In-game reason for small armies

[Lone-Wolf]

Hello,

for a long time I am asking myself:

What is the reason that the planets in the IS have so small defense forces (less then a division)?

Compare them to the armed forces of the time of the height of the Cold War and even Lichtenstein has more forces then the average IS planet. (Sorry, couldnt resist the joke...)

The only in-game reason I can come up is:

If we build real forces, then we are back in the era of WMDs.

(Yes, I know the game is about mechs and not about armored warfare, e.g. tanks, artillery, etc.)

[tassa_kay]

There is no in-game reason. It's a combination of FASAnomics, the fact that they want players to feel like their battles count (it's hard to feel like one matters when you're just a drop in the ocean), and to make things manageable out-of-game.

[AlphaMirage]

There is a pseudo in game reason, technological regression has many planets spending more of their time and resources on sustaining themselves as trade is much more expensive and difficult.

You also have small relative populations and rule by noble reduces the need for standing armies (that might overthrow said noble) as well as the difficulty and expense of a foreign invasion. Many worlds also probably have only a few large cities or towns with anything worth protecting

[Church14]

I tried to do the math a while back. If I had it right, you’re looking at about 3 soldiers per 1000 people in real world. Battletech is closer to… 8 per one million.

About 375X more soldiers in real world than in this setting.

There’s not really an in universe justification for that. Out of universe, I think it’s that smaller armies make it easier to write engaging stories.

[monbvol]

There is a certain amount of if a planet is too heavily defended the WMDs do come out to play.  We saw this in the Age of War and the Succession Wars 1&2 kind of 3.  Once you start talking interstellar nations with multiple inhabited worlds MAD simply doesn't exist the way it does for us here in the real world and there is certainly some credibility to this aspect.

That said yes a much larger part is FASA didn't really think about it and thus as a result we have terms like FASAnomics.

[beachhead1985]

Well, forgive me for not committing to the bit here...

But maybe they're not that small after all?

The conceits of the 3rd succession war and some of out most iconic gameplay focused on games of company level or (more commonly) less tend to fix us on planets claimed by minimal forces of battlemechs.

But that works because of how mobile and well-protected mechs are and how boring, and not-fun drawn-out campaigns hunting down companies of infantry and light armour in the wilderness and industrial wastelands would be.

Just because the main lore SHOWs us a lot of effectively undefended worlds, doesn't mean they're all or even "mostly" like that. As to why it mightbe like that in canon; I think the other members here are doing great squaring that circle.

My personal theory is that there are much larger conventional forces behind the scenes that get no "screen-time" in lore, because that isn't the focus of the setting.

I figure even the clans have one mainly infantry and vehicle PGC for every mech/BA formation and on the IS side, I think it's more like 5-10+ conventional regiments for each Mech Regiment, but that would include the specialists too.

Part of my justification for this is that far more data exists for how these units are sized and organized than is ever demonstrated on paper and pixels. For instance; take a look at the DCMS "ARC" concept; https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Inner_Sphere_military_structure#Forward_ARC

Also, I think that common sense simply demands vast forces of support and combat support troops to make these armies work. Even if we take the introtech stuff literally and say that much of the given artillery arm is LosTech, we still need engineers and engineers can still fight; pretty good too.

[The Wobbly Guy]

My own take:

It's a combination of modern general antipathy to military service, and also abysmal levels of military spending.

Another interesting phenomenon observed in modern deveoped nations are declining birth rates for a variety of reasons. But we see that this is not the case in Btech even on very advanced worlds, which can generally maintain their populations (e.g. several billion on New Avalon). So there is an implication of massive amounts of social spending to keep birth rates up.

Ergo, much less money for military.

[monbvol]

Where that breaks down a bit though is the Battle of Tikonov during the 4th Succession War.

