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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 917
Location: Spain
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 Posted: 19-May-2002 18:14 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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I read a discussion at Fanpro site of people wondering why are there so few units on the planets. Since it took me some time to write this, I thought I'd share.
In interstellar warfare what is important is the Navy, not the ground forces. However, for most of the Battletech history, ground forces were more important, in the first 500 years because expanding empires needed to seize and hold ground, and then the Ares Conventions relegated Warships to a secondary role.
the navies of the IS were destroyed in the 1st Succession Wars ...and it's a truism that the IS was blown back to the Stone Age.
To being with 90% of the planet are colonial economies...sparsely populated and they don't have the industrial base to maintain ground forces, and most of that industrial base was destroyed in the wars.
The critical factor that limits the size of IS armies in 3025 is transport. There are so few jumpships and dropships, that intterstellar commerce and communications are kept to a bare minimum. Interstellar warfare is like island warfare in the Pacific in World War 2, it is pointless to create huge garrisons on planet that cannot be moved around or can be bypassed by enemies.
Basically, with most planets being self sufficient islands, the successor States can only draw troops from those planets that lay on the main trade routes AND have the industrial base to arm and equip troops, let alone the population base.
A good historical analogy of the problems a Successor State would have to raise armies and send them to the frontlines would be the 16-17th centuries Spanish Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road.
And those planets have in many cases been bled white. While for the majority of planets that aren't on the border war is just something you hear in the news, if at all , those planets have been exploited mercilessly by drafts. Considering that the technological decay inmobilizes large numbers of people as labor , the pool of available recruits is smaller... and perhaps is even limited to those areas that are near the planets spaceports.
See how the problem compounds? Draft dodgers can easily flee to the backwoods of the planet. Or just by not being home when the recruiters knock at your door. With the Dropship scheduled to lift off planet at a certain time, recruiters cannot waste time searching for you, and resort to press gang whoever they can to fill the quotas.
The Successor States rely on a few key systems to wage war, the rest being largely left to their fate in a autosufficient subsistence economy. The available manpower pool is a minuscule fraction regardless of the total population of the state. Troops, under some circunstances, can be a valuable commodity, as it happened in Europe during the 30 Years War.
That this would be the case is confirmed in the House Books, the Lyran Commonwealth at one time suffered several defeats because it was short on troops, and it had to scrap the bottom of the barrel to fill units, curtailing exemptions and extending lenght of service. It's worth noting that it would be likely that the Lyrans , facing more maneuverable enemies, lost huge numbers of troops as prisoners, being surrounded in pockets and captured rather than being lost as casualties. Also, another contrinbuting factor is that the build up of trops in a planet recquires time as the available Dropship capacity ferry troops on planet. But if a world is abandoned to the enemy, more often than not the bulk of the ground troops cannot be evacuated and are stranded on planet, a total loss even if they don't surrender.
In the same way, the Capellan Confederation had to resort to recruit women into the armed forces to fill numbers. The main recruit provider planets of these states had been drained.
In general, armies of the IS are kept so small because even if soldiers can be trained and equipped, they lack the ability of getting them where they are needed.
Also, it's important to note that the "linear front" and "holding ground" are 20th century concepts. Ground campaigns of the Succession Wars result in set piece battles where teh armies try to outmaneuver each other until agreeing a place to do battle, and rarely result on a frontline like in both world wars.
Battles are fought for very specific parts of the planet, because they are the worthwile targets of the campaign, just as in European warfare of the 16-17th centuries, campaigns revolve around sieges of cities. The rest of the planetary surface is not important, it's just empty spave-
And finally, there are political and economic reasons to keep armies small, in 3025, the Succesor States economy cannot sustain an arms race, and in a feudal society, the ruling Houses would not like their barons to have big local armies that go unchecked.
-Vampire.
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Alexander
Heavy Horse Merc Brigade
Commanding Officer
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 828
Location: Canada
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| Posted: 19-May-2002 19:39 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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Of course every planet has a planetary militia, a few Battalions or Regiments of Infantry, with some armour, and maybe even the odd BattleMech.
I think, however, that you're point is, they don't have large standing maneuver forces...?
Alexander
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Cadet
ComStar
Lieutenant, SG
Joined: 17-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 495
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 01:19 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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I quit trying to understand the hows and whys of the game universe a long time ago.
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 15:24 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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Another thing is that you only see BattleMech regiments listed. You never see vehicle or infantry regiments. Those could number in the thousands. Hell the United States can raise a huge number of troops with just the territory we control. If we had a full planet to ourselves we could probably keep an even larger army for defense!! But the game doesn't focus on that.
Raven!
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 917
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 15:37 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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Quote:
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On 2002-05-20 15:24, Raven! wrote:
Another thing is that you only see BattleMech regiments listed. You never see vehicle or infantry regiments. Those could number in the thousands.
Raven!
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hmmmm, Raven, you haven't been paying attention, conventional regiments are listed in the description of most battles, and the ratio of conventional regiments to Battlemech ones can be deduced with the available information to be 10 to 1.
I added up regiments and IIRC the Capellan Confederation had a conventional army of around 400 regiments (one regiment aprox 1,000 troops). So at most, a Successor State has a *one* (1) million army in total.
This is so small because of economic, industrial and chiefly transport constraints, and those troops that are the maneuver army (not local militias) are recruited in probably less than 10% of the planetary systems held by the state.
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 23:29 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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This is true, though I made the estimate at about ten regiments per planet. Tanks and Infantry that is.
And I think the reason why a lot of Btech armies are so small is that they just are! The writers didn't want to try to keep track of too much information.
I do the same thing for my game, Cry Freedom, but I've reduced the number of worlds per a realm to about 8 or 10. So it works out.
I don't know. I say the writers are just lazy  players should feel free to add their own regiments.
Raven!
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Cadet
ComStar
Lieutenant, SG
Joined: 17-Mar-2002 00:00
Posts: 495
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| Posted: 20-May-2002 23:37 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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Quote:
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I say the writers are just lazy
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You forgot stupid, whiney, self-serving, and worthless hacks.
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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
Posts: 2214
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| Posted: 21-May-2002 00:13 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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Keeping a large army is expensive. Keeping a large army on a small backwater world is not
only a waste of money, it`s stupid. There`s no way an enemy is going to get there unless he conquers a few border worlds first. Let them make do with the local militia, send in the boys only if there`s need. Like pirate attacks or a revolution.
This assumes that sensible people never use un-inhabited systems for jumpship transit. The chance to get help if something happens is practically nil. Those recharging sails do sometimes get fouled up beyond your capacity to put them right, and there are other mishaps you might face.
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Ronin
ComStar
Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 23-May-2002 10:07 Post subject: Why are IS armies so small? |
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Many planets have their own militias, separate from the state military. Plus many planetary nobles have their own private "armies", and the occasional corporation will have their defense forces (like Defiance Hesperus). These usually aren't counted in deployment charts because they are not part of the state military chain of command. They are also of questionable value in many cases, since few drill on a regular basis (costs, etc.), and fewer still have any actual combat experience beyond that of the occasional retired veteran in the ranks.
Few worlds are literally undefended, but many are defended on paper only. No planet is safe from an attack by an opponent. Their are no front lines or borders in space. Many planets aren't attacked simply because it is not economically feasible to do so because of limited transports and attack assets.
Plus, as noted, the writers don't want to keep track of every single unit out there. They just tell you to assume so many infantry and armor regiments per mech regiment, and leave it up to you to figure out where they are and what quality they are.
Ronin
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