99 replies to this topic

[Corusmaximus]

So I am a little baffled by the weight scale of the mechs.

Modern tanks weigh almost as much as a heavy mech, and a few are heavier than assaults.
M1 Abrams weighs about 68 tons.
The French FCM-F1 was 138 tons (circa 1940).

Yet the Atlas weighs only 100 tons. Makes no sense. Are these things made of plastic?

[Sasha Volkova]

No, they are made from non existing super metals that are harvested using the tears for reality dropped by people that puts a questionmark behind their weight.

Edited by 0okami, 12 July 2013 - 01:47 PM.

[Mazzyplz]

Corusmaximus, on 12 July 2013 - 01:37 PM, said:

So I am a little baffled by the weight scale of the mechs.

Modern tanks weigh almost as much as a heavy mech, and a few are heavier than assaults.
M1 Abrams weighs about 68 tons.
The French FCM-F1 was 138 tons (circa 1940).

Yet the Atlas weighs only 100 tons. Makes no sense. Are these things made of plastic?

well carbon fiber is tougher than steel. and it's about the weight of plastic?

also the year of 2013 we discovered graphene, which is the strongest material known to man, look it up.

there are also stuff like porous metals which weigh less i think i heard about those once or twice, couldn't get a quotation from this one though.

another thing you need to think about is, the actual mech is really very light.
the chassis of the mech is only 10% of the weight of the whole mech.

try to load up your atlas with nothing, only 10%.
when you add engine, heatsinks, weapons, armor and ammo you get the total tonnage of 100, the real atlas only weighs 10 tons and has a 90 ton haul power. so yeah, these mechs are technically made with beyond space age materials, the armor is presumably made heavier and of steel for absorbing qualities it might have in the BT universe.


ohh and technically we already have 10 ton machines that can haul 90 tons, it's those trucks from the ice road truckers show on discovery channel

Edited by Mazzyplz, 12 July 2013 - 02:01 PM.

[WCINC]

I think it's just MWO, where the mechs are way bigger in size then they are in the battletech fluff. This is just for game balance so lighter mechs are harder to hit. Somebody did the math on it and insisted mechs are about as dense as a modern tank, so their sizes are apparently accurate.

Mechs have a lot of empty space in them, mechanics crawl around in them to do maintenance or whatever.. Also, the primary unobtainium in the game is the armor is thin and lightweight and it's just bolted to a frame or substructure, rather then a modern tank which has a structure made entirely out of thick metal. In real life, you could'nt armor a large awkward structure like a mech without it weighing as much as a ship.

[Kiiyor]

Battletech physics laugh derisively at real physics.

Any type of comparison between the two is like comparing a brick wrapped in alfalfa sprouts to a children's playground slide.

[Karenai]

First of all the FCM-F1 was never build, if you want to go there go for the P. 1000 and P. 1500 both super heavy and never been build.
The most heavy tank ever build was the Panzer VIII "Maus" at 188t.
Why do mechs only go to 100t? Well, they do not. FASA had plans to intoduce the Wolverines with super heavy Mechs up to 200t, but then they went under. We got over 100t mechs with the thing that shall be not named, aka Dark Age.
The real reason for a cap at 100t are game mechanics. Did you know that Battletech was a game with rules before there were computer simulations of it? It was called a table top game and it had rules and dices.

If you ask how to explain that maximum weight in the best way. That is easy. Structural integrity. Mechs walk and run and jump. This is far more stress then driving around with suspension. The whole weight is based on two (or four for those strange mechs) points, aka legs. You run into structural integrity problems after a certain point. That happens to be 100t. Have you noticed that the mechs sometimes have only one leg on the ground? That is much stress for one part. If you can build a super heavy tank that dances on its cannons muzzle, then you are able to build a mech, structuraly. Because having 100t running around at 60km/h on two legs is still impossible with todays materials.

PS. Mechs are driven by a fusion reactor, which accidently is only viable to build up to a 400 rating or ship size, I may ad, because of physics and containment and integrity. Also they are driven by Myomer, man made muscles. It gives them the speed and strength without the weight of motors and hydraulics. So in a way, yes, they are made of plastic. Elastic, electro reactive plastic, which contracts when under electrical power and is used to move the whole thing around.

Edited by Karenai, 13 July 2013 - 08:19 PM.

[XphR]

Mazzyplz, on 12 July 2013 - 01:49 PM, said:

...

also the year of 2013 we discovered graphene, which is the strongest material known to man, look it up.

...

Theorized in 47, discovered in the 70s, named in 87, toyed with from 97 until 04 when two guys in Manchester University had the brilliant idea to extract it from the block with scotch tape. Its had numerous awards and accreditation under many sciencey awardy groups.

They make meaner trucks than the ones on IceRoads, look up road trains!

