ghostrider
02/14/15 03:39 AM
76.89.120.217
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The rac thread is getting off track, but a good point was brought up.
How did the innersphere go from producing a few hundred mechs, to being able to expand to producing thousands of mechs, yet could not repair factories and even some of the mechs in use?
They had issues with any sort of design team since most of the scientists would not move from their homes in the backwoods systesms.
And the lack of certain parts, like fusion engines made it even more difficult to produce anything.
Now with the wars and raids going on as well as merc forming and gtowing, how could a couple hundred mechs a year keep up with the losses suffered AND the increase of units.
Production seemed to magically jump from hundreds to thousands being made.
A mech standard mech regiment is 108 mechs without command units and specialty lances. Making 2 of them would use up most, if not all the mechs produced across the innersphere. And I seriously doubt Liao would allow a merc unit working for the fed suns to buy up the small amount of units them made.
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wolf_lord_30
02/14/15 05:37 AM
166.216.165.91
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I'm looking over the 3050 TRO right now as I'm writing so I'll be as accurate as possible. Take the warhammer for instance. Ronin, inc only produced 5 warhammers a year and were the first to use recovered technology on it. Then it goes on to say that close on their heels is Olivetti Weaponry. But as of the time of writing, they hadn't produced a new warhammer yet. Other places still manufactured the original warhammer mainly in the Taurian Concordant. It mentioned two worlds there.
So lets just say that they all beef up their production. They each make 15 a year somehow. That's only 60 mechs right there a year and it only takes a few minutes to destroy one with little hope of salvage.
Now lets take one of my favorite light mechs, the Raven. It's really a Liao mech, and they seem to only have a few out at a time. It is only produced by Hellespont Industries on Sian. If that plant were hit, Liao would lose the raven. And although it doesn't say how many they manufacture, I'm sure its not more than 10 a year with all of its electronics. The raven is fragile and gets shot up when trying to tag someone for friendly units. Enemy mechs don't liked to be narced on. So do they lose more than 10 a year? Probably, and even with salvage, they're not really expanding their numbers. And yet, somehow, mercs can get a hold of it and even other houses can salvage it. And then you see more than 10 a year between Liao, other houses and mercs.
Sorry ghost rider, I think I adding more questions instead of giving a good answer. I agree with your math, how do they produce all of those mechs that get lost during all the wars and still have plenty more to go around, even when supposedly decimated.
I guess we're not supposed to ask these kinds of questions. Just shut up and play the game, but what fun is that? Oh and maybe Liao would sell some of their excess Urbanmechs to an unlucky merc unit.
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ghostrider
02/14/15 12:19 PM
76.89.120.217
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The Liao was an example. ANd even though the urban mech is slow, I still wouldn't think they would be that ready to sell the mech when they need all of them they could get.
I can understand ramping up production, but starting with support facilities is needed first. Fusion engines is a big stumbling block. The resources needed for making them was in demand, as the Verhandi (?) story from grey death legion had stated. The production does not even include those needed for tanks and other uses.
There are other sources saying things like before the 3039 war, Kurita only built 5 atlas's a year at their factory on the border (wanna say Al Nair), and that increased when they took Quetin. Another was saying the factory building centurians was about to fall apart before they could rebuild it and also added in the valkyrie line.
It does make me wonder where the fed com came up with, I believe, 10 regiments of mechs just before the 4th succession war. I understand some units being transferred from other units, along with pilots, but the fed com rcts popped up for that war.
IF they are full regiments, that's 1080 mechs. That is on top of replacing units lost in raids and pirates. Not including the resources used to build the tanks, ie fusion engines in some.
This does not even touch the fusion engines in aerofighters.
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wolf_lord_30
02/14/15 12:51 PM
166.216.165.91
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Yeah, and what's that saying again? Life is cheap, battlemechs aren't. They must've forgot their own tag line when they started creating massive conflicts and losses. And you just touched on aerospace fighters. Let's not forget dropships and jumpships too for carrying the mechs everywhere.
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Cray
02/14/15 02:48 PM
65.123.232.62
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:
How did the innersphere go from producing a few hundred mechs, to being able to expand to producing thousands of mechs, yet could not repair factories and even some of the mechs in use?
That's a trick question, since the Inner Sphere learned to repair the factories and start building 'Mechs again.
