Challenging Spocktard to a debate

[Imperial Overlord]

Doesn't hurt his career though does it? He's a ristar.

His defeat of the Alpha Keshik and Atlas propelled him as a Ristar..... until he got his command and then faced resistance from both his superior as well as Lita who both debated his tactic. As well as his sibko-mate.

Yes, so it helped his career instead of ending it.

Tanks can kick a large amount of ass. Arrow IV is bloody lethal and the Naga packs two of them in one ,mech. And Clans hate to use both. This isn't an issue of nerfing.

Tanks are also inherently slower and less mobile than mechs. As for nerfing, I'm actually referring to reality vs battletech, where artillery is less mobile, less accurate and can achieve much less density and ROF than modern arms. Even in the Btech context where Arrow IV makes artillery effective again, Arrow IVs are simply too heat inefficient. Note the effective range and time delivery issue for Arrow IVs and compare them to the ingame aerospace elements and then come back and discuss whether Artillery has been nerfed.

Arrow IV are effective. Artillery isn't as effective as in real life, but then most Btech doesn't compare well to real life. Aerospace fighters, especially since this in area where Clanners don't grossly outperform the Inner Sphere, aren't necessarily available for ground attack. Arrow IV homing missiles can be deployed accurately even in close quarters battles and inflict massive damage. It is an effective weapon and the Clans won't use it except under extreme conditions. The point is still mine. And if you think Btech tanks can't be fast and lethal, you don't know the fucking game.

Except if they were so tactically superior, neither of the Home Clans would had been able to stand up to them on the battlefield, from Coyote to Ice Hellion and the like.

Nice black and white fallacy there Painrack.

They can use their supporting arms. . . . .None of this proves the Clans are good at combined arms.

That's me previously. You don't have to prove the Clans can use combined arms, you have to prove they are good at it. Your rebuttal does establish they do it, but it doesn't address my point their distaste for combining fire, their deliberate neglect of useful battlefield arms, their single combat fetish, and their conservatism all combine to hinder their ability to do so. The US has been in Iraq for five years. We would consider their military incompetent if they didn't try to adjust to the realities on the ground. The Clans, for the most part, didn't. Why should I give them a free pass.

How on god green earth is artillery somehow effective? Their range is what? 5 maps with a freaking long travel time. This when comparing them against aerospace elements? What are you smoking? How on god green earth is Artillery somehow not nerfed in the Btech universe when comparing it against real life elements?

If you mean nerfed compared to real life, yes. When you mean nerfed as opposed to ineffective, then you're on crack. Play some company scale battles or larger and give one side artillery support. Again, the Clans often do not have aerospace superiority because their pilots aren't that hot and there's the little issue of the aerospace fighters getting shot down and their fuel consumption. My burden is merely to prove artillery is an effective battlefield arm, not the supreme one. You haven't disproven it. To be fair, it doesn't look that good on the rule books but I had a buddy in high school who was an artillery whore. It can fuck you up. And that was before Arrow IV, which is really a license to kill Clanners.

Except you have YET to show how they suck tactically. You keep insisting that their victories is due to their superior technology, yet, this appears to be based on the misconception that because the Clans utilised the edge their superior tech and training give them, their tactics are thus "weaker".

I have repeatedly demonstrated why their tactics are poor. Deliberate neglect of battle field arms, single combat emphasis, allowing the enemy to prepare the battlefield, conservatism, etcetera. The Clanners tactics worked when their tech edge allows them to dominate, but they fail to adapt when this edge is neutralized. Their failure to change their ways when the Inner Sphere exploits their weaknesses is the telling sign of their incompetence.

By wave four, ALL the invading clans have abandoned parts of the batchall and utilise level 2/3 honour rules. Even Diamond Shark, which has only faced Periphery opponents used level 2 rules in the Battle of Tukayid. Are you daft?

No, and stop using bullshit game mechanics in your argument. The Crusader Clans performance at Tukkayid was dismal and a testament to their tactical and strategic incompetence. You're using campaigns where they underestimated their enemy who fought on prepared ground and got slaughtered as supporting evidence to their tactical and strategic competence? Madness.

Clan Nova cat ignored the batchall because they believed the IS commander was attempting to deceive them during their assault on the LAM factory complex.

And if they had kept on being that intelligent, the Galaxy wouldn't have been mauled into uselessness during the rest of the battle. DEST and the 18th Dieron drowned them in an ocean of blood.

Clan Smoke Jaguar massed firepower by Wave 3 against Inner Sphere opponents who did not fight in a stand up manner.

Conceded. If they had been smarter, they would have done this all the time. Doesn't hurt my argument.

Bollocks. Even Kerensky was unwilling to abandon Zellbringen during the Refusal War. Hell, she was the one who decided to settle Twycross with a duel, remember? Her most unconventional tactics using deception, ambush and misdirection aside still did not force her to abandon single combat against the Clans.
This incident simply shows that the Clans are adaptive and willing to scarifice the form of the honour duel when neccessary. Your counter-proposal that real tacticians would be willing to abandon it to gain a full scale brawl is simply not seen in Clan culture or history.

No, this only proves Kerensky, a noncomformist before she left Clan space, will use Clan customs when it suits her purpose just as she breaks them when it doesn't. She wanted to delay the Falcon Guard, so she again forces a single combat at the site of their dishonour due to single combat. A master stroke of using Clan customs against the Clan. And they fall for it. It was Kerensky's bad luck that Joanna killed her. She had a very reasonable chance of filling the pass with wrecked 'mechs before falling. At no point did I argue the Wolf's Dragoons was tactically incompetent. Those disgusting dezgra freebirths.

Inner Sphere commanders have similarly screwed up the batchall, exposing themselves to more force as depicted in the Nova Cat entry in Invading Clans. As for why it was implemented, its not to produce superior warriors. Kerensky implementation was that he believed that warriors were aggressive in nature, and needed some form of outlet for releasing aggression in a controlled, limited manner. The Clans then continually shaped their edge because veteran soldiers ARE better soldiers.

My argument is not that all Inner Sphere commanders are competent. We all know why Kerensky chose to shape Clan customs. Their unwillingness to change when circumstances change is their telling weakness, a product of the conformity minded, tradition bound culture.

But hey,its not as if the Clans stick to the batchall unthinking if the Inner Sphere don't. The Star Guards? The clans didn't. Smoke Jaguar by wave 3 abandoned the batchall in part against many opponents, because of Wolcott and to a certain extent, Luthien influenced tihs trend further.

Conceded. They should have abandoned it all together against the Inner Sphere, but this does show progress. Slow progress but progress.

That's not evidence. Give me source that confirms that the tactic originates with the Smoke Jaguars. To my mind it seems far more likely that the Smoke Jaguars stole the tactic from the Vipers. Fuck, that's what I would do if I was a Smoke Jaguar and trying to figure out how to run mass "mech combats. Modify a known tactic from a Clan that likes to do it.

Right. A "less" complex tactic evolves from a more complex tactic.......

Why not? Especially when its easier to to execute, requires practice to develop, and your culture emphasizes single combat. The Smoke Jaguars may find a simpler version more to their liking and easier to execute. Or they could have developed independently.

Strategy leads to operations leads to tactics. That's obvious. The Clans poor ass strategy, in particular allowing Comstar to focus and concentrate their forces at Tukayid, or at Luthien, allowing the Draconis Combine to draw in more forces, hell, even Ulric advertising of their intention to invade Terra are all examples of poor strategy that cause the tables to turn against them tactically. However, this has absolutely nothing to do with "tactics" per se.
The Germans poor strategy in WW2 did not mean that tactically, their small units action were not brilliant.

Conceded that their problems are more deeply rooted in culture and strategy than tactics, but that doesn't mean their tactics are good. They aren't and their extreme conservatism is their most damning weakness. They simply won't adapt until it's beaten into them and then they do so slowly and with high levels of resistance.

Two years latter, most Clans were still fighting the same way when they hit Tukkayid. Hell, some of the Crusader Clans bid away troops because they were sure it was a cake walk and wanted to land earlier.

Stackpole contention is simply not supported anywhere in game fluff.
Ingame fluff, the Clans committed their whole bid to the battle, suffering losses as usual. Indeed, Stackpole contention is similarly contary to other fluff regarding how bidding works! A Clan bid cannot be "underbid" again later during subsidary commanders. What would had happened is that bidding against specific objectives might have occured.......... The evidence that this actually happened however is not present.

The fluff is clear. Crusader Clans reduced their bids to land earlier. I'm fairly sure I read that first in the Tukkayid battle book, not a Stackpole novel, but my memory could be playing tricks. And sub commanders can and do bid against one another. That Clan fluff is inconsistent is FASA's fault, not ours, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Freebirth Phelan Kell Ward, Khan of Clan Wolf, is canon no matter how inconsistent with the rest of the fluff it is.

The Clans do not react well to new conditions.

Errr............. Then pray tell, explain how and why the Invading Clans all did adapt to Inner Sphere tactics by Wave 1. The sole holdout was Ghost Bear, an extremely conservative clan.By Wave 4, operational concepts had become to face scrutiny amongst various Clans. Ghost Bear rehauled their operational concept of war, Smoke Jaguar realigned to use Comstar adminstration and used pyschological warfare against the Draconis Combine. .

Adapt by Wave 1? They weren't massing fire at all until they came back from electing Ulric Ilkhan. Twycross and the Genyosha ass raping weren't Wave 1. They still consistently underestimate conventional vehicles and infantry. They most definitely had not adapted. As for Comstar, they took over a job the Clans didn't want and didn't know how to handle, administering planets that weren't immediately subservient. As for the Smoke Jaguar attempt to use psychological warfare, it was . . . poor to indulge in understatement.

[Typhonis 1]

Wasn't Smoke Jaguar raped by Task Force Serpent?

[Imperial Overlord]

Wasn't Smoke Jaguar raped by Task Force Serpent?

Obliterated as a Clan, despite their scientist caste having developed protomechs in secret and giving them additional fighting forces. The IS then destroyed all war making industries in Smoke Jaguar territory and fought a Trial of Refusal against the Invasion, which the IS won.

EDIT: It's a little more complicated than that and there was a big last minute hick up with the arrival of Smoke Jaguar forces retreating from the IS and IS forces coming to the rescue, but in the end the SJs got smoked and the Clans lost the Trial of Refusal.

[PainRack]

Yes, so it helped his career instead of ending it.

Because success breeds success? And note that when his later obession with a single DEST trooper manhandled his command abilities, he got packed off away from the frontlines into garrison duty.
You're utterly taking things out of context.

Arrow IV are effective.

Only to a certain extent. Compare their bombardment value to aerospace fighters in game.

Artillery isn't as effective as in real life, but then most Btech doesn't compare well to real life. Aerospace fighters, especially since this in area where Clanners don't grossly outperform the Inner Sphere, aren't necessarily available for ground attack. Arrow IV homing missiles can be deployed accurately even in close quarters battles and inflict massive damage. It is an effective weapon and the Clans won't use it except under extreme conditions. The point is still mine. And if you think Btech tanks can't be fast and lethal, you don't know the fucking game.

Except that in the Clan context, they intergrate aerospace fighters closely with ground elements. And aerospace fighters have infinitely greater range than artillery, is more mobile and can react faster. How on earth is this ability not so severely nerfed? The Tactical Handbook itself states that artillery was badly nerfed so as to make mobile game elements viable and this is reflected in universe.

