98 replies to this topic

[Victor Morson]

The problem with PPCs is they're entirely already outclassed by real world military tech. Part of the problem with converting BattleTech to real world technology is that a single long range bomber armed with a Fuel Air Bomb could obliterate an entire company of 'mechs in one shot, no problems.

Also, nukes have been developed with small enough blast areas and limited radiation fallout that would make them entirely practical to use in warfare outside of MAD. I could see the Ares conventions stopping this sort of thing in populated areas but without the "last devastation" side effect being that major, you can bet Arrow IV launchers would be lobbing small tac-nukes instead.

This is of course outside of the problem that there's absolutely no practical purpose to putting a tank on legs anyway. If you took some of the silly crit rules off vehicles in BT (there to combat this very problem) tanks are almost always superior to 'mechs in their weight class. Even with the crit rules, for the BV, they are just as good as 'mechs - despite costing far, far less.

Anyway my only point is all these "We can build tech from BattleTech!" threads are pretty silly because even if we could, we probably wouldn't.

... of course, playing a game about commanding swarms of networked drones firing shots from so far away you can't see them and don't even require much human interaction would either be lame, or very, very different despite that being a far more likely future of warfare.

EDIT: Also I'm pretty sure that any modern strike fighter could obliterate any CBT Areospace fighter. Far, far longer range + far better radar. It'd be interesting to see someone do a "Who wins?" debate - a modern day battalion of the US military versus a battalion of CBT T2 Troops, both with air support and off-board support. I honestly think the CBT forces would get creamed.

Edited by Victor Morson, 22 April 2012 - 10:32 PM.

[JackDeth]

The secret of magnetic containment for the accumulated particles lies in the polarity of the containing electromagnets.
As long as the polarity is maintained so that a magnetic spear is not produced the particles will both attract and repel from the walls of the container at the same time...so that distance is maintained and the particles collect to the point of reversal of the polarity to expel the charge.
Once the charge is released from the container...the barrel of the weapon is now charged in a rail gun configuration to guide or aim the stream.
And...presto...you have a weapon!
Jack

[Blizzard99]

Prosperity Park, on 22 April 2012 - 10:00 PM, said:

Lightning and PPC-fire are about as related as Shockwaves and Rifle Bullets.

Your use of "about as related" makes me twitch, considering you know supersonic projectiles and shockwaves are indeed related.

[errorabbit]

Victor Morson, on 22 April 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

EDIT: Also I'm pretty sure that any modern strike fighter could obliterate any CBT Areospace fighter. Far, far longer range + far better radar. It'd be interesting to see someone do a "Who wins?" debate - a modern day battalion of the US military versus a battalion of CBT T2 Troops, both with air support and off-board support. I honestly think the CBT forces would get creamed.

I totally agree with you on the rest of your post...
BUT!
I think modern strike fighters would totally loose out against CBT Aerospace fighters... for a very simple reason: They are aeroSPACE fighters. These things can reach far higher flight altitudes than any modern fighters, in fact, seeing how they can fly into space, their flight altitude is essentially infinite, allowing them to pick conventional airplanes out of the air in a manner comparable to orbital strikes. (Even today, being able to reach higher altitude is considered a technical advantage in the design of fighter planes. )
Of course, if they are supposed to leave atmosphere on their own power, they should also be far faster/more powerful in the engine than meager jets.
You need to reach escape velocity after all.

Does it make sense to even have combined space/air strike fighters? I'm not sure. I'd guess not.

Edited by errorabbit, 23 April 2012 - 03:52 AM.

[Mason Grimm]

Victor Morson, on 22 April 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

EDIT: Also I'm pretty sure that any modern strike fighter could obliterate any CBT Areospace fighter. Far, far longer range + far better radar. It'd be interesting to see someone do a "Who wins?" debate - a modern day battalion of the US military versus a battalion of CBT T2 Troops, both with air support and off-board support. I honestly think the CBT forces would get creamed.

While I agree to some extent I also disagree.

