Battle Dress

Generic Battledress
Standard Battledress Representation
Type	Powered Armor
Tech Level	TL–13
Cost	Cr200,000
Size	125 liters
Weight	100 kg

Battle Dress (Cr200,000; TL-13) is the ultimate in individual protection, battle dress is an advanced augmented, powered and braced version of combat armor.

• It is also known as Braced Power Armor.

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This is one of the common forms of hazardous-duty dress commonly used by the military and paramilitaries of most polities. The most common forms of battlefield protective dress incllude:

• Battle Dress (Braced Battle Armor)
• Power/Battle Armor (Powered/Augmented (non-braced) Combat Armor/Suit)
• Combat Armor (Non-augmented Combat Suit)

• Combat Suit (AKA Armored Vacc Suit/Boarding Suit or Boarding Armor)
• Combat Environment Suit (AKA Armored Hostile Environment Suit)
• Hostile Environment Suits (Hazardous Environment Non-Combat Armor)

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Description (Specifications)

Battle dress enhances the strength and senses of individuals wearing it with variable feedback personal controls, servo-powered limbs, and various kinds of electronic assistance. The individual wearing battle dress is effectively doubled in strength and given unlimited endurance (for lifting, carrying, and fighting purposes; not for wounds received) and can also use the suit’s capabilities to surprise the enemy.

Personal Armor Characteristics

Volume: 125.0 liters. Weight: 100.0 kg. Base Price: Cr200,000.

• TL-13 Standard Battle Dress: An advanced and powerful version of combat armor, battle dress is the ultimate form of personal protection. Battle dress is restricted to military use. However, it can also typically be purchased on the black-market of high tech level worlds. Detailed information on battle dress is not available because it is considered highly classified within Imperial military circles.
• Battle dress is somewhat bulky, but is roughly man-sized. Battle Dress is completely sealed, with a Portable Life Support System to supply breathing air, heat, and cooling for at least six hours. The suit is capable of operation in any environment from high-radiation vacuum to 30.0 atmosphere of pressure, and temperature ranges of -100°C to +100°C. It incorporates a quick sealing system to prevent loss of life support in cases of small punctures. The suit electronics includes a 100.0 km radio communicator, a heads up display integrated into the helmet, and an internal computer to monitor the health of the wearer. Sensor enhancements includes a full Portable radiation imaging system for passive image enhancements.
• The armor provides at least Class-11 protection against Firearms.

Armor Terminology

Modern Imperial Armorers use the following terms to officially designate certain characteristics of armor design. Note that this does not mean that the common terms used among militaries to refer to specific types of armor always rigorously follow this particular terminology or nomenclature, and confusion sometimes arises when terms unofficially overlap in colloquial or common usage. Battle Dress can be acquired in variants based upon the terminology noted below.

• Powered/Augmented: Rigid-plate battlefield protective gear that has been designed with powered active feedback to joints and muscles that utilize the power of the suit to supplement or enhance the wearer's physical abilities.
• Braced: Powered/Augmented Armor that has been designed to receive and distribute the force from a high-recoil weapon system without damage to either the armored suit or its wearer (i.e. internally structured to withstand extremes of force, primarily recoil).

• Suit: A term referring to battlefield protective gear that is unpowered (and therefore both unaugmented and unbraced).
• "Armored": A term referring to a battlefield protective Suit that has been reinforced with additional rigid plating and defenses. (Sometimes listed as "Armor", but the usage is technically incorrect, as it is still unpowered).
• Armor: A term referring to powered (and generally augmented), but unbraced battlefield protective gear (i.e. "Power Armor").
• Dress: A term referring to powered and augmented battlefield protective gear that is also fully braced. The term "Dress" is derived from the archaic term for the standard combat uniform worn by soldiers, also called "Battle Dress". The "Dress" element of the term evolved over the millennia to become the term for the ultimate in state-of-the-art military armor.