As for btech tanks, ahem, you want to talk about construction rules and heat sinks?

Nice black and white fallacy there Painrack.

Pray tell, how is this a fallacy? If the Invading Clans were tactically superior, then the Home Clans, which are technologically on par and unable to deploy superior numbers would not be able to win significant number of battlefield victories against the Invading Clans.

That's me previously. You don't have to prove the Clans can use combined arms, you have to prove they are good at it. Your rebuttal does establish they do it, but it doesn't address my point their distaste for combining fire, their deliberate neglect of useful battlefield arms, their single combat fetish, and their conservatism all combine to hinder their ability to do so. The US has been in Iraq for five years. We would consider their military incompetent if they didn't try to adjust to the realities on the ground. The Clans, for the most part, didn't. Why should I give them a free pass.

Because what you say is utterly bollocks?
Let me see, combine fire? Done by Wave 3. Intergration of other elements? Right from the start in Wave 1. Adjust to realities? Ongoing by Wave 4 onwards. Hell, considering it to the real life bush adminstration in Iraq, the Clans are infinitely MORE innovative and adaptive. At least they STARTED reforms by wave 2, with Clan Smoke Jaguar, one of the most incompetent of the Clans altering land ownership laws, forbidding Trial of Possessions to remove Paradise syndrome and starting to rely on Comstar adminstrators. It took the US adminstration a year to start doing what Smoke Jaguar started in MONTHS. And this in the midst of an invasion. Haliburton vs Smoke Jaguar ownership. lol.

If you mean nerfed compared to real life, yes. When you mean nerfed as opposed to ineffective, then you're on crack. Play some company scale battles or larger and give one side artillery support. Again, the Clans often do not have aerospace superiority because their pilots aren't that hot and there's the little issue of the aerospace fighters getting shot down and their fuel consumption. My burden is merely to prove artillery is an effective battlefield arm, not the supreme one. You haven't disproven it. To be fair, it doesn't look that good on the rule books but I had a buddy in high school who was an artillery whore. It can fuck you up. And that was before Arrow IV, which is really a license to kill Clanners.

And we're not talking about the game here but in universe. In universe, artillery is severely fucked up as a supporting element because their range, speed and ROF is too limited as compared to supporting aerospace elements.

I have repeatedly demonstrated why their tactics are poor. Deliberate neglect of battle field arms, single combat emphasis, allowing the enemy to prepare the battlefield, conservatism, etcetera. The Clanners tactics worked when their tech edge allows them to dominate, but they fail to adapt when this edge is neutralized. Their failure to change their ways when the Inner Sphere exploits their weaknesses is the telling sign of their incompetence.

Repeating statements WITHOUT showing them is nonsense. How many "exceptions" must I show before the exception is the norm?
Again, the only hinderance is single combat and target limitation.

No, and stop using bullshit game mechanics in your argument.

Right. I shouldn't use bullshit game mechanics. I should just simply point out that Omega Galaxy used massed fire against the Comguards, so did the Sixth Dragoons, Wolf Guards etc etc.

The Crusader Clans performance at Tukkayid was dismal and a testament to their tactical and strategic incompetence.

Its the tactical aspect that's the question.

You're using campaigns where they underestimated their enemy who fought on prepared ground and got slaughtered as supporting evidence to their tactical and strategic competence? Madness.

Ahem. TACTICS. Not STRATEGY. Stop shifting the fucking goalposts.

And if they had kept on being that intelligent, the Galaxy wouldn't have been mauled into uselessness during the rest of the battle. DEST and the 18th Dieron drowned them in an ocean of blood.

Are you even reading the same battle that I did? They won the battle without any major losses, trapped Hihiro on planet and their main problem was the fact that they couldn't end the guerilla war on planet, capturing Kurita.
And of course, its JUST another exception to your contention that the Clans are so honour bound that they would remain bound to the batchall at all costs.

Conceded. If they had been smarter, they would have done this all the time. Doesn't hurt my argument.

If the Inner Sphere fight singly, they lose. They fight combined, they lose. And of course, if the debate is going to hang entirely on the Clan focus of single combat, that's not something I'm going to debate cause its true. The points of contention rests in the use of Clan tactics, primarily in terms of maneveur, combined arms, infiltration and other battlefield tactics.

No, this only proves Kerensky, a noncomformist before she left Clan space, will use Clan customs when it suits her purpose just as she breaks them when it doesn't. She wanted to delay the Falcon Guard, so she again forces a single combat at the site of their dishonour due to single combat. A master stroke of using Clan customs against the Clan. And they fall for it. It was Kerensky's bad luck that Joanna killed her. She had a very reasonable chance of filling the pass with wrecked 'mechs before falling. At no point did I argue the Wolf's Dragoons was tactically incompetent. Those disgusting dezgra freebirths.

Except that at no point in time did Kerensky abandon zelbringen, thus negating your minor point that if only the rest of the Clans would abandon the batchall and honour, they would had been as successful as Kerensky or Aidan Pryde. nice out of context twist.

My argument is not that all Inner Sphere commanders are competent. We all know why Kerensky chose to shape Clan customs. Their unwillingness to change when circumstances change is their telling weakness, a product of the conformity minded, tradition bound culture.

And how many exceptions must I continue showing to show that they DID adapt and change to adapt to the Inner Sphere mode of warfare? The problem is that by the time they reached the end of the learning curve, the Clans immense strategic disadvantage has come to the play. And its too late for the Clans to play catch-up in THAT aspect.

The fluff is clear. Crusader Clans reduced their bids to land earlier. I'm fairly sure I read that first in the Tukkayid battle book, not a Stackpole novel, but my memory could be playing tricks. And sub commanders can and do bid against one another. That Clan fluff is inconsistent is FASA's fault, not ours, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Freebirth Phelan Kell Ward, Khan of Clan Wolf, is canon no matter how inconsistent with the rest of the fluff it is.

Ah. I was assuming you were talking about how the further bidding would reduce clan forces available to Tukayid, not the Clan wide bid.
The contention is the second. While limited objectives are up for bidding, the Clan practice of bidding for the entire planet during the Operation Revival limits this. As for Natasha statement, its her opinion. We had no evidence that significant bidding did occur in universe.

Adapt by Wave 1? They weren't massing fire at all until they came back from electing Ulric Ilkhan. Twycross and the Genyosha ass raping weren't Wave 1.

They abandoned parts of the batchall by the end of Wave 1. Massed firepower by Smoke Jaguar actually during Wave 2, although the battle entry in Invading Clans did not make it clear whether this was a result of combined fire or simply firepower. Needless to say, the battle of Luthien was the first comfirmed example of combined fire. Ghost Bear started the trend abandoing batchall utterly against mercenaries, then Smoke Jaguar in Wave 2 post Wolcott.

They most definitely had not adapted. As for Comstar, they took over a job the Clans didn't want and didn't know how to handle, administering planets that weren't immediately subservient. As for the Smoke Jaguar attempt to use psychological warfare, it was . . . poor to indulge in understatement.

Except that it was an example of tactics. The Smoke Jaguar attempt to utterly crush the Draconis Combine by smashing the majority of their armies and the capital. Too bad they didn't account for Hanse. But then, neither did Takashi or Theodore.

[Imperial Overlord]

Because success breeds success? And note that when his later obession with a single DEST trooper manhandled his command abilities, he got packed off away from the frontlines into garrison duty.
You're utterly taking things out of context.

No, I'm not. His engaging the 'mech helped his career. His subsequent fall for other reasons does not invalidate.

Arrow IV are effective.

Only to a certain extent. Compare their bombardment value to aerospace fighters in game.

I'll take the concession. Aerospace forces, especially given the unimpressive performance of Clan pilots, isn't always available and homing missiles can be used in close quarters. And massed artillery fire is merciless.

As for btech tanks, ahem, you want to talk about construction rules and heat sinks?

Shrek PPC career. Alcorn with its triple gauss rifles. Cheap compared to 'mechs and fearsome 'mech killers. Go ahead and talk. All I have to prove is that they're effective, not equal.

Nice black and white fallacy there Painrack.

Pray tell, how is this a fallacy? If the Invading Clans were tactically superior, then the Home Clans, which are technologically on par and unable to deploy superior numbers would not be able to win significant number of battlefield victories against the Invading Clans.

The only options aren't total consistent, defeat or equality. The Invading Clans were the strongest and most military capable. That's all that proves. That doesn't imply that the others were grossly inferior, just weaker. The only alternatives being parity and total inferiority is a black-white fallacy. You're either not smart enough or honest enough to admit it.

That's me previously. You don't have to prove the Clans can use combined arms, you have to prove they are good at it. Your rebuttal does establish they do it, but it doesn't address my point their distaste for combining fire, their deliberate neglect of useful battlefield arms, their single combat fetish, and their conservatism all combine to hinder their ability to do so. The US has been in Iraq for five years. We would consider their military incompetent if they didn't try to adjust to the realities on the ground. The Clans, for the most part, didn't. Why should I give them a free pass.

Because what you say is utterly bollocks?

Let me see, combine fire? Done by Wave 3.

Incident? Initiated by Clanners?

Intergration of other elements? Right from the start in Wave 1.

Incident?

Adjust to realities? Ongoing by Wave 4 onwards. Hell, considering it to the real life bush adminstration in Iraq, the Clans are infinitely MORE innovative and adaptive. At least they STARTED reforms by wave 2, with Clan Smoke Jaguar, one of the most incompetent of the Clans altering land ownership laws, forbidding Trial of Possessions to remove Paradise syndrome and starting to rely on Comstar adminstrators. It took the US adminstration a year to start doing what Smoke Jaguar started in MONTHS. And this in the midst of an invasion. Haliburton vs Smoke Jaguar ownership. lol.

Being more competent than the Bush administration doesn't make you competent. Try again.

And we're not talking about the game here but in universe. In universe, artillery is severely fucked up as a supporting element because their range, speed and ROF is too limited as compared to supporting aerospace elements.

Except it works in universe. Repeatedly. The Cabelleros trilogy has brutal Arrow IV fire support from a single 'mech to name just one example. Ilkhan Kerensky might also object.

I have repeatedly demonstrated why their tactics are poor. Deliberate neglect of battle field arms, single combat emphasis, allowing the enemy to prepare the battlefield, conservatism, etcetera. The Clanners tactics worked when their tech edge allows them to dominate, but they fail to adapt when this edge is neutralized. Their failure to change their ways when the Inner Sphere exploits their weaknesses is the telling sign of their incompetence.

Repeating statements WITHOUT showing them is nonsense. How many "exceptions" must I show before the exception is the norm?
Again, the only hinderance is single combat and target limitation.

What Clans list conventional vehicles in the order of battle? Outside a minority they do not? A general statement on how the Clans fight must consider these an exception, just as Clan Snow Raven's weak mech force and strong navy is an exception. How many Clans consider artillery honorable? How many Clans believe that single combat is not preferable to massed fire?

You know the answer. The majority reject those ways of fighting to their disadvantage. How can I not consider them exceptions when they are in the distinct minority?

Right. I shouldn't use bullshit game mechanics. I should just simply point out that Omega Galaxy used massed fire against the Comguards, so did the Sixth Dragoons, Wolf Guards etc etc.

In Grand Melee situations.