[AlphaMirage]

Well Tikonov is a proudly militant place and major industrial world. It is something of an exception to the general Inner Sphere

[monbvol]

That's the thing though.  Even with the militias it only had 80 regiments for it's defense in the 4th War.  For a planet with billions and major military production that's a pretty pitiful defensive force.

I may accept there are some explanations that make sense and make FASAnomics more reasonable than casual inspection may otherwise discern but it's still ultimately unreasonable.

[Alan Grant]

Everything was done with the tabletop game in mind.

You had to be able to play/portray a tabletop game that would have meaningful outcomes for the universe. It might just be 1 company of a 9 company 'mech regiment, but that's still a decent percentage slice of what's going on and could constitute a decent force for a small raid or battle of a larger campaign. Or the force of a small mercenary unit.

By comparison go to the Star League Civil War/Amaris Coup and that 'mech company versus 'mech company battle is like a drop in the bucket of what is going on. Short of commanding a regiment/brigade/division you feel pretty insignificant in the grand scheme.

... oh you said an in-game reason. Well.. the tabletop IS the game. Frankly.

This is something Battletech fans have debated for literally decades. Everybody has arrived at their own conclusions, no two conclusions are the same, and everybody is some percentage right. As long as that makes them feel like they have a reason they can hang their hat on to make their peace with this. That satisfies that need, and they move on to just enjoying the game.

[Dahmin_Toran]

Also planetary militias are not rally included in the numbers, and outnumber frontline military forces by a much larger margin. Each planetary militia is raised by the planet and pretty much stays on the planet, and are not counted in the Field Manuals or other sources. Those books are for actual House forces.

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Even though planets often have populations listed as being in the billions, in many cases the descriptions for the planets treats them more like they've only got a fraction of that population.  It's apparently common for planets to only have one major spaceport, for example, and having two HPGs is extravagant, while entire continents are unexplored and undeveloped on a planet that's been settled for five centuries.

[AlphaMirage]

Even though planets often have populations listed as being in the billions, in many cases the descriptions for the planets treats them more like they've only got a fraction of that population.  It's apparently common for planets to only have one major spaceport, for example, and having two HPGs is extravagant, while entire continents are unexplored and undeveloped on a planet that's been settled for five centuries.

How many spaceships do you need to import some high-value components from an interstellar supplier for your planetary industry? Most planets likely don't import a large volume of products because interstellar trade is expensive, not nearly as much as some people think I've done the math, but its still not cheap, or there aren't enough ships to conduct it (as they were pulled away by the Imperial Authorities for their latest territory grab of some desolate nuclear wasteland). If you can find it on your own world it's just easier.

Also the USA has less than 400 million people in it but China has three to four times as many in the same relative geographic area and lets not even get into Russia vs India or Canada vs Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Pakistan. Expanding beyond a certain point is only feasible if there is a compelling reason as infrastructure becomes increasingly expensive and you can settle in the areas most easily supported by your population particularly if you have no warmongering on world.

COMSTAR controls the HPGs and they probably throttle everyone anyway, there aren't going to expend the additional expense of making a second HPG without a good reason (or FedCom vainglory at ruinous expense).

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

How many spaceships do you need to import some high-value components from an interstellar supplier for your planetary industry? Most planets likely don't import a large volume of products because interstellar trade is expensive, not nearly as much as some people think I've done the math, but its still not cheap, or there aren't enough ships to conduct it (as they were pulled away by the Imperial Authorities for their latest territory grab of some desolate nuclear wasteland). If you can find it on your own world it's just easier.

With planets who's economies are dependent on shipping products off-world or planets that depend on importing food (a ridiculous notion given the logistical issues, but it is what it is), yes, you'd expect there to be more than one spaceport on a single planet.  If you're producing a massive export product on Continent A, it's just added expense to ship it across an ocean to Continent B in order to load it onto dropships- doesn't take long before it's cheaper to just build a second spaceport on Continent A and save yourself that extra cost.

