Bolo Balls

[Ezekyle Abaddon]

While Reading my copy of Bolo Rising I realised thwe sheer Psyk-out qualities of these beasts and them tried to imagine what it must be like for imfantry trying to charge these things and i couldn't so can anyone help by suggesting any normal troops that would be willing to engage a Later model Bolo on the open field of battle with a snowballs chance of winning.

[Uraniun235]

"normal troops that would be willing to engage a later model Bolo on an open field of battle"


No. No.


No.


I think Warhammer 40000 just about pushes the limits of infantry, and even then I doubt that there are any infantry units in 40K that could have any rational hope of winning a slugging match against a late-model Bolo. There might be some that are either conditioned to fanatically believe in victory no matter what, or that their deaths will contribute to the greater victory of their god, but I don't think there are any 40K troops that would look at a late-model Bolo and rationally conclude that "yeah, we could take that head-on".

Nuclear weapons and megaton-range primary and auxiliary Hellbores will mash anything resembling "normal troops" on anything resembling an "open field".

[Erik von Nein]

Ye-ah. About after model, what, MkXX infantry pretty much don't stand a chance against them, righ? Or maybe that was Mk XIV. Either way, late model Bolos eat infantry for breakfast. Even exlcuding their hellbores they've got dozens of anti-personal flechette throwers, lasers and machine guns, as well as point defense versions of those same weapons. Never mind that they calculate everything at stupidly high speeds.

Though, it'd be amusing to watch 40K infantry charge a MkXXX Bolo.

[Ford Prefect]

I think Warhammer 40000 just about pushes the limits of infantry

It doesn't even begin to push the envelope. Of course, the infantry that springs to mind still can't do it: FORCE: Ground and the Pax Swiss Guard from the Hyperion Cantos couldn't do it, and Pax Swiss Guard could hit stuff on the moon. The only thing that really jumps to mind is infantry from Perry Rhodan, with their funky transdimensional barriers and cannons.

[The Grim Squeaker]

I think Warhammer 40000 just about pushes the limits of infantry

It doesn't even begin to push the envelope. Of course, the infantry that springs to mind still can't do it: FORCE: Ground and the Pax Swiss Guard from the Hyperion Cantos couldn't do it, and Pax Swiss Guard could hit stuff on the moon. The only thing that really jumps to mind is infantry from Perry Rhodan, with their funky transdimensional barriers and cannons.

Or Culture stuff, where you have Nanocloud assasains, planet killing nanobombs, Drones (Bolos are good. A decent Culture drone is better and effectors are light-years beyond anything the Bolo's have made in terms of hacking, even the final models with their man/machine interface).
Or Xeelee verse troops, with the whole hand-held star destroying guns thing .

[Lord of the Abyss]

can anyone help by suggesting any normal troops that would be willing to engage a Later model Bolo on the open field of battle with a snowballs chance of winning.

5th Imperium soldiers, armed with stealth fields and hyper rifles. IF the Bolo can't see therough the stealth fields. Hyper rifles translate anything in their beam into hyperspace, and even a Bolo won't do well will lots of tunnels bored into it.

The stealth fields have to work, however, or they'll just get obliterated. And it'll take massed fire, and they'll all need to fire at once. It'll backtrack and kill any that fire, so they get only one shot each, and once multiple invisible enemies start hurting it the Bolo will just blast everything nearby.

So, IF they can pull off an ambush like that and IF all goes well, they can pull it off.

[Ford Prefect]

Or Culture stuff, where you have Nanocloud assasains,

E-dust would be useless against a Bolo.

planet killing nanobombs,

Rather drastic for taking out a single tank.

Drones (Bolos are good. A decent Culture drone is better and effectors are light-years beyond anything the Bolo's have made in terms of hacking, even the final models with their man/machine interface).

That would be entirely dependant on the Drone in question, and the armament it is carrying. Skaffen-Amtiskaw had knife missiles and CREWS, but where either of those capable of putting out tens of megatons? Did he have the capability to stick stuff through wormholes and thus inside the Bolo? Did he ever carry CAM? Top grade Contact combat drones like Skaffen-Amtiskaw are good, but they're not ROUs.

Or Xeelee verse troops, with the whole hand-held star destroying guns thing .