You're using campaigns where they underestimated their enemy who fought on prepared ground and got slaughtered as supporting evidence to their tactical and strategic competence? Madness.

Ahem. TACTICS. Not STRATEGY. Stop shifting the fucking goalposts.[/quote]

Fighting the enemy on prepared ground when you don't have to is poor tactics. Especially when you could hammer them with Arrow IV, for example.

And if they had kept on being that intelligent, the Galaxy wouldn't have been mauled into uselessness during the rest of the battle. DEST and the 18th Dieron drowned them in an ocean of blood.

Are you even reading the same battle that I did? They won the battle without any major losses, trapped Hihiro on planet and their main problem was the fact that they couldn't end the guerilla war on planet, capturing Kurita. [/quote]

You're thinking of the wrong battle. The one with the LAM factory was the 18th Dieron and mauled Beta Galaxy to uselessness. It was the death of the 18th Dieron though, a unit I had a PC serve in. Hohiro wasn't there.

Conceded. If they had been smarter, they would have done this all the time. Doesn't hurt my argument.

If the Inner Sphere fight singly, they lose. They fight combined, they lose. And of course, if the debate is going to hang entirely on the Clan focus of single combat, that's not something I'm going to debate cause its true. The points of contention rests in the use of Clan tactics, primarily in terms of maneveur, combined arms, infiltration and other battlefield tactics.

No, the Inner Sphere wins with combined arms. Repeatedly. Tukkayid, Luthien, all of Clan Smoke Jaguar, the Genyosha in the swamp, the Trial of Refusal against the Crusader Khans themselves. The Clanners could initially blow through with brute force and fast strikes, but once the technological edge started eroding, they couldn't. And they didn't change fast enough.

Except that at no point in time did Kerensky abandon zelbringen, thus negating your minor point that if only the rest of the Clans would abandon the batchall and honour, they would had been as successful as Kerensky or Aidan Pryde. nice out of context twist.

Why would she abandon zelbrigen? She was relying on it. Pryde didn't abandon zelbrigen either, but he did innovate. Both Kerensky and Pryde were disgraces redeemed only by their victories. Kerensky wore the Widowmaker symbol to show her contempt of Clan ways. Even innovators who remain within zelbrigen are questionable, even when they get results. Another sign of how inflexible they are.

And how many exceptions must I continue showing to show that they DID adapt and change to adapt to the Inner Sphere mode of warfare? The problem is that by the time they reached the end of the learning curve, the Clans immense strategic disadvantage has come to the play. And its too late for the Clans to play catch-up in THAT aspect.

Exactly. They adapted, but too slowly and didn't go far enough. Proving some adaptability isn't enough. The Star League, despite all of its problems, managed to annihilate an invading Clan, fracture their unity, and win the Trial of Refusal under Clan rules. A mix of strategic (which with both agree is where the Clans are more severely deficient) and tactical failures from a society that invaded with an overwhelmingly superior hand.

The fluff is clear. Crusader Clans reduced their bids to land earlier. I'm fairly sure I read that first in the Tukkayid battle book, not a Stackpole novel, but my memory could be playing tricks. And sub commanders can and do bid against one another. That Clan fluff is inconsistent is FASA's fault, not ours, but it doesn't mean it doesn't happen. Freebirth Phelan Kell Ward, Khan of Clan Wolf, is canon no matter how inconsistent with the rest of the fluff it is.

Ah. I was assuming you were talking about how the further bidding would reduce clan forces available to Tukayid, not the Clan wide bid.
The contention is the second. While limited objectives are up for bidding, the Clan practice of bidding for the entire planet during the Operation Revival limits this. As for Natasha statement, its her opinion. We had no evidence that significant bidding did occur in universe.

Adapt by Wave 1? They weren't massing fire at all until they came back from electing Ulric Ilkhan. Twycross and the Genyosha ass raping weren't Wave 1.

They abandoned parts of the batchall by the end of Wave 1. Massed firepower by Smoke Jaguar actually during Wave 2, although the battle entry in Invading Clans did not make it clear whether this was a result of combined fire or simply firepower. Needless to say, the battle of Luthien was the first comfirmed example of combined fire. Ghost Bear started the trend abandoing batchall utterly against mercenaries, then Smoke Jaguar in Wave 2 post Wolcott.

Right. I concede the bit against mercenaries, I had forgotten of it until you brought it up. I don't recall any bit of combined fire until Luthien and Second Twycross (Victor Davion remarks that the Falcons are finally doing it when two open up on his Dire Wolf) that isn't first started by the Inner Sphere.

Except that it was an example of tactics. The Smoke Jaguar attempt to utterly crush the Draconis Combine by smashing the majority of their armies and the capital. Too bad they didn't account for Hanse. But then, neither did Takashi or Theodore.

Attempting psychological warfare against the entire nation seems more like strategy than tactics, but I will agree that it was progress no matter how poorly executed.

[DPDarkPrimus]

I don't want to derail this thread but at the same time I don't feel that this warrants a separate thread, so... can you people tell me about how pathetic Battletech mechs are? I seem to recall people saying in threads before that we could kill them with modern weapons.

[consequences]

You can, although massed relatively light explosive weaponry would tend to be the most effective means if rapidly attritioning a mech's armor, because of B-tech armor's apparently shitty resistance to concussive impacts, and its inability to scale worth a damn.

After that, massed fire by rapid fire weaponry is your best bet, the only model that describes the effects of the little wizards they use to impregnate b-tech armor worth a darn tends to make individual high velocity impactors of strictly limited utility.

Anyone know what type of RL missile/rocket tops out at 8.33 kg? That's the max an LRM can be, and it does the same damage at point blank range by kinetic energy as the explosive in question. Upping the weight to a 10 kg max and cutting the range by two-thirds doubles the explosive yield for SRMs. And if anyone cares to try to jerk off to B-tech explosive being uber, their frag warheads are absolute shite against infantry in the open, which neatly kills that bullshit.

[Thanatos]

Evidence please. I would like to hear about this autocannon less powerful than a bolter.

It was the one that Brostin carried that I told you about before.

Brostin was suddenly firing. The cannon was kicking out a huge, vibrating sound. One of the enemy monsters was right on them

Not even fazed by Brostin's cannon fire, the Chaos Space Marine thundered forward

Part of the body of evidence for Necropolis.

Out of nowhere, just before nightfall, about a half hour after the klaxons had stopped yelping, the first shells fell, unexpected hurled by long range guns beyond the horizon.
Two fell short on the southern outer habs....

A gigantic salvo hit the railhead at Vayver Gate...

Another scatter pounded the Northern habs along the river...

In mid-stream, Follicks overladen ferry was showered with burning debris... Two more dropped beyond the Magnificat...

A staggered salvo ripped through the mining district...

Volleys of shells and long range missiles pounded into the southern face of the Main Spine.

The guns are over the horizon from the Fort which has the positions at least 200m up

wailing plaintively up at the soldiers two hundred meters above them on the wall top

Which translates to a horizon distance of 55.46km. Thats a minimum distance to the horizon itself. The arty being over the horizon increases that range by quite a bit since you have to take into a account their height. Thats not even taking into account the fact that we don't know how far over the horizon they are.

The distances inside the hive are from the scale map in the book, which since its in Ombnibus form sadly does not fit inside my scanner at all. I'm working on that. It hits as far as the commercia though.

Now, its theorized that the enemy guns are Earthshakers due to them bringing them forward later but we have a reference to the unit on the wall wanting to respond with their Earthshakers but they couldn't without orders from the now insane hive leader.

The question is if the 2005 novel overrides the 2003-2007 fluff, along with the direct narrative of the fiction within the 2007 book.

Why are you listing dates of publication? You're not totally failing to understand the new overwrites old are you?

A more important question: Which source does this come from, and why should I accept this as overriding the sourcebook fluff of Imperial Armour Volume I, the sourcebook fluff of Imperial Armour Volume III, the sourcebook fluff of Imperial Armour Volume V, and further, the narration, i.e., fiction, of Imperial Armour Volume V, which basically amounts to a novella in and of itself. (The story of the Siege of Vraks.)

First off, its from the source you asked for.

Secondly, there is no hierarchy of canon to 40K.

Thirdly, now that I look at it, there is a direct contradiction in IA3 to the other IA books. After a 20km march, they have to pull the Earthshakers forward because they were "were at the extreme edge of their range" and wouldn't be able to support them if they went much further.

Lastly, you're trying to claim different parts of the same book count as different sources?

Clarify. Are you agreeing or disagreeing?

You don't know what impulse is?

However, two holes in the wall with similar mission requirements and similar descriptions can be presumed similar.

No they can't, you don't know what its made of, how thick it is or how wide it is.

Force (dot) distance is the work done on the round, which is the energy applied to the round, which is the final energy of the shell.

*facepalms*

Basic physics.

Its always funny when someone utterly flubs something and tells you how basic it is.

The ancient 155mm Howitzer is about the KE of a modern kinetic penetrator

ABOUT? You call 50% about? Is the Indian Ocean about the size of the Atlantic? Is a 40GB hard drive about the same capacity as a 80GB? Is a half filled glass about full?

6MJ is not about the same muzzle energy as 12MJ unless you have a brain tumor which is becoming a distinct possibility.

And the round in question is not even remotely "ancient"

Precisely. Short firing time, fails to threaten multiple infantrymen at all on that setting.

That's not what it says Spock. It says it can be switched to a dispersed beam to kill squads of infantry.

Squad, not platoon

Squads Spocky, Squads. Notice the plural on it. A platoon is 3 squads plus a small command element.

Especially in a universe filled with crew-served field weapons, human/Ork waves, and close-combat formations.

A squad of infantry in line, echelon or staggered formation (and not using fire teams) in bare minimum combat interval (5m) will have a frontage of roughly 50m.

The description of the Fire Prism confirms precisely what I've been saying -

I like how you keep insisting on using the rules except when it doesn't benefit you:


What's that, a blast effect? You weren't purposely leaving that out were you?

that a laser weapon powerful enough to pierce the thickest WH40K tank armor does not have a significant area of effect blast.

Except that we do have examples of this, such as this one

Flashing across the intervening space, it missed the nose of the still-rising Thunderhawk by what felt like inches. The craft's superstructure groaned and creaked as it was buffeted by the shock-waves of super-heated air. As he jockeyed the flight controls, Salvus muttered a short prayer to the Machine God.

Extreme buffeting from superheated air, enough so to cause stress on a Thunderhawk gunship.

At the center of the killing ground, where the lascannon's discharge slid like an arrow into the earth, the vindictors fell apart at their joints: swallowed in a torus of iridescence that incised bone and sinew like a blade through water. They found themselves blasted up and out on the cusp of a Shockwave; meaty slabs parting along torn seams, shredded alive. This was no great pyrotechnic spectacle, no flaming tumult, no smoke*less fireball: merely a sooty chrysanthemum of uncontainable energy, blindingly bright, that disman*tled its targets like dried leaves before a storm.

Heavy infantry torn apart by the blast effects of a Lascannon hitting the ground near them.

OK, now where's your example of a Lascannon hitting and not presenting what you think is adequate blast effects?

You most certainly have not presented any example of WH40k ground firepower involving a similar magnitude of collateral damage.

Bullshit! I gave you quotes for Jurgens Melta causing flesh to be seared and significant flash burning as a result of super heating the air around it. A triple digit MJ to low GJ event.

