Modern tank vs Mobile Suit, serious calcs included.

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-11-30 11:36pm

Samas, the whole point I'm making is they got shot off (both of them, which makes the target area a little bigger right there...) because they were both sitting in front of a the mech's torso (the logical target to shoot, along with the head and legs, to put a mecha down...)

And your next words will be: They were avoiding the torso because the reactor will explode like an extinction level event. (paraphrased...reading the future is imprecise...) The hip section is also a big target, and I'm not conviced that they weren't aiming for the torso. That mountain pic (your evidence for mechs being a bad thing to hit the reactor of....) doesn't show anything except they posses some way to make a mountain (weirdly not made of stone...) fly apart with minimal energy input. Nothing quantifiable, nothing that shows that an accidental reactor hit instead of a pre-planned and prepared for self-destruct will do the same--hell, if they're so scared of this happening, why do Magella's shoot for the chest, and why don't they pick shots like that normally? Hell, why use the reactors at all if a lucky hit by an enemy on your buddy next to you could wipe out an entire force?

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-11-30 11:38pm

EDIT: New pic: that looks more like a near miss to me....how exactly are you proposing they pick out just an arm when the object in their sights is a barely differentiated blob?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-11-30 11:42pm

Vejut wrote:Samas, the whole point I'm making is they got shot off (both of them, which makes the target area a little bigger right there...) because they were both sitting in front of a the mech's torso (the logical target to shoot, along with the head and legs, to put a mecha down...)

And your next words will be: They were avoiding the torso because the reactor will explode like an extinction level event. (paraphrased...reading the future is imprecise...) The hip section is also a big target, and I'm not conviced that they weren't aiming for the torso. That mountain pic (your evidence for mechs being a bad thing to hit the reactor of....) doesn't show anything except they posses some way to make a mountain (weirdly not made of stone...) fly apart with minimal energy input. Nothing quantifiable, nothing that shows that an accidental reactor hit instead of a pre-planned and prepared for self-destruct will do the same--hell, if they're so scared of this happening, why do Magella's shoot for the chest, and why don't they pick shots like that normally? Hell, why use the reactors at all if a lucky hit by an enemy on your buddy next to you could wipe out an entire force?

The notion that they would purposely not go for the most obvious target is absolutely absurd ...

They didn't hit the arms on purpose- no competent soldier goes for the hard targets on purpose- aim small, miss small (i.e. go for the TORSO). However, as I already said, even if by some ridiculous reason they were trying to take its arms off without killing it (why they would try not to kill their enemy is beyond me ... funny that there's not more of these so-called extinction level events in Gundam), that doesn't translate into an ability to hit a tiny squat tank. SAMAS doesn't get the difference between a tall target and a wide target.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-12-01 01:11am

Thought I'd clarify (where did extinction level event come from anyway?)

The reason they weren't going for the torso was because if their shot was off they could hit the Zaku's reactor and risk it making a nice mushroom cloud right next to a village full of friendlies.

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-01 02:40am

Sounds like more design flaws. The only possible explanation for those rounds given thier inaccuracy, is obvious. Grenade Launcher. It's conceavable that they used a Gyrojet ammo in place of a standard grenade. Since the gundam "Rifles" cause explosions more consistant with an explosive round, it's not inconvievable (Sacraficing Explosive power for Range and speed) Enabling things like fighting underwater etc.

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-12-01 11:45am

Extinction level event came from the scene of blowing a hole through he mountain. Somebody (can't remember who), calculated it would take a large number of GT to do that...which would result in one hell of a blast radius (not seen), High tempatures (mountain should be glowing (energy has to go somewhere...) and trees burning if they weren't blown away by the blast...), and a significan portion of the mountain hovering in the air from the blast and the mountains subsequent collapse (which should have happened if it was rock, but didn't) I beleive it was Sir Wong who pointed this out, I'm just repeating it.

