950 replies to this topic

[Brenden]

Elessar, on 04 August 2012 - 08:18 AM, said:

Azathoth?
Doesn´t he lurk outside of the known universe?

There should be SOMETHING out there, don't you think? And yes, he's in the center of the universe.

[Coyotebrother]

Quote

Hippies still exist

I'm proof of that...

[Sam Slade]

people still measure things in feet and inches...

Decline of civilization indeed.

[Peter Powers]

that no one has picked up on the time travel yet..

[Lunareclipse]

Capp, on 03 August 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

I think you mean the Ares Conventions.

Quietly Crazy, on 03 August 2012 - 09:22 PM, said:

Lunar, I believe you're talking about the Ares conventions...if I recall correctly (and I probably don't), the basic point of it was to reduce losses to basic industry and civilian life. Which is why most of the battles took place in the middle of forests or plains or deserts or canyons.

Though with the Ares conventions....doesn't that make the continued production of the Urbanmech a bit silly? Or am I just not seeing the use for a ploddingly slow light mech?



((Edit: Fixed it from treaty to conventions....geez....ya'll have a much better grasp on lore than I do...))

Thanks guys, I can't see how I missed that on Sarna.

To anyone interested, http://www.sarna.net...res_Conventions

[Melcyna]

Lunareclipse, on 04 August 2012 - 08:52 AM, said:

Thanks guys, I can't see how I missed that on Sarna.

To anyone interested, http://www.sarna.net...res_Conventions

The entire thing is still pretty stupid technically because if they want to reduce destruction to the civilian asset then the WHOLE BATTLE should be resolved in space... not on the bloody planet right next to the city in question.

It never made sense really, since logically there's never a real need to fight on the ground really... baring some exception where one needs to get down and dirty for specific objective.

Whoever control the space in between controls EVERYTHING that goes in and out of the planet, and are free to drop whatever weapon they want to it... who needs WMD? they can just drop a solid rock sufficiently precise onto the military base on the planet and it'll do just fine... a rock large and dense enough dropping from orbit onto the base is just as good as a lance of mech in destroying it.

Meth Borm, on 03 August 2012 - 10:09 PM, said:

LOL some of these are actuly plasable you know. Point in case being able to withstande a guass riffle strike. Id liek to point you to
http://en.wikipedia....Carbon_nanotube If ever figured out how to mass produce is significantly stronger than steel and significatly lighter as well. THis is a real thieretical material. Once you can make it you could probably modify it or ground it for electrical.

It doesn't change the nonsensical part of the whole thing... whatever material you used in the armor, you can use for the projectile, and accelerate it so fast that it's guaranteed to penetrate the same material armor multiple times thicker and heavier than the projectile itself.

Nanotube armor? Say hello to nanotube projectile... accelerated with your coilgun/gauss rifle if you have to into hypersonic speed...

then say bye bye to the armor.

This have been the case with gun vs armor for centuries... new stronger material doesn't change this age old race, it just raises the bar that both follows.

Edited by Melcyna, 04 August 2012 - 09:04 AM.

[Lunareclipse]

Melcyna, on 04 August 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

Nanotube armor? Say hello to nanotube projectile... accelerated with your coilgun/gauss rifle if you have to into hypersonic speed...

I agree with most of the things you're saying, but you don't want the same material for a projectile as you do for armour. Armour wants to be strong and light, and spread impact energy over a wide area, whereas the material for a projectile wants to be heavy and relatively soft, to impart the maximum energy to its target.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Lunareclipse, on 04 August 2012 - 09:11 AM, said:

I agree with most of the things you're saying, but you don't want the same material for a projectile as you do for armour. Armour wants to be strong and light, and spread impact energy over a wide area, whereas the material for a projectile wants to be heavy and relatively soft, to impart the maximum energy to its target.

You don't impart energy to the target, that's a perpetual firearms myth, especially in the USA. What you actually do is design the projectile (and the weapon that fires it) around a specific task; in modern firearms that is wounding fleshy targets, usually, which means maximum tissue damage, which actually often happens best with relatively low speed but relatively massive and easily deformed bullets, for handguns. In rifles the speeds you can get are much higher so different rules of thumb apply, for one thing you can reliably deform harder materials and lighter projectiles and depending on your target you want to reduce penetration not increase it (in handguns you almost always want more if you can get it).

Anyway, you're right. You almost never use anything like the same material for your projectile as the armour you want to penetrate, for one thing, just on a simple measure of hardness it would be bad idea. You want it to be harder than the material it contacts so that it will penetrate and not deform on the surface.

[Melcyna]

Hmmm that's true, though unfortunately we have a limit there...

for example if we're already using materials with some of the densest and strongest material around then where do you go higher from there? (which is similar to the reason why DU is used in some of the most powerful anti tank gun shells we have right now as the penetrator and why it is also used as armor layer on the very tank itself to improve the armor's resistance against hostile penetrator)

There's not much one can do once nearing the apex of the whole deal so we had to resort to using other means to defeat the armor or conversely to stop the projectile...

for the projectile this either means accelerating it faster still, or otherwise design one to resist deformation of the penetrator (hence the use of DU), or accelerating it to similar speed but with larger mass of the projectile that still retain similar surface contact on impact.

for the armor this usually means either thicker armor (with the subsequent weight and mass penalty to the vehicle's mobility) or better deflection angle (less relevant against hypersonic projectile where deflection no longer count as the primary means of defeating projectiles) or otherwise using some composite material layers that produce superior protection than just using the hardest material available.

