950 replies to this topic

[Skylarr]

BattleTech was stuck at 1980s technology because of Comstar. Anytime something new was developt there would always be spies trying to steal it or destroy it. Comstar was always there to ensure it was destroyed. This is why the advancement of tech was at a trickle.

It was not until after the Grey Death Legion spread copies of the Helm Memery Core through out the realms did flow of Technology increase.

Quote

The existence of the Star Leage bunker system in the vicinity of Freeport was actually (re-)discovered independently by several parties, among them a group of Kurita nobles including Duke Hassid Ricol, and by Precentor Emilio Rachan of ComStar. They remained unsure of the exact location, however.

Because the planet Helm had been granted to the Gray Death Legion as a home base, Rachan sought to discredit the unit and have House Marik install another, more suitable, liege there. To this end he allied with Lord Garth of Irian. Together, they perpetrated an act of sabotage that killed approximately 12 million civilians on the recently captured world of Sirius V in March 3028 and framed the Gray Death Legion for the deed. The Legion was subsequently declared outlaws and upon returning to their land-holds on Helm, found their base destroyed and overrun by regular Marik forces.

Rachan in fact knew of the Library Core and intended to destroy it before the knowledge could be disseminated; he had no use for the weapons and promised these to Lord Garth for his cooperation.

Pressured by overwhelming enemy forces, the Gray Death Legion learned of the Star League installation, found it first, gained access on April 1st, 3028, and managed to retrieve a copy of the Library Core before the facility's self-destruction was inadvertently triggered by the Marik troops pursuing the Legion. In the final confrontation Rachan was killed and proof of the Legion's innocence in the Sirius massacre was discovered.

Not trusting ComStar in this matter, the Legion produced several copies of the library and spread them to the best of their abilities, initially by handing over copies to free traders. The library core thus found its way into every Successor State within a few years, and sparked a technological renaissance. The Legion also gave a copy of the Core to Duke Ricol for aiding in their escape. He would eventually provide it to Theodore Kurita and the Draconis Combine.
The Helm Memory Core's most vital function was as a sort of Rosetta Stone. With the Memory Core's information, many half-understood Star League documents suddenly made sense. This led to the improved military equipment, medical treatments, and purification equipment for water, atmospheres, and whole planetary environments

[Skylarr]

Several poeple have suggested very elaborate space defense networks. These are not possible in the BattleTech realm. The resources, funding, and tech that is needed to build, and maintain, them are not there. If it was then we would not be playing BattleTech with BattleMech. We would be playing BattleTech with AeroSpace assests only.

[FrostCollar]

Skylarr, on 10 April 2013 - 06:27 AM, said:

Several poeple have suggested very elaborate space defense networks. These are not possible in the BattleTech realm. The resources, funding, and tech that is needed to build, and maintain, them are not there. If it was then we would not be playing BattleTech with BattleMech. We would be playing BattleTech with AeroSpace assests only.

Well, not entirely. The Star League and the Wobbies did make some of that.

[Skylarr]

FrostCollar, on 10 April 2013 - 01:45 PM, said:

Well, not entirely. The Star League and the Wobbies did make some of that.

We know that the Star League was at a Tech Level that was more advance than anything in the 31st century. That does not mean that the Houses have this Technology.

Quote

First Succession War

Lasting from 2786 to 2821, the First Succession War remains the bloodiest conflict in human history.
Following the departure of the remaining Star League Defense Forces, the five remaining Great Houses almost immediatly started fighting each other over the position of First Lord.

After Coordinator Minoru Kurita's initial declaration of First Lordship, the First Succession Wars saw the destruction of countless world with atomic, biological, and chemical weapons, resulting in billions of lives and decades of technology lost. When the war petered out after 35 years, it was simply due to exhaustion, not from any desire of peace.
Second Succession War

Lasting from 2830 to 2864, the Second Succession War saw the technological decline back to the levels of 21st century Terra in much of the Inner Sphere.

Following the brief lull required to rebuild the battered forces of the Successor States, the Second Succesion War was no less bloody than the first. While the Successor States began the war with the last of their remaining warships, by the end of it, Jumpship theory and HPG Generators had become quasi-magical, and advanced military technology had become irreplacable.
Third Succession War

Lasting from 2866 to 3025, the Third Succession War was a prolonged low-level conflict characterised by a steady loss of technology and the rise of neo-feudalistic traditions in all of the Successor States.

