46 replies to this topic

[EDMW CSN]

To field a single Super Heavy like the Omega, WOB could have fitted quite a number of Celestial Omni-mechs.
Granted it was a VERY impressive turret. 3 Gauss rifles and 2 LB-10X cannons.

[Tannhauser Gate]

Mechs are not solid hulls of thick steel like a tank or heavy armored vehicle. They are skeletons of foamed aluminum and titanium with myomer musculature, actuators, cooling systems, redundant control computers surrounded by comparatively thin but rigid armor. On a tank, generally the hull is also the armor in addition to externally applied layers of heavy ceramic and steel composite armor plates. The heaviest thing on a mech is the engine where as on a tank the hull+armor is the heaviest. So a 100 ton mech can stand much taller than a tank and move quicker being of the same weight.

I do agree though that some huge mechs that are clearly more than 100 tons were simplified for TT purposes.

Edited by LakeDaemon, 29 February 2012 - 08:27 AM.

[TheRulesLawyer]

My guess is they looked up tank weights when they were designing the system and thought "100 tons would be a really freaking heavy tank!" and set the weight the same.

[PewPew]

or MAYBE

the standard ton in the universe is not the same as the standard ton in real life?

[PhoenixFire55]

PewPew, on 29 February 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

or MAYBE

the standard ton in the universe is not the same as the standard ton in real life?

Thats actually gives me another thought. On planets with lower gravity 100 ton mech won't put that much strain on its engine. So you can actually load it with more weapons / armor. Its mass will be more than 100 tons but its weight will still be 100 tons. Wonder if its a good idea to consider adding to the game ...

[Alicorn]

GuntherK, on 29 February 2012 - 03:04 AM, said:

Check this one... it had submarine engines... kind of a land boat

And the Maus was also a failure due to the fact that it broke every bridge it came upon - thus, it had to drive along the riverbed.

The main things keeping mechs within their weight limits are
Logistics - You'd have to restructure or create new transports just to move them around
Pressure - this already requires suspension of belief because a 100tn biped would already sink deep in harpacked earth
Diminishing Returns - the engine tonnagedramaticly increases just for to keep the mech moving - a 200tn mech would probably be 95% engine, but move at no better than a crawl
Arbitrary Numbers - to face the facts, this was created for a game system that requires a lot of number crunching, and 100tn (or less in 5tn increments) is a whole lot easier to work with than other numbers.

The most important point for me would be the engine though, as a 150tn behemoth is useless if the enemy can just sheel it with artillery as it crawls along.

[Kartr]

Karl Streiger, on 29 February 2012 - 02:50 AM, said:

BattleTech is the SicFi of the 80's - to try to match todays warfare with Mech Warfare is nonsense.
Next thin BattleTech Armor is ablative! Do you know any modern time armor - that could be damaged by light weapons but is on the other hand capable of stopping a 120mm HighVelocity round?

BattleTech armor cannot possibly be thin, thin is the exact opposite of the ablative concept. Modern armor is designed to be all or nothing, the round is either stopped or it isn't, that's why it'll be essentially unharmed by machine-gun and be defeated by HV AT round.

Ablative armor works in a completely different fashion. It's designed to come off under fire, chunks literally being torn out with every weapon strike. You're going to need a much thicker armor to achieve that, you're also not going to want it to be hardened the way modern ceramic armors are. Soft metal that deforms and looses mass as it gets shot would still take damage from MG fire and stop a HV AT round. The HV AT round is going to do significantly more damage to the ablative armor than a MG round, but both will damage the armor.

The table-top actually has something that models the chance of any weapon defeating full strength ablative armor and penetrating. Roll a 2 on your hit location and you penetrated the armor and did damage to internals. This reflects the unlikely chance that a round would simply punch a hole straight through the ablative armor and strike something inside, rather than be slightly deflected and carve off a chunk of armor.

