http://oshkoshdefense.com/jltv/

I missed the announcement, but apparently these are going into production with an initial run of 17,000 units.

Here is the Brochure from the linked page. Personally, I say wait five years, let the flaws from the first generation stuff get rectified. The contractors that deal mostly with SOCOM (with their limitless budget) will be turning out the better C2 models with better radio suites anyway.

Agreed - as I have mentioned in this and other threads, the Project has too many risks already to make it worse with unproven equipment. That having been said, the last few times I ran TMP I shifted everything a few years into the future from "today" and assumed that the Project was ahead of the curve a bit. If I was running a new game NOW I would consider something like this over the XR311 or the Commando Ranger, with the war coming in the 2018 timeframe and with the Project having planned all along to finalize their equipment stores about a year beforehand.

With the JLTV coming out, that means the surplus market is going to be flooded with every model of HMMWV. All the more likely that these would go into caches and depots for Project use. Tons of parts too. So when the DoD goes onto something new the Project quietly scoops up the surplus.

Sounds reasonable, but remember the way the military flows a lot of surplus to the Guard and/or police units - there will be a lot of competition. One thing I always considered was that the Project was buying some things and manufacturing some others, and that the state-of-the-art stuff was going to the "point" teams while the surplus purchases were going to the support teams and bases that were less likely to see combat.

So if I was setting the last gear up for a few years from now, I might put some JLTV's slipped quietly off the production line into the hands of MARS and Recon, and give the Ag and Psych teams surplus hummers.

I use the MGM-134 mobile launcher as my Science Rover chassis

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MGM-134_Midgetman

http://www.hill.af.mil/library/facts...et.asp?id=5717

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...FUuSHgodHw4B0Q

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j...41992404124436

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T80V5rbfZ6o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sy4J-ZZ7MPo

I change the trailer to lab space and give a walk through from cab to trailer. I also make the trailer the expandable type where the walls fold down into a larger volume space like an RV

I would probably use this as the base instead:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_...Tactical_Truck

A little more modern, a little more rugged, etc. Personal preference, really. But I would probably still build from scratch for Science 1, I think it would be worthwhile.

I don't think the Hemmet is more rugged than the Hardened Mobile Launcher. Hemmets aren't designed to survive the sorts of blast over pressure the HML was

Here are pics of the Hard Mobile Launcher

http://i.imgur.com/fV8FcfW.jpg

https://c1.staticflickr.com/5/4083/5...dafd6709_z.jpg

http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/arc...obile-launcher

http://www.hill.af.mil/shared/media/...-0000H-012.jpg

So why don't we design bombers to imitate the ruggedness of the Space Shuttle? Which was killed by a piece of frozen foam?

From what I can find (in particular the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists), the HML was designed to survive specific hazards and operate only on military bases and very flat areas. I don't think it was able to operate anywhere that was not pretty flat and gentle, and not especially quickly either. And while it could survive a high-pressure wave it was not seemingly intended to survive ground combat - I can find no reference to any protection against anything other than a somewhat distant nuclear weapon, and that is not very good protection against anything else.

In short, while it is an interesting vehicle, it was designed for a very specialized mission that does not line up well with Project requirements. You could up-armor it, but there is nothing to be done about the terrible mobility.

The Hemmet is a truck, to the best of my recollection it doesn't have any armor at all. It is reasonably mobile, for a truck, but once you load it down with a whole lot of armor and mission required equipment and such it is going to have mobility issues as well

No, it doesn't have any armor, and adding some will impair it a bit, depending on how much it weighs compared to the normal cargo load. But it is designed to go anywhere the army goes, and that means it can handle most terrains and situations. The prototype HML's were designed to operate on bases and in flatlands, and there are not many places in the US where you can drag a hundred foot trailer or that can accommodate such a low ground clearance, both of which were design requirements for launching the missiles and surviving a nearby nuke strike.

The HML is cool, but it is a very specialized vehicle designed for a very narrow mission, and outside that mission it is completely impractical.

There is a uparmor kit for the Hemmet since 2005. This doesn't affect the carrying capacity much, it is a 10 ton truck.

I thought the armor kit effected the center of gravity badly and lead to the vehicle becoming even more role prone that it was originally (Which I don't think was nearly as bad at Hummers). I never drove a Hemmet, but did drive the BIDS version of the Hummer, which had a huge laboratory box on the back and those things were bears.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_...Tactical_Truck

I think a lab version of the Hemmet is going to have some issues. The vehicle is a ten ton truck but I think the armor kit only covers the cab, not the payload area. I have seen some gun trucks that have armor on the payload areas but that basically takes up the whole weight of the payload and doesn't leave much for anything else.

