950 replies to this topic

[Melcyna]

Skylarr, on 05 August 2012 - 12:07 AM, said:

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



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.



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



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.

Careful when being technical in mentioning Battlemech > Tank > infantry since technically that makes ZERO sense as well from technical perspective.

Each part of the armed forces fighting force tend to have something they excel at that no others can match, infantry for example is the de facto king in urban combat since urban areas are MADE for humans and thus only human sized infantries can maneuver freely inside.

no tank, no battlemech, not even oversized elementals logically can match infantry forces in such area,

that they could in entertainment material is one of the perpetual illogical design since for that to happen the urban area would have to be designed with ease of access by whatever war machine it is involved... ie: can you think of a city designed for ease of access by Battlemech? into every single part of the city? yeah... doubt it.

And the rock concept is a simple example...

the main point there is that when you control the orbit of the planet, delivering force of destruction onto the planet surface is quite direct and straightforward... you can send ANYTHING sufficient in mass and capable of surviving reentry to hit something on the ground and the scale of the destruction can be adjusted freely, if you just want to knock out a single building, all you need is a projectile capable of accurately hitting it... that's it... no excess collateral (unless you missed), no need for weapon of mass destruction.

asteroid? no need for one, take that AC-20 aim it to the ground from orbit, and ensure the shell can survive reentry...

and what do you get? voila... instant slug from space at terminal velocity.

It also made no sense that society can regress in technology so badly when they are still using it regularly...

If it ever comes to the point where their production capability is near non existent the FIRST LOGICAL sense any country with non moron in charge would do would be to preserve such capability, in the event that they lose that too but still posses it in the inventory, then they would take one of it back to their most secured location and study the sample by reverse engineering.

Essentially the lore is saying they could NOT reverse engineer something they are using regularly and yet knows how to cannibalize them to fix another one, which makes EVEN LESS SENSE.

[Melcyna]

Skylarr, on 05 August 2012 - 12:07 AM, said:

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.

SakuranoSenshi, on 04 August 2012 - 11:38 PM, said:

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.

Sorry to double post but to answer this one specifically, and also because many seems to not understand the concept either, i'll have to explain in detail.

First thing first, detection? space? against maneuvering aircraft? quite straightforward... anything that emits energy in unnatural manner in space (ie: thrusters) is effectively a flare bright in darkness from the perspective of the fleet stationed within that space region... unless you are saying celestial object with high energy output are common objects within the space in question.

To make it worse, you can detect energy flares like this from MUCH further away in space than on earth.

On earth you have background environment and atmospheric attenuation to help mask your energy emission and dissipate it, on space this is far more difficult since your surrounding does not emit ANYTHING like you do when you try to move nor is there anything to dissipate it beyond regular energy dissipation.

And we DO HAVE control over ocean zones which is what naval battlegroups are for and why each battlegroup is assigned powerful intelligence assets. That is why every major power employ a sizable navy or attempts to acquire one because ultimately the lifeblood of economy for most countries still depend on ocean lanes, plus if you need to send significant number of ground forces, the ocean transport is still the most efficient method since air transport are limited in capacity and extremely expensive comparatively.

whoever controls the ocean, controls BOTH of these...

This is why issues regarding control of strategic sea lanes or corridor like the one happening near Iran right now is such a high issue and why they are sending warships jam packed into it... that single strait have so much shipping lane going through it that if it shuts down, the countries that depend on them are going to be clobbered.

But nvm that, why is that of any relevance in space or with BT?

Because the same principle apply still...

whoever controls the space around the planet controls whoever can go in or out freely... anything from civilian transport, shipping transport, and of course... MILITARY transport.

Let's say I have 10 planets, you have 10 planets
I have 10 ground division of forces, you have 30 ground division.
But in exchange for that i have 3 times as much space fleet as you do

What happens next? simple... first order of business is to establish space control, and crush your space fleet first, once that's done i effectively have control over space in between ANY of our planets.

I then have the freedom to send my forces anywhere i want to, whereas you are stuck in what you managed to deploy without being intercepted.

I can take 5 division and concentrate them all right onto any one planet you own since i have free reign of the space around all of them, once control over the space in between the planets is established... i effectively can gather intelligence freely on each planet, establish which are vital, which are lightly defended, and then throw my concentrated force at them to ensure success.