Karl Streiger, on 29 February 2012 - 02:50 AM, said:

Why only 100tons? I think 100tons is really massive - considering that you want a unit that doesn't get stuck on normal terrain. On the other hand the superheavy verhicles of W40K are superlative failures because with there mass they will crush there own tracks

100 tons is really massive! In fact considering the ground loading, most types of soft terrain are going to be off limits. 'Mechs probably wouldn't be able to move through muddy terrain or riverbeds because they would simply sink so deep into the soft soil they'd get stuck.

Nothing to do with 'Mech weight has to do with realism, which is why it's just an arbitrary number to roughly classify 'Mech capabilities.

Semyon Drakon, on 29 February 2012 - 03:51 AM, said:

I think someone missed the point. Foamed ferro-titanium isn't mostly ferro-titanium it's mostly air. Incredibly strong in weight and torsion situations but incredibly light.

No I didn't, my point is that no fluff explanation can realistically explain the weights. 'Mechs are an absurd idea with zero common sense or realistic use. The only reason the game uses them is because they're cool, not because of any realism. Since the 'Mech concept isn't rooted in any realistic reasoning the weights are also not rooted in any realistic reasoning. 20 to 100 tons in 5 ton increments just makes a nice benchmark system to get a quick idea of the 'Mechs capabilities and provide a framework in which to design a 'Mech. The number 100 was probably decided on because a) its a nice round number and b ) the Maus was roughly 100 tons (IIRC) and is probably the most famous super heavy tank.

Karl Streiger, on 29 February 2012 - 02:50 AM, said:

The armour is also, incredibly light, and very strong in ablative terms. Specialist armours still use the base armour matrix with additional top layers to enhance a certain level of protection.

That doesn't make sense with what we see in the game rules. Standard armor gives you 16 pts of armor per ton, FF armor gives you while 18 pts of armor per ton (17.92 rounded up). If the same basic "armor matrix" was used and additional layers were added on top then FF armor wouldn't give more protection per ton. FF armor is a completely different type of armor, just as hardened armor is a completely different kind of armor. Even reflective armor has to be completely different despite the fact it gives the same amount of protection as standard armor, if it was the same as standard armor with a mirrored finish then it would loose its properties after a couple of hits scorched off the reflective surface, therefor it has to be designed to have a reflective quality all the way through.

As for it has to be "incredibly light" what do you base that off of? The numbers used are all made up: the tonnage of 'Mechs, the protection per ton of armor, the damage output of weapons, the range of weapons, etc. All of that is arbitrary numbers designed to create a fun game and has no basis in reality. 100 tons is an arbitrary upper limit establish by the game designers, nothing more.

Karl Streiger, on 29 February 2012 - 02:50 AM, said:

When I say 'much the same' I am drawing a loose compairon, not saying 'exactly like'.

If in "much the same" you mean to say that ceramic and kevlar are "much the same," that modern armor which is an all or nothing design is "much the same" as a theoretical ablative armor that is designed to be destroyed a little at a time, or that a fictional armor who's protective values has nothing to do with real life numbers is "much the same" as proven MBT armor, then we have very different ideas of what a "loose comparison" is.

Karl Streiger, on 29 February 2012 - 02:50 AM, said:

Mechs weight what they do because the authors and all the other wonderful gents who wrote the fluff decided that's what they weight. End of story.

Semyon

Thank you for agreeing with my original point, the values given in BattleTech and MechWarrior are completely made up by the authors and game designers. If you agreed with me then why were you arguing against me and trying to make the numbers seem like they had some basis in reality?

LakeDaemon, on 29 February 2012 - 08:04 AM, said:

Mechs are not solid hulls of thick steel like a tank or heavy armored vehicle. They are skeletons of foamed aluminum and titanium with myomer musculature, actuators, cooling systems, redundant control computers surrounded by comparatively thin but rigid armor. On a tank, generally the hull is also the armor in addition to externally applied layers of heavy ceramic and steel composite armor plates. The heaviest thing on a mech is the engine where as on a tank the hull+armor is the heaviest. So a 100 ton mech can stand much taller than a tank and move quicker being of the same weight.

