[RAW] Future warfare, assuming UT defines available gear

[vicky_molokh]

Greetings, all!

Other discussions indirectly raised this question: assuming what Ultra-Tech says in terms of technology and gear, what will warfare be like at each of TL9, TL10, TL9^ and TL10^? I mean, if we treat the RAW and UT as gospel (optionally with Designer's Notes).

Thanks in advance!

[Mailanka]

Are we using everything that's available, barring super-science in non-super-science settings? I think slug-throwers would dominate. You'd see ETC and ETK at late TL 9 and TL 10 respectively, and a few Gauss Weapons (if you discard ETK, Gauss will dominate at TL 10). Defensively, I think you'd see tacsuits as the armor of choice. At TL 9, I think you'd see Combat Walkers as the primary battlesuit, and TL 10 will add the Heavy Power Armor. You might see TL 9 power armor and the commando battlesuit if strength is more important than protection, but I expect if that was the case, you'd see exoskeletons instead.

Radar shrinks down to a small enough scale where you can have one per unit easily, and if you have the money, one per soldier (radar locks give +3 to hit!). You'll also see lots of radio (laser comms for secure, long-distance communications), and you'll probably see computers on all soldiers, equipped with HUDs and targetting software and tacnet for the officers. I expect these computers would be networked together. As a result, you might see combat hackers, depending on some of your combat assumptions. You'll certainly see chameleon suits and radar invisibility and jamming will be very important on the battlefield. At TL 10^, you'll see Deception Jammers.

When it comes to sensors, you have your pick of suites, but soldiers will have something in their visors or helmets, at least night vision, probably infravision. Because of the ubiquity of radar, you'll probably see some ESM countermeasures that warn you when someone has a lock on you.

I think an important element of UT warfare will be "Information dominance"

[RogerBW]

I'm not convinced that Gauss is sufficiently better than ETC for armies to re-tool with it when they get to TL10. As a general-purpose weapon, contrast the ETC Storm Carbine: 10d+2 pi+, Acc 4, 1/2d 1050, Max 3150, Rof 10, Shots 50, Rcl 3, 8lb, and you can load it with APEP to double the range and get 10d+2(3) pi, with the Gauss Rifle: 6d+2(3) pi-, Acc 7, 1/2d 1200, Max 4800, RoF 12, Shots 60, Rcl 2, 8.5lb.

Yes, the Gauss has better accuracy and lower Rcl (and depending on whether you think APEP and ETC range mods should or shouldn't stack may have better range too). A shooter at effective skill 8 before Acc has a 95% chance of getting one Gauss shot on target, 84% of 2, 63% of 3, 38% of 4 - versus 74% of one, 38% of 2, 9% of 3 for the Storm Carbine gunner. But that damage... with the same armour penetration, you're doing an extra 14 points of damage per bullet with the APEP/ETC Storm Carbine, and your wounding modifier isn't halved. Against an unarmoured target, that's 37 points of mean damage rather than 12 (and if you know you're going up against unarmoured guys, you can switch to slug ammo and score 56 points a shot); against a TL10 combat hardsuit, it's 12 rather than a bounce.

[Langy]

I doubt combat hardsuits are going to be the primary armor (too heavy and expensive), and the difference in ammo cost is very significant. Sure, you're going to have at least one guy in the squad with a gun that can punch through combat hardsuit armor - possibly everyone in the squad with specialized underbarrel weaponry like grenade launchers or gyrojets - but I think most people are going to have the gauss rifles instead.

[Verjigorm]

I still hold that the Tacsuit, with a Clamshell layered over it, a lowerbody exoskeleton and a good helmet makes a great infantry platform. You get to train your boys on battle suit skill, so if you have "elite" wearing powered armor, then they get to be trained up as infantry on basics for the suit skill, and then you can go into more indepth training for them.

The clamshell provides good protection from most lighter weapons, and let's face it: limb damage isn't as big a problem in a world where you can replace limbs with prosthetics, even ones that enhance performance. The cliche of the hard bitten soldier with multiple cybernetic replacements might not be too inaccurate. The tacsuit provides a sealed enviroment, so chemical and biological weapons won't be killing you. That's important. It also helps against explosives.

Weaponry is a different matter. I see guns of some type or the other being popular. Lasers offer specialist capabilities, but as general issue have numerous stumbling blocks, as compared to kinetics, such as energy requirements and tactical considerations. The question comes down to chemical or gauss.