In adddition the Hemmet isn't NBC sealed. The HML is all about surviving in a post strike environment. It will certainly have a harder time climbing hills but a lot depends upon the trailer. The HML trailer is designed to house, protect from a nearby nuclear strike and then launch a 30,000 pound ICBM.

With either the Hemmet or the HML the payload will need to be fully custom. I think that a lab doesn't need to be as long or as heavy as the missile trailer was.

YMMV

Ah but, Hemmets sport the palletized loading system.

Well later A4 models do.

Attachment 3498

Depending on the level of armor you are looking for, you can fit a lot on the payload and still have room for a lot of equipment. But this remains one of the reasons I think Science One is a custom vehicle.

You can modify ANYTHING to be NBC sealed. But the HML will not "have a harder time climbing hills", it will be completely unable to do so, or to cross any kind of rough terrain - i.e., the vast majority of the post-apocalyptic landscape. It was designed to operate off-road only in the sense that wide flat plains and deserts can be considered "off-road".

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists is an interesting and very biased source. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullet...mic_Scientists The group that publishes it is against all nuclear weapons as well as most other nuclear technology and other emerging technologies as well. The likelihood of them publishing a favorable report on any piece of nuclear hardware is fairly remote. Their goal is to discredit all nuclear weapons programs and the use of propaganda is one way they attempt to sway public opinion

Just as a data point the Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT) has a 515 Hp power plant, eight wheel drive and a total all up weight with the B armor kit of 109.000 pounds. The HML has 1,200 horses and also eight wheel drive and an all up weight of 239,000 pounds or 211 pounds per horse power for the HEMTT and 115 pounds per horse power for the HML. I would say that while towing a ICBM the HML is probably pretty limited but I can't see why the tractor alone would be less mobile than a HEMTT.

Also sealing a vehicle against NBC threats requires a lot of work. The system must not only be sealed but it must also be equipped with an air cleaning and handling system that will ensure that contaminants are filtered out and the air is usually at overpressure to assist in keeping the bad stuff on the outside.

If you like there are also GAO and DoD reports that mention not only the difficulty in finding areas capable of supporting the HML's operations but also the expense of adding roads for them to operate on. Everything in my engineering training and experience, and everything I see about this vehicle combine to tell me that this vehicle was not ever intended to be any more than nominally off-road, and that it would be unable to operate in any but a small fraction of the post-apocalyptic US.

Remember, the challenge for this technology was getting something that would haul around the missile at all. One of the first things sacrificed was "go anywhere" mobility. They didn't need that, this was always intended to operate in the same kinds of places missiles were already based, and those places by and large had lots of flat land and often roads.

Because power is not nearly the only factor in off-road maneuverability. Among many others there is also ground clearance, the HML's biggest problem. Looking at pictures it looks like it has less than 8" of ground clearance, and in a vehicle as long and as wide as this thing even hard, gentle terrain will hit the breakover angle while softer or slightly rougher terrain will just grind it to a halt. Plus, the thing is so danged wide.

And yet every Morrow vehicle already has NBC systems that meet the exact same standard that you would need for Science One. If the SK-25 can meet the spec, then it is not that hard to achieve.

Can you link to those sources? I'd like to have them for my reference. Thanks!

The biggest issue might be the trailer. The MP trailer will be a home-brew design for certain, but it could certainly be much shorter and weigh less then the missile transporter/erector/launcher. The tractor itself, with a different trailer may well have much better mobility

Here are a few I could recover:

http://www.gao.gov/assets/150/142998.pdf
http://digitalcollections.library.cm...le&item=712384

Remember that details on this kind of thing are not going to be found on unclassified sites even now.

There is no doubt that the trailer is the worst part, but even for the prime mover by itself significant improvements in off-road capability would have rendered it much more vulnerable to the nuclear blast it was designed to survive. Even looking at the pictures the prototypes look like they would have trouble clearing a curb.

Those are interesting sources and the report to Congress mentions that in 1985 there was a recommendation that the off road mobility be improved. 1985 was early in the program.

If you look at the videos you can see that the machines had no trouble getting up a curb.

Also the design specification was to survive and remain operations after being hit by a 30 PSI shock wave. It appears that the vehicles were capable of meeting this requirement.

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docket/arch...geChambers.pdf

30 PSI is enough to destroy reinforced concrete structures. To survive this blast overpressure the vehicle will also need to be able to survive being struck by large high velocity fragments and debris. I wonder ballistic energy the vehicle could survive would be. I doubt it would be the Science Rover's 1100 but I would hazard a guess it will stop most if not all 7.62mm rounds.

