White Horse) 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team (Otselot x120, Lev x42, Pavuk x18, Karakal x9)
  "Chervonyy Kinʹ"/"Aka Uma" (Red Horse) 4th Heavy Brigade Combat Team (Otselot x120, Lev x42, Pavuk x18, Karakal x9)
  "Zalizni Kozaky"/"Tetsu no Kosakku" (Iron Cossacks) 4th Divisional Cavalry Squadron (Otselot x51, Lev x24)
  "Vohnyana Strily"/"Hiya" (Fire Arrows) 1st Artillery Brigade (M-68 x54)
  "Nebesni Vovky"/"Sora no Oukami" (Sky Wolves) 1st Aviation Brigade (MPP-6 x90, MPP-12 x30)
  "Lantsyuhovi Mechi"/"Kusari no Ken" (Chainswords) Engineer Battalion
  "Zolotyy Plashch"/"Kin no Manto" (Gold Cloak) 1st Divisional Protection Brigade (Otselot x50)
  "Holodnyy Vovk"/"Ueta Oukami" (Hungry Wolf) 1st Divisional Sustainment Brigade

"Kyndzhal"/"Tanken" (Dagger) 2nd Light Division
  "Krylati Choboty"/"Tsubasa no Buutsu" (Winged Boots) 2nd Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Chornyy Kinʹ"/"Kuro Uma" (Black Horse) 5th Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Blidyy Kinʹ"/"Aojiroi Uma" (Pale Horse) 6th Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Kirasyry"/"Munayoroi Kihei" (Cuirassiers) 5th Armor Battalion (Lev x42, Otselot x11, Karakal x9)
  "Stalevyy Hrim"/"Kotetsu no Kaminari" (Steel Thunder) 2nd Artillery Brigade (M-68 x54)
  "Tugarin Zmeyevich" (Tugarin Zmeyevich) 2nd Aviation Brigade (MPP-6 x90, MPP-12 x30)
  "Kuvalda"/"Outsuchi" (Sledgehammer) 2nd Engineer Battalion
  "Chornyy Plashch"/"Kuro no Manto" (Black Cloak) 2nd Protection Brigade (Otselot x6, Karakal x36)
  "Bila Vorona"/"Kuroi hitsuji" (White Crow) 2nd Division Sustainment Brigade

"Marodery Moroza"/"Morōzu no Ryakudatsusha" (Moroz's Marauders) Special Operations Battalion (Pavuk x54)
"Spets-hrupa Monstr"/"Tokushu Shuudan Youkai" (Special Group Monster) Special Operations Aviation Battalion (MPP-12 x30)

Total Vehicles
Otselot IFV: 478
Lev Light Tank: 192
Karakal Squad Mobility Vehicle: 585
Pavuk Fast Scout Vehicle: 144
M-68 Artillery: 108
MPP-6 Helicopter: 180
MPP-12 Helicopter: 90
Jeeps and Trucks: Zillions

Also got rid of the G6 howitzers; they're just too darn big for my purposes.  The things weigh 46 tons, which is two and a half times heavier than an Otselot (or an M8 for that matter).  I stuck with the towed Soltam M-68 155mm towed artillery that was standard tube artillery in 2520.

2488, Introduction of MPP-6 Helicopter (UH-1)
2489, Introduction of MTP-304K/A (BTR-152K/A)
2492, Introduction of Serval Armored Car (Eland)
2495, Introduction of BM-21 Grad, introduction of MPP-12 Helicopter (OH-6)
2506, Introduction of M-68 155mm artillery piece
2514, Introduction of Hryf (Vulture) Attack Plane (Pucara)
2515, Introduction of Otselot IFV (Ratel)
2518, Introduction of Lev Medium Tank (TAM)*
2525, Introduction of Lev IIB Medium Tank (TAM 2IP)*
2527, Introduction of Lev Light Tank (M8 Thunderbolt)*

*Depends on if I switch to the M8 or not, which in itself depends on whether it can be made in Tankreator.  If it doesn't work, I'll stick with the TAM.

[Daryk]

I can only imagine some royalists will survive the nuking and be an insurgent thorn in the side of the Novos... ;)

[ANS Kamas P81]

With РОСОМОМИ spraypainted on the victims of various raids no less.  Call it a returned favor for the ten year NMPR insurgency.  Though most of the population would go along with their new overlords out of sheer fear; getting heavily nuked and burying a third of your population tends to cow a planet.

Ran across this image of cannon velocity for the 120mm ETC gun on the M8 Thunderbolt compared to a conventional 120mm. 



That performance makes me wonder if it's possible to switch the SC/12 for an HVC/12.  After all, the HVC/6 on the M-60 Herman punches rounds around the same velocity.  The real world XM291 120mm ETC gun only weighs 1.5 tons, too, so it depends on the game stats.  Also side note, the APW/H on the roof has 600 rounds stored onboard.

Edited the above stat request for the 1995 version of the M8 with the 105mm gun being an SC/10 being built as of 2527, and the 2003 M8 Thunderbolt with the SC/12 or HVC/12 being introduced in 2530.  The M8 Thunderbolt only has 18 rounds for its gun, so it's a Battletech level of ammo, but it's enough for one engagement. 

[Daryk]

Hilariously, Google thought it was Russian at first... :D

[chanman]

That M8 is painted in a positively Soviet shade of olive-drab. 

https://youtu.be/rI7o3NwCswg?t=1578

[Daryk]

Yes, yes it is! :D

[ANS Kamas P81]

Russian Green has so many shades, though!  It all depends on how dilapidated your equipment is, which can be pretty darn green.