In some ways it is true; in atmosphere modern day fighters could probably outperform battletech aerospace fighters for the time period of MW:O (to keep it related to the forum topic) BUT, as was mentioned above, aeroSPACE fighters can go in to space, fly on drop ships, have weapons that our modern day fighters don't have.

Also, all things being equal please keep in mind that after the fourth succession war the decline of mankind had reached a point where people were cobbling tech together just to keep things in the air (or on the ground). I daresay that Star League era tech could well out-perform anything we have on the modern battlefield.

It is so hard to have debates like this because it is all supposition and we have no empirical way of actually testing these theories. Simply put; things are limited by ones imagination and interpretation.

Which is really kind of the point right?

[pesco]

Rejarial Galatan, on 22 April 2012 - 08:26 PM, said:

Why do I suddenly think the LHC in Cern is now nothing more than an over grown PPC that circles itself? Is this some first step to PPCs and they just wont tell us?

I've been told the way their quick shutdown procedure works is to turn off the magnets in a bend and let the particles run straight out into a dead-end tunnel section. The dead-end contains a long array of inch-thick lead plates in their way. The beam burns ragged holes through them for about 10 meters.

[Gigaton]

Victor Morson, on 22 April 2012 - 10:24 PM, said:

Also, nukes have been developed with small enough blast areas and limited radiation fallout that would make them entirely practical to use in warfare outside of MAD. I could see the Ares conventions stopping this sort of thing in populated areas but without the "last devastation" side effect being that major, you can bet Arrow IV launchers would be lobbing small tac-nukes instead.

Someone calucated the kinetic energy of the Gauss Rifle a while back here, with the assumption it's 125kg projectile travelling at 3500 m/s. It was 0.75 kilotons, IIRC. So if you go with that, Arrow IV really is a 1 kiloton tactical nuke. 'Mechs are just really tough, though the energy of the blast can still knock them down if they aren't destroyed.

(keeping that energy ratio, 1 ton of MG ammo would explode with greater power than Hiroshima bomb, however )

(Edit) Never mind, I probably recalled tha calucation incorrectly. Kinetic energy of a Gauss Rifle would be 0.000183 kilotons. Uness I'm really failing with math here, that's equivalent to 183kg of TNT, which is about the same as total explosive output of a small aerial bomb I guess.

Edited by Gigaton, 23 April 2012 - 04:44 AM.

[guardiandashi]

re the aerospace fighters vs "real" modern aircraft

aon the aerospace fighter side you have the following advantages
armor
armor that can soak damage hits that would make most anti aircraft weapons look like a sneeze.
an energy budget that is frankly insane (ecm ok I am going to turn on my radar/jammer systems and burn out your radar detectors because they just got EMP'd)
weapons ranges frankly most battletech weapons would realistically have LOS (Line Of Sight) ranges the main reason they do not is for playability reasons (I don't know many people who are prepared to play on the equivalant of a basketball court worth of terrain for a lance on lance combat)
thrust 1 "thrust point" for an aerospace fighter generates 0.5g worth of acceleration any fighter that can generate 2 thrust points or more can stand on its tail and hover (and they all can generate a minimum of 3 thrust, unless overloaded with bombs or similar)

I could go on but shrug

"real aircraft"
umm they are real
they use aerodynamics and lifting surfaces so they may be able to pull some maneuvers an aerospace fighter cannot...

umm thats pretty much it offhand

[Diomed]

A laser is a beam of coherent light while a PPC is a beam of coherent charged particles. A PPC doesn't exist because physicists have not figured out the underlying physics so engineers could figure out how to make something useful with it, anything else is pure speculation.

[Skylarr]

The first Battlemechwas able to take on 4 on the most advanced tanks mankind had at that time period. It came out without a scratch. So the idea is that the armor on Battlemechs is far superior to anything we have today.

In 2414 the Ares Convension was signed. They were forgotten about during most of the Succession Wars. It was during these wars that the House Lords Stopped using weapon of mass destruction (WMD). The 3rd Succession War (2866 to 3025) "was fought with technology that was considered mystical".


