Mercenary Units

[Jak Nazryth]

I don't have hammer slammers, nor do I have the book, Mercenary.
What constitutes a small-to-medium sized Mercenary Group?
How many ships and of what size?

My players have gotten involved with a Merc group called the Bronz Dogz.
They are a small to medium "upstart" unit. They work primarily outside the Imperium in the Trojan Reaches, but do come up into the Spinward Marches if a client calls. They will do any job without to many questions, and are rumored to work with criminal enterprises from time to time.
Here is my idea of their "fleet"

2 800 ton merc cruisers
4 400 ton modified "very used" Gazelle close escorts (they yanked the old damaged J4, replaced with a J3 and used the extra space for larger weapons and troop support)
A few more 200-400 ton ships still in the concept phase, mostly support in nature.
I might add (or swap out one of the standard 800 ton mercs for) a 800 mercenary carrier from the "Merchants and Cruisers" supplement.

But I have NO IDEA when it comes to a private mercenary Company's size relating to total ship tonnage / value / number of ships, etc... I have read a couple of fantasy based books dealing with Mercenary companies, specifically "The Black Company" by Glenn Cook, which I highly recommend, but nothing futuristic or sci-fi. Any Hammers Slammers fans out there?
Anyway, advice?

 

[AndrewW]

I don't have hammer slammers, nor do I have the book, Mercenary.
What constitutes a small-to-medium sized Mercenary Group?
How many ships and of what size?

My players have gotten involved with a Merc group called the Bronz Dogz.
They are a small to medium "upstart" unit. They work primarily outside the Imperium in the Trojan Reaches, but do come up into the Spinward Marches if a client calls. They will do any job without to many questions, and are rumored to work with criminal enterprises from time to time.
Here is my idea of their "fleet"

But I have NO IDEA when it comes to a private mercenary Company's size relating to total ship tonnage / value / number of ships, etc... I have read a couple of fantasy based books dealing with Mercenary companies, specifically "The Black Company" by Glenn Cook, which I highly recommend, but nothing futuristic or sci-fi. Any Hammers Slammers fans out there?
Anyway, advice?

Use what works for you. If you want toe define that as a medium sized company go right away. Book 1: Mercentary just goes by number of members. (10 - 60 is common, 20 - 120 large) so there's even a fair bit of overlap in those figures.

Have read the Black Company books myself as well, not bad reading.

 

[Golan2072]

Generally speaking, a small mercenary force would probably be somewhere between a squad (circa 8 soldiers) and a platoon (circa 30-40 soldiers). IIRC a Mercenary Cruiser can carry a full platoon. A medium force could be a company (2-5 platoons with some support elements), while a particularly large force would be a battalion (2-5 companies with support elements) or even a regiment (several battalions).

Ships depend on which missions the mercs specialize in. Star Mercs who specialize in space combat and boarding actions would probably need a lot more fighting ships than a unit specializing in planetside combat; the latter would probably need a ship that can transport it.

 

[locarno24]

But I have NO IDEA when it comes to a private mercenary Company's size relating to total ship tonnage / value / number of ships, etc... I have read a couple of fantasy based books dealing with Mercenary companies, specifically "The Black Company" by Glenn Cook, which I highly recommend, but nothing futuristic or sci-fi. Any Hammers Slammers fans out there?
Anyway, advice?

As noted, enough to carry the mercenary company. I'd figure out what you want ground-forces wise (common-to-large is 50-100 men according to Mercenary) in non-crew roles.

I'm not sure what the stateroom capacity is of all the ship's you've mentioned.

Certainly, any unit with 6+ combat-capable vessels is a serious player in the arse-end-of-nowhere that is the Trojan Reach.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

My initial idea for "The Bronz Dogz" is company sized group, kind-of like a "Black Company in space".
Please correct me if I'm wrong, especially to any retired military...
This is a very general breakdown based on average sizes...
Team = 4 soldiers
Squad = 4 teams
Platoon = 4 squads
Company = 4 to 6 platoons

So a descent sized Mercenary company would be at least 250 total members.

Based on the sizes listed in Mongoose Mercenary, this would be a very large Merc. group

Maybe it's because I never served in the military, but a 250 member Mercenary company seems tiny compared to the size of planetary / moon / mining / mega-corp installations etc...