You do also realize that even if the reactor was as powerful as you claim, there is little to no chance of it exploding when hit?

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2002-12-01 12:39pm

Vympel wrote:
SAMAS wrote:When did I say that?

In episode 8 of 08th MS Team, Karen Joshua complains about being able to target Mobile Suits that are 10 klicks away. She's not worried about hitting them, but of the specific accuracy Shiro is asking her and Terry to do.
Well considering how tall they are not many people would be worried about totally missing.

In fact, I have shown several instances of long-range fire by Mobile Suits:

in Episode 10, The 08th Team tries to protect a trio of Guntanks that are about to bombard this mountain with 150mm cannon fire. One of the firing tanks is behind the man in this shot.
That's nice. This means what in relation to targeting 2m tall tanks at the same range, not to mention PENETRATING their armor? Nothing.

That was in response to the tanker's claim that Mobile Suits are incapable of long-range fire. I know that the Guntanks were using an artillery bombardment.

But if any of you had been paying attention to my posts, you'd remember the first time I used it was in comparing the armor toughness. In the episode, these guns bent armored doors about as thick as a Mobile Suit's leg, but when these same guns shot a Dom in the back, they only broke the clip it used to hold it's sword in place.

http://www.samas.freehosting.net/Domback.jpg

In this shot, you can see a point of light in the distance. That's an oncoming beam rifle shot from a Gundam.

And this is the same shot hitting the Zaku right in the arms, which was the intended target. A target not more than 2 meters wide from it's angle and positioning.

I'll take your word for it that they were trying to hit the arms of the enemy instead of trying to kill it outright. You do know the difference between a target that is tall and a target that is wide, don't you? Or do you think tanks will just be sitting there in plain view, with colorful Gundam colors and no tactical positioning?

Yes I do, and a Mobile suit's arms are neither. Especially where they were shooting at it from.

Post by **Ghost Rider** » 2002-12-01 12:49pm

A target is at least what 20 M tall and you think 2 METERS wide is huge.

Sorry mechs are fantastic foe animes because they can do near human agility, and hell they apprently have character shields. But taken into any real context they are lumering pieces of wank crap because they are large, obey virtually no chemical or phyiscal properties and literally appear as giant targets.

Unless you want to prove that the armor they have can asorb 1000x the KE needed, you going to lose because literally the show's creators just wanted a story and the mechs were there as tools for shine rather than substance.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-12-01 01:16pm

Vejut wrote: You do also realize that even if the reactor was as powerful as you claim, there is little to no chance of it exploding when hit?

Apperantly there's enough chance they didn't want to risk firing where they might hit the thing's reactor. It was also enough of a risk that Karen wouldn't fire on a Dom that was about to shove it's heat rod through her MS because she'd hit the reactor. And we've SEEN these reactors go up when hit before in the original MS gundam.

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2002-12-01 01:21pm

Vejut wrote:Samas, the whole point I'm making is they got shot off (both of them, which makes the target area a little bigger right there...) because they were both sitting in front of a the mech's torso (the logical target to shoot, along with the head and legs, to put a mecha down...)

Shooting a Mobile Suit's head off never takes it out of action, and they were deliberately trying not to shoot it in the torso.

The reason I say that the Gundams were trying to take out the arms is because the first time they fired, the shot would've gone excactly where the second shot hit, had the Zaku taken one more step. Karen then had Terry correct his firing angle by 0.2 degrees to the Zaku's new position. He managed to hit the shot, even through the massive clouds of dust kicked up by the Zaku's Cannon.

And your next words will be: They were avoiding the torso because the reactor will explode like an extinction level event. (paraphrased...reading the future is imprecise...) The hip section is also a big target, and I'm not conviced that they weren't aiming for the torso. That mountain pic (your evidence for mechs being a bad thing to hit the reactor of....) doesn't show anything except they posses some way to make a mountain (weirdly not made of stone...) fly apart with minimal energy input. Nothing quantifiable, nothing that shows that an accidental reactor hit instead of a pre-planned and prepared for self-destruct will do the same--hell, if they're so scared of this happening, why do Magella's shoot for the chest, and why don't they pick shots like that normally? Hell, why use the reactors at all if a lucky hit by an enemy on your buddy next to you could wipe out an entire force?