I challenge you to present evidence for PPC yields being less than 10 gigajoules.

Easy, direct quote about PPCs hitting:

Striking five tons of heavy munitions with several kilojoules of rampant energy had the effect one might think.

I'll have more as soon as the rest of the stuff downloads....err, gets here in the mail.
But I already have a direct

5mm is an unlikely thickness.

It was a sample thickness to point out how you need to know the depth before you can judge it.

Or would you like to consider how powerful a machine gun would have to be to mow down a grove of trees?

I don't think you understand how powerful a machine gun you need to cut down trees

You can cut down a single tree with 400 rounds firedfrom a Vickers with a number of rounds going wode (.303) and far less accurate firing from a M134 (7.62mm Nato) cancut down a mesquite tree in 1:08 with almost all of the rounds clearly going wide. Rounds that would quite often hit nearby trees.

But this is just small arms fire. We're not even into the fifty cal range and we have a weapon that could cut down a tree easily. From a quick glance, Battletech MGs tend to be in the 20mm range, which would be ludicrous to assume that they couldn't easily cut down trees.

Of course, lets not forget the small laser which will probably be downing a tree in direct fire probably every shot.

Not however, by any "daisy cutter" effect. That's just your delusion.

The coefficient of static friction generally exceeds the coefficient of kinetic friction. Thus, a jolt that is sufficient to cause an object to start sliding may cause it to lurch downhill, regardless of the direction of the jolt.

Quit your bullshitting Spock. You claimed it was pushed downhill and was therefore not that impressive. I asked where you got that impression. You tried to back that up by claiming that Conner said it got pushed downhill when he didn't.

The tank did not get pushed downhill, so quit the bullshit.

In saying that, relative to the Conqueror, it has inferior fire-on-the-move capability.

How can you keep being this stupid? Lets pay attention to the quote shall we?

The AT83 Brigands, larger than their more primitive cousins the 70s, were, on paper, the Urdeshi forge world's equivalent of the Leman Russ. They had auspex guidance, weapon stabilisers and torsion bar suspension. They were the Blood Pact's best battle machines, not counting the very few ancient super-heavies they had inherited from defeated Guard units."

It's a very flexible incident that can be modeled in a variety of ways.

Read As: I'm going to try to bullshit like crazy in an attempt to low ball it. But this isn't even remotely the end of your falsehoods.

It is a march across a wide open desert which happened to be beset by ambushes and raiders.

Man you are just plain dumb. The Imperials planned on a 20km a day advance. Slowed down by constant attacks, they slowed down to an average rate of 15km. This means that on foot and under constant attack, they managed to maintain a daily rate of advance only half of that of the entirely mechanized Invasion of Iraq.

20km a day is a reasonable rate of advance (especially with typical British "pull forward a bit and consolidate"), you just don't know a Mauser rifle from a Javelin.

All of which the Imperial plans did not account for in their "ambitious" plan to march 20 km per day across the desert and then meet the Tau in a pitched battle.

Bullshit again.

De Stael's offensive timetable called for the Tallarn regiments to make an ambitious twenty kms a day, but he expected that in some sectors along the front the Tau would stand and fight and that sector would naturally be slowed down or halted by combat. If the Tau committed their forces to battle in one sector, then others sectors would be able to move faster. De Stael's staff believes an average of twenty kms a day should be sustainable, especially as the Tallarn units would be operating in a familiar environment.

De Stael expected combat along the way. It was part of his insanely stupid plan that there would be heavy fighting in certain sectors and that everyone else would slip by.

There's also the Guardsmen in the advance being utterly surprised when they didn't meet any resistance the first day, the fact that they started off the advance with a full creeping barrage and hit likely places the next day.

The Imperium's logistical problems in the Taros campaign, moreover, display limitations on the Guard's common levels of mobility.

Not really, since Taros was atypical. First of all, the 13th Black Crusade was on. That massively sapped logistics as they were sending almost everything they could spare at it. They could barely get men to send there, much less supply them well.

Not to mention political matters and utter, utter stupidity on the part of Gustavus and De Stael.

Plus they always have to gimp the Guard due to the canonical fact that the Tau don't stand a chance in a full scale war against the Imperium.

You might want to provide a quote to back up any claims about that.

With pleasure:

Heedless of the 105mm shells tearing into the highway and trees around him, Sirus confronted the Infardi armour head-on. The Wrath of Pardua sped forward with a clank of treads and fired its main gun. The hypervelocity round hit the nearest of the two enemy vehicles, exploding into the rear mantlet of its turret with such forcec the entire turret mount spun round through two hundreds and ten degrees. The tank clearly retained motive power, because it continued to churn along the road, but its traverse system was crippled and the turret and weapon swung around slackly with the motion.

An AT70 lobbed a shell at the Wild One that tore away its sponson and part of its track skirt. Another hit the Demands With Menaces on the turret destroying its vox-mast, pintle mount and laser range-finder, and killing the assistant gunner with explosive spalling.
Wounded but not down, the Demands With Menaces plunged forward, laying its guns at the Reaver responsible. Corbec saw the top-hatch pop and the commander emerge, oblivious to the danger, to verify aim with a handscope now his range-finder was junked.
He knew his job. The Demands rolled to a halt and jolted hard as it fired, jerking plumes of accumulated white dust off its surfaces and hull grooves like sifted flour. The sound of the hypervelocity AT shell was just a crisp, flat clap in the augmented air. The AT70 made a much fuller and more satisfying sound as it exploded.

Especially given that the depleted uranium is not 30% less dense than tungsten, last I checked.

Well then you fucked up your math.

By all means, if you have calculations, show them. I remain unimpressed so far, and see no reason to discard the equivalences stated explicitly in the Imperial Armour series.

*sigh*
Effective thickness is the relative thickness based on the angle of the slope of the armor. I used the Imperial Armor figures for them when I calculated the thickness, so they're not going to contradict them are they?

And yet, if the maximum speed your treads rotate at is by design 35 kph, then unless you fiddle the engine, the fastest you'll ever turn is going to be with one tread going 35 kph backwards and one going 35 kph forward.

*beats head against desk*
Its. Not. The. Road. Speed.

If it's 3m, for example, the tank is never going to spin 360 degrees in 1 second or less regardless of how much torque or horsepower you have.

Sweet Jesus, you think that's a bad thing it can't do a full rotation in under a second?

Back up your claim, Thanatos.

Easy.




The vehicle weight, listed speeds, crew duties, loading mechanism, completely different internal arrangement, etc.

[Thanatos]

It was the one that Brostin carried that I told you about before.

Brostin was suddenly firing. The cannon was kicking out a huge, vibrating sound. One of the enemy monsters was right on them

Not even fazed by Brostin's cannon fire, the Chaos Space Marine thundered forward

And that doesn't tell us about its relative total muzzle energy output vs a bolter. A CSM can potentially survive bolter fire as well, can it not?

Part of the body of evidence for Necropolis.

Out of nowhere, just before nightfall, about a half hour after the klaxons had stopped yelping, the first shells fell, unexpected hurled by long range guns beyond the horizon.
Two fell short on the southern outer habs....

A gigantic salvo hit the railhead at Vayver Gate...

Another scatter pounded the Northern habs along the river...

In mid-stream, Follicks overladen ferry was showered with burning debris... Two more dropped beyond the Magnificat...

A staggered salvo ripped through the mining district...

Volleys of shells and long range missiles pounded into the southern face of the Main Spine.

The guns are over the horizon from the Fort which has the positions at least 200m up

wailing plaintively up at the soldiers two hundred meters above them on the wall top

Which translates to a horizon distance of 55.46km. Thats a minimum distance to the horizon itself. The arty being over the horizon increases that range by quite a bit since you have to take into a account their height. Thats not even taking into account the fact that we don't know how far over the horizon they are.

Provided, of course, that we're dealing with level terrain.

The distances inside the hive are from the scale map in the book, which since its in Ombnibus form sadly does not fit inside my scanner at all. I'm working on that. It hits as far as the commercia though.

Now, its theorized that the enemy guns are Earthshakers due to them bringing them forward later but we have a reference to the unit on the wall wanting to respond with their Earthshakers but they couldn't without orders from the now insane hive leader.

The question is if the 2005 novel overrides the 2003-2007 fluff, along with the direct narrative of the fiction within the 2007 book.

Why are you listing dates of publication? You're not totally failing to understand the new overwrites old are you?

Precisely. The Siege of Vraks, which reiterates and reinforces the 15-16 km effective range under roughly T-normal conditions, came out in late 2007, while the incident you reference comes from 2005.

First off, its from the source you asked for.

Secondly, there is no hierarchy of canon to 40K.

Thirdly, now that I look at it, there is a direct contradiction in IA3 to the other IA books. After a 20km march, they have to pull the Earthshakers forward because they were "were at the extreme edge of their range" and wouldn't be able to support them if they went much further.

Lastly, you're trying to claim different parts of the same book count as different sources?

Potentially different types of canon; however, that it exists in both types of canon means that it's a stronger example for it.

Note, further, that it's the normal range, and that they have available for the towed Earthshakers the "extreme" range option of using charges 6-7. Thus, 20 km being the "extreme edge of their range" is not particularly striking - especially considering how sensitive artillery is to local variation in gravity and atmospheric density. Taros has a local g value of Tx.96, Vraks has a local g value of Tx1.05. Objects fall ~9% faster on Vraks. Variation in atmospheric resistance is even more important. So, a weapon rated for 16 km in T-normal conditions might fly 15 km on one planet and 20 km on another.

It's pretty reasonable to assume that most of the descriptions approximate T-normal conditions, and that some variance is due to local planetary conditions, while some is due to variance in manufacture from Forge World to Forge World.

You don't know what impulse is?

I do. So make up your mind whether you're trying to agree or disagree with me on this point. Your statement was ambiguous on that count.

No they can't, you don't know what its made of, how thick it is or how wide it is.

And?

Force (dot) distance is the work done on the round, which is the energy applied to the round, which is the final energy of the shell.

*facepalms*

Basic physics.

Its always funny when someone utterly flubs something and tells you how basic it is.

Thanatos, I've not flubbed a thing. If you don't care to take my word for the fact that force dot distance gives the work done on an object, you might try Hyperphysics,, Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, various other instructional websites, or you could go ask on the physics forums.

What I'm describing is a basic law of kinematics, taught in just about every introductory physics course.

ABOUT?[/i] You call 50% about? Is the Indian Ocean about the size of the Atlantic? Is a 40GB hard drive about the same capacity as a 80GB? Is a half filled glass about full?

6MJ is not about the same muzzle energy as 12MJ unless you have a brain tumor which is becoming a distinct possibility.

As noted in my explanation to l33telboi about discarding sabot rounds, the energy of the M829A1 kinetic penetrator - not the total round including sabot - is about 6.2 MJ shortly after firing. I expected that you were already aware of that distinction.

Now, the M829A3 is a much nicer round, and probably has 7-8 MJ energy on the penetrator initially, but the M829A1 is the one I had figures for. As I said, that [reasonably modern] kinetic penetrator, which is probably still better than what many less professional militaries have lying around, has similar energy at point blank as the 155mm Howitzer - 6.2 MJ vs 6.1 MJ.

And the round in question is not even remotely "ancient"

Depends on your value for ancient. You were describing it as old, yourself - we were talking about WWII era artillery when you brought it up.