Actually a 'Mech is much more dense than a tank. A tank needs open spaces for its crew to move around in so they can access their equipment and shells, etc. Do a quick google image search for tank cutaways, you'll find that most of the turret, and the area below the turret are empty, even the driver has some room. Compare this to a 'Mech where the only large open space is the cockpit where the pilot sits and the rest is taken up by the machinery, reactors, myomer, etc. A 'Mech is going to be much more dense than an MBT and an Atlas torso is roughly the same size as an M1 Abrams, yet is going to weigh a tremendous amount more because it's so much more dense.

Tanks also are going to be lighter because of their monocoque construction, meaning the hull is the skeleton. Consider the fact that a 'Mech needs to have armor all the way around every part, plus have a skeleton and you see a tank wins some weight right there. Also while a tank only has to be armored in roughly six planes (it's essentially a cube, even the turret can just be considered an extension of the cube or what's left after part of the cube is removed) a 'Mech has to be armored all the way around each leg (5 facings times 2) around each arm (6 facings times 2) and the torso (6 facings times 2), then the armor requirements are going to be much greater than those of a tank. 34 facings of armor on a 'Mech vs 11 facings for a tank, plus tanks are smaller overall than most 'Mechs.

Now for the drive system, regardless of how it's done a 'Mech has to have the drive systems to lift a leg move it forward and set it back down. This is going to require a lot more power than simply turning a wheel to drive a track, so it's going to cost more power, more drive parts (one per leg vs one period) etc.

In short a 'Mech is much more dense than a tank, uses a much less efficient means of locomotion, uses a less efficient framework/hull design and has to have much more armor to achieve the same levels of protection. All of that is going to add up to make a 'Mech much heavier than a tank.

Besides armor is armor and in the BattleTech universe tanks and 'Mechs use the exact same type of armor so your claim that 'Mech armor is going to be thinner and lighter than tank armor is blatantly incorrect. Not to mention there has to be something to mount the armor on, which means there has to be some kind of hull in addition to the skeleton.

Face it 'Mechs are inferior to tanks in every way and completely impractical. However 'Mechs are really really cool and that's why we play these games. We suspend our disbelief and enjoy the fun, we just have to accept we cannot rationalize any way for 'Mechs to be physically superior than tanks. As long as we accept that and don't try and argue that 'Mechs are realistically better than tanks we'll be fine.

[nubnub]

^^ well that was pretty thorough

[Tannhauser Gate]

..and wrong in many parts but I don't care enough to argue especially to walls of text with combative language.

[Kartr]

nubnub, on 29 February 2012 - 03:28 PM, said:

^^ well that was pretty thorough

I once wrote a "technical paper" on the evolving capabilities of military equipment and the nature of war and how it sparked the development of the Auto Cannon and the BattleMech. It was a project inspired by a friends story and my need to figure out why AutoCannons and BattleMechs would've been developed. The basic premise was that better engines lead to increased armor on tanks which required new methods of defeating them. Thats what sparked the AutoCannon, multiple rounds to defeat armor much the way burst fire on the M-16 is designed to help defeat body armor. 'Mechs became important because they're easier to stow on dropships and they can be dropped from space to secure an LZ.

LakeDaemon, on 29 February 2012 - 03:42 PM, said:

..and wrong in many parts but I don't care enough to argue especially to walls of text with combative language.

I'm more than willing to listen to what you have to say. Just point out where I'm wrong and tell me why.

[Thomas Covenant]

Sorry if someone said this already but,

In favor of Mechs tonnage accuracy, two things:

1) This is waaaaaaaaaay in the future, give it a break who knows what they know how to make.

2) year 3XXX battletech "tons" may not equal contemporary Earth "tons". Infact we have a margin of disagreement with tons here, and thats just one planet. Example: 62.5 tonnes = 61.5 long tons = 68.9 short tons

[Kartr]

Thomas Covenant, on 29 February 2012 - 03:57 PM, said:

Sorry if someone said this already but,

In favor of Mechs tonnage accuracy, two things:

1) This is waaaaaaaaaay in the future, give it a break who knows what they know how to make.