Xeeleeverse troops are utterly anemic. The human ones might have Starbreakers, but they're also fucking useless at combat, and the Xeelee drones might be very durable due to the nature of their construction, but lasers were clearly not entirely useless - it is outright stated in Exultant that you can kill a drone by shooting its Starbreaker emitter. They're certainly not Culture drones, given that the completely useless human troops aren't wiped out in seconds, and actually have to throw themselves on to Xeelee fire in order to die.

[NecronLord]

E-dust would be useless against a Bolo.

E-dust has micro-missiles. There's nothing stopping them preloading them with enough CAM to destroy one. It also has effector capabilities.

That would be entirely dependant on the Drone in question, and the armament it is carrying. Skaffen-Amtiskaw had knife missiles and CREWS, but where either of those capable of putting out tens of megatons? Did he have the capability to stick stuff through wormholes and thus inside the Bolo? Did he ever carry CAM? Top grade Contact combat drones like Skaffen-Amtiskaw are good, but they're not ROUs.

Does a Bolo have anything that can stop its weapons systems beind messed with by effectors?

Amusingly, some descriptions (Gallifrey Chronicles) suggest Time Lord hand weapons could do it. One version of the staser supposedly works by freezing a target in time, and letting the universe proceed without the target, which is basically just deleted from existance. Of course, those weapons may not be able to enclose such a large object, at least, not the man-portable versions.

And I doubt they could get close enough to fire on a Bolo, anyway...

Of course, that's why they invented N-forms.

It's the 'normal troops' with a chance of winning that gets it, of course. That pretty much eliminates comparable vehicles, and while there's plenty of soldiers that might try, there's few who could succeed.

[Mobius]

Metabaron-verse is Sci-fi or Comics?
if it's allowed in the debates; i'd like to look for the effect of some weapons that are ridiculously uber like the Vis pacem: a hand gun making gaps in capital-ship...

[Admiral Valdemar]

I'd rather see a load of Gundam universe armies try and charge one that appeared on Earth or in a space colony one day. Mk. XXXIII model Hecate, of course.

A Bolo of the later marks with sentience is essentially a beached battleship with insane capabilities. You can argue that smaller, dedicated weapons en masse would be more effective, but given the technology a Bolo has, the AI, armour, CIWS and main artillery all make any modern attack impossible, and most future ones from hard sci-fi (I frankly don't care for comparing Culture and DH stuff).

You can't even chuck strategic nukes at the thing for a guaranteed kill if it's on the ground. It's built like a mobile bunker and ABM systems that laugh at the modern NMD ones.

[Peptuck]

but I don't think there are any 40K troops that would look at a late-model Bolo and rationally conclude that "yeah, we could take that head-on".

Orks.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Orks are anything but rational.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Or Culture stuff, where you have Nanocloud assasains,

E-dust would be useless against a Bolo.

As NL said, Effectors, CAMs, weird shit etc' should work. It could probably just go in through a seam (a few atoms wide, considering culture tech has molecule level ARTWORK) and turn the inside of the Bolo into a charnel-house (of electronics).

planet killing nanobombs,

Rather drastic for taking out a single tank.

Since, the chances of something like that scaling DOWN are what? ...
Lets ignore the fact that Kiloton level pistols are considered utterly unsuitable for combat use even by civilians and are hopelessly out of date (Short story from "The State of the Art". Said contraband is used to shoot down a spacecraft in the atmosphere).

Drones (Bolos are good. A decent Culture drone is better and effectors are light-years beyond anything the Bolo's have made in terms of hacking, even the final models with their man/machine interface).

That would be entirely dependant on the Drone in question, and the armament it is carrying. Skaffen-Amtiskaw had knife missiles and CREWS, but where either of those capable of putting out tens of megatons?

Energy per "inch" is a rather important point, Culture CAMs are lasers, and are apparently hideously accurate, a few megatons of energy focused on a micro-inch circle would probably be more effective than a fireball over the whole tank.
There is also the fact that the Bolo's Flak would be rather ineffective against anything but the most crude, non-sentient knife missiles.

Again though, non of this is relevant due to the overwhelming advantage of effectors.

Did he have the capability to stick stuff through wormholes and thus inside the Bolo?

No reason to think he should do that, whereveer did you get that idea of a trick from? .

Did he ever carry CAM? Top grade Contact combat drones like Skaffen-Amtiskaw are good, but they're not ROUs.

