26 replies to this topic

[Tombstoner]

Given that the US military has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86 with 2,000 or 3,000 lb
warheads, translate that in to one tone of machinegun ammo for 100 round at 2 points of damage each
or 200 points of damage per missile hit. I think it would do far more damage than 200 but it’s an example.
I see missiles like theses as signaling the death of battlemechs in the same way fire arms
made armored knights obsolete.

I seem to remember a treaty the IS signed that limited the use of nukes. I would think
That to maintain the emerging feudal social system guided missiles would be banned.

But why wouldn’t the inner sphere develop these weapons in response to the clan invasion?
Its technically possible.

sorry if this is repost of an old topic

[Risky]

Because the planets they're fighting on are their homes?

Don't take this to nukes in space combat either, using a nuke in orbital combat would still have detrimental effects on the planet below, including EMPing of electrical grids, wide spread chaos and panic, etc.

Edited by Risky, 25 June 2012 - 08:41 AM.

[Telthalion]

Because blowing someone up from another continent isn't nearly as dramatic and fun to watch as getting in close and shooting at each other with lasers.

[Krubarax]

Three letters:
A M S

Makes it too expensive with missiles like that

[Evolv2]

I think some people on here are trying to hard to rationalize the universe, you clearly want to play the game, so just role with it.

[Lt muffins]

Arrow IV?

that is the closest you can get to cruise missiles.

Edited by Lt muffins, 25 June 2012 - 08:51 AM.

[Jukebox1986]

They just dont have any!
See, the BT-Universe has been bombed back to a point, where Battlemech rules the Battlefield. If such a weapon would exist, there wouldnt be any "fighting in a giant-steel-robot".

[Strum Wealh]

Tombstoner, on 25 June 2012 - 08:38 AM, said:

Given that the US military has http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AGM-86 with 2,000 or 3,000 lb
warheads, translate that in to one tone of machinegun ammo for 100 round at 2 points of damage each
or 200 points of damage per missile hit. I think it would do far more damage than 200 but it’s an example.
I see missiles like theses as signaling the death of battlemechs in the same way fire arms
made armored knights obsolete.

I seem to remember a treaty the IS signed that limited the use of nukes. I would think
That to maintain the emerging feudal social system guided missiles would be banned.

But why wouldn’t the inner sphere develop these weapons in response to the clan invasion?
Its technically possible.

sorry if this is repost of an old topic

More generally, there were the Ares Conventions (though, like the Pirate's Code, they were more guidelines than hard rules after being rescinded by the Star League). Specifically, Article I:

Quote

Article I -- Nuclear Arms

The use of any nuclear device or variant thereof on a planetary surface or against any commercial vessel is prohibited. This prohibition extends to tactical nuclear blasts against the aforementioned targets. Controlled nuclear attacks in space against military targets are prohibited unless they occur at a minimum of 75,000 kilometers from the surface of any inhabited world in a star system.

More specifically, there was the Bell Accord (an anti-nuke agreement between the FedSuns and the CapCon):

Quote

The Bell Accord was an agreement between House Davion and House Liao. Signed in 2546, it stipulated that both sides would not use strategic or tactical atomic weapons in war.

The nearest thing to a cruise missile that is a canon BattleMech weapon is the Arrow IV Artillery Missile.
Each missile weighs 200 kg (equal to 440.92 lbs; canonically, there are 5 missiles per (metric) ton), has a range of 4200 meters (8 maps * 17.5 hexes per map * 30 meters per hex), and can be fitted with a number of different warhead types.

In real-life terms, the Arrow IV missiles would be "short-range subsonic" cruise missiles.
In terms of weight, they would be close to the IDF's 250 kg "Delilah" cruise missile.

The Arrow IV system was rediscovered by the CapCon in 3044 (while MWO starts in 3049).

[irish]

I get to do this oh joy! They do have the 'big missle' and unlike the Arrow IV systems it was deals damage to a single target rather then area effect.

http://www.sarna.net.../Thunderbolt_10

There are 5-20 versions.

Edited by irish, 25 June 2012 - 08:59 AM.

[JD R]

If you have Battlemechs 100tons heavy and able for a halo why you need this weak weapons?

And at least land an Overlord an bomb everything away.

[Tetatae Squawkins]

Because this is fiction?

[Strum Wealh]

irish, on 25 June 2012 - 08:58 AM, said:

I get to do this oh joy! They do have the 'big missle' and unlike the Arrow IV systems it was deals damage to a single target rather then area effect.

http://www.sarna.net.../Thunderbolt_10

There are 5-20 versions.

"The Thunderbolt Missile was developed in the arenas of Solaris. Unlike most missile systems, the Thunderbolt was a single missile that smashed into its target. Though it was effective in the arenas, it didn't see widespread use in the field because the single missile was very vulnerable to Anti-Missile Systems. The missile launcher, though small, was awkward to mount and would only fit on the left or right torso of a 'Mech."