2) year 3XXX battletech "tons" may not equal contemporary Earth "tons". Infact we have a margin of disagreement with tons here, and thats just one planet. Example: 62.5 tonnes = 61.5 long tons = 68.9 short tons

The argument is that 'Mech tons is an arbitrary number not based in reality that was picked by the game designers because of it's usefulness not because of it's realism. Because vehicles of that size and density would weight much more than their cannon weight. Since we're talking about why the game designers picked that number and they have to be from here in this time, they had to have been using modern tons. Plus how would they know if there was some super technology in the future that made the impossible weights possible? The designers say its possible because they want a nice easy structure to build the game around, not because they're theoretical physicists and engineers who used modern knowledge to extrapolate realistic values for a game set in the future. Once again, the numbers are arbitrary with no basis in reality.

Secondly ton is either the long ton or the short ton and both are based on lbs which are a unit of weight, while the tonne is unit of mass equivalent to 1000kg. In a future where interstellar travel is possible and humans have colonized multiple planets, tonne would likely have become the standard unit since mass doesn't change with changes in gravity. Though once again it doesn't really matter because we're not talking about how they measure it in the future, we're talking about why the game designers used 100 tons.

Edited by Kartr, 29 February 2012 - 04:54 PM.

[Benjamin Larson]

Kartr, on 29 February 2012 - 03:15 PM, said:

BattleTech armor cannot possibly be thin, thin is the exact opposite of the ablative concept. Modern armor is designed to be all or nothing, the round is either stopped or it isn't, that's why it'll be essentially unharmed by machine-gun and be defeated by HV AT round.

Ablative armor works in a completely different fashion. It's designed to come off under fire, chunks literally being torn out with every weapon strike. You're going to need a much thicker armor to achieve that, you're also not going to want it to be hardened the way modern ceramic armors are. Soft metal that deforms and looses mass as it gets shot would still take damage from MG fire and stop a HV AT round. The HV AT round is going to do significantly more damage to the ablative armor than a MG round, but both will damage the armor.

You should read something about it before you post.

From the link
: "Ablation is removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes."

I've got to parse my argument out over a few replies- MWOnline's system doesn't like TL;DR arguments like this one.

[Benjamin Larson]

Kartr, on 29 February 2012 - 03:15 PM, said:

That doesn't make sense with what we see in the game rules. Standard armor gives you 16 pts of armor per ton, FF armor gives you while 18 pts of armor per ton (17.92 rounded up). If the same basic "armor matrix" was used and additional layers were added on top then FF armor wouldn't give more protection per ton. FF armor is a completely different type of armor, just as hardened armor is a completely different kind of armor. Even reflective armor has to be completely different despite the fact it gives the same amount of protection as standard armor, if it was the same as standard armor with a mirrored finish then it would loose its properties after a couple of hits scorched off the reflective surface, therefor it has to be designed to have a reflective quality all the way through.

Once again, you should read about it before you talk like you understand it.

From the Sarna Link: "Standard BattleMech armor is composed of several layers providing various degrees of protection and support. The first layer is extremely strong steel, the result of crystal alignment and radiation treatment, which is also very brittle. The second layer is a ceramic, cubic boron nitride, which combined with a web of artificial diamond fibers acts as a backstop to the steel layer. These two layers rest atop a titanium alloy honeycomb structure which provides support, and a layer of self-sealing polymer sealant which allows for space and underwater operations."

Ferro Fibrous, and how its made, is located in Techmanual- it uses Diamond Fiber Filaments throughout the steel layer, and the other forms (light and heavy) just modify those levels.

Kartr, on 29 February 2012 - 03:15 PM, said:

If in "much the same" you mean to say that ceramic and kevlar are "much the same," that modern armor which is an all or nothing design is "much the same" as a theoretical ablative armor that is designed to be destroyed a little at a time, or that a fictional armor who's protective values has nothing to do with real life numbers is "much the same" as proven MBT armor, then we have very different ideas of what a "loose comparison" is.