Also the USA has less than 400 million people in it but China has three to four times as many in the same relative geographic area and lets not even get into Russia vs India or Canada vs Bangladesh, Indonesia, or Pakistan. Expanding beyond a certain point is only feasible if there is a compelling reason as infrastructure becomes increasingly expensive and you can settle in the areas most easily supported by your population particularly if you have no warmongering on world.

How many times do we see cities that are described as having population densities like Shanghai or New Delhi?  The descriptions of most planets don't match that in many cases- the planets look more like Russia or Canada when it comes to population density.

COMSTAR controls the HPGs and they probably throttle everyone anyway, there aren't going to expend the additional expense of making a second HPG without a good reason (or FedCom vainglory at ruinous expense).

And before Comstar, the Star League controlled the HPGs and they didn't bother to build more than one per world either.  Despite the fact that for capital worlds especially, being able to coordinate reports and issue orders as quickly as possible would be of great benefit.

Battletech simply treats worlds as being less populated than their listed population sizes are very frequently, in many different ways beyond the small military sizes.

[AlphaMirage]

Well when it comes down to it COMSTAR and the Star League didn't care for what the Successor States wanted, in most cases they were actively sabotaging them. HPGs were more used for COMSTAR's own internal communications (likely a lot of banking, shipping, and ROM reports) than any Successor State business IMO. Citizen, corporate, and imperial communications would be transmitted with whatever spare bandwidth wasn't being used for Phi branch's accounting.

The single Starport is probably a rent seeking behavior from the planetary rulers. You don't really need anything high tech to build a Starport just like a Mill in the Dark Ages. A sufficiently large piece of ferrocrete is enough and even that is a true luxury if you want to use the same spot again. The planetary ruler likely preferred a single or limited number of Starports for the tax revenue and their own domain's security (by locating your troops in a place where a Fury or Gazelle could be hurried to a hotspot) and said anyone that landed elsewhere without their permission was a smuggler or pirate.

Large corporations the ones that regularly exported industrial products across the stars likely owned their own dropships and since they were heavily owned by nobles would thus be given their own industrial starports co-located to their facility separate from the normal trade routes to reduce the danger from raids. If your dropship approached an industrial facility without authorization they would likely shoot first and not ask questions.

Trains and boats are pretty cheap for the cargo volume compared to spacecraft and likely headed to the city where the starport was already. Also shuttles exist that can ferry a decent bit of cargo each day from anywhere on world (the type that might be worth expediting or packing onto a dropship) to your central starport and need nothing more sophisticated than a normal airport in which to operate.

Additionally any money spent on your planet stays on the planet so intra-planetary trade is more employment for your people and thus tax revenue at the end of the year. Why would you want to give it to some foreign spacers?
Unless you to owned the dropship. And if you owned said dropship would it not be more profitable to use it to ferry cargo off-world? 
This would give you income from other planets and lords without their own dropships. Or you could use it shuttle cargo down from the jump point space station you control (space stations are very cheap for what they can do). This would save you the final expense of transporting it to your world and ensure that foreign spacers weren't trying to cheat you or smuggle other things on-world.

Mercantilism is very much alive in the Inner Sphere so these would be things you might think of as a feudal lord.

[Gorgon]

Building on what others have said, centralizing infrastructure makes a lot of sense in-universe. Sure, it'll hamper economic growth and prevent the efficient exploitation of a planet's resources, but it makes it easier to control the world. Neo-feudalism extends in many cases to planetary governments as well and autocratic government forms are pretty common, from what we see in fiction. Holding down a planet with billions of people using only a few companies to regiments of conventional troops, you need to concentrate your strength or risk defeat in detail by any potential uprising. But those forces are often plentyful enough to secure a metropolitan area, where everything important is concentrated.

