Has any thought been given to a polywell powered BOLO?

[GIThruster]

I want to know where the Timber Wolf pic came from and if they have pics of other mechs. I was a huge fan of Mechwarrior IV: Mercenaries, back in the day.

Interesting how close to the real issues that game came. The "myomer" (sp?) mech muscles are now called dielectric elastomers. The weapons and defense tech is all what we're talking about here. The fusion reactors struggled with cooling and you added modular cooling depending upon your build--energy weapons or missiles, etc. Was all very close to what we're looking at except they had gauss rifles rather than rail guns. But really close. . .and that Battletech game goes back more than 20 years now.

[Roger]

@ Antice- yes bun bun. Although I walk through the valley of death, I fear no evil, for I am the baddest bunny in the valley!!!

[djolds1]

Timber Wolf

Mad Cat. Clanner scum.

I want to know where the Timber Wolf pic came from and if they have pics of other mechs. I was a huge fan of Mechwarrior IV: Mercenaries, back in the day.

The computer game was based off a paper & pencil D&D style role playing game called Battletech. The Timberwolf/MadCat is an advanced Clan-tech mech.

http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Main_Page

If you're interested, pdfs of the original sourcebooks are easily found on torrent sites or file hosting repositories like rapidlibrary.

[djolds1]

Nope, no one has considered that idea at all....

viewtopic.php?p=45209&highlight=#45209

http://www.kitsune.addr.com/SF-Conversi ... o-MKXX.htm

But first you have to develop a point-defense laser system that can intercept and somehow disable a solid dart of depleted uranium/nickel/zinc alloy with a 2-3 cm diameter cross section, a length of over half a meter and traveling about a kilometer per second... and the pd system has to do that repeatedly against multiple concurrent attackers.

The Soviets countered APFSDS with their Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive Armor before the end of the Cold War, and as Russkies have only improved it since. K5 was so good that when the US Army & Bundeswehr got their hands on some, they lost sphincter control.

[WizWom]

As far as Meks go, I'll just go with a nice fast Assassin.



Especially if you swap out that darn SRM-2.

Given a good high energy power plant, you could conceivably make the larger SF vehicles pretty fast.

Making things like a Mobile Infantry suit would be a bit more difficult.[/img]

[GIThruster]

@Duane

Yeah, I played both D&D and Battletech on paper in my youth, but D&D was a role-playing game and Battletech was really a strategy game.

Both were a blast and made it to the computer. Shame I don't have the time to play I did 30 years ago. I do however remember standing a paper Awesome with 3 PPC's in the water, just to get the extra cooling necessary to fire all guns every turn. Ripped an Atlas, and a Griffon to shreds. . .

[WizWom]

When I first started playing MegamekNET my opponent took an Atlas against my light lance. I got a gyro crit the first round, and he was sunk.

Yeah, good times playing those old games... Car Wars, Ogre/GEV, Squad Leader, AD&D and so on.

Polywell might make Meks possible, well, at least the walking ones. Not sure we can get the sheer force needed for jump jets in anything but a dedicated platform.

[kunkmiester]

The Soviets countered APFSDS with their Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive Armor before the end of the Cold War, and as Russkies have only improved it since. K5 was so good that when the US Army & Bundeswehr got their hands on some, they lost sphincter control.

Last I knew reactive armor was only good against missiles--detonating the slab of explosive destroys the penetrating jet.

A macroparticle beam, much like Tesla's teleforce proposal, is reasonably feasible. The accelerators have been made before, so it's just a matter of building one.

[zapkitty]

The Soviets countered APFSDS with their Kontakt-5 Explosive Reactive Armor before the end of the Cold War, and as Russkies have only improved it since. K5 was so good that when the US Army & Bundeswehr got their hands on some, they lost sphincter control.

Last I knew reactive armor was only good against missiles--detonating the slab of explosive destroys the penetrating jet.

A dart configuration depends on the mass of the rest of the dart pushing the tip of the dart into the impact area... if a shockwave breaks the dart so that you instead have a set of blunt masses slamming into the impact area at slightly different locations and times the dart's penetration goes way down...

... of course the next dart to strike where that reactive plate used to be will be a different story...

[GIThruster]

Here's a blast from the past:

http://ppc.warhawkenterprises.com/mechbay/tech.html

Make sure to click the Mechbay link at the bottom.

