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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
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Location: United States
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 Posted: 13-Oct-2003 00:54 Post subject: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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This isn't a game mechanics discusion, but a more general question.
What benefits could possibly be had by a standing up unit? for one thing, they would be unstable, for another, what possible strategic, tactical or pratical value do the offer for development?
helicopters make better fast strike/scout units. They also already exist.
Tanks make excellent stable battle platforms, as well as making a battle mobile and today's tanks are completely durable and powerful!
Infantry are just ten times better at being flexable. Infantry can do anything you need them to do. They have hands, they can grab things, set explosions, whatever is necessary, and already exist.
What possible use could there be for a BattleMech, other then coolness factor. I mean jsut a practicle reason.
Raven!
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Stinger
The Knights of Chaos
General
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:00 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Psycological(sp) would be the first and most practicle use for a battlemech other than that none really.
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Stinger
If it's "creepy" to use the Internet, military satellites, and robot aircraft to find a house full of gorgeous young models so I can drop in on them unexpected, then FINE, I'm "creepy". Howard Wolowitz. BBT.
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Daphne Wilde
Star League Defense Force
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:12 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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that and you can combine all the units listed positives into one machine.
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Lt.Col.Daphne Wilde
504 Para. 82 Div.
Io
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Hardware
Clan Ghost Bear
Star Colonel
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:14 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Firepower and mobility. As depicted in the game 'mechs can go where treaded and wheeled vehicles cannot go due to terrain and where they couldn't go due to gravity.
Remember that a mech can climb the side of a building as well as the side of a mountain. 'Mechs also fight in hostile terrain, such as underwater, poisonous atmospheres or vacuum.
The game also skews things in the 'mech's favor by making the vehicles more vulnerable. It seems to me that the 'mech, being more complex, is going to be more vulnerable.
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Daphne Wilde
Star League Defense Force
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:23 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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the higher the tech, the more easy it is to break.
Just me being a smart ass.
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Lt.Col.Daphne Wilde
504 Para. 82 Div.
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:25 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Not really, I'd imagine that a battlemech type unit would have actually less terrain cabability then a tank. And no battlemech unit would ever be able to reach the break neck speeds you see in BattleTech (didn't Vampire write about this?)
Also, It would be interesting to see a battlemech fire an 88mm cannon, cause the recoil would probably blow the thing off its two feet. See, this is my question.
I'd say Battle Armor/ Protomech type units would be more practicle and more realistic (and also would keep the psych factor)
Raven!
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:27 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Actually this is also completely accurate. Their are a TON more movable parts, many of them taking a lot of stress just to WALK (thats even without tons of armor plating and the impact of missiles and cannon fire). How well could these units hold up? I imagine you'd get the same problem as with rockets: you can't carry enough fuel to break the gravity well of earth (or something like that) so you have to have stages. But how do you ahve stages of legs?
Raven!
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Daphne Wilde
Star League Defense Force
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 01:56 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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sorry this i just HAD to get out.
Stages of legs? son, look at women we have stages of legs...
sorry too much beer tonight and sombody made a similar comment and I had to share it. 
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Lt.Col.Daphne Wilde
504 Para. 82 Div.
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Sir Henry
Team Bansai
Senior Tech Specialist
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 07:16 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Stages of legs.... We that can be a two fold question. One sober and one not.... 
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Sir Henry
A Dragon in the disguise of a bunny, is still a Dragon.
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Nightmare
Lyran Alliance
Kommandant-General
Joined: 03-May-2002 00:00
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 11:56 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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I don't think the coolness factor helps any if the unit is too easy to destroy.
Still, all things considered, it's possible that a mecha fan gets elected some day. The military spends money on a lot of things so ordering research on walking combat units could be possible. It wouldn't be a main battle unit, but a support unit. I could see it used to carry weapons that are too big for light infantry but not worth an airlift in hostile territory. AT weapons, mostly, or some kind of grenade launcher. Some armies use jeeps as platforms for recoilless rifles, now imagine using a small walker for that. Easier to stay with the infantry in woods or mountains. So you get something that's useful for dragging heavy weapons into places where only Vietnamese could take them before
So Battle Armor or Protos would be the largest walker you get in the real world.
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 12:08 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Look how easy it is to kill a tank. Look how easy it is to kill a VTOL. Look how easy it is to kill infantry.
Compare that will how difficult it is to kill a mech.
That's your answer.
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Bo
ComStar
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 13:13 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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On 2003-10-13 01:14, Hardware wrote:
It seems to me that the 'mech, being more complex, is going to be more vulnerable.
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One could argue the mech is a less complex system. The bone, muscle and electrical impulses is a "proven" concept. All you need to move a mech is structure, myomer bundles and a power source. Also such a system can take more damage and continue to function (compared to a drive-train model) (get stabbed deep in the thigh and keep walking - yes, you will stitches later!).
In my opinion that is a less complex system than a drive train, transmission and wheels/tracks.
Also I would argue I can walk though a more terrain types than I could drive (even if it was a "man sized" vehicle).
As for the balance thing, gyros are common place already. From the Segway to the International Space Station, gyros are already in use. The neural feedback helmet is a sound concept so one could believe it works without much complexity.