I think this will depend on the force structure of the military. A large army that depends on numbers? The cost benefits of gauss outweigh the performance issues. A more specialist or individualistic military doctrine might desire the over-all performance of chemical weapons over the reliability, weight and cost benefits of gauss.

In the setting I use at ultra-tech levels, the United Ismaili Repuclic army consists of bioroid soldiers, "ghulams". A popular Ghulam class is a large ape/lion hybrid, that undergoes extensive training and is frequently modified with an artificial intelligence "passenger". They prefer chemical powered guns and lasers. Humans in general are rare combatents in their armies, with a large amount of cybershells and bioroads such as the Asad("lion").

By contrast, the Hegemony of the United Nations of Earth use gauss weapons extensively, because they allow for large amounts of ammo expenditure. Microfacs that are specialized to making ammunition for the gauss are common platoon assets, allowing a degree of logistical freedom for their ammunition needs.

Both forces are in constant struggle with each other, and neither has come out on top. The UIR have enforced their independence from the colonial authority, but they do not harbor territorial ambitions. They do support insurrections amongst the rest of the colonial population, and in this role, their specialized operatives excel. The provide cadre, but also dangerous strike teams that can attack at many points along the enemies line of advance. COLFOR troops often find their lines of supply under attack from bands of engineered bioroids and cyber shells.

At the same time, the amount of firepower the COLFOR operatives have available, from a squad level up, is staggering.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

I'm not convinced that Gauss is sufficiently better than ETC for armies to re-tool with it when they get to TL10. As a general-purpose weapon, contrast the ETC Storm Carbine: 10d+2 pi+, Acc 4, 1/2d 1050, Max 3150, Rof 10, Shots 50, Rcl 3, 8lb, and you can load it with APEP to double the range and get 10d+2(3) pi, with the Gauss Rifle: 6d+2(3) pi-, Acc 7, 1/2d 1200, Max 4800, RoF 12, Shots 60, Rcl 2, 8.5lb.

Yes, the Gauss has better accuracy and lower Rcl (and depending on whether you think APEP and ETC range mods should or shouldn't stack may have better range too). A shooter at effective skill 8 before Acc has a 95% chance of getting one Gauss shot on target, 84% of 2, 63% of 3, 38% of 4 - versus 74% of one, 38% of 2, 9% of 3 for the Storm Carbine gunner. But that damage... with the same armour penetration, you're doing an extra 14 points of damage per bullet with the APEP/ETC Storm Carbine, and your wounding modifier isn't halved. Against an unarmoured target, that's 37 points of mean damage rather than 12 (and if you know you're going up against unarmoured guys, you can switch to slug ammo and score 56 points a shot); against a TL10 combat hardsuit, it's 12 rather than a bounce.

Little known fact about Gauss:

The electromagnetic pulse produced when an electromagnetic
gun fires may be detectable, but it will usually be
difficult to localize. The only noise is the crack of the projectile
breaking the sound barrier. Ammunition velocity can
also be varied, exactly as for a liquid-propellant slugthrower
(p. 139).

So you're actually looking at 6d+8, not 6d+2, and even more range. That's an average of 28 damage, which is sufficient to penetrate even the hardest parts of a TL 10 combat hardsuit. And that shot costs less than a tenth of your APEP round.

Don't make the mistake of overrating damage. You don't need to obliterate your target, just kill him. The gauss weapon is more likely to hit the target, more likely to hit the target multiple times, as likely to penetrate the target's armor, and will earn kills for pennies on your dollar: A gauss dart costs $0.06, while a 10mm APEP costs $8. That's over 100x cheaper. I don't think that's worth the increased lethality. In addition to superior RoF, Range, Accuracy and price tag, the Guass weapon is a more flexible weapon: You can pump up your damage for hard targets, as I've shown, but you can also pump it down for sub-sonic rounds, which is great if you're trying to keep your presence unheard.