Started due to Operation Holy Shroud, the Third Succession War was fought with technology that was considered mystical. Technological regression had allowed the survival of scant hightech factories, and the developing noble Mechwarrior families were forced to repair their machines with the gutted remains of their enemies'.

ComStar was formed after at the end of the Star League.

Quote

In 2786, the Star League Department of Communications changed its name to ComStar.

Founded in 2788 by Jerome Blake, ComStar guards and maintains the HyperPulse generator communications network and other valuable technologies developed during the era of the Star League, holding advanced technology that would otherwise have been lost during its collapse.

Blake recognized two great responsibilities in the wake of the collapse of the Star League: preserving as much of the currently available technological knowledge as possible, and preventing the Successor States from seizing the interstellar communications network and misusing it for their own destructive ends. In 2788, Blake took control of Terra and declared it a neutral world. He offered secure interstellar communication to all Successor States that would pledge to respect the neutrality of the HyperPulse generator stations and personnel. The Inner Sphere leaders recognized that open communications were crucial to their survival and agreed to Blake's demands marking the beginning of the order of ComStar. Blake created the First Circuit to administer ComStar's affairs and fostered a "secret brotherhood" mentality among ComStar's members in order to keep the secrets of the Star League safe.

ROM - Founded in 2811 ComStar's intelligence branch was tasked with protecting the Order from external as well as internal threats. One of the earliest founded divisions, as the Primuses of the Order became more militant, ROM became both a feared internal secret police as well as brutal suppressor of Great House technology. ROM was disbanded in the wake of Jihad the bulk of the survivors of the disbanded agency would join the RAF's newly formed Department of Military Intelligence.

The WOBBIES (Word Of Blake) did this after they took control of Terra in 3057.

Edited by Skylarr, 10 April 2013 - 03:30 PM.

[Dexter Herbivore]

Lunareclipse, on 03 August 2012 - 07:46 PM, said:

I'm not sure if I remember this correctly, but on the orbital bombardment thing, I think there was some treaty signed by all the member states of the Star League banning both orbital bombardment and the use of WMDs, and the legacy of this treaty is that all wars in the Inner Sphere are fought by conventional forces. There are times that it's been broken, but it seems the exception rather than the rule.

I'm going to try and find it on sarna.

Edit: Okay, I can't find anything specific, but there are numerous traties and accords that are just stubs on that wiki, and any one of them could be this... or I might be entirely wrong.

It's the Ares Conventions that you're thinking of: http://www.sarna.net...res_Conventions

[Skylarr]

Watched a very interesting show today. The Universe: Space Wars.

[Melcyna]

Skylarr, on 10 April 2013 - 06:13 AM, said:

BattleTech was stuck at 1980s technology because of Comstar. Anytime something new was developt there would always be spies trying to steal it or destroy it. Comstar was always there to ensure it was destroyed. This is why the advancement of tech was at a trickle.

It was not until after the Grey Death Legion spread copies of the Helm Memery Core through out the realms did flow of Technology increase.

The problem, is that they are not even AT 1980s level of tech (for ppl who did not know, in the 80s we already have the tech of full blown beyond visual range weaponry and laser guided weaponries, in short by the 80s we already have most of the capabilities of today's modern army... most of these mind you developed by the conflict that was fought in the 60-70s)

in some cases, BT are worse than WW2 era tech

which is very difficult to comprehend...

but this is not surprising since the developer of BT are not exactly versed with military tech and most of the things in BT are only fleshed out in lore AFTER they made it for the game purpose..

so basically, like many entertainment soft sci fi like Star Wars or Star Trek...

they made the stuff first that they want to show, THEN they try and figure out how on earth they can justify this after it's done if they bothered at all...

unfortunately this means that most of it... well... doesn't quite get worked out properly at all since it defies logic.

Oh incidentally, those things you just watched in the show? (amusingly the show itself seems to confuse railgun and coilgun) Quite a few of them were already thought and designed by the 60s...

SIXTIES... during the great apex of the cold war and the space race when the US and Russia both are at great fear of nuclear warfare and the race to control space and militarize it was a very real prospect.

During similar era and onwards, both countries brainstormed and thought and in some cases developed weapons, tools, methods, etc expected to militarize space, counter them, deploy weapons to orbit, intercept them, among others.

edit: incidentally if IS is short on resources... they wouldn't be fighting ground warfare with battlemechs AT ALL

they'd be fighting ground warfare with tanks and infantries... and non aerospace aircrafts... all of which are logically FAR cheaper and more effective than a battlemech with onboard reactor the size of an office block.

