Re: [DS2] Points - crew cost

>Alan Brain wrote:

>>Suggest that we have Combat PVs, so that forces with equal PVs have
>>an equal chance of winning, and Economic PVs ( ie Monetary Cost) for
>>Campaigns.
>
><g> I concentrate on the Combat PVs. If you want economics, you do them
>:-)

I know that was meant in Jest. I don't even play SG. OTOH my ego is
large enough
so that I'm actually willing to give it a go.
The relativity between one system and another can be done, with effort.
Normalising
it to a particular currency would be harder, but since we have costs in
MCr
in FT, I'd try to make them consistent.

A good first approximation would be that Spaceships:AFVs in FT:SG have
about
the same cost relationship as Aircraft do to MBTs today. Or perhaps we
should
use ships?

Approximate figures:
4000 tonne frigate costs about $800 mill these days - 5 tonnes/ mill
50 tonne MBT costs about $5 mill - 10 tonnes/ mill
200 tonne Cargo plane costs $100 mill. - 2 tonnes/ mill

A size 100 ( 10,000t ) FT ship costs about 350 MCr - about 25-30 tonnes
per
MCr. So we have 1 Cr is about the same as $25 in military purchasing
power.
Roughly. Making large quantities of unverifiable and possibly
unjustified assumptions.

SANITY CHECK: Look at FT Fighters.
FT Fighters cost 2Mcr for the basic model (plus hanger, crew etc) so a
basic
FT fighter would cost $50 mill in today's purchasing power - about right
IMHO.
With a further $100 Mil in basing facilities if on board ship, $75 Mil
if not.
Also about right (CVNs and Airfields with spares, ordnance, equipment
cost a
LOT).

Carrying on, you'd get 250 tonnes of MBT for 1 MCr. Unreliable memory
has it
that a MILAN AT round costs Pounds 20,000, call it $40,000. Applying out
25:1
formula,  we're looking at 1500 Cr per sophisticated ATGM. Really
low-tech ones
would cost 100 Cr or so, no more.

There's more - some figs to think about:
Cost of training a fighter pilot today is about $5 Mil
Cost of an old T-55 is about $20 k, but $50 k with adequate NV equipment
and
very basic laser Fire Control. Double these figures for having 5-years
of spares.
Call it $100k each for basic (but not WW2 vintage) equipment.
Cost of a ZSU-23/4 is about $12 Mil (with 5 yrs spares - this was the
price
of the last lot offered to be sold to Egypt during the Cold War if
memory serves).
Yes, the reason that you have 1 ZSU 23/4 per company of T-55s is that
the cost
of the 10 T-55s is a lot less, even with crew training taken into
account.

Please bear in mind these caveats:
Firstly, the figures are so rubbery that making calculations with a
precision
greater than +/- 25% is misleading. For example, how much would the US
Army
pay for an M1? An M1A1? An M1A2? If bought in lots of 1000 vs lots of
10? What's
the cost of upgrade kits for them? How much would the same equipment
cost if
bought under FMS (Foreign Military Sales)? What's the upkeep cost in
peacetime?
In wartime? How worn out do they get in training? and so it goes....

Secondly, we're not modelling the world at the year 2000: it's 150+
years later.
Assumptions about increased cheapness of electronics have to be made,
and increased
expense of less high-tech materials.

Re electronics: it's actually easier and cheaper to make Low-scale
integrated
chips than it is to make Vacuum tubes and so on. You can make
500-component
chips in your home, with easily-available chemicals and a good
photography setup,
and get good yields. I've actually helped someone do this. If your
industrial
architecture is good enough to smelt steel, it's good enough to make
late 1960s
vintage electronics in any amount, cheap as chips (if you'll pardon the
pun).
Higher-tech Mid/Late 70s stuff, eg Z-80 or M6502 processors require a
Clean
Room. But a PDP-8 CPU on a chip can be made in the kitchen, and designed
in
a few hours ( I've actually done this as a Lab exercise in Uni in the
late 70s).

Anyway, there are some preliminary parameters. In summary:

* 1 FT/SG/DS Cr = about $25 US

* Costs of military equipment are assumed to be about the same as they
are today,
for things that do the same job.