2004-10-23, 18:43
|
Link #41 |
|
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
>>>>>>No, they don't, because they're heavier than wheels and tend to sink into deeper, more stable strata. However, the depth they can sink is far more limited, plus treads require a lot more friction to generate movement. That's why tanks are really very much limited to firm, relatively flat ground.<<<<<<
The surface area of a tread is very large compared to wheels, and feet, this distributes the weight over a much larger area, reducing the weight on any one point. If the terrain is so soggy, then you use a model with even wider treads, or even better an amphibious hovercraft, we have those too you know. >>>>>>Insectoid legs are far more promising because of the greater amount of joints. They'd be able to find footing in more awkwardly positioned crevasses, etc. Note, by the way, that I was talking about legged mecha in general, not just bipedal ones.<<<<<<< I'll assume you are talking about ant or spider legs. Those don't work on heavy objects. They work for tiny, light animals, and can remain paper thin, but when the object is bigger, you need thicker, more cumbersome legs. Why do you think an elephant has such thick legs? But these legs, as I said before, are cumbersome, and aren't as nimble, and precise as an ant's legs, so it doesn't work on something heavy. >>>>>>It is, however, very very inefficient, which is why you don't see caterpillars zipping around like cheetahs on speed. Maneuverability is no better than a tank, thus limiting the types of evasive maneuvers available<<<<<<< That would be the trade off. If you want all terain, it's naturally going to have a decreased max speed on level terrain. Why do you think sports cars don't look like SUV's, and vice versa? Like the other guy said, you can't have jack of all trades without being a master of none. But even so, tanks have time and time again proven they are much faster than infantry on both level and rough terrain. >>>>>>>Because a hover platform lacks stability. This goes back to the recoil point already covered previously in this thread. A hovering platform won't be able to fire a high-caliber cannon while on the move because it would have to compensate a lot more for the recoil. This is a problem also suffered by a legged mecha, especially bipedal ones. A tank, however, is relatively free of this problem, only suffering from an accuracy loss.<<<<<<<<< Why bother with high caliber cannons with insane recoil at all? Heck, even most projectile artillery is considered obsolete in favor for missles. Missles are typically far superior to cannon based projectiles. No recoil, faster to shoot, acurate/guided, more damage for less space occupied inside the vehicle. Why do you think fighters carry only missles, rockets, and bombs? Just one 20mm cannon (a big step down from WW2 era fighters which had more cannons), which is good enough. Not to mention what future weapons we might develop that have no recoil either, gamma rays, plasma weapons, whatever. >>>>>>>Additionally, to hold territory requires ground troops. If you're relying on aerial units complete for war, you can't maintain control of areas already cleared of enemy units.<<<<<<<< A hovering unit wouldn't be considered an aerial unit, since it can hold it's position, low to the ground, while maintaing a defensive state. >>>>>>>It's not as simple as that. Another problem that needs to be overcome is the overheating of the vertical thrust engines during prolonged hovers. Jet engines are cooled primarily by the air that moves around it during operation, something that is not present when the vehicle is not moving at all.<<<<<<<< Heating can be maintained by refrigeration units. You already have a near limitless power source, you can use it to power the vehicle as well as a few air cooling units around it. >>>>>>>Consequently, the Harrier's hover time is limited greatly by the amount of cooling water it can carry; once it runs out of it, it can only hover for very very small amounts of time.<<<<<<<< Harrier was never designed to hover, it was designed to land vertically, and short take off. But the idea is there, and can be used on a dedicated hovering vehicle. >>>>>>>No, it isn't, but again, what's the point? You'll weigh down an already heavy tank, making it less maneuverable and thus more exposed to aerial fire.<<<<<<<< Sure, but that depends on the materials we are using too. Steel? Some fictional gundanium metal which is light but strong as hell? Either way, the same problem is true for a legged walker, and even more so. A tank has treads to distribute the weight, and becomes even more balanced believe it or not. A walker now sink into the ground faster than before, and becomes even more unbalanced, it's center of gravity is just way too high. >>>>>>>Because a power suit is limited in the amount of protection it can provide and the armament it can carry. <<<<<<<< It is? As long as it can stand up against rifle fire, shrapnel, fire, chemical weapons, then you are sitting good. Humans are easy to kill, they are soft and chewy, and the smallest arms can kill one. But give him a strong outer shell, with air filters, and you eliminate 90% of what normally kills infantry. Limited in armaments? Well he can't carry a buster rifle ala Gundam Wing, but he can carry a couple of tactical nukes which are probably just as destructive. >>>>>>>the number one problem with them is that if you get hit in an unarmoured portion of the unit, you're not only buggered for movement but you'll be bleeding to death.