And there's nothing you can do, you can't exactly reinforce them without control of the space in between the planets.

Heck, it doesn't even need to be a full control for that matter, all that is necessary is to ensure that no forces of sizable amount can pass through the blockade intact, if you are willing to throw 10 division to reinforce or attack a planet and lose half of them in the blockade run then i'll simply move the forces i have from that planet and move them elsewhere since i have control of the space and can choose another planet to attack.

eventually, you'll be reduced to paltry forces that can sneak through blockades, or stuck onto planets where you are in significant number while i snipe each planet that are lightly defended one by one until eventually you are left with whichever planet you concentrated your forces on... if you did not concentrate your forces on any of them and spread them then i'll snipe them ALL one at a time.

This is two of the basic principle of warfare... 'force' concentration and mobility, and in order to be able to do so one need the control over the region or space in between the vital points to be able to move forces freely and dictate the term of the battle under YOUR specification.

[SakuranoSenshi]

Your detection argument depends greatly on assumptions about how spacecraft move in a fictional universe but let's leave it alone as you're right about it if we assume current ways to manoeuvre. You're dead wrong about the oceans, though, no nation even comes close to control, in fact if you actually speak to the relevant armed forces they'll tell you how hopelessly unrealistic it is to even expect that. There is a reason piracy still occurs, drug smugglers still operate on water, etc, and it's not because the navies are incompetent or corrupt, it's because the ocean is really, really big.

You have no chance of interdicting a planet without a force many, many times larger than planetbound navies which cannot control the oceans on those planets as it is.

Sorry, but you're just wrong.

P.S. The trade lanes thing is somewhat different but is by no means control of the ocean, it's a combination of inevitable bottlenecks and routing efficiency. Traders want to take the most cost effective route possible between their various waypoints and even those nations with coastal acces only have certain locations that are suitable for shipping traffic at all, even fewer that can accomodate massive vessels.

Edited by SakuranoSenshi, 05 August 2012 - 02:43 PM.

[Mousehold]

Has anyone considered how off population demographics are in the Battletech universe? Between Marik, Steiner, Davion and the Clans it's like 80% Caucasian. Indians don't exist, and non-Japanese Asians almost completely vanished.

Edited by Mousehold, 05 August 2012 - 02:55 PM.

[Enervation]

I think the biggest villan in BT is the neurohelmet and targeting computers. supposedly the advanced helmets allow the pilot to interface with the complex machines and... do what, talk to the machine spirit?
the mechwarrior uses joysticks to control the mech's aim without a complicated neuro helmet, would some switches on the dashboard and a throttle really be over the top?
also, the targeting computers (i'm presuming they adjust the guns to where the pilot is pointing with his controls) are terrible, but seem to be how all militaries outfit their fighting vehicles. if there is a culprit to weapon range and lack of space combat in battle tech, i blame how everyone aims their stuff.
if you can't shoot someone with a machine gun or heavy cannon at 300 meters, how the heck do you hit ANYTHING in space or for that matter, from space?
i have heard that every good science fiction story has one suspention of disbelief, if i had to pick one for battle tech it would be lousy aim.

Also, the chance for a smaller more compact tank with less sections to spread its armor tonnage getting crit five times as often on the hit tables seems a little whacked out xD

[Melcyna]

SakuranoSenshi, on 05 August 2012 - 02:40 PM, said:

Your detection argument depends greatly on assumptions about how spacecraft move in a fictional universe but let's leave it alone as you're right about it if we assume current ways to manoeuvre. You're dead wrong about the oceans, though, no nation even comes close to control, in fact if you actually speak to the relevant armed forces they'll tell you how hopelessly unrealistic it is to even expect that. There is a reason piracy still occurs, drug smugglers still operate on water, etc, and it's not because the navies are incompetent or corrupt, it's because the ocean is really, really big.

You have no chance of interdicting a planet without a force many, many times larger than planetbound navies which cannot control the oceans on those planets as it is.

Sorry, but you're just wrong.

P.S. The trade lanes thing is somewhat different but is by no means control of the ocean, it's a combination of inevitable bottlenecks and routing efficiency. Traders want to take the most cost effective route possible between their various waypoints and even those nations with coastal acces only have certain locations that are suitable for shipping traffic at all, even fewer that can accomodate massive vessels.