The Inner Sphere suffered technology and knowledge loss from about 2786 to 3000AD. From about 2900 to 3025, warfare's tempo in the Inner Sphere dropped off to low key raiding rather than total warfare. By the 31st Century, the Inner Sphere was able to start catching its breath and recover from the early Succession Wars. Things like the New Avalon Institute of Science were starting to recover lost technology before the Helm Memory Core was found. Events like the union of the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth brought engineers and scientists from two nations together to start recovering technology - you can see all that discussed in TR:3025.
Yes, scientists would move between planets. That's why the Federated Suns-Lyran Commonwealth alliance was so effective. Lyran engineers helped rebuild and restart decrepit Federated Suns factories.
Then the Gray Death Legion found and shared the Helm Memory Core c3025, which filled in the many gaps in Inner Sphere technological knowhow. Decrepit factories were made new; engineers could be properly trained; scientists understood technology again; and so on. It took about 25 years for all that to really happen as a whole new generation learned from the Helm Memory Core and put the Inner Sphere's shattered technology base back together.
Then the Clans came along and really spurred the Inner Sphere into technology overdrive.
By 3067, the Inner Sphere was no longer gawping about lostech and wondering how to repair 'Mechs and factories. It had recovered lost Star League technology and was moving beyond the old Star League, at least in terms of military technology. It knew what it was doing finally. The era of lostech was over.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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ghostrider
02/14/15 07:00 PM
76.89.120.217
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Not sure how much construction advanced with things like ferrocrete and such, but it would take time to build and refurbish factories.
Now with war slowing down around the turn of the millenia There are still alot of units being destroyed even without total warfare. The galtor campaign had a few units ravaged and rebuild, along with raids like hoff that set the dragoons against a unit that was involved in the law suit. Pirate raids and even small rebellions in more then a few states. Liao took a beating before the dragoons signed on with them. And that is not including things like mccarrons cavalry making its run through the federated suns. It still sounds like a miracle that they could get everything running that quickly before the 4th war.
And with the loss of the high tech, it still would have been a good idea to run as much military hardware in the older factories if for no other reason them militia and defensive units. You may not be able to produce a company of mechs, but a regiment of scorpion and vedette tanks would have done wonders to help repel invaders and pirates. ICE powered tanks would have been preferrable then losing a planet or the damage to a factory because it lacked mech forces.
I will also point out that some of the newer tanks like the hunter came out with using fusion engines.
It also calls into question the programs of the future, as we have more then a few you could design a basic car rather quickly. I find it hard to believe they lost every copy of CAD for dummies.
They didn't lose star charts, which would have been a high priority for virus software.
Simple premise being, if they can't find you, they can't attack you.
And I do understand having more resources to work on a project will move it along very well. Lyran Commonwealth was always good at production. But something is still off with them being able to design new cars without a problem,, but not something with a turret?
Luxury dropships, but nothing with weapons?
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ghostrider
02/14/15 07:14 PM
76.89.120.217
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The last one got long, and I wanted to add something with wolf lords thoughts.
I had forgotten about the losses mech forces took when their dropships were shot down as well. There are more then a few cases where a lance/company/battalion of mechs were lost do to this very reason.
They didn't even need massive conflicts to deplete the mech forces. Alot of raids will result in losses, since only a stupid fool would not replace losses on front line, or important worlds when they got hit. Defiance on Hesperous would be a good example of that.
Yes they build mechs there, but a good siege would shut down alot of production. You may not have the 50+ mechs readily available to replace the units lost in the last attack.
Anyways, straying from the story lines. Most novels around that time make it sound like atleast a company of mechs, if not more were lost in every conflict at the time, weither raid or actual assault. Even the statistic books lean towards that thought.
And this is still barely touching merc losses and replacements which good smart mercs have in their contracts with the house lords.
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Cray
02/14/15 09:31 PM
71.101.54.173
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Quote:
ghostrider writes:
Not sure how much construction advanced with things like ferrocrete and such, but it would take time to build and refurbish factories.
Yes, about 25 years, like I said in my last post.
Quote:
And I do understand having more resources to work on a project will move it along very well. Lyran Commonwealth was always good at production. But something is still off with them being able to design new cars without a problem,, but not something with a turret?
Luxury dropships, but nothing with weapons?
I don't know where you're getting that. The Lyran Commonwealth had no trouble building new turreted vehicles even in the depths of the Succession Wars. See: Rommel and Patton tanks.
Quote:
It also calls into question the programs of the future, as we have more then a few you could design a basic car rather quickly. I find it hard to believe they lost every copy of CAD for dummies.
Your average engineering student doesn't have to worry about an interstellar cult assassinating them. The Inner Sphere had 200 years of that.