It's vulnerable to AMS (unlike the Arrow IV missiles), does half the damage of an Arrow IV missile (10, versus the Arrow's 20), has a fraction of the range of an Arrow IV (450 meters, versus the Arrow's 4.2 km), and isn't available until 3053.

The later and only slightly longer-ranged (540 meters) Thunderbolt-5, -10, -15, and -20 aren't available until 3072.

[Sychodemus]

They do have cruise missiles.

Two things helped restrict such weapons: the Ares Convention (among others and by extension the informal Honors of War) and the fact that such weapons were eventually outclassed by Capital ship missiles or generally replaced by artillery. This combined with a great loss of industrial capability during the Succession Wars lead to their virtual disappearance.

In 3065, a more modern equivalent was introduced, most likely due to the Clan invasion as well as the massive Inner Sphere military build-ups resulting from it.

Edited by Sychodemus, 25 June 2012 - 09:12 AM.

[oohawkoo]

cos useing it on the clans is one step from useing it on ur own ppl (neighbors) .....

thats pretty much like saying blowing up another country with a nuke is perfectly fine cos they didnt sine the treaty

[Sychodemus]

Oh, and if you want anything to make sense in the Battletech Universe, you need to multiply or divide all listed numbers by 10-100. Apparently the SWs not only reduced technology but zeros as well.

[Kanatta Jing]

It's the rule of cool.

Cutting a tank in half with a sword.

A pastel talking equine that breaks the sound barrier.

Human-shapped giant war machines being more effective then low to the ground tanks and far reaching missles.

It doesn't make sense if you think about it, but if your thinking about it then your doing it all wrong.

[Ralen Sharr]

even a non-nuke cruise missile would likely be impractical in BT

think about it this way - sensor systems in BT are way ahead of ours, but cannot pinpoint a battlemech's location more than a couple of KM away. To me that suggests that even run of the mill battlemechs have a basic stealth/ewar package that makes weapons like this mostly useless.

if it's a light mech or a fast medium, they'll be on top of you before you fire

also if a lot of weapons like this came into play, mechs could mount AMS and turn them useless

[Name113200]

There are a number of reasons why nuclear/cruise missles aren't used. Cruise missles are vulnerable to AMS only 1 missle needs to be intercepted by the system. Nukes and cruise missles were not seen as viable solutions to the clans because of this http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Turtle_Bay. The innersphere also feared that the clans sitll had nuclear weapons, seeing as they were the remenants of the SLDF they mostlikely had access to the same weapons that rendered entire worlds within the innersphere unliveable. Its pretty much the same reason we wouldn't shoot nukes at Russia. It would just be gurranteeing our entire destruction.

edit:
Dont forget GPS satalites are taken out during a planatary invasion. Designing a weapon system that relies on this would often be fruitless.

Edited by DeathlyEyes, 25 June 2012 - 09:22 AM.

[MogCarns]

Battletech works better when you don't think on it too hard. It was designed in short order by some kids in the 80s as a tabletop game. A huge amount of suspension of disbelief is needed to make the universe work. The rules are complicated, so anything more than a few units takes a long time. Tabletops are only so big, so ranges are greatly reduced. Giant bipedal walker tanks are of... "dubious" military value and extremely vulnerable.

In this case,
The Ares Conventions "civilized" warfare, limiting the scale of warfare to a battlefield, not entire continents. The manufacture of such weapons as cruise missiles and ICBMs was made illegal. The stockpiles decayed for a few hundred years until they were finally expended in the final days of the Star League and the horrors of the First Succession War. The 1st war almost completely wiped the universe of scientists, teachers, leaned individuals, manufacturing plants, and all advanced technology, except for fusion engines, lasers, and particle cannons... and even then, only the aftermarket knockoff versions. The good stuff got smashed.

The second war finished off the spaceship as a means of warfare, as well as any survivors of the 1st war.

Battletech opens in the tail end of the Third War, 150 years of fighting.


Thus, mechs are rare, as to keep the numbers of them down to make the games playable. Targeting computers have vacuum tubes, thus the ranges they work at are roughly the same as what a man can do with an iron sight welded into the cockpit. And all the big, bad things that can blast a Battlemech off the face of the earth without a second thought have been removed in one convenient package.

The fact that the entire shebang falls apart when even super advanced Clan weapons are compared to World War 1 weapons is not important. The important thing is that giant robots shooting each other is fun. Thus, stop overthinking it.

[Tranquility]

Cruise missiles.. against a scout, they have a good chance to miss due to how agile a light mech is compared to conventional tanks, and against heavier mechs the AMS would take them down fairly easily.

LRMs are basically cruise missiles if you really think about it. Miniaturized to a degree, perhaps, but they're guided missiles nonetheless. They need to launch in swarms to stand a good chance of hitting anything that's moving, as well as to combat the AMS packages most mechs can be equipped with - a single shot missile that costs a few million credits (and they would, individual cruise missiles today can easily cost a million each!) and can be dodged or shot down with high rates of either... it rapidly becomes a waste of money.