Especially when your planet relies on imports of crucial goods, holding the sole space port and HPG means controlling the planet. Just have a small unit and a dropship on stand-by as trouble shooters for when you really need to go out there and squash a rebellion.Who cares if there are a couple million people living in virtual independence from your government and refuse to pay income tax? Just tax any imports and exports and all those services they can only get in the capital and you and your hangers-on will live comfortably.

If anything, I would expect to see more planetary AeroSpace forces for customs duty. Just a squadron or two of armed small craft to keep smugglers honest, nothing fancy.

[Metallgewitter]

A lot of planets have small private armies when they have noble rulers. There are small notes for the Lyran Commonwealth and FedSuns that the noble rulers usually maintain a small army and if they are well off they have a company of MEchs plus supporting elements. The fluff text for the Warlord states that El Dorado build several battalions centered around that Mech but El Dorado is one of the wealthiest planets with a Davion at the helm. So there is that. Probably the simple logic would be "Not every planet has the means to equip a planetary army" The old Outworlds Alliance would be the best example as every planet can do as they see fit and the ground forces have to make do with mediocre recruits and cat of equipment.

[Lone-Wolf]

Thanks for your answers.
So additionally we have economic reasons (the planet is not much developed, because all the people are in one or two locations -simplified-), control (let the noble revolt with his 2 regiments of outdated tanks. Lets see how he deals we the Assault Guards) and of course Comstar (oops, who did sabotage the tank factory?)

One of the reasons I asked myself the question is: I am a wargamer.
And I think that in the war torn IS wargaming would be popular and therefore the people would play games about the past - just like in real life - and then see, "Hey, in the old times, they had armies in the 100.000 people range and won. So, why dont we have?"

So I would also see some sort of tiredness in the normal people.
"Ok, Kurita invaded us for the 19th time this decade or was it 23rd time?"

And then the question would arrive: "Why arent we save?" and then say: "If we have only 2 companies of mechs and the enemy a regiment, no wonder. So we need more forces."

And in the end I would see people turn to the end of the Star League, where Amaris was killed and ask themselves, why this is not done today, e.g. Davion Forces attacking the DC till they arrive on Luthien and ending the war once and for all.

[AMARDA]

Another interesting phenomenon observed in modern deveoped nations are declining birth rates for a variety of reasons. But we see that this is not the case in Btech even on very advanced worlds, which can generally maintain their populations (e.g. several billion on New Avalon). So there is an implication of massive amounts of social spending to keep birth rates up.

IIRC the Battletech authors expanded the population in later books, before the modern understanding that demographics of the 21st century are going to contracting, at the time, the idea was that human population was only going to go UP! UP! UP!

So, imo, one way to square the circle, go back to the earlier depictions of smaller populations on planets, treating them more as a handful of cities with little in the way of massive development.

[Metallgewitter]

There is also one thing to consider: the planets in the IS realms usually don't have multiple nations. How many nations do we currently have on Earth? 160? Maybe even a bit more. So of course every nation has it's own armed forces
But from what I understand is that a majority of IS planets usually don't have nations but simply one unified planet under one goverment. While there are exceptions (Bolan comes to mind with it's city states) the majority you have one unified planet which provides stability which in turn lessens the need to build a huge army to keep the peace. Plus with no threat of war on said planet no one thinks of building armed forces outside of a planetary militas plus security forces.
A contrast might be the Clan Homeworlds: with some planets having sometimes several Clans as holders you have a higher number of armed forces on said planet simply because the "planet owners" might go at each other at any given time.

[phoenixalpha]

We, Earth, has way more soldiers and members of the armed forces than we really, *really* need to be honest. We have a high level of military because we are at war (cold, proxy or otherwise) with ourselves.

If the planet was at peace with each other and under one world government (as most IS planets are) - there would very little need or requirement for a standing army in the millions. Its unproductive and a waste of money and resources to have soldiers of whatever flavour standing around doing nothing unless there is a threat.