Also, there's a lot more involved in reading CAD drawings than just having the drawings. I work in an aerospace firm where every retirement takes away critical knowledge. I review the materials aspects of blueprints for some of the most advanced smart weapons on Earth and the prints have only a small fraction of the knowledge needed to make them work. I can spell out material notes for blueprints like "use 6061 aluminum per AMS 4108", but without veteran mechanical engineers and experienced machinists the blueprint is just a useless doodle. We hire the finest, brightest college graduates and they're useless without years of training under veteran engineers who've been doing their job for decades.
At my fingertips at work, I can open up blueprints for stealth helicopters, guided missiles, laser designators, and many other wundergear, and they're meaningless without the people who turn them into hardware. Seriously, there's a panic every time one of our Cold War veterans retires. Well, not from Quality, Procurement, or HR, but losing someone from Engineering who was designing gear to blow up Commies in the Fulda Gap HURTS.
During the early Succession Wars, the "economic warfare" strategy would've dropped a nuke on my facility and then you'd have a military with no ability to understand several of its popular guided weapons, advanced sensor systems, and key targeting systems. Oh, there'd be CAD drawings, but they'd be as useful as doodles on bar napkins.
Quote:
They didn't lose star charts, which would have been a high priority for virus software.
Simple premise being, if they can't find you, they can't attack you.
Read StratOps and Interstellar Players 3. Inhabited planets are detectable by JumpShips from neighboring star systems (StratOps). Most of the Inner Sphere was mapped out by telescopes in the Terran system before JumpShips got to them (ISP3). As demonstrated by ComStar, the process is repeatable by other groups - a few telescopes here and there, and you can find enemy star systems. After all, they're not going to be more than a jump away.
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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ghostrider
02/14/15 11:39 PM
76.89.120.217
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Ok. So 25 years in to the future then upgraded the factories.
What happened to production during the few years factories were down? We are talking about filling in spots that combat losses opened up with even 400 mechs innersphere wide, but yet more were destroyed for all the battles that raged.
The fact that in the early 3000's new designs were not there. Most of the newer designs came after Hanse Davion came to power. If not for his vision, the entire innersphere would still be stuck in slow mode.
And you do bring up a decent point about someone assassinating scientist. Comstar was trying to keep the innersphere in the dark. So that point I do conceed.
Ok, the star chats could be redone with a little effort. If people were smart they kept paper copies of planetary maps, since planning an invasion would require trustworthy information. Another aspect that cyberwarfare should have targeted.
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DavidG
06/29/15 01:44 AM
96.29.193.32
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Ok, I thought I might drop a thought or two. According to the House Davion book, they were producing the following mech:
Marduk - Griffin, Wolverine
Jeratha - Valkyrie (130/yr)
New Avalon - Valkyrie, Wasp, Phoenix Hawk, Locust
Ith - Wasp, Phoenix Hawk, Locust
Talon - Rifleman, Griffin, Enforcer, Jager Mech (Fast Production 75+/yr each)
Quentin - Atlas (5/yr), Jager Mech, Victor (20/yr), Marauder (20/yr)
Amritsar - Centurion
The mechs that don't have numbers listed are probably 30 to 40 per year. So House Davion produced about 900 mechs per year total. This may be a low figure as the fast production may be closer to 130 than 75 per year.
The House Steiner book lists the following mech production:
Hesperus II - Zeus, Atlas, Archer, Griffin, Hatchetman
Furillo - Zeus, Wasp, Locust
Coventry - Commando, Vulcan, Phoenix Hawk, Firestarter, Stinger
Carlisle - Marauder, Archer
Sudeten - Warhammer, Thunderbolt (Started in 3005, by 3026 had tripled their plant size)
Tharkad - Crusader (New plant, had to recall the first 200)
Twycross - Stalker, Battlemaster, Rifleman
Chahar - Stalker, Battlemaster, Rifleman
Butler - (new plant being built by same company as Twycross and Chahar to expand production of mechs)
Pandora - Rifleman, Battlemaster (built in the late 2900s)
So assuming a similar production ability per plant, House Steiner produces about 1200 mechs per year. That is assuming only 40 of each type at each plant. It could be much higher.
This also is based on the fact that these are the big producers of mechs, There are probably many small time factories that also produce various mechs in much smaller quantities that are not mentioned in the books. These could have production as low a 1 every 2 to 3 months.