The concept behind the Merc Group I'm creating is a flexible force able to take care of small to medium sized threats "in space" and then be able to send in enough ground troops to secure a verity of objectives.

This is a steep learning curve for me so anybody used to creating Traveller Mercs, or those who run a mercenary campaign, any help will be greatly appreciated. Based on the VERY general size of total merc members, I broke it down roughly into 2 800t cruisers, 4 modified Gazelle, and an evolving number of smaller support ships.

But, this is an evolving merc. group. I just need to get it down withing the next 10 days (by my next game day)

What is the size of the Merc Group "Hammers Slammers"?

 

[phavoc]

First question that you need to ask yourself is "what kind of 'small' mercenary force' are you talking about? Why? Very good question!

When you get into making small forces you have to take into consideration the type of force they are. Do they have grav tanks? APC's? Artillery? Or are they just unlucky ground pounders who get dropped off and stay in one area? The type of force you have dictates how much space, and personnel, that you are going to have. Here's a for instance:

You have two 120 man companies. The first is a mixed grav-tank and grav APC force. It consists of 12 2man tanks grouped into 3 sections of 4 tanks apiece. That's 24 men. Each section is also supported by 3 APC's carrying a 6man squad with 2 crewmembers. That's 72 men. You are now at 98 personnel of your 120. Which, if you factor in the other aspects of what it takes to run a small military company, you are essentially short people (Medical, HQ, support, supplies, etc). That's not even adding in things like other combat units (engineers, artillery, anti-aircraft).

The second company is pure infantry. They rely on their employers to provide transport. For this one you have 3 30 man sections divided into 3 8man squads with 6men in the command/support role. The remaining 30 people are in a HQ section (medical, supply, commo, etc).

The huge difference between these two is that to transport the infantry company you need troop accommodations for 120 men, and probably 20-40Dtons for their gear and some ammunition.

For the grav cavalry company, you need the same trooper space PLUS room to carry 12 tanks, 12 APC's, and probably another half-dozen or more grav vehicles for their support company.

That get's you started. Fun, eh?

 

[Jak Nazryth]

One of my best friends is retired airforce, and he sort-of had some similar ideas, though he said he was the first to admit that the airfoce structure is a bit different than a ground force. The closest he could get in his real world experience was Black watch when he served in the middle east.

Based on the posts from AW and Golan, the rules for Mercenary would consider your example as really big!

My concept for this "upstart" mercenary company wouldn't be quite as large as your example.

What can you cram into 2 800t merc cruisers? I am finding out... not a lot.

So I will most likely scale back the concept to around 100 max combat ready guys.

Really rough numbers, each 800t MC has around 25 state rooms, so consider that 50.
2 to 4 400 or 600 patrol cruiser sized ships for ship suppression / boarding / ground support, another 40

Then a couple smaller ships for general support, modified armed merchants for cargo, food, fuel, "spoils of war" space, spare parts, or any number of mission specific requirements. I might even add a heavy fighter converted for long range scanning and stealth.
I have a strong feeling I might be scaling back even more in the next 10 days.

Again, I have yet to get "Mercenary" so I might not yet understand group sizes within the Traveller game mechanics, but somehow calling 50-100 people as a "Large Merc Unit" just doesn't seem right. I only have a very loose idea what major Merc forces in a sci-fi setting would be like. I'm learning, and this is fun! I tend to stick to designing smaller, player-scaled adventure ships. So this is a nice break from my usual M.O.

Thanks for your input.

 

[Vile]

You may also want to check out Spica's Field Manual. 8)

 

[Pyromancer]

A "small, but powerful" mercenary unit that appeared in my campaign consisted of a carrier strike group with some thousand soldiers. But this was played as something ridiculously over the top.
Another group specialized in orbit to surface commando raids had only two smallish ships and two dozend fighting men.

 

[Captain Jonah]

It was asked above but its a question that really will shape the size and equipment level of your force.

How do they operate. The merc cruiser is a fairly mixed design, not so good at carrying troops, not so good at space combat etc.

With 2 Merc cruisers and 4+ escorts you have a sizeable Star Merc force, enough to run escort on some big convoys, run sub sector anti piracy patrols or just secure a system or world against anything smaller than proper warships. For that you need a small marine force not a company of men.

WIth 250+ PBI you are looking at ground action, do the ships provide Ortilery, do they specialise in strikes and raids on defended targets where they need to fight past space defences to reach the target?

