On Wed, 30 Dec 2015, Onno Meyer wrote:
Johannes replied to me:
What are the suits supposed to do?
* Cover a lot of area, fight anything weaker then them, if they encounter
something heavy, call for the cavalry. Stealth is good for that, flying is
good for deployment or retreats.
That didn't work all that well for battlecruisers. Sometimes you have to
stand and fight, and then the suits should have a good showing against
enemies in their own weight class. (I wonder how many NATO troops got worried
about their high-ground-clearance, high-silhouette MRAPs when the crisis with
Russia started.)
I was more thinking about a pickup with a heavy weapon mounted on it. Or
infantry. That is more expendable then a battle cruiser and the tactics i
have in mind would depend on the expendability of individual units.
Especially the advantage of covering lots of ground and detecting enemy
troops early must outweight loosing a few units on the long run.
* Carry heavy enough weapons to kill a tank equivalent, but are cheap
enough, that if the tank hits some of them first you still come out ahead.
Get enough armor that area attacks become unviable. Flight to get fast,
where you are needed. Stealth is more optional.
Rico in Heinlein's Starship Troopers talked about killing tanks, but then he
was an unreliable narrator. I expect that a suit can kill a tank with luck
and a good position, much like a soldier with an RPG against a current MBT.
Go for the rear armor, pop up and shoot, check your life insurance first.
* Ambush heavier enemies, or enemies in larger numbers. Essentially a
sniper. Stealth is your primary ability, plus you might want the ability
to get away fast.
When you expect immediate counterfire by the rest of the enemy platoon,
doesn't this merge with the previous option?
There is indeed a large overlap. But in the case i was more thinking about
the "goblin" attack strategy of owerwhelming a superior foe with numbers,
while in the second case i was thinking of snipers.
The first depends more on expendebility, the second on the ability to flee
before the counterattack hits (and to flee somewhere usefull, where you
either are hidden again or where you are save)
It sounds as if you are clearly on the pro-flight side of the debate.
Sofar all my ideas have come up with uses for flights. Though with some i
suspect, if i develop them long enough, eventually the suit might get
dropped and i end up with a grav cycle with a bazooka equivalent or
something. And as a personal preferrence i don't like suits much, so it
might be, that i have a bias to optimize them away from being suits.
Johannes
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