Matsimus has a neat video on the M8 that shows the removal of the engine for a powerpack swap. 

I found another video that I grabbed a screenshot out of that shows the interior organization of the turret.  I'm surprised, I would have expected it to be like Soviet, French, or Japanese tanks, with the commander on one side and the gunner on the other, with the autoloader between them.  In this case the ammo is stored in a crescent shaped magazine with the autoloader taking up the left side and middle of the turret, and the gunner seated forward of the commander Abrams-style on the right side of the turret.

Maybe it's Shiny New Toy syndrome, but I like the M8 the more I watch and read about it, and I keep coming back to that 20 ton mass limit.  If Tankreator can make it, I'd like to switch the Lev tank from the TAM to the M8.  Also came across some info that the M8 Thunderbolt with the 120mm gun weighed 21 tons, up a ton from the 105mm-armed M8 AGS.  There's also the mention that the autoloader itself only carried 18 rounds, while the tank carried extra loads in a separate storage area.  So total round count should be 26 shells between the autoloader and the hull storage.  That extra ton should help create the Thunderbolt in Tankreator.

[Failure16]

"Can it be built?," he asks. "Can Tankreator handle it?," he wonders. Oh, ye of little faith...

Um. Yeah. Tankreator was, well, made to build things like the M8. Just for the fun of it, I added in my old Saturn SC2 (with an appropriately old-school, original sheet! Woot!). That girl was a tank in her own right.

You may note that I did not add Record Sheets for the M8s Level II-III; it's a limitation of Excel and I want to properly stat your Mriyan tanks as I do the different levels. Then I'll have real-world sheets and Fringe sheets! But, I need to get the name for this new beast so I can move forward with the 2530/upgraded model. I'll put all the different guns on it until one fits just right. If you want an HVC/12, okay. It weighs a tonne more than an SC/10, but I haven't looked into the M8 Thunderbolt, so I don't know what I have to work with.

As an aside, I won't be redoing the Lev sheets. You can keep them as-is because their old/original dates seem feasible as an early attempt at a homegrown tank. I have a bunch of other ones redone, including some you didn't ask for.

Design Notes:

Everything came in pretty much right on the button using publicly available specs. The only real concession I made was I had to leave some coax ammo at home for the Level III. I decided to give it some Anti-HEAT Supplementary Armor because that what the Level III looked like other than just slabs of straight armor-plate (that is to say, I know a lot of it is spaced armor). I will note that TL3 LATRs (Light Anti-Tank Rockets--the game version of RPGs) have an AT value of 5, which was going to be hard to put on such a light tank--and the armor was only rated at 30mm protection anyways. So, something against hand-held threats it was, and that meant AHSA.

I got tricky with the notes: I gave it full speed because every source I have says it is governed at 70+ kph, and nothing about road speed. And...the numbers worked. It goes without saying I trust Tankreator implicitly and have found that if you just go with the most obvious choices and don't fight it, you probably will come out close to what is really going on in the real-world.

Then I gave it its special attributes, just to show where these things go as you are designing things.

[DOC_Agren]

The M8 has a # of good things going for it, but we never got to see how it will work real world.

[ANS Kamas P81]

I wonder no more, Tankreator can make anything.  I remember making the Pursuit Special from Mad Max in it back in the day, I wonder if you still have that record sheet.  The write-up of the Saturn is great; I had one of those cars too.  I miss that brand; they made good stuff.

Call the M8 the Hepard.  The name translates as Cheetah, and with that 70kph governed offroad speed it lives up to its name. The Level 1 armor is spot on; the Level 2 looks a little light but it'll still stop 30mm RFC/3s at medium range on the front and turret, and APW/Hs up close all around.  I can live with that. 

The M8 Thunderbolt's a wild one.  I found Tank Nut Dave's page on it with some solid statistics on performance.  It's got a (probably governed) top speed of 50km/h offroad and 76km/h on road, and the powerpack deserves special note - it's a hybrid-electric drive with a small 300hp engine in the front and two electric motors for 750hp in the rear.  It's capable of running purely on electric power for 6km and being damn quiet doing it.  In addition, the revised powerpack is moved out of the rear of the tank, leaving room for a four-man compartment at the rear.



Personally I'm of the opinion to make the Hepard a mix of the two vehicles.  Give it a standard engine, with the ability to be disconnected and rolled out of the back of the tank, scrapping the infantry compartment.  Since the SC/12 only weighs one ton more than the SC/10, definitely go with the 120mm.  The real-world Thunderbolt, with add-on armor, weighs 25 tons in total compared to the 24 tons for the Level 3 armor package on a regular M8, so it only weighs a ton more in general.  I'd prefer to stick with the Level 2 armor package as the standard version, which brings me to a official request.

A Hepard is a light tank weighing a maximum of 21.5 tons, a 3/2/2/3 front/side/rear/turret armor profile, an SC/12 with 18 rounds in the autoloader and 7-8 rounds in storage, an APW/M with at least 600 bursts, an APW/H with 100 bursts, and keeping a speed of 7 for offroad movement.  I'll skip the baseline M8's 105mm armed version and jump straight to the 120mm gun, citing a need to kill Novo tanks at ranges they can't shoot back at - or hit a moving target easily.  If you want to make an uparmored version, keep the armor at 3/2/2/3 and add AH on the front, sides, and turret, with a total mass budget of 25 tons or less.  That's the winch capacity of an Otselot ARV, so that's a hard limit there.  The less the better, of course.  As I understand it, AH armor adds +4 to the armor rating against HEAT rounds, so the uparmored version would be proof against infantry-fired light antitank systems.