It's therefore very ironic because if such material or resource shortage existed... then the most logical outcome is the COMPLETE absence of Battlemechs (a war machine so inefficient that naturally no one IRL ever consider them practical weapons at all) and the usage of the far more efficient conventional design vehicles that would have been more effective all else being equal (ie: armed and armored with the same tech) and thus defeat the whole logic of Battemech in the first place... but well... since the game is intended to enjoy giant robots blasting each other to bits... we'll not go into that direction.

Edited by Melcyna, 12 April 2013 - 12:42 AM.

[Theodor Kling]

Indeed. I think Mechs could make sense if they have great mobility ( yeah..watching too many anime here ). But a BT Battlemech is a huge, slow , unstable target, so a tank could do the job way better. If the mech would behave like an oversized exosceleton though, even bettter with jump jets, it could be real usefull in cities and other diffilcult terrain. On flat, open terrain tanks would still own it of course.
The only usefull ones in BT should be light, jump capable scouts, because they have superior mobility compared to tanks, but can slap on more armour then helicopters.

And the IS is definetley NOT short on resoruces. On technological sense,yes.. but resoruces are there. With hundreds of worlds per nation raw materials should be optainable.

And although in general you are right there is one thing were they are stuck in the 80s, and that is computer interfaces
They got holotanks, fusion power... but from the few descriptions of coputer use in the novels you get the feeling that they never went past MS DOS ( or similar)

[Melcyna]

To be honest, their computer description flip flopped between being worse than the analog punch card mechanical computers of the 30s to that of the electronic computers of the 70s...

how exactly they use their seemingly pointless computers to calculate celestial object relations for space travel jump... god knows.

but in either case, and just like most soft sci fi... they are very inconsistent in general and just flip flopped to whatever the author decides he wants to put in and how much he knows of computers.

I'll give them a credit though in that in the 80s, most ppl outside the military probably have not a single clue of just what exactly the military extent of capabilities are and how much tech is involved unless if they are doing ample amount of research (this is back before military tech were becoming commonly used in civilian usage like they do now where civilians have access to GPS tech etc... and well before the declassification of many information after the collapse of the Soviet Union)

Incidentally, more mobility wouldn't help the mechs really... because regardless of what it does simple law of physics virtually assured that there's no role it can fill in that the others can't do more efficiently.

For example, if one had the power and the means to move a multi dozen tons of mech with human agility in a 10m high bipedal machines.... then such technology would've resulted in power armor giving infantries the ability to carry weights of almost superman like, the end result of which infantries then carry firepower of massive proportion which then results in:

yep... the need to further uparmor the mech and everything else because whatever armor was enough before then pales in comparison to the firepower the newly upgraded infantry carries, and these infantries would most certainly rip anything in urban areas to pieces.

Mechs don't work in urban areas either incidentally... only infantries are superior for such area because cities are not designed for mechs sized occupant, they are designed for HUMANS, so pretty much only human sized combatant can traverse them effectively beyond the roads... which the tanks can travel on as well.

[Theodor Kling]

Hmm yeah, power armour trumps everything else in cities. Although it depends on the power armour. Without antigrav tech like in BT, heavier power armour within buildings might face some serious problems with building stability. Just like I could probably afford a used snooker table, and might just fit it in the living room..if it wouldn´t fall right threough the flor

[Chaos7]

River City's water is still good for drinking.

[Just wanna play]

My fact?

A mech probably as tall as a 5 story building, and it also can look right over trees, weighs 100 tons total, the superstructure of which only weighs 10 tons empty, 5 with endo

Average suv weighs 3 tons, modern tank weighs 80-90 tons.......

Lets think about the German Maus

Biggest and heaviest armored vehicle ever made, weighs?? 180 tons, and its about as big as an atlases leg

those who play world of tanks know what am talking about, these mechs must be stuffed with feathers

[Theodor Kling]

Quietly Crazy, on 03 August 2012 - 11:25 PM, said:

-The Hollander. Also known as a walking Gauss rifle.