No, the Apsalus shot was to prove that the official numbers are too low in reguards to their actual power on the series. The "Cataclysmic Explosion" was a different part of the same point.

The reason other Mobile Suits still attack each other is because it's not that easy to make a reactor go off. Gundam Wing aside, Mobile Suits rarely explode when taken out, even if you cut them in half. In the scene where Captain Ryer tried to blow a mountian open using a reactor meltdown, it was his tenth attempt. Don't you think that Fed and Zeon pilots and soldiers quickly learned how to take a suit down without setting the reactor off?

And unless there are mountains on Earth not made out of rock and soil, what else could it be?

Typhonis 1 · Post by **Typhonis 1** » 2002-12-01 03:02pm

Still what you are missing are the advantages that tracked vehicles have over Mechs .Hell you could be even nastier and do an old soviet trick ,burry a tnk till only the turret shows and cover it up mostly then lets see a MS hit one

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-12-01 09:19pm

Avtually the magella pilots pretty much did that in one episode of 08th MS team (though they didn't put any dirt on it, they left it open so they could retreat).

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2002-12-01 09:48pm

SAMAS wrote:And unless there are mountains on Earth not made out of rock and soil, what else could it be?

Maybe it was a themepark mountain, made specifically for skiing, that was constructed of paper-mache reinforced with steel rods.

This is a better explanation than a normal mountain, anyway, because the the mountain in the show displayed properties that could NEVER be achieved by a natural construct.

Vejut · Post by **Vejut** » 2002-12-01 10:28pm

So SAMAS...which is it? That it's hard to set off, taking 10 tries to do INTENTIONALLY, or that it's going to blow up when shot, indicating it's not that hard at all?

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 02:54am

SAMAS wrote:
That was in response to the tanker's claim that Mobile Suits are incapable of long-range fire. I know that the Guntanks were using an artillery bombardment.

Where was that claim made?

But if any of you had been paying attention to my posts, you'd remember the first time I used it was in comparing the armor toughness. In the episode, these guns bent armored doors about as thick as a Mobile Suit's leg, but when these same guns shot a Dom in the back, they only broke the clip it used to hold it's sword in place.

No numbers. The fact that it couldn't even penetrate a door is quite unimpressive- and useless considering that we don't even know what the door is made out of.

Yes I do, and a Mobile suit's arms are neither. Especially where they were shooting at it from.

An arm on a very tall Mecha standing out in the open is equivalent to a short, moving tank in a hull down position then?

Post by **The Yosemite Bear** » 2002-12-02 03:38am

Yeah, this is a funny thing. It's extreamly inconsistant.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 08:15am

Looks like Dendrobius ran away....

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2002-12-02 01:13pm

Vympel wrote:
SAMAS wrote:
That was in response to the tanker's claim that Mobile Suits are incapable of long-range fire. I know that the Guntanks were using an artillery bombardment.
Where was that claim made?

In the original thread.

But if any of you had been paying attention to my posts, you'd remember the first time I used it was in comparing the armor toughness. In the episode, these guns bent armored doors about as thick as a Mobile Suit's leg, but when these same guns shot a Dom in the back, they only broke the clip it used to hold it's sword in place.
No numbers. The fact that it couldn't even penetrate a door is quite unimpressive- and useless considering that we don't even know what the door is made out of.

Considering that it's the entrace to an armored base, you should have an idea. The doors themselves were bult similar to the doors of an elevator, only the sections were about half as thick as a Mobile Suit's arm.

