Directorate Officer
Intent: To provide a Star Wars equivalent of the load-bearing system commonly used by modern, real life militaries
Image Source: here and here, combined and edited by yours truly
Canon Link: None
Restricted Missions: None
Primary Source: None
Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
Model: Bantha Modular Load-bearing System (BMLS)
Affiliation: Galactic Alliance, Silver Jedi, Directorate, Closed Market
Modularity: Highly, detailed below; fabric colors
Production: Mass-Produced.
Material: Duranex fabric, polyweave fabric reinforcement and straps, polycarbonate frame, gription panels, spun-plast tubing, agrinium pressure container, micrels, micro repulsorlifts
Highly Modular: BMLS's main purpose is to facilitate carrying an assortment of gear into the field by an individual through an array of gription panels, clips, and lashing framework. This can allow almost any individual-sized item to be attached to Bantha in order to be more easily carried. Most commonly the attached items are weapons holsters, ammunition packs, and other personal gear needed by individuals in a field or combat setting. It's notable that the backplate has gription panel on a sturdy polycarbonate frame that can accept heavier loads (like a jetpack or heavy support weapon like a mortar) than the anterior BMLS.
Ergonomic: Bantha is designed to be a fairly ergonomic system, consisting of an adjustable vest combined with adjustable external pack frame which can be easily molded and contoured to the user's spine by using modular polycarbonate slats to form the part of the pack against the user's body. Additionally, BMLS is designed to encourage keeping the load not only close tocand relatively low on the body, thereby keeping the center of mass as low as possible in order to better maintain a person's natural agility.
Quick Detach: Banthas have quick detach buckles and magnatomic gription panels that hold it to the user, allowing the system to easily and quickly be jettisoned if necessary.
Repulsor-assisted: BMLS incorporates several microcels and micro repulsorlifts in its backplate, making loads lighter to carry as long as it has power. Users can adjust the power levels to meet their needs: someone carrying a small load over a long-distance may only use low-power assist that is quite longlasting. Inversely, Someone trying to quickly carry a particularly onerous load to a nearby ship may use a high-power mode that can only last for several minutes. (None of this increases a user's strength for combat use: this only affects the ability of people to move quicker while carrying things).
In-built Power Source: Bantha incorporates a quartet of microcels, which are used primarily to power the repulsorlift assist feature. However, there are several external power ports which not only allow BMLS to be charged, but also to power other pieces of gear. This power supply is typically too weak to support most energy weapons, but it can be used to power lights, sensors, and other devices with relatively low-powered electricity needs.
Pressurized Container: By default, all BMLS come with a low-slung agrinium cylinder on the back that is actually a pair of pressurized containers that links up to a pair of spun-plast tubing that runs up through the webbing to the front of the Bantha. These are typically used to carry oxygen and/or water to the user, but they can be easily adapted to carry other fluids. Oftentimes this is a species specific breathing atmosphere (such as with Kel Dors), a favored drink, or nutrient paste.
Strengths:
Ease of Carry: BMLS make carrying a variety of loads less straining on the body, not only be ergonomically distributing the load across the body, but also by using repulsorlifts to assist in carrying this load.
Highly Modular: BMLS is inherently designed to support a variety of attachment points and styles across its entirety.
Exposed Systems: BMLS's main commercial competitors are fully integrated battle armors which oftentimes carry items on them in protected compartments. In comparison, BMLS offers no meaningful protection to either its carried items or the wearer.
User fit: Since each BMLS is adapted to fit a particular user, they do not fit well if suddenly handed off to a different user, as each individual's ergonomics is different from the next. In practical terms, this means that the BMLS will be uncomfortable, bang and slosh around, be too tight, or otherwise impair or impede natural agility and/or movement if given to another person.
DESCRIPTION
Soldiers wage war not only with the weapons in their hand, but also the normal gear they carry into the field, whether it's a simple compass and binoculars, or the latest medicine or slicing datapad. While the general trend has been to fully integrate these systems into suits of armor, Lucerne Personal Defense revisited the older idea of developing a load-bearing system, which at its base conceptual core is actually webbing vest with an integrated pack frame. The modular nature of this webbing and frame allow Bantha to hold and support a mind-boggling variety of gear and containers. By making Bantha a standalone item, it can be used to upgrade existing armors like LPD's own blast armor or worn by people who want to handily carry lots of things, such as for an archaelogical expedition or backpacking trip, but don't want to wear a full set of battle armor. This adaptability required careful designing of the base garment starting with its base materials.
Bantha's most base layer is a triple-layered duranex waistband, chosen for its affordable cost and environmental durability. This vest has internal polyweave straps which can be used to adjust the width of the band to a variety of sizes, allowing it to snugly fit against most people's frames. The height can similarly be adjusted by a pair of padded straps that act as the unit's suspenders in the front. The back of the Bantha is a little bit more complicated, as these same straps enter a polycarbonate frame with modular backstraps that combined with a gription panel, hold the BMLS close to the body. After this base layer are the attachment layers. The waistband supports a wide variety of attachment types using adjustable gription panels, straps, hooks, and other common fasteners. Further up the anterior side, the suspenders can support multiple polyweave straps running horizontally across the chest to hold even more items. The suspenders also notably run spunplast tubing inside of them to carry liquids or gases from the rear pressure vessel. The backplate supports the said container vessel, but perhaps more importantly, a large gription panel that can cling to packs and otherwise larger pieces of gear that troops are expected to hump through the field. This most often is packs for containing personal supplies and survival gear, but it can also be used to carry heavier weapons, munitions, jetpacks, and a variety of other mission essential gear. While this is pretty typical for many military packs and load-bearing systems, BMLS has a few refinements that merit more mention.
Perhaps the biggest of these refinements is the inclusion of a pair of microrepulsorlifts powered by a quartet of microcels within the backplate itself. These noticeably can lighten the frequently heavy loads of a soldier. Because they are adjustable in power, soldiers can adjust their settings as they need to, allowing a minor boost in their ability carry things or move for long periods of time, to making a load feel completely weightless for several minutes. The power supply that supports these repulsorlifts can also be repurposed to support other devices with low-power energy needs, such as glowrods, navigational devices, handheld sensors, and so forth. Perhaps the second most appreciated refinement is the inclusion of a dual-chamber and lightweight agrinium pressure container combined with integrated spunplast tubing that reaches their face. Most users typically use this to sip water while on large marches or journeys, but it's not uncommon to see these used to carry pressurized gases for rebreathers and other environmental life support on planets with hostile or no atmosphere.
While not revolutionary, Lucerne Personal Defense expects these to sell well. Aside from pairing these to sell in conjunction with their blast armor, Lucerne Personal Defense's marketing department is also targeting the civilian scout and camping market. If Tresk Ek'ala's thoughts are correct, this will allow LPD to diversify its customer base to include many civilians, which should help steady the company's sales in the absence of any major military sales.
