I was going to include this under the "Wealth & Power" article, but that article was getting rather lengthy and I figured that this would be useful as a standalone. What follows addresses the average cost of equipment and salaries to maintain large formations of troops. Since it gets tedious to list every mechwarrior in a regimental combat team, this information makes some assumtions and generalizations, but overall should be adquette to form a system to maintain large units in a campaign. The systems provided in the various mercenary sourcebooks are more detailed and accurate, but can still sometimes be more work than players or gamemasters would like.
You'll notice that larger units actually cost more than the sum of their parts. The reason for that is the additional command staff, command companies, tech support companies, and organic assets that are only attached at higher levels (for example, most ground units attach scouts at a battalion level and artillery or air support at a regimental level).
Assume that a light infantry unit is foot infantry with rifles and machineguns. Battalions include transportation vehicles, medical support units, and scouts. Regiments may have a few light artillery pieces or VTOLs and perhaps an anti-mech platoon or other specialty unit.
Company: Cost - 300,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 1,000,000 CB Salary - 250,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 3,000,000 CB Salary - 750,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of mechanized infantry with machineguns and SRMs. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cavalry scouts. Regiments may have a few light artillery pieces or VTOLs and perhaps an anti-mech platoon or other specialty unit.
Company: Cost - 450,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 1,500,000 CB Salary - 250,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 4,500,000 CB Salary - 750,000 CB / month
This unit consists of cooks, medics, techs, and other staff necessary to sustain units in the field. It also includes some weapons and a few light duty vehicles.
Company: Cost - 450,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
This unit consists of cooks, medics, techs, and other staff necessary to sustain units in the field. It also includes some weapons as well as repair gantries and heavy transports.
Company: Cost - 3,000,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of light wheeled and hover vehicles, with a few medium weight tracked units for added punch. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cavalry scouts. Regiments may have a few light artillery pieces or VTOLs.
Company: Cost - 6,000,000 CB Salary - 30,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 20,000,000 CB Salary - 100,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 60,000,000 CB Salary - 300,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of medium wheeled and tracked vehicles, with a few heavy weight tracked units for added punch and some hover tanks for maneuverability. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cavalry scouts. Regiments may have a few medium artillery pieces or VTOLs.
Company: Cost - 12,000,000 CB Salary - 30,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 40,000,000 CB Salary - 100,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 120,000,000 CB Salary - 300,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of heavy tracked and wheeled assault vehicles, with a few medium hover tanks for maneuverability. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cavalry scouts. Regiments may have a few heavy artillery pieces or VTOLs.
Company: Cost - 24,000,000 CB Salary - 30,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 80,000,000 CB Salary - 100,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 240,000,000 CB Salary - 300,000 CB / month
Company: Cost - 15,000,000 CB Salary - 25,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 50,000,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 150,000,000 CB Salary - 250,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of medium mechs, with a few heavy weight units for added punch and several light lances for maneuverability. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cav scouts. Regiments may have a few light artillery pieces or VTOLs.
Company: Cost - 30,000,000 CB Salary - 25,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 100,000,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 300,000,000 CB Salary - 250,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of medium mechs and heavy mechs, with a few assault weight units for added punch and some light lances for maneuverability. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cav scouts. Regiments may have a few light artillery pieces or VTOLs.
Company: Cost - 45,000,000 CB Salary - 25,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 150,000,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 450,000,000 CB Salary - 250,000 CB / month
This type of unit is assumed to consist primarily of heavy and assault mechs, with a few medium lances for maneuverability. Battalions include tech support vehicles, medical support units, and cav scouts. Regiments may have a few light artillery pieces or VTOLs.
Company: Cost - 60,000,000 CB Salary - 25,000 CB / month
Battalion: Cost - 200,000,000 CB Salary - 75,000 CB / month
Regiment: Cost - 600,000,000 CB Salary - 250,000 CB / month
This type of unit consists primarily of light aerospace fighters with a few mediums for added firepower. Squadrons include techs and medical support staff. Wings include glider scouts and some VTOLs.
