2008-10-21, 21:47 | Link #1181 |
Macross Lifer!
Join Date: Jan 2008
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Oh another reason for legs on the monster, in my mind I imagine while on a planet they're mainly for destriod mode. If you consider the shuttle form as transportation, the Gerwalk mode for artillery, the destriod mode probably be best used as when enemies get close and it can't run away.
Compared to the Valks, it has a really slow transformation time. This makes me wonder how much heavier it really is. |
2008-10-21, 21:47 | Link #1182 | ||||||||
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Of course, I never argued a that it should deploy railguns and fire them in midflight to begin with. Quote:
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2008-10-21, 21:54 | Link #1183 | |
Macross Lifer!
Join Date: Jan 2008
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If they're on planet and the Monster is doing it's artillery thing and it's gets snuck up on by Zentradi commands, the Gerwalk mode would make it good as dead in close combat. Treads could probably help is turn faster while in artillery mode though. |
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2008-10-21, 22:16 | Link #1184 | |||||||||||
Truth Martyr
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork.
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I note that you seem to have ignored everything else that I said after that sentence, where I offer a possible reason. Quote:
I'm not saying that it can stall in space, I'm saying that the possibility of stationkeeping thrusters not being able to counteract the force of the railguns is somthing that's plausible, because similar concerns have happened before with past weapon systems. Note also that the idea of the Koenig Monster is battlefield artillery support; it's designed primarily to operate in terrestrial theaters but is also space-operable, like everything in the UN Spacey arsenal. As for why you don't make a railgun turret into the ship and task that to gunfire support, it's because naval gunfire is no substitute for an organic artillery ability. The US Marines always deployed with their own organic artillery, despite having naval gunfire support from the US Navy, because there will be times when you want gunfire support and your supporting ship can't give it - like, say, when it's engaged in combat with someone else. It's especially relevant to SMS, which started as an armed escort service for Richard Bilrer's shipping company (and then grew up into it's current form). Freighters don't carry weapons; they're optimised for cargo hauling. Having a couple of Koenig Monsters allows for additional heavy firepower without expensive modifications to the ships. Remember, the point of the Koenig Monster is to provide UN Spacey forces with a mobile, organic artillery ability that can keep up with the rest of the Variable Fighters, that may be operating far from where a ship can support them. Quote:
While legs are impractical in our current existence, they have been in use for over fifty years in the Macross universe. This also doesn't take into account the Zentraedi, who've been using legs for their mecha for thousands of years. If legs weren't practical, the humans would have gone for something different within those 50 years. Also, in urban environments, legs do less damage to roadways, compared to tracks which can chew up the roadways pretty badly, especially at high speed. Quote:
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As well as the risk of accidentally careening into the path of a friendly unit, thus scoring a manuvering teamkill. Along with shouts of "DAMNIT BEANBANG!" (This is a small in-joke between my and EvaX regarding a Macross fic I'm writing.) Quote:
Also, note that while standard towed artillery are stationary mounts, they're moved to face new headings by the gun crew - a 6-man team moving it by hand. The Koenig Monster weighs much, much more than 6 guys are gouing to be able to move by hand. Quote:
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Slight OT: And the influence of the Cadians continues... good thing we've had experience with breakers, eh Eva?
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Last edited by Wild Goose; 2008-10-21 at 22:34. |
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2008-10-21, 22:16 | Link #1185 |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Republic of California
Age: 46
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Legs equal feet. The feet have clamps and claw like extentions on them for gripping in zero-g enviroments (such as ships, or moons, or asteroids) or low gravity planets. You can't do that with treads. Also the legs would provide a stable platform for firing while the tread's breaks might not be able to handle four huge cannons.
If you aren't going to be travelling for long distances with this machine (while not flying), then having your stable firing platform move with you is a good thing. Being able to move enough to adjust your firing position doesn't require treads, but legs lets you use your stable firing platform to your advantage Legs are also useful in mountainous areas or areas with unstable terrain. They aren't fool proof, but they get the job done.
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2008-10-21, 23:22 | Link #1186 |
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Join Date: Sep 2008
Location: Earth
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lol, almost everything in macross can transform...to question why a certain mech in macross needs transformation is a bit over-analyazing
Well, I will try to reason out why VB-6 has legs.. 1) the over-technology (did I name that right?) allows the armour to be tougher..so they can design the mech to have legs in order to have higher mobility 2)Treads and wheels can't climb high wall...naturally if you are fighting in a city, you need some cover...if you are able to proceed but that's a high wall in front of you, you can use the legs to "climb" through it, so you don't need to waste thruster....(if you over-spend your thruster, you can't make it back to base!!) 3)if you run out of ammo, and those aliens are in front of you, then at least you can kick them XD...if you only have treads and wheels then it's all over In summary, it's over-technology that legs in mechs are possible....with that technology, it's ok to be allowed to design for extra flexibility (legs) I believe you guys are much more professional than me in this subject...I have been reading this post and you guys really make so many in-depth discussion that I could never think of...so I just contribute back a little and hope it's a little bit useful to you guys |
2008-10-21, 23:48 | Link #1187 | |
Go to DMC! Go to DMC!