ETK weapons, on the other hand, have an enormous increase in firepower, so far beyond Gauss that you don't even need to reach for the vastly overpriced APEP round (APEPs are specialist rounds, you simply don't have the money to give them to every Tom, Dick and Harry in your army. The same will hold true for players, who aren't going to be happy paying $400 for every storm carbine clip). With 14 pi+ damage (average damage ~50), a simple APHC round will no problem penetrating a combat hardsuit (modified DR of 38), and it only costs $80, which is much, much more affordable. It can also boost its damage or silence its rounds in the same way a Gauss Weapon does, and has better accuracy and range than an ETC weapon. That makes choosing the Gauss Weapon over the ETK a very questionable proposition (I think you'd still see the average rank and file given Gauss, simply to keep costs down, but I have little doubt that ETK weapons would still be prolific in the army. Most players would favor ETK over Gauss, I think).

On the other hand, we might skip both ETK and ETC in favor of straight caseless HEMP (since the ETK and ETC bonuses won't help HEMP damage). At 10mm, HEMP deals 8d(5) imp. Against a combat hardsuit, that's an average of 26 damage after DR (counting the impaling bonus), and it's only double the cost, like an APHC round. I think you'll see this often: Inferior firearms with up-to-date accessories and ammunition. We still use the M-16 well into TL 8, despite it being a TL 7 weapon, and you might see the same thing in a sci-fi setting.

[Verjigorm]

HEMP has the problem that if it becomes common, reactive armor paste will be a common accessory. That addition DR 20 helps at the smaller levels of HEMP warheads. For example, against 10mm HEMP, RAP gives you DR 40, which really makes anything less than 25mm a bit useless for HEMP. Just go with the better kinetic kill. even burstfire isn't a help, as a single burst is consider one impact against RAP.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I still hold that the Tacsuit, with a Clamshell layered over it, a lowerbody exoskeleton and a good helmet makes a great infantry platform.

Do you really want -1 DX for your troops?

It's not rules-supported, but you could probably hack out a tailoring scheme to create tacsuit-clamshell armor.

[pieclone]

What sort of warfare and how "hard science" are we going to be? If we see TL disparity such as we have seen in recent conflicts then it's also going to depend on who's fighting who and why. Afghanistan is effectively TL7/8 (US-led "Coalition") vs TL 6/7 (Taliban/Foreign insurgents) at best. I'd imagine this will only increase in the future on Earth (barring fictional backgrounds). Increasing the capability of weapons both direct and indirect is not going to make a huge difference in this sort of warfare. We're already spending tens of thousands for each enemy combatant that we remove from the field of battle.

I absolutely disagree with the concept of powered combat armour - it's a death sentence for anyone wearing it on the field of battle - there is nothing that will prevent someone from firing several $500 tandem charge warheads at a power suit and reducing it to slag in moments. It will have it's place, certainly, but in the field it's going to be next to useless unless you stipulate magical power sources and the like.

If AI exists then it can think and act faster than any human and it costs less to train and raise as once you've made one you can copy it for the price of the new hardware. Living beings are generally slow and mushy and other than the fact that adventures kind of have to revolve around us, we're pretty damn useless compared to machines. With the sheer amount of cheap sensor equipment available to even a TL8 military you just can't hide a dude in a tin-can.

I've always had multiple linked drones as the best bet in a conflict of similar TLs - a mobile centre that drops off remote sensors and weapon systems/launchers linked either by FO cable or radio/LOS communicator. The weapon drone is a remotely steered one-shot railgun/HV missile launcher. Everything is pretty much direct fire to give the minimum time for countermeasures. To quote N.W.A. "find-'em, f*ck-'em and flee". ID the target - engage with overwhelming firepower - run the hell away before the counterbattery begins.

This of course is utterly wasted when you've got TL8/9/10 vs TL 6/7 or what have you. We'll still be fighting wars in mountains, deserts and jungles against motivated guerilla cells whose best weapons are blending in with the natives and IEDs and rifles.

Also - aerial support in a Counterinsurgency - if you've got something that can stay on station for long periods of time that can just drop in the occasional highly accurate explosive ordnance then you can make up for a lot. It's of no use when you've got forces of equal TL as anything that stays on station had better be invisible or it's dead the moment it fires it's first round.

(it's a bit all over the place and IDHMBWM for reference as I'm posting from work but I think that should make some form of sense).

[Tema69]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Do you really want -1 DX for your troops?

It's not rules-supported, but you could probably hack out a tailoring scheme to create tacsuit-clamshell armor.

I suppose you could create a Under-Armour-shirt type deal, with the torso of the tacsuit being unarmoured? But it doesn't fit with RAW.