[UT/Mass Combat] Actual usefulness of Jetpacks / Jump-packs / Powered Gliders / etc.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

It won't be the infantry, but it could be be on their side.

Whoever has the orbital platform is going to use it to destroy unconcealed units of the other side. Infantry is the arm of restraint for the people who hold the high ground and the last (and probably only remaining) resort for those who don't.

By the time you've built the platform I would definitely expect ownership of orbital space to be settled and not still under dispute. You settle this sort of thing before you get very far with infantry battles.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Whoever has the orbital platform is going to use it to destroy unconcealed units of the other side. Infantry is the arm of restraint for the people who hold the high ground and the last (and probably only remaining) resort for those who don't.

By the time you've built the platform I would definitely expect ownership of orbital space to be settled and not still under dispute. You settle this sort of thing before you get very far with infantry battles.

If you expect every war to be settled by total space superiority, you probably don't have any ground arms other than infantry. You just hang all your firepower overhead, targeted by space-based sensors or forward observers as needed.

If you haven't eliminated land war in the normal sense, I don't see what killed the modern paradigm that armor needs infantry support to protect it against ATGM infantry.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you expect every war to be settled by total space superiority, you probably don't have any ground arms other than infantry. You just hang all your firepower overhead, targeted by space-based sensors or forward observers as needed.

If you haven't eliminated land war in the normal sense, I don't see what killed the modern paradigm that armor needs infantry support to protect it against ATGM infantry.

That's a load. Total Air Superiority right now isn't much different from hypothetical Total Space Superiority: Someone far out of reach has a godlike ability to reach out and touch you. And yet, infantry is still profoundly useful.

For one thing, bombers and orbital artillery can only destroy cities; they cannot take them. If you want to own a city, you need to walk up to it, with a person, stroll into the mayor's office and say "Hey, I am now your employer, got a problem with it?" You have to break down the door of an insurgent and physically arrest him. You need to give orders. You need to show your bright, smiling face and win some hearts and minds.

For another thing, bombers and orbital artillery cannot capture key individuals or artifacts. Let's say your evil third world dictator has some WMDs and you gotta prove that he does or you'll lose the next election because your opponents will say that you went to war under false pretenses. You don't blow up his alleged WMD facilities, you walk in, and say "Hey look, a WMD," and pick it up and take it out. The same goes for creepy alien technology that you want to capture, or that slinky scientist straight out of a James Bond movie. Boots on the ground.

Finally, you could probably beat an enemy into submission with just your cannons and your bombs, but it'll involves killing everyone indiscriminately, and it's messy and you might not hit your exact target. Bombs failed to kill Osama Bin Laden (because he was hiding in a cave) and they'll fail to kill the wicked alien overlord too. You're also far more likely to kill off some poor kid's mom, leaving a weeping orphan in a dusty street. Do you want that? No. So you send in infantry with precision weapons to ask people where the evil warlord is, and to shoot the bad guy but not some kid's mom, and life is much better.

We've been fighting these sorts of wars since the end of WW2 and the advent of the nuclear weapon. Any argument you could make for an orbital laser, you can make for an atomic bomb. And yet, infantry still has its place (And I'm pretty sure we've had this discussion before about ultra-tech infantry and its role in future warfare).

As for the OP, I think the primary advantage of jetpacks and such would be strategic, rather than tactical. It's about moving your infantry very quickly, doing so without a big target (a swarm of small, man-sized targets is harder to take down than a single large transport ship) and hitting your enemy where it hurts before he can react. Even so, I don't think you can discount the advantage of mobility on the tactical field. It's true that someone floating around in the sky is a target, but if you're quick, agile and well-armored, you should be relatively safe (high movement gives your opponent a penalty, you can still dodge, and if you're in power armor, your opponent will need to use something that either takes a turn to lock on, or use a single-shot, high power weapon, rather than just spray and pray, depending on your TL). Moreover, some technology, like the anti-grav harness, has sufficient control to allow you to hug the ground while moving, making them excellent assault or flanking platforms. It won't exactly be the cavalry of old, but I can see some advantages.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

If you expect every war to be settled by total space superiority, you probably don't have any ground arms other than infantry.

