B-tech Vs gundum

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-10-04 11:09pm

Oh and I've noticed that many B-techers in a Gundam vs B-tech fight tend to use the "Gundam has too many uber weapons! Blah blah!" Well not Universal Century Gundam stories. They have a prototype or testbed every show, but its really not a thing that can mow down anything in one swoop (ok so the GP02 can, but it has a nuke and there was only one...). I think the impression of Gundam equals super mehca comes from htat damned Gundam Wing and their rarely moving Gundam which take out hundreds of Leo who are also standing still! Bleh.

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-10-04 11:14pm

Vejut wrote:Well, more fighters only comes into play when you talk about larger groupings, either if you mean "more men to fight", or "more areospacefighters"

I'm just rying to keep things rather fair.

Aces?
Adian Pryde
Natasha "Black Widow" Kerensky
Morgan Kell
The two greatest MW are unavailable, as they wouldn't have anything to do with clan wolf
Jamie Wolf
Ulric Kerensky
Diana

Make them honorary members if you want.

And BTW, I read the entire database in MW2 and have played Bear's Legacy, so I do know about Bloodnames and freebirths. I just don't know specific weapons capabilities.

and IIRC, a galaxy is not 80 mechs...well, it might be, but only if you had 90-270 areofighters, or (45*25)-(135*25) elementals
I'm just trying to get some numbers down.

but we're gonna run into the same problems as before: mainly, whoever wins one-on-one is gonna win 80-on-80, esp. on a flat plain with no cover or other real opportunity for tactics
different fighting styles. COMEPLETELY differant fighting styles.

you won't take my argument (BT has some seriously powerful weapons, can probably hit with them, and won't be at a huge disadvantage in H-to-H), and I won't take yours
I KNOW BT has some serious firepower

(M-particles make electronics not work [how do Gundams run then?], and so disable B tech targeting computers (or rather, I dispute that they'll kill the targeting computers, esp. since the interfaces described in the novels aren't exactly computer-guided), Gundams to fast to hit, too tough for BT.)
Min. particles only screw with Comm. and Scanning/ targeting. It's why combat is recuced to visual ranges only. And I think that a determined MW can bring down Gundam if he fights smart

By the way, if a Gauss only has the firepower of a modern tank cannon, and can only shoot at mach 2, why use it instead of the tank guns they already have?

Because it's easier to mount? *shrugs*

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-10-04 11:52pm

I think the MS-09 Dom units are going unloved in this debate. At 81 tons loaded up and going 260 km/h with its ten shot 360mm rocket launcher its a bit of a danger...

Model number: MS-09
Code name: Dom
Unit type: mass production ground combat mobile suit
Manufacturer: Zimmad Company
Operator: Principality of Zeon
First deployment: UC 0079
Accommodation: pilot only, in standard cockpit in torso
Dimensions: head height 18.6 meters
Weight: empty 62.6 metric tons; max gross 81.8 metric tons
Powerplant: Minovsky type ultracompact fusion reactor, output rated at 1269 kW
Propulsion: "ground effect" hover jet thrusters: 58200 kg total
Performance: maximum thruster acceleration 0.71 G; maximum ground running speed 90 km/h; maximum ground hovering speed 240 km/h
Equipment and design features: sensors, range 5400 meters
Fixed armaments: scattering beam gun, mounted in torso; heat saber, battery powered, stored in recharge rack on back, hand-carried in use
Optional hand armaments: 360 mm giant bazooka, clip-fed, 10 rounds per clip; 120mm machinegun, drum fed

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-10-05 01:10am

Vejut wrote:By the way, if a Gauss only has the firepower of a modern tank cannon, and can only shoot at mach 2, why use it instead of the tank guns they already have?

It's called 'technological backsliding'.

And using the Gauss Rifle calcs a GR IS more powerful than a modern tank gun, it just makes up for the lack of velocity by throwing a very big projectile (if feed mechanisms don't take up any of the weight then that's 125 kilos per shot).

However since some people just wanted to use game rules and no novel quotes I went to Charging and Death From Above both of which put BTech armor and weapons well below modern day levels.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-10-05 03:10am

How about a one on one duel of the Psycher dark Knights. Phalen Kell Ward of Clan Wolf vs. Char Anzambel!

