Unit Types

Unit Types summary (tentative)

Manpower

All manpower isn't equal. As a power wishes to improve the quality of its soldiers, it must necessarily seperate the wheat from the chaff, necessitating ever-more expensive and intensive training that provides ever-decreasing results. Therefore, it costs more and more to gain a certain amount of manpower to

AI may be a mitigator, but so far no-one save the posthumans have successfully created an artificial intellect by any method other than brute-force emulation of human thought processes. Given that the creation of a true sentient AI heralded the fall of the posthuman nations, nobody really wants to do any sort of research into building a sentient AI. In the end, although unskilled labor can be replaced by drones, and most soldiers will have support by non-sentient AI, in the end you still need manpower, whether human, bioengineered, or cybernetic.

Manpower comes in several types-Untrained, Green, Regular, Hardened, Elite, and Specialized.

Untrained manpower is freely available but entirely ineffective. Untrained manpower gets you units of rough quality equivalent to the worst of African militiamen. Not even the best of equipment can make up for that level of inferiority in tactics-although if used callously, in human wave attacks, they can maintain reasonable effectiveness. Untrained manpower does not cost draft.

Green manpower is marginally trained and similarly, marginally effective. Green soldiers and pilots are equivalent to reservists, people who train very occasionally to keep their skills fresh, if not honed. However, they are cheap and easy to train, and can fare quite well in a defensive or rear-echelon role. After all, how good do your truck drivers really have to be with their guns? Green manpower costs 1/4th as much as normal.

Regulars are the backbone of most militaries, professionals who are well-trained and disciplined. They are cost-effective, unlikely to break, and competent enough that they can handle all but the most specialized gear. The vast majority of combat soldiers end up at this level of competence. Regulars cost normal amounts of manpower to train.

Elites are Rangers, Marines, hardcore types who are often trained in specialized operations, whether it's amphibious operations, orbital drop, or NBC warfare. Although cost-inefficient on a grand scale a few elite units are extraordinarily potent force multipliers. Elites have a manpower cost that is four times higher than normal.

Specialized troops have even more extensive training and are often seen with the most advanced equipment and the largest egos. In general, only special forces, ace squadrons, or special forces support units will have this level of training, as the screening and training necessary for it is highly cost-ineffective, often washing out 80% or more of the people who qualify. Specialists have manpower costs twenty times higher than normal.

All units listed below are generic archetypes-each battalion can be outfitted with different equipment, from weapons to armor to other specialist equipment as according to your needs.

Planetary Military Units

Foot Soldiers

The backbone of any military, infantry are most effective when you have someone you want to fight but don't particularly want to destroy everything they have. Cheap, highly effective in built-up terrain, and versatile, foot soldiers run the gamut from poorly trained militia to elite special forces.

Guerillas:
Guerillas are soldiers who have learned, whether by training or brutal evolutionary pressures, how to fight unconventionally, moving light and striking hard. With their skillset in living off the land, scavenging equipment, and stealthy operation, guerillas are critical to winning unconventional wars. Dependent on the type of manpower and equipment given, these can be anything from ragtag tribal militias to extremely elite special forces.

"The guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea." Mao Zedong

Infantrymen:
Standard infantrymen are better armed and equipped but conversely are less stealthy and require a larger logistics trail. Ranging from poorly trained conscripts to elite direct-action assault forces, infantrymen are a solid backbone upon which the entire army builds. After all, the end goal of most ground operations is to capture enemy assets instead of merely rendering them unusable-there are orbital strikes and nuclear weapons for that. Even though they might be equipped with powered armor and use smart weapons, even with their UAV and UGV support, their role and their tactics are still eminently recognizable.

"The infantry doesn't change. We're the only arm of the military where the weapon is the man himself." Maj Gen C. T. Shortis

Shock Troops:
I.e. Mobile Infantry or Gears, Shock Troops are soldiers who sacrifice size and flexibility for firepower, speed, and armor. Clad in extremely large and heavy powered armors often standing two or more meters tall, shock troops stride the border between infantry and vehicle, devasting urban combat specialists which are at home in the chaos and violence of street-fighting.