Within the 3rdImp smaller merc commands often hire on not so much to fight but to act as cadre for existing forces and to provide specialist srevices not otherwise available. You may well end up having trouble finding contracts that require a sizable space force and a ground combat unit.

On the other hand specialising in supporting lower tech wars on Balkanised backwaters you can fly in, secure the system for your employer and provide higher tech orbital fire, intel gathering since you control the orbit you can sit over the enemy and make it hard for them to move.

As was mentioned, hi tech Arti, grav tanks, a strike force in grav apcs with battledress does a very good job of plugging any gaps in the frontline of lowish tech armies. You can provide tactical and strategic support. In short you can end up all but running the war for someone else.

Your tail, the support forces will need to be as big if not bigger than your fighting force, more so if you are working on lower tech worlds for a while. If the closest source of tech 12 spares is 4+ parsecs away you are going to have several frieghters and at least one of your escorts making shuttle runs for resupply all the time.

Mercs fight other peoples wars, but wars in Traveller tend to be more specialised due to the Imperium stepping in and squashing anything that looks bad for trade. Small actions, raids, protecting your employers assets, smashing or grabing his enemies assets.

You can generalise to the point where you can do everything but not very well, specialise to the point where you are fantastic at one thing only or find some middle ground.

If its ground combat only dump the merc cruisers and go for bulk troop haulers which can carry far more men and equipment, you have enough escorts to protect them and if 4-6 400Dton escorts cannot handle it its not an infantry job its a starmerc job :lol:

If its mostly space combat 2 merc cruisers and the escorts is a lot unless you are going up against a well equiped enemy, a hostile mid tech world, an entire pirate gang, an upity corporation etc. You will have less troops (50-75 perhaps) but then if you control the orbit it doesn't matter if you have 50 guys in combat armour with guass riffles and they have 5000 guys in flak with auto rifles, you can drop bombs and missiles on large formations from orbit (just avoid those civilian targets of the Impy jackboot will fall on you hard :roll: )

 

[barnest2]

For the same tonnage as a merc cruiser (i'm tying into the above) you can probably house and supply 2-300 soldiers. That's 600 troops with two of them, and I can probably get them for less even without the 10% discount. 600 troops is... what, 4-6 companies, compared to two platoons?

 

[phavoc]

Related to the reference for the Spica Publishing Field Manual... I have that. It's not a bad buy. It fills in a number of gaps that were left in Mercenary.

At the back they have examples of 4 military units:

(1) a battalion-level TL13 group (547 men - 220 troops, 310 support, 17 officers). They have 3 spacecraft - mercenary cruiser, 400 ton freighter and 200 ton freighter).

(2) a battalion-level TL9-10 group (550 men - 330 troops, 165 support). They have 2 ships, a 200 ton freighter and a 400 ton freighter.

(3) a brigade-level TL12 group, but its more planetary militia than a true merc unit, so there's no point in listing the statistics here.

(4) a company-sized TL12-14 group. This one is different as they are a naval merc unit, and have only 135 men, but they are spread across 5 starships, 3 gunships, 14 fighters, 1 assault shuttle, 3 ships boats and 2 modular cutters.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

Thanks for these examples! I might have to break down and buy one of the new supplements, but.... I FINALLY found my old GURPS Star Mercs last night... been at least 10 years since I looked at it.
Anyway, a slightly smaller version example 4 is pretty close to what I was thinking, with the addition of a smaller ground force. This is a general purpose, small yet growing mercenary company. So they will eventually grow into something larger.

So based on Mongoose Mercenary, even though this seems like a small group to me, per the game mechanics it's classified as large as a minimum. (shrug)

 

[phavoc]

Only well-financed merc groups can afford their own ships. More than likely they will either charter a ship for their transport, or their employer will provide transport.

A government can afford to keep a transport in orbit or on the ground, a commercial entity most likely cannot. If you are creating a ground-based unit you are probably better off designing a 'load plan' that would divide up the unit and it's equipment and gear amongst common freighters that might be found. So say it would take 12 free traders to transport the unit/gear, or 1 subsidized freighter and 1 subsidized liner, or whatever.

Doing something like that offers you as the ref many more adventure avenues - "rescue the troops from the crashed ship", or "pirates have captured your supply transport and now you have to raid their base to get your stuff back"