<<<<<<<< Depends on how the armor is contructed, it could be very well armored completely, while still allowing joints to move freely. As for bleeding and pain, the powered suit could be equiped with painkillers which are administered automatically, and maybe a tar like substance as well to help seal up wounds quickly (Elementals had this in Battletech). Who knows, it's still a lot more conceivable than a 2 story mech. >>>>>>and he will - the amount of armour on him will last a lot less longer than on an actual vehicle.<<<<<<< A vehicle won't last long against a tactical nuke my friend.... Armor is worthless if the offensive weapon renders it useless >>>>>>>No, it isn't, but it won't be considered as such. You know that as well as everyone else. Bring a nuke onto the battlefield and all bets are off, regardless of who you're using it against. I'd expect the same thing with any anti-matter explosive device that may come along in the future.<<<<<<< All bets are off, if you are fighting a country with nukes to begin with. Until we develop something to defend against a nuke, don't expect any country to fight fair when the chips are down. >>>>>>>>Nuclear winter or no, launching all the nukes in the world would be enough to at least wipe out damn near everyone on the planet and make the world inhospitable for life as we know it. Any survivors will soon die from either starvation or disease brought about by radiation or rotting corpses. It might not be a complete blackout, but it sure as hell won't be any less bad.<<<<<<<<< Yea, probably. Unless we figure out a way to defend against nukes. An N-Jammer, missle defense grid, antimatter shield.... something. But that's evolution for ya. We've had nukes for about 60 years now. We've obtained the ability to destroy ourselves, and have only held out for 60 years so far. That's not a long time. Dinosaurs lived for 30 million years or something, think we will last that long? >>>>>>>Any nuke will wipe out anything in short order: battleships, tanks, Madcats, Gundams, Gears, Labours, Humvees, powered armour (especially powered armour, which would be the weakest of the lot) on a direct hit, and if you want to talk about how fast a PA could get away from the scene, remember that mecha would have far more powerful powerplants than the human heart plus battery and would get away a whole of a lot quicker.<<<<<<<< The difference is, power armor is small, they can take cover in underground forts if necessary. Vehicles can't do that. But yes, spot a PA trooper in the open, and he's as good as dead with a tac nuke, but honestly, that's like burning down a house to get one flea. |
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 20:05
|
Link #43 | |
|
Unlimited Blade Works...
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: South Florida
 |
Quote:
__________________
|
|
|
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 20:17
|
Link #44 | |
|
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
Quote:
The fact that you made this statement, >>>>Basicly, the only point to a bipedal warfare is the fact that, at the time of its inception, Long range battles with Guided weapons, tanks, ect ect, were rendered null because of interferance that totally jammed nearly all radio based equipment.<<<< Proves to me, that you know NOTHING about modern technology or weapons. First of all, no weapon is guided by radio waves, the fact that you made such a foolish mistake already kills your credibility. I'll assume that you meant radar signatures, which the original Gundam claims it managed to jam. Gundam was created in the 70s back when that was the only way to guide a weapon. Today, we can guide a weapon with lasers, satelites, or heat. You know nothing about the military kid. Go home to mommy :fingers: |
|
|
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 21:18
|
Link #45 |
|
Kimi wa dare da?
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
Hi new around here,
A mobile suit will be complex to build, use up alot of resources and require a good pilot to use it as a MS can do so many humanoid actions thus the pilot has to react fast. In a war with space as its location, a massive squadron of fighters armed with beam weaponry will over power one side that only produces Mobile suits. The inablity to create war weapons fast, means losing the war, "too little too late" . On earth. Mobile suits will be unable to fly far at all due to gravity, thus the only way they can move is walk and with alittle jumpjetting. Tanks however are cheaper/easier to build and well suited to the enviroment. A tank will have no problem with recoil and stabilty compared to a mobile suit. A real mobile suit in our world will be impractical as war is about creating weapons fast and getting it fast in battle, making them easy for the average man to pilot. In our world, a mobile suit is just too hard to build, too expensive to build and too complex to use. Engineers and scientists would be better off researching conventional attack vehicles than to figure out how to make a mobile suit balance and not fall like an AIBO or those robots made by the japanese people. Yes a mobile suit will be superior in 1 on 1 combat with other vehicles of war, because of its multiple role and abilities. But numbers matter alot in war too. A small number of super vehicles will not be able to turn the tides of war. Unless they are weapons of mass destruction. |
|
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 22:25
|
Link #46 |
|
Unlimited Blade Works...