Hej I happen to like the Holländer Although it does not make that much sense, i DO like it

[dal10]

Melcyna, on 13 April 2013 - 04:27 PM, said:

To be honest, their computer description flip flopped between being worse than the analog punch card mechanical computers of the 30s to that of the electronic computers of the 70s...

how exactly they use their seemingly pointless computers to calculate celestial object relations for space travel jump... god knows.

but in either case, and just like most soft sci fi... they are very inconsistent in general and just flip flopped to whatever the author decides he wants to put in and how much he knows of computers.

I'll give them a credit though in that in the 80s, most ppl outside the military probably have not a single clue of just what exactly the military extent of capabilities are and how much tech is involved unless if they are doing ample amount of research (this is back before military tech were becoming commonly used in civilian usage like they do now where civilians have access to GPS tech etc... and well before the declassification of many information after the collapse of the Soviet Union)

Incidentally, more mobility wouldn't help the mechs really... because regardless of what it does simple law of physics virtually assured that there's no role it can fill in that the others can't do more efficiently.

For example, if one had the power and the means to move a multi dozen tons of mech with human agility in a 10m high bipedal machines.... then such technology would've resulted in power armor giving infantries the ability to carry weights of almost superman like, the end result of which infantries then carry firepower of massive proportion which then results in:

yep... the need to further uparmor the mech and everything else because whatever armor was enough before then pales in comparison to the firepower the newly upgraded infantry carries, and these infantries would most certainly rip anything in urban areas to pieces.

Mechs don't work in urban areas either incidentally... only infantries are superior for such area because cities are not designed for mechs sized occupant, they are designed for HUMANS, so pretty much only human sized combatant can traverse them effectively beyond the roads... which the tanks can travel on as well.

your power armor is completely unworkable. with BT level tech you could not provide a power source that would last more than half an hour (if you basically don't do anything besides walking).

as for the size, the tallest mech is the atlas. it stands at 14 meters. that would make it about 4 stories tall, a wasp on the other hand is only about 9 meters tall, or about 3 stories tall. some mechs are even shorter (flea anyone?). The atlas would never make much sense, but the smaller designs actually would be at least moderately effective(urbanmech actually would work pretty well). Mechs being more vertical rather than horizontal is an advantage in cities. they can take corners in smaller streets better and can more effectively turn around. jump jets, providing that buildings are somewhat tougher than modern counterparts, would make mechs significantly more effective in any area with significant verticality. As they would be much more maneuverable.

[Melcyna]

dal10, on 17 April 2013 - 08:04 AM, said:

your power armor is completely unworkable. with BT level tech you could not provide a power source that would last more than half an hour (if you basically don't do anything besides walking).

as for the size, the tallest mech is the atlas. it stands at 14 meters. that would make it about 4 stories tall, a wasp on the other hand is only about 9 meters tall, or about 3 stories tall. some mechs are even shorter (flea anyone?). The atlas would never make much sense, but the smaller designs actually would be at least moderately effective(urbanmech actually would work pretty well). Mechs being more vertical rather than horizontal is an advantage in cities. they can take corners in smaller streets better and can more effectively turn around. jump jets, providing that buildings are somewhat tougher than modern counterparts, would make mechs significantly more effective in any area with significant verticality. As they would be much more maneuverable.

Logical failure unfortunately:

Spoiler

in order for ANY of BT energy weapons to work they need some form of capacitor at least that can store all that multi hundred MJ of energy before it's discharged in whatever form of energy the weapon projected.

without it, bye bye... laser, bye bye gauss..., bye bye PPC.

capacitor being what they are are even more difficult to design, and miniaturize than long term energy storage mechanism that doesn't have to discharge the energy quickly.

so if they had NOTHING at all that can store sufficient power to move a power armor in BT tech level... then logically most energy weapons they use in BT should not possibly work.

Aside of that, if we look at it from the weight

Spoiler

The primary reason why we have yet able to develop a working self contained power armor today is the energy storage density problem.

But this is under the assumption of a fair amount of weight for the power armor itself in addition to the weight expected to be carried by the power suit.

BT with it's bizarro material density which is mentioned previously in the other post by how their mech weigh illogically light for something of that size means whatever power armor that can be made with the same tech, would weigh a fraction of our conventional estimation for power armor (since by our conventional estimation a mech of BT size would've had far more mass and weight)

Logically, with lighter weight so is the energy required to move the exoskeleton frame...

all in all, given what we know they can do, it's basically impossible they can't produce such power armor (and we already know they have power armors) unless if they know ABSOLUTELY nothing about the tech behind everything they use.