Hence one of the other reason why projectile and the armor are almost never of the same material,

The armor can achieve it's strength by sacrificing it's volume density, that's fine since we have other ways to ensure maximum armor protection without super dense material. The more precious parameter that one wants to reduce and save for the armor is the weight, rather than volume (hence also why DU is not used as a primary armor material but only as a layer).

But for the projectile we have a slightly different priority since volume is VERY MUCH in premium for a projectile since it has to keep the smallest possible profile both for penetration performance and for it's own flight performance, one can therefore sacrifice it's weight to an extent if it gives better volume density.

TLDR:
the other reason why projectile and armor are not the same material usually is because an armor and a projectile have different priority of what counts higher to them... either volume, or weight, for the same hardness or resistance level.

Armor almost always universally wants to reduce weight as much as possible first, while projectile almost always wants to reduce volume first instead...

Armor doesn't care of how un aerodynamic it gets really for the most part so the less efficient volume density matters not to it, but projectile most certainly care since it determines partly how well it travels to it's target.

[SGT_Stubby]

In the future, a communications company can stop a huge war dead in it's tracks.

[Aero Slasher]

Max Payne1, on 30 July 2012 - 10:07 PM, said:

Not really a fact, but still ridiculous.. In the battletech novel Exodus Road.. The disgraced clan jaguar mechwarrior trent weakens a Atlas's armor with his PPC and runs straight through the 100 ton mech. Im sorry but not bloody likely the mech would get passed through like a fart in the wind ahah

well one er ppc lightens it a little. i don't remember if a lot so i would have to go back and reread it, however a 100 ton is generally a tall not so stable as the smaller mechs. But in theory if the 100 tonner was hit with a er ppc in the correct place and timeing any mech could run through a 100 ton mech. especially if it has a lot of speed and some sort a advantage.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Melcyna, on 04 August 2012 - 08:41 PM, said:

<lots of good stuff snipped, just want to make it clear I am replying to you>

Then you get into the nasty stuff where, rather than directly defeat the armour, you remember that your main task is killing the operator, so you make the armour kill him instead by shattering projectiles off the interior of the armour+chassis combo... (and as you probably know we now use 'curtains' precisely to counter this on MBTs).

[Theodor Kling]

Bloodweaver, on 04 August 2012 - 07:58 AM, said:

The problem -and the reason that this gets included in "ridiculous Battletech facts"- is just how inefficient heat loss is via radiation alone. As in, an object loses so little heat in a vacuum that it's negligible. Real-life spaceships have tons of systems dedicated to keeping themselves from roasting in their own crews' body heat. [...]
This is actually the end-all winner of ridiculousness in the BT universe, for me - the idea that war leads to technological loss. Whereas our own history has shown time and time again that what actually occurs is the exact opposite. The thing is, though, at least this one piece of ridiculousness has a given explanation - ComStar. Not saying it's a particularly convincing explanation, but at least it's there...

Ok, I yield. Shout have looked it up before posting.
As to Comstar as an explanation for slow technological progress: That explanation is not so bad after all. Look at euopean histoy and you can easily see what a well organized eligiously motivated oganization (aka the Church) can do to impede scientific progress. For about a milenium lot´s of already wide spread roman ( and their victims) inventions were "lostech".
And don´t forget: Comstar is the only organization present on literally every IS planet.

Bloodweaver, on 04 August 2012 - 08:14 AM, said:

This one is more of a general sci-fi thing than BT-specific, but it's just as bad there as anywhere else:
Most planets have a single climate. You get arctic planets, desert planets, grasslands planets, etc... Guess Earth is pretty damn special...

Wait. Although some are like that, most of them are not descibed like that. There are a few extremes ( I think there was one world mostly water and only a few slim continents around the aequator), but most planets are described in an eath like way, or not decribed as a whole planet. Or has anyone read a decribtion of the weather on Solaris outside the main city?
And despite some worlds, like Tharkad, beeing described as colder(or hotter or rainier etc) than earth on average ( a planet that nevertheless has seasons, and I think a definetly hostile polar regaion is mentioned at least once), there I can´t remember any Tatooine or Endor wiht only one very limited landscape.

[Theodor Kling]

Melcyna, on 04 August 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

Whoever control the space in between controls EVERYTHING that goes in and out of the planet, and are free to drop whatever weapon they want to it... who needs WMD? they can just drop a solid rock sufficiently precise onto the military base on the planet and it'll do just fine... a rock large and dense enough dropping from orbit onto the base is just as good as a lance of mech in destroying it.