That's primarily because what you are expecting is a full control of them...

This is not actually necessary...

what we NEED is the ability to ensure that NO SIZABLE fleet or force can roam freely within our zone of control...

if they intend to send a solitary force to evade detection or interception, let them... a solitary force with it's limited effect and application is something one can mitigate and cope within the plan of operation.

The issue with pirates and smugglers for example boils down to a simple thing really, ie: it's unrealistic to inspect every ship within zone of control (they most certainly can detect them with ample asset, but directly inspecting them is another story and one can't exactly tell which are pirates or smuggler or regular fishermen in a backward country's ocean without close observation).

But in BT we have 2 convenient things:
1. The starting point and end destination of most of the ships are very likely to be one of the planet...

THAT is pretty much our bottleneck, regardless of where they may head towards in space, they will either come from them or towards them.

2. Their ship needed jump engines or otherwise tagging with a jump capable ship to travel the vast distance, which conveniently narrows down the ship that needs to be inspected. Further helped with BT's odd concept of Jump point which makes it even easier to narrow the location that needs to be controlled to maintain control of flow of ships in and out of the region.

Edited by Melcyna, 05 August 2012 - 03:12 PM.

[Deedsie]

Quote

Gaus slug is described as the size of a VW Bug being thrown an mach 6 I own a 72 vw bug i wish it could go mach 6

I recall it supposedly being a 125kg large watermelon sized "egg" of nickel and iron encased in a shell of depleted uranium.

Quote

I think the biggest villan in BT is the neurohelmet and targeting computers. supposedly the advanced helmets allow the pilot to interface with the complex machines and... do what, talk to the machine spirit?

From what I read, what the neurohelmet does is link the pilot's sense of balance to the gyro to maintain stability.

Edited by Deedsie, 05 August 2012 - 03:14 PM.

[Dracosos]

Elessar, on 31 July 2012 - 12:02 AM, said:

-infantry usually operates together in 20-30 men strong units and stays rather close together, so that they can be better mowed down with Battlemech MGs and Artillery

They must also like geting stomped on in large groups, anyone else a little bit twisted and a fan of ammo conservation?

[Elsydeon]

They have had to nerf vehicles multiple times since they can have more armor, mount more weapons (you try mounting 8 Clan LRM20s on that Dire Wolf), do not track heat, and have different internal space rules. Then you have hovercraft, the only limit there being they are 50t, but they can go across nearly anything and at speeds that terrify Ice Hellions.

Edited by Elsydeon, 05 August 2012 - 03:29 PM.

[Enervation]

Deedsie, on 05 August 2012 - 03:10 PM, said:

From what I read, what the neurohelmet does is link the pilot's sense of balance to the gyro to maintain stability.

i can buy that, but the mechwarrior 'fighting witht he mechs controls to stay upright' seems to be pretty common. if you have to fight with the controls, you obviously arn't visualizing serenity for the mech's gyros to pick up on. I'm just saying if you swapped out a mech controls for a helecopter pilot's controls, you would have a better time piloting the behemoths, and be a much better shot with one of those fancy helmets that aims the gun where you are looking.
change out those "fancy" targeting computers for something that knows how to make your mech walk and it would be more plausible imo.

[Enervation]

On a note of space travel, i'm with the space-is-big crowd. i've often looked at the differance in scifi fiction between gigantic warships that do all the work and carrier type warships that leave the dirty work to small single pilot dogfighters; the difference seems to come down to engagement range.
If you have very long range weapons and computers that can track trajectory for weapons, ship speed and various elements of space, then the majority of the ships are large, crewed by hundreds or more and brisling with ship crushing weaponry.
If the engagement range is very small, then dogfighters are more prevelent. the weapons are either not as effective or require an extremely close distance to be used. in the latter case, fleets have to get really close to do anything, and their targeting computers tend to be the humans themselves who do the targeting.
although im not going to go into any major math about this, earth is almost 150 million kilometers from its sun. if you have to reasonably close to 1 kilometer or less to engage your opponent in battle/aerotech (the aerotech hexes represent 180m instead of 30m for battletech), how do you propose to blockade anything, anywhere out there? even if two ships jump to the same star, if they are several thousand klicks away from each other (which would be a safe distance), one force could just flee. unless the pursuit force is far faster, there would be no fight to be had, and the pursuit fleetwould have to be large enough to dispach an attacking force and still have someone to maintain position near the star.