And, we already know that BT have power armors.... elementals and IS equivalent are essentially oversized power armors, except they got the entire concept of armored infantry totally fubar as they have zero clue on how infantries are supposed to operate.

Mechs being more vertical than horizontal is NEVER an advantage, it is the equivalent of a soldier STANDING UP in the field ie: suicidal.

it works only under the one assumption that you are impervious against anything thrown at you because of your LUDICROUS profile that makes you an obvious target to shoot at.

When that fails, that vertical profile makes you a sitting duck as anything with line of sight to you has a wide area to shoot at.

Furthermore, being more vertical makes it virtually IMPOSSIBLE to armor properly as everything visible within line of sight can be targeted and HIT, what are we going to do? armor everything to withstand the firepower it might receive?

To give an idea of how much threat that a larger than human object face when entering an urban combat area,

Spoiler

Let's take the case of a standard current day warfare

no power armor, just light and heavy infantries essentially

in their inventory that can be a threat to armored vehicles they have:
1. short range anti tank launched weapons (RPG, recoilless rifle, etc)
2. anti tank guns (still used in some countries in updated form like Russia)
3. ATGM (of various size and range)
4. demolition charge (not effective once in combat, but deadly if set prior on the expected path)
5. mines (which as always are EXTREMELY effective in urban area where things are channeled onto narrow corridors or road)
6. anti armor grenades (generally only useful against light armored vehicles)

Add power armor to the equation and give them more weight capacity handling... and that list explode into a suicidal level for anyone stupid enough to enter a city defended by such infantries

Edited by Melcyna, 17 April 2013 - 11:22 AM.

[dal10]

your hundreds of megajoules is complete BS. using the medium rifle comparison that exists in era report 1945, the total wattage to deal 1 point of armor damage is 859k watts. a large laser would require 8 times that or 7.16 million watts. still, a capacitor would not work to power a unit for a long period of time anyway as it is a short term storage solution. it discharges and charges far too quickly for any long term use. so you sir, do not know what you are talking about in that regard.

anyway, as to the damage regards from normal infantry, that is using the modern day knowledge that you can generally one shot most things. an abram can be one shotted by an an rpg. however, would that rpg be considered to be as useful if it took 30-40 to drop the abrams (not counting reactive armor or the like)? Take away the one shot capability, and battlemechs are more useful (though i do admit tanks would be better, the atlas in particular would be useless in any real battlefield, but that is neither here or there). the idea behind a scout battlemech would be far more reasonable however.

[Just wanna play]

dal10, on 17 April 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

your hundreds of megajoules is complete BS. using the medium rifle comparison that exists in era report 1945, the total wattage to deal 1 point of armor damage is 859k watts. a large laser would require 8 times that or 7.16 million watts. still, a capacitor would not work to power a unit for a long period of time anyway as it is a short term storage solution. it discharges and charges far too quickly for any long term use. so you sir, do not know what you are talking about in that regard.

anyway, as to the damage regards from normal infantry, that is using the modern day knowledge that you can generally one shot most things. an abram can be one shotted by an an rpg. however, would that rpg be considered to be as useful if it took 30-40 to drop the abrams (not counting reactive armor or the like)? Take away the one shot capability, and battlemechs are more useful (though i do admit tanks would be better, the atlas in particular would be useless in any real battlefield, but that is neither here or there). the idea behind a scout battlemech would be far more reasonable however.

imo an atlas might make an effective weapons platform, due to its locomtion, size, and overall ability to carry a wide varitey of things, and also shoot over most things

(because its tall, big, and walks)

[Just wanna play]

what about providing a huge amount of sociological terror to the enemy?? thats what tanks are mainly used for now a days

in todays battlefield, a man sized, or slightly larger, mech/power suit is feasible, an atlas sized mech, probably not

[Just wanna play]

also to the guy saying capacitors logical fail blah blah blah, first, the gauss rifle already exists, second, just stop talking

most people don't seem to realize just how hard it is to dmg an abrams tank, the tracks and such are fairly easy to dmg, its just magnesium alloy, but that classified chobham/uranium/god knows what shell around the important stuff is, well, you get the idea