Precisely. Short firing time, fails to threaten multiple infantrymen at all on that setting.

That's not what it says Spock. It says it can be switched to a dispersed beam to kill squads of infantry.

Squad, not platoon

Squads Spocky, Squads. Notice the plural on it. A platoon is 3 squads plus a small command element.

Especially in a universe filled with crew-served field weapons, human/Ork waves, and close-combat formations.

A squad of infantry in line, echelon or staggered formation (and not using fire teams) in bare minimum combat interval (5m) will have a frontage of roughly 50m.

The description of the Fire Prism confirms precisely what I've been saying -

I like how you keep insisting on using the rules except when it doesn't benefit you:
What's that, a blast effect? You weren't purposely leaving that out were you?

No, I'd stopped bothering to look at the game mechanical descriptions at that point, as you seemed impervious to game-mechanical arguments.

that a laser weapon powerful enough to pierce the thickest WH40K tank armor does not have a significant area of effect blast.

Except that we do have examples of this, such as this one

Flashing across the intervening space, it missed the nose of the still-rising Thunderhawk by what felt like inches. The craft's superstructure groaned and creaked as it was buffeted by the shock-waves of super-heated air. As he jockeyed the flight controls, Salvus muttered a short prayer to the Machine God.

Extreme buffeting from superheated air, enough so to cause stress on a Thunderhawk gunship.

At the center of the killing ground, where the lascannon's discharge slid like an arrow into the earth, the vindictors fell apart at their joints: swallowed in a torus of iridescence that incised bone and sinew like a blade through water. They found themselves blasted up and out on the cusp of a Shockwave; meaty slabs parting along torn seams, shredded alive. This was no great pyrotechnic spectacle, no flaming tumult, no smoke*less fireball: merely a sooty chrysanthemum of uncontainable energy, blindingly bright, that disman*tled its targets like dried leaves before a storm.

Heavy infantry torn apart by the blast effects of a Lascannon hitting the ground near them.

OK, now where's your example of a Lascannon hitting and not presenting what you think is adequate blast effects?

At long last you provide evidence for lascannon causing collateral damage. So, we must conclude that they can indeed do so. However, neither does either case require exceptional (>2 GJ) yields, and there remain the other three lines of evidence against you.

In fact, the infantry case, closest to quantifiable, we see no evidence of ignition of the infantry or partial or full vaporization. If we assumed that the blast was 1 km/s debris with enough momentum to launch 100 kg/m^2 at 10 m/s at 5m, and that half the energy was released in blast form and half in radiant heat, both omnidirectionally (i.e., including into the ground), that would be 314 megajoules.

So you're still nowhere near showing >2 GJ yields. The best example for that which I am aware of is the Tau battlesuit melting case we discussed earlier, and as I pointed out, that's actually a fairly flexible example. In addition to that example, with very limited heating effects and sub-GJ range blast effects (we don't even have a large crater mentioned in that quote), we have the Inferno spread, giving rare explicit figures, we have the hellgun powerpacks and hellgun/lasgun effective yields vs nominal consumption levels, and we have the equivalent thicknesses of steel that WH40k vehicles are protected by. We also have its lack of in-game blast effects, which are present on definitively stronger weapons (such as the laser destroyer and turbo-laser destructor) as well as high explosive weapons substantially less powerful than the Earthshaker.

I'll now [re]introduce three more suggestive items to make the list complete. Sixth: The lascannon is the secondary weapon of the Leman Russ. The primary weapon, the Battle Cannon, is less powerful than the Earthshaker, which per the previously quoted passage in Honour Guard, has a ~2 GJ HE bursting charge and therefore generally nails a target with about a gigajoule on flat-surface impact.

Seventh: The melta, per Caves of Ice and the lack of explosive overpressure, can come up with ~30 GJ at a rate of 1-10 GW or so. Per the little door-melting (not vaporizing) incident of Vraks, and the flesh-bursting example you provided, we really don't expect more than a couple gigajoules for a melta burst in combat. And the melta, though a credible anti-tank weapon at point-blank ranges, is much less focused than the lascannon, in terms of time of impact and impact area.

Eighth: You've had about a month to come up with some kind of quantifiable lascannon event pointing to >2 GJ yields, and haven't come up with a single one. If there's any evidence pointing to that, it's buried deep among all the evidence that suggests a lascannon is somewhere at or below 2 GJ that we've both rifled through. It's not as if this is a particularly unusual conclusion; this is the same sort of order of magnitude that debaters seem pretty willing to accept.

For example, Connor MacLeod on SDN, pretty clearly interested in promoting higher WH40k numbers, gives "high triple digit MJ to low single digit GJ," "in the hundreds of MJ easily," "las cannon have a minimum energy output of hundreds of megajoules", and once - for the example we discussed at greater length earlier, the Tau battlesuit case - concluding 2-4 GJ by treating the battlesuit as an inert solid brick of steel. If there was anything resembling solid evidence for lascannon yield >2 GJ, I feel like it should have seen the light of day by now.

I rest upon eightfold path of lascannon yield certainty. The lascannon has an effective yield of no more than two times ten to the ninth kilogram meters squared per second squared.

Bullshit! I gave you quotes for Jurgens Melta causing flesh to be seared and significant flash burning as a result of super heating the air around it. A triple digit MJ to low GJ event.

Triple digit MJ to maybe low GJ is not the same order of magnitude as an event that at a minimum is in the tens of gigajoules. To be precise, it's two orders of magnitude lower. So no, you haven't shown anything with the sort of magnitude of collateral damage I've shown.

Easy, direct quote about PPCs hitting:

Striking five tons of heavy munitions with several kilojoules of rampant energy had the effect one might think.

I'll have more as soon as the rest of the stuff downloads....err, gets here in the mail.
But I already have a direct

"Several kilojoules," for the total energy of the PPC bolt, unfortunately, is contradicted implicitly by every other description, including the ones that I didn't previously cite in this thread:

The metal monster rocked, turned. The blue lightning from its left arm hit the next street over, sending a rush of debris riding skyward on an orange fireball.

Glass and structural steel puffed away from laser and PPC caresses in vapor; brick and granite blew apart in blossoms of dust.

Even as she turned, the yellow hellglare of the Griff's PPC lit up the buildings to either side. The big Mauler rocked from the recoil effect of New Samarkand's finest ferro-fibrous armor jetting away from the beam in the form of plasma.

The blue lightning missed by less than a meter, striking a nearby rock with a mighty crack!

The 'Mech tottered back slightly under the hit, losing some of its speed and momentum as the PPC blasted a huge hole in its chest. A wave of heat washed over her as the temperature in the cockpit suddenly spiked...

The bright beams of the enemy 'Mech's twin PPCs boiled away his torso armor in a thunder-like clap of arcing electrical energy, leaving billowing black smoke where the armor had torn away. The impact was vicious, and Trent's balance swayed slightly, throwing off his targeting sight.

The sudden impact forced Jez's shots low, her PPC stabbing up into the black mire of the swamp, sending dancing arcs of blue energy over the water and billows of steam into the evening sky.

Her PPC carved into the Nightsky's back, slicing through engine shielding and splashing molten titanium down into the spinning gyro.

The arcs of twin PPCs scoured his legs, crisping more of his protection into impotent slag.

The Nightstar's PPC scarred the Templar's left side with molten cuts,

Luckily the Caesar's ER PPC missed low and to the right, turning a parked hovercar into a small sunburst shattering any remaining unbroken glass in a nearby bakery.

The Grand Dragon and the Grasshopper charged forward, taking out dozens of soldiers with every PPC and laser salvo.

Chu's Orion took a PPC bolt square in the chest, the lightning bolt discharge from the hull fusing sand to glass by his 'Mech's feet, the blast leaving a gaping, smoke-belching crater just below the Orion's cockpit.

And even this:

There was a good chance the weapon would be destroyed in such an attack, fused into a massive slug of ferro-titanium, but it did allow him to fire at incredibly deadly ranges.

As, after all, the PPC is very likely to have more than 0.0001% efficiency...

For reference, several kilojoules will melt several grams of whatever. We're talking about small arms fire on this scale of energy. Every one of these contradicts that notion of yours; then we also have every example involving lasers that aren't supposed to outmatch the PPC, etc. "Several kilojoules" here is if anything less viable than using it for Star Wars fighters based on similar quotes, and I've always described that as a serious stretch.

The low megajoule figures cited in BattleTechnology #3 would fail similarly, except for the fact that BattleTechnology #4, in one stroke, retcons them by a factor of 1,000, and in the same issue demonstrates conclusively that the people at BattleTechnology could not put watts, joules, and seconds together correctly to save their own lives, rendering the entire set of BattleTechnology energy/power figures suspect.

Which is a pity, because I thought their laser rifle and laser pistol figures didn't look too bad. We still have a handful of arbitrary sounding quotes, like this one:

The destructive energy washed down the side of the Falconer's long torso, burning away armor and splashing it to the ground in impotent pools. Several megajoules of energy cored through to shave away physical shielding from around the Falconer's fusion reactor, forcing it to shut down or risk a catastrophic containment failure.

Except that the "megajoules" are a small part of the weapon's yield, that penetrating the armor and going through. From the huge numbers of descriptions of large-scale melting, vaporization, and collateral damage, any claim of less than hundreds of megajoules is outright absurd; any claim of less than gigajoules needs to deal with the waste heat issues and the specifics of some of those collateral damage incidents.

5mm is an unlikely thickness.

It was a sample thickness to point out how you need to know the depth before you can judge it.

Except that we can make much better guesses about the probable thickness and size. We've seen what kind of effects cause fring melting of sand, e.g., powerful lightning bolts - and a laser is a much more focused spurt of energy. We have every reason to guess that this is somewhere over a gigajoule just from the description; how much more, we cannot tell, but any guess that looks like less than 100 MJ or more than 100 GJ is outright absurd.

Or would you like to consider how powerful a machine gun would have to be to mow down a grove of trees?

I don't think you understand how powerful a machine gun you need to cut down trees

You can cut down a single tree with 400 rounds firedfrom a Vickers with a number of rounds going wode (.303) and far less accurate firing from a M134 (7.62mm Nato) cancut down a mesquite tree in 1:08 with almost all of the rounds clearly going wide. Rounds that would quite often hit nearby trees.

But this is just small arms fire. We're not even into the fifty cal range and we have a weapon that could cut down a tree easily. From a quick glance, Battletech MGs tend to be in the 20mm range, which would be ludicrous to assume that they couldn't easily cut down trees.

Of course, lets not forget the small laser which will probably be downing a tree in direct fire probably every shot.

It's not a small laser; it's a medium laser, the same class of weapon seen causing tree trunks to explode in steam (as an unintented fringe effect) in the same battle:

A Quickdraw rises next, muck cascading from the sagittal crest fore-and-afting its round head, arms raised to pump dazzling laser pulses at phantom foes in the woods. Tree trunks explode in steam as the 'Mech rises high on its jump jets.

Now, that's firing 5.3 kg of bullets (470 x 11.3g; more like 10 kg of ammunition belt) hitting that one tree perfectly to knock it down in one minute of firing. We're not talking about chopping down a tree in one minute with a carefully aimed burst; we're talking about levelling an entire grove in frenzied seconds while Cassie, IIRC, runs to a carefully prepared mudpit nearby to lure it in.

