[SG2] [DS2] PA or non-PA - renamed from OT women gamers

John spake thusly upon matters weighty: 

> 1. I imagine most skirmishes will be small (Brigade or smaller) in the
> future.  

Seems likely. 
 
> 2. Transport will be at a premium.  Why transport APCs/Tanks/GEV
infantry
> when most conflicts involve securing the high ground (orbit) and
picking
> your battles.  And if you decide to bring the APCs etc.  you have to
have
> something big enough to transport them dirtside.

Mind you, to a macrocosm, this argument applies to PA. It is also 
quite possible 1 suit of PA is as much of a logistics load as 1 full 
APC. 
 
> 3. PA will be airtight making it great for harsh/vacc environments,
boarding
> actions, etc.  As well, they won't need an airtight dropship.

This is an advantage. If we are living in a non Star Trek ish 
universe with a lot of planets with crappy temp (too hot, too cold), 
crappy atmospheric pressure (too high, too low), crappy atmospheric 
composition (poisonous, contaminated, insidious, exotic, 
unbreathable), then some combat will happen here. Of course, we'd 
choose to colonize the Earth like worlds if we can find em, thus 
perhaps removing a lot of the need for this harsh enviro gear.	

> Don't get me wrong, I love tanks and big armored formations.	I just
can't
> see DS era conflicts having much of them.

Only important, big battles. They can still kick PA. 

  Why transport all these units to
> wipe out a colony when you can sit there pounding it from orbit.

I'm assuming you would be the defenders with this gear on more 
settled colonies. Otherwise, you are right. Although if FTL is as 
cheap as John's setting and ship construction seem to make it (much 
cheaper than some other systems), the long haul, big lift capacity 
doesn't seem so much of an issue. 

The ultimate counter seems to be rooted in logistics:
1. Assume PA is complex (actuators, sensors, manipulators, optics, EM 
systems, EW systems, stealth, chameleon, IR masking, armour (possibly 
active), weapons systems, targetting, longer term life support (for 
those hostile worlds), heat regulation, damage control, comms/crypto, 
medical feeds,	etc. etc.). 
2. Assume PA is fairly expensive. It probably is due to its 
complexity. 
3. Assume it takes a lot of training to run PA like a pro. Hence 
troops are expensive. This is partly due to PA's complexity. Partly 
due to the complex range of capability it provides. 
4. Assume such complex systems have expensive costs to maintain, both 
in a money sense, and a personel/training, personel/maintenance 
sense. Maintenance techs required to mothball/demothball suits for 
transit and combat drops - even if all troopers shipped as frozen 
fish sticks. Medtechs required to hook up troopies to life support 
gear (watch the team that hooks up the modern day astronaut for a 
guide). No rapid reaction capability here - it takes hours to get a 
PA guy ready to drop or to even move. Logistics chain to support 
power/fuel/food/air resupply and field maintenance. With high stress 
gear like this, maintenance cycle between PMs might well run in the 
40-60 hour range. That means downtime for a lot of your potential 
force. 
5. Perhaps the ultimate reason: To keep the peace in a jungle on X2, 
To patrol the mines of Amlak Mor, To kick ass on rebellious peasants 
on New Gananoque: These tasks DO NOT require powered armour or elite 
troops. Normally trained green/regular mix troops with normal 
equipment (and locally procured transport - jeeps, trucks, 
hoverjeeps, grav lifters) can do this job quite fine. Hard to justify 
sending an expertly trained New Anglian Confederation Drop Marine 
platoon to sit gaurding a string of pumping stations on East Durango 
IV. But somebody might well have to do it. And because no one local 
would mess with PA if it was there, no battles. But if the locals 
thought they could take the (much cheaper and more logistically 
sound) garrison force, then that's another story. 

You are right in one sense: comparing to the island campaigns of the 
past, you can see the advantages of PA. But assuming the logistics 
train and the training requirements are what they are (to say nothing 
of cost), then you may well decide that it isn't as cheap as you 
think. Especially when (if you have a platoon of these guys at (for 
example) 1 million NACBucksSterling(tm) a head) I can easily (as an 
enemy commander) consider the deployment of vast artillery and 
potentially nuclear strikes which PA isn't robust enough to survive. 
And the island campaign scenario assumes a shooting war between two 
major powers deploying line troops - in which case, yes you'd 
probably see jump troops, PA, orbital assaults and bombardments, the 
whole nine yards. But a lot of SG2 scenarios and DS2 scenarios will 
revolve around rebellions, terrorism, banditry, suppression of same, 
privateering (or whatever they call it on the ground), and things 
which neither merit these kind of overkill responses nor which 
probably encourage the deployment of such assets. A cheaper, more 
cost effective (to keep right at hand) solution would be infantry, 
easily portable vehicles (hummvee Mark 27 with TOW 22), and some 
basic low cost air support (VTOLs or choppers), and some light arty. 
This formation could probably do more, over a wider area, in more 
situations, for less costs, and require less of your recruiting and 
logistics talent to support, thus allowing you to have your elite PA 
units for those "Hot Wars" and "Flashpoints" where the expense is 
worthwhile or even necessary. But lots exists to justify non PA 
scenarios. 

Of course, if you think PA is robust, problem free, dead simple to 
operate, has long battery life, can be run by a high school dropout, 
and can be parked, entered, exited, and maintained by said low skill 
troopie, then that changes a lot. Sure everyone will have it. But in 
that case, your colonists probably will too - if it is that 
ubiquitious and easy to use. Watch out for those PA equipped miners 
and farmhands! 

I don't think that is the official setting, and I don't think it is 
all that likely in the future, unless it gets THAT cheap and easy to 
use, and then that changes A LOT of the assumptions underlying the 
GZG world. 

Tom. 
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Thomas Barclay		     
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