RE: Marine carriers?

At 6:27 PM -0400 6/7/01, Brian Bell wrote:
>
>[Bri] Just a suggested limit. I suggested the limit, because anything
>larger
>built using DS2 rules would have to be modular (and thus VERY
>vulnerable) or
>built using FT rules. You would then have to develop a COMBAT
>crossover

Oh, such things are far too big for an effective piece in a DS battle 
per say. Even the Mass 5 craft end up being pretty damnably huge when 
you get down to it. The Mass 25 super heavy assault lander seems 
right on the LCT size of things. ie it gets carried into the system 
by a Deck Ship or what ever you call the space equivalent, and then 
acts as one of the heavy lifters for orbit to surface transport that 
you don't have the benefit of in an invasion mode (that normally 
would be around to handle heavy cargo). Something more than a lighter 
really in that it doesn't need additional hardware on the surface to 
handle the off loading...

The really big ships (FTL in, assume orbit, land, offload return for 
another helping) would never figure into combat. If your red force 
gets near there, then its all over for the beachhead....

>beteen DS2 and SG2. Also, at some point, the mass would be great
>enough to
>_require_ some form of prepaired landing surface (concrete, plasteel,
>durasphalt, whatever) to keep the landing craft from sinking into the
>ground. It was more of a technical division in dropships, spliting
>those
>that needed a landing surface from those that did not.

Oh, aye. Definately. I'm of the opinion that the Size 5ers and maybe 
above to say size 10 could land on softer ground, something with 
bedrock nearby would be a good idea. Landing in the middle of the 
jungle would be bad. But, the planet has to have some salt flats or 
some really flat land with a high ground loading....if there is a 
space port or three, then great. Perfect place for a battle. Land 
your platoon landers elsewhere and do an overland assault to the port 
and perform a hot insertion of additional blue forces (can we say 
market garden?). I played one of these with a buddy that did Air 
Force Security work for 6 years...he loved the game...

>  Looking up a C5 (at http://simviation.com/rinfolocc5.htm) it can
>hold 2
>Abhrams M1s (Size-3 Vehicle). So using my formula would require a
>capacity

Hmm, according to MT, you can get two Size 3's into a mass 5 lander....

>of 48; so it would take a minimum of a Size-10 lander to be
>equivilent. The
>C5 takes 2,987m to take off from a runway. The page does not indicate
>(and I
>do not know) if it can land on a grass strip.

C5's are strategic airlift. And they can take 3-4 Abrams if you don't 
plan on flying far. The C-17 can take 2 (or is it one) and can do 
rough field landings. C-17s are supposed to be tactical and 
strategic. They replace the C-141 which was mostly strategic...

There were trials back with the C-17 was having all sorts of problems 
out in Witchita and Seattle. I was working for Lockmart at the time 
and we did an unsolicited bid on a C-5D (A and B were in inventory 
with the Airforce). It was faster, cheaper, more common and flew 
farther than the C-17 with more. Lockheed even got the Air Force to 
do tests on Paratrooper drops out of the C5 and I think even tried 
some LAPES drops. The interesting mods were a Glass cockpit, a cargo 
rack above the main hold for more pallets (not stacked tall), twice 
the load of the C-5A/B models and all using the new fancy engines 
developed for the 777, just 4 of them vs the 2 on the 777. Bloody 
huge high bypass turbofans. It was especially nice in that it was 
common with something like 60% of the parts already used by the 
C-5A/B models too.

>
>[Bri] Well 3 things.
>1) I changed the unit of measure CS is different than DS2 capacity
>(20cs ~
>24capacity).
>2) I misquoted More Thrust. It was 50cs to 1 FT mass for CARGO. For a
>lander
>it is 10cs to 1 FT mass. And I should have said 25 capacity points
>per mass (not 100).
>3) To get a reasonable force to the planet took a LARGE ship. Lets
>take the example from More Thrust:
>1 platoon Hvy Tanks (size 4, 5 crew each)
>2 platoons Medium Tanks (size 3, 4 crew each)
>3 platoons Mechanized infantry in 4 MICVs (2 crew + 8 troops each)
>1 battery of 3 SP Artillery vehicles (4 crew).
>1 command platoon of 1 command vehicle, 1 AA vehicle, 2 missile
>vehicles (total crew of 13)
> The tanks would require 408cs. To fit that in one or more landers
>would
>take 81 a mass lander. To put the lander in a bay (pretty usless
>otherwise)
>would take a 122 mass bay. Plus you would need crew quarters for the
>crew of
>the tanks and infanty so, 788cs = 16 mass of passenger space.
>  A soapbubble transport (MD2, 2xPDS, min hull) would mass 202 and
>cost 700.

Don't carry the landers on the ship that can carry a Mechanized 
Taskforce (its a coy short of a Btn I think...).

Split larger landers into separate forces. Use size 5 landers (4 of 
them) for the platoon size landings. If you really have to take a 
bigger red force, you're going to have far more than one Amphib ship 
on hand. A whole slew of assets are going to be needed. One Marine 
Amphib (Real USMC) group carries something like 1 tank company around 
with them. Most everything is air portable (heavy lift Helos). The 
same should be for Space navies. Full on Army landings are going to 
be mixed up big time with the Marines. Look through the Haze grey 
site at all of the Prepositioning and Amphibious operations ships the 
US has.

One class of ship that shouldn't be overlooked is a Barge carrying 
Logistics ship. Essentially a space version of a LASH barge carrier. 
Think Huge containers that you pre-load. The ship picks up 2 or 4 of 
these. FTLs to the invasion area, dumps those in something like an 
hour, then zips off for more. If there are empties, it picks them up. 
Loading and unloading is handled by logistics guys in orbit using 
other specialized ships and craft. The cargo elements could even be 
sub containers inside the main ones.

>  Using my method, the force takes 470 capacity points. The lander
>would be Size-10 (800 capacity points) and have an FT mass of 32. The
>passenger space would still be 16. So 24 mass for a cargo bay. Would
>give a soapbubble transport of mass 80 and cost 236.

I'd rather go with a smaller lander and move fewer in more trips. One 
lander is a bit heavy. You could also go with a vessel that doesn't 
land its own troops, rather it relies on other things you bring on 
Deck Ships...

>  For a planetary invasion of an established world, you would
>probably need 10x-100x this force. That would be make it much less
>cost effective to transport a force.

Depends on what is Dirtside. You've got Orbital bombardment working 
for you. Add to that many of the operations in the canon history talk 
about single divisions defending outlying worlds. That means you need 
3x the force power, multipliers help...what is Orbital Bombardment's 
force Multiplier? I dunno....

--
- Ryan Montieth Gill		DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
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