I will grant that BT MGs are rather more powerful than the weapons you're talking about; however, they're still much less powerful than the medium laser by any measure, and were not being aimed at specific trees. BT MG ammunition would need to be very powerful indeed - and we are talking tens to hundreds of MJ per trunk to explode substantial trunks into steam at the point of impact.

Not however, by any "daisy cutter" effect. That's just your delusion.

Exploding trunks into steam is not as efficient as a daisy cutter bomb, which primarily does blast damage. It seems fairly clear that the Locust there pumps multiple gigajoules of energy into the stand of trees.

The coefficient of static friction generally exceeds the coefficient of kinetic friction. Thus, a jolt that is sufficient to cause an object to start sliding may cause it to lurch downhill, regardless of the direction of the jolt.

Quit your bullshitting Spock. You claimed it was pushed downhill and was therefore not that impressive. I asked where you got that impression. You tried to back that up by claiming that Conner said it got pushed downhill when he didn't.

The tank did not get pushed downhill, so quit the bullshit.

I recommend you re-read what I said. Carefully. As I said, there is absolutely no reason to conclude similar momentum for the round itself as the BT gauss rifle, and multiple good reasons not to.

In saying that, relative to the Conqueror, it has inferior fire-on-the-move capability.

How can you keep being this stupid? Lets pay attention to the quote shall we?

The AT83 Brigands, larger than their more primitive cousins the 70s, were, on paper, the Urdeshi forge world's equivalent of the Leman Russ. They had auspex guidance, weapon stabilisers and torsion bar suspension. They were the Blood Pact's best battle machines, not counting the very few ancient super-heavies they had inherited from defeated Guard units."

Which does absolutely nothing to show your point. The Conqueror tank is a Leman Russ variant.

It's a very flexible incident that can be modeled in a variety of ways.

Read As: I'm going to try to bullshit like crazy in an attempt to low ball it. But this isn't even remotely the end of your falsehoods.

No. The PPC strike in Close Quarters is also a very flexible incident as well. It's just that, unfortunately for you, even the least generous reasonable models fail to support it. The gauss rifle recoil incidents in and of themselves tell us almost nothing; they are also very flexible incidents - but they're perfectly compatible with our other information, and so support it.

It is a march across a wide open desert which happened to be beset by ambushes and raiders.

Man you are just plain dumb. The Imperials planned on a 20km a day advance. Slowed down by constant attacks, they slowed down to an average rate of 15km. This means that on foot and under constant attack, they managed to maintain a daily rate of advance only half of that of the entirely mechanized Invasion of Iraq.

20km a day is a reasonable rate of advance (especially with typical British "pull forward a bit and consolidate"), you just don't know a Mauser rifle from a Javelin.

All of which the Imperial plans did not account for in their "ambitious" plan to march 20 km per day across the desert and then meet the Tau in a pitched battle.

Bullshit again.

De Stael's offensive timetable called for the Tallarn regiments to make an ambitious twenty kms a day, but he expected that in some sectors along the front the Tau would stand and fight and that sector would naturally be slowed down or halted by combat. If the Tau committed their forces to battle in one sector, then others sectors would be able to move faster. De Stael's staff believes an average of twenty kms a day should be sustainable, especially as the Tallarn units would be operating in a familiar environment.

De Stael expected combat along the way. It was part of his insanely stupid plan that there would be heavy fighting in certain sectors and that everyone else would slip by.

Or, in other words, that most of the army would be unopposed at any given time while the Tau concentrated to stand and fight in some sectors.

No, I'm still not impressed by the marching speed of the Imperial Guard. It may be good for an infantry-based force that's only partially mechanized and towing heavy artillery pieces with sharply limited supplies of fuel and water, but it's not going to be good when you're facing BattleMechs.

There's also the Guardsmen in the advance being utterly surprised when they didn't meet any resistance the first day, the fact that they started off the advance with a full creeping barrage and hit likely places the next day.

Didn't meet any resistance... and still didn't go all that far.

The Imperium's logistical problems in the Taros campaign, moreover, display limitations on the Guard's common levels of mobility.

Not really, since Taros was atypical. First of all, the 13th Black Crusade was on. That massively sapped logistics as they were sending almost everything they could spare at it. They could barely get men to send there, much less supply them well.

Not to mention political matters and utter, utter stupidity on the part of Gustavus and De Stael.

Plus they always have to gimp the Guard due to the canonical fact that the Tau don't stand a chance in a full scale war against the Imperium.

Let's give you a few excerpts from the BattleTech Techmanual to hammer home precisely what sort of logistical disadvantage Guard forces are at:

Because a MechWarrior might be in his cockpit for days at a time (and in the field for weeks), most BattleMech cockpits provide some storage lockers for rations, field gear, a personal firearm and other gear.

BattleMechs can and do operate for weeks out in the field with minimal logistic support; a MechWarrior is expected to be able to live out of his cockpit for days without being able to get out. The main supply issue for BattleMech? Ammunition for those times which you actually are engaging enemies.

Speaking of seats, many Inner Sphere BattleMechs provide one other seat in the cockpit: a foldout toilet... Without a storage tank to overflow, the endurance limit on cockpit toilets is how much toilet paper the MechWarrior has. Go ahead and laugh.

Yes, they really do deploy for very long missions with minimal logistic support. Did you remember to pack enough rolls of toilet paper, MechWarrior Thanatos? Well, you have to sleep sometime.

Indeed, some BattleMech cockpit designs go so far as to include a full ejection seat for the passenger and even provide them with some controls, such as communications systems.

Oh, wait, although you only need one person to drive it, most of them come with a passenger seat for those times when someone has to be awake to watch the sensors at all times.

Life support cannot spare the mass for unlimited air and water recycling, though it can operate anywhere from a few hours to several days in vacuum depending on the design. If air or water exists outside the 'Mech, however, the life support system can provide fresh oxygen for an almost unlimited period as long as the fusion engine runs.

Several days in the vacuum for some designs? Ok, so what about fuel?

These types gradually lost ground to protium users.

Oh, protium-fueled fusion. So you can use water?

This is why most military fusion engines include a small electrolysis unit to extract hydrogen for water. Those tales you may have heard, of MechWarriors “refueling” their BattleMechs with urine? Those aren't myths.

OK, so the Leman Russ can be fueled with anything combustible, and lasgun power packs can be recharged by building a wood fire on top of them, but a fifty foot war machine that can be powered by one guy pissing in a cup?

Face it: The Guard, as good as they are at scrounging fuel and power, are at a logistical disadvantage. BattleMechs are simply unreal here, just as they are in their terrain-handling abilities.

You might want to provide a quote to back up any claims about that.

With pleasure:

Heedless of the 105mm shells tearing into the highway and trees around him, Sirus confronted the Infardi armour head-on. The Wrath of Pardua sped forward with a clank of treads and fired its main gun. The hypervelocity round hit the nearest of the two enemy vehicles, exploding into the rear mantlet of its turret with such forcec the entire turret mount spun round through two hundreds and ten degrees. The tank clearly retained motive power, because it continued to churn along the road, but its traverse system was crippled and the turret and weapon swung around slackly with the motion.

An AT70 lobbed a shell at the Wild One that tore away its sponson and part of its track skirt. Another hit the Demands With Menaces on the turret destroying its vox-mast, pintle mount and laser range-finder, and killing the assistant gunner with explosive spalling.
Wounded but not down, the Demands With Menaces plunged forward, laying its guns at the Reaver responsible. Corbec saw the top-hatch pop and the commander emerge, oblivious to the danger, to verify aim with a handscope now his range-finder was junked.
He knew his job. The Demands rolled to a halt and jolted hard as it fired, jerking plumes of accumulated white dust off its surfaces and hull grooves like sifted flour. The sound of the hypervelocity AT shell was just a crisp, flat clap in the augmented air. The AT70 made a much fuller and more satisfying sound as it exploded.

If those are both Vanquishers, that's perfectly compatible with everything I've already said. If the first is actually a Conqueror, it does suggest higher than Mach 5 velocity for the Vanquisher's higher-speed AT rounds.

However, we still face the issue of momentum, and the Conqueror's rounds - and Vanquisher's rounds - still should have substantially less momentum than the Earthshaker, whose muzzle velocity is established and repeated in a very consistent fashion from 2003 onward in IA books, and will probably continue to be repeated in similar fashion as long Warwick Kinrade and/or Tony Cottrell continue to write for Games Workshop.

If the Vanquisher has the same recoil energy as the Earthshaker, is (6.5/9.0)^3 = 38% of the mass of the much larger gun based on barrel length ratios, and fires a subcaliber sabot ten times as fast as the Earthshaker round (> mach 20 - very high velocity), we're talking 2.3 kg exiting the barrel. Under the same conditions and a Mach 10 projectile, 5.6 kg. 10 kg? 1900 m/s. Start to sound familiar? It should. We're pretty much back where we started.

Sound better than the M829A3? Higher energy, yes. The larger cross section and lack of stabilizing fins make it a little less accurate and a little less efficient at the armor-piercing game, so it's a more primitive design even as it has a clear edge in destructive effect. It is still much closer to battle armor mounted gauss guns than BattleMech mounted gauss guns when we capture it on the BT scale of things.

Think about it carefully. We're dealing with small hypervelocity projectile - Tau railguns and Vanquisher AT rounds - that do fantastic at piercing Warhammer 40,000 armor, and you're suggesting that those same tanks that get killed so easily by those hypervelocity projectiles have a more than miniscule chance of surviving the impact of a hypervelocity projectile over ten times as big.

And in turn, are threatening to the giant war machines that can very often take hits from such weapons without suffering any reduction in combat effectiveness.

Well then you fucked up your math.

I suggest you probably made an error in calculation. Did you use the volume of a simple cylinder? That would account for close to a 30% error on your part. DU is 19.05 g/cc; tungsten is 19.25 g/cc. They're 1% apart in density, not 30%.

By all means, if you have calculations, show them. I remain unimpressed so far, and see no reason to discard the equivalences stated explicitly in the Imperial Armour series.

*sigh*
Effective thickness is the relative thickness based on the angle of the slope of the armor. I used the Imperial Armor figures for them when I calculated the thickness, so they're not going to contradict them are they?

So why mention them at all if they don't help you?

*beats head against desk*
Its. Not. The. Road. Speed.

It can be the speed, if that's low enough.

Sweet Jesus, you think that's a bad thing it can't do a full rotation in under a second?

Not really a bad thing per se. That's the absolute limit on the peak rotational speed of 2pi radians per second, i.e., when you sit there and spin up to peak rotational speed. You still must accelerate up to that speed and brake from that speed to a stop, so that maximum rotational speed is an upper limit that, in an ideal world, starts to affect turning performance when you go pi radians per second. If you turn with one tread, pivoting on a stationary tread, that speed limit affects any rotation averaging any less than pi/2 radians per second (a ninety degree turn in one second). Compared to a split-second 180 degree human-like turn, that is inferior; not necessarily bad, just not as good.

When we look at the fundamentals, the horsepower/mass ratio disadvantage, and having limited selection of force vectors (forwards and reverse on two parallel treadlines rather than vectoring meganewtons through a three-jointed hip-knee-foot limb), are what fundamentally make for less nimbleness in changing directions.

Back up your claim, Thanatos.

