58 replies to this topic

[NotNewHere]

Has anyone noticed that weapons in real life are much better than the weapons in real life? for example...
1. IRL - A 50 cal machinegun weighs <0.25 tons and can rip apart a concrete crash barrier.
IG - A Heavy Machinegun weighs 3 tons and takes a while just to destroy a car.

2. IG - A HGauss can punch through a 28 points of armour
IRL - A equivelent sized railgun can demolish a foot thick steel plate
IRL - An equivelent weight railgun can hit like a cruise missile from several thousand miles

3. IG - A LLAS can destroy a car from 600meters
IRL - A real life laser of the same weight can chop a ******* building in half from 17000 feet

4. IG - An Arrow artillery missile can demolish a few buildings from several miles
IRL - An equivelent sized/ranged missile can carry a tactical nuclear warhead

5. IG - A plasma cannon does imense damage and heats up the target.
IRL - A plasma cannon burns through steel, Melts its target AND hits it like a ppc does in MW

6. IG - LBX either fires a solid tank shell like slug or like lots of heavy shotgun slugs.
IRL - Chey Tac 50 cal fires an exploding round that can level a tank (can be carried by a person)

I know alot of people will say that in the battletech universe they have much better armour, like ferro-fiberous and reflective ect... But 'ferro-fiberous' just means (Fibre made of Iron) so basicly its wrapping your mech in suspension bridge cable. Also this already exists on some modern day tanks, and they still get blown to ****.
To be fare the modern day lasers is a bit larger than the battletech version. and as far as I know no IRL weapon can fire several hundred unarnium rounds a minute.(RAC)

[Insidious Johnson]

The A-10 is a plane built around the 30mm cannon. Some parts of Iraq are still uninhabitable from the depleted uranium shells spewed out by its 3k rounds per minute rate. Further, the recoil from the gun is EQUAL to the plane's thrust. If shooting was sustained long enough, it would just fall from the sky. There is your RAC, only it shoots faster.

[SilentObserver]

Where are the real life plasma cannons? Seriously, if these exist and you have links would love to see them.

On a whole, yeah, real life weapons are much more effective. In the Battletech universe Armor won against fire power. In real life Firepower won against armor (almost any weapons platform can be single shot killed by the appropriate munition).

Put 12 atlas mechs against 2 abrams tanks at range. the abrams will destroy the entire company before they can even fire a shot.

But the M68A1 105 mm rifled tank gun is not available in the BT universe circa 3049 so dont worry about it.

[Robert Knight]

armor and building materials have also advanced quite a bit. but you also forgot missle damage. not to mention ranges the effective range on a m60 or M2 are much longer than 120m. and a basic morter fires further than most feild arty in the game .but i assume gravity has more effect on projectiles in the BT universe

[Alaric Wolf Kerensky]

Well, large amount of spelling errors aside, I think you lost yourself somewhere in another universe. To my knowledge, there are no working "Plasma Cannons." It would help a lot if you could quote your sources on some of this, because for one I have never heard of a "Chey Tac 50 cal," and believe you may be referring to the M-200 Cheyenne Tactical Intervention, which is of a .408 caliber. Regardless, a 50 cal sized round CAN NOT carry enough explosive to "level a tank." Not even close. Try shooting .50 cal against an Abrams all day, and let me know when you finish breaking through the ceramic armor.

About currently developed railguns, compared to BT Gauss Rifles, they are relatively small and under powered. Your statement about a modern railgun punching through a 12" steel plate is less impressive than a Gauss Rifle shearing off literally tons of armor.

Also, firing DU (Depleted Uranium Tipped) rounds at high rates is nothing spectacular. Take the A-10a's GAU-8 Avenger cannon for example. It can fire a few thousand rounds a minute, with the option for DU penetrating rounds, High explosive, and more.

It is best not to look at things and cry "hey!!! Why don't they use nukes!!!." (This makes it clear that you know little about BattleTech, as the use of nuclear weapons is generally frowned upon). This is a game, not real life. What fun would it be if a 'Mech could slice another in half with one sweep of a Large Laser? Or if you only had to shoot a single nuclear warhead at an enemy to defeat them? The universe would become an orgy of one-shot kills, and nobody want that kind of arcade-shooter.