This means that the Inner Sphere in 3026 was producing 5 to 6 thousand mech a year before the big push to rebuild many Star League era plants that had been shut down due to damage and age.
I hope this sheds some light and answers some questions and maybe generate more. Thanks for reading.
David G.
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ghostrider
06/29/15 03:54 AM
76.89.120.217
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Which is why I asked how they were able to take losses like in the Galtor campaign but yet both of those houses were able to add several rtcs of fedcom units when they finally merged. The lost almost as many as they built if you look at all the raids and such that went on in the canon line. Hoff was a food one, as well as trying to rebuild the militias that were destroyed in things like the mac deep raid into the suns.
With the support factories at max and having issues, and in the house books even suggesting the techs had to rebuild some lines they didn't understand how they even worked, was able to produce so much more, yet the story line made it sound like they didn't have the resources to do much even if the factories were working.
I know this is outside of the standard discussions, since the only thing people really care about is what equipment is made by who when designing a new unit.
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by_the_sword
12/15/15 09:18 PM
70.215.66.252
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I like DavidG's answer.
There are 'mechs everywhere. I would suppose that all the talk of radity is just that, talk.
I am gearing up to run a campaign using A Time Of War characters, centered around a merc unit. I want it to be hardscrabble, but frankly this game is about 'mechs beating the crap out of each other, so I need to have plenty of 'mechs available for the players and their opponents.
I will suppose, in slige of source material that mech production is not as limited as the books proclaim, but only level one tech is readily available. You want a brand new HCT-3F? No problem, for a couple million it can be yours. A used one is even cheaper (though it might be missing a weapon and a couple of actuators). But if you want a HCT-7s with the better engine, MML9, CASE and ferro-fibrous armor, you are going to have to pay considerably more. You will also be put on a waiting list as the great houses and interstellar governments have contracts that need to be filled.
Even in the 3025 era you can have the lost tech, it would just be extremely rare as the successor houses would be using that stuff for their elite units. You could fight your way from the Lothian League to the Tauran Concordat and not see a double heatsing or an ER laser.
Doing out the advanced tech to the players would be like magic items are in D&D. A reward and an upgrade to their equipment that keeps the game interesting.
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ghostrider
12/15/15 11:42 PM
98.150.102.177
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The innersphere suppposedly didn't have the resources to fix production lines, yet some how new factories or even new lines in the old factories came out before the big upgrade of the innersphere. Their were several new mechs that came out and put in production. The hatchetman, wolfhound, axeman, and marauder II come to mind with this. The raven was another one that came out after 3000 but before the Helm core advancements.
The confederation had build a factory to build the ravens, which really causes some doubts to the 'inability' for the innersphere to fix their factories.
That would be like saying comstar didn't know how to fix hpgs. Since most would never touch one other then to operate it, the knowledge of how to work on them would be forgotten. Even building new ones would be hard to unlikely.
And as it was in the canon scenario packs, house davion had working double heatsinks before the helm core was decoded.
There is just to much contradictions in the production of things like fusion engines and mechs to cover the losses of the raids and battles, for them to have been able to up the forces by the clan invasion. Even during slow times, it is implied there was not enough production to cover that period, much less expand to the pre clan wars.
25 years to build a factory is way too long. Even with building every component factory before making the main one it would still be too long.
And the cost. I do not see where that would slow down building defenses to hold off mech regiments. How many 10 million dollar fighters does the U.S. have alone? Not including the rest of the world? And tanks..
And that isn't including income from across hundreds of worlds. I just don't buy it. I can see some being killed by rival entities, but after a while, you would have your people protected. No MWD's being use, I find it hard to believe you can not protect a few people that would be designing the defenses for worlds. Most of it should already be in production. Simple modular designs that can be shipped to the planet they will be placed on.
I just don't see the math adding up.
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DavidG
12/16/15 07:16 PM
96.28.54.229
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Here's another thought about why production may be low. Since all the houses seem to be feudal in how they operate, but not completely, this may be a good analogy to what has happened in the Inner Sphere.
