Re: Transport capacities

>Date: Fri, 08 Oct 1999 02:36:13 -0400
>From: "The Nameless One (aka Thomas Barclay)" <kaladorn@home.com>
>Subject: Transport Capacities
>
>Well, Jeff has made a good point. Several actually.

Thanks.  And thanks for the feedback.  Good stuff; I've made a few
comments
below:

>... but as I recall in MegaTraveller (and their tonnage was disp
>based rather than mass based), they alloted 4 tons for a stateroom
>that could be single or double bunked. So if you double bunked
>your marines, you could get a Marine for two tons. Awake. That's
>(if mass and disp were equivalent measures) about 8 * as many
>marines on a Traveller ship.

Same in High Guard.  And their cryo is eight times that many (0.5 tons
per
low berth) or even thirty-two times as many in a pinch (emergency low
berths; same size and holds four people, but they share a single set of
cryo machinery... and the same survival roll)

>We know a Marine as a fish stick should take up some amount of
>space.  Let's start there. I'd say 1 Mt. that's 1000kg. That
>includes our 150 kg Jarhead, a 250 kg cryoberth, and 200 kg worth
>of support machinery and still leaves room for 400 kg of kit,
>which is quite a bit.

I'd kinda like to keep kit separate for now, since that will vary
according
to troop type; powered armor troops will have a lot more than company
clerks.  Also, by setting a standard for the amount of mass needed for
lifesupport, you will know how far you can push the limits in other
situations; think refugees, think Dunkirk in space, think the 23rd
century
equivalent of steerage on colony ships.

Otherwise, your numbers seem to demonstrate that 1000 kg should be more
than ample (maybe even a bit high) for cryo storage depending on how big
one's PSB says a cryo tube ought to be.

>So now, rather than putting 25 Jarhead-brand Freezersticks into
>1 Mass, we could put 100. That's an improvement.

Definitely.

>If we extended this to the *live* version, we'd then get 25 live
>Jarheads in that same 1 Mass, rather than 6. I'd call that a >quantum
leap. Now that would mean about 4 Mt per Marine. What
>would that be? I'd guess 2 Metric Tons worth of staterooms,
>sanitary facilities etc, 0.5 Mt worth of space devoted to common
>workout/living areas (which means about the size (mass) of 4
>staterooms in an 8 man squad), and 500 Kg devoted to personal kit,
>leaving 1000kg for vehicle transportation (or 8000kg per squad).
>That seems quite reasonable.

Again, I'd like to keep kit and vehicles separate since they tend to
vary
according to troop type and because in a lot of ways, those are more
easily
quantifiable.  If we can demonstrate that the total mass requirements
for
active and awake jarheads are really as low as 2, 2.5 or 3 tons per
trooper, then I'd rather pack in 30, 40 or 50 of them at this stage and
do
the calculations for kit and vehicles later.

Otherwise, I'd just as soon stick with the 25 personnel per 1 mass
yardstick, (even if it is comfortably on the high side) and chalk  the
extra mass up to unspecified ship's overhead.

>So now, to move a division of Jarheads with some basic transport
>... you now only require 50 Mass and 200 Mass. These are far more
>practicable and pragmatic values for moving large forces through
>space.

Absolutely.  And they feel more consistent with real world force levels.
It also makes infantry relatively more cost effective than they were
when
compared to vehicles.

<snip comments on vehicle space requirements>

See my later post on vehicles.	I think my suggested figures are a bit
higher than what you had posted here.

>.... this level of carrying capacity makes some of the large
>scale wars discussed in the GZG timeline AND all the numerous
>small scale conflicts almost practical. It makes the movement
>of an Army Group (25 divisions lets say) something that might
>take 5000 Mass....admittedly a gross figure but doable with good
>cause... as opposed to 20,000 Mass which is way more grotesque.

Good points.  I absolutely agree.

>Jeff, you've sold me. I'm a convert. :)

Heh.  Thanks.  :)

Jeff