[Melcyna]

dal10, on 17 April 2013 - 12:09 PM, said:

your hundreds of megajoules is complete BS. using the medium rifle comparison that exists in era report 1945, the total wattage to deal 1 point of armor damage is 859k watts. a large laser would require 8 times that or 7.16 million watts. still, a capacitor would not work to power a unit for a long period of time anyway as it is a short term storage solution. it discharges and charges far too quickly for any long term use. so you sir, do not know what you are talking about in that regard.

anyway, as to the damage regards from normal infantry, that is using the modern day knowledge that you can generally one shot most things. an abram can be one shotted by an an rpg. however, would that rpg be considered to be as useful if it took 30-40 to drop the abrams (not counting reactive armor or the like)? Take away the one shot capability, and battlemechs are more useful (though i do admit tanks would be better, the atlas in particular would be useless in any real battlefield, but that is neither here or there). the idea behind a scout battlemech would be far more reasonable however.

Not quite, think about it... if a scout mech on a chassis that is one of the most grossly inefficient platform by carry weight can support enough armor to sustain multiple direct hits from anti vehicle weapons that a power armor can carry then one has to ask... what happens if everyone else carries this same armor in a more efficient platform? And for that matter, what on earth is the weapon's material made of that armor thin enough for the scout mech to carry can withstand multiple hits of the weapon?

Spoiler

Logically if they are both made with the same material and tech, this is impossible... say they have such armor for example and it's light enough, thin enough that you can pack enough of it on a scout mech to withstand multiple direct hits of conventional anti vehicle weapons, the obvious thing anyone can realize immediately is that if you just take the same material as the armor... shape it into a projectile form, and chuck it at the armor at high speed, you'd defeat said armor much more effectively than you could possibly armor it. So the only way the scout mech can withstand multiple of such hits is if they made the weapon out of severely inferior material, or the weapon's projectile carries such low energy (in kinetic form this would be speed) that no deformation takes place.

And with regard to capacitor, you missed the point

Spoiler

the point there was that if SUCH capacitor existed in BT which it has to given the weapons they have, then the long term energy storage surely must exist that can at least MATCH it in energy density.

Incidentally, the multi hundred MJ value? really easy to deduce... BT made the mistake of publishing information like Gauss rifle's stats etc which can be easily checked and from there we can deduce how much energy it output roughly

hint: we know the gauss rifle slug weight in BT, we know how fast it flies at muzzle velocity

Spoiler

put the two together and we know how much energy it carries, and similarly we then use that as a measurement of how much energy each point of damage roughly corresponds to in order to make an estimate of other weapons

This all incidentally have been done in this very thread in the past... but just as a rough recap using rough values:
gauss rifle have 8 shots per ton of ammunition so that gives us around 125kg per slug, let's be generous and assume that the ammunition containers, link, etc and what not (they never bothered to elaborate here since they probably realize it would be NONSENSE based on how battlemechs are designed if they mention about it) weigh some 250kg say... that gives us around 94kg per slug on a ton of gauss rifle ammunition

this slug gets accelerated to mach 6, giving it at low end estimate 188MJ of kinetic energy
if the slug weighs 125kg, it has a low end estimate of 250MJ of kinetic energy

Just wanna play, on 17 April 2013 - 05:16 PM, said:

also to the guy saying capacitors logical fail blah blah blah, first, the gauss rifle already exists, second, just stop talking

most people don't seem to realize just how hard it is to dmg an abrams tank, the tracks and such are fairly easy to dmg, its just magnesium alloy, but that classified chobham/uranium/god knows what shell around the important stuff is, well, you get the idea

Failure on comprehension

read the statement again,
what i stated is that if BT has all the energy weapons it has... it MUST have working capacitors capable of powering the system

if so, it KNOWS how to make a energy storage device sufficient to power the power armor when considering the size of the weapons, and the energy these weapons output, and given the involved miniaturization on them, it obviously has reached the point where it has enough energy storage density to store enough power for a power armor.

this is all in context with BT supposed level of tech
in short: based on what BT has, they most definitely have energy storage sufficient for power armor energy consumption, doubly so considering BT have a strange material weight and density and the ludicrous amount of energy they regularly handle.

incidentally, no one in the right mind uses high magnesium content for military vehicle parts likely to be exposed to hostile fire... for obvious reason... for a ground combat vehicle like a tank that is expected to receive heavy incoming fire on an exposed part to use high magnesium content alloy on such part... that takes guts...or plain suicidal mindset.

Edited by Melcyna, 18 April 2013 - 03:10 AM.