Back in the 1980s I took a class on WWII history. we had speakers for 3 of the four classes each week. Each speaker talked on a key aspect of the war. During WWII, Nazi Germany was ahead of most everyone else in technology but rapidly lost it. In Germany the key industrialist all tried to woo the Nazi government to get the contract awards for building key weapon systems. There was a lot of back biting among the them. One example of this is the jet engine and jet fighters. Heinkel showed Hitler the He280 in 1941. Hitler was impressed with it but didn't think it would be necessary as he thought the war would be over soon. So the government didn't fund it's development adequately and by 1943 had quit funding Heinkel work. By then Messerschmitt was in favor by Hitler and got the contract for a jet fighter which became the Me262. Heinkel had lost favor an lost out. Also Germany industries during the war did not share designs like the americans did. The Americans settled on a design and then told the industries what they were building and had many industries in others fields retool to build war material. (an example is Singer Sewing Machine built M1 Grand rifles) The Germans were still running their peace time industries like before the war so the German citizens still had all their luxury goods. An example was the Marklin model train company. They built model trains before the war and when Allied troops over ran their plant in 1945 they were still building model trains. As a side note, Marklin is still around today having never been involved in making anything for the war effort in Germany.
This could explain some of what has happened with the Inner Sphere. There reason that some of the production is so low is that the leaders of the Houses favor certain builders and leave others out who could also be producing Mechs. As the technology was rediscovered and the Federated Commonwealth came into being, this practice may have been discontinued or subdued at least. The other houses could have followed suit so as not to be left behind. I can see the industrial leaders in the Inner Sphere not allowing, or only allowing some others builders access to their designs.
This is only an idea, but could explain a lot.
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ghostrider
12/17/15 04:17 AM
98.150.102.177
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I am not saying their could not be low production, but the numbers do not support that. Whole regiments of 108 plus mechs were formed on a whim, and that is not including replacing all the ones lost in wars, raids, accidents, and such.
I feels like they are saying you can't do something, then turn around and do it themselves.
And if you want something to work, stick with it. You can not lost 5 regiments in a year, replace them and build 2 more when you only have about 3 regiments a year being built and that is ALL States building and the losses are from ONE state. And that was BEFORE the 4th war. I find it difficult to believe the confederation built enough mechs to get up to their 3039 numbers for that war then the clan invasion.
I do understand comstar sold them some, as they did the combine, but even then, I just don't see it. And without comstar selling to the combine, it would not have had as many, and they were building more themselves, while still losing them in raids to the fedcom.
The canon sources contradict their own story line. As it we suggested before, why would any company sell mechs to mercs if the states were so hard up for them?
Aero assets seem low for what is needed as well. So many world supposedly can not survive on their own, yet the states supposedly lack the jump ships and drop ships to even begin to have the math working. 2 week round trip on average for jumpships. Mammoths and Behemoths not being that common. I can not see a pair of mules keeping a planet in necessities the way a few of them are implied to be like. Just importing water on some would consume alot of drop ships in service.
Prime example. I believe water is 7 pounds per gallon. If correct, there is about 287 gallons in a ton of water. Not exact, but for now, it will work. How much water will someone go thru in a week? The area I live in, says one unit is about 760 gallons. Going thru 3 units a month is 2290 gallons. That is over 15000 pounds of water a month. For one household. Not including farms or anything else like that. So lets say 7 tons to be generous. 8450 tons per mule move each time it comes in. So a little over 1200 people use that in a month. So if they make a run 2 times a month we can say 2400 people can be kept in water on a colony without any other sources of water. That is not including food or other things, like machinery, clothing, building supplies even toilet paper. Now that is extreme, I admit. They would produce some of their own stuff hopefully.
But this is one of the issues that comes to mind with this idea. And with all the nukes and stuff that would still be radiating alot of worlds from 300 years ago, they would have to import for alot of worlds, that some how magically recovered from this.
I agree that there is limits to what can be done, but I have not really seen those limit in effect by the designers for some of the things they have done.
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TigerShark
12/17/15 05:12 PM
12.130.166.32
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Most of this was handled by Vehicles and 'Mechs were only used in very important roles/assaults/missions. So a few companies of 'Mechs/year is probably enough, realistically. Regarding the 3rd Succession War, this is explicitly stated in TRO:3039.
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ghostrider
12/22/15 04:14 AM
98.150.102.177
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The thread with the Zeus x4 kind of kills the idea that making clan weapons is too expensive.
This is not a dig on you cray. But the canon ideas like items being too expensive are destroyed by things like this when they come out.
And the question comes up.
Why in the hell would you build a fusion reactor like a 400xxl?
Are they going to use it in other mechs, or just the Zeus?
If only the Zeus, then they built a fusion engine line just for this unit?
And they say clan tech is too expensive to make.
What did I miss?
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Akirapryde2006
12/22/15 09:29 AM
71.100.132.249
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I have always had a problem with the concepts regarding the industrial base of the Inner Sphere. What DavidG post about the Federated Suns and Lyran Commonwealth is most likely as accurate as anyone else would be able to come up with.