But they do carry a lot of nasty gizmos, and maneuver at multi-mach speeds inside tight corridors when heavily damaged, while carrying a variety of weaponry.
It's also been hinted that some can even generate Gridfire, but I won't claim such a thing, it always smelled of propaganda to me.

Or Xeelee verse troops, with the whole hand-held star destroying guns thing .

Xeeleeverse troops are utterly anemic. The human ones might have Starbreakers, but they're also fucking useless at combat, and the Xeelee drones might be very durable due to the nature of their construction, but lasers were clearly not entirely useless - it is outright stated in Exultant that you can kill a drone by shooting its Starbreaker emitter. They're certainly not Culture drones, given that the completely useless human troops aren't wiped out in seconds, and actually have to throw themselves on to Xeelee fire in order to die.

True, Xeelee verse stuff is better at the technobabble weird things than straight effectiveness .

Orks are anything but rational.

To be fair, it would probably involve a lot of Orks, then Wagons then maybe a Gargant to take on "Da Deff Tank!"

[Teleros]

If he can get in range to fire his weapon, a single Chrono Legionnaire from Red Alert 2. The Bolo's stuck frozen in place until the weapon finishes erasing it from existence. In terms of game mechanics a Chrono Legionnaire takes longer to erase tougher units, but is quite capable of erasing even the largest buildings.

[fusion]

Couldn't the Orks win over time because machine guns and especially flechette and lasers (because of their pysker ablities) and that it is almost impossible to rid orks from a planet once they are on it due to they are a fungus?

[Teleros]

Megaton-yield weaponry will probably make short work of ork spores though, and if the Bolo is allowed to use such things to clean the place of spores...

[Uraniun235]

Couldn't the Orks win over time because machine guns and especially flechette and lasers (because of their pysker ablities)

You've missed some word or phrase in there and it's making the post pretty incoherent. Could you try again, please?

[Xon]

Of course, that's why they invented N-forms.

N-Forms are horrifyingly overpowered "ground troups".

They are a freaking proto-tardis without the timetavel capabilities and with many variable sized exit/entrance portals.

[Andrew_Fireborn]

Not that I'd object to seeing the thing in action on people I don't like...

But it seems pretty much like a swiss-army wank tank. At least that's what I got from the short amount of stuff I found. Didn't notice if they'd actually lost any, or to what...

I suppose if the books are actually entertaining...

[Lord of the Abyss]

But it seems pretty much like a swiss-army wank tank.

Think of it as an AI controlled land battleship. While it's technically a tank, it doesn't fit into quite the same role as a real world one does.

Didn't notice if they'd actually lost any, or to what...

Yes. Generally to lots and lots of less-capable units. Or the massive use of nukes.

[NecronLord]

N-Forms are horrifyingly overpowered "ground troups".

They are a freaking proto-tardis without the timetavel capabilities and with many variable sized exit/entrance portals.

It's a Bolo. You need something horrifyingly overpowered.

[Ford Prefect]

E-dust has micro-missiles. There's nothing stopping them preloading them with enough CAM to destroy one. It also has effector capabilities.

I know they could technically carry CAM; a drone could technically carry lots of CAM as well. The question here is whether they actually do. There's no point using something if you're going to add something non-standard. If we start doing that, I say 'Space Marine with a vortex grenade and the element of surprise'. It's about as valid.

Does a Bolo have anything that can stop its weapons systems beind messed with by effectors?

I think late model Bolos actually have effectors or a close equivalent; the Kloude Chamber or something like that. While I could almost certainly say that no Bolo could resist the effector of a ship (given we've seen a ship based effector create a sizeable aurora), I doubt that even the most top of the range drone could possibly match such a feat.

That's a maybe, but you'd need someone with more knowledge of the Kloude Chamber to actually give any sort of quantification.

[darth korte]

What would the shokk attack gun of the orks do the bolo? Would the horde of snotlings suddenly materialising inside it damage bolo, or wouldn´t they do the jack´s shit to it?

[Shroom Man 777]

Hrm...would a Titan or one of those crazy Ad Mech superduperplatforms be enough to take a Bolo?

[Lord of the Abyss]

Hrm...would a Titan or one of those crazy Ad Mech superduperplatforms be enough to take a Bolo?

IIRC this has been discussed before; the answer is yes, in the case of the bigger Titans, because they have Void Shields. As for the Ordinatus weapons ( I believe that's the name ), I think the verdict was that they have the firepower but are likely too clumsy to bring it to bear.