"The Geebeeps were holed up in Revus City pretty well, we'd took the maglev lines into the city, but the streets were too narrow for our armour and the dome prevented air cover, they were too dug in to be taken by infantry. It took a week but reinforcements arrived, Patrolman Gears. Geebeeps broke in a day, they'd poured everything into preventing adequate beachheads and lacked a defence in depth. Revus city fell within the week."
Lt Colonel A. Brook, 22nd Aerospace Marine Division.

Ground Vehicles

Ever since the 20th century soldiers have been supported by vehicles, and today is no different-vehicle support is critical to a modern military. Light vehicles are generally from 1-10 tons, medium ones from 15-40, and heavy ones 40 tons or above. Superheavy ones are generally 500 tons or more.

Light Vehicles:
Ranging from unarmored and lightly armed Humvees and supply trucks to armored and armed LAVs like the Wiesel, light vehicles are fast, maneuverable, and easy to transport, but are also vulnerable and poorly armed compared to heavier units. Even hard-kill active defenses and ECM systems cannot completely make up for a lack of armor.

Medium Vehicles:
Various units like the Stryker, most IFVs and APCs, and various other specialist units fit in this category. With the potential for better armor and cargo capacity they are often used for specialist units, like artillery tracks, IFVs, APCs, and other

Heavy Vehicles:
Almost exclusively the domain of the MBT, only certain types of heavy artillery or combat engineering vehicle are found in this category alongside it. Blisteringly fast for their size, armored with layer upon layer of advanced composite, and armed with the largest weapons one can mount on the chassis, the titular MBT is the first example of a heavy vehicle that comes to mind. Although difficult to transport strategically, and often fuel and maintenance hogs, a battalion of heavy combat units can easily smash their way through all but the most potent defenses.

Superheavies:
Superheavies are rare as their chassises are inefficient and expensive to produce, and transporting them is nigh-impossible without Apex technology. However, there are a few specialist roles which require a chassis of this size-in general, most of them involve mounting anti-orbital lasers or particle beams on a semi-mobile frame. There are a few sufficiently insane nations which have tooled them up as tanks, but their lack of speed and high cost makes this rare.

Air Vehicles

Similarly air support plays a critical, if slightly diminished role because of the existence of spaceforces. However, although most ships can reach down through the atmosphere and swat at targets, it is difficult to maintain accuracy on moving targets without the use of nuclear ordinance, while lasers and particle beams suffer from atmospheric attenuation and other difficulties which make them hard to use as weapons against mobile ground targets.

UAVs:
Most UAVs are tiny designs, incapable of housing a pilot or a complex tactical AI and massing only a few tons at most. With only simple programming and low payload space they make poor units for dogfights but their extremely low cost and space requirements make them useful and expendable scouts. They can also be armed with smart missiles or other weapons that allow them some capacity to perform air support, in which case their long loiter time makes them a godsend to ground units in the vicinity.

Tactical Air:
Depending on armament and protective devices, tactical aircraft can be anything from fighters, to interceptors, to tactical bombers or even heavy gunships or transport VTOLs. Universally useful, tactical air units are by far the most common type of air support. Often deployed from space, only a few rare designs have any capacity to claw their way back, so the vast majority are equipped with VTOL systems so they can land on even makeshift airstrips.

Strategic Air:
Commonly either found as dropships or heavy bombers, strategic air are larger and more expensive, and often equipped with engines that allow them to fly from ground to orbit, to take on a new load of supplies or soldiers, strategic airpower is a critical component in any offensive military action. Being capable of lifting heavier vehicles, unlike tactical transport VTOLs, strategic airpower is also a vital component for a defender who does not wish to face down main battle tanks with merely infantry-launched missiles and prayers.