Even the use of tactical nuclear weapon (or TNW) had stopped. Do not worry. You will see them again.

I enjoy reading these debates. To see how others think about what the future may hold in their mind. This is a SciFi game? Yes?

Edited by Skylarr, 23 April 2012 - 06:44 AM.

[Stripes]

PPCs fire a concentrated stream of protons or ions at a target. © SarnaNet

In essence PPC still fires beam of plasma, or ionized gas (which is plasma) - with Gauss MA you can compress it, and, with enough energy, accelerate it almot to speed of light.
Most funny fact - we can create such dev. with modern day tech, but it will fire only once most likely.

On the sidenot - dont confuse ordinary chemical explosives with nukes. Atomic Weapons are pain in the *** to maintein and very expensive to build, you cant hold it battle ready just by storing it in some storage unit. Most likely even Successors States have very few of them - compared too Cold War era at least.

Edited by Stripes, 23 April 2012 - 07:19 AM.

[JackDeth]

Correct on the nukes being difficult to store.
The electronics industry had to come up with special IC's (integrated circuits) to use in them.
The IC's had a substrate of lead embedded so that the radiation would not deteriorate the internals of the IC.
Any "normal" electronic circuit left in the radiation area will break down very quickly...and in the case of timing circuits perhaps start their sequence while sitting in the storage area!
Jack

[TeaL3af]

Skylarr, on 23 April 2012 - 06:40 AM, said:

The first Battlemechwas able to take on 4 on the most advanced tanks mankind had at that time period. It came out without a scratch. So the idea is that the armor on Battlemechs is far superior to anything we have today.

Why not just put that armour on a tank?

[Aelos03]

Pel Morba, on 22 April 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

The power requirements for such a weapon are, as noted, enormous. If we ever lick the cold fusion problem, then we can build whatever we like.

The US Navy is close to deploying Gauss rifles on their warships and it's only a matter of time before the technology trickles down to tanks, albeit after some severe minaturization.

I'm very intrigued that CERN might just be a testbed for Battletech fans with particle physics doctorates.

Problem is not in weapons its power they need, at this moment people can make laser tank but it could fire only once, so in order to make weapon work you need to supply it with a lot of power. Fix power issue and you will have sci fi weapons.

[Gigaton]

TeaL3af, on 23 April 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

Why not just put that armour on a tank?

That's because tank can get critted through armour on roll of 2 or 12, no matter how much it has. This interesting scientific factoid works against conventional assets.

[Aelos03]

Reason why mechs are superior to tanks is that mechs are all terrain vehicles and in addition to that mechs can hide better,more maneuverable and hight.

[Skylarr]

TeaL3af, on 23 April 2012 - 08:17 AM, said:

Why not just put that armour on a tank?

I am guessing you have not been playing Battletech very long. Combat Vehicles can have the same armor, weapons and equipment. Some can be down right nasty. But, they are more fragile and is limited by terrain.

[Kenyon Burguess]

i can remember reading this when i was in grade school. we were so excited by it. http://www.airpower....ug/roberds.html

[The unnamed one]

pursang, on 22 April 2012 - 10:08 PM, said:

THANK YOU! I'm glad I'm not the only person who realizes the two are very different weapon systems.

But they still do the same thing, the use of magentism to propel an iron slug really really fast.

Edited by The unnamed one, 23 April 2012 - 10:01 AM.

[Knt Maverick]

Pel Morba, on 22 April 2012 - 09:47 PM, said:

The power requirements for such a weapon are, as noted, enormous. If we ever lick the cold fusion problem, then we can build whatever we like.

The US Navy is close to deploying Gauss rifles on their warships and it's only a matter of time before the technology trickles down to tanks, albeit after some severe minaturization.

I'm very intrigued that CERN might just be a testbed for Battletech fans with particle physics doctorates.

as was stated... i think... the US is close to deploying Rail Technology. In-fact i'm pretty sure that some Naval battleships are already refitted to housing 1 or 2 "Rail Hybrid" cannons... using a standard "powder-based" round for initial acceloration and increasing the acceloration via the rail system in the barrel.