Edited by Enervation, 05 August 2012 - 04:53 PM.

[Enervation]

Elsydeon, on 05 August 2012 - 03:25 PM, said:

They have had to nerf vehicles multiple times since they can have more armor, mount more weapons (you try mounting 8 Clan LRM20s on that Dire Wolf), do not track heat, and have different internal space rules. Then you have hovercraft, the only limit there being they are 50t, but they can go across nearly anything and at speeds that terrify Ice Hellions.

LMAO that makes a lot of sense game-balance wise. Mechbuster ftw

[Monsoon]

Metafox, on 03 August 2012 - 11:37 PM, said:

Using a flamer to vent reactor heat makes the mech hotter. I guess the first law of thermodynamics is lostech too.

QTE!

Edited by Monsoon, 05 August 2012 - 05:35 PM.

[Melcyna]

Enervation, on 05 August 2012 - 04:52 PM, said:

On a note of space travel, i'm with the space-is-big crowd. i've often looked at the differance in scifi fiction between gigantic warships that do all the work and carrier type warships that leave the dirty work to small single pilot dogfighters; the difference seems to come down to engagement range.
If you have very long range weapons and computers that can track trajectory for weapons, ship speed and various elements of space, then the majority of the ships are large, crewed by hundreds or more and brisling with ship crushing weaponry.
If the engagement range is very small, then dogfighters are more prevelent. the weapons are either not as effective or require an extremely close distance to be used. in the latter case, fleets have to get really close to do anything, and their targeting computers tend to be the humans themselves who do the targeting.
although im not going to go into any major math about this, earth is almost 150 million kilometers from its sun. if you have to reasonably close to 1 kilometer or less to engage your opponent in battle/aerotech (the aerotech hexes represent 180m instead of 30m for battletech), how do you propose to blockade anything, anywhere out there? even if two ships jump to the same star, if they are several thousand klicks away from each other (which would be a safe distance), one force could just flee. unless the pursuit force is far faster, there would be no fight to be had, and the pursuit fleetwould have to be large enough to dispach an attacking force and still have someone to maintain position near the star.

A fair point, which is then have to be considered against it's detractors...

The first few to be considered:
A. detection range... which is generally obscene in space under the assumption that either ships uses impulse based propulsion (ie: expelling matter of some sort), theoretically it's possible to propel ships in a passive manner (ie: solar sail or by literally flinging the ship at the destination and relying solely on momentum) but the speed and limitation of such propulsion makes them highly unlikely for military operation or large scale assault.

B. weapon range... if one propel a gauss rifle slug on atmospheric condition, that slug is realistically not going to travel that far relatively speaking before external forces render it ineffective through energy bleed....

but the same slug in space would travel to literally until it is either caught in the gravity well of something suitably powerful or until it smash something and impart it's kinetic energy to it, and that something can be 150million kilometer away from the point of firing and it wouldn't make much of a difference in effectiveness of the slug destructiveness as long as the slug mass is significant enough to ensure no particles in the way causes too much interference.

And for that matter, nothing stops you to continue accelerating the projectile of course... launch the projectile with a mass driver and have the projectile further accelerate itself with mass rocket if necessary and since you got however many million kilometers to travel that gives you ample amount of time to accelerate and make course correction.

3. Regardless of how the space travel is done in the non FTL part, the fact is that you can propel the projectile and weapon MUCH FASTER than the crewed spacecraft.

One can accelerate the projectile in space into Mach 30 or further with sufficient mass driver and it wouldn't be much of a problem, but to do that with ships with crews inside is FAR more difficult since human have far less tolerance to such force which either forces the ship to accelerate slowly over a VERY long distance or somehow negate the inertia (which is a subject that has it's own section in any sci fi debate).

This ensures that gunning them down is always easier than running away from it. One can just for example fire a rapidly accelerating long range missile at a newly arriving Jumpship that failed to follow the protocol and IFF... and what are they gonna do?

