Battletech in World War I

[SirNitram]

It's technically possible to miss with a laser. At those ranges, against a target of that size? Oh please.

Have you ever fired a weapon, Batman?

[Nephtys]

Plus, I'm not even talking about events. You're nitpicking about why lasers are visible for Goddess' sake.

As that is in violation of real-world physics I fail to see how it is a nitpick.

The delivery platform for a bomb is not the issue. If it's a big ol' bomb, it does what a bomb does.

Without getting the delivery platform shot down, despite 'Mechs supposedly having multi-km ranges against Aerospace fighers (leave alone prop planes).

Again, as for Aerospace fighters, it's the 'in-theme' equivilent? What was that now? And again, yet again. It's possible to miss with a laser. Very possible. Stop being a weasel.

It's technically possible to miss with a laser. At those ranges, against a target of that size? Oh please.
Targeted shots I'll give you. But a simple centre of mass attack?

1. Colored laser beams violate physics. Yeah, well. Could it be perhaps be artistic license, and that it's lame as hell to see mechs start exploding with nothing visible being fired at them? Visible lasers also have no real effect on the argument here.

2. Yes. The plane got through without being shot down. So did the 9/11 airliners. That does not mean a 747 can penetrate our air defense grid. Mechs can and have shot down Aerospace fighters, even mechs without specialized equipment for doing so, using mech standard gear. Again, you refuse to recognize their observed capabilities, but instead nitpick at a minimum based on one instance without much backing or description of the circumstances.

3. Misses happen. Deal with it. This if anything, further enhances the bit about jamming being a major part of ground combat, doesn't it?

[Lancer]

It's technically possible to miss with a laser. At those ranges, against a target of that size? Oh please.
Targeted shots I'll give you. But a simple centre of mass attack?

It's quite simple. All you have to do is dodge where the laser is aimed at, just a little bit. Then the laser beam hits a lot more surface area on your mech, and the energy is dispersed throughout the armor more quickly than if it hit and stayed focused on a single spot, reducing the damage done.

[Batman]

So it's physically impossible for someone to avoid getting shot, because people can't move at Mach+ speeds.
You, sir, are on crack.

I withdraw my comment. While the time between the laser blast being released and it hitting isn't anywhere long enough for the target to get out of the way the time for the shooter realizing he/she ought to pull the trigger, leave alone doing so might very well be.

Do you comprehend the irony of a man whose debate has been THIS EXISTS AND I WON'T BACK DOWN FOR ANYTHING BUT QUOTES!!!! then saying 'Uhhh..... I'll get back to you!'?

Sir? I admitted I don't have quotes to back this up. Truth be told, I'm notorious for not providing quotes. How about we consider this an impending concession unless I CAN find those quotes?

[SirNitram]

Do you comprehend the irony of a man whose debate has been THIS EXISTS AND I WON'T BACK DOWN FOR ANYTHING BUT QUOTES!!!! then saying 'Uhhh..... I'll get back to you!'?

Sir? I admitted I don't have quotes to back this up. Truth be told, I'm notorious for not providing quotes. How about we consider this an impending concession unless I CAN find those quotes?

I'm calling you out on being quite hypocritical for your double-standard. It's a not-so-sutble call on you to shape up.

[Batman]

I'm calling you out on being quite hypocritical for your double-standard. It's a not-so-sutble call on you to shape up.

And you are quite justified in doing so. I merely ask for a little time.
Urm- are the BT novels still canon?

[FOG3]

@FOG3
You're now trying to take a mech built for show combat made out of spare parts and scrap metal, firing what now... 10 seperate 20mm MGs at other scrap metal mechs in a tongue-in-cheek adaption of the game to try and make a point? 10 MGs even in battletech is hardly effective for actually destroying the mech, it's more useful for critical hit rules that are there for playability's sake. It's not like there's a hole in the center torso of the mech, that you can shoot at 3 percent of the time. *rolleye*

So you ignore most of what I've said to focus on one little throwaway. Of course, you even missed the reason that was brought up. The idea's quite simple, their machineguns can damage their mechas armor, period. Thus reaffirming with the Gauss Rifle calcs HMG level intensity is enough to damage BT armor. Something not based on game mechanics, but the data given and some lost fluff. I've been making a big point of their FC being such they can't hit the same place easily so of course the little machineguns aren't going to be that effective because they cause such a small crushed area they aren't likely to get hit again. Otherwise you could go for the, but they're just for the infantry.