[Antice]

traditional explosive reactive armor is not very effective against kinetic penetrators. I do not know about the newer high tech stuff, it may be a bit better, but it's primary purpose is not to deflect Kinetic penetrators.
Sloped multi layer ceramic composite armor is what you want to be able to take a hit and live from that kind of weapon.
Luckily that is exactly what most tanks have beneath the reactive stuff.
KP weapons of sufficient power to penetrate the glacis plate of a main battle-tank tends to be attached to another main battle-tank. or possibly an aerial vehicle. if either of these spot you first you die. the only defense is to be faster than them. lucky for you flyers suck at hiding. and can be shot down as soon as they come over the horizon as long as you have powerful enough anti air capability to do so. Polywell is the perfect power-source for giving MBT's that kind of capability. until that happens expect tanks to be owned badly by the fly-boys.

well. even with the best defenses money can buy in this day and age. expect MBT's to be owned with a frightening regularity by advanced infantry as well. This is coming from someone who loves tanks. I even spent a year as a volunteer tanker in the Norwegian army.
Tank tactics are deceptively simple. you are either hiding in the woods like a rat hoping to spot the enemy before they sniff you out, or moving at flank speed in rough terrain in the vain hope that you move fast enough to evade enemy fire. SOP when encountering infantry with AT capability is simple. once you spot them drive in a straight line down their barrel. if they do manage to fire a shot they will be hitting the armor where it is at it's highest effective thickness. if you get close enough their AT-weapons will be unable to function properly. AP rockets need a couple of seconds before they are primed after being launched. then grind them to pulp below your threads like the monster you pretend to be.

One thing a tank must never be used as is a mobile pillbox or artillery piece. it is neither and it sucks in those roles. The hammer slammers series is quite spot on when it comes to good tank tactics in that regard.

[djolds1]

@Duane

Yeah, I played both D&D and Battletech on paper in my youth, but D&D was a role-playing game and Battletech was really a strategy game.

The Clans showed up in BTech c.1990. The heirs of Kerensky and origin of Wolf's Dragoon's.

traditional explosive reactive armor is not very effective against kinetic penetrators. I do not know about the newer high tech stuff, it may be a bit better, but it's primary purpose is not to deflect Kinetic penetrators.

K5 is a typically Russian KISS development. It was designed to fire the metal slab out at an angle, after the long rod penetrator was part way through. The plate hits the rod from the side, bending the rod and causing it to tumble. Effective against both HEAT jets and long rod penetrators. Worth +250mm RHA equiv. The updated Kaktus variant is reported to be effective against the APFSDS penetrators the US Army developed in response to K5.

http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/2-12257.aspx

[GIThruster]

I once spent an hour talking with an A10 pilot who served in the first Gulf War. He was completely convinced tanks had no business in battle. According to him, the A10 strategy is to fly in, sight in a second, and squeeze off an unbelievable number of rounds in less than a second, then bank away. For high threat targets, they fired missiles from out of line of sight. Either way, the tanks were toast.

Once again, amazing the thoughtfulness behind the Battletech and Mechwarrior fictions. Both sold the idea of Mechs as useful, strictly based upon their ability to outmaneuver a tank. They were all supposed to be so mobile that this made the difference in survivability. It was mobility that justified their tall profile. Tanks want to be short and hard to spot, target and shoot. Mechs only make sense if they're fantastically maneuverable, otherwise, why be such a tall target? (Again, rules out the idea of a BOLO.)

In the games, many personal strategies developed, from the long-range first-strike persuasion, to the sneaky, lighting-fast "tag a target and let the artillery have at" to the brawler. Brawlers (my favorite) always ran at top speed in curves, usually circles around their targets that made them hard to hit, and relied upon expert marksmanship to hit their enemies. Brawlers chose Mech frames with exceptionally smooth rides, where their weapons didn't bounce all over so they could take the really hard shots. Those frames with backward bending knees, like the Madcat and Timberwolf, were the smoother rides despite they could not be loaded quite so heavily with component parts as the other Mechs.

Just building Mechs to suit a personal style became an art and a hugely fun part of the game.

[Antice]

Yeah. That is why tanks are obsolete until someone invents a power-source capable of supporting a high power laser system capable of downing aircraft like it was swatting flies.

[IntLibber]

If you are into combat play with mechs, there are a number of combat groups in Second Life that use them.