Easy.
The vehicle weight, listed speeds, crew duties, loading mechanism, completely different internal arrangement, etc.

Ah, but wouldn't that simply mean these are different patterns of Leman Russ Demolishers? This would seem a good standard practice for dealing with the numerous minor variations in published specifications.

As I said at the start, BattleTech battle armor are a fair match for Warhammer tanks. They can survive 'Mech grade weapons:

Thanks to the wonders of the chassis and super-strong myomers, battlesuits can carry far tougher armor than anything you've used before. With this stuff – and a bit of luck – you can survive BattleMech laser fire, missiles, autocannon shells and PPC bolts. Don't get cocky, though; even some punk from a planetary militia can drop you with a bolt-action rifle if he hits you just right.

They can match light 'Mech grade weapons, which in turn match Warhammer main tank weapons:

The net results are guns that can match their BattleMech equivalents.

They even match them in speed in many cases, with effective speeds ranging up into the 30 kph range, and are smaller targets that handle difficult terrain better.

Against a full bore BattleMech of equivalent tonnage? The basic 60 ton Dragon completely shreds the basic 60 ton Leman Russ and survives attacks that would obliterate them on a glancing hit, while exceeding the speed of the Salamander scout vehicle off-road and requiring less logistic support.[/quote]

[Thanatos]

The Siege of Vraks, which reiterates and reinforces the 15-16 km effective range under roughly T-normal conditions, came out in late 2007, while the incident you reference comes from 2005.

That's not the way it works at all. New overwrites old is for use generally with the really old stuff or stuff that's out of print.

Potentially different types of canon

Oh this is rich.

however, that it exists in both types of canon means that it's a stronger example for it.

The different kinds of canon you just created. Maybe I should whip up some new types of canon too?

Note, further, that it's the normal range, and that they have available for the towed Earthshakers the "extreme" range option of using charges 6-7.

Except that you can only use 6 or 7 charges a handful of times before the gun is retired. You're not doing that on day one of 60.

Objects fall ~9% faster on Vraks.

Ignoring that its the wrong planet, that's not how gravity and projectiles work.

And?

I point out that you can't use it for quantification because there's basically nothing there to use to quantify it, and you don't know why thats a problem?

If you don't care to take my word for the fact that force dot distance gives the work done on an object

Actually, your "word" was that it was force times length of barrel rather than force times displacement. You tried to use barrel length as the displacement, when the recoil distance is what you would use if you were stupid enough to think you used Work to determine recoil.

What I'm describing is a basic law of kinematics, taught in just about every introductory physics course.

Sadly, you utterly fucked it up. The question is whether it was honest stupidity, or an attempt at dishonesty. More likely the latter given what we have seen.

No, I'd stopped bothering to look at the game mechanical descriptions at that point, as you seemed impervious to game-mechanical arguments.

Because they're not canon and as we'll see a bit later, you still are using them.

At long last you provide evidence for lascannon causing collateral damage

At long last, someone brings forward any evidence of the secondary effects!

In fact, the infantry case, closest to quantifiable, we see no evidence of ignition of the infantry or partial or full vaporization.

Actually there is evidence of ignition, I just left it out because it was vague.

If we assumed that the blast was 1 km/s debris with enough momentum to launch 100 kg/m^2 at 10 m/s at 5m, and that half the energy was released in blast form and half in radiant heat, both omnidirectionally (i.e., including into the ground), that would be 314 megajoules.

If you decide to set it up that way and then use the secondary effects yield as the primary yield.

We also have its lack of in-game blast effects

So you use in-game effects again after you claim you weren't using them anymore. Forget about the Fire Prism that you said had no effect on group targets? You're really incompetent at dishonesty.

This is ignoring the fact that lascannons and melta weapons don't effect multiple targets for game balance reasons. You can wipe out whole groups of men with a Melta, but you can only use it on a single target in game.

The lascannon is the secondary weapon of the Leman Russ

Piss easy to expain: Cannons are fantastic multipurpose weapons. There's something like 10 different types of rounds in service for it.

That's ignoring the fact that there are Leman Russ variants with lascannon main guns.

The primary weapon, the Battle Cannon, is less powerful than the Earthshaker

I remember when you posted the evidence that....wait, no you didn't.

which per the previously quoted passage in Honour Guard, has a ~2 GJ HE bursting charge and therefore generally nails a target with about a gigajoule on flat-surface impact.

Basic physics ignorance alert: They do damage through different methods.

we have the hellgun powerpacks and hellgun/lasgun effective yields vs nominal consumption levels

Ah yes, where you first assumed it used a lasgun pack because of some shitty online article, and then assumed that despite all evidence to the contrary, a hellgun pack was the same size as a Lascannon pack.

Eighth: You've had about a month to come up with some kind of quantifiable lascannon event pointing to >2 GJ yields, and haven't come up with a single one.

I haven't had even remotely the time to do any research. Even then, I not only used the source you gained by flat out cheating to give higher yields than 2GJ but also gave evidence of secondary effects.

You have been specifically asked for examples of the Lascannon not doing the level of secondary effects you imagine it should. You have not provided any.

You've been given even longer to give where you got your original estimate of 2GJ. You have only given examples of things you have found since then, so we can safely conclude your original estimate was purely ass pulled.

In fact, out of the 7 total things you list that "support" your conclusion, two came from me, one you got by cheating, and the rest are wild assed conjecture. You have provided no evidence (conjecture is not a type of evidence, even if Lionel Hutz says it is) of your own and you claim I've brought nothing forward when you used two of the sources I quoted?

Man, you really suck at this.

It's not a small laser; it's a medium laser

My mistake, though that actually makes things worse for BTech.

the same class of weapon seen causing tree trunks to explode in steam (as an unintented fringe effect) in the same battle:

Fringe effect my ass, those are direct impacts.

We're not talking about chopping down a tree in one minute with a carefully aimed burst; we're talking about levelling an entire grove in frenzied seconds while Cassie, IIRC, runs to a carefully prepared mudpit nearby to lure it in.

We're talking about 20mm MGs here, they'll cut down a tree in a few shots.

It seems fairly clear that the Locust there pumps multiple gigajoules of energy into the stand of trees.

No its not, not only do you have 20mm fire going into them, but its been established that it can cut down a tree per shot with the medium laser. That's aside from the fact that you never quantified the tree or the number of trees destroyed or even the time frame.

I recommend you re-read what I said.

I recommend you just quit lying. You claimed it wasn't impressive because it moved downhill. That has now been established as a flat out lie.

Which does absolutely nothing to show your point. The Conqueror tank is a Leman Russ variant.

Except for the tiny little fact that there are no Conquerors there and all variants are called by their variant name solely. Leman Russ Conquerors are called Conquerors, Leman Russ Vanquishers are called Vanquishers, Leman Russ Demolishers are called Demolishers, etc.

If its called a Leman Russ, is a Leman Russ. Nice attempt at bullshitting, but it utterly fails if you have even glanced at a 40K work. They were referring to the base pattern Russ.

In fact, the only source that says that only the Conqueror can fire on the move, is the original pre numbered Imperial Armor. Odd that you think a book from 2005 is overwritten by one that is from 2007, but one from 2000 should count more than the currently printed one.

Why, that would just be more rank dishonesty wouldn't it? How completely unsurprising.

it's not going to be good when you're facing BattleMechs.

Didn't meet any resistance... and still didn't go all that far.

They stopped and dug in every day in typical British fashion and they were combat advancing. They expected to be attacked any minute the whole way.

BattleMechs can and do operate for weeks out in the field with minimal logistic support

Wow, it described the inside of any vehicle ever. I'm so impressed!

Especially since Imperial vehicles have operated in the desert

Oh, wait, although you only need one person to drive it, most of them come with a passenger seat for those times when someone has to be awake to watch the sensors at all times.

Its almost like they knew the severe disadvantages of the one person ground vehicle you bragged about! Almost.

OK, so the Leman Russ can be fueled with anything combustible, and lasgun power packs can be recharged by building a wood fire on top of them, but a fifty foot war machine that can be powered by one guy pissing in a cup?

Doesn't actually tell us the requirements for full operation and how much good pissing into it does. Pissing in it (~30 oz if he's hydrated, I've had to piss into a lot of gatorade bottles in my time) could provide enough power to keep the aforementioned air recyclers running but not be remotely enough for motivation or weapons.

You'd have to know the reactors tank capacity and the efficiency of the electrolysis unit to get an idea of how much that's going to give him. I could put a cup of gasoline into my engine and get down to the gas station on the corner but its not going to get me down to my job.

Face it: The Guard, as good as they are at scrounging fuel and power, are at a logistical disadvantage.

Not really, since you have shown that the mechs have lower logistical requirements, not that they have better logistics.

You've given nothing on how well they can keep them supplied, which is what logistics is. Situations like Taros are in the minority, because they had to undercut the Guard like they always do whenever the Tau are involved.

They often can and do supply millions of men and vehicles for months with what they brought with the task force.

If the first is actually a Conqueror, it does suggest higher than Mach 5 velocity for the Vanquisher's higher-speed AT rounds.

It is.

If the Vanquisher has the same recoil energy as the Earthshaker

There's nothing to suggest that at all. So we can safely ignore this.

Especially since you don't know how recoil works.

So why mention them at all if they don't help you?

You're the one who brought up effective armor thickness. It told you I was quite aware of it.

Ah, but wouldn't that simply mean these are different patterns of Leman Russ Demolishers?

No, as different patterns than standard are specifically stated to be such.

This would seem a good standard practice for dealing with the numerous minor variations in published specifications.

Actually no, because you were a)using its performance for Leman Russ variants in general and b) This is where you use new overwrites old since its an out of print source.

They can survive 'Mech grade weapons

When the words "whole lotta luck" are involved, its generally safe to say that its almost certain that they generally can't.

The basic 60 ton Dragon completely shreds the basic 60 ton Leman Russ

I remember when you quantified the AC\5 on it.

Oh, wait. You didn't. You kept talking about how great the gauss gun was and provided nothing on the AC\5. Then all you provided on the medium lasers was that they could cut down a tree in a single hit.

And basically nothing on the LRM.

Not much qualification at all on the equal tonnage vehicle you selected.

[Peptuck]

I love it when they begin making up levels or "types" of canon when they're confronted with things they don't like.

[Thanatos]

I love it when they begin making up levels or "types" of canon when they're confronted with things they don't like.

This was after trying to claim the later IA books as being multiple sources.

[Connor MacLeod]

I like how he keeps simultaneously claiming I indicate certain things while subtly hinting that I'm unreliable because I clearly want to overpower 40K. This is classic "stolen concept" fallacy bullshit, which is basically SOP for Spock - he doesn't care about consistency, he just cherrypicks what he can from evidence he can find and ignores what is inconvenient for his claims. (Also consistency and hard evidence would make it hard for him to make things up - like all those fantastic capabilities he and his ilk invent for the Federation from snippets of canon, such as rocket-booted Federation soldiers and nuke-armed shuttlepods.)

[harbringer]

The problem is 40K comes from rogue trader that was wanktastic as a game .... lets just turn that hill into a nuke...

Battletech comes from a basic robot game that allowed you to fight in big manga inspired but seemingly real machines (ok some liberties there but it is the crux of it).