You can't accelerate the ship faster than the missile can since that will kill the crew, and it's always cheaper to manufacture unmanned high performance missile than it is crewed ship in such scenario essentially guaranteeing that the defender wins economically as well.

Mind you that we have various theories on how weaponized space will turn up into (this entire topic is a very interesting one and been the subject of discussion and debate many times over).

But generally speaking we're well aware that a fight in space is going to occur at ranges FAR IN EXCESS of atmospheric fight... for many reasons, in which the above are just some of them.

[dal10]

the thing is with bt weapons long range space fights are impossible. yeah you can fire a gauss rifle from 500 miles away but at 600 miles per hour (just an example) it will take 5/6th of an hour to reach me. in that time i could easily have increased speed or decreased speed or changed my direction enough to dodge the shot. however at a kilometer i will have no chance of doing so. to dodge lasers just use a random dodge pattern. problem solved.

[Melcyna]

First thing first, there's no such thing as dodging lasers since 'dodging' laser imply you employ FTL movement and reaction time which means you need an FTL sensors of some sort, and how exactly one detect something in an FTL manner essentially require a partial 'magic' since that defies physics to an extent.

Second thing is that since nothing stops you from accelerating the projectile continuously in flight, the speed limit is irrelevant... 600 miles per hour incidentally is SUBSONIC speed, ie: INCREDIBLY SLOW for a projectile, just as a pointer...

Third is that you can always correct your course mid flight.... nothing stops the missile (which is essentially what the projectile is, guided weapon flung at horrendous speed towards the target) as long as the missile carry enough propulsion power to correct it's course within acceptable deviation to the target course.

note: i reread that laser 'dodging' comment and i assume a second possibility, that you meant that you are sufficiently far away from point of firing that even a laser would take a significant amount of time to reach.

In such case, assume this: for such 'dodging' to occur effectively one must displace the ship far enough to be of significant distance from it's point of origin that the laser missed.

With light speed being about 300 000 km/s this gives you about slightly over 3 second at 1 million kilometer to displace your jumpship, dropship, etc to avoid a hit ie: you have over 3 seconds at 1 million kilometer to move the bulk of the ship out of the laser's predicted path assuming the laser is fired directly at where your last position was (since you can't tell where exactly the laser is coming towards you have to guess this unless you have an FTL sensor).

So ask yourself, how fast can one still move the massive ship, while keeping the ship intact of course, and realistically 'dodge' the laser and from what range?

And of course if they just fired multiple laser each aimed at a specific deviation from central beam to catch multiple possible position that the ship of your mass can be at that distance then you are BONED.

Edited by Melcyna, 05 August 2012 - 06:20 PM.

[Skylarr]

Melcyna, on 05 August 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

Careful when being technical in mentioning Battlemech > Tank > infantry since technically that makes ZERO sense as well from technical perspective.

Each part of the armed forces fighting force tend to have something they excel at that no others can match, infantry for example is the de facto king in urban combat since urban areas are MADE for humans and thus only human sized infantries can maneuver freely inside.

no tank, no battlemech, not even oversized elementals logically can match infantry forces in such area,

that they could in entertainment material is one of the perpetual illogical design since for that to happen the urban area would have to be designed with ease of access by whatever war machine it is involved... ie: can you think of a city designed for ease of access by Battlemech? into every single part of the city? yeah... doubt it.

If I send infantry into a city why would I not send in armor and tanks to support them? If my infantry cannot displace you from a section of the city I will use armor and Mech to destroy the Buildings you are in. That is exactly what the military does now. they send in the foot solder to find the enemy in a city and then the tanks destroy the building.

Quote

And the rock concept is a simple example...

the main point there is that when you control the orbit of the planet, delivering force of destruction onto the planet surface is quite direct and straightforward... you can send ANYTHING sufficient in mass and capable of surviving reentry to hit something on the ground and the scale of the destruction can be adjusted freely, if you just want to knock out a single building, all you need is a projectile capable of accurately hitting it... that's it... no excess collateral (unless you missed), no need for weapon of mass destruction.

asteroid? no need for one, take that AC-20 aim it to the ground from orbit, and ensure the shell can survive reentry...

and what do you get? voila... instant slug from space at terminal velocity.

