Thomas replied to me: > And yes, a grav tank with a jet engine for thrust would be worse than a > landing helicopter. A Seaking helicopter has about 10 ton at its very max, > requiring a rotor with a diameter of 19 m. When such a Jolly Green Giant > comes down on an open plane, it is already no fun - and now assume this on a > narrow street between houses! (Ok, the street could not be *that* narrow > …).
Hello Thomas, remember that contragrav allows the grav tank to maneuver on less than full thrust. It has to overcome drag and inertia, not weight. By comparison, a helicopter needs enough power to lift itself. In the 4E rules, contragrav becomes TL^, which will allow many more grav vehicle concepts once a new Vehicles comes around -- in the default 3E rules, contragrav flyers are reactionless. > And the tanks do not only need the jets for accelerating, they need is for > braking, too (or you have to plan for an anchor …). So what will happen > if there is a battallion of such tanks fighting in an urban area, when fast > moves are necessary to survive? Or the other way round: what sense would > make a tank (TANK!) that cannot fight in closer areas? Ruling the open > plains might be done easier from above. Or you should only take grav tanks into cities if you expect to fight anyway, but not for routine patrols. And Zan wrote: > I think that we should ask if weapons still need turrets at that TL? Hello Zan, that would be TL13 Energy-Phasing Surface (VXii29). But Star Trek does not use all that many tanks. > The tank may be a disc or a flattened sphere with no surface features > that hovers on agrav, moved by vectored reactionless thrust, with force > fields and beam weapons that can fire from any point on the surface. Force fields are another good point, more on that below. And Johannes wrote: > I don't think they will just fight tanks. But i think it will be likely > that they also fight tanks. Hello Johannes, the best anti-tank weapon is another tank? That was the US conclusion from WWII, but it might be because _their_ tank destroyers were so bad. > I would consider it likely however, that there are tanks, built primarily > for other missions (propably with downward mounted guns, because most > targets will be there) and dedicated tank killer tanks. I expect that grav tanks are designed to fly low. A design that requires skylining is suicidal. My thoughts so far: * There is a continuum from grav tanks (direct fire, heavy armor, relatively slow) to grav gunships (standoff fire, relatively fast at the expense of some armor) and grav artillery (no direct fire, weak armor, lots of RoF and ammo to saturate point defenses). * A "default TL13" grav tank will use vectored reactionless thrusters. Probably mega, or at least super. Ballpark one or two G accel, but speed is capped at 600 mph by the aerodynamics unless shaped force fields are used. * At this TL, gunships might be space-capable, even FTL capable. Space capability is free with thrusters, life support, and avionics for fast atmospheric flight, and the power system for thrusters and energy weapons means FTL capability needs just the drive itself. * Grav artillery might have to compete with ortillery. If you can park lots and lots of disposable missile pods in orbit, who needs arty? On the other hand, the enemy can map prepositioned ortillery at leisure. * Energy weapons doing 30,000 to 50,000 points of damage, or less with an armor divisor. One penetrating hit and the tank may be history. The VE179 confetti rule might come into play. * DR 50,000 on one face is possible, but that brings the other faces down to a few thousand points of armor. * Point defense will be limited by the engagement speed of the individual weapons. The game mechanics are pushed to their limits -- TL13 computers should be able to aim and fire in less than one second, but the rules don't really have that exception. A loophole is the 'walking the burst' rule, which gives decent hit chances with the second four-round burst. A RoF 16 point defense weapon can fire four bursts, while a RoF 20 weapon is less effective with a single 20-round burst. Still, the high DR means that little missiles, or medium MIRVed ones, won't work unless they're antimatter or nuclear. Point defense has to stop big missiles, which will be fewer in number. * The VXii force screens are not effective, because their DR is proportional to the diameter. They're good for typical ships, not tanks. The exception is an outer layer for special effects, like shaped/streamlined or stealth screens. * VE93 force screens might work, but Vehicles doesn't mention that location armor or slope effects apply to them, so I assume they don't work. * Doing away with the turret will be a major cost and weight saving, or extra punch and armor in the same budget. If I take a turret, should the gun have an universal mount, or can I handle that by rolling the vehicle? I'm working on the 'supporting cast' right now, combat engineer and logistics grav vehicles. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
