[Wild Goose]

Originally Posted by Tempy

Trust me when I say the gun is a three-barreled 12.6mm Vulcan. If you can find supporting evidence that the Metal Slug uses the M61 Vulcan, I'd love to see it.

Of course, I actually used the Slug Gunner here, and the original Slug Gunner has a 180mm main gun and 60mm MTS-S/A gatling gun. Being a fictional vehicle, I figure there's a bit of leeway with armaments, especially if it's a prototype.

No, what I was referring to was that since Gundam called them Vulcans, almost any Gatling will be called a Vulcan, regardless if it's an M61 Vulcan or not. The near-ubiquitiousness of the M61 doesn't help either.

Originally Posted by Tk3997

I've mostly washed my hands of this, but I do really have to question what fucking place armed gunships have in police work. It's about the same level of stupid as conducting traffic enforcement with an M1 Abrams.

Agreed, but it's not like we're both being listened to.

Originally Posted by Sheba

Yeah, I say we stay in the believable level, none of those Arm Slave, Labors or Gundam mechs, or Railgun-style power-armors.

Sanae is enough of a gadgeteer genius to build scouting drones that can be useful for Informa and Connect students. Yes, I mean some of those babies. The gadgeteer perk is something she have inherited from her chinese american mom.

Agreed. This series takes place in more or less the real world in 2009, not in the alternate universe of Metal Gear Solid, which had Vocaloids running around in the Costa Rican jungle in the 70s and nanomachines implanted in soldiers.

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

And a turret on joints that can lower to the level of the body, and the pilot is able to throw grenades.

But a tank like that has way too many joints and could screw itself up easily.

Otherwise, we can add this to the mix of enemy vehicles.

Possible, but it'd have to be a one-a-season boss unit, seeing as how it's still experimental.

Chiming in on the car bomb, a moving car bomb would be a VBIED and would invariably be driven by a kamikaze driver of some sort, since the radio signals might set off the IED. Again this particular threat does not appear likely in Tokyo, given the levels of traffic congestion - as Terminator98 put it, a car bomb would be used either to assasinate someone, or driven up to a building, bomber leaves, and then blows up the bomb.

In which case if it's scenario 2, the bomb squad would be called in to attempt to defuse the bomb.

Also blowing up the vehicle is itself not ideal due to the risk of a sympathetic detonation, plus there's the fact that Tokyo's traffic volume means that more often than not said VBIED is going to be in traffic, which means that risking blowing it up and collateral damage to civillians.

I have somewhere a memoir of a Royal Logistics Corp bomb tech who served during the Troubles - I'll need to dig it up and reread. (Fun fact: The British Army's EOD techs are from the Royal Logistics Corps, not the Royal Engineers as always assumed. Old Ireland hands refer to them as Felix.)

Originally Posted by SaintessHeart

Eh no actually. Letting a car bomb go out of control is a no-no.

The objective of stopping a car bomb is to minimise urban damage (in populated areas, people are still going to die, it is inevitable). Shooting off tires will make it crash and, in urban conditions, lodge itself into building and cause even more damage (lodging a bomb in a hole in the wall is worse than letting it explode in the open).

When the asshole doesn't want to stop, they bomb the vehicle so as to trigger its payload in the open, and if possible, in less populated areas. Advance warning will usually be given by heliborne trackers for residents to stay behind something solid or take cover - that is why car bomb incidents often involve the military because they are the only ones with the machine guns and anti-tank weapons.

Laying down concrete road barriers are too slow and are tough in urban terrain, unless there is a nearby police academy with the forklift driver still on duty. Usually, car bombs are parked beside populated areas or their main targets, but those that are driven at top speed towards their targets (called running bombs where I was taught, not sure what it is called over on their other side), machine-gun armed vehicles or missilemen from the military are called in to cut them off permanently.

Finally, unless this car bomber thinks like Marvin Heemeyer and is able to catch police off-guard, or is funded by politicians to gain sympathy votes, failing to trace a potential car bomber speaks badly of the local police force and their intelligence.

Examples of the car bomb chases you mention would be helpful. In my research, car bombs are driven quietly to the target area and then left there to blow up (Oklahoma City, IRA) or charged at checkpoints/other targets and engaged by guards (Iraq, Afghanistan).