Yeah, it's kinda like putting a PPC on a Locust.  The Hepard is very much a glass cannon, and while it would die horribly even against M5A2 Hermans it's capable of taking on Novosibirsk armor, or even a Buschmeister from the sides - something the Lev can't do.  The ETC 120mm gun was developed in 1991, while the M8 itself reached production readiness in 1995, so that would make them available in 2527.  While the Thunderbolt didn't exist until 2003, all the parts were there to make it in the 1990s, so I'm going with that justification for a 2527 production date. 

What to do with the TAM-based Lev for the meanwhile?  Make it officially nonselected by the MLF, but still produce it as an export tank and compete in the Herman markets for medium tanks with decent firepower and acceptable levels of protection.  Why was it nonselected?  Fluff reasons, the weight was too heavy for Otselot ARVs or some bridges to handle, air transportability was more limited, the maintenance of the front-mounted engine was difficult, the gun wasn't powerful enough to take on Novosibirsk tanks, and while it had improved terrain capabilities the MLF still wanted more terrain accessibility and speed out of a tank, which the Hepard provided.  So the Lev, quickly upgraded into the Lev IIB, gets put on the export market to raise capital for the nationalized defense industry, while the lighter Hepard with its SC/12 gun gets put into service as the second try for a Mriyan tank. 

The Lev gets developed in 2518, trialed, but production is derailed by the war from 2520 to 2523.  The Lev factory was rebuilt in 2524, starting its exports among the stars.  After the war in 2523, the Hepard is hastily drawn up in that year, prototyped and trialed by 2526, and is approved for production in 2527.  The Hepard benefited from technologies purchased from other worlds, with its electroplasma ignition giving it superior performance over a regular 120mm gun.  Its 21.5 ton weight made it possible to go anywhere the Otselot-based infantry could go, and the cavalry units praised its high speed to get in and out of danger quickly.

Since there's only three tankers in a vehicle, I'm including a Security Platoon in each tank company.  Three Karakals carrying a squad of TWATs each make up the platoon, which gets split up one vehicle to each of the three tank platoons.  That gives extra situational awareness to the tanks, and provides overwatch and extra hands to help out the three-man crew in things like track repair and provide extra tank crew to injured or otherwise unavailable crewmen.

After watching this video from The Chieftain on the interior of the XM1302 I can see the Hepard is going to be a tight fit.  I think I'll give a height envelope for 150-180cm for my tank troops, which is similar to the 150-175cm restriction the Soviets put on their tanks.  There's going to be a lot of women in the tank platoons, with their average shorter stature making it easy to get in and out and operate the tank in its tight confines.  I suppose that Gensoukyouan priestess I posted earlier is going to join the tankers.

The gauntlet is thrown, F16, let's see what a 120mm armed Hepard looks like in the final design!

EDIT

After rereading the rules, I found out that HVCs don't get specialty ammo.  I want the flexibility of a main gun and the option for APFSDS, HEAT, HESH, and canister shells, so I will switch the request to a standard SC/12.  They're the same weight as an HVC, so the mass requirements won't change.  That extended short range of the HVC is delicious, but I want to be able to blow the hell out of bunkers with HESH rounds (yummy double damage) and get the +2 crit bonus from APFSDS.  Do HEAT rounds get any particular benefit, especially since they can be countered with simple armor addons?

EDIT

An abridged essay on the development of Mriyan armor, 2492-2530

The history of the Mriyan tank battalions is one of try, try again.  Initial attempts to provide heavy gun support to their infantry led to the development of the ultralight Eland 90mm gun carrier in 2492.  The vehicles were notoriously cramped and unpopular with their crews, with only moderate cross-country performance.  Getting bogged down in open sand and mud was not uncommon, and the only option for a recovery vehicle was a 2 1/2 ton truck to pull it out.  Their speed offroad was deemed acceptable, though the vehicles had significantly better performance on hard surfaces.  The Elands were relegated to MFP service, given a new turret with a 60mm mortar and two machine guns to serve as armored police units instead of frontline combat vehicles.

When the Otselot IFV was in the design phase, it was suggested by the Black Devils mercenary advisors to take the turrets from the Eland 90 and place them on the new, more powerful vehicle.  While the Otselot was still limited by its thin armor protection, the 90mm gun was used to great effect in the initial phases of the NMPR revolution to shatter bunkers and destroy fixed fortifications that posed a threat to their deployed infantry.  The Otselot's offroad performance was significantly better than that of the Eland, making the mobile 90mm gun a welcome adjunct to the mechanized infantry platoons that received them.  While the armor protection of the Otselot was limited, its speed offroad let it respond to reconnaissance reports and deliver fires much faster than the Eland.

Against M-60 Herman tanks imported by the pro-Novosibirsk communist government of Novaya Mechta, however, the 90mm guns were found wanting.  They could reliably kill a Herman from the sides or rear, but a frontal shot was questionable as to whether the round could penetrate armor, even when using APFSDS rounds.  The superior range of the Herman's gun, plus the fact that the Otselot had to stop to fire accurately, left the IFV the loser in multiple engagements.  The Otselot was also vulnerable to heavy machine gun fire from some angles, and even a glancing hit from the 60mm high velocity cannon in the Herman would likely cripple the Otselot or leave it a burning wreck.