The Merkava incident:

One of the tanks opened fire. Its shot was true and hit the 'Mech just above the right hip. Everyone in the brightly lit bunker seemed to hold his breath as all the readouts fuzzed into snow at the blast interference. No damage! 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 steel.

This isn't a Atlas there's nothing above the hip and all the Professors commentary is based on the mecha's transmitted readouts registering no damage. Don't let his enthusiasm distract you from that. A AP shell could have torn a furrow through the armor as it skipped and still fit that quote.

[Nephtys]

My apologies. The mech 20mm MG can damage the armor. Just not much. That's what I'm saying. The game of course, has to represent it soemhow. I was taking your previous statements about the Cudgel to mean that it was an /effective/ weapon against mechs, which it is not. It does have a very slight effect of course.

And here's a Mackie.

First very primative battlemech. Admitted that the professor was hardly an expert on the matter, but that is still by no means flimsy armor. A hit just above the right hip on the image would suggest it probably hit the torso along that horse decal. Still, that's not bad at all.

[SylasGaunt]

As I recall isn't that penetration figure rather low by modern standards?

[The Dark]

33mm of armor steel (assuming that's what's meant by "normal" steel, since it is a military vehicle being fired on)? It provides that the armor's definitely tougher than what was carried on a Grant/Lee, which had at best 38mm of armor, and is about 2.5 times the thickest armor carried on a Tank Mk V or Medium Tank Mk A. The PzB39 (WWII German anti-tank rifle) could only penetrate 25mm at 300 meters at a 60 degree angle, so we can probably count out an OmniMech being penetrated by a one-man AT rifle in WWI, 30 years earlier.

Bat - I believe the novels were considered higher-level canon than the game at one point. I've been unable to find an official canonicity statement by WizKids, and I don't have the last one from FASA.

[The Dark]

Stupid me didn't really answer the question. Yes, that is low penetration by modern standards, suggesting that either the professor's thoughts are amusingly uninformed or that the Merkava's gun has suddenly become weaker than a 1940s era 75mm cannon.

[Gunhead]

AT ranges to me are game mechanics because.

1) If I use gauss as a benchmark, as we know from canon at what speed the ball flies. (2.2 mach=700m/s) If you fire it at another fighter at 6km, the target would have to keep it's heading, altitude and velocity very constant
for 8.5 seconds. That's almost an entire round in game. So Any hits would be purely by luck, this also holds true for ground fights.

2) For the conversion to be consistent, AT fighters should have vastly increased ranges in BT scale. This contradicted by the fact that AT fighters when firing to different altitude levels have their range to target increased by the difference in altitudes. So if AT fighters have multi km weapons, why is their range to target increased when the actual range increases by 50m.
So AT fighters get possibly huge RL range boosts, but only when shooting up or down.

ECM can count for some range issues, but for instance wire guided
ATGMs are not affected by ECM. You need decoys to throw those off.
Well, or an IR jammer.
In general ECM is pretty much worthless against LOS weapons. This is one of the reasons why we still use heavy tungsten/DU penetrators. You can throw all the jamming in the world against it, and it won't make a lick of difference.

-Gunhead

[Nephtys]

Actually, The Dark, 1/3rd a meter of steel is 33 cm, not 33mm. Did you make a typing error, or read that wrong?

@Gunhead
ECM in BT apparently can affect mech active sensors, which contribute to targetting data. I dunno that much about the info with the jamming explaination personally. *shruggle*.

[The Dark]

I made a stupid metric error. 333mm of armor...I'm much more impressed now. Unless I'm mistaken, that is respectable by modern standards, even for "simple" steel. And I'm going to shut up now, because I will suffer from foot-in-mouth disease if I try to sound smart at 1:30 am.

[SirNitram]

I made a stupid metric error. 333mm of armor...I'm much more impressed now. Unless I'm mistaken, that is respectable by modern standards, even for "simple" steel. And I'm going to shut up now, because I will suffer from foot-in-mouth disease if I try to sound smart at 1:30 am.

Eh, you get more potent these days. I think it's pretty good by, say, WW2 tank standards, but I still think it's undergunning the real Merkova. But yes, it's much better than the 'We can beat cardboard!' 33mm.

[Beowulf]

33cm is still low penetration by modern standards. An RPG-7 can have penetration exceeding twice that, depending on which version of the grenade is used.