Full level 4 BTech rules for Ghost Mech and True Range

Full New Type abilities for Char

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-10-05 09:02am

IIRC, Phelean don't have Ghost mech. Only his dad, his uncle (now deceased), and Yoringa Kurtia (now deceased) have it. don't know what true range is...

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-10-05 09:04am

And Technological Backsliding? Dude, a Gauss is a weapon from the Heyday of the Star league--that ain't technical backsliding. Even if it wasn't--it's a lot harder to build a Gauss than it would be to build a tank gun (re: the fact we don't have Gauss rifles, but instead use chemical powered guns.)

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-10-05 11:15am

We have a few working experimental railguns. Needless to say, Gauss ammo looks very little like real railgun ammo.

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-10-05 12:14pm

VF5SS wrote:We have a few working experimental railguns. Needless to say, Gauss ammo looks very little like real railgun ammo.

It's based on the principle of a railgun IIRC, that is, using electromangets to accelerate a projectile.

And yes, the Dom would kick ass and take names.

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-10-05 12:36pm

Yeah but its strange how Gauss ammo is like a hollow metal egg! The current test ammo for the railgun is a small (smaller than current shells. A little smaller than a man's arm) solid tungsten (?) arrow with a fall away casing.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-10-05 04:52pm

As it should be.. for some reason the star league felt a melon shape was better than an actual penetrator -_-

Anyway as I said the 'test' that 'proved' the effectiveness of the mech was by all appearances rigged out the wazoo.

Anyway the ranges on BTech weapons have shown themselves to be consistently inferior to those of modern tanks.

Darik Sdair · Post by **Darik Sdair** » 2002-10-06 11:13pm

Apologies in advance to anyone who already answered this in the next page - figured I'd better jump in now. This is what I get for not following this board for a week

SylasGaunt wrote:MSs can, anything with a minovsky fusion reactor can.

And think about it-they can hit something at damn long ranges in space, even with a mech, and a fairly long way even in atmosphere (when an areofighter engages another in atmosphere), yet a mech can only shoot 600-800m max. There has to be a reason. People have even chipped in quotes saying that BT is a high ECM battlefeild. (or rather, that space doesn't have the ECM that the ground does.
I've never seen these quotes and what sources I do have don't seem to bear out that assumption. And the space not having the same ECM makes no sense, because both aerofighters and starships have much more room for ECM (aerofighters as I remember always carry more than a mech of equivalent tonnage).

Source: BattleSpace

Size of a Hex: 18 kilometers (page 6)
Range of a Standard IS Gauss Rifle: 20 hexes (page 69)
Length of a Turn: 10 seconds (standard to all BT universe games)

(18 km x 20 hexes)/10 seconds = 36,000 m/s lower limit of speed

Assuming a 120kg slug (cutting off 5kg per shot to represent the ammo feed equipment), we get 77,760,000,000 J of kinetic energy.

Source: Official rulings by game line developer (CBT.com is running obscenely slow right now, so I can't dig up the exact page)

AeroTech units can't carry C3, ECM, or other electronics because they often already have similar equipment, but the range is so great that they have no game effect.

IE: the AeroTech/BattleSpace environment is effectively ECM-free

Steel or not, this steel is the same stuff used in armor for starships and fighters, where it takes the same amout of damage from a gauss (either mech fired or ship fired) that has to be going the equivalent of mach 40 (if I remember correctly from physics, and mach 1 is 343 m/s)(and I did the math right on the calculator), or 6800*20 m per 10 seconds (long range is 20 hexes, each hex is 6800m long, I think, migt be longer, know it's at least that) to do 15 points standard (mech and fighter scale), or 1.5 capital (really fricking big ship scale).
In BTech scale these same hexes are only 30 meters, and Mach 1 is only 295 m/s.

Plus IIRC by the rules even a low kiloton range nuke will take out every mech on the battlefield.

Actually, by the rules, a nuke of undefined power will take out every 'mech on the battlefield. In one of the novels, there are examples of individual tactical nukes taking out single BattleMechs. The Alamo, listed in BattleSpace, is the only nuke known in CBT.

The Alamo is identified as "low yield", but low relative to what is undefined. By BattleSpace figures, however, (see above) with a fire factor of 100 (as stated) the Alamo delivers the equivalent of 5.13 terajoules of kinetic energy to its target.