This led to the development of the Lev tank and its entering production in 2518, a 30 ton vehicle with armor protection sufficient to take on a M-60 Herman while having a gun that was able to kill the opposing tank at equal ranges.  The 105mm gun of the Lev was a technological success, the first large tank gun built by the Mriyans.  The Lev trickled out of the factory at a rate that left the Mriyan Land Forces constantly hungry for more tanks.  Even though the vehicle was limited in its strategic movement because of its weight - the infrastructure was built to support vehicles in the Otselot's weight range - it was seen as a war winner until Novosibirsk flooded the breakaway People's Republic with its own military personnel and equipment.

The Lev found itself undergunned to deal with the new Novosibirsk tanks, and the tank corps suffered under the heavy guns of the enemy.  The tank was fast in the brush of the open fields, but retreating to the mountain regions of Gensoukyou left them underpowered in the thin air.  Oxygen concentrators were looked at as a solution to allow the vehicle to operate at high altitudes, but the large size of the powerpack left no room for such modifications, and the tank's performance was only mediocre in the high altitudes.  It was sheer luck that the enemy armor was afflicted with the same problem, slowing their advance before mercenary forces arrived to the rescue of the Mriyan government.

After the war, the few remaining Lev tanks were slated to be sold as surplus military hardware - the tanks could only be transported on heavy-duty rail lines with special cars, compared to their lighter IFV brethren.  The factory lines were left open, producing a small number of tanks per year while looking for foreign sales.  This left the MLF on the horns of a dilemma.  A new tank was needed, and it needed to be as compact as possible to allow it to be strategically mobile by rail and truck transport.  A new gun was needed as well, something powerful enough to pierce the armor of even the Novosibirsk military's heavy tanks.  With the royal government ordering the purchase of advanced technologies from other worlds, new options opened up technologically that included advanced fire control systems, improved nightvision, and improvements to the gun system that made it significantly more accurate than its initial expectations.

A new lightweight aluminum and titanium chassis mated to a 550hp engine meant the armor was only marginally better than the Otselot, but could be improved with bolt-on spaced armor blocks to defend against infantry anti-tank attacks.  Oxygen concentrators were prioritized into the engine's design, making it able to operate even at the highest altitudes of the Gensoukyou mountains.  Maintenance was made easier by the ability to disconnect the engine and transmission and slide it out on a armored tray, unlike the Lev.  The power to weight ration was better than 25 horsepower per ton, giving the newly christened Hepard tank a 40% improvement in offroad speed compared to the Lev.  Special seating developed from offroad racing vehicles was installed, with shock absorbers and five-point harnesses to keep the crews from bouncing around at high speed.  This was also found to improve crew survivability when the vehicle was tested against anti-tank mines, even if the tank itself was disabled.  The new lightweight smoothbore 120mm gun fired significantly more powerful long-rod wolfram-carbide rounds than the Lev's rifled 105mm, with the APFSDS performance noted for its high penetration of target armor.  Electronics improvements bought from other worlds gave advanced nightvision and fire control systems, making for superior situational awareness in the Hepard.

Currently, the Lev tank is offered as an export model, competing for the Herman's market share in interstellar arms deals.  The IIB version of the Lev was developed after the war, with an improved armor suite and ERA tiles protecting the front of the hull and the turret.  Its 105mm gun is touted as a multipurpose weapon, with a wide range of ammunition available to it.  Those crews that operated the Lev remember it fondly, even with all its troubles in the mountains of Gensoukyou.  Meanwhile the Hepard was pushed through rapidly, undergoing field testing for a year in 2526 while the factory was tooled up to rapid production.  It was labeled a Hero Project by the government, maximizing efforts to get it into the inventory as rapidly as possible alongside the rebuilding of the Otselot factory and the IFV's return to mass production as well.  This effort would be prescient, as the five-year-plan was to expire in 2530 with the reformation of the military.  It would culminate in over 200 Hepards built, including prototypes and training vehicles, on the eve of the outbreak of the Second Interstellar War.

[Failure16]

Really loving all that tasty write-up, Kamas!

Okay, some heavy(ish) metal for you. No specific problems, but I had to get a little creative with things like coax ammo and whatnot. I had to break down and give the 2527 Hepard a supercharger to get that speed, and it came in a touch overweight, but I'd still say an ARV could pull it. I made a 2529 Uparmor (the Apbronia--hoping for the best with the translator!) that really is just a field-level up-grade with bolt-on AHSA.

And then I wanted to see what I could get out of the chassis with a main-gun swap for the King Cheetah (the Tsarsky)--and a new powerpack, bought-in perhaps from Hochstadt or even New Detroit (hey, the M8s use Detroit Diesels and it's not impossible to say that Mriya talked to the developers of the doughty Hermie and got some hints from a hitherto unknown-to-us model that world is pushing out). I scored some heavier armor (side skirts are cool, man) and waffled about pushing the bow to turret levels, but wanted to stay in the 25T hardline.

[Failure16]

Here is the M8 Thunderbolt. One of my longtime favorite star-mercs in the Fringe is the RLC, the Light Horse Regiment. If they weren't so Gronfaltian and could stand to part with their wheels, they would definitely be using that thing. It pretty much is a tracked version of their P6 Liberte tank-destroyers. I can't believe it never got picked up by anyone. Okay, Army (well, US DoD procurement) is naff, so maybe I do get it...

And you finally have your BM-21 Grad. Ammo looks low because it is salvo firing that bank of missiles it has. But it's all in there. And your renamed -152alogues.

I do not think I have a Pursuit Special. I don't have any specs available, other than a Ford Falcon's base-weight of 1.587T. And then there is the original model (Mad Max 1979), or the ones seen later with the extra fuel tanks.

The Mriyan armored corps will love spending time with the FSR; they have some notable female tankers and dismounted troopers and are commanded by a woman in most of their history. And by the time they arrive on-planet, they will have proper tanks and IFVs, not the little assault guns posted earlier. The Black Devils--not so much on women in line units, but that is a Vereeninging hangup.