1985 was not that early in the program, and it only lasted a few more years during which no more prototypes were ever produced. The fact that better off-road mobility was recommended does not mean that it was ever achieved, or even that it could be achieved while still meeting the other program requirements. I've worked on a number of programs where the contracting officers had a fundamental misunderstanding of the laws of physics, and asked for things that were blatantly, often hilariously impossible.

I was being sarcastic. Although the basic geometry of the vehicles does look horrible for off-road.

30 PSI is all of 2 atmospheres of pressure. That is a tremendous force applied over a wide area but is still orders of magnitude less than the pressure of a bullet impacts which are measured in hundreds of PSI (for small, soft rounds) to thousands of PSI (for larger, harder rounds). And while in practice it may have needed to survive debris in the development stage it would not have been held to that standard, and mobility requirements may have prevented it from ever reaching that standard.

Look, if you want to handwave a solution, that's fine. But I see no justification for saying that a poorly-documented, proof-of-concept prototype is a viable solution for any practical role. It was designed to explore a concept and see if it was possible, and when you are working that kind of program you abandon anything not absolutely essential to the prime requirements so that you can see if those requirements can be met at all. You don't worry about bullet-resistance because this vehicle was never meant to be within a thousand miles of anyone who might shoot at it. You don't worry about real off-road capability because driving a hundred ton vehicle over gentle grass while still being able to turn into a tornado shelter is hard enough without giving it the vertical clearance it would need to do what other military vehicles do.

It looks cool. So does a monster truck. That doesn't mean that either would really have much use in a general military capacity.

The project had to acquire vehicles. There are several paths they can use to do so. They can buy new military gear. They can buy obsolete military gear. They can do a design build of their own stuff. They could also buy prototypes and refurbish them. Each has its own merits and pitfalls and looking through the published canon (which is always dangerous and often contradictory) the publishers over the years have done a little bit of each

Scratch Designs
MARS-1
Science Rover
Gyroscout
The three Hovercraft from Lonestar
HAMM Suit

Experimental or semi experimental
SK-5 (a total of 14 of these were built including the SR.N5 version built in the UK, so two more than the AH-56A)-These could be included as obsolete or no longer in service instead since the US Military use of the PACV version went out of service in the 1970s
XR-311 I thought Israel had bought a small production run of these but I can't find the reference any longer, It seems the US bought about a dozen for trials.
FACME engineering equipment

In production open market vehicles
CG Commando
CG Ranger
CG Scout

Personally I did the same. I don't see taking a prototype and saying "in this fictional universe it actually worked as designed" being any more handwavium than "The Project did a design build of some limited production run equipment". In the later case the Project has to do all the development from building the prototype.

I have some very specific reasons why I use existing vehicles in preference to stand alone Project only ones. One is I can get things like the videos that show machines in operation. I can often get drawings and sometimes even manuals to hand to the players. I can almost always get a few decent pictures. All these help the players visualize their equipment. If the vehicles are stand alone it requires a lot more work, although I am certainly willing to do so. The St. Louis MP crew of days gone by did full manuals for the Science Rover, the three hovers from Lonestar (very heavily modified) and several other vehicles and load outs.

So looking through the canon it doesn't seem that the originators were adverse to using prototypes, production machines or design builds depending on what was available.

So why not use the HML as what it was intended for? A missile carrier. Instead of a Midgetman ICBM, load it with a Anti Ballistic Missile.

That is very Project. At this time (and currently) the U.S. under the START treaties cannot build ground based ABMs (Naval is a loop hole).

So the Project could deploy a limited number of these to protect a major reconstruction effort.

An Anti Missile Missile needs a huge infrastructure of sensors and computers. Its a huge investment. Plus how can it be tested before the war?

I would think that Morrow Sat provides the early warning. The Regional bases provide the ground tracking radar.

Additionally, These could be hidden in underground garages waiting to launch MorrowSat 2, 3, 4 and a few GPS satellites for the Western Hemisphere.

Landsats have totally different sensors. The ground sensors will almost have to be active and so in the post war world will just scream "KILL ME!"

Is there a reason you would consider the publishers' previous efforts to be a good guidemap? They were wildly inconsistent and many later modules pointed out how often the equipment was a hindrance more than a help. They seemed to have been going for a "cool" game, but created something that was just broken in many ways.

MARS-1, the HAAM Suit, and the Gyroscout never made an appearance in the game that I can recall, and with good reason - they were unbalanced and/or dumb. The "Science Rover" appeared only for NPC's and was the only good idea of the bunch. The Lonestar Hovercraft were great examples of screwing the players by forcing them to use garbage. The players are already getting screwed by the rest of the world, having stupid Project decisions pile on doesn't help the game.

