Kinetic barriers vs modern weaponry

[Lord of the Abyss]

For a slightly silly idea, how about a shielded helicopter with a half-sphere on a cable dangling beneath it, the half sphere itself being shielded? Drop the half-sphere over the shielded vehicle and it can't see or shoot. Or if magnets work though the shield like light and heat does, drive up in a shielded magnetic crane, pick up the tank and drive off with it.

Also, unless for some magical reason the shields can only be mounted on vehicles, there ought to be all sorts of traps and barriers you can set up using them.

[Sea Skimmer]

Tanks are rather heavy for lifting by helicopter. The largest helicopter ever the Mi-12 did lift 88,000lb which is enough to pick up, say a Sherman but that was only for a a very short range flight using a rolling takeoff. Max vertical lift is only 55,000lb... and Mi-12 is crazy huge
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... 2008_2.jpg

The current largest chopper in the world actually in service is the Mi-26 which can lift 44,000lb (I think this is also with rolling takeoff not vertical), enough to pick up some infantry carriers and certain light tanks but nothing more. Also a slow hovering helicopter is still going to be pretty vulnerable to incendiary ammo. I think some kind of high speed bulldozer may have real merit as an anti tank weapon though. With the proper blade angle and enough engine power (like two of the M1 turbines, one for each track) it should be totally possible to flip tanks lift and right.

[Lord of the Abyss]

I meant lifting by a mobile ground based crane actually, I didn't think a copter could lift a tank. I doubt that incendiary ammo would work well on a coptor, since the heat producing materials would just bounce off the shield presumably; but lasers would probably work better on them since they are so out in the open with no cover.

I like the bulldozer idea.

[Sea Skimmer]

Well stability says a ground based crane will work like rubbish unless you mount it on a 500 ton vehicle that doesn't need outriggers even on broke terrain. Lifting a 50-70 ton tank enough to flip it over or stop it from simply driving away and pulling the crane over before you can finish picking it up is no trivial task. I'd expect most tanks will be flamethrower tanks, so they aren't going to let you get close easily anyway.

Reactive metal incendiary rounds that ignite on impact should do something even if they then skip off, chopper skin is absurdly thin and the AA guns get shields too.

[LaCroix]

We'd probably start seeing tanks that look like robot wars contenders, ploughs and ramps and piston arms to flip the others over...