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: South Florida
|
O yea to explain the nuclear power of mobile suits and all read this they use minovsky system in regular UC gundam
http://zzgundam0087.tripod.com/gundamworld/id14.html
__________________
|
|
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 22:45
|
Link #47 | ||||||||||||||
|
Lowly A-Kingdom flunkie
Join Date: Nov 2003
|
You really really like tac-nukes and power-armour, don't you?
I'll repeat it again: Infantry-deployed tactical nukes are really effective only against stationary hard targets or in ambush situations against moving ones (as mines or booby traps or rockets fired from a not-so-distant location). Larger tac-nukes, on the other hand, will be the purvey of more conventional units. If the P.A. division fires and doesn't kill off the whole squad of tanks, MS, whatever, they're pretty much screwed because they'll be having a more powerful weapon with a larger area of effect aimed towards them. Thus, tac-nukes are a moot point; anything that it hits will get annihilated anyway, regardless. Now, let's talk about the idea of tac-nukes not hitting but damaging with their blast. PA units can hide behind cover to protect against that, yes, but by extension so can anything else. Hell, if it's heavily armoured enough a tank won't need to hide behind anything. My point is that some of the advantages that the PA gets by being small is equalled or exceeded by the advantages a legged mecha or tank gets by being big. A vehicle can carry more armour, so it can afford to be less stealthy than infantry. Conversely, infantry can hide behind cover, so they can afford to be more lightly armoured than a vehicle. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Although the legs can be larger and more cumbersome, it won't negate the fact that the mecha would be able to spread its weight on at least three legs at any one time, providing stability, while searching for a better placement for the other feet. Quote:
Quote:
In motorized wheels versus human legs, wheels win. What about motorized legs versus human legs? I've seen footage of a prototype bipedal device that can run pretty fast, jump over obstacles and backflip like mad, far better than what a human could do. I can't give you a source, though, because the footage was on a Discovery Channel program about robotics. However, it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that human legs would lose out in that competition too. In any case, the comparison that we should be making is between motorized treaded/wheeled locomotion and motorized legs, not human legs. Since we don't have working motorized legs, we can't really do that, but let's speculate: Over flat and rough terrain, a treaded vehicle will gain the upper hand; when it comes to very rocky or variable terrain, the legged vehicle will win. Quote:
Quote:
In the early days of aerial combat, machine cannons were the (ahaha) bomb, because the propeller-driven airplanes of the time were slow enough for you to actually see them and aim. This proved more and more of a problem when the jet age came around because, at cannon range, it is child's play for a pilot to spoil your shot by crossing across your field of vision. Hence, aerial warfare engineers turned to guided weapons because they can actually track the target better and at lower risk of the pilot blacking out. This had the added advantage of not requiring the target to be within visual range. Thus, it came to be that modern-day fighters tend to carry more guided weapons that cannons or gunnery. However, ask yourself, why does the modern fighter carry a cannon anyway? Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Also, when I say limited, I mean that the amount of weapons (let's stick to conventional ones like anti-tank rockets) has to be small for the PA to remain as stealthy and maneuverable as a soldier needs it to be. Same thing goes when he's carrying unconventional stuff like tac-nukes. How many can a PA carry while not weighing itself down? Compare that to how much a simple jeep or Humvee can. Theoretical PA design is based around augmenting the physical strength of a soldier while maintaining functionality. A PA is supposed to allow the soldier to carry more equipment for a longer amount of time and to traverse difficult terrain faster. This means that a PA with a lot of armour and weapons (which would limit movement and functionality) isn't particularly sensible. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
|
||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 23:37
|
Link #48 |
|
Unlimited Blade Works...
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: South Florida
|
So true technology is very limited right now we can barely make walking robots now much less go into space and make colonies. Making mobile suits would be un economical and too complex to design. The only thing that can be based against is the limit of weaponery within the Gundam series itself
__________________
|
|
|
|
|
2004-10-23, 23:45
|
Link #49 |
|
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
>>>>>You really really like tac-nukes and power-armour, don't you?