As to why they break so easily in falls, maybe because it's falling from more than 12m/s, in DFAs, more than 12m vertically, and we are talking about something massing around 1000 times as much-now, even this might not explain it, (haven't run the calcs), but it's a start. Any more than that, I don't know--bad rivets? . BTW, g is a measure of acceleration--9.8 m/(s*s)--velocity when it hits (what you're talking about) is something totally different. That depends on how far you fall, and how areodynamic you are, and if you're putting out any force downwards to counter that.
And in a DFA we have a stated height from which the mech is said to land on the other from (2 height levels or 12 meters). And slowing down on the way in using your jump jets would actually make BTech weaker than what the DFA numbers show from just a straight fall.

Then there's also the matter of ramming attacks by mechs.

For example a Mad Dog masses 60 tons and has a top speed of 86.4 kilometers per hour (8 hexes). Now assuming it moved the full 8 hexes we get a grand total of 48 damage (6 points for it's mass, times 8 for the number of hexes moved)

So 60 tons moving at 24 m/s does 48 damage.

30000 x 24^2 = 17280000 joules or 360 kilojoules per damage point which would put a Gauss rifle roughly on par with a modern tank gun. And this is from the actual BATTLETECH rules, not aerotech or battlespace.

Source: Star League Sourcebook, page 31

The guns on (real world) Merkava tanks were completely ineffective against the armor of the first prototype battlemech. Needless to say, by extension weapons that ARE effective against 'mech armor are far more powerful than modern tank cannons.[/i]

On the topic of the Steel thing.... again SLS page 31. Remember that (source: TRO 3058, page 148) the Mackie has -inferior Armor technology to even 3025 'mechs-.

"No damage! (referring to the Merkava shell) A piece of steel no thicker than my finger, strengthened by radiation casting techniques and impregnated with a sheet of woven diamond fibers, had stopped cold an armor-piercing shell. That same shell would have gone straight through a third of a meter of normal (for the 25th century) sheet of steel.

Clearly BattleTech armor has weaknesses, especially to gross blunt trauma. That said, BattleTech weapons are tremendously powerful.

As for the ECM issue; guided missiles capable of homing in on their target under battlefield conditions were considered to be on of the most advanced elements of Star League technology. "Modern" IE 3067 missile launchers with full guidance weight as much as twice what their mostly-unguided cousins weigh. Why? Given that the IS versions perform identically to their unguided cousins, it seems that the ordnance is the same - it is the targeting equipment that adds the weight. In fact all targeting equipment in BattleTech weighs a tremendous amount, despite the fact that BT computer technology is far more advanced than modern computer systems.

So what is all this weight needed for? Either an amazing, unbelievable amount of computing power is needed to aim under land battle conditions (a problem that does not exist in long-range space battles... see above), or that weight is shielding to protect against jamming, EMP, and so forth.

Of course, if you have an alternate explanation, I'm all ears.

Darik Sdair · Post by **Darik Sdair** » 2002-10-06 11:17pm

VF5SS wrote:Ok ok, here's what I remember (I may be wrong in a few details) about Minovsky Particles from Gundam Project. When they are created in a reactor and then scattered into open air they arrange themsevles in I-fields which are just clusters of MP in with the positive and negative MP forming a sort of invisible "fog" which blocks all radar and radio waves at long distances. This meant that a high manuverable craft needed to be developed for short range combat. Hence, Mobile Suits. They have powerful combat computers which allow the pilot to track, target, and destroy enemy mecha through the cg enhanced cameras. Minovsky Particles can be compressed using I-fields into large neutral particles called Mega Particles which are then used as the ammo for beam gun weapons. Beam sabers are mis-named. They are plasma blades using spare reactor plasma in a magnetic field.

Hmm, sounds like a good baseline to work from. Given that flamers in CBT are the exact same thing, I guess we know how much damage a beam sabre does in CBT

disclaimer: I'm only semi-serious here

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-10-07 04:56am

I would hope so considering how many plasma weapons of varying power there are floating around sci-fi

Damaramu · Post by **Damaramu** » 2002-10-07 08:10am

I wonder how my personal favorite mobile suit, the MS-18E Kampfer would fare?

IIRC, the Kampfer was designed as a high speed attack unit. Watch it kick Feddie butt in 0080!

Wasn't the Sazabi based on the Kampfer prototype? A step up from it, that is....