Flight: Cost - 10,000,000 CB Salary - 20,000 CB / month
Squadron: Cost - 30,000,000 CB Salary - 60,000 CB / month
Wing: Cost - 100,000,000 CB Salary - 200,000 CB / month
Flight: Cost - 15,000,000 CB Salary - 20,000 CB / month
Squadron: Cost - 45,000,000 CB Salary - 60,000 CB / month
Wing: Cost - 150,000,000 CB Salary - 200,000 CB / month
This type of unit consists primarily of medium and heavy aerospace fighters with a few lights for reconnaissance. Squadrons include techs and medical support staff. Wings include glider scouts and some VTOLs.
Flight: Cost - 20,000,000 CB Salary - 20,000 CB / month
Squadron: Cost - 60,000,000 CB Salary - 60,000 CB / month
Wing: Cost - 200,000,000 CB Salary - 200,000 CB / month
This type of unit consists of a battalion of mechanized infantry, a battalion of medium battlemechs, a battalion of medium vehicles, and a flight of light aerospace support. It also includes tech support and medical support vehicles, cav scouts, light artillery, and VTOLs.
Regiment: Cost - 150,000,000 CB Salary - 435,000 CB / month
The experience of your troops can affect how much you pay them. This is true whether you go by the mercenary rating system or by a military rank system. For example, a unit of inexperienced soldiers will likely rate as green and have more low ranking troops.
| Experience | Modifier to Salary |
| Green | 0.75 |
| Regular | 1.00 |
| Veteran | 1.50 |
| Elite | 2.00 |
The quality of your equipment affects your purchase price. Older machines and cheaper equipment are more prone to breakdowns, but save you money in the short term. More expensive equipment may be more reliable, but is the increase in quality worth the money? The way this affects the unit in question is up to the GM. The biggest upgrade, of course, is the integration of recovered Star League equipment.
| Quality | Modifier to Cost | Modifier to Supply |
| Poor | 0.50 | 2.00 |
| Fair | 0.75 | 1.50 |
| Good | 1.00 | 1.00 |
| Upgraded | 1.50 | 1.00 |
| Clan | 2.00 | 0.80 for Clan / 1.50 for I.S. |
The GM will determine if you have enough support units to take care of your maintenance needs. A generic cost for parts, oil, fuel, supplies, etc (or extra clothing, food and medical in the case of light infantry) for routine maintenance is:
Company - 6,000 CB / month
Battalion - 20,000 CB / month
Regiment - 60,000 CB / month
After every major engagement, units will require ammunition resupply equal to 1% of their purchase cost.
The following is a general guide to repair costs based on the damage the unit has sustained expressed as a percentage of the unit's purchase cost. The GM will determine about how long repairs will take, or how much you can get repaired in the given time. Infantry units can not be repaired more than one level without new recruits.
Scratched - A few parts of the unit have seen combat, but most of the unit has taken little or no damage.
Cost to Repair: 5%
Battered - Most of the unit has been involved in some fighting, with a few groups taking moderate to heavy damage.
Cost to Repair: 25%
Scapped - Several units have been destroyed or are only good for salvage. The remainder of the unit has been knocked around pretty badly. Most units will withdraw at this level of damage. Due to losses, this unit cannot be repaired past Scratched without new recruits.
Cost to Repair: 50%
Destroyed - Most of the unit has been destroyed, and the remainder is barely functional. The unit is considered combat ineffective. Due to losses, this unit cannot be repaired past Battered without new recruits.
Cost to Repair: 75%
Disbanded - The unit has sustained too much damage to repair and must be disbanded. Due to losses, the entire unit must be recruited from the ground up using a small cadre of troops from the old unit.
Cost to repair: 100%
Now you can see where the "value" of infantry units comes in. While salary costs are high in an infantry unit, repair and equipment costs are almost nonexistant. The cold truth of the matter is that it is cheaper to find new recruits than it is to build fusion engines and manufacture armor plate.
Used in conjunction with the article on Wealth & Power, this information makes it quite easily possible to wage epic level campaigns in the Battletech universe. E-mail me with you questions or comments.