You brought up about using a large rock. How large of a rock would you need to survive entry?

We are in 3049 so there are two problems what you said above.

• Orbital Bombardment was banned - Article II -- Orbital Bombardment .
  
• if you decided to ignore the Ares Convention you will need a spotter on the ground. The technology to target from orbit is not there.

Quote

It also made no sense that society can regress in technology so badly when they are still using it regularly...

If it ever comes to the point where their production capability is near non existent the FIRST LOGICAL sense any country with non moron in charge would do would be to preserve such capability, in the event that they lose that too but still posses it in the inventory, then they would take one of it back to their most secured location and study the sample by reverse engineering.

Essentially the lore is saying they could NOT reverse engineer something they are using regularly and yet knows how to cannibalize them to fix another one, which makes EVEN LESS SENSE.

This is the BattleTech Universe. It is SciFi and it is what the creators of this Universe says happened.

Have you read all of the Field Manuals? They explains why things are the way they are. Anytime someone discovered something another house would try and steal it or destroy it. ComStar would also do what they could to stop Houses from progressing. The only reason why anyone was able to extract info from the Helm Memory Cores is because the Grey Death Legion did not trust ComStar. So they Disseminated copies to all of the houses.

[Skylarr]

Theodor Kling, on 04 August 2012 - 11:15 PM, said:

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.

It is 3049 the only way to control the space around a planet is by using massive amounts of Aerospace. There are no Warships right now and Dropships are to valuable.

When there are Warships you will send yours after strategic planet. Then I will send mine to defend it.

Allot of people here seem to think that Warships are everywhere.

Quote

Clan WarShip fleet

When Aleksandr Kerensky departed the Inner Sphere with his forces they took 1,349 JumpShips with them, escorted by 402 WarShips. Only 260 WarShips are known to have survived the Exodus Civil War; it is estimated that since then, the Clans between them have built anywhere from 50 to 300 more. While each invading Clan fielded 18 WarShips on average in the Inner Sphere, the actual numbers differ wildly from Clan to Clan. During the invasion, Clan Jade Falcon deployed the single largest number of WarShips, fielding 28 in total of which most were Aegis-class. Clan Wolf deployed the smallest number (2 ships).
Inner Sphere WarShip fleet

The Succession Wars and subsequent decline into Lostech left no WarShips operative in the Inner Sphere. The last WarShips in the Inner Sphere were believed destroyed during the Second Succession War, namely during the Eighth Battle for Hesperus II in 2853, all others having fallen prey to combat losses, attrition and maintenance shortfalls save for a number of non-salvageable derelicts. Up until the beginning of the Clan Invasion in 3049, WarShips were thought to be essentially extinct. Only ComStar secretly maintained a small hidden fleet.

Following the Clan invasion and the rediscovery of lost technologies, WarShip construction restarted in the Inner Sphere. In October 3056, ComStar's First Circuit decided to allow the sale of transit drives for WarShips (which only the ComStar-controlled Rolls-Royce factories on Terra could produce at the time) to both the Draconis Combine and the Federated Commonwealth. The fanatical ComStar splinter group Word of Blake located drives from derelict ships that the Free Worlds League and Capellan Confederation could recondition and return to a functioning status. Further recovery of lost technology has since enabled most greater powers in the Inner Sphere to field operational WarShips, but only the most industrious of Successor States can construct more than one at a time because of their extreme costs.

[sag]

they still use eprom microchips in computers.

[Melcyna]

Skylarr, on 05 August 2012 - 06:44 PM, said:

If I send infantry into a city why would I not send in armor and tanks to support them? If my infantry cannot displace you from a section of the city I will use armor and Mech to destroy the Buildings you are in. That is exactly what the military does now. they send in the foot solder to find the enemy in a city and then the tanks destroy the building.


You brought up about using a large rock. How large of a rock would you need to survive entry?

We are in 3049 so there are two problems what you said above.

• Orbital Bombardment was banned - Article II -- Orbital Bombardment .
  
• if you decided to ignore the Ares Convention you will need a spotter on the ground. The technology to target from orbit is not there.

This is the BattleTech Universe. It is SciFi and it is what the creators of this Universe says happened.