Only problem here is you've largely been wrong- no offense, of course.

Quote

Actually a 'Mech is much more dense than a tank. A tank needs open spaces for its crew to move around in so they can access their equipment and shells, etc. Do a quick google image search for tank cutaways, you'll find that most of the turret, and the area below the turret are empty, even the driver has some room. Compare this to a 'Mech where the only large open space is the cockpit where the pilot sits and the rest is taken up by the machinery, reactors, myomer, etc. A 'Mech is going to be much more dense than an MBT and an Atlas torso is roughly the same size as an M1 Abrams, yet is going to weigh a tremendous amount more because it's so much more dense.

Nope. Again with my previous argument on armor, the larger surface area to cover means a 'mech will actually be much easier to damage with far thinner armor. Having to have free space to move around inside of a tank doesn't mean much- if you've been inside of one, you'd know that they are cramped as hell.

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Tanks also are going to be lighter because of their monocoque construction, meaning the hull is the skeleton.

BTech's tanks have tonnage allocated for it's internal structure, so no. For someone who's stating that we are bringing real world science into a science fiction game...

Quote

Consider the fact that a 'Mech needs to have armor all the way around every part, plus have a skeleton and you see a tank wins some weight right there. Also while a tank only has to be armored in roughly six planes (it's essentially a cube, even the turret can just be considered an extension of the cube or what's left after part of the cube is removed) a 'Mech has to be armored all the way around each leg (5 facings times 2) around each arm (6 facings times 2) and the torso (6 facings times 2), then the armor requirements are going to be much greater than those of a tank. 34 facings of armor on a 'Mech vs 11 facings for a tank, plus tanks are smaller overall than most 'Mechs.

You really hurt your own argument here. No idea why, since you said the complete opposite above.

Quote

Besides armor is armor and in the BattleTech universe tanks and 'Mechs use the exact same type of armor so your claim that 'Mech armor is going to be thinner and lighter than tank armor is blatantly incorrect. Not to mention there has to be something to mount the armor on, which means there has to be some kind of hull in addition to the skeleton.

He probably meant for the total used and how much it can support, where he is correct. Either way, IRL Mechs would always have thinner armor just due to surface area as you said yourself above.

[Pht]

PhoenixFire55, on 29 February 2012 - 01:28 AM, said:

A noob question I suppose but still ...
I was always wondering why is that there are no mechs above the 100 tons limit?
When you look at the Behemoth compared to Atlas and Daishi/DireWolf you'd think it should weight more than them?

The in-universe materials and tech don't support going over 100 tons; and the super-heavies at the future end of the time line are less 'Mechs and more somewhat mobile emplacements.

[Captain Hat]

Benjamin Larson, on 29 February 2012 - 05:09 PM, said:

You should read something about it before you post.

From the link
: "Ablation is removal of material from the surface of an object by vaporization, chipping, or other erosive processes."

I've got to parse my argument out over a few replies- MWOnline's system doesn't like TL;DR arguments like this one.

Dude, you're barking up completely the wrong pole here: Ablation is the degradation sustained by the armour, but it's also the mechanism by which the armour in BTech achieves its effect- by soaking up the energy of incoming weapons fire, the armour ablates- that is to say, erodes away- leaving the structure beneath intact. It's a fictional concept at the moment, except for use in specialist applications like single-use heat shields and so on. Here, I'll help you:

http://en.wikipedia..../Ablative_armor

For the ablative armour concept to remain at all effective after taking more than one shot, he is absolutely correct: it does, indeed, need to be quite thick. Not necessarily dense, but thick.

Benjamin Larson, on 29 February 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

Only problem here is you've largely been wrong- no offense, of course.

Actually- having long been intrigued by the concept of the walking war machine and why people get so obsessed by it when it's so obviously completely impractical, I've looked into this whole argument and he's pretty much spot on with most of it. You yourself don't seem to be too far off-base with a lot ofthe statements you're making, but you seem to have lost the plot somewhere when you were trying to figure out what Kartr's point was.