But it begs another question. Take the Capellan Confederation, Let us assume that their mech production is half of the Federated Suns. There is no logic that could explain how the Capellan Confederation could survive nearly three hundred years of near constant conflict. The Capellan Confederation's industrial base would have never been able to keep up and would have been the first state to fall.
Unless the Capellan Confederation had an ally in the Free Worlds League the state would have fallen. Throughout the Secession Wars, the Free Worlds League regularly raided and attacked the Capellan Confederation with devastating results.
What should have happened in canon, the Capellan Confederation's industrial base should have been smashed by the end of the Second Secession War. Unable to build their own mechs, advanced weapons and units they formed an alliance with the Free Worlds League. This alliance would help keep the state together but alliance would have triggered events similar as what happened when the FedCom Pack was signed. This would have caused the Lyran Commonwealth and the Federated Suns to focus their efforts on the Free World's League and the Capellan Confederation. It would be likely that the Draconis Combine would take advantage of the situation but the Marik-Liao Alliance would be too much to ignore for the Steiners and Davions.
These events very well could have rewritten the events of the Third Secession War. House Steiner would place as much pressure on the Free World's League as possible while not giving the Combine an easy target. This would have a disastrous effect for the Capellan Confederation. Less and less supplies would be arriving from the Free Worlds League.
Smelling blood in the water, the Federated Suns would have driven hard against the Capellan Confederation placing even more strain on their own industrial base. By the end of the Third Secession War, the Free Worlds League would have had to make the painful choice to cut the Capellan Confederation loose to their own fate. The Forth Secession War would have saw the end of the Capellan Confederation once and for all.
The only way the Capellan Confederation could survive the way it did was by divine intervention (The Authors of the Universe).
Akirapryde
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TigerShark
12/28/15 06:35 PM
12.130.166.32
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I don't think that's true in the least. Conventional forces can easily stop BattleMechs, which is why they invested in units like the Manticore, Patton, Rommel, Demolisher, LTV-4, Anti-'Mech Infantry, Warrior VTOL, etc.
Their 'Mech production might have been lower, but that doesn't mean an overwhelming amount of infantry with automatic rifles and some well-placed artillery couldn't slow a Davion advance to a glacial pace.
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TigerShark
12/28/15 06:42 PM
12.130.166.32
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Also, building conventional fighters is a lot cheaper and easier than building Dropships. If you could swarm a Dropship with rockets and LRMs before it landed, you've stopped those expensive 'Mechs before they fired a shot.
Logistically, a 'Mech doesn't decide the battle. It's only a piece of the puzzle.
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Rotwang
12/30/15 08:24 PM
94.226.248.136
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Many games and SF settings seriously underestimate scale. The major Houses feel more like large countries rather than star-spanning empires. Interstellar logistic problems aside, we're talking about multi-billion populations with resources that dwarf anything we have on earth. Even if we assume that the Inner Sphere can't fully exploit most of its resources and moving these across space is difficult and costly, we would still have hundreds of high-population planets that could sustain the industry required to produce military equipment in sizeable numbers.
Yet the fate of billions seems determined by about as many people who fought at the battle of Agincourt. Even a massive force of 20 Mech regiments has only 3000 fighting troops broadly speaking and even if you have twenty+ people in logistics to support each fighting soldier, we're talking about 75,000 people tops
Oddly enough Mechs make sense for mercenaries as you can have a potent fighting force requiring relatively limited space and resources to support. A merc unit composed of say 3 mechanised infantry regiments and 2 armoured regiments with all the necessary support would require many times the resources to keep them fed, housed and moved about.
Tanks and infantry are usually the silent majority. On a planet with a population of one billion and a reasonable economy can expect to have between 0.1 and 0.5 % of its population under arms. That's anything between 1 and 5 million people. So for a core world in a period of relative peace the standing army might be around 1 million active personnel. If one assumes 1 combat vehicle per 500 active troops we still have a considerable force of some 20,000 combat vehicles.
In real world numbers 1 in 1000 population would be Nigeria. Countries like the UK have 3.8/1000, Germany is at 2.8/1000, the US is at 7.3/1000, Israel 78.3/1000 and North Korea 308.5/1000.
Germany in WWII had 18 million troops under arms and produced some 40,000 tanks. The US had 12 million troops under arms and produced 88,000 tanks. So there was one tank for every 450 German soldiers and one for every 136 US troops.