[Gunhead]

30cm of steel is what you'd get on a very late WWII tank and post WWII tanks (50's and 60's). Today's MBT's are protected by 600mm RHA KE equivalent, and up to 1200mm RHA HEAT I think with ERA that can be boosted to 1500mm RHA HEAT. These are guestimates because exact armor compositions are military secrets. APFSDSDU-T from an Abrams is quoted to penetrate 740mm RHA. This again, cannot be confirmed. On that note 300mm of steel is not really that impressive.

-Gunhead

[LaserRifleofDoom]

The combat capabilities of a mech, against WWI, WWII, or modern opponents, are completely irrelevant when you are forced to use a limited number for strategic, not tactical, goals.

<snip>
2. 75 Clan Omnis or not WW1 is not going to be decided in one day (especially not with there being plenty of weapons to knock them out).
If the Mechs use their speed adavantage, they're going to be alone.
With no food, no guards, no place to sleep except the ground.

Using the OP, these mechs would decide the war in one day. The First Battle of the Marne, August 1914. The diversion of two divisions of Germans from France to the Eastern Front mere days before was a large factor in deciding the outcome, the opponents were so evenly matched. The French barely stopped the Germans a few miles outside Paris. 75 mechs, no matter how much they suck against any foe, would have won the war for Germany before the end of 1914, at the latest. Even if they were only used once, at the Marne, leaving absolutely everything else to the regular german infantry.
The Fortifications surrounding Paris were/are irrelevant, as they were bypassed and/or destroyed by the German infantry.

The effectiveness of the mechs against trenches would entirely depend on when, where, the objective, what the enemy knew, and what sort of infantry support was coming up. The German generals wouldn't use their prized mechs without support. It doesn't matter if you can move from the border to Paris in two or three days with a mech. The 75 you've aren't going to be very effective there without infantry support. A point which Batman also made.

That of course is assuming light resistance and not encounterig any fortresses. Which, though they would proabably be outmanuevered, could probably destroy a few mechs before being taken down themselves in the event of a direct assault. Warfare in Btech usually tried not to completely destroy a mech, so it ould be reused by the victors, right? The French wouldn't be so sparing, and any loss of a mech in any battle can be considered permanent, once it stopped moving it will would probably be pounded into dust by heavy artillary. So it becomes a war of attrition again (assuming the Germans didn't win at the Marne).

[PainRack]

seems more parsimonious to just declare they made a wrong turn somewhere, and kept intensity rather constant not understanding its value. It's not like people are omniscient atomatically seeing all the pathways, and they have been basically just users. Thus bigger club, bigger hole, more likely to hit again with cursed targetting system. The tandem being likely to get a critical points to it being they can damage the area of armor, but can't hit it again easily thus end up practically bludgeoning all the armor off the vehicle instead of *bang* *bang* *BOOM* with their munitions. The depictions in the MW3 & MW4 intro movies do seem to go along with this.

Except for one thing. I have quotes showing that armour do aid in deflecting incoming rounds. Otherwise, why mention sloped armour, and why mention that this will give better protection in the first place?

He could have thought the mortar fired 60mm shaped charges, like the M-72, which have that kind of penetration, but it was actually just a straight HE round like those commonly carried. Or *gasp* it could have been a illumination bomb.

Or it could had been a real AP round, and the blast interference referred to the impact of the round disrupting the readouts from the mech.

Look at it. There's nothing right above the hip, it being a shot the clipped/skipped the Mackie would seem right. It's not like it says it took it solidly in the chest or anything

Really? You do know how large the hip is, right? Furthermore, considering that the right torso is generally considered to be above the hip, that tells us clearly that it hit the RT armour.

I seem to remember though being simply IEDs satchel charge style that they lodged in the joint and set off. A shaped charge and a HE charge are a little different in how they operate. You have a quote pointing to them actually being shaped, metallic plasma jet emitting shaped charges?

You mean other than the effect? Why isn't the description that its a shaped charge designed to defeat armour sufficient?

Or he screwed up on what the mortar was firing, and it even being a clean hit is inconclusive. I know someone online who claimed to be a Marine and indicated they'd seen a LAV survive getting hit by a RPG-7. If that was true it certainly doesn't mean a LAV is designed to shrug off RPGs.

So, you have any evidence to the contary to disprove our dear professor?

Solaris is mecha vs mecha for mecha from what I've heard. Therefore a Solaris mecha that bothers to have 10 machine guns points to machineguns being effective. Why pray tell would they bother having them in their gladitorial combat if they aren't worth zilch vs a mech? Afterall unlike a combat unit he doesn't have to be shooting up the infantry with them does he?