Edit: Insidious Johnson beat me to the point about the A-10... lol.

Edited by Alaric Wolf Kerensky, 24 January 2012 - 11:21 AM.

[Kyone Akashi]

Robert Knight, on 24 January 2012 - 11:11 AM, said:

armor and building materials have also advanced quite a bit.

I believe this is is an important factor. Of course, a fictional setting that values consistency may eventually find its technology outsmarted by the achievements of the real world solely because its writers may not have been able to foresee them. However, these advances do not necessarily have to occur solely in the offensive potential. 'Mech armour does not only consist of an extremely strong kind of steel we are as of now still unable to produce, but also refractory nitride coating and diamond fibers, all resting atop a layer of titanium alloy. This combination of materials is, as of now, not only impossible to create, but also has never (not even in theory) been subjected to contemporary weapons fire, so it is impossible to guess the effect of the latter.

With the usual suspension of disbelief one should apply to any fictional setting, it is therefore rather easy to dismiss any notion of Battletech equipment being "weaker" than anything we may build today. Not to mention that I do think that several of these real life examples are extremely flawed - for example, contemporary military lasers barely manage to heat up a completely unarmoured warhead to a temparature that causes it to detonate after focusing on them for several seconds. And even this already requires a large truck and excessive amounts of energy with an obscene amount of waste. We are getting there, slowly - but in the end, this technology is still in its infancy.

Beam of light hits true.
A stain of ash on my 'mech.
Our armour is strong.

[Tannhauser Gate]

Those are all good observations but really this discussion has been around since 1985. Suffice it to say.... BT is fiction and you have to have reasonable game table / map size. Im ok with changes the ranges and such to match modernized map sizes since they were changed in the first place to fit TT rules but really, its fiction and its not "wrong".

Edited by LakeDaemon, 24 January 2012 - 11:50 AM.

[NotNewHere]

IRL plasmacannons have been built in labs, and one was test fired on a destroyer in 2004/5 ish Its not that amazing plasma is just an ionized (electricly charged) substance, You can call a magnet plasma if you want. The one i'm talking about fired some melted plasma at high velocity, the plasmas energized state means anything it transfers its charge to anything it hits.

I realy should have specified that the rifle, must first fire an armour piercing round, then an explosive round to destroy the tank, and though it is hard it has been done.

In 2010/09ish a high energy laser (10 Megawats i think) managed to destroy several armoured test targets. shooting a warhead with a tank will not detonate it because warheads must be armed first. If the warhead was nuclear then remember that to detonate uranium you need to wrap it in over 200kg of high explosive (a la trinity)

Also diamond fibre does exist. It is manufactured by the airline industry and made into giant reels of duct tape like material (thats the only way I can describe it) they wrap it around the tails of commercial airliners to help them withstand the stress involved in turning a huge aircraft. Albeit in a layer only a mm or two thick. This would make great armour, but even with industrial diamonds its way to expensive

Edited by Nightwish, 24 January 2012 - 11:52 AM.

[Vincent Hall]

The weapons fired by mechs don't just "stop" at the range (such as LLaser's 600m), thats the maximum range to get a target lock and for maximum damage. Nukes are there and usable, however firing them risks a comstar sanction for being an ******* for using them. Also a lot of the stats you are using are from the games which are BALANCED FOR GAMEPLAY.

[NotNewHere]

thanks for the extra info, its apreciated
I forgot to mention in the last post that the military scrapped plasma cannons but the technology still exists. I think the part where battletech beats us, is the miniturization of such weapons.

[Kyone Akashi]

What are the sources for these real life applications, if I may ask? I am aware of THEL/MTHEL and SHIVA, but I have never heard of these allegedly successful laser tests against armoured targets (the last development I heard was that a laser managed to set an unarmoured civilian boat engine on fire after a minute of focus) or a plasma-based weapon being fired from a naval vessel (all I read was that the technology still occupies way too much space).

