Powered Armour and city fighting
What PA brings:
- armoured support for line infantry that can operate in urban areas
- in addition to survivability, you get heavy weapons
- the ability to move quickly (if fast PA)
- the ability to take point in situations lethal to normal infantry
- close combat capabilities
- the ability to rip down doors and barricades
- ability to carry sensors that allow you to detect vibrations, see in
other spectra, detect EM emissions, doppler, sonar, radar, lidar, penetrating
infra/ultrasound, etc.
- sealed life support capabilities (good in case of poor air quality due
to fumes, smoke, whatever)
PAs shortcomings:
- heavy (will tend to fall through weaker floors which also leads to the
thought of punji pits to dispose of PA)
- not quiet (maybe you can build a light PA exoskeleton for commandos
that uses silent servos etc, but it definitely won't be full normal PA) so can
be easily detected by sound (probably by emissions and whatnot too)
- immobilized by some EMP charges
- hard to get out if you have a collapse
- not dexterous
- problems fitting through doors and into warrens or rooms with low
ceilings
- not so great at negotiating stairs, ropes or ladders (does fine on
ramps for the handicapped, elevators, and cargo lifts)
Anyone think of anything else to add? I'm trying to fit together some sort
of conjectural doctrine for joint infantry-PA operations in urban
terrain... along with appropriate rules to handle various situations.
Good points all, but with a couple of exceptions I can see..
> PAs shortcomings:
I don't see why they couldn't be shielded like other systems. Of course
there is always a bigger bomb/gun/beam/charge so I understand the
<some>.
> - hard to get out if you have a collapse
Explosive bolts, or mechanical back-ups with a quick-release handle.
The guy who did Akira had a cool short called "A fairwell to weapons" that had
a great set of realistic PA encounter with an automated opponent.
A guy in there survives an attack, but finds the attack has shorted out his
armor. To add insult to injury, the missile's explosion glassed a lot of the
sand and made quick release difficult so he had to blow the suit.
> - not dexterous
True, but you could install micro-manipulators to specific suits (techs,
RTO's, etc.)
> - problems fitting through doors and into warrens or rooms with low
Without damaging the structure and making tons of noise, yup.
> - not so great at negotiating stairs, ropes or ladders (does fine on
Ladders might be bypassed by climbing the verticals rather than messing with
the slats but still not so great
> Anyone think of anything else to add? I'm trying to fit together some
[quoted original message omitted]
Another thing to think of with PA is that they have relativly short endurance
(12 hours for ESU PA to 36 hours for NAC PA). After that time, they must
recharge, change filters, restore food stocks (protien paste, yum!), dispose
of waste, (humans sleep), etc. I would expect this maintenance time is the
most dangerous for PA. Prime time for special ops strikes from the opponents.
I think that someone on the list had described (last year?) a scenario where
PA were recharging and were attacked (by GMS/P vs the recharge vehicle?)
and had to escape with only personal weapons.
This argues for PA being used in the same fashion they appeared in the old
Task Force game "Cerberus", which was as special forces troops who came,
destroyed and left.
Chris.
[quoted original message omitted]
> Absender: cdownes-ward@9a.co.uk
Just about any type of forces occasionally need time off to rest, eat, get
ammo, fuel, maintenance etc. Their mileage may vary, though, and you
could argue combat endurance of PA is designed to be comparable to that of
other infantry.
> Another thing to think of with PA is that they have relativly short
Greetings Karl Heinz
Actually, isn't Stargrunt pretty clear on the endurance time of the PAs
presented within?
> Just about any type of forces occasionally need time off to rest, eat,
> of other infantry.
I also sense people tend to assume building materials will continue to be
flimsy while everything else in the Universe seems to go up in stength.
Doesn't jive in all cases IMO.
Los
[quoted original message omitted]
But as always, construction goes to the lowest bidder. Civilian construction
just doesn't get the same quality as military, as they trade off cost for
quality.
Neath Southern Skies -http://home.pacific.net.au/~southernskies/
[MKW2] Admiral Peter Rollins - Task Force Zulu-Beta
[Firestorm] Battletech PBeM GM
> -----Original Message-----
Los said:
> I also sense people tend to assume building materials will continue
No, but there's no point in overengineering. We could easily make ladders that
will support 1000 pounds, for example, but they'd weigh more and cost more.
100 years in the future, we'll probably still have ladders rated for 300
pounds (or maybe we'll have learned the
metric system by then--anything is possible) but they'll be light
enough to easily carry with one hand.
> Laserlight wrote:
Hey, there are plenty of places that have figured out metric. Say, 95% of the
rest of the planet:) I mean, 1000g is 1 kg, 1000kg is a tonne. But wait,
you're right, base ten things are hard to figure out:)
(snide remarks from your friends from the north:)
> clourenco wrote:
Well, for civilian buildings, you make them as strong as they need to be.
I was just thinking about how easy it was to breach walls in our FMA game with
standard grenades while the guy is standing their pretty much in the same room
watching. The physics of explosives preclude being able to do that
unless you have a specialist shaped-charge or a huge mongo grenade that
will kill anyone within proximity even the breachers. Ands I don't think a
secured underground scientific facility like the one we were fighting in would
be made out of sheetrock.
Los
[quoted original message omitted]
Not if your Kra'Vak. We naturally use Octal, as should everyone else in the
universe. It is, afterall, the most natural base system.
(Hint: count the fingers on a Kra'Vak)
-----
Brian Bell
> -----Original Message-----
[snip]
> Hey, there are plenty of places that have figured out metric. Say, 95%
This has always been a point of sadness for me. I remember when in grade
school I was taught the metric system and we were told that by the
time we were in high school the whole country would be on the metric system.
Let's see I graduated from high school in 1980 and my fellow Americans are
I can tell you from personal experience that if the walls are sheetrock, you
don't need a breaching charge, or even a grenade. Any heavy object will go
right through sheetrock (axe, hammer, bayonet, foot, POW), and I doubt if it
would even signficantly slow down PA. Now the structural consequences of
breaching a wall (sheetrock or not) could be very entertaining.
Bill
(BTW Los, really enjoyed your post on grenade use in interior spaces. It's not
something most game systems think about, but a concussive blast in an enclosed
space just sounds like all kinds of pain to this civilian)
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Please respond to gzg-l
Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2001 06:16:25 -0500
From: "clourenco" <clourenco@snet.net>
Subject: Re: Thinking of aspects of PA in urban fighting [FMAS]
[General]
I was just thinking about how easy it was to breach walls in our FMA game with
standard grenades while the guy is standing their pretty much in the same room
watching. The physics of explosives preclude being able to do that
unless you have a specialist shaped-charge or a huge mongo grenade that
will kill anyone within proximity even the breachers. Ands I don't think a
secured underground scientific facility like the one we were fighting in would
be made out of sheetrock.
Los