[Failure16]

Last group for the night:

The revamped MTP-304K APC was corrupted, so I have to redo it. Sigh.

A few helos; more to follow tomorrow. But, now you have your troop carrier.

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, it's fun to write fluff and theorize about why decisions were made.  I'll grant that Mriyan R&D time and efforts go pretty quickly, but when the King himself says "get this done ASAP" one tends to prioritize their work.  No wasting time with long delays in the procurement cycle, even if things don't work out like first thought of.

Okay, let's see some tanks!  The base Hepard is everything I asked for in a nice neat package, and it's just barely over the 21.5 ton limit.  Acceptable, since the transports and rail cars are rated for 21.8 ton loads.  It's fast as a thief and carries all the ammo I'd hoped for.  The Apbronia came in right on budget with the bolt-on armor even if it lost a couple boxes of 7.62mm, I can live with that.  What's Apbronia translate to anyway?  I like the side skirts and the extra turret armor on the Tsarsky, and it's got the HVC-12 for tank sniping.  I just wish HVCs could use specialty ammo, but that would obsolete SCs completely so I'll roll with it.

The M8 Thunderbolt amazes me that you got everything together in Tankreator.  It really is a good simulator for tank construction, and like you said just let it settle itself out and you'll get something that reflects the real world very accurately.  I like the idea behind the rocket truck, it's firing off bursts of rockets at a time rather than trying to account for all its ammo at once. 

The helicopters are just great, I am pleased you got nine troops aboard the MPP-6N.  That gives me plenty of space for light platoons with nine dismounts.  Big question - how do you calculate things like sling loads and external cargo limits?  I'm intensely interested in how much the MPP-6N can carry (with reduced speed I'm sure) above and beyond the 1,260kg for its infantry.  The M102 howitzer weighs about 1,450kg and the UH-1N can haul it around with an extra 550kg to spare, so there's got to be some extra mass carryable as external cargo.  That cargo weight limit will inform the design of the Karakal, which is pretty important to my light infantry division.

Thank you so much for all the record sheets, they're all saved for sure.  Not that I'll ever get a chance to play a game out here, but it's still worth seeing the hard stats - and you never know, someone may want to throw down with the Mriyans someday.

Neat that the FSR has plenty of women in the unit, I've always been a supporter of that.  If you can meet the requirements, you should be allowed to participate, no matter what.  I figure about 20% of the MAF is women, with the highest percentage in the Air Force though there's a sizeable amount in the MLF as well.  And with the Hepard's physical restrictions, the numbers will skew towards favorable for female tankers as well.  I understand Vereeniging's hang-up, but as long as they don't mistreat my female troops (which I doubt they would) then there's no problem.  We can get along.

With the Otselots and their 50km/h offroad speed, and the Cheetah's 70km/h, I suppose tactical and strategic speed is a focus of the Mriyan military.  The idea is for rapid maneuver to gain tempo and surprise against a slower enemy force and the shock effect of their firepower to defeat an opposing force before significant losses can mount.  It's an aggressive battle style, charging forward and taking out targets quickly.

So yeah, helicopter external cargo rules are my next big question.  The Karakal's got to come under that weight limit not counting its infantry or ammunition, and there's going to be a few interesting variants of Karakal to write up.  All depends on how much an MPP-6N Plama can transport by sling.

[Elmoth]

This thing about the bufford just reminded me of the stryker... and how stange it is that we do not have a gun version of the SRM/LRM vehicle in BT (that I know of). Is there? Because the stryker is one of my fav vehicles in all of BT a,ong with the mirmydon and hunter, and I would consider it for a fringe project

[ANS Kamas P81]

Battletech has the Laser Carrier with 8 MLs on it as a variant of the LRM carrier.  I'm sure it's possible to make a TL6 vehicle that can do the same.

[Daryk]

F16: HA!  My Dad drove a Ford Falcon for YEARS, and the only thing he had to replace was the spark plugs... :D

[Failure16]

Elmoth: That lack of a wheeled light/medium gun tank has always bothered me, since 1987 or so. I made a Striker variant called the Slammer many years ago and posted it to the old boards. Since I'll be digging out more buried Fringe treasure, I'll post it anew if I still have it in HMV on an old computer.

Kamas: Tankreator is a collaborative effort to be sure, but it does its job regardless. Major shoutout to an old poster, Javelin98 (more from TMP than here, to be sure), who did much of the early heavy lifting for the Excel formulas. Once you look under the hood, you quickly realize that the program is a beast all its own. It's no joke.

The M8s all came out nice, and Mriya has a world-class AFV selection. And all TL3-4! I'll try to get some other AFVs out here while I finish up the Mriyan selection so everyone can see what everyone is fielding.

I don't rightly know the societal factors that have the FSR yielding so many female troopers proportionately (I believe they hover between a 60-40 and 70-30 split), but they do. (The real-world answer is that I grew up with all sisters, and a mother, and a wife, and a daughter--all of whom are incredibly versatile and efficacious and many of whom are veterans themselves. So, writing about such women is I suppose second nature to me.) I suppose I should give them a reason.

The Vereeningings have no problem with females on active service. Their culture doesn't allow it themselves, but they do not havea problem with it if others let their women tale the insane risks of a star mercenary. Like I have said before "Reeny" culture is a bit odd insofar as they have intensely held personal beliefs but do not generally force them on others unless it directly conflicts with something they are doing. And then they get a little persnickety.