[PewPew]

I remember reading a fantastic post the other day about how armor is much more advanced than plates of steel. The armor is extremely light (which is why mechs can be so big. An m1a1 Abrams tank is 100 tons, but only carries 1 main gun) and is reinforced by some sort of weave.

In the real world, the idea of third generation/mobility warfare is to maneuver and get the first hit. In dogfights and tank battles alike, whoever gets the first hit off will survive and defeat their opponent. Once that concept is nullified due to stronger armor, the BT universe went back to a mixture of previous generations of warfare, even resembling pre-modern warfare with feudal knights, etc.

This would also explain why weapon systems changed as well. The main gun on a main battle tank in real life can effectively engage at 3,000m, while most long range weapons in Mechwarrior games have effectively engaged at around 1,000m. Because mechs can survive more than one shot, the hope is not to invest a lot into one shot, but to be ready for the inevitable close quarters combat. That is, an investment in a variety of weapons, higher rates of fire, as well as harder hitting, but shorter range weapons. If you think about it, assault cannons in BT probably have much smaller amounts of propellant to fire fairly large rounds. This would allow mechs to fire more damaging rounds while still having plenty of space to store lots of ammo.

[Nerts]

Nightwish, on 24 January 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

I know alot of people will say that in the battletech universe they have much better armour, like ferro-fiberous and reflective ect... But 'ferro-fiberous' just means (Fibre made of Iron) so basicly its wrapping your mech in suspension bridge cable. Also this already exists on some modern day tanks, and they still get blown to ****.

Actually, FF armour is reinforced with titanium and diamond.

[phelanjkell]

Fictional universe vs real life = not doing justice to the fictional universe..

[NotNewHere]

To be fair the plane it was mounted on was a boeing 747
and I beleive you are thinking of Ion drives (mounted on a japanese probe) rather than plasma..
I never realy though about ammo. I guess the tank may beat the snot out of a company of atlas's before they even get in range, but a light mech would just have to avoid the shots until the tank ran out of ammo (not very long).
This does pose the new question of, why are tanks so weak in battletech?

[TheRulesLawyer]

Nightwish, on 24 January 2012 - 10:55 AM, said:

Has anyone noticed that weapons in real life are much better than the weapons in real life? for example...
1. IRL - A 50 cal machinegun weighs <0.25 tons and can rip apart a concrete crash barrier.
IG - A Heavy Machinegun weighs 3 tons and takes a while just to destroy a car.

2. IG - A HGauss can punch through a 28 points of armour
IRL - A equivelent sized railgun can demolish a foot thick steel plate
IRL - An equivelent weight railgun can hit like a cruise missile from several thousand miles

3. IG - A LLAS can destroy a car from 600meters
IRL - A real life laser of the same weight can chop a ******* building in half from 17000 feet

4. IG - An Arrow artillery missile can demolish a few buildings from several miles
IRL - An equivelent sized/ranged missile can carry a tactical nuclear warhead

5. IG - A plasma cannon does imense damage and heats up the target.
IRL - A plasma cannon burns through steel, Melts its target AND hits it like a ppc does in MW

6. IG - LBX either fires a solid tank shell like slug or like lots of heavy shotgun slugs.
IRL - Chey Tac 50 cal fires an exploding round that can level a tank (can be carried by a person)

I know alot of people will say that in the battletech universe they have much better armour, like ferro-fiberous and reflective ect... But 'ferro-fiberous' just means (Fibre made of Iron) so basicly its wrapping your mech in suspension bridge cable. Also this already exists on some modern day tanks, and they still get blown to ****.
To be fare the modern day lasers is a bit larger than the battletech version. and as far as I know no IRL weapon can fire several hundred unarnium rounds a minute.(RAC)

1) A M2 weighs about 84lbs.They'll punch about an inch of RHA from what I understand. Not very effective vs any real armor.
2) There are no deployed railguns. I've seen the videos in labs and the naval plans but its in no way equivalent to battletech scale.
3) We have lasers that are small enough to be vehicle mounted *and* can do more than disrupt the aerodynamics of a flimsy missle structure? I'd love to see.
4) I don't think arrow IV systems are nearly as large as our cruise missles. It looks like the art is based on the Phoenix AtG missile.
5) Again, we have this outside of building sized lab equipment?
6) .50 leveling a tank? errr in what universe? LBX is just like canister shot really. I've seen videos of it fired. Its neat, but hardly an armor threat.