[Parliment]

Expanded foam steel-carbotitainium-carbon carbon all crazy light and stong compounds. Carbon nano tubes-ceramic alloys.
All things we are making now. People cant get past todays math to explain something 1000+ years from now errp!
Just look into some of the things the auto industry is doing for high end cars.

[Hyperlynx]

These other facts may surprise you about reality vs battletech:

• In reality, the larger the calibre of the weapon the greater the range you can expect from it. In battletech, the inverse is true.
  
• 21st century anti-tank weapons pierce the target with a jet of plasma that is formed on impact. There is no material that can withstand that kind of temperature. A single 21st century anti-tank shell or missile would burn right through a mech and out the other side, as mechs do not carry reactive armour or any other 21st century defenses against these weapons.
  
• Walking robots have a much higher centre of gravity than a tank, and so would be stupidly easy to knock over by mines, IEDs, anti-tank weapons in ambush, etc.
  
• 21st century guided anti-armour munitions have effective ranges well in excess of the LRM's 1000m. The TOW can go up to 3750m according to Wikipedia. And obliterate a tank in one blast.
  
• Modern 30mm armour-piercing rotary cannon, such as the A-10's GAU-8, do overheat if fired for more than a few seconds. However, in that time, the GAU-8 delivers 140 depleted uranium or explosive rounds, each the size of a glass milk bottle.

Edited by Hyperlynx, 14 July 2013 - 01:06 AM.

[SteelWarrior]

More importantly, Mechs are between 20 and 100 tons for size reference. Lets not over think this, at the end of the day its a universe constructed around a basic game that involved different sized mechs. Alot easier to reference a 30 tonner to an 80 tonner than it is to reference 3000 tons to 10 000 tons.

[Adridos]

Hyperlynx, on 14 July 2013 - 01:06 AM, said:

In reality, the larger the calibre of the weapon the greater the range you can expect from it. In battletech, the inverse is true.

Actually, the AC mechanics of BTech do come from real life.

Where from? The naval artillery from teh Age of Sail. Those cannons all adhered to the same rules as BT ACs. That is, the bigger the calliber, the shorter the barrel becomes as to save weight, but at the same time reduce accuracy and range of said cannon.

[PhoenixFire55]

Weight rarely makes any sense, because on a planet with different gravity an Atlas can weight 200 tons, 5 tons, 10 grams etc. If BattleTech mech weights are weights standartized in gravity field different from Earth gravity then it makes sense. I do believe however that those are 'mass' not 'weight'.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 14 July 2013 - 07:21 AM.

[GumbyC2C]

PhoenixFire55, on 14 July 2013 - 07:19 AM, said:

Weight rarely makes any sense, because on a planet with different gravity an Atlas can weight 200 tons, 5 tons, 10 grams etc. If BattleTech mech weights are weights standartized in gravity field different from Earth gravity then it makes sense. I do believe however that those are 'mass' not 'weight'.

TT has rules governing battles on planets with different gravity.
It is silly to try and reconcile any mecha with real world stuff. In the real world, a tank is always better. It is a more stable gun platform, has a 360 degree field of fire, and has a smaller profile making it tougher to hit.
Mecha are more fun for your imagination. So in Battletech, they handicapped the tanks to give the mechs artificial superiority.

[Bagheera]

Never try to rationalize Battletech "weights" with physics or real world materials science.

"Weight ratings" on everything is just a simplified number system that they could use to design an relatively easy to use set of build rules for mechs.

For the HCRPer crowd, just make something up that make sense to you and call it a day.

Edited by Bagheera, 14 July 2013 - 08:44 AM.

[Antagonist]

Hyperlynx, on 14 July 2013 - 01:06 AM, said:

These other facts may surprise you about reality vs battletech:

• In reality, the larger the calibre of the weapon the greater the range you can expect from it. In battletech, the inverse is true.
  
• 21st century anti-tank weapons pierce the target with a jet of plasma that is formed on impact. There is no material that can withstand that kind of temperature. A single 21st century anti-tank shell or missile would burn right through a mech and out the other side, as mechs do not carry reactive armour or any other 21st century defenses against these weapons.
  
• Walking robots have a much higher centre of gravity than a tank, and so would be stupidly easy to knock over by mines, IEDs, anti-tank weapons in ambush, etc.
  
• 21st century guided anti-armour munitions have effective ranges well in excess of the LRM's 1000m. The TOW can go up to 3750m according to Wikipedia. And obliterate a tank in one blast.
  
• Modern 30mm armour-piercing rotary cannon, such as the A-10's GAU-8, do overheat if fired for more than a few seconds. However, in that time, the GAU-8 delivers 140 depleted uranium or explosive rounds, each the size of a glass milk bottle.

• Yes.
  