If you live on a standard IS planet - you're not at risk of invasion or pirates as a rule unless you are at the borders of your state. A comparison would be Lichtenstein. If you are Lichtenstein or any European nation as a rule it is unlikely you will be invaded by a foreign power unless you border against an adverserial power. Its extremely unlikely Lichtenstein is going to be invaded by either the Swiss or the Austrians so therefor it is a waste to maintain a high level of military readiness. The same goes for many many European (and non European nations). It is unlikely, however many times it happens in the movies, games or novels, that mainland US is invaded by a neighbouring (or non neighbouring) country.

We have stupid high levels of armed forces for the planet size because we oppose one another on a regular basis. If we had one world government it would be unlikely to see that level of armed forces or spending mind boggling amounts of money on such.

[Minemech]

 While it is likely true that pirates prefer to raid the peripheral regions of Successor States, they can and will hit other areas. One of the primary reasons that they would rather focus on the crust of states is that they want to keep their profile lower. The whole theme behind the Circinus Federation was that it wanted to raid enough to profit, but too little to risk being absorbed (And nearly were once). The Tortuga Dominions overplayed their hands and paid dearly for it more than once.

[Dragon Cat]

My personal theory is that there are much larger conventional forces behind the scenes that get no "screen-time" in lore, because that isn't the focus of the setting.

This sums up my belief in how BattleTech armies work and the reason is a Canon source.

The ilClans invasion of Terra

The Republic officially had 30 regiments broken up by Prefecture one in each of the divisions they held (cannot remember the names)

But Terra had tons of units which were active on the various continenents of Terra (I know Terra is still heavily populated)

But if you take that regional defences and multiply it across the Inner Sphere you get hundreds of additional behind the scenes units militias etc

They won't have the staying power of a Mech unit but they also don't need it on most worlds. All you need is a self defence force, security and humanitarian aid set up Combine that with paramilitary police units most units will have a significant amount of troops to call up if needed

Sure if you arrive with the Davion Guards they won't stand a chance in hell but most worlds don't face a line regiment day in day out

[Metallgewitter]

This sums up my belief in how BattleTech armies work and the reason is a Canon source.

The ilClans invasion of Terra

The Republic officially had 30 regiments broken up by Prefecture one in each of the divisions they held (cannot remember the names)

When the Republic formed they had 4 brigades: Stone's Brigade with 6 units and the Hastati, Principes and Triari with 10 units each plus that one special unit the Amaterasu.
What was not on the units roster was the Standing Guard each planet was ordered to muster. Most Guard units were basically infantry (one or two regiments I think) plus tanks (not sure about air forces though). Wealthy worlds also added some Mechs to it. That is quite the bit of manpower. Before the fall fo the Republic they absorbed all Guard units into the regular military which might have been a bad idea considering they were the last line of defense on said planets.

[Hellraiser]

1.  The Militia on Most worlds is quite a bit more than people think.   We have plenty of examples similar to Tikonov, Luthien, New Avalon.
But also smaller stuff like the Woodstock Militia having a full mech regiment.   (I feel like Thorin/Murphid had 2 battalions in one of the 4th SW books, I forget)

2.  Most worlds in the IS are NOT Terra, or even close to Terra.
I don't think even New Avalon is truly "Terra" quality in its total atmosphere & lushness.  Its just that its really nice compared to most of the FS.

3.  Humanity fights to "tame" most worlds it comes across either disease, flora/fauna, atmosphere, etc etc give it issues.

4.  Armies are EXPENSIVE, like, VERY EXPENSIVE, we really can't compare the USA with any world in the IS & I'm sure there are rules in place that prohibit me from getting detailed, all I'll say is "Russia 1989".  Armies are Expensive, War is Expensive, Interstellar Travel is EXPENSIVE.

5.  On Planet the Nobles do bicker but in the end they both serve the Prince/Sovereign of the nation as a whole so why bother building up your expensive private army when you end up not needing it & your boss might decide to "Nationalize" it if you get uppity once too often w/ your neighbors.