I do not expect every war to be _settled_ by space superiority. I just expect victory in hypothetical future wars to _begin_ with space superiority.

I'm sure there still will be a lot of infantry support vehicles if nothing else. The thing about truly functional personal flying devices (a thing to which we are not very close at all) is that they would replace some of those support vehicles.

The jeeps mostly, though they do offer some opportunity to bypass a part of the IED problem too. Before we see the flying backpack we might see a "flying jeep" first. Something smaller and more convenient than the very large troop transporting helicopters of today.

This would still be about mobility though. It's about getting your people to the right place at the right time rather than soaring into battle with the Ride of the Valkyries playing iin your headset.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

That's a load. Total Air Superiority right now isn't much different from hypothetical Total Space Superiority: Someone far out of reach has a godlike ability to reach out and touch you. And yet, infantry is still profoundly useful.

...

I may be misjudging, but it sounds to me as if you read 'any infantry' where I wrote 'any ground arms other than infantry'.

[rosignol]

Originally Posted by Tinman

Mostly though, I expect them to act as normal infantry, who are able to cross small rivers or bypass cliffs easily. Flying in the open, in the air on a modern battlefiled? Thats a quick way to get dead. IMO.

Yup. The primary use of that kind of thing would be overcoming obstacles such as lines of razor ribbon, fencing, anti-tank barriers, etc that would impede non-jump capable infantry. Jetpack infantry is still infantry, and from the perspective of the infantry, being up in the air sucks- there's no cover up there.

[vicky_molokh]

I just looked at the stats, comparing them, and here's the results I got:

Sky Troopers are TS 160, F, Rec for $300k at TL10^. Which is roughly TS 2,666 for $5M.
CAS Aircraft TS (1,000), Air, $5M, TL7. Upgraded to TS (8,000) at TL10 for the same price.
Flying Tank TS 1,600, Air, Arm, Cv, F, $3M. Roughly TS 2,666 for $5M.
Flying Battlesuits are TS800, Air (Arm), F, Rec, $2M. Or 2,000 for $5M.

Ground Battlesuits are TS800 (Air, Arm), F, Rec$200K, TL9. That's a whopping TS 40,000 for $5M at TL10.

Seems like indeed the Flying X in general is inferior to CAS Aircraft for TS as long as we primarily care about (TS) only, Sky Troopers inferior to Flying Battlesuits, which are inferior to Flying tanks. Ground Battlesuits, though, seem to be the way to go, as they provide enough TS per buck to negate pretty much anything that flies, and lots of stuff that walks.
But!
MBT, 500 Arm, Cv, F, $750K, TL7. That's 26,666 TS per $5M. Pretty nasty, even though MBTs will be chewed through by BS troopers.

[vierasmarius]

For the Jump-equipped Battlesuits seen in games and fiction, I'd actually just add Cav to regular Battlesuits to represent the improved mobility. As depicted, they don't actually fight in the air, so the Air class doesn't really feel appropriate. Of course, I'm not the one who wrote the rules. =P

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

I may be misjudging, but it sounds to me as if you read 'any infantry' where I wrote 'any ground arms other than infantry'.

I seem to have misread several things. My apologies.

[dethb0y]

Depends on the capabilities of the pack.

More or less, the advantage of any kind of jump pack is that it lets you cross over otherwise impassable terrain quickly. If the pack's pretty mundane that might be that you can jump over a trench or small ravine without having to hesitate. If it's very capable, that means you could jump across an entire defensive line and land behind them (say, for taking out artillery). If it's very capable indeed, you could use it instead of helicopters to deliver troops to the field from rearward areas quickly.

How effective and meaningful that is comes down to the specifics of the situation, but i think, in general, it'd be a middling-useful sort of ability to have. That all assumes you don't have to trade off alot of other gear for it, though.

Of course, if such things were common place, they might well come up with tactics for them that are not obvious to us .