• Boarding: The system is designed for zero-G operations against interplanetary and interstellar vessels and potential vacuum conditions.
• Assault: Protective gear designed with only short-term engagement in mind (i.e. hours). Relatively lightweight system intended for short-term operations against an enemy force.
• Combat: Mid-term endurance battlefield protective gear designed for battlefield operations of a few days against an enemy force.
• Battle: Long-term endurance battlefield protective gear designed for protracted battlefield conditions, incorporating protections against most dangers, attacks, and threats on the battlefield.

Chameleon Option

A chameleon surface for battle dress, at an additional cost of Cr1,000 which selectively bleeds heat to match background IR levels and effectively renders the wearer invisible to IR sensors.

Psionic Shielding Option

Psionic shielding is available as an option at an additional cost of Cr4,000. Psionic shielding protects the wearer from psionic mind reading and from psionic life sensing.

History & Background (Dossier)

The earliest attempts at creating power armor in the TL:7-9 epoch produce a variety of performance enhancing man amplifier suits, waldos. powered exoskeletons, and exoframes. Earlier TL:4-6 suits are extremely unwieldy and unsuited to the conventional warfare of the time.

By the TL:10-12 epoch, power armor comes closer to reaching its potential with powered hard suits, battlesuits, combat walkers, striders, warsuits, and other smaller forms of walker mecha. Larger walker mecha have a hard time dealing with swift grav tanks, infantry pods, and other gravcraft unless in an environment where gravcraft are excluded.

By the TL:13-15 epoch, true power armor has evolved at the man-sized level, fully enabled by Fusion+ power plants, battery back-ups, miniaturized artificial muscles, bonded superdense armor, and high energy plasma weaponry.

Selected Personal Armor Models

1. TL-10 MK I Mod 0 Battledress
2. TL-11 MK II Mod 0 Battledress
3. TL-12 MK III Mod 0 Battledress - The MK III Mod II suit was very common within the Imperial Marines at the inception of the Third Imperium, which included the Chameleon Kit and the grav belt maneuver kit. The suit was later uprated to the Mod III variant which also included the Psionic Defense Kit.
4. TL-13 Standard Battledress

Expected Technological Progression of Power Armor

• Exoskeleton → Battleframe → Battlesuit → Lift Trooper (Grav Belt) → Battle Armor/Battle Dress → Augmented Battle Dress (Power Armor) → Battle Pod

»» Note that the term "Battle" can also be replaced with "Combat" or "Assault" depending on the bulk and the endurance for which the suit was designed to be operative.

References & Contributors (Sources)

This list of sources was used by the Traveller Wiki Editorial Team and individual contributors to compose this article. Copyrighted material is used under license from Mongoose Publishing or by permission of the author. The page history lists all of the contributions.

• Marc Miller. Characters and Combat (Game Designers Workshop, 1977), 42-43.
• Marc Miller. Shadows/Annic Nova (Game Designers Workshop, 1980), 19.
• Loren Wiseman. "Advanced Powered Battle Armor." Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society 03 (1980): 23.
• J. Andrew Keith, Marc Miller, John Harshman. Zhodani (Game Designers Workshop, 1985), 15-16.
• Marc Miller. Imperial Encyclopedia (Game Designers Workshop, 1987), 74,75.
• Marc Miller. "Imperial Soldier’s Weapons & Armor Guide." MegaTraveller 1: The Zhodani Conspiracy (1990): 134.
• Rob Caswell. "Dressed to Kill: An Intimate Look at Battle Dress." MegaTraveller Journal 1 (1991): 46,51,52.
• Frank Chadwick, Dave Nilsen. Traveller: The New Era (Game Designers Workshop, 1993), 358,359.
• Dave Nilsen. Reformation Coalition Equipment Guide (Game Designers Workshop, 1994), 17-21.
• Greg Porter. Central Supply Catalog (Imperium Games, 1996), 19.
• Loren Wiseman. GURPS Traveller Core Rules (Steve Jackson Games, 1998), 118.
• Douglas E. Berry. Ground Forces (Steve Jackson Games, 2000), 86-87.
• Martin Dougherty, Hunter Gordon. The Traveller's Handbook (QuikLink Interactive, 2002), 285.
• Don McKinney. Zhodani (Mongoose Publishing, 2011), 15-16.
• Marc Miller. T5 Core Rules (Far Future Enterprises, 2013), 629.