It's a simple idea really. If it works, use it, if it doesn't, don't. >>>>>I'll repeat it again: Infantry-deployed tactical nukes are really effective only against stationary hard targets or in ambush situations against moving ones (as mines or booby traps or rockets fired from a not-so-distant location). Larger tac-nukes, on the other hand, will be the purvey of more conventional units. If the P.A. division fires and doesn't kill off the whole squad of tanks, MS, whatever, they're pretty much screwed because they'll be having a more powerful weapon with a larger area of effect aimed towards them.<<<<<< Tactical nukes only effective against stationary targets? How do you know this? There could be great advances in miniture guidance systems. Hell, the PA trooper could be linked with a satelite to provide intelligence, and guidance systems. The F-22 already has such a feature. And even if you were right, then what do you think a tank is? A stationary target! And your mech won't be moving at mach 2, so unless you are in a fighter, the PA trooper could probably take it out. >>>>>>>I know that. I'm a civil engineer and that's a basic principle of foundation design (spreading load over a larger area so that the soil doesn't collapse). However, another principle of foundation design is that if you can't find soil that's strong enough to support your foundation, you move your foundation deeper until you find soil that is. That's what I'm talking about when I say a legged mecha is more forgiving of weak ground bearing capacity: like your feet in mud, it may sink and sink deep, but it still can push off the stronger layer below the mud which wheels and treads might not be able to reach.<<<<<<< 100 ton robots aren't the same as humans. A human won't sink far into soft ground, a mech will. And in a forest how easy is it for a mech to trip over a fallen log? It's center of gravity is way too high. A tank or such NEVER trips. >>>>>Thus, it came to be that modern-day fighters tend to carry more guided weapons that cannons or gunnery. However, ask yourself, why does the modern fighter carry a cannon anyway?<<<<<< Ofcourse, a fighter carriers missles because that's the best way to shoot down enemy planes, and it also has no recoil. It has a cannon for dog fighting, which is rare these days anyway, that's why they only have 1 20 mm, that's all you need to take out fighters or try strafe infantry. >>>>>At the cost of more weight, which could be used to carry weapons instead or even completely left out to improve on speed.<<<<<< Oh please, don't even bring up cost. An overly complicated mech would be infintely more expensive than any hover based vehicle. The prototype stage alone would cost billions. >>>>>>How much of an outer shell can you give the PA without it being cumbersome? There's a limit to how massive something can be while remaining the same size. Theoretical PA design is based around augmenting the physical strength of a soldier while maintaining functionality. A PA is supposed to allow the soldier to carry more equipment for a longer amount of time and to traverse difficult terrain faster. This means that a PA with a lot of armour and weapons (which would limit movement and functionality) isn't particularly sensible.<<<<<<<< True, but I never meant to imply that PA would primarily be for armor. It could stop most rifle fire, and such, but the main purpose would be for the increased mobility, strength, and intelligence. Besides, armor is useless if you have a weapon that can defeat it. >>>>>>>Those are interesting ideas, but I still have to disagree with you; powered armour of the level that you're talking about is far more inconceiveable than a 2-storey mecha for the simple reason that the mecha would have far more strength and armour than the PA. If we're not talking tac-nukes (which, as I said, pretty much make both mecha and PA pointless), a mecha would be able to carry more weapons, would be able to traverse terrain more quickly and would be easier to construct owing to less miniaturization.<<<<<< There's no way a 2 story mech is more conceiveable than PA. Yes the mech is stronger, and has more armor, but it's useless! It doesn't protect against a tactical nuke, you can keep singing how they will never reach the battlefield, I'm telling you right now, they will. Now lets say, the mech is carring tactical nukes too. I'll tell you why the PA trooper is better. First, he's hiding in tall grass behind some rocks, the mech doesn't know he's there. Second, the Mech is sticking out like a sore thumb, the PA trooper spotted him a mile away thanks to his radar uplink with a satelite that picked up the Mech. The Mech didn't pick him up, because he is too small for the radar to discern between him and the natural surrounding enviroment. Third, the PA trooper locks on, and fires away, the mech sees the missle comming, and fires in the general direction, missing him due to lack of the ability to lock on to such a small target, and because of the terrain. Mech is dead, PA trooper moves on to the next target. Hell, lets assume the PA trooper died too. Lets see, a multimillion dollar mech is now scrap, and the PA trooper's armor is too. I don't know how much PA armor would cost, but I'm willing to bet, it's a hell of a load cheaper than a 2 story mech. It's a net victory for the guys who used PA. >>>>>>>And if a tac-nuke can cream a tank, imagine what it can do to an unfortunate private in PA. That's my whole point.<<<<<<<< I said before, it's overkill. But first you have to know if the PA trooper is even there in the first place. Ever heard of guerilla warfare? That's how infantry in this age fights. You can't detect infantry on radar, but you can defintely detect a huge mech on radar, and visually it sticks out like a sore thumb. We already nullified armor, the mech's armor is useless. What's next? Which has more weapons? Doesn't matter, dead is dead. The PA's weapon can kill a mech in one shot, ditto for the PA, so they are still even. It comes down to three things, speed, manuverability, and stealth. The PA trooper wins on 2 of the 3. I'll give you the speed for the sake of argument (I honestly doubt it though), but the trooper wins in terms of stealth and manuvering with jump jets lets say. And finally Deviation is right about cost and numbers. A mech is just too expensive for being so worthless. Existing technology can do what it wants to do, but better, and for less. |
|
|
|
|
2004-10-24, 06:32
|
Link #50 |
|
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2003
|
I feel myself strangely remindet of GTO (the okinawa trip, with the gundam otakus).