• No, just no. Read up on how shaped charges really work if you're going to cite them in an argument. Both the armor and metal jet can be considered to be fluids, so it's actually cold deformation at work. Also, that jet doesn't consist of plasma, but tiny metal particles.
  
• Yes.
  
• Yes, and the TOW is by far not the most modern ATGM around.
  
• Not quite right. The GAU-8 is usually loaded with a 5:1 mix of HEAP and HEI rounds, though variations are possible. Basically, every HE round it fires has a sub-caliber DU core to breach armor, and after the first five of these babies have impacted, an incendiary round is dropped into the breached crew compartment to say hello to anything that may have survived.

Regarding BT autocannons, remember the higher the caliber, the fewer caliber lengths may be used for the barrel because a mech torso is pretty thin compared to an MBT's main gun. A convenient excuse for why a mech-mounted AC/20 is short-ranged, but on a conventional vehicle like a Demolisher? Author fiat.

[MrMasakari]

Got to love threads that compare real life to a fictional universe.

[Hyperlynx]

Antagonist, on 14 July 2013 - 10:19 AM, said:

• Yes.
  
• No, just no. Read up on how shaped charges really work if you're going to cite them in an argument. Both the armor and metal jet can be considered to be fluids, so it's actually cold deformation at work. Also, that jet doesn't consist of plasma, but tiny metal particles.
  
• Yes.
  
• Yes, and the TOW is by far not the most modern ATGM around.
  
• Not quite right. The GAU-8 is usually loaded with a 5:1 mix of HEAP and HEI rounds, though variations are possible. Basically, every HE round it fires has a sub-caliber DU core to breach armor, and after the first five of these babies have impacted, an incendiary round is dropped into the breached crew compartment to say hello to anything that may have survived.

Regarding BT autocannons, remember the higher the caliber, the fewer caliber lengths may be used for the barrel because a mech torso is pretty thin compared to an MBT's main gun. A convenient excuse for why a mech-mounted AC/20 is short-ranged, but on a conventional vehicle like a Demolisher? Author fiat.

Regarding shaped charged, I stand corrected. About the GAU-8, my point is number of totally-ruin-your-vehicle rounds down range vs heat, compared to the ultra autocannons.

Anyway, the overall point I wanted to make is: don't think too hard about rationalising Mechwarrior, or looking under the hood to see how/whether it works. Just enjoy it for what it is.

Edited by Hyperlynx, 14 July 2013 - 02:59 PM.

[dal10]

funny thing is, the most realistic mech in the battletech universe is the urbanmech. Mechs would arguably be better in urban environments due to increased maneuverability (they can get through streets easier due to the fact they are vertical not horizontal). The urbanmech is cheap (by mech standards, as well if you convert c-bills to dollars (an estimate of 5 dollars to the c-bill(i saw this somewhere but can't remember where)) about 10 million to the abrams 34.) the thing is solid and squat. it is light enough that you would avoid a lot of metal stress issues. and i am guessing the inside would have a ton of spare space so a shaped charge would be a lot less effective. (less guarantee that you would hit something important.) got a big cannon, jump jets so it could be extremely maneuverable, small profile so it could hide easier. (probably fairly narrow as well). it is the most likely mech to ever actually be used on the battlefield.

[Elyam]

BT actually falls fairly well into acceptable limits of fictional yet close-to-reality authoring and design, while keeping a good flare for a bit of the fantastic and for ignoring some present-day accepted 'truths', but also with healthy respect for history - and most great sci-fi does this. Purist sci-fi based only on limitations and realities recognized in official quarters of the present day (especially any claiming 'consensus') and extrapolating very narrowly into the foreseeable future is usually pretty anemic, imagination-less, dry, and entertaining only to those who hope the universe ends up justifying the 'realistic' predictions made in their own era.

-tonnage and dimensions of mechs? close enough
-short range of weapons? justified to provide a really cool close game on tabletop and then software; also this is a part of the diminished technological base of the BT story (something so many people forget, dismiss, or are unaware of)
-concept of tall humanoid vehicle being a stupidly obvious battlefield target or having a center of gravity that makes it too susceptible to certain attacks? As many or more positives can be brought up for the humanoid vehicle form, though the height is a definite negative without sufficient cover
-heat as such a defining component? justified for the game...I would have rather seen a system based on power output and where heat is a minor periodic consideration

We can go on and on. Mostly, BT works as good sci-fi and tactical game just fine.

Edited by Elyam, 17 July 2013 - 11:58 AM.

[Squid von Torgar]

As a scientist I have a lot at issue with BT Cannon. But as a kid at heart I have to accept that 80s awesome is something worth recreating in a computer game. Look at the physics of Star Wars. Does it make it ****? No, you are missing the point if you get hung up on the detail. All you need to remember is that this is about piloted robots bigger than houses ******* each other... there is nothing else, not even science.