Power generation, sensors, weapons and other electronics the same between mechs and vehicles so no comparison here.
Now as for the weapon recoil and jump capability, the laws of motion do get stretched there.
As for system stresses, the only thing we know for certain is the mass. As for the materials that carry the stresses, most are fictitious with a bases on reality, so we can only assume that has been dealt with.
[ This Message was edited by: Bo on 2003-10-13 13:15 ]
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Paul
Capellan Confederation
Sang-wei
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 13:33 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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On 2003-10-13 01:25, Raven! wrote:
Not really, I'd imagine that a battlemech type unit would have actually less terrain cabability then a tank.
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?
Why?
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And no battlemech unit would ever be able to reach the break neck speeds you see in BattleTech (didn't Vampire write about this?)
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With current tech? Dunno.
With futuristic material engineering? I don't see why not.
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Also, It would be interesting to see a battlemech fire an 88mm cannon, cause the recoil would probably blow the thing off its two feet. See, this is my question.
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Unless of course they have recoil compression that reduces the remaining force to something equivalent to a rifle shot.
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I'd say Battle Armor/ Protomech type units would be more practicle and more realistic (and also would keep the psych factor)
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Probably true.
My 2 comments up there should illustrate that tech makes the question relative; any technical problem you can cough up can and will be solved eventually.
What's more useful is to determine if such a vehicle would be useful without looking too hard at tech and the slant to BattleMechs provided by the rules in the game.
The higher profile makes them easier to hit compared to lower vehicles. It also allows their weaponry to strike back easier. However, tanks keep getting lower to the ground, which makes my non-military self assume there's considerably more value in a lower profile than a higher one. After all, if they wanted to, they could build the M1 tank with a turret 30 feet tall. It'd look rediculous, but if that high elevation of the gun was useful, they'd do it.
The hands aren't too useful. You can drag about cargo on trucks and what have you, and to make the main selling point of your MBT that it can drag a few metric tons of cargo about while in the field you should call it an engineering vehicle, not a weapon of war.
Additionally, they'd be useful if they could manipulate complex machinery. Unfortunately, I doubt we'll be making too much stuff that's to scale with a Mech, so infantry it is. One use I see is to make a door open only with a lever that requires the
strength of a 30 foot tall robot to open.
Another potential use for hands could be to allow a Mech to swap it's main weapon. Drop the weapons pod that has an AC in it, and mount a pod that has missiles in it. Kinda semi-Omnitech (which is a bit too vague to me)
That'd make the unit a bit more flexible, but not too much. Your MBT carries the best weapon you have in your armory. Be that a cannon, laser, missile, squeegleespooge dispenser, whatever it happens to be. Anything else is carried by different vehicles, with different purposes.
Orbital, high or low altitude drops. This is where there's potential. You could para-drop tanks about, but they'd have to be rather light, and you'd better hope they don't drift in to a pond or a stand of trees. If a Mech Drifts, usually, it'll be able to free itself. Additionally, you could use the 'Mechs legs for shock absorbing, something I don't quite see happening with threads.
Whether you pull this off with jumpjets, or jetpacks is not too important; any system you can stick on a Mech you can stick on a tank.
That's about it.
Scouting, VTOL's and drones are better at that.
Firepower; apart from the rules in BT, there's really no reason why tanks would be able to deploy less firepower to the field ton for ton, or why they'd be more vulnerable ton for ton.
Psychological factor, yeah, only the first fight. People adapt rather well if you show footage of Mechs getting blown to pieces by infantry in basic training.
And there's no reason why they couldn't be.
What else is there?
The wars of the future will probably be ruled in the skies. Fighters / bombers galore. After you're done with that, you send in your Battlearmored troops in their APC's (emphasis on APC) and maybe some support vehicles with higher power weapons.
Then some soft infantry to hold.
Beyond that would only be WarShips or their equivalent. What's the point of 50 Mech regiments if you can't move them without them getting NACed to scrap?
Paul
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Stinger
The Knights of Chaos
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 13:54 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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Yup. That and right now we are trying to ger people OUT of the fight. There are sever schools and science departments working for government funding. The goal is a UNmaned vehicle that can navigate from LA to Los Vegas with out any sort of outside help. It has to be able to average 30 Mph, asertain its terrain and other obsticles and navigate around them or through them. They said the goal was in the next 10 to 20 years have 1 in 10 vehicles on the field piloted by people. The other 9 are drones running on a preprogrammed mission, with the drone "making decisions on the fly".
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Stinger
If it's "creepy" to use the Internet, military satellites, and robot aircraft to find a house full of gorgeous young models so I can drop in on them unexpected, then FINE, I'm "creepy". Howard Wolowitz. BBT.
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Raven!
Clan Snow Raven
Galaxy Commander
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 13-Oct-2003 15:10 Post subject: RE: BattleMechs vs. Other Units |
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well in the game, but technically since the BattleMech and Tank both use the same type of armor, shouldn't they both be equally vulnerable? I've been thinking, and the more I think about it, the more this is bugging me. Tanks should be capable of so much more then they seem to be allowed to be capable of.
Also I'm thinking that the BattleMech should be made smaller, and maybe the tonnage should be adjusted to reflect this.
Raven!
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