Nightbird, on 03 April 2019 - 04:23 PM, said:
Yep, and keep in mind the "heavy rifle" is what BT uses to refer to modern MBT main guns, and only does 9 damage. The GAU-8 destroys armor, but it's much weaker than the MBT cannon and only works against tanks by shredding thin top armor.
Indeed. You are talking to the biggest Rifle nut in battletech. It's like a certain other person and quads....
I have found that chunks of BT weight goes into unexpected things.
For example a breakdown of PPC weight in Battletechnology basically shows us a PPC really only weighs 3 tons, the rest is in on board cooling devices, coils and armor to protect it. (for the 30+ years it was Canon before many changes to established Canon took place such as PPC minimum range going from "it's hard to swing a bulky gun around quickly to hit someone running circles around you" and "clan er ppcs don't have that issue because they are lighter" to "oh there is a firing delay preventing the gun from blowing up in your face but here's a kill yourself switch if you really want to hit that Piranha." And "ERPPCs don't have that firing delay cause they won't explode in your face.")
Similarly, a chunk of the weight for many weapons is the protection it has, cooling devices as necessary, and in the case of ammo consuming weapons the way it pulls ammo from the bin. Similarly between 10 to 20% of the ammo weight per ton is the bin and it's magazines/cassettes/drums/belts. Technically with cargo bays you don't lose a ton when you empty the bay. You don't lose a ton when emptying the ammo either. So a part of that ton is always with you as a bin, meaning it isn't truly a ton of ammo either.
So that MG alone isn't truly half a ton. After all AMS is a MG on a turret with a sensor system and a targeting system....and it's half a ton too. Admittedly it is depicted as a Gatling gun and similar in appearance to a CIWS...but it's half a ton. In TRO 2750 or 3025 (original whichever of the two it is) the Quad mech Goliath has MGs noteworthy not for mech specific reasons but brand-name reasons. Sperry-browning MG were exceptional in automatic target tracking and flexibility. An issue on the Goliath as not only could they track a target between the legs but also behind legs....and shoot those legs. The MGs also had two other traits. They are prone to overheating and jamming.
So this weight includes an automatic ability to aim on their own, track targets, and very clearly pivot on what I assume to be pintle turrets of typically 90 degrees to Goliath's 180 degree arc. Which may help to explain a lack of size.