When you count on all the factors of trying to operate in "less than ideal/Non-Terran" conditions on your world, combined with the need to import things, combined w/ an overall lack of major conflict on many worlds and the unseen total militia & reservist #s & while not perfect it at least puts the "Fasanomics" into perspective.
If I'm a Baron & their is an RCT 1 jump away, I probably don't want to invest in anything more than a company of tanks/apcs & a battalion of infantry to defend my castle & my local Jeep Factory & support the local police when they call up the National Guard.

Planetary Dukes might call on troops from all those Barons & also raise a planetary militia but even then, a world is BIG.
When you park a Regiment near every factory/capital/spaceport & then companies all over at depots & armories it eats into your "Mechanized Infantry Division" of Militia pretty quickly.

Mech Company raids don't find Infantry Divisions waiting for them because they are all over the planet & pirate bands don't operate at the "Multi-Regimental" level inside house borders so what is the overall point.
You keep enough for basic security & defense & the large standing army that seldom gets used is really just an over expensive waste.

[imperator]

I totally aggree with this!  Also, most people know that one government is as good as another, so unless their is a strong case of Nationalism or just shear cussedness in the population, most people wont want to fight a gorilla war, let alone a frontline battle facing Mechs, tanks, Artillery, and air support. 

The only time you see this in the novels are when the Invaders ate total "A-holess" and want to change the status quo of the general pop.  You can read this as Clan, those hated "Insert Old style Kurita/Liao" or "Pompous Lyran/Davion", Burn and Salt the Earth raids etc. 

Otherwise is just the local government forces vs other government forces.  If you dont mess with people or their resources/Familes, most wont give a darn about the next town over.  Nationalism, Spree de Corps, love of God and Country are hallmarks of Stake holders in the community, not the plebes and serfs that make up the inner sphere. 

So you got to ask yourself the question:  Do I have that sort of buy in from the locals.  99.99% is probably a no.

[monbvol]

One of the other things I've held to be true for a while related to all this is that the average Inner Sphere citizen is far more traumatized by the horrors of the Age of War(something that got so bad that almost everyone signed the Ares Conventions) and later the Succession Wars.

[phoenixalpha]

One of the other things I've held to be true for a while related to all this is that the average Inner Sphere citizen is far more traumatized by the horrors of the Age of War(something that got so bad that almost everyone signed the Ares Conventions) and later the Succession Wars.

I suppose if you, your planet, your "state" has been at war with everyone else for pretty much a few hundred years - it becomes the norm. You'll grow used to the existential dread of somehow your life could be snuffed out in an instant by some lunatic with a jumpship and a dropship full of nukes and there pretty much is zero you can do about it.

[Lance Leader]

  Fasanomics gets crazy when you deep dive into the setting.  Using an estimated population of about half-billion per world (Oystein) and wage information from the RPG materials and comparing them against the costs of mechs and equipment you get Successor State militaries that are too small by a couple of orders of magnitude (100+).  Taken at face value the Successor States clearly have no way to tax their populations as the revenue from even one major world would be enough to equip an entire state military with even a modest military budget.

  You don't need to reconcile this to enjoy the game or the setting but I'm into immersive world building so to make the universe work for me my current head-canon solution is to multiply the number of infantry by about 10 and make mechs/equipment more expensive by a factor of around 100.  The idea being that over the centuries military equipment has become more and more expensive relative to the average income, something that is observable in recent history.  So in today's terms a mech or even an advanced Btech tank would represent a multi-billion dollar super-advanced war-machine made out of ultra-expensive and hyper-sophisticated materials.  I multiply the number of infantry by one order of magnitude because it wouldn't significantly contradict the given canon and would give the Successor States small but not insanely small occupying armies.

  Of course this is all head-canon.  In short the setting doesn't attempt to reconcile the small militaries to huge populations contradiction so I think most of us either just ignore it or head-canon it.