Fun With: Powered Armor & Tanks

[Starglider]

The idea is that it's beyond our grasp to the extent that we simply can't fathom it.

No, it's technobabble.

It's just a neat idea to think of for perfect space stealth, since we already mentioned repulsors which are just as likely.

'Repulsors' are defined by what they do. It's right there in the name. They create a force pushing two bits of matter apart. How they do this is not specified; it's assumed to rely on undiscovered or fantasy physics.

Your example is a 'magic heat concentrator' or 'magic heat destroyer', I don't know which. The author could've just called it an 'Unobtanium Heatsink' and left it at that. But no, apparently he used the Star Trek approach for trying to inject plausibility, which never works. If you're going to supply a mechanism for your magic technology, do it properly or not at all.

[Admiral Valdemar]

'Repulsors' are defined by what they do. It's right there in the name. They create a force pushing two bits of matter apart. How they do this is not specified; it's assumed to rely on undiscovered or fantasy physics.

Your example is a 'magic heat concentrator' or 'magic heat destroyer', I don't know which. The author could've just called it an 'Unobtanium Heatsink' and left it at that. But no, apparently he used the Star Trek approach for trying to inject plausibility, which never works. If you're going to supply a mechanism for your magic technology, do it properly or not at all.

I don't see how sci-fi repulsors are any more or less plausible, since both concepts rely on physics beyond modern understanding like exotic matter or metric manipulation. It's just a "this concept is more impossible than this one by current thinking". Of course he only made a name and gave a vague understanding of what goes on, because saying "magic heat sink" is a little less than you'd expect in sci-fi, but not fantasy.

In any case, this is straying off topic again when we seem to have decided on stealth being attained to a limited degree by neutrino emissions instead. I doubt anyone will pick that up without a sizeable detector, given what's needed today to pick up such things (but then if we've made grasers...).

[Ariphaos]

The basic reason railguns are much closer to being fielded is that we don't have room temperature superconductors. Most soft sci-fi settings (and some hard sci-fi settings) do.

Valdemar was speaking of magnetic saturation. Ferromagnetism is only so responsive - up to 2.2 Teslas for iron, for example. This also means, to even hope to get the same degree of efficiency, that you have to have a different spacing between each set of coils, which may get annoying if you want to carry spares (compared to the simplicity of a railgun).

[Andrew_Fireborn]

I'd like to take this moment and ask what your intent for this universe is. As I've forgotten where you mentioned why you're putting these forward for 'peer review' as it were.

If you're writing a story, Whether or not it's going to be hard sci-fi, the story you're telling is the far greater part. Even the two universes this site has huge sections based on taking the technical aspects of apart were created primarily as vehicles for a story.

Just an aside. Really, you can handwavium or simply avoid most hard details like power supply and minute (and even a few major) functions of kit in a story, unless the function becomes vital to a point in the story. (Such as a group has to take some of these suits out, or are being stalked by them, and so on.)

[rhoenix]

I'd like to take this moment and ask what your intent for this universe is. As I've forgotten where you mentioned why you're putting these forward for 'peer review' as it were.

I didn't mention before, but will in full now. This is two-fold, as one reason directly affects the other. One, this universe is one I'm developing culture by culture so I may write within it comfortably, and my goal is to have consistency and science behind all of the nifty things that makes this place what it is.

Secondly, I'm borrowing stuff from this universe to play my faction in the STGOD game going on in the G&C forum right now - so, the more developed it is, the better I can write out proper fluff for my particular faction.

If you're writing a story, Whether or not it's going to be hard sci-fi, the story you're telling is the far greater part. Even the two universes this site has huge sections based on taking the technical aspects of apart were created primarily as vehicles for a story.

True, but "the devil is in the details," as it were. Though all of this techno-imagining will be there, I know that it merely serves as a stage for the characters within the story. However, all the details have to be consistent and make proper sense to a reader, to help them and myself imagine the scene painted by the words more clearly. For this reason, I find other's thoughts on these concepts in this forum invaluable for pointing things out that I, having only my perspective, may not be able to see. I'd rather they be fixed before they even enter the possibility of a story - otherwise, the story doesn't flow well, and I end up looking like a jackass as the writer.