Everywhere outside a gundam forum the common census that bipedal weapon systems suck would have been reached after 3 or 4 posts. And btw: tac nukes suck against tanks. The armor blocks most of the neutron and gamma radiation and shields from much of the blast damage (you need to be really close to ground zero to blow away a tank), plus modern multilayer armor with ceramics is very good at insulatin heat, so they wont burn up because of the infrared radiation of the after-blast fireball. The mobile infantry in their power-suits would be fucked, otoh. |
|
|
|
|
2004-10-24, 07:00
|
Link #51 |
|
Kimi wa dare da?
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
I would like to mention that war is about control of terrories not melting and destroying existing facilities. You would want to control a portion of land without using such extreme methods and at the same time using the least amount of violence. Remmber radiation and fallout, how are your troops going to use that land and its facilities with radiation off the charts?
Nuking a convoy of vehicles and mechs will be a waste of nukes, when serveral guided missles with clusterbombs or emp can destroy the vehicles. Again, nuking is not the most efficient weapon in war. It has a large blast radius and a hell load of side effects to the enviroment. PA? Power-armour... It sounds possible, to mechanically enhance soldiers and give them extra stamina and range. I will have to stand on the PA's side, for the simple reason that units should be harder to spot than a mech. Combat is always about not being spotted and spotting the enemy, so you can complete objectives without detection. A mech will not be able to do infiltration, spying and other missions requiring stealth, because its just too obvious. Almost screaming: "hey! aim me i am your target!" Lets know that war is not about blasting people, tanks, buildings and etc. War includes a fair share of spying, recon, and stealth. Complete the objectives without being noticed, and leave undetected. Just like bombers and fighters. No one wants extra attention in combat. |
|
|
|
|
2004-10-24, 07:55
|
Link #52 | |||||||||||||
|
Lowly A-Kingdom flunkie
Join Date: Nov 2003
|
Quote:
By a stationary target, I mean a target that can't move, period. Think bridges, bases, forts, pillboxes. A tank is only stationary if it's lying in ambush. On the move, your ability to hit a tank is reduced a lot, especially if you're talking about a missle that's moving at Mach speeds. This is why anti-tank missle-equipped infantry tend to take shots from the front or back of a moving tank instead of the sides; the guidance system needs to compensate for that motion and the less motion the better. Same thing applies to legged mecha, only more so. I think it's safe to assume that a legged mecha would be more maneuverable than a tank and hence has a better chance at throwing off a missle's guidance system. This isn't even counting defence mechanisms like flares or chaff. Remember, we're talking about infantry-deployed tac-nukes, here. Like anti-tank missles, those are really as good as the person on the controlling end. You can argue a satellite linkup to a cruise missle equipped with a tac-nuke warhead, thus negating the necessity of having a controller or spotter, but then a cruise missle isn't something that a PA would be able to carry due to its size. Quote:
A legged mecha may be heavier, but it will have longer legs to compensate for that. Which part of this do you not understand? Quote:
Quote:
Now, what's the relevance of this? Simple: you can only carry so many guided weapons. That's why a heavy, high-recoil gun like what you see on a tank isn't going to go out of fashion thanks to guided tac-nukes. As for fighter autocannons having no recoil, consider this. The A-10's cannon knocks of 20 knots of its airspeed at full burst. Scale it down to your average Gatling gun or autocannon and you'll see that the effect of recoil on the airframe is nothing to sneeze at. Quote:
What did I say? "At the cost of weight." I'm not talking about the expense of making or researching the hovering mecha; I'm saying that putting in a cooling plant when you should be finding ways to minimize the weight of the hovering fighter (so that you won't need a huge and hot powerplant in the first place) is a bit dumb. Yes, a legged mecha will cost a lot to develop, but so will a PA, or a hovering jet fighter design that doesn't suffer the problems I listed. Which will cost less? Probably the hover jet design because it's based on existing technology. Between the legged mecha and the PA, though, it's anyone's call. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Let's make a fair, less biased scenario, k? Let's say that I'm sending out a two-unit squad of two-storey high legged mecha through a jungle battlefield. They're armed with two heavy tac-nukes a piece, a high-caliber auto-cannon and some basic defensive equipment (flares, chaff, smokescreen, etc). The jungle battlefield would put those darn spy satellites and UAVs out of the picture on both sides: no visual contact and maybe limited thermal imaging due to the climate. Imagine these mechas to be scaled-up human beings in proportion. Now, you've got, say, a 6-man PA squad out on anti-mecha patrol duty. One of them functions as communications and field medic, two are equipped with tac-nukes - say, two each - one will be a scout with advanced sensors and the remaining two are fire-support - tricked out with heavy-caliber machine guns and an anti-tank launcher each. Why am I limiting your loadout like this? Realism; infantry squads often carry specialized equipment for their roles in order to maximize their ability to adapt to an unexpected situation. My mechas stalk through the jungle on 'silent running' (low E.M. and thermal emissions, although given their size, they still make a little bit of noise) towards your base. Your scout picks this up and relays the info to the rest of the squad. Analyzing the situation, your squad decides to set up a tac-nuke ambush for the mecha in a clearing, using two of the warheads, keeping the other two in reserve. Considering the battlefield, your squad decides to tone down the power of the warhead so that they'll be able to remain nearby and take out any survivors. The two mecha stalk on unawares. One of them triggers the two tac-nukes and gets its legs blown off with the rest of it getting heavy damaged. The pilot is knocked unconsious and starts bleeding to death from the shrapnel. The second mecha, realising that their stealth has been compromised, switches on its active sensors and searches for the mop-up squad the pilot expects to be there. A wise choice, as the rear missle sensor screams danger. The pilot reacts instinctively, dodging its body to the side. The tac-nuke is set on proximity, though, so it explodes, although not on direct contact. One arm of the mecha is blown off. The pilot fires its own tac-nuke in the direction of fire. The heavier missle's blast radius is too large for the two PA troopers there to run away from, but the comms officer barely makes it, his systems knocked out by shrapnel for the blast. Miraculously, he manages to avoid getting shrapnel in any critical part of his body. Shifting aim quickly, the mecha spots the other fire team as they take aim from the other side of the other mecha's wreckage. The pilot realises he's vulnerable in the open and creates a smokescreen to blind the fire team as he tries to circle 'round to get behind cover. The fire team ups the yield of the warhead and takes the shot at the last bit of the mecha that they see. Boom. The two of the remaining four PA troopers advance towards the burning mecha. intending to check if the pilot can be captured for interrogation. The other two investigate the area to make sure the other mecha is dead, too. Suddenly, high-caliber autocannon fire rings out. The other mecha managed to survive the attack, thanks to its thicker armour. One of the PAs doesn't get away in time and gets hit, the large bullet ripping through her body like a hot knife through butter. The others decide to fall back, firing at the mecha to discourage him from following. The mission is a complete failure for the mecha; they were unlucky enough to come across a PA patrol in dense jungled terrain where enemy patrols were expected to be low, but at least one mecha barely survived the encounter and is bringing his dying partner back to base for medical attention. The mission is a bitter-sweet victory for the PAs; they lost half their team but they foiled an enemy advance. This is a more realistic scenario than your lone PA ambushing a lone mecha daft enough to be standing around in the open. Hopefully it more clearly illustrates the various strengths and weaknesses of the legged mecha and PA. In short, it all depends on the intended role of your unit. Neither the PA nor the legged mecha is uber-powerful. The PAs would serve the same role normal infantry has today: scouting, holding territory, ambush of slow and large vehicles or assaulting bases (with combined arms, of course). The legged mecha would serve the same role as a modern-day tank, only with better adaptability to terrain. As with today's anti-tank missle equipped infantry, the PA's tactical nuke doesn't immediately negate the effectiveness of armour nor does it make more conventional weapons obsolete. The tac-nuke is a specialized weapon and not likely something that you'd carry standard issue, no matter what the power - imagine if a PA trooper got captured by a non-nuclear opponent and his tac-nuke siezed. Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Anyway, my weekend's over and done. Thanks for the fun (and sometimes exasperating) discussion. Last edited by chibikit; 2004-10-24 at 09:21. |
|||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
2004-10-24, 12:44
|
Link #53 | |
|
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
>>>>>>And btw: tac nukes suck against tanks. The armor blocks most of the neutron and gamma radiation and shields from much of the blast damage (you need to be really close to ground zero to blow away a tank), plus modern multilayer armor with ceramics is very good at insulatin heat, so they wont burn up because of the infrared radiation of the after-blast fireball.<<<<<<
