Muv-Luv Franchise - Military Tactics, History, & Geo-Politics

[grevierr]

Gen 2 TSFs onwards cut down on the armor alot, using composite reactive armor in place of solid plates. The idea of the 3rd gen TSF was to have armor that can withstand at least 3 secs of laser fire at a single spot, though effectively after the first hit that spot is useless as armor thereafter.

The focus shifted to making the TSFs more maneuverable, to prevent the laser class from being able on focusing on a single point long enough to burn through the reactive armor and the mainframe. This maneuverability is supplemented by the AI automated response to initiate random evasive maneuvers as soon as laser contact is felt.

The newer generation TSFs are experimenting with adding more thrusters at different areas, such as the F-15 Active Eagle adding thrusters in place of the weapon arms and on the shoulder blocks, and the SU-37 Terminator having vector thrusters in the Waist Block. Both the Shoulder and Waist block thrusters with vectoring nozzles were adopted by the XFJ-01 Shirunui Second then the Type-04, the end product of Project PROMINENCE.

There was never an TSF that makes full use of shuttle heat shielding as armor, since the weight would just make it a laser magnet. Which is why reactive armor and speed are the main defenses of the next Gen TSFs. Which is why the ep3 TSFs are all suddenly doing a barrel roll.

[Hypernova]

Judging from ep3 still looks like too much armor to me. And you don't have to cover everywhere, given the way laser class choose their target you won't have to shield your limbs. I'm thinking along the line of modern armor progression and how after firearms saw wide spread use for a period of time soldiers basically wore no armor.

Or maybe a shield kind of thing built from dead Destroyer class betas? Those perform much better than any material humans tech can muster yes?

[LystAP]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

My mistake, I was thinking of just space altitude definition.

Now about the armor, materials with good anti laser property like ablative heat tiles would have poor ballistic properties. Given all the planned back stabbing going around they probably don't want to give up anti ballistic armor even though they are clearly not what you need in a fight against BETAs. These guys spend so much effort on what to do to each other after the crisis that they forget that they have to survive it first.

I believe in Chicken Divers, they note that most human activity over Eurasia (even above the atmosphere) is actually tracked by multiple Laser-classes at different Hives around the continent; however, humanity discovered that for some reason, they don't actually fire unless their particular Hive is directly threatened.

[Myssa Rei]

Another question on the tech side from a non-game/novel reader: I understand that Project Prominence is essentially an excuse for all non-US contries to bounce ideas against each other so that they can produce better TSFs. I may have missed it somewhere, but is there an actual result from this that appears in the main Alternative plot?

[potchip]

Why ain't there more varied weapons carried by TCF? Even generations apart?

[NoemiChan]

Originally Posted by potchip

Why ain't there more varied weapons carried by TCF? Even generations apart?

They never learn to their mistakes or probably because of the rapid advances of the BETAs... thinking of solutions might have took a long time. Think about discussing how to kill a BETA and just be surprise that it ain't effective.. plus they're on your door steps already...

[potchip]

but TSF been used for a decade?

[Angrypokstick]

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Another question on the tech side from a non-game/novel reader: I understand that Project Prominence is essentially an excuse for all non-US contries to bounce ideas against each other so that they can produce better TSFs. I may have missed it somewhere, but is there an actual result from this that appears in the main Alternative plot?

Spoiler:

the railguns used on the Xg-70 susanoo were completed in Prominence. Its part of TE's plot.

Originally Posted by potchip

Why ain't there more varied weapons carried by TCF? Even generations apart?

What do you mean? obviously the anime haven't had time to show enough variations. But TSF use a fair bit of variation. Missles and rockets are common. There are several different type of assault rifles used. There are Designated marks men type rifles used in ep2 and there is also Sniper rifles designed to snipe beyond the horizon. LMG styled support weapons are also featured as well as Large gatling weapons featured on the A-10 TSF just like its real world counterpart.


and we haven't even gotten to the Melee weapons yet which varies by country.
here you can look up TSF weapons through this page and its various links near the bottom. http://muvluv.wikia.com/wiki/Assault_Cannon

Originally Posted by potchip

but TSF been used for a decade?

you know the baseline weapons on our Jets and Tanks and even ships haven't really changed that much for the last 30- 40 years right. Only the computers and FCS interface that guide them have become more better and better.