Problem they deliberately underpowered Battletech it wasn't ment to go toe to toe with IOM or even Star trek. As this is the case the proof he is searching for does not exist. You can't say "Oooh Teh Gauss rifle is uber and pawns them" unless you can prove it. Closest you get is big stone columns being fragmented in a novel - and this still doesn't equate to rail rifles that could use any outlandish mechanism. Same goes for PPC's you just can't get good hard data as in the novels and so on it isn't the focus. It doesn't stop me liking the game or similar ones, but you won't be able to mash a landraider without something suitable which by the way you dont have.

[consequences]

Hell, I'd love to hear how he arrived at the conclusion that a heat point equals a gigajoule of waste heat, but only for energy weapons. Unfortunately, the concept of being a gentleman and letting Thanatos have the time to fully answer seems to be completely lost on him, so we may never know.

[Thanatos]

Hell, I'd love to hear how he arrived at the conclusion that a heat point equals a gigajoule of waste heat, but only for energy weapons

Especially since during a previous debate I found out that they were able to ambush and destroy mechs by dumping a vat of fat out and setting it on fire, causing the mech to overheat and go critical.

[PainRack]

Overlord, to just summarise things up
1. You claimed the Clans can't adapt fast to changing circumstances. While they are certainly not as adaptable as the Inner Sphere and are entrenched in their cultural values, we can show that their adaption is as fast as real life cultures and societies nowadays. Certainly not decades as you claimed.

2. Inner Sphere victories were won via a mixture of tactics meant to emphasize clan vulnerabilities, blindspots in their combat systems as well as superior numbers. No ONE is doubting that. The issue in contention is the Clans profiencies in tactics, something you keep insisting is poor because.......... they're poor. We have multiple examples of them executing tactics from anything as simple as Jade Falcon Roshak circle to relatively complex tactics meant to overload the enemy ability to command & control their troops. You continously argue that the Clans don't use combined arms, even though we see multiple examples of this, including the use of such tactics to disrupt enemy control. Indeed, the Smoke Jaguars and Ghost Bear continously use such tactics, using their elementals in conjunction with mechs to disrupt Inner Sphere battlefield control.

To put it simply, yes, the Clans have a huge OOC problem in terms of their dueling mentality, honour as well as operational concepts. That doesn't change the fact that in this system, their tactics are sound and works. Witness Clan Jade Faclon tactics in Field Manual Crusader Clans which works around this, by turning large scale operations into a series of duels..... Which work because the Clans are able to disrupt enemy command & control due to their superior technologies and reach via aerospace fighters, superior drop and weapons. We see a practical example of this in the battle for Melissa, where the Falcons rotate forces and duel with the Lyran units, ultimately ending the battle via an orbital insertion into the Lyran headquarters.

And of course, despite what the novel says, the overal tactic used by the Lyrans were actually SOUND. The deficiences actually pop up under Adam Steiner failure to create mutually supporting points, and placing units that could be outflanked. In other words, failures in execution, not tactics.

Hell, I'd love to hear how he arrived at the conclusion that a heat point equals a gigajoule of waste heat, but only for energy weapons

Especially since during a previous debate I found out that they were able to ambush and destroy mechs by dumping a vat of fat out and setting it on fire, causing the mech to overheat and go critical.

From Compendium IIRC, fire disrupt mechs ability to vent heat into the surrounding environment. Incidently, that's also one of the reason why climate can't be used to calculate energy which he attempted.

We should also point out that infernos, which are essentially high powered napalm raise mechs heatscale by 6 points. They certainly aren't gigajoule weapons! Ditto to the new plasma rifles, which I still pondering are supposed to be anything different from PPCs. At least the original Solaris variants made SOME sense.

As for his logistic statements...... he obviously has no idea how any real day modern force work, nor the issues with Battletech logistics and timeline problems. To put it simply, when you can sustain a planetary war effort from only one supply depot, despite the distances involved and the fact that your ammunition last minutes and most battles are retired because both forces run out of ammo, then that suggests LOW intensity warfare(3rd Edition Battletech, Flashman TRO 3025).

[consequences]

Hell, I'd love to hear how he arrived at the conclusion that a heat point equals a gigajoule of waste heat, but only for energy weapons

Especially since during a previous debate I found out that they were able to ambush and destroy mechs by dumping a vat of fat out and setting it on fire, causing the mech to overheat and go critical.

From Compendium IIRC, fire disrupt mechs ability to vent heat into the surrounding environment. Incidently, that's also one of the reason why climate can't be used to calculate energy which he attempted.

We should also point out that infernos, which are essentially high powered napalm raise mechs heatscale by 6 points. They certainly aren't gigajoule weapons! Ditto to the new plasma rifles, which I still pondering are supposed to be anything different from PPCs. At least the original Solaris variants made SOME sense.

As for his logistic statements...... he obviously has no idea how any real day modern force work, nor the issues with Battletech logistics and timeline problems. To put it simply, when you can sustain a planetary war effort from only one supply depot, despite the distances involved and the fact that your ammunition last minutes and most battles are retired because both forces run out of ammo, then that suggests LOW intensity warfare(3rd Edition Battletech, Flashman TRO 3025).

It's the fact that a Locust moving 10 kph generates the same gigajoule of waste heat that an Atlas moving 32 kph does that gets to me.

Personally, I'd hammer on how much certain B-tech forces suck at every aspect of military operations, be they tactical, strategic, or logistical. For example, in the Battle of Tukkayid, no more than 14% of the Jade Falcons total engaged forces(half of which were considered maybe a step above solahma) carried the entire fight to one of the objectives, while the remaining 86%, or thirteen clusters, failed to secure their only significant supply base(incidentally also their major river crossing to their objectives) from two-thirds of the garrison of the other objective(no more than 4 mech regiments unless the Com Guards had special custom dropships, and not likely to be even that much with 7 clans and two objectives each to defend, plus their constant attrition attacks). Among other things, the idea of appropriately secure storage for ammunition completely slipped by the Falcons, since the infernos the Com Guards used lit the place up in less than a minute.

[PainRack]

Personally, I'd hammer on how much certain B-tech forces suck at every aspect of military operations, be they tactical, strategic, or logistical. For example, in the Battle of Tukkayid, no more than 14% of the Jade Falcons total engaged forces(half of which were considered maybe a step above solahma) carried the entire fight to one of the objectives, while the remaining 86%, or thirteen clusters, failed to secure their only significant supply base(incidentally also their major river crossing to their objectives) from two-thirds of the garrison of the other objective(no more than 4 mech regiments unless the Com Guards had special custom dropships, and not likely to be even that much with 7 clans and two objectives each to defend, plus their constant attrition attacks). Among other things, the idea of appropriately secure storage for ammunition completely slipped by the Falcons, since the infernos the Com Guards used lit the place up in less than a minute.

?The battle of Tukayyid states that the Falcons success in occupying Ollala was due to the arrival of 3 additional clusters, the First Falcon Velites, 89th and 94th Falcon Strikers. As for the dropship assault, it contained 6 full divisions. But then again, the units involved is questionable, due to the conflict between Comstar and Wolfnet sources.
Beside, I always like to say the reason why they refused to grant Aidan Pyrde Phantom Mech skill was because he was eventually killed:D I mean, right, Paerlshaw "spotting" for Aidan solves the smoke and weather issue and the Comguards can't resolve this, suffering targeting malfunctions.Right:D

[PainRack]

This is....... embarrassing.

I been digging through my Falcon data so as to quote the battle for Von Strang world, to show the comprehensiveness of Falcon combined arms tactics. I found the passages that state how the Falcons used elementals to sweep and disable the gun turrets in Von Strang fortifications. Similarly, I found the bit where Elias use of aerospace fighters for airborne surveillance helped them detect and turn the tables on Von Strang urban ambush.............

The problem is. I can't find the entry that's supposed to be at the end, where after that ambush, Falcon forces regrouped and reconfigured Arrow IVs to smash apart the fortifications.

I'm not quite sure whether I hallucinated the whole thing or not. Since the only other data entry that I'm aware of for Von Strang world is Mechwarrior 2, a game that I can't run now, I think I'm going to have to eat crow and just concede the Clans use artillery bit.

[Imperial Overlord]

Phantom 'mech was Stackpole's moronic invention. He fucking introduced magic to the setting. That's why no one else will touch it with a fifteen meter pole. As for Aidan Pryde, he died eventually but no one denies he was a master at maneuvering a 'mech and he was in a Timber Wolf, which can take obscene amounts of abuse. And he could dish it out. That's why it took him a while to die.

[PainRack]

Phantom 'mech was Stackpole's moronic invention. He fucking introduced magic to the setting. That's why no one else will touch it with a fifteen meter pole. As for Aidan Pryde, he died eventually but no one denies he was a master at maneuvering a 'mech and he was in a Timber Wolf, which can take obscene amounts of abuse. And he could dish it out. That's why it took him a while to die.

I'm not denying all that. Frankly, I been HOPING that some form of technical explaination exists, even if it rests in the "superior mental disciplines= better mechwarriors" and pyschology option. I mean, this is the universe where an accepted pyschosis is mech cockpit syndrome, to the extent that one mechwarrior hurt badly hallucinated that he was still in his battlemech even after ejecting.

I just saying.......

Dray's Star League-era Dynatec targeting computer should have penetrated the murk easily, but instead his display flickered unsteadily. Was the Clan Mech moving slightly, or standing still? He wasn't sure, and from the volume of fire missing the lone enemy,he guessed that his companions weren't either.

but the beams cut only smoke. What was wrong with his computer? He never had any trouble with it before. And why did he have the sneaking feeling that he wasn't the only one suffering mysterious malfunctions? A sneaking voice in Dray's head told him that the enemy pilot wasn't human, but instead was some unstoppable creature of the night.

then Dray forced his Stinger forward until he stood over the Mad Cat. Funny, his monitors all worked fine now.

All we need is "mech disappear from screen" and it becomes the classic Phantom Mech.

[PainRack]

Acck. Double post. I finally found the relevent entry. It isn't Von Strang world. Its Apollo.........................


Sorry. Two worlds with Amaris connections, obviously screwed up my memory.

[Imperial Overlord]

Thurston was deliberately vague about the incident, which is appropriate regarding the death of a legendary hero. Sorcery, technical glitches, or ECM we don't simply don't know, unlike Stackpole's blatant grant of super powers.

The Clans will use artillery, against dug in opponents. There's just no honor or glory in hammering a place from long range with artillery, but most Clans have "and we were bled white" passage in their Rememberance involving attacking a Brian Cache in the retaking of the Pentagon worlds. They really don't like fortresses.

[PainRack]

Thurston was deliberately vague about the incident, which is appropriate regarding the death of a legendary hero. Sorcery, technical glitches, or ECM we don't simply don't know, unlike Stackpole's blatant grant of super powers.

The Clans will use artillery, against dug in opponents. There's just no honor or glory in hammering a place from long range with artillery, but most Clans have "and we were bled white" passage in their Rememberance involving attacking a Brian Cache in the retaking of the Pentagon worlds. They really don't like fortresses.

Nope. Battle of Tukayyid, Jade Falcon sourcebook

The elementals withdrew before the forces in the second ship could recover from the shock of this loss, and the Elemental counterstrike,in addition to fighter and massive Arrow-4 missile attacks, allowed most of Jade Falcons to safely board their dropships and leave the planet.

The use of artillery to suppress the Comstar LZ.