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Infantry tactics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Anonymous
  • Start date Start date
A

Anonymous

I'm new at the setting, so I would like to ask a few questions cocerning infantry. I didn't manage to find the direct answers in wiki.
First, I wanted to ask, whether infantry units are mostly those in power armour or some lighter armour is more widely used. What role does infantry have? Is it used on planet surface? Is it only power armour used on planet surface? Is infantry used for boarding? Is power armour used for boarding, or it's dangerous and impractical because of possible hull breach? Are there special boarding weapons/ammo (like railguns firing glass beads)? Is there a possibility of zerogravity or microgravity combat on ship? Is infantry somehow used in open space?
I need the answers on these questions, because I want to make my first character a freespacer merc, mostly serving as a ship defence/boarding unit. What should I know?
 
Infantry is used for both board and on planets. Power armor is commonly but not always used, with normal power armor weapons for boarding. Sometimes, Infantry units also fight in open space, although this is only for short-range battles.
 
What about microgravity battles then? Can it be that during the boarding artificial gravity system will be turned down? Seeing as great many weapons use chemical propellant, doesn't recoil pose a problem? Also, what with the hull damage possibility during boarding?
 
The composition of the hull prevent ruptures. Check out the wiki on hull materials.

Recoil at current can be suppressed by several different ways in this day and age. In the time of the forums, those modifications would be standard, possibly even at a higher grade.

Gravity on some ships is minimal, just from reading in books not associated. Creating gravity costs energy, so messing with it can shift energy to other systems. Most boarding parties are likely to be in powered armor or at least space suits. Both of these would be equipped with magnetic boots that would ignore the gravity changes. The only ones effected would be those who have their boots turned off for various reasons.
 
Maybe you can give me a link on hull materials? Okay, hull breaches are highly improbable, I take that. But still weapons on power armour platform have enough punch to possibly puncture it?
Also, modern recoil supression systems would barely behave in microgravity. They are rather oriented on spreading recoil or redirecting it, thus using shooter and weapon mass to supress it. If mass no loger enters the equation, the gunner will fly with the same speed as the bullet, magnetic boots or no.
 
No Gravity? No problem. At least for the Nekovalkyjra and Yamatians. They have some gravity manipulation of their own, particullarly the Nekos. For avoiding catastrophic damage to systems while fighting in Powered Armor, most militaries include a number of weapons for that purpose that are less destructive. The Star Army of Yamatai for example includes a setting on the Ke-M2-W2901 Aether Beam Saber-Rifle that is less destructive than the rather significant power that weapon is capable of. Other choices of armament are relativelly prevalent, and most Powered Armor equiped troops can still use personal scale weapons. The Ke-M4-W2901 Light Armor Service Rifle is specifically for fighting armor or personel and rather ineffective against most vehicles, particularlly starships. Would a firefight potentially do some damage inside a starship? Certainly. Wildly letting loose with powerful weapons around the bridge or engineering could be potentially troublesome. Most militaries in the setting (likely all, but I'm lazy and don't feel like combing the wiki atm) also arm their forces with personal weapons. Energy pistols and rifles generally aren't a threat to starships, and ballistic weapons can't even damage many starship materials in any way.
 
Boarding parties would carry anti-personnel weapons, not anti-starship weapons. Of course, sometimes those two types overlap, in which case, the PC has to be careful not to set his weapon on the high settings.

The assumption is that a boarding takes place because you want to take over a ship. Destroying a ship is somewhat easier to do from the outside, and a lot less dangerous to the person pulling the trigger. :)
 
Okay, that takes care of most of my questions.
I guess most of them comes from the fact that I'm more used to less trigger-happy and more 'hard' SF settings :D
Thank you.
 
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