Solaris also have mechs equipped with flares and painted in red, pink and black. You want to talk about how effective that would be as battle camoflague? More importantly, Solaris battles engage in spitting range combat. That's why MGs, or to be more accurate, 20mm cannons are effective in that scenario. They don't spout off heat, thus overloading the mech system, they're cheap and aiming and tactics don't come into play.

"They [BattleMechs] are faster, more maneuverable, better armored, and more heavily armed than any other combat unit. Equipped with particle projector cannons, lasers, rapid-fire autocannons and missiles, these behemoths pack enough firepower to flatten everything but another 'Mech." - BMR, page 7. By canon literature, they do have a firepower advantage.

By canon literature, it also states this.
"Comparing special operations soldiers to normal infantry is akin to comparing Battlemechs to late 20th century tanks".
Their advantage come into play because of the technology involved, probably the enhancements to sensors and initiative systems. This is a universe where hovertanks go around zooming into battle at 150km/h.

It doesn't work like that in the real world and you know it. An M1 falling that distance might kill the crew, shred the transmission, and shake lose all of the equipment but it wouldn't do dick to its armour.

Then don't. Let's use the physical damage ruling, where the bigger the mech, the more damage it does. Perhaps you prefer charging damage, which makes this even more crystal clear?

HMG don't have a range of 90m, either. Not that BT MG are 20mm but you already know that.
24 round/sec is nothing much, btw. Does the term Vulcan cannon mean anything to you?
Which, incidentally, still weighs less than a BT MG

Against mechs. Not against infantry. See the Starlord quote up there?
As for 24 round/sec, yeah, that's nothing much. That's why I should put the 4800 round per second cyclic rate up there.

No, I mean the Mech not toppling over when it does fire that thing. And don't you dare bring up the gyro.

This is a mech that can "stop on a dime". They can accelerate to max speedin a single step.

This is a real world vs. What it should be IS what it is. As the recoil isn't there, neither are the muzzle velocity, projectile mass, and possibly both.

Then may I ask you to quantify the recoil mentioned and prove that its not on par to what should be expected, keeping in mind any unknown factors such as bafflers or handwaviung.

Giving MG bullets a MV of 90 mps. OOh I'm scared.
But hey, that ups the AC/20 to 270 mps. That's almost pistol bullet level!

Look Batman, I can take the above crap from Gunhead but not from you. I showed the model ample times and defended it before. Its a mixture of TIMING and ARMOUR. Timing shows why the range is so small for the weapons, and ARMOUR protection yields the difference in range for ballistic and energy weapons. Stop misrepresenting the argument.

Or have you forgotten the last time we argued this in Battletech stats, where you implied you understood what I was trying to say?(Note, not agree, understood)

But hey, I can understand. I only spelled out the armour explaining range for energy, but neglected to do so for ballistic weapons. In that case, can I ask your forgiveness, because the autocannon range vs damage is one of the inherent "holes" in the Btech armour theory. And there exists no answer I can think up of the plug that hole, despite seven years of trying. Grouping works for answering range alone, but it doesn't work for answering both range and damage. However, for what it worth, let me spell it out. Autocannons were invented because they had greater "firepower", the assumption on my part was that they defeated mech armour through a tight grouping of impacts, designed to overload the armour and thus cause ablative damage. However, at longer ranges, the ability to achieve such a grouping decreases.

Apparently so. Unless, of course, you have examples of those longer ranges being evidenced in ground combat.
And sorry, for lightspeed/hypersonic weapons the 'engagement time' argument doesn't hack it.

Ahem. my posts in this thread. Read.

Nephtys? The computer games have, to my knowledge, no canonicity whatsoever.
I'm not assuming bullets travel far slower when not fired by airplanes. Battletech is.
BT has Mechs being killed by bombs lobbed at them by propeller-driven airplanes. BT has Aerospace fighters killed by the in-universe equivalent of Sidewinders.
As for maneuverability, no you do NOT avoid lightspeed weapons that way.
In fact as long as you're on the same planet as the firer you CAN'T avoid lightspeed weapon fire even with FTL sensors.

Okay. This is now plain dishonest. Remember this?
this
Maybe I'm being obnoxious, but Dark Hellion and the Wh40k clique at SB had me running around proving the same thing over and over again without offering a rebuttal one too many times. I appreciate not having to jump through the same hoop here.

Anyway, I can't find my old files on the work I done. Gunhead, I have to apologise for not being able to offer you any humour, but I have to ask for significantly more time. Once I locate those files, I would bring them up in its own dedicated thread.........(yeah, and I finish my fanfic too.)