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Nope. Again with my previous argument on armor, the larger surface area to cover means a 'mech will actually be much easier to damage with far thinner armor. Having to have free space to move around inside of a tank doesn't mean much- if you've been inside of one, you'd know that they are cramped as hell.

You have completely missed the point here. The point he was making- and he was absolutely correct to make it- is that a 'mech's innards will by necessity be a lot denser than those of a tank due to the reduction in free space. Density and armouring are by no means the same thing. You are technically correct in stating that the same amount of armour put on a 'mech will be thinner due to the increased surface area, but it's completely irrelevant to the point he was making so I'm not sure why you bothered to mention it.

Quote

BTech's tanks have tonnage allocated for it's internal structure, so no. For someone who's stating that we are bringing real world science into a science fiction game...

BTech's tanks can be set out however the game makers like in their Game Mechanics Construct, that isn't what he was talking about: We're not comparing the weight of 'mechs to that of fictional tanks, we're looking at real ones and seeing what answers we might extrapolate as to how realistic the numbers BTech gives us are. You can't really do that using tanks that are also cooked up in the same more-or-less arbitrary rules construct as the 'mechs. Real world tanks use monocoque construction. Again, while you are not technically incorrect, you have missed the point.

Quote

You really hurt your own argument here. No idea why, since you said the complete opposite above.

Actually, no he didn't: You just didn't do very well at reading comprehension.

[Odins Reaver]

And to defend 40k, their super-heavy tanks have anti-grav units on their belly's (heavily shielded I might add as the eldar have learned to go for these). And there is also the dropship issue to think about as well, most dropships can only carry so much weight into a atmosphere, so what good is it if one to two mechs take up the whole drop ship.

[Pht]

Captain Hat, on 29 February 2012 - 05:44 PM, said:

Dude, you're barking up completely the wrong pole here: Ablation is the degradation sustained by the armour, but it's also the mechanism by which the armour in BTech achieves its effect- by soaking up the energy of incoming weapons fire, the armour ablates- that is to say, erodes away- leaving the structure beneath intact. It's a fictional concept at the moment, except for use in specialist applications like single-use heat shields and so on. Here, I'll help you:

http://en.wikipedia..../Ablative_armor

For the ablative armour concept to remain at all effective after taking more than one shot, he is absolutely correct: it does, indeed, need to be quite thick. Not necessarily dense, but thick.

Ah, no, BT armor does not achieve it's full effect by ablation only.

Quote

Standard Armor

BattleMech armor is formed in tightly bonded multiple layers, Just two of which can properly be called armor.

The outer layer is an extremely strong, extremely hard layer of steel. It fragments projectiles. It ablates and conducts heatto provide protection from energy attacks. The crystalline structure of this steel is carefully aligned and radiation treated for maximum hardness and strength. Because of its phenomenal strength and hardness, the outer layer suffers the trade off of being quite brittle. It is so brittle that the second layer of armor - a ceramic, cubic boron nitride - has to act as a backstop for fragments of the outer layer, molten outer armor, and even outer armor converted into plasma by heavy attack.

The second layer - cubic boron nitride - a very hard layer in its own right - is processed to avoid porosity and includes a micro fiber web of man made diamond mono-filament fibers, along with sensors and data/control lines. This weave imparts a little bit of flexibility for this second layer that acts as a backstop to the outer layer. This layer also stops High Explosive Armor Piercing (HEAP) rounds and fast neutrons.

http://www.sarna.net...echnology#Armor

Emphasis mine.

Quote

We're not comparing the weight of 'mechs to that of fictional tanks, we're looking at real ones and seeing what answers we might extrapolate as to how realistic the numbers BTech gives us are.

http://mwomercs.com/...h__1#entry33211

http://mwomercs.com/...dpost__p__13666

http://mwomercs.com/...h__1#entry13042

These might be of some use to you.

[Captain Hat]

Pht, on 29 February 2012 - 05:54 PM, said:

Ah, no, BT armor does not achieve it's full effect by ablation only.

