r/ImaginaryFallout • u/battle_order • 3h ago
Original Content Power Armor-Equipped Minuteman Cavalry (c. 2289) by Me
My take on a Minuteman power armor unit, assuming everything goes hunky dory for the Minutemen in 2287 and the General chooses to destroy the Prydwen. The graphic calls it the Prydwen I to make a Prydwen II appearing in the show to be viable.
The concept is that after destroying the Prydwen, the Minutemen launched a salvage operation to recover any useful material. That effort, combined with equipment captured from Brotherhood of Steel patrols on the ground and salvaged from other sources like old Massachusetts National Guard armories, scrounged up enough power armor sets and heavy support weapons to form one troop (company) of "armored cavalry" based out of The Castle. This troop was part of its newly formed First Regiment of Regulars (the only such regiment).
This regiment formed the core cadre of full-time soldiers to backup the part-time network of militias spread throughout the Minutemen's aligned settlements. The mission of the trooper would be to remain on-call and reinforce those settlements under threat of attack. They would use their high protection, direct fire, and shock effect to close with and destroy the enemy, potentially while under hostile fire. Essentially, they acted as the Minutemen's equivalent to tanks.
Wherever they could they would use salvaged BoS sets of T-60 power armor. However, this graphic also represents use of (sometimes incomplete) sets of T-45d and T-51b power armor, probably sourced from old U.S. Army installations. Maybe once the "General" hangs up their hat so to speak they give the Minutemen the lowdown on power armor frames and fusion core locations in the wasteland. These power armor-equipped Minutemen operate in heavy weapons teams called "Cannon Squads", calling back to U.S. Infantry Regiment Cannon Companies of WW2 (artillery units, sometimes self-propelled, that were organic to infantry units and sometimes acted in a direct fire role). These squads operate mainly miniguns and gatling lasers, with other close combat roles using laser rifles (also BoS captures) and support roles using mostly Laser Muskets. Standardizing on these laser platforms probably makes sustainment of microfusion cells easier and the Gatling Laser/Laser Rifle and Laser Musket/Laser Pistol share core components that an armorer could specialize in. Plus, it's a special and small unit anyway so they could probably afford to standardize on these better arms. Yeah the minigun is in 5mm, but it's kind of a niche round that isn't shared by anything else they use in game anyway. It being non-standard is not a big deal in the same way an artillery unit's howitzer shells aren't standard with their rifles.
The Cannon Squads are supported by a Pioneer Squad (quasi-Engineers who have some training in mobility and countermobility tasks). I started watching the Fallout show for the first time recently and I liked how they depicted the power armor's limitations with regards to being too heavy for certain types of terrain and weak structures. I figured that this would probably be one of power armor's most felt limitations. During normal movements, the pioneers would likely conduct an engineer reconnaissance slightly ahead of the Cannon Squads to make sure the ground ahead can support the power armor's weight. If they can't reinforce infrastructure with their limited means or place down boards to spread out the load over soft ground, they can scout out alternate routes. They could also fill more conventional infantry roles, providing local security to the power armor guys like infantry did with tanks. Pioneers (or assaultmen in the USMC before they got rid of those) are sort of a cross between infantry and engineers in certain countries so can do infantry stuff in addition to filling a gap below engineers.
The Rear Echelon listed here would mainly be responsible for maintaining power armor and arms, as well as keeping track of their stock of fusion cores and ammunition. They wouldn't be the source for these items though. They would likely liaise with the First Regiment S-4 (supply staff officer) or the S-4 of The Castle to obtain ammo, power, and spare parts.
The power armors and soldier figures were sourced from the wiki, but some of them (especially the power armors and different combat armor configurations) were photoshopped from several different models to achieve the look I wanted. They also have American Civil War bedrolls. The weapon models are just the ones on the wiki.