"Apbronia" is the translator's way of saying "Uparmor". I am not sure Ukrainians would use that term like Americans do, but, hey: a few centuries of removal and "SPAAACE!".

I have never tried a "laser carrier", but I have made some ADVs with serious laser batteries. I have attached the ones in use in earlier times on Hochstadt and specifically within the FSR. I don't see how it would be a problem.

I have been thinking about slingloads, actually. I want to make an CH-53 or two and see how that pans out. Then I can see what that means for other helos. My initial thought was a lift-hoist (paid-for in the program, if not an actual piece of equipment, you understand), but am not sure yet. There are also rules-ramifications that have to be considered; this is not something I have rules for. Yet. First, I need to do some heavy research and builds to see what it all means mathematically.

Daryk: I am not surprised. The Pursuit Special in question keeps dying and coming back for more!

And, because I was very closely overflown by a civilian MD-500 this very morning, have some Mriyan ones. Just the two you really wanted: the standard light-attack/CAS loadout and the AT version I wonder if I should make a troop-carrier for your special-ops/ARB dudes? Sigh.

[Failure16]

I'll look into towed artillery, but until then, why not think about a CAESAR? Not too heavy, but self-propelled, which is a plus for your developing doctrine.

I have more important things to post, but how about a big truck? A reeaally big truck?

And last but not least, what the Sapporans are rolling around in at present, the AW-18 MBT. Not too many frills, but it does what it came for: blowing up [Novo] tanks.

Speaking of which, hopefully not too many T-77s come to Mriya. These are the big boys of the HPK; probably due for an upgrade since they debuted in 2477!

[ANS Kamas P81]

Yeah, just getting a look at the design sheet you attached a few posts back shows the complexity of the program.  It's up there with Daryk's ATOW character sheet for automation and detail!  And the fact it gets so much right, so close to the real world stats even for impossibly weird stuff like the M8 Thunderbolt 120mm gun IFV.

Mriyan tanks...very much hold to the speed/armor edge of the triangle, if not bursting out the side completely.  I can't help but get the giggles picturing a Hepard ripping across the outback at 70kmh, tracks flying like crazy and the diesel roaring.  I mean, it can almost keep up with a Pavuk going all-out in the desert.  Once the Mriyans get GEV technology, they're going to make sliders like you've never seen, haha.

Reeny, hah.  That's a good nickname.  They're an insular bunch, it seems, and they've got an interesting quirk in their history.  Just don't go out of your way to annoy them and they're fine folks.

The Heuschrecke is a slick one, and they probably accounted for most of the Novo air power on Mriya.  Those weapon ranges are insane, but realistic, and dramatically outdo whatever the aircraft can shoot back at.  And it's scary accurate with that TL5 fire control!  Definitely the origin of "all the air power dies horribly to AD lasers" statement.

Also I just noticed the beer holders in the helicopters.  Excellent. 

The Pursuit Special will live forever, though I suppose with the flop of Furiosa (which was a damn good movie and deserved better than it got) we'll never see another Mad Max film.  The first is still tops in my opinion, and I have the police cars on my fireplace mantle to prove it.

I wish you luck on the sling load and transportation calculations.  That's going to be a lot of research.  According to https://media.defense.gov/2017/Mar/29/2001723706/-1/-1/0/CIM_13482_2B.PDF this PDF in Chapter 2, the UH-1H carries 4,000 pounds and the UH-1N has a sling load capacity of 5,000 pounds.  The SH-2F has a limit of 4,000 pounds, SH-3G 6,000 pounds, HH-3F 8,000 pounds, and the CH-46 A/D/E has a limit of 10,000 pounds.  The CH-47 meanwhile jumps to 26,000 pounds, the H-53 A/D maxes out at 20,000 pounds, and the HH-53E Super Stallion at 32,000 pounds.  The Black Hawks have a wide range - the UH-60A and HH-60G have an 8,000 pound rating, the UH-60L at 9,000 pounds, the SH-60B at only 4,000 pounds, and the HH-60H and HH-60J is 6,000 pounds.  Last in the list is the H-65A Dolphin which carries a max of 2,000 pounds.  It doesn't look like sling load capacity is based around aircraft weight, and is going to be some arcane math to suss out.  Good luck with that.

If you feel up to it I'd love to see an MH-6 clone join the MPP-12A and MPP-12PTK.  Gotta have something for Special Group Youkai to ride to battle on!

The Caesar is hastily accepted as the Tsar artillery piece.  It's in the Otselot's weight range, which is perfect, and is just the kind of thing that the Mriyans would build as a support unit.  It needs a few trucks to carry extra artillery shells, but that's nothing new for artillery units.  You never hold artillery in reserve, and you can never have enough ammunition to feed the guns.  The only downside is that it doesn't get built until 2532 based on my technology calendar.

The Caterpillar is hilarious; it's an Australian road train all in one vehicle.  There's steam locomotives that don't haul that much cargo!

Jiminy Christmas the AW-18 is a brick.  But 88 tons of tank at TL6 is going to be a monster, as is the T-77.  A 155mm main gun for the T-77, and a heavy massdriver for the AW-18, that's some serious firepower.  The only downside is that they're slow beasts, but they have an inexorable forward assault into the teeth of pretty heavily prepared defenses. 

I'd like to see a Novosibirsk medium tank.  The kind of thing they'd dump on colony worlds, supporting rebellions and such while retaining the superior heavy tank for their own planetary defenses.  Something around 45-50 tons or so to fit in a Light Vehicle Bay for BattleTech DropShips.  The only hard requirement I'd see is a front and turret armor of 11 - that way the Lev's SC/10 doesn't penetrate, but the Hepard's SC/12 does.