The conduction of heat is an aid to its ablative function, nothing more: I find it odd that anyone could mistake it for an additional function but even if it was, that doesn't make the armour non-ablative. According to the game rules, in fact, the "ablative armour" concept correlates exactly with the way the armour on 'mechs behaves when shot at.

Quote

http://mwomercs.com/...h__1#entry33211

http://mwomercs.com/...dpost__p__13666

http://mwomercs.com/...h__1#entry13042

These might be of some use to you.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but none of those look relevant to the arguments regarding weight? They provide some nice finagles to explain how BTech armour is tougher than, for example, chewing gum (which is what you get when you extrapolate directly from fall damage and is roughly as believable as if I claimed to be an Olympic athlete), and a few nice bits of fluff text, but there's nothing there that can get past the fact that a real vehicle the size of an Atlas would probably weigh a lot more than 100 tons regardless of the materials technology fiddles you put in the way or the fact that a walking vehicle that weighed 100 tons would be unable to go pretty much anywhere: It would sink into the ground on metalled roads for goodness' sake.

For me, personally, that doesn't matter: 'Mechs are cool because they're cool, and that has nothing to do with being realistic. In-universe justifications are fine for smudging the boundaries and aiding suspension of disbelief, but I am fully aware that my disbelief is merely suspended.

40K gets a free pass for similar reasons but to a much greater extent: While BTech is at least semi-serious science fiction, 40K is more or less pure fantasy with a Wagnerian space opera tint. It isn't even trying to be realistic, and honestly neither should you be. If you want to write up technical explanations for the basic finagles of the universe, that's awesome, but please please please don't expect or need it to hold any water.

If you really want to do this, though- the first thing I would need is a good estimate of the height of an Atlas.

Edited by Captain Hat, 29 February 2012 - 06:13 PM.

[Kartr]

Benjamin Larson, on 29 February 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

Once again, you should read about it before you talk like you understand it.

From the Sarna Link: "Standard BattleMech armor is composed of several layers providing various degrees of protection and support. The first layer is extremely strong steel, the result of crystal alignment and radiation treatment, which is also very brittle. The second layer is a ceramic, cubic boron nitride, which combined with a web of artificial diamond fibers acts as a backstop to the steel layer. These two layers rest atop a titanium alloy honeycomb structure which provides support, and a layer of self-sealing polymer sealant which allows for space and underwater operations."

Ferro Fibrous, and how its made, is located in Techmanual- it uses Diamond Fiber Filaments throughout the steel layer, and the other forms (light and heavy) just modify those levels.

Standard armor is 16pts of protection per ton, FF is 16(1.12)pts per ton and takes up criticals. So 1 ton of FF has more volume than 1 ton of Standard, so FF is less dense than Standard, therefore Standard cannot be the same composition as FF.

Benjamin Larson, on 29 February 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

Nope. Again with my previous argument on armor, the larger surface area to cover means a 'mech will actually be much easier to damage with far thinner armor.

Well this was kind of my point, to achieve the same levels of protection a 'Mech is going to need much more armor because its spread out over a much greater surface area. A tank with 10 "tons" of armor is going to be much better protected than a 'Mech with 10 "tons" of armor. In game terms a Tank has 5 facings to apply that 160 pts of armor while a 'Mech has to place those 160 pts across 11 facings. A tank with 10 "tons" of armor could have 32 pts on each facing while the 'Mech would have 14.5 pts per facing. A 'Mech would need 22 "tons" of armor to achieve the same amount of protection on all facings. So to achieve the same level of protection a 'Mech needs more than twice as much armor as a tank by game rules. So just arguing from game rules a 'Mech is going to be much heavier than a tank.

Benjamin Larson, on 29 February 2012 - 05:14 PM, said:

He probably meant for the total used and how much it can support, where he is correct. Either way, IRL Mechs would always have thinner armor just due to surface area as you said yourself above.

Thinner armor for the same weight, which means more weight to achieve the same thickness, making the 'Mech more heavy than a tank of equal protection.