....... if a hellfire missle can destroy a tank, TRUST ME, a tactical nuke can too, and even more so. You don't fire a tactical nuke in a general direction and hope it kills something, they are designed for precise strikes against hard targets. >>>>>>Remmber radiation and fallout, how are your troops going to use that land and its facilities with radiation off the charts? Nuking a convoy of vehicles and mechs will be a waste of nukes, when serveral guided missles with clusterbombs or emp can destroy the vehicles. Again, nuking is not the most efficient weapon in war. It has a large blast radius and a hell load of side effects to the enviroment. <<<<<< You didn't read what I said before, I'll paste it here Quote:
>>>>>Remember, we're talking about infantry-deployed tac-nukes, here. Like anti-tank missles, those are really as good as the person on the controlling end. You can argue a satellite linkup to a cruise missle equipped with a tac-nuke warhead, thus negating the necessity of having a controller or spotter, but then a cruise missle isn't something that a PA would be able to carry due to its size.<<<<< Where is this cruise missle stuff comming from? You think guidence systems will be huge forever? Miniture guidence systems are a heck of a lot more realistic than a 2 story mech. >>>>>>By a stationary target, I mean a target that can't move, period. Think bridges, bases, forts, pillboxes. A tank is only stationary if it's lying in ambush. On the move, your ability to hit a tank is reduced a lot, especially if you're talking about a missle that's moving at Mach speeds. This is why anti-tank missle-equipped infantry tend to take shots from the front or back of a moving tank instead of the sides; the guidance system needs to compensate for that motion and the less motion the better.<<<<<<< Well I already brought up the guidence systems argument, so I don't know why you would bring this up, but anyway, how do you think a tank fires? While it moves? No, it has to stop, a stationary target. And anything that moves as fast as a tank isn't impossible to hit either, it's just way too slow, and trust me your mech won't be moving any faster. >>>>>>Let me make it simple for you: heavy legged mecha 15 m tall sinks, say, 2 m into a peat bog before its legs touch bedrock. That's the equivalent of a 150 cm tall man sinking 20 cm, which isn't even knee deep. If a 150 cm tall man can slog it through a 20 cm depth of mud, what's stopping a 15 m tall legged mecha from doing the same, even if you discount putting boosters on the thing? A legged mecha may be heavier, but it will have longer legs to compensate for that. Which part of this do you not understand?<<<<<<< *sigh* I'm not even going to bother with this anymore, you are just theorycrafting at this point. I'll just say the obvious, a hovering or flying vehicle is better suited to the job, and can do it for less money. >>>>>>Can you imagine how preposterous it would be for said 150 cm man to trip over a twig? That's how reasonable the idea of a 15 m mecha tripping over a log is.<<<<<< You honestly believe your mech's legs are the be all and end all? That they are so strong, nothing could hold them back? Trust me, they won't be. >>>>>>Close but no cigar. A modern fighter has a machine cannon as a backup weapon in case it runs out of its missles and bombs and the enemy refuses to let it through. It's a backup weapon. If you can knock one or two enemy aces out of the sky with it, then well and good; for the most part, you're using it to scare off anyone who's trying to stop you.<<<<<< .... dude you aren't telling me anything, I don't already know. Ofcourse it's a backup weapon! I thought that much was obvious. >>>>>>As for fighter autocannons having no recoil, consider this. The A-10's cannon knocks of 20 knots of its airspeed at full burst. Scale it down to your average Gatling gun or autocannon and you'll see that the effect of recoil on the airframe is nothing to sneeze at.<<<<<< The difference is, the A-10 is an attack jet, designed for ground attack, not air to air combat. It's cannon is a 30 mm avenger cannon, not a 20mm, and it's not designed for dogfights, it's designed to strafe armor on the ground. I'm not sure why you bring this up though, I never said recoil wasn't an issue. It is, which is one of the reasons why you don't see the A-10 mounting 110mm cannons either (space and weight is the other). >>>>>I'm saying that putting in a cooling plant when you should be finding ways to minimize the weight of the hovering fighter (so that you won't need a huge and hot powerplant in the first place) is a bit dumb.<<<<<< Fine, then minimize the weight, thank you for answering your own question. It's still a better alternative to a 2 story mech. >>>>>>Yes, a legged mecha will cost a lot to develop, but so will a PA, or a hovering jet fighter design that doesn't suffer the problems I listed. Which will cost less? Probably the hover jet design because it's based on existing technology. Between the legged mecha and the PA, though, it's anyone's call.