I made a big change to the organization in 2530.  Yes, another TOE change; I swear this is the last one.  It feels right now.  I went for a more generalist setup, with two Composite Divisions making up the MLF instead of a Heavy and Light Division.  The brigades are semi-independent, each with their own base and operating independently but are capable of working together as a full division.  Each division has one Heavy Brigade and two Mobile Brigades, along with a Division Cavalry Squadron and Division Artillery Brigade, an Aviation Brigade, and support brigades.

"Bronʹovanyy Spys"/"Soukou Yari" (Armored Spear) 1st Composite Division
  "Chornyy Nosorih"/"Kurosai" (Black Rhino) 1st Heavy Brigade (Otselot x129, Hepard x84, Pavuk x24, Karakal x18)
  "Bilyy Kinʹ"/"Hakuba" (White Horse) 3rd Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Chervonyy Kinʹ"/"Aka Uma" (Red Horse) 4th Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Zalizni Kozaky"/"Tetsu no Kosakku" (Iron Cossacks) 6th Cavalry Squadron (Otselot x51, Hepard x24)
  "Vohnyana Strily"/"Hiya" (Fire Arrows) 1st Artillery Brigade (M-68 x18, M102 x18, RV-42 Doszcz x18)
  "Nebesni Vovky"/"Sora no Oukami" (Sky Wolves) 1st Aviation Brigade (MPP-6 x90, MPP-12 x30)
  "Lantsyuhovi Mechi"/"Kusari no Ken" (Chainswords) 3rd Engineer Battalion
  "Zolotyy Plashch"/"Kin no Manto" (Gold Cloak) 1st Divisional Protection Brigade (Otselot x50)
  "Holodnyy Vovk"/"Ueta Oukami" (Hungry Wolf) 1st Divisional Sustainment Brigade

"Kyndzhal"/"Tanto" (Dagger) 2nd Composite Division
  "Boyovyy Slon"/"Sen Zou" (War Elephant) 2nd Heavy Brigade (Otselot x129, Hepard x84, Pavuk x24, Karakal x18)
  "Chornyy Kinʹ"/"Kuro Uma" (Black Horse) 5th Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Blidyy Kinʹ"/"Aojiroi Uma" (Pale Horse) 6th Mobile Infantry Brigade (Karakal x171, Pavuk x12)
  "Kirasyry"/"Munayoroi Kihei" (Cuirassiers) 5th Cavalry Squadron (Otselot x51, Hepard x24)
  "Stalevyy Hrim"/"Kotetsu no Kaminari" (Steel Thunder) 2nd Artillery Brigade (M-68 x18, M102 x18, RV-42 Doszcz x18)
  "Tugarin Zmeyevich" (Tugarin Zmeyevich) 2nd Aviation Brigade (MPP-6 x90, MPP-12 x30)
  "Kuvalda"/"Outsuchi" (Sledgehammer) 2nd Engineer Battalion
  "Chornyy Plashch"/"Kuro no Manto" (Black Cloak) 2nd Protection Brigade (Otselot x50)
  "Bila Vorona"/"Kuroi hitsuji" (White Crow) 2nd Division Sustainment Brigade

"Marodery Moroza"/"Morozu no Ryakudatsusha" (Moroz's Marauders) Special Operations Battalion (Pavuk x54)
"Spets-hrupa Monstr"/"Tokushu Shuudan Youkai" (Special Group Monster) Special Operations Aviation Battalion (MPP-12 x36)

Total Vehicles
Otselot IFV: 460
Hepard Light Tank: 216
Karakal Squad Mobility Vehicle: 720
Pavuk Fast Scout Vehicle: 150
Tsar Artillery: 36
M102 Artillery: 36
RV-42 Doszcz Artillery: 36
MPP-6 Helicopter: 180
MPP-12 Helicopter: 96

I ended up renaming the 2nd Heavy Brigade to the War Elephant Brigade; Winged Boots didn't fit it anymore.  Also moved the Iron Cossacks to be the name of the divisional cavalry squadron for 1st Division, it just felt right. 

The artillery is an eclectic mix with battalions of Tsar 155mm SPGs, lightweight M102 105mm towed guns, and RV-42 rocket launchers.  The Tsars are primarily there to support the heavy brigade, while the 105mm guns are airmobile and towed easily by a Karakal, so they support the lighter units.  And the rocket artillery is just there to delete a grid square from the map as-needed.

Heavy Combined Arms Battalion
  Headquarters & Headquarters Company (Otselot Command x2)
    Command Group
    Combat Train
    Signals Team
    ATGM Vehicle Platoon (Otselot ZT500 x4)
    Scout Platoon (Pavuk x8)
    Mortar Platoon (Otselot 120 x4)
    Sniper Squad
    Medical Platoon
  Tank Company
    Headquarters Section (Hepard x2, Otselot ARV)
    Tank Platoon (Hepard x4)
    Tank Platoon (Hepard x4)
    Tank Platoon (Hepard x4)
    Security Platoon (Karakal x3)
  Tank Company
    Headquarters Section (Hepard x2, Otselot ARV)
    Tank Platoon (Hepard x4)
    Tank Platoon (Hepard x4)
    Tank Platoon (Hepard x4)
    Security Platoon (Karakal x3)
  Mechanized Infantry Company
    Headquarters Section (Otselot Command x2, Otselot ARV)
    Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Otselot 20 x3, Otselot 90, HRT x3, HWT/RR, HWT/FLMR)
    Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Otselot 20 x3, Otselot 90, HRT x3, HWT/RR, HWT/FLMR)
    Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Otselot 20 x3, Otselot 90, HRT x3, HWT/RR, HWT/FLMR)
  Mechanized Infantry Company
    Headquarters Section (Otselot Command x2, Otselot ARV)
    Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Otselot 20 x3, Otselot 90, HRT x3, HWT/RR, HWT/FLMR)
    Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Otselot 20 x3, Otselot 90, HRT x3, HWT/RR, HWT/FLMR)
    Mechanized Infantry Platoon (Otselot 20 x3, Otselot 90, HRT x3, HWT/RR, HWT/FLMR)

It's a do-everything unit, with recon, ATGM, and mortar fire support for its tanks and infantry.  The only thing it really lacks as a combined fighting unit is aviation, but elements of the helicopter battalions can be attached as-needed. 