Oh the a10 fires 3900 DU rounds a minute. And its old.

[SumthinBurnin]

M1A1 is not 100tons. its mid 60's =P

[NotNewHere]

TheRulesLawyer, on 24 January 2012 - 12:19 PM, said:

1) A M2 weighs about 84lbs.They'll punch about an inch of RHA from what I understand. Not very effective vs any real armor.
2) There are no deployed railguns. I've seen the videos in labs and the naval plans but its in no way equivalent to battletech scale.
3) We have lasers that are small enough to be vehicle mounted *and* can do more than disrupt the aerodynamics of a flimsy missle structure? I'd love to see.
4) I don't think arrow IV systems are nearly as large as our cruise missles. It looks like the art is based on the Phoenix AtG missile.
5) Again, we have this outside of building sized lab equipment?
6) .50 leveling a tank? errr in what universe? LBX is just like canister shot really. I've seen videos of it fired. Its neat, but hardly an armor threat.

Oh the a10 fires 3900 DU rounds a minute. And its old.

1. Watch FPS russias video if him ripping apart a concrete barrier
2. Yes but they are much higher velocity (higher velocity = alot more force)
3. a 747 isn't realy vehicle mounted
4. I was thinking of the nuclear warheads you get on the nuclear rocket launcher (About the size of a watermelon)
5. I admit only one was built and it had serious heat and energy problems but it existed
6. You should see what happens when a uranium armour piercing round hits tank plate

If you want to start a fire rate contest the M16 vulcan (turret) fires 24000 rounds per minute (although not DU)

Just to prove the massive speed a IRL railgun slug moves at... you see the fire behind it in the pictures people post?
(a submarine propeler creates bubbles behind it because it spins so fast it creates such a low preasure behind the blades that water boils a room temperature, hence the bubbles)
you can actually make water explode if you heat it to 1700C. Air can explode without fuel to at even higher temperatures. The fire behind the railgun slug is caused because it moves so fast that the air behind it gets to such a low preasure it ignites. Thats pretty damn fast.

You can heat water to any temp you like if it has no impurities for bubbles to form on (just to explain how water can explode at 1700C)

Its night where I am so I bid you good day... ummm night

[Vincent Hall]

Nightwish, on 24 January 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:

To be fair the plane it was mounted on was a boeing 747
and I beleive you are thinking of Ion drives (mounted on a japanese probe) rather than plasma..
I never realy though about ammo. I guess the tank may beat the snot out of a company of atlas's before they even get in range, but a light mech would just have to avoid the shots until the tank ran out of ammo (not very long).
This does pose the new question of, why are tanks so weak in battletech?

Tanks are not weak, in the books they are used plenty, in many cases quite effectively, especially in dark age. Mech's are simply preferred due to them A)only needing one pilot instead of a crew usually around 3. B)the fact they can go through terrain tanks would be slowed or stopped in. C)in many of the earlier books people used the hands to do things other than blow something up (like picking up a car with someone important).

Edited by Vincent Hall, 24 January 2012 - 12:37 PM.

[DEN_Ninja]

@Lasers

Texas Laser
Livermore Laser

Meet the Petawatt LASER's. THey can only be fired for what is basically an instant or Ten Trillionths of a second. They take more power than the entire world can provide to fire any longer than that.

When we can get lasers of these magnitude to the scale of BT weaponry then I would say that things might be underpowered.

Otherwise BT is accurate with the power of weapons. Btw we have to start hitting the kilowatt+ levels to even start weaponizing lasers. By that power we can't produce enough power in a small package for them to be viable.