[PainRack]

AT ranges to me are game mechanics because.

1) If I use gauss as a benchmark, as we know from canon at what speed the ball flies. (2.2 mach=700m/s) If you fire it at another fighter at 6km, the target would have to keep it's heading, altitude and velocity very constant
for 8.5 seconds. That's almost an entire round in game. So Any hits would be purely by luck, this also holds true for ground fights.

Depending on how one view Battletechnology and it articles, the Gauss rifle has been mentioned to reach speed of up to Mach 5 though.

2) For the conversion to be consistent, AT fighters should have vastly increased ranges in BT scale. This contradicted by the fact that AT fighters when firing to different altitude levels have their range to target increased by the difference in altitudes. So if AT fighters have multi km weapons, why is their range to target increased when the actual range increases by 50m.
So AT fighters get possibly huge RL range boosts, but only when shooting up or down.

In that case, can I use this as an example?

This capability was perhaps best exemplified during the Fourth Succession War, when House Steiner’s six Elvidner Fortresses sealed the passes through the Greerson Mountains, and with them the fate of the Second Sword of Light.

Fortress Dropship, TR 3057.

Alternatively, the FedCom Civil war sourcebook also have some quotes about the "new" tactics on dropship bombardment. Anyway, all these display vastly increased range in a ground support role.

ECM can count for some range issues, but for instance wire guided
ATGMs are not affected by ECM. You need decoys to throw those off.
Well, or an IR jammer.
In general ECM is pretty much worthless against LOS weapons. This is one of the reasons why we still use heavy tungsten/DU penetrators. You can throw all the jamming in the world against it, and it won't make a lick of difference.

-Gunhead

Yet, it works.
While I normally won't use Level 3 equipment as part of canonicity, the novel Starlord introduced some of those gadgets as part of its storyline and one of them involved a T&T jammer, which jammed Dawn Shadow Hawk, preventing her from locking her weapons on the target. And Dawn was in close combat range.

[The Dark]

Gun - While ECM won't affect the LOS weapons as directly as guided missiles, it will dick around with fire control systems, which will make LOS weapons less accurate. That's part of how jamming works...confuse the sensor systems so the enemy's not quite sure where you are or how you're moving.

[Nephtys]

Extra ECM does have a noticible affect on BT direct fire weapons. For example, Capellan Stealth Armor or Null Signature Equipment reduces direct fire modifiers even more, be it with missiles, lasers or autocannons. It would seem that anti targetting system works just fine in BT.

[Gunhead]

That ECM bit was a RL example. Even so if ECM affects BT range so much, their ranges should then increase if someone would return to gunnery systems that were available during the 70's. Those are optical systems, so they are not affected by ECM. Just like I pointed out some x posts ago. 1500m is a range where a target will be hit, and the hit is achieved without any active sensor that is vulnerable to ECM. Unless ECM can somehow affect the eyeball MkI, which I doubt.

In addition, I can't remember the exact quote, but don't clanners view the use of ECM/Stealth as cowardly, and in fact don't possess either technology?
If so, you'd get increased ranges against clan mechs.

Angel ECM and Null signature system are both special equipment that do not come as standard on all mechs.

Painrack those dropships can and do carry Long Toms right? They already have far greater range than normal mech weaponry.
Aerotech fighters can level bomb ground targets from almost any altitude. Accurasy just suffers.
Then again, if you're doing B-52 style carpet bombing with dropships. Who gives a shit about accurasy. If a small dropship like the Avenger can carry 93 tons of bombs, it can bomb a pass until it becomes a plain.

-Gunhead

[SirNitram]

That ECM bit was a RL example. Even so if ECM affects BT range so much, their ranges should then increase if someone would return to gunnery systems that were available during the 70's.

Well, I should point out that the Mackie test suggests that, for some reason, BTverse tech didn't advance as much as ours. They might never have had what we had in the 70s. Granted, this is based on the idea of a Merkava being vastly weaker than our version, but it seems a sensible conclusion.

And yes, Dropships can mount Long Toms and can carpet an area. There's just a treaty in effect preventing widespread devastation and vastly limiting even the barbaric Clans just flattening crap from above.

[The Dark]

In addition, I can't remember the exact quote, but don't clanners view the use of ECM/Stealth as cowardly, and in fact don't possess either technology?
If so, you'd get increased ranges against clan mechs.

Given that the Clan equipment list includes an ECM Suite, no, apparently not. In the BMR they have both active probes (similar to the IS's Beagle) and ECM Suites similar to the Guardian.