<<<<<< ..... You honestly think a mech is cheaper to develop than PA? PA already relies on a human's ability to stand, remain balanced, and move. All that is brand new technology that developers have to invent for your 2 story mech, which is already inferior. >>>>>>Say we're living in the early 20th century (1900-1930s). The idea of computers started around then, but they were untested technology. Which would be more feasible to you given that level of technology: a mainframe computer that fills up a whole room or a palmtop?<<<<<<< There's no point in trying to predict the future. We don't know what we will need in the future, all we can do is try to make judgements based on what we have right now. And right now, we would never need a legged walking tank, it's inferior even to today's technology! >>>>>>Of course, the big huge mecha doesn't have a satellite uplink of its own, or better imaging sensors (heat, magnetic, etc). It can't see the PA because the designers were bloody daft and neglected to include all these vital battlefield intelligence equipment, making the pilot completely reliant on his own eyes. On the other hand, the much smaller and load-limited PA can carry a full set of combined tactics comm equipment and tactical nukes on top of the soldier's supplies and main weapon. Right. <<<<<<< He can have all the intelligence in the world. Right now, it's impossible to detect stuff at low altitudes unless you are really close, and the bigger stuff is detected first. There is no way to make a mech like tank stealthy. PA on the other hand is already stealthy. Hell, take away it's armor and replace it with frail, but stealthy (radar absorbing) materials. Armor is useless in this fight remember? Stealth is more important. As for your little story, an interesting read. Thank you for giving me the role specific troopers, master of what they do. Funny how your mechs are still jack of all trades though. I'll agree with your story, except one thing. There's no way a mech can stand up to a 1 kiloton explosion from just a few meters away, and only lose an arm. >>>>>>As with today's anti-tank missle equipped infantry, the PA's tactical nuke doesn't immediately negate the effectiveness of armour nor does it make more conventional weapons obsolete. The tac-nuke is a specialized weapon and not likely something that you'd carry standard issue, no matter what the power - imagine if a PA trooper got captured by a non-nuclear opponent and his tac-nuke siezed.<<<<<<< First of all, a tactical nuke does render armor useless. Second, I mostly used it as an example because that's something we can all agree, that would destroy a mech in one hit. I'm sure we can come up with a convential weapon, which has less blast area, with just as much armor penetration. >>>>>>However, the amount of firepower they can carry is severely limited by their size and the kind of role they're intended to fulfil.<<<<<<< I never intended to imply that PA would be the only thing we ever need in a war. By all means not. We still need artillery, mobile transport, air attack support, armor support (yes, when all you need is more firepower, this is the one that can handle it), the air force, the navy, etc... It's all about using the best of the best. The problem is, legged mecha don't serve a purpose anywhere in this. |
|
|
|
|
|
2004-10-24, 19:33
|
Link #54 | ||||||||||||
|
Lowly A-Kingdom flunkie
Join Date: Nov 2003
|
My weekend's already over so I won't really have time to properly respond anymore. I'll just keep this short:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
As for the losing an arm, I kind of forgot to detail damage to the armour and internal systems. That's my fault, but the point is that the armour (assuming advances in materials technology necessary) will be able to give protection to the pilot, something that the lighter PAs can't do. Quote:
Anyway, thanks for the argument. I'll let other people carry on. |
||||||||||||
|
|
|
|
2004-10-24, 22:22
|
Link #55 |
|
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
|
Well, at this point we are just repeating the same stuff over and over, so I too will make it brief,
>>>>>You miss the point. My point is that it would be more feasible to build a big legged drive with modern technology than it is to build a smaller one that's to be strapped to human legs. It's simple miniaturization. This is not even going into the question of integrating hardware and 'wetware'.<<<<<< The leg of a PA suit wouldn't be the same as the leg on a mech. If anything, a mech's leg is infintely more complex than a PA suit's leg. All a PA suit's leg has to do is augment a human's natural ability to move his leg. A Mech's leg is a complex mess of gears, skeletel structure, and more. Your miniturization point doesn't apply in this case, bigger in this example means harder to make, not easier. Now, something like the powersource would be far more difficult to miniturize, because a powersource is naturally large, bulky, but not a PA's leg drive system. Everything else you said, I more or less agreed on, or have nothing to say about. It's been fun debating this with you :P |
|
|
|
 |
|
|