Yes I do, and a Mobile suit's arms are neither. Especially where they were shooting at it from.
An arm on a very tall Mecha standing out in the open is equivalent to a short, moving tank in a hull down position then?

Well, let's check Sheppard's size comparison.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/MKSheppard/Size.jpg

The tank is roughly the size of a Mobile Suit's forearm, which was the target in question.

Then you take into consideration the positioning of the arms(all the better to hold a massive anti-tank cannon), and the target area shrinks further.

Not to mention all the Times Mobile Suits have pulled off headshots on each other, which are equal size to smaller than your average modern tank.

Not that being Hull Down matters, when you're using a beam rifle. Just be glad the original thread used the bottom of the Universal Century MS barrel.

Oh yeah, and I found a (slightly) more accurate way to guage the power of Mobile Suit weapons against Modern Armor.

In episode 4 of Gundam 0080(this saturday on Cartoon Network if you want to check), a Zeon pilot attacks the GUndam RX-78-NT1. This
is notable in that the gundam was wearing external chobham armor. This was used on only two Mobile Suits, the NT-1, and the RGC-83 GM Cannon II. The reason being the obvious(that shit is heavy). Mind you, the plating used on the suits was two to three feet thick in some places.

Anyway, in the episode, the Zeon suit, the MS-18E Käempfer, shoots the gundam in the chest. It's weapon, an MS-scaled shotgun firing buckshot, punched massive dents in three-feet-thick armor.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 09:38pm

SAMAS wrote:
Considering that it's the entrace to an armored base, you should have an idea. The doors themselves were bult similar to the doors of an elevator, only the sections were about half as thick as a Mobile Suit's arm.

It's a thick metal door.

Anyway, in the episode, the Zeon suit, the MS-18E Käempfer, shoots the gundam in the chest. It's weapon, an MS-scaled shotgun firing buckshot, punched massive dents in three-feet-thick armor.

http://home.attbi.com/~jleo2/rx78nt1.html

If this page is correct, you have an 18m tall mech that is 50 tons (roughly the same as the T-90) with this armor (10 tons extra) and you seriously want to claim it's in any way impressive?

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-12-02 09:43pm

SAMAS wrote: In episode 4 of Gundam 0080(this saturday on Cartoon Network if you want to check), a Zeon pilot attacks the GUndam RX-78-NT1. This
is notable in that the gundam was wearing external chobham armor. This was used on only two Mobile Suits, the NT-1, and the RGC-83 GM Cannon II. The reason being the obvious(that shit is heavy). Mind you, the plating used on the suits was two to three feet thick in some places.[/]So Mech armor, already known to be ass-thin, is inferior to Chobham armor. Thanks a bunch SAMAS, you've just made our side of the argument quite a lot easier.
Anyway, in the episode, the Zeon suit, the MS-18E Käempfer, shoots the gundam in the chest. It's weapon, an MS-scaled shotgun firing buckshot, punched massive dents in three-feet-thick armor.

So these sub-caliber, poorly-shaped, low-velocity slugs were enough to damage Gundam armor? Again, thanks.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 09:54pm

Chobham must mean clay in Gundam

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 10:06pm

In addition,

http://www.gundamwatch.com/mecha/oywgundamalex.shtml

This page says that the 'Chobham' armor on Gundam Alex was destroyed by 'high exploives'. That's utterly feeble.

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2002-12-02 10:37pm

Actually it was taken out by the Kampfer's chain mine (though why you're basing your counter argument on a fan website's wording I dunno).

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 10:55pm

It's a minor point. The argument is based on a poor anti-armor weapon denting it and the fact that with this so-called 'chobham' armor it weighs 50 tons- the same as a T-90, while being 18m tall.

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-12-02 10:59pm

SylasGaunt wrote:Actually it was taken out by the Kampfer's chain mine (though why you're basing your counter argument on a fan website's wording I dunno).

Additionally, chobham armor being destroyed by a mine is an excuse HOW?