Mobile Infantry Battalion
  Headquarters & Headquarters Company (Karakal x2)
    Mortar Platoon (Karakal 81 x4, Karakal x2)
    ATGM Platoon (Karakal ZT500 x4)
  Mobile Infantry Company
    Headquarters Section
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
  Mobile Infantry Company
    Headquarters Section
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
  Mobile Infantry Company
    Headquarters Section
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
    Mobile Infantry Platoon (Karakal x4, HRT x4)
  Weapons Company
    Headquarters Section
    Machine Gun Platoon (Karakal x3, HWT/MMG x6)
    Recoilless Rifle Platoon (Karakal x3, HWT/RR x6)
    Flamethrower Platoon (Karakal x3, HWT/FLMR x6)
  Forward Support Company

A much lighter force, but still has ATGM and 81mm mortar support.  Unlike the Mechanized Infantry, it organizes its heavy weapons teams into a Weapons Company, with a mix of FN MAGs, Carl Gustafs, and flamethrowers - the Mriyans love their fire as well as going fast, it seems.  There's no HMG teams because the standard Karakal comes with an APW/H onboard.  The mortar teams come with a pair of Karakal transports, because there's not going to be a lot of ammo aboard a Karakal with the 81mm mortar taking up space.

As for the Karakal's weight, I suppose I'll go with the UH-1N's 2,268kg sling load and say the MPP-6N can do the same or better.  After all, it carries nine troops onboard, which is 1,260kg already. 

Now for the Karakal's stats.  This is going to be built with required mass budgets and leftover weight.  Looking over Ruffling the Fringe 4.0, the APW/H weighs 100kg, a GM/M launcher weighs 200kg, and an Medium Mortar weighs 250kg.  I suppose there's going to be a 600 kg limit for the weapons; that gives me 150 machine gun bursts.  The ATGM launcher should carry six rounds, that's another 150kg plus the launcher - the remaining 250kg is going to go to a Basic Ground fire control system for the ATGMs.  The 81mm mortar has 350kg left for ammunition, for 24 rounds onboard.

Out of a 2,000kg base weight, that leaves 1,400kg for engine, structure, and two crew.  It should have an MA of 7 at a minimum, which hopefully won't be too big of an engine.  No armor to speak of, but improved mobility for wheeled vehicles is a must.  All three versions have an extra 1,000kg cargo mass; the base APW/H version uses it to carry a squad of seven infantrymen while the other two vehicles can fill it as a weapons crew plus extra cargo.  That way all three vehicles come out to the same final weight of 3,000kg, while having a much lighter and equal unloaded (armed) weight for helicopter transport.  If it comes out lighter than 3,000kg, that's more than fine.

[Daryk]

Thanks for the shout out, Kamas! :)

[ANS Kamas P81]

Hey, you did fantastic work with that character sheet, even if I had to turn to you a few times to get things worked out.  I respect the effort.

In the future, I suspect the RV-42 Doszcz is going to be replaced with a HIMARS type vehicle.  Total mass of 16.25 tons, with a six-shot MLRS launcher.  It's going to be an interesting squeeze, since the launcher itself is ten tons and the ammo for it two tons.  That doesn't leave much for structure, crew of three, and an engine.  TL4, though, so that'll help a bit.  Maybe bump the mass to the 18-20 ton range to give it a little protection and more speed.  The difference in range between a BM-21's 6 mapsheet range and a MLRS 57 mapsheet is a huge advantage for the MLRS unit, which even outranges 203mm tube fires.  Call it the RV-60 Tsarina to go with the 155mm carrier.  Again, this doesn't show up until 2532, so it'll be a future plan.

Which makes me wonder - how long does IW2 last?  I've still got broad sketches for the 2540 Mriyan military, even after their shellacking by Novosibirsk as punishment for being socially backwards monarchists and rebellious not-wanting-to-join-the-HPK party poopers.  I can always change that year to something more suitable, depending on when the Novos get their butts handed to them.  I take it the Core Worlds are going to get seriously burned in IW2...

[Elmoth]

The striker is a fairly ok platform to work around with gun variants. Not very resistant, but it is ok has a fairly fast chassis with 11 tons devoted to weapons. I can easily see a planet with flat-ish areas, like prairie-like, savannah or tundra environments going for this chassis as their choice to mount multiple weapons systems, as hoovers are not readily available in large numbers in the setting (or not available at all)

[ANS Kamas P81]

If you put a MLRS on a Boxer you'd have a pretty good Fringe-setting analogue for a Battletech Stryker.  Problem is that the MLRS launcher is ten tons, so you'd only get a few shots off unless you skimp on ammo.  Considering MLRS can fire 57 mapsheets...yeah, I wouldn't worry about more than rudimentary armor on it, and add some more tonnage to ammo.  Get a whole battery of them together and start deleting hexes from the map.