Asteroid bombing is nasty
Anyway. Although it is corect that controling space means controling the planet below, the can´t controll the spce aroudn a planet. Exept for a few rare cases like capital wolds and major mech production hubs where cost is not an issue and you simply can park lot´s of spacecraft on ready status to intecept intruders.
Since they have never found a way to artificialy create gravity ( another quirk of BT: Designing jump engines needs quite some knowledge about the structure of space time, and by that also gravity. But no artificial gravity came as a side effect of that research) they are rather limited when it comes to accelarate spacecaft. And in the novels it is shown time after time: even without using a pirate point, invading forces can often evade defending space forces. Or retreating defenders do the same agaisnt attackers. If you land/launch one one side of the planet , there is no way anyone on the other side could intercept you with war or dropships. maybe with a few fighters, but that would be rather hard for their pilots.

[SakuranoSenshi]

This is actually pretty realistic; consider the impossibility of controlling the oceans ON the planet, then remember that 'near orbital space' many times bigger with full three-dimensionality (most ocean traffic is basically planar, submarines are rare) and much bigger problems with visibility and detection.

Any attempt to fully interdict a planet would either be a massive undertaking with really tight coordination and communication or a futile task.

[Skylarr]

ORIGINAL SteelWolf, on 04 August 2012 - 12:42 AM, said:

Chicken tasting yes, but NOT canon.

Yes that Bird Race is canon. It says that most BattleTech Fans do not accept it as canon.

Melcyna, on 04 August 2012 - 08:54 AM, said:

The entire thing is still pretty stupid technically because if they want to reduce destruction to the civilian asset then the WHOLE BATTLE should be resolved in space... not on the bloody planet right next to the city in question.

So you control the space around a planet. You still do not own the planet until you drop boots on the ground. If you send infantry I will have Tank. If you send tanks I will have Battlemechs.

Quote

It never made sense really, since logically there's never a real need to fight on the ground really... baring some exception where one needs to get down and dirty for specific objective.

"Unless there is a specific objective." Every planet has resources, Oil, Mineral, Factories, Fertile Farm Land, Water.

Quote

Whoever control the space in between controls EVERYTHING that goes in and out of the planet, and are free to drop whatever weapon they want to it... who needs WMD? they can just drop a solid rock sufficiently precise onto the military base on the planet and it'll do just fine... a rock large and dense enough dropping from orbit onto the base is just as good as a lance of mech in destroying it.

So you want to Orbitally Bombard a planet. With a weapons? IS warships are Lost Tech. Oww you want to drop a meteor on the planet. So have your dropship go to the Asteroid belt and grab a large piece of rock. Then move close to the planet and drop the 1/2 mile wide rock on my force that have moved next to the resource you want.

Here read the summaries of the Succession Wars. You will see why the Inner Sphere is in the shape it is in.

Edited by Skylarr, 05 August 2012 - 01:27 PM.

[Kato]

Theodor Kling, on 04 August 2012 - 10:57 PM, said:

I can´t remember any Tatooine or Endor wiht only one very limited landscape.

From the planet creation rules in the Explorer Corps sourcebook it's perfectly possible to create Tatooine-like planets (roll a 1 on climate zones in a planet with "low" temperature, gives a boreal equator zone at 5C yearly average with everything outside 15 degrees N/S frozen). Outside summer those are gonna be a solid ice block, even in summer you probably won't have much uncovered.
Or for that matter an Endor, although it would be a rather tropical one (roll a 6 on climate on a "very hot" planet, gives a cushy 20C yearly average at the poles, and everything between 60 degrees N/S covered in jungle).

[SakuranoSenshi]

Canon, not cannon. They are 'canonical' not metal tubes used to fire projectiles. Orbital bombardment is easy and doesn't need a giant piece of rock; anything sufficiently massive to survive the drop will land with enormous force and produce devastation of a kind typically associated with nuclear weapons.

Kato, on 05 August 2012 - 12:37 PM, said:

From the planet creation rules in the Explorer Corps sourcebook it's perfectly possible to create Tatooine-like planets (roll a 1 on climate zones in a planet with "low" temperature, gives a boreal equator zone at 5C yearly average with everything outside 15 degrees N/S frozen). Outside summer those are gonna be a solid ice block, even in summer you probably won't have much uncovered.
Or for that matter an Endor, although it would be a rather tropical one (roll a 6 on climate on a "very hot" planet, gives a cushy 20C yearly average at the poles, and everything between 60 degrees N/S covered in jungle).

Tatooine is the sand covered 'desert' world, not a frozen ice-ball. Hoth is also a desert, of course, since available water seems to be scarce but is the ice-ball you were thinking of.

[Melcyna]

SakuranoSenshi, on 04 August 2012 - 09:43 PM, said:

Then you get into the nasty stuff where, rather than directly defeat the armour, you remember that your main task is killing the operator, so you make the armour kill him instead by shattering projectiles off the interior of the armour+chassis combo... (and as you probably know we now use 'curtains' precisely to counter this on MBTs).

You are referring to spalling,

but specifically here you are referring to the HESH warhead that the british used to utilize in the past as anti tank munition... but eventually became obsolete since modern tank composite armor particularly spaced armor, and reactive armor panels, plus spall liners render HESH more or less useless.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Yup, that's correct. It used to happen with other warheads, to an extent but not by design. HESH was designed to do exactly that. I stuck to layman's terms but you're dead right. :-)