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-10-07 09:14am

Damaramu wrote:I wonder how my personal favorite mobile suit, the MS-18E Kampfer would fare?

IIRC, the Kampfer was designed as a high speed attack unit. Watch it kick Feddie butt in 0080!

Kampfer was fast and so heavily armed, it would probably kick a lot of ass before going down.

Wasn't the Sazabi based on the Kampfer prototype? A step up from it, that is....

More like three steps and a jump.

Darik Sdair · Post by **Darik Sdair** » 2002-10-07 12:55pm

SylasGaunt wrote:I would hope so considering how many plasma weapons of varying power there are floating around sci-fi

Yes, but since both the beam sabre and the flamer are raw reactor plasma out of a fusion reactor, there's more cause for comparison.

But, like I said, I haven't really made any attempt to, you know, research the point or anything. So, I could very well be completely wrong =)

Spanky The Dolphin · Post by **Spanky The Dolphin** » 2002-10-07 12:57pm

IG-88E wrote:
Damaramu wrote:Wasn't the Sazabi based on the Kampfer prototype? A step up from it, that is....
More like three steps and a jump.

More like they were two totally separate suits made more then 13 years apart, by two different companies, and for totally different purposes.

The only similarity between the Kaempfer and the Sazabi is that both were designed by the same mechanical designer, Yutaka Izubuchi, and at the same period of time (1988-89).

This was seriously discussed on GundamWatch, and we concluded that there is no design lineage between the two suits whatsoever.

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-10-07 01:36pm

Plus Saidar, those probably weren't modern Merkava, but rather another tank named Merkava, like the BT Patton tank and the M60, or the brit Challenger? (or is it chieftan? something like that) WWII tank and their modern, and much more powerful, Challenger. That test after all, was 4-5 centuries into the future, and it's unlikely anyone not a uber-historian has even heard of an Israli Merkava, much less has one lying around...and the 25th century is not known for technological backsliding in BT.

Evidence for better comps, because you will ask: Hologram cameras that can be handheld (high processing power, low mass and volume), planetary datalinks with very low response time (at least internet, if not cable/DSL level internet ability) , ability to do jump calcs, ability of a mech to even stand up, much less move, yet still be able to do things like go prone and move torso up and down...can't be all gyro doing that, because the mech can elevate it's torso, and stand up when it falls...

Consider then, that since what is at the minimum an old 20th century MBT, and probably was much more, couldn't take down the old inferior mackie, or even dent it, that tends to argue that the tank gun level power is a little low, no?

Plus, wouldn't the various battles leading up to the acceptance of the mech and conversion of armies to the mech as the striking arm have shown any flaws there may have been in the machine if the test was rigged? After all, your opponent sure wouldn't cut you any slack...

VF5SS · Post by **VF5SS** » 2002-10-07 02:20pm

Darik Sdair wrote:
Hmm, sounds like a good baseline to work from. Given that flamers in CBT are the exact same thing, I guess we know how much damage a beam sabre does in CBT

disclaimer: I'm only semi-serious here

Well I should hope not since I own a good nubmer of B-tech game books and unless you want to argue semantics that ain't what it say about flamers

Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2002-10-07 06:29pm

B-Tech can and will eventfully simply due to the virtue of having superior logistics in having a vastly larger population to draw about, manufactuering(sp?) capability, and FTL capability, also almost all of this is completely safe from a retal strike from the Gundam forces with everthing outside the Sol system.

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-10-07 07:26pm

Rubberanvil wrote:B-Tech can and will eventfully simply due to the virtue of having superior logistics in having a vastly larger population to draw about, manufactuering(sp?) capability, and FTL capability, also almost all of this is completely safe from a retal strike from the Gundam forces with everthing outside the Sol system.

I thought we were shaping this up to be a ground battle.

Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2002-10-07 07:38pm

I thought we were shaping this up to be a ground battle.

blame the thread maker for not specifing(sp?) any conditions of the fight.

Post by **Kuja** » 2002-10-07 07:40pm

have you read any other posts? I'm trying to set up a fight.

Rubberanvil · Post by **Rubberanvil** » 2002-10-07 07:54pm

IG-88E wrote:have you read any other posts? I'm trying to set up a fight.

I have read nearly the entire thread. What are your conditions for the fight?