[Wild Goose]

To put things into perspective, the Sidewinder missile has been in service since the 1950s, the M61 Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon since the 1960s...

[Dragonkid11]

Originally Posted by Wild Goose

To put things into perspective, the Sidewinder missile has been in service since the 1950s, the M61 Vulcan 20mm rotary cannon since the 1960s...

They were good enough,so why change?

But in MuvLuv-verse,it's more of the case of "They are easy to mass produce" and less of "They can kick BETA's asses"

Still,even when humanity is facing extinction,money still restrict the technological capability of humanity....talk about deadly irony...

[kaizerknight01]

Originally Posted by Dragonkid11

They were good enough,so why change?

But in MuvLuv-verse,it's more of the case of "They are easy to mass produce" and less of "They can kick BETA's asses"

Still,even when humanity is facing extinction,money still restrict the technological capability of humanity....talk about deadly irony...

i think it more than that, form the limited knowledge of muv luv alternative verse , humanity is facing a resource shortage of every thing

[Sheba]

Indeed. BETAs just don't eat people. It eats EVERYTHING. Animal life, plant life, and, perhaps, minerals. Which is why the land around hives is barren. IIRC, it have come to a point that synthetic food is part of people's ordinary food, because it got that bad. It's a matter of time before the remaining humans starts eating soylent green.

[encia]

Originally Posted by Belgaesh

Your post is very important, because it clarifies one of the discussions that were holden here: "Why they don't use mirrors against those lasers"

Spoiler for Contains MLA spoliers:

But I thinks the the main factor that the BETA are such a dangerous enemy is because of their numbers and the capacity to replenish them. The Laser Class are a dangerous bunch, remember that during the invasion of Yokohama UN Base they were scarcely used, only to break the barricades. Which allowed the UN forces to gain air supperiority. But even so they still almost lost.

Laser's main strenght is it's coherent properties and it's ability to ionize the atoms.

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_stealth there's an ongoing research into plasma fields for used as a shield against lasers i.e. "plasma shields".

Real life plasma shields against EM i.e. Earth's Van Allen belt. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...stronauts.html

Real life gas shields http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shielding_gas "Helium plays this role best due to its high ionization potential; the gas can absorb high amount of energy before becoming ionized".

[Firefly00]

Originally Posted by Sheba

Indeed. BETAs just don't eat people. It eats EVERYTHING. Animal life, plant life, and, perhaps, minerals. Which is why the land around hives is barren. IIRC, it have come to a point that synthetic food is part of people's ordinary food, because it got that bad. It's a matter of time before the remaining humans starts eating soylent green.

Between this and the BETA force being in fact a mining expedition, parallels to C&C3 are easy to make...

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by Firefly00

Between this and the BETA force being in fact a mining expedition, parallels to C&C3 are easy to make...

Which that series provides an example of what they should build in ML: an Ion Cannon Constellation. It remains to this day the best example of kill sat application in fiction I've seen.

[Myssa Rei]

Given the mecha-centric focus of the R&D in ML's world, I'm still a little bit surprised why such a weapons-delivery system wasn't suggested. Cost vs. resource effectivity? Maybe the fact that if said big laser of doom misses, it causes wholescale changes to the topography? And real-estate that mankind in general wants to reclaim in a usable state too.

Yep, clearly the Exterminatus option is out of the cards here.

[Hypernova]

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Given the mecha-centric focus of the R&D in ML's world, I'm still a little bit surprised why such a weapons-delivery system wasn't suggested. Cost vs. resource effectivity? Maybe the fact that if said big laser of doom misses, it causes wholescale changes to the topography? And real-estate that mankind in general wants to reclaim in a usable state too.

Yep, clearly the Exterminatus option is out of the cards here.

Surely you can't do more damage than what the BETA has already done, even with nukes.