The SK-5 was a terrible design, and that is why it was barely used in real life. The one time it appeared in the game, the stupidity was driven home. The XR-311 and FACEME were odd choices but as supporting vehicles were largely harmless and close enough to realistic to justify.

Not necessarily great choices, but reasonable given the mission and the constraints.

And that can work when (a) developing from the prototype is plausible within Project limitations and when (b) the prototype is pretty close to what you actually want.

The XV-15, for example, was a test bed and performed pretty well. But developing it into a production model (and actually test-flying all the production run) would have drawn a lot of attention to the Project in a world where the XV-15 never got past prototype. You can retcon the real world to say it was a US production model, but you have not mentioned doing so and I would not recommend it - the real world is already a functioning system, why mess with that?

With the HML, it was designed as a special-purpose vehicle designed to operate in specific areas hauling a specific load to survive a specific threat. Developing that into a general purpose vehicle designed to go anywhere and survive against anything would require so much effort that starting from scratch would make more sense. Especially since the vehicle itself was under tremendous scrutiny and classified!

I have zero problem with using existing vehicles, the only time I recommend going away from that is when there is a specific need that cannot otherwise be met. So I don't use the ludicrous MARS-1 because there are other vehicles that could do much better. And when I do use existing vehicles, I try and figure out something that would be plausible and broadly effective - for example, using the proven and available V-22 instead of the prototype V-15 with it's 1500lb payload.

And if you need art, you need art. I don't know that many players who prefer a pretty picture of a bad vehicle to a rough sketch of something that actually works. The only one I can think of who would just turned 13.

They weren't, but they choked on their own bad choices because when you design the foundation of your game poorly then it becomes very hard to build on it. Why repeat that same mistake? I think TMP had an excellent core, but there were a lot of things that drove people away so I don't see a reason to venerate those design choices.

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Plus the fact that several nations and multi-national organizations would be watching for this. The Project was supposed to stay out of the way until the shooting stops, if a couple of unlaunched missiles remain as a threat to the Project, there are other ways of dealing with them. Like Phoenix.

Oh God Not the Phoenix Team!

Why not? Change it however you need, there is no reason for an organization as large as TMP to have a "flat" skill level. They recruited a ton of vets, having some Green Berets and SEALs and Pararescuemen together in a unit seems both reasonable to achieve AND highly desirable.

If you don't like them in the game, just kill them off! That they were reasonable to exist doesn't mean that they had to survive the fall of PB (although there should be a handful elsewhere for just that reason...).

I have hated the Phoenix Team since I first thought them through. And I hate them for story reasons. An MP campaign (or any RPG campaign for that matter) is about the PLAYER characters. The way the phoenix Team is written they are a hug sucker punch to the Players-Suddenly players who have nursed their characters through what was months if not years of sitting around game tables find themselves upstaged by a group of NPCs that they never even suspected existed. Now instead of being in charge of their own destiny, as they have been since they uncorked they get to be petted on the heads like good little children while the grown ups take over.

The Play of the Game section uses phrases like
The Phoenix Team Leader expects "a report from the Player Team right away"
"The Phoenix Leader's Demand for a report"
"the Phoenix leader will display tolerance beyond all reason in answering idiot questions from the Team"

There is some additional text about how the Phoenix Team sees the player characters as comrades and will trust them more then the players will trust the Phoenix guys. This is a total reversal of the initial description.

When I ran Prime years ago I didn't use the Phoenix team, but did tell the players about them and let them read the section in the book. They uniformly were exceptionally glad I didn't include the Phoenix Team.

Again YMMV

I can agree with all of that, but story play needs to balance against game world design - the existence of Phoenix team is so logical that their absence would be absurd, so have them be a thing but find some way to kill them off. Perhaps they were in one of the annexes and a cave-in took out the entire team in one go a few decades after the fall of PB.

I never thought Phoenix was logically required.

Vehicles Gentlemen, Vehicles!

It is sometimes difficult to talk about vehicles without talking about alternatives to vehicles. Not every problem can be solved with equipment, after all!

Not necessarily the specific group as described, but I cannot see why Morrow would not need and actively seek to recruit/create some level of "special operations" unit(s) to handle all missions that run-of-the-mill Recon and MARS teams could not handle. Like (going back to the vehicles discussion) groups in possession of nuclear weapons or M1 tanks or that used human shields, or whatever! Morrow could stock their own tanks or anti-ballistic missiles or specialized drones or whatever, but ultimately a handful of well-trained operators is probably going to be a better, cheaper, and more versatile solution.

Is there a Phoenix team thread? There should be a Phoenix team thread.

Throwing weight above their class............ The future of counter battery?