Armies of the Fifth Frontier War, Impressions Not Errata

[Vormaerin]

I mean, I absolutely think that Traveller makes excessive divisions of technology and not just in this context. We have 15 TLs because that matched the hexadecimal scheme, not because we have that many cool ideas for major technological change.

TL 13 through TL15 is basically just more of the same. You can jump a little farther, you can make your fusion power plant a little smaller, But what's the thing that makes you think society is clearly different now? It's all just 'advanced space age' until you hit TL16 and artificial sentience.

 

[Vormaerin]

Nobody's doing that creative heavy lifting.

Which is what I commented about 4 pages back. And probably people mentioned before that. It's entirely reasonable not to want to do that. But, I also feel that it is also not reasonable to produce several expensive books (Armies, ICS Papers) that just pretend the Imperium is simply a slightly better present day army.

In game terms, the only difference between the Imperial Army's primary weapon and the US Army's primary weapon in Vietnam is longer range, a slightly higher rate of fire (Auto 3 vs Auto 2), and a fancy scope to go with the longer range. The 'reconfigure it into various weapons' is something the Stoner 63 has been able to do since the 1960s.

If one, quite reasonably, does not want to do the heavily lifting, then don't write about the Imperial Army from that perspective.

 

[MasterGwydion]

I mean, I absolutely think that Traveller makes excessive divisions of technology and not just in this context. We have 15 TLs because that matched the hexadecimal scheme, not because we have that many cool ideas for major technological change.

TL 13 through TL15 is basically just more of the same. You can jump a little farther, you can make your fusion power plant a little smaller, But what's the thing that makes you think society is clearly different now? It's all just 'advanced space age' until you hit TL16 and artificial sentience.

Check the differences in Robot Brains from TL-12 to TL-15. That would have vast effects on a society. There are other examples as well, but this is the simplest to illustrate.

 

[Condottiere]

Huh? I don’t understand, where did the garrisoning edge come from?

1. Regardless how ... uh ... realistic ... it actually is, we know the likely composition of an Imperium sector fleet.

2. The Rim War lasted twelve years, and that should be long enough for us to see how large the Imperium Army is, how it's equipped sans a technological level, and how it's organized.

3. If the Zhodani plan on occupying planets, Imperium Intelligence would know most of them, and how many troops they'd need to take along to accomplish this.

4. The Imperium would need, at a minimum, to match this, in order to defend the planet, or take it back.

5. And that would be one way to figure out, the Imperium order of battle, in the Spinward Marches.

6. Or, at least, see if it sort of matches with what's currently written about it.

 

[Condottiere]

Going by current events, the Imperium Army will be heavily mechanized, with a complete range of supporting arms.

They'll have some light mechanized rapid response forces, to take transportation hubs, basically star and space ports.

The Imperium Marine Corps would be totally equipped at technological level fifteen.

 

[MonsterX]

-A lot of the things that would shape a TL 15 vs. TL 12 battle just aren't represented in the rules. Or even a TL 15 vs. TL 7 battle. How do sensors affect the capabilities for example?: RAW, your TL 7 jet fighter might do just fine blowing up battledressed troops and be very hard for them to hit both because of range and its speed and agility. I suspect individual an battledress soldier would have a fire control system in his suit allowing him to target that fighter with a good chance to hit, and even to shoot down its air-to-ground missiles in flight, with a suitable carried weapon, or something embedded in the suit. Or maybe just use ECM to ruin the fighter's targeting. The overall battlefield sensor network the TL 15 soldier is embedded him would probably also give him the chance to shoot first, before the fighter could get its missiles off.

Those sorts of advances probably also give advantages for TL 13 over 12, 14 over 13 and so on. We know from spaceship combat rules that there are incremental sensor, missile to hit, and computer advantages to the higher tech. Experience running these kinds of ship-to-ship fights shows that a TL 15 ship has a big advantage over TL 11 or 12, even if the weapons used are pretty similar. Not that the TL15 ship is never in danger, but it is a major advantage. This stuff isn't clear from the RAW around ground combat.