2300 AD Deployment Logistics

[ottarrus]

So this one goes out to the all the ground military warheads. Paging @D Hebditch.
With the coming publications of Armies of the 5FW and 2300's Invasion, it got me thinking about the practicalities of deploying heavy forces [Armored and Mech Infantry divisions] on the battle fronts of the Käfer War. [OTU Third Imperium canon has ships and landers that can deploy every type of division in brigade sized lots wherever they wish, so they're not part of this discussion]
We have several canon facts when dealing with the question of how to get a tank division from Earth to the various battlefronts:
- Armored forces DO get transported in unit sized groups in several canon sources and in most non-canon fan creations;
- The 2300 milieu is a 'small-ship universe'. There are no 500 k-ton Tigresses or 1 million ton battle tenders in the milieu. The largest ship we have stats for is the Tallyrand-class battleship the Richlieu at 5000 tons;
- The largest published landers can only carry 4 wheeled /2-3 tracked or hover vehicles of APC or larger size;
- Landers require much more fuel to get to and from a world surface;
- The Aerospace Engineers Handbook specifically lists every military ship in commission or building in 2300AD. There are no 'ghost fleets' to save the day;
- Most of the vessels are not fully described. Some are called 'Assault Carriers' which, in my mind at least, means a marine troop carrier of some sort.
- The most troops carried aboard a warship that we have statistics for is 1041 aboard Richlieu, the second most is 300 aboard the Sufren class ships.
- There roughly 50 UNREP, tanker, or 'fleet support' ships in commission of all navies. This means that ships will have to be conscripted from merchantmen.

So, how would you guys organize getting an Armored Division of a minimum of 12000 troops and 1500 vehicles [of all sizes] from Earth to the battlefront on, say, BCV?

 

[Sigtrygg]

Slowly.

The range of a stutterwarp ship is the limitation, warp efficiency can be reduced by payload to it's minimum.

So you put your military in "barges" that are towed by stutterwarp ships to the destination.

Landing is the tricky bit, unless you go back to the good old fashioned one way trip. All you need is an ablative shield and a lot of parachutes.

There is a reason they get called dump boxes after a while...

Alternatively you don't mind making a nuclear wasteland of your landing site.

But the whole thing is silly.

By 2300AD you would just use drones, lots and lots of drones. The drone oversight would remain in orbit, along with the orbital support weapons.

 

[ottarrus]

Slowly.

The range of a stutterwarp ship is the limitation, warp efficiency can be reduced by payload to it's minimum.

So you put your military in "barges" that are towed by stutterwarp ships to the destination.

Landing is the tricky bit, unless you go back to the good old fashioned one way trip. All you need is an ablative shield and a lot of parachutes.

There is a reason they get called dump boxes after a while...

Alternatively you don't mind making a nuclear wasteland of your landing site.

But the whole thing is silly.

By 2300AD you would just use drones, lots and lots of drones. The drone oversight would remain in orbit, along with the orbital support weapons.

I can see a carpet of loiter munitions [which is what they're calling UAVs with Hellfires now] over the LZ once troops get on the ground, but I still think that you're going to want ortillery for major emplacements during the suppression phase.
[By 'ortillery' I mean conventional munitions, not nukes or asteroids. All respect to Kommodore Lutke, but there's no sense in wrecking a world's biosphere if you want to keep it at the end of the op.]
But really the question is 'how many ships and landers are you going to need to put a heavy force on the ground'.

 

[collins355]

The fandom supplement "Op Herkules" has a very detailed layout of a world capturing operation launched by German forces at Dunkelheim. It has a breakdown, at least theoretically, of transports and transported forces.

 

[ottarrus]

The fandom supplement "Op Herkules" has a very detailed layout of a world capturing operation launched by German forces at Dunkelheim. It has a breakdown, at least theoretically, of transports and transported forces.

Yep, I read that one too, Collins.
But this ship only has 12 landers aboard, presuming the artwork is accurate. That's 24 combat vehicles per landing cycle at the very most and that figure does not include casualties. And from the general hull size, the ship looks like it can only carry about 48 total vehicles.

 

[ross]

The possibility exists that this is not a realistic scenario given the background and technology. Since the use of force multipliers like drones and orbital strikes is considered a common practice it may not be necessary for the operational goals or capabilities.

 

[ottarrus]

The possibility exists that this is not a realistic scenario given the background and technology. Since the use of force multipliers like drones and orbital strikes is considered a common practice it may not be necessary for the operational goals or capabilities.

So there's an old adage about military operations. I forget who said it, it was either David Hackworth or Tommy Franks, but I wholeheartedly agree with it:
"Warfare at it's most basic form always comes down to terrain. You need it, they have it, and you have to go take it from them. You can do a hell of a lot to any given piece of terrain... you shell it, bomb it, 'area deny' it, nuke it, gas it, set it on fire... but until you put ten 19 year old kids with their weapons and a basic load on top of it and dare the other sum'bitch to come take it, that piece of dirt simply doesn't belong to you. All other methods of dealing with a target are break-even solutions to the tactical problem. There is no technology yet developed that can substitute for infantry."

We also have to take a couple other things into consideration:
- 90% of combat operations in the Käfer War are liberations... taking back human colonized worlds the bugs invaded and freeing humans from the Käfer yoke. That's gonna require boots on the ground.
- Canon sources in all four editions of 2300AD speak very plainly about the deep sense of environmentalism in the milieu as a result of the Twilight War. That war utilized nuclear, biological and chemical agents in large amounts and rendered wide portions of the Earth uninhabitable for decades. Humanity has developed a STRONG sentiment against using WMDs on any world that is suitable for colonization. While there might be orbital ordinance launched against an opponent, that ordinance is strictly ship-launched explosive types. No human commander will countenance the use of nukes or foreign body strikes [meteors, etc.].

 

[Sigtrygg]

Ordnance not ordinance. Ordnance is stuff that goes boom, ordinance are the bits of paper that tell you what to do.

If you really think humanity would not use WMDs following the Twilight War I have a bridge to sell you.

 

[Condottiere]

1. Terrain is a type of environment.

2. Proportional military response, to prevent escalation, yet emphasize deterrence.

3. Usually, all bets are off, once it gets existential.