Given the size and brainlessness of a BETA hoard it would be pretty hard to miss. Imagine how much it would help the battle just by sweeping out the destroyer class at the start. Or heck given how squishy laser class are you can cut their numbers down easily.

[grevierr]

Originally Posted by Myssa Rei

Given the mecha-centric focus of the R&D in ML's world, I'm still a little bit surprised why such a weapons-delivery system wasn't suggested. Cost vs. resource effectivity? Maybe the fact that if said big laser of doom misses, it causes wholescale changes to the topography? And real-estate that mankind in general wants to reclaim in a usable state too.

Yep, clearly the Exterminatus option is out of the cards here.

I thought Alternative V was the Exterminatus option, bearing that they don't have earth shattering Kaboom lasers, the next best thing was G-Bombs.

[Angrypokstick]

Originally Posted by Hypernova

Surely you can't do more damage than what the BETA has already done, even with nukes.

Given the size and brainlessness of a BETA hoard it would be pretty hard to miss. Imagine how much it would help the battle just by sweeping out the destroyer class at the start. Or heck given how squishy laser class are you can cut their numbers down easily.

Several problems here being that Humanity have yet to find an effective way of delivering a Nuclear strike package In the presence of Laser classes without resorting to Kamikaze suicide charges with Nukes which would mean massive sacrifices to get the Nuke into play.
In terms the BETA are far from Brainless, their laser class are known to target airborne targets that poses the most threat as if they are guided by an omnipotent force so you can't sneak a Nuke in with other normal missiles hoping it would get in through chance. After all the BETA do not consider the humans a threat anymore than we considers Rats living in our backyard to be of a threat. When the BETA do consider the humans a threat it has shown that even a small number(by Beta standards) of betas living on Borrowed time were able to out-maneuver, out flank and out smart its human opponents with feints , targeting supply lines and cutting off lines of communications and basically doing tactically sound things no one in universe expected brainless aliens to be doing.
G-bombs can be delivered by air due to the fact that the G-bomb causes an 5th dimensional gravitational effect whens its primed for detonation. This results in a distortion field capable of bending even lux class lasers. However the damage caused by an G-bomb is considered to be far too damaging to the Earth as a viable option in conventional warfare and will be reserved for Alternative V as the Exterminatus solution.

[Wild Goose]

Honestly, when it comes to taking out the BETA and Hives, Humanity is kinda retarded. Why?

The orbital dive pods used by the orbital divers have a 91% survival rate. Drop those onto the hives, and load them with Tsar Bombas or fuel air bombs instead of TSFs.

Humanity already possesses orbital space stations, and the orbital SDI installations are apparently good enough to intercept any BETA hive that attempts to make landfall, so surely they can repurpose to hit ground targets.

When you think about it, the BETA are laughably weak compared to other SF foes; a Saratoga carrier group from Macross Plus could cleanse most BETA hordes on earth by itself (along with it's screening element). Hell, the Daedalus-class battlecruisers from Stargate SG-1 would rape the advancing BETA on Kyoto, given the amount of fire their railguns can put out. And let's not forget Mass Effect: Dreadnought main guns fire metal slugs weighing 20 kilograms, which, thanks to the speed they're fired, impact with 38 kilotons of force. That's a Hiroshima nuke, without the radioactivity. Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a bitch in space.

The problem, of course, is that Muv-Luv Earth has not had the chance to develop those strategies and weapons.

That said, while BETA seem to have an uncanny ability to track missiles and other things that use guidance packages - probably because they home in on silicon - I'd like to see them try to intercept a saturation orbital bombardment. Even if you're just firing metal slugs with no guidance at them, by the time that slug hits it's going to make a massive crater - especially if you can accelerate it as fast as Mass Effect slugs.

Also, one thing that bugs me is that no S-11 charges seem to have been used in the defense of Kyoto. I can perhaps understand no nukes - you don't really want to irradiate your homeland - but S-11s aren't radioactive, and would, I think, have been quite useful as a final "Fuck you BETA" by units who were being overrun. At the very least it would have bought some breathing space.