Have you read all of the Field Manuals? They explains why things are the way they are. Anytime someone discovered something another house would try and steal it or destroy it. ComStar would also do what they could to stop Houses from progressing. The only reason why anyone was able to extract info from the Helm Memory Cores is because the Grey Death Legion did not trust ComStar. So they Disseminated copies to all of the houses.

On the subject of ComStar and other houses preventing progress though it still makes no sense because the fact is that they are USING IT and maintaining it to an extent (even if it means cannibalizing parts).

if they are utilizing them and knows how to maintain it to an extent, then reverse engineering is within viable realm...

it makes no sense that ComStar could prevent such research, or any other houses really when they are utilizing some or part of these 'lostech' in the field, and given that mankind history shows a VERY acute reverse engineering capacity.

Essentially to prevent such measure, the design LITERALLY have to be unusable without the manual because any deduction from one part of it's mechanism will lead to deduction of working mechanism of another part with sustained careful effort, something a nation that controls multiple star is capable of doing. And if there's a part they cannot deduce, then the most typical outcome is that they utilize a replacement mechanism to supply that function... if they know how the other parts work, they know what is expected to come from the other parts that interact with it.


On the subject of Ares convention? aside of the part where they ignored it themselves lorewise it made no sense either when you read it:

Quote

"Article II -- Orbital Bombardment


The use of orbital assets to bombard stationary targets (as defined in Appendix B, Section 4) on a planetary surface with the single exception of a valid military objective whose destruction the attacker deems necessary to ensure the survival of his own troops, is prohibited. In no case may any orbital attack take place in or near any heavily populated area, and any orbital attack is subject to ex post facto review by a duly appointed council from the signatory states."

This is a pretty brain dead point for example since every strike that is tactical in nature is almost certainly going to be a military objective that is NECESSARY to ensure survival of one's own forces.

The only time when this is not the case is in a strategic warfare when the objective is to either demoralize the enemy population or decimate them ie: a campaign of terror or total warfare.

Which basically means WE CAN BOMBARD them from orbit as long as it is necessary to ensure survival of our troops... which in the case of the existence of enemy troops on the planet means always true since the fact that there is an enemy force capable of presenting a threat to our troops on the planet means exactly that and if it is NOT CAPABLE OF PRESENTING A THREAT to our troops then we don't NEED TO BOMBARD THEM TO START WITH.

You need a spotter on the ground? Then send an aerospace suitable lightened just for recce operation if for some reason these BT tech are incapable of resolving the targeting from orbit, that is just one possibility of many to acquire information on the ground if such becomes necessary that orbital fleet cannot acquire them. Certainly a lot more practical than sending a dropship many times larger and more obvious into the area, and a heck a lot faster too in terms of area covered.

On the subject of warfare in urban environment, it seems that you have some misconception here...

let me put it in another perspective:

The warfare where you see tanks rolling in to support infantries with direct fire? That's fine for asymmetric warfare like the one where the western power is engaged in right now...

ie: your foe is not directly comparable to yours and cannot realistically engage you directly in a force vs force direct military confrontation.

But when you try to do that against one which are quite capable? And especially well armed infantries? You get something like Chechnya war where armor fighting in close quarter confinement are shot to pieces and whole battalion perish as the infantry get suppressed by snipers and small arms fire while the tank hunters knock out the armor support. Armor column are extremely attention grabbing and are magnets for incoming fire.

This is not new btw, this entire thing is one of the basic scenario taught in most military syllabus (and hence why one avoid sending mechanized infantry and armor directly against a hostile urban location without sieging them) but unfortunately actually formulating plan against it is easier said than done since it often requires strong coordination between the infantry and armor, or any other military force.

What in reality actually occurred is that infantry forces have to suppress the urban defender and neutralize their zone of control... once you reduce their infantries down to concentrated defensive pocket and control the rest, THEN you can bring in the vehicle to help suppress the remaining hold out.

What this basically means is that you need an infantry force strong enough to engage their infantry to start with and suppress them and confine them down.

When you just send combined armor and infantry without the infantry actually able to suppress their infantry then you get what the Russian experienced first hand in Chechnya... entire mechanized infantry decimated as their armor support get slaughtered by close quarter anti tank rocket and missile.

Edited by Melcyna, 05 August 2012 - 08:03 PM.