Germany had 80 million people in 1939, or 225 troops/1000.
So a rich border planet with a decent industrial base under possible threat of invasion at any time might have something like 50/1000 in troops and might be down to one combat vehicle per 250 troops. With a population of one billion you'd have 50 million under arms with access to at least 200,000 combat vehicles.
Even if we assume that BT era combat vehicles are much more difficult to produce and that it costs a lot more to keep a fully trained and equipped soldier in service. Any reasonably populated planet with a decent economy able to produce combat vehicles should have lots of troops and quite a few tanks for basic defence. Add any forces that are stationed on the planet, paid and supplied by the House itself and invading with something like a battalion or even a regiment of Mechs is going to bump against the numbers.
Going through the two Fourth Succession War atlases, it's mostly lances, companies and the odd battalion featuring most mechs with the odd tank and infantry unit in the mix.
Companies and lances fighting over entire planets (earth has 150 million square km of land) and keep them under control ... Somewhere there is a scale problem and planets are treated more like a large patch of land, easily covered by a company of mechs in less than an hour or two.
Edited by Rotwang (12/30/15 08:26 PM)
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ghostrider
12/30/15 08:59 PM
98.150.102.177
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I think that idea came about when the clans were a problem. Most of the fighting with them implied they took over worlds in less then a week.
I agree that the scale of things seems to be off. With the exception of mech armor, any planet that can make civilian vehicles can make tanks. Maybe not fusion engines, but ICE ones.
With the information you just gave, it really seems unlikely a single mech regiment would take and hold a planet. Even under the most strict regimes, loyalists would assassinate the pilots as you have them out and about. I know it is a touchy subject, so I will leave it there.
The sheer numbers on defenders also makes me think their is no way a pirate force could take an entire planet for any length of time. Sure they can take local areas, but after a while, they would get kicked out before the frontline troops could be dispatched.
With those numbers, there is another point about scale that is missed. Those are COUNTRIES of the world, not the ENTIRE world combined. Just using half of the worlds gdp would be a good basis for the economy of a normal planet. Some will have less, like strictly agriculture worlds, which needs some heavy industries to keep the machines running, while others like Hesperus, which should be considered much wealthier system would have dramatically more.
With the wars, it would seem the numbers are too low for the scale. Money plays some part in it, but frankly, it is better to hold the enemy at a border world, then allow him to hit multiple worlds further behind the lines.
And this does not even touch the stupidity of leaving mech production facilities on the border.
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Rotwang
12/31/15 05:31 AM
94.226.248.136
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It might very well be that the Ares conventions have also extended to conventional forces restricting them in some ways. Unless a planet has a very strong cultural identity or important resources it might be that once the main mech forces defending the planet are defeated the conventional forces stop fighting (if only to limit the losses and collateral damage) It would make sense that things like guerilla warfare might not be a viable option in an era of technological decline and planets might prefer to surrender, rather than go through cycles of extended violence that might further damage a stretched infrastructure.
There are the early Grey Death novels where it is implied that conventional forces were quite limited and had stopped being an important factor, leaving all the real fighting to Mechs.
But with the technological resurgence and events like the Clan Invasion you'd probably want to mobilize conventional forces to boost your mech forces, if only to get that extra autocannon or LRM in the field. Any state with an ounce of sense would start to mobilize everything beside their mech forces to turn the tide.
Conventional forces with enough combat vehicles should give mechs a run for their money, even if we keep troops at very low numbers like agricultural planets.
I'm fairly sceptical of the idea of one-note "specialist" planets. Just look at how incredibly diverse our planet is. It would be fairly strange to assume that most planets can only support agriculture or industry or some specialist function (Ditto for Lucasian single climate/feature worlds being the norm). It's as if most planets are little more than bite-size versions of US states (Iowa for agriculture, Michigan for industry) Once again it seems to boil down to the misunderstanding of scale. In an Inner Sphere where logistics are insufficient (Star Lords and Mules in BT numbers would not be able to support interstellar trade beyond the most valuable/indispensable cargo) most planets would either die off or become autarchic much in the same way as our planet functions on its own, able to produce anything from ploughs and anvils to cars, planes, tanks, iPads, refrigerators etc rather than there be one or two major production centres in each House providing these goods from a few centralized massive industrial facility.
