Force Building

An old hobby of mine, designing military hardware and organizing units. Maybe
its one of the reasons I got into the CBT (Classic BattleTech) side of things in
my MechWarrior career and love RTS (Real Time Strategy) games.

Any ways what I've been pondering over to night.

A simple 'Element' being the lowest level of the fighting force. Consisting of
ether 8 Infantry, 4 Land Vehicles, 2 Air/Sea/Space Craft under 500 Tons, or one
ship over 500 tons.

Two classes of infantry, soft armored and battle armored. Soft armored would be
more or less what we have to day. Using soft-body armor or hardened ceramic
armors (think Marines from ALIENS) and standard weapons. While battle armored
infantry would be fitted with a suit of armor. Figure avg trooper becomes
about 2 meters tall with a 3 meter jump height using the heating/cooling
management systems to assist the trooper. Armed with 6.2mm Rifles and 10mm
Pistols. And enough hard armor to shrug off a few standard rounds.

I remember reading that a round has to be > 22Cal but < 30Cal to really be
effective so I think a 6.2x48mm rifle round would be an interesting experiment.
As a trade off between 9mm and .45Cal pistols 10mm is also interesting in
concept. Instead of normal ammo the rifles would fire a special round. A 6.2mm
armor piecing round thats designed to explode when hitting hard objects. Like
walls or cars. Yet made to fragment instead of go kaboom when hitting soft
targets like people. If you figure the blast could have enough force to take
most of an arm off. Its much more humane to just kill the sap not blow them up.
And to have the balence that the micro HE stock is good reason for the enemy
to rethink how they armor their own troops while improving joe rifle mans
ability to hurt armored fighting vehicles :-)

I think being centered around the idea of a Combined Arms Operations Company is
the best plan.

4 x Mechs, 1 Support unit, 1 Command unit, 2 Assaulter's.
3 x Main Battle Tank
1 x Command/Control/Communications/Intelligence vehicle which can tow a pair of
field guns for use as part of an artillery unit.
1 x Self-propelled missile artillery or Infantry Fighting Vehicle (IFV).
8 x Infantry in battle armor or gun crews.
2 x Close Air Support units.

My ideal configuration would be. 8 Battle suited infantry supported by a
tracked or hover-craft driven IFV /w 4-tube Anti-Tank missile launcher & 45mm
Autocannon. Toss on a pair of 12.7mm Anti-Near-Anything fifty cals on the top
for balance.

3 Main Battle Tanks maybe 45-75 Tons each. 135-142mm rifled cannon with 40-60
shells. 3 12.7mm MG, two top mounted + one coax with about 1600 Rounds. A pair
of triple tube smoke discharges on the front of the turret plus a pair of
single shot recoilless anti-tank rocket tubes on the sides of it.

Yes I'm kind of a nut about packing in as many weapons as possible followed by
as much armor as she'll hold without losing the desired level of agility/speed.
:-) Hehehe

Two CAS units consisting of STOL (Short Take Off & Landing) capable strike
fighters powered with dual-engines. A pair of 25mm Vulcan cannons, pair of wing
tip mounted Air-To-Air medium range missiles al cine to real world AMRAAMs.
4 Internal bays for deploying two 3-tube micro-missile stations and two
stations holding two smart bombs or 3 air-to-ground missiles. (HRTSG-ATG) 2
Under wing stations (per wing) for 2x bombs or 3 x air-to-air /or air-to-ground
missiles + 1 more under wing stations (per wing) for an Air-To-Air missile. All
of these under wing stuff being at the cost of stealth that is. More or less a
pair of harrier jump jets on steroids !

Or even a pair of helicopters packing a 17mm chin gun slaved to the gunners
head. Dual 12.7mm electronically fired forward mounted machine guns for the
pilots use. Wing tip mounted 5-Tube rocket pods and two stations for 4x
Missiles on each stub wing. Where thers a mixture of TV guided wire controlled
fine stabilized anti-armor missiles and Hybrid Radar / Thermal Semi-self
Guiding Air-To-Ground (HRTSG-ATG) missiles. Now thats a painful combo hehe.

A 'Mech element with a support unit with long range missiles, heavy cannon, or
long range weapons like a super long range sniper rifle/laser. Two general
battle configured 'Mechs of the line, CQB Configurations, or Spec Ops Raiders.
Plus a Commanders 'Mech.

Wheeled or Hovercraft based truck with AA ability to provide a mobile
command/control post with lots of communications and intelligence gathering
tools. Plus it could tow a few cannon for arty units.

8 Infantry in battle armor or a gun crew.

A Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) like self-propelled missile artillery
unit for close'ish arty support on the go.

Total of about 4 mech, 3 tank, 1 MLRS, 1 command post, 8 infantry, 2 vtol/stol
units for air support.

A Lance Captain in charge backed by a lieutenant and a Gunnery Sergeant to run
the show. About 30 combat personal. Able to bring a lot of fire power to bear
on the enemy. Plus having enough combined arms to deal with most threats.


Now organize these CAOC into battalions of six + one company is full of
support personal and equipment. We have a big enough force to consider when one
counts armor and air power as the prime assets and infantry more so for close
in MOUT and Commando work.

24 'Mechs
18 Main Battle Tank
at least 6 pieces of missile artillery.
12 Attack Choppers / Fighter-Bombers
48 Infantry with battle armor
6 Command Trunks to provide logistics and communications.

Per battalion. Now if we organized the force into regional commands based on
Regiments of 2-4 Battalions where preferably we have a battalion capable of
operating on its own and a regiment capable of transporting itself any where in
or around the planet.

Organize logistics, support, and command systems around a Divisional level with
the Regimental Combat Teams making up the back bone of the military force. And
I think we might have a fun CBT style game to play, or a funky study in future
military tech.

Plus a naval unit to supply sea and space based operations. Plus air power like
what the USAF would be tasked with. You could say its my
battletech/gundam/macross loving background but I consider 'Mechs and air power
the prime focus of a modular combined arms task force.

Hmm, if I had the time I think I'd write a TBS (Turn Based Strategy) game on
this...