Just an aside. Really, you can handwavium or simply avoid most hard details like power supply and minute (and even a few major) functions of kit in a story, unless the function becomes vital to a point in the story. (Such as a group has to take some of these suits out, or are being stalked by them, and so on.)

Exactly - I'm hoping that most of the handwavium I have so far can be treated as placeholders for stuff that's more plausible, but for the setting I'm imagining so far, the higher-tech stuff makes more sense. Even with that said, I'd rather they dodge physics as little as possible.

===

Additionally, thanks to Hotfoot's HAB-ishly fiendish imagination in the chat, I've conceptually added another carried weapon for use by wearers of the suit, as a heavy weapon. I'll come up with dramatic fluff about it later, but it's in essence a scifi upgrade to the MK19 Grenade Machine Gun currently in use by the U.S. military today. I'm not sure how it should be upgraded, but there are a number of very interesting possibilities.

- Essentially a graser gatling gun. Fun concept, but kinda boring.
- A gatling coilgun. This one really sounds interesting.
- A gatling ramshell launcher. This one sounds the most plausible so far.

Any comments on these are welcome.

[Sea Skimmer]

The drag on a small projectile with a high surface area to mass ratio has to be pretty extreme at mach 12. Pellets are going to melt and possibly vaporise within a pretty short distance. Darts will fare better, but I imagine they'd have to be made out of tungsten or something more exotic to survive the heating effects (and this doesn't include any inductive heating they get in the accelerator).

It’s a coilgun, no reason given the technology level why you can't adjust the velocity up and down for different types of ammo if that’s necessary. As for using tungsten, the canister round the US Army has for the 120mm tank gun already does. Canister or beehive would really only be for targets well under 300 meters anyway. Shrapnel shell, which only disperses the shrapnel balls after a time delay, would overcome the heating problem anyway. If you need it for close range work, then the fuse would simply be set to an ‘instantaneous’ mode or something like that by which it bursts almost as it leaves the barrel. At long range, it bursts just before reaching the target, and heating over the remaining 30 or so meters should not be that extreme.

[rhoenix]

It’s a coilgun, no reason given the technology level why you can't adjust the velocity up and down for different types of ammo if that’s necessary. As for using tungsten, the canister round the US Army has for the 120mm tank gun already does. Canister or beehive would really only be for targets well under 300 meters anyway. Shrapnel shell, which only disperses the shrapnel balls after a time delay, would overcome the heating problem anyway. If you need it for close range work, then the fuse would simply be set to an ‘instantaneous’ mode or something like that by which it bursts almost as it leaves the barrel. At long range, it bursts just before reaching the target, and heating over the remaining 30 or so meters should not be that extreme.

Given this thought, that the coilgun can easily vary the speed at which it fires, seems to indicate this being a very common weapon. I wasn't thinking of a very fast rate of fire for this gun, given the principles involved, but I had thought of it as firing a little more slowly than "semi-auto," leaving the rapid-fire bombardment to the gatling ramshell launcher.

Thank you for your post - it helped solidify a few details for me.

[SirNitram]

One things needs to be addressed for this, and really all military tech: How is the enemy responding to it? One example I give is from my own writings: A group of the rebelling force suits up in 'jump troop' armor to pursue the main characters from the air. It's part of the local defense force's military, and I never really delve into what it's there for in the text(Quelling riots, mostly), but the implication is immediate: Despite working on contragrav effect(No visible thrust), there's already a countermeasure in the form of missiles that sniff out the signature and chase it.

Get creative. Think about what you've doled out and ways to crack it like an egg.

[rhoenix]

Actually, this armor is something created as a flawed copy of another faction's technology. This is supposed to be something that helps the balance of power from being simply 180 degrees, but it doesn't make things even, either.

As far as weaknesses, they will be discovered and exploited by the original faction that once ruled over humanity hand, mind, and foot. For them, it's going to be interesting writing out an intelligent and malevolent enemy, one that doesn't make stupid mistakes for the hero(es) to easily skate by.

And everyone, I thank you for all your responses so far. I think I've a much better concept for the powered armor (and variations) than before, so I thank all who've responded.

However, further discussions on this power armor, or preferably discussions about the vehicles likely to be seen with them, are welcome, of course.