Inefficiency seems to be the norm in BT, just look at infantry organisation. Putting all the troops with rifles in one platoon, all the troops with SRM's in another simply doesn't make any sense. From before WWI armies learned to equip their troops with useful gear. Soldiers may have started the fight in 1914 with little more than a bolt-action rifle and bayonet, by 1918 a platoon would have light machineguns, grenades, rifle grenades, machine-pistols etc. And because they are part of a larger integrated military force stuff like medium machineguns, mortars, light artillery and even flamethrowers can be made available. WWII would add things like assault rifles and anti-tank weapons.
Of course we bounce against another major BT paradox, mech level armour and firepower. Unlike modern tech where infantry can be equipped with guided missiles that can take out most existing tanks or at least damage them to make infantry a viable threat, Mechs are assumed to have a level of protection that makes infantry portable weapons utterly redundant, except that you can take down mechs given enough rifles ... Nobody likes the idea that a single well placed shot with a LAW will take out your Fafnir (and the emphasis is on mechs after all) but the kind of equipment given to the infantry to deal with armoured targets borders on the ridiculous. Battle Armour has taken up the gauntlet and closed the gap, but this brings us back to the problem of infantry and conventional forces being a tiny minority to begin with ...
Even if we do handwave several major features, some numbers or conventions in BT simply make no sense. If you want a viable interstellar trade Monoliths should be among the smaller jumpships and designs like the Potemkin (sans all the guns and armour) would cover most major interstellar trade routes carrying dropships the size of the Behemoth.
Edited by Rotwang (12/31/15 05:43 AM)
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ghostrider
12/31/15 12:50 PM
98.150.102.177
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The issue with a single LAW rocket taking out a mech is fact just because of the floating critical of 2 on the damage location. And I agree. It does suck when it happens.
With heavy industry, I can understand a new colony not having alot if any, but that is only the first dozen or so years. I can also understand not having the schematics for some things making it harder to build even tanks, but there is just some things that don't add up. Today, you can go online and get blueprints to make tanks and such. You may not be able to make explosive reactive armor, but you can put on steel plates. Even an archaic canon used during the 'pirate' ages should work.
I know in more then one book they suggest resistance continues for centuries on some worlds. And let's face it. Some enemies would not hesitate to kill everyone on the planet, so doing everything you can to resist them is needed.
And a few have tried to cover the issue of not sending everything the moment an enemy force is sighted, though I do question it alot. They suggest that the enemy tends to drop more forces elsewhere. But that means simple tactics should have been established, ie you do not leave you base undefended.
Now thinking about it, the question of cost for tanks comes to mind. Except for fusion engines, and weapons, why are they as expensive as mechs?
I said something about shipping in items couldn't happen in the BT universe with the 'few' jumpships and dropships they have.
The planet Quentin is a good example. It is supposed to be an arid world. It has a mech factory on it, that produced Atlases, Victors, Marauders for house Davion, and Kurita took it during the 3039 war. How much water does a mech factory use? I assume there is some water on the world, but how much? And if it is like standard factories, clean water is needed, not some polluted and tainted water will work. Then the people need it. Shipping in water for that would be extreme space consuming, and just trying to keep it flowing would be impossible during wars or even raids. Just blockading the planet would destroy alot of defenders according to logic.
And I agree with the issue of jumpship production. There is no way they could be that low, yet ship just necessities, much less TRADE for profit. Try sending Chinas trade good so the U.S. with 6 ships. Just not possible. And we are talking to other systems as well, so even more time.
Would like to hear more people chime in about this, but I think you hit it. Scope is what is causing this issue. For a single world, or even a dozen, this might work, but for even just the confederation at this point would be almost impossible.
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Reiter
01/08/16 10:35 AM
45.48.53.140
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Link to bump post ]Link to bump[/url]
Assuming not all things built where immediately destroyed, that video shows how many tanks are still around and not being used.
Assuming 300 years of building from Exodus to the Clans invasion, there would be a lot of material around, it is still possible to own and fire flintlocks or WWI rifles which can still kill people while less effective then an AR-15 or AK-47.
Salvaged mechs can be refurbished and recycled like in that video, build 5 and lose 3, your next output could be 7.
Not all factories build the primary parts, you can have smaller contractors build lesser components and the primary factory assembles. Bolting on armor wouldn't require that much of a college degree, ask Rosie the Riveter when her husband went to war while most women at the time didn't really have employment during that time period as it was thought they would be running the house (and then the times changed) .
If a war starts, demand sky rockets and employment goes up, bigger work force means supply increases for short periods of time.
Ect ect while cannon says "XYZ can only build this amount" it is possible to adjust the facts to fit into the universe. Use your imagination.
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