Join Date: May 2008
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Also, to continue the trend of pointing out the blatantly obvious, I will add this:
As others HAVE pointed out before, the legs basically become tripod-based shock absorbing mounts when the Koenig Monster is deployed to fire its artillery in GERWALK mode. We saw this close-up during Episode 7, where its feet deployed those extra shock-pads and it locked itself down into a firing position which made it completely immobile but able to avoid punching itself off the ship due to the force of the blast. Treads in that situation would've been pointless - they wouldn't have afforded extra stability, nor would they have really been necessary in a platform that flies itself (negating the need for the extra mobility over rough terrain). Also, if I remember it right, Beyond which, the legs are important for the Battroid mode due to the (probable) function it has in close-quarter combat; there was an on-screen incident where Quamzin in the original series ran his Glaug up to a Monster and kicked it, IIRC, as he and his squad were too close for the cannons or lasers to line up and fire at him, sometime after the raid for the Maclonization chamber. I suspect incidents like this are what provoked the team that worked up the VB-6 to build in a humanoid mode due to the whole 'fight giant Zentradi' role that all Variable Fighters have... and having a humanoid mode would preclude being swarmed by Zentradi fighters who were too close to be hit by artillery or missile. Not that you'd want the Koenig Monster ever to be that close to the enemy in the first place, but it's there for emergencies. Oh, and while we don't know how much equipment is necessary to make legs that move (and lock in place) or how massive it is... but we DO know how much equipment is involved in making treads move and lock in place, and they're bloody massive. A good proportion of the 70-ton M1A2's mass is, IIRC, due to the treads rather than the armor or main gun. You have the treads themselves (heavy metal chunks), the gear wheels, and everything else that turns the output of the gas turbine engine into motive power for the seven-wheel-plus-two-return-roller tread system versus the comparitively simpler camshaft system that propels two or four wheels in a car. The VB-6 is already 102 metric tons (or 112 short tons) empty (not counting missiles or other munitions like reaction warheads - just its guns, armor, and Overtechnology) - with treads, it'd be bloody worse as the technology that VF's use for the legs don't seem to translate well into propelling wheeled vehicles at all... much less tanks. And this for a system which may not 'grip' very well at all unless you drive shock pads into the ground to brace the Destroid. And as for using railguns in flight, may I point out the obvious problem? F=ma is still alive and well in the Macrossverse, and with those things deployed in flight the change in position that would come as they were fired could very well send them off target... if not send the VB-6 into the line of fire for someone else. Even though you could compensate for this with aiming computers, a stable firing surface seems to be preferred with deployment of the Koenig's main guns. As for you saying "Of course, I never argued a that it should deploy railguns and fire them in midflight to begin with", may I quote a previous post you made? Quote:
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2008-10-22, 01:13 | Link #1188 | |||||||||||||
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The last point is laughable. We already been through this. You don't need to grip on to something in zero-g. And even if you did, legs can't grip on to a hull any better than treads can. It's a ridiculous argument. Quote:
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HELL NO. Legs have more PSI than treads ever will. You are concentrating an enormous amount of force on just two small points. Treads distribute weight evenly over a much larger area. Legs will not only devastate a road, they will sink into soft ground and get stuck. Quote:
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Finally, if it really does need to be clamped (which doesn't make sense), then use a more simple mechanism. You don't need complex, malfunction prone legs which are begging to be shot off in order to clamp yourself on to something. Quote:
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2008-10-22, 01:33 | Link #1189 |
Truth Martyr
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork.
Age: 38
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I would suggest that you attribute quoting a lot better, Daigo. It helps to focus - you're replying to multiple people, afterall, and it makes things easier to clickback and recheck their statements, like what I and Eva do.
Reply after I get back from work, which is like 12 hours from now. Decisions decisions... nap now and be able to handle to work the gruelling night shift, or reply now and strike while the iron is hot...sleep. Out of curiousity, Daigo, what's your timezone? I'm GMT +8.
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2008-10-22, 01:41 | Link #1191 | |
Truth Martyr
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Location: Doing Anzu's paperwork.
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I note also you seem to have missed what Haess was saying too. Napping now because my shift is 3.30 to 2.30am and I only had 5 hours of sleep last night.
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2008-10-22, 01:42 | Link #1192 |
Star Designer
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Join Date: Aug 2008
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Age: 38
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This is fun to watch. It turned out to be a post survival battle. Player Daigo against the Shadow Posters. Who will be the first one to give in. Who's motivation and typing abilities are superior? I'm sticking around to see the end of this gameplay.
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2008-10-22, 01:53 | Link #1193 | |
Gamilas Falls
Join Date: Feb 2008
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And shooting to move while in a fleet enviroment is really, really stupid. You need to move away from the fleet, "shoot for thrust....oh wait I just put a hole in the agro ship...my bad." As for being less prone to failure...I don't think they care because it works. If it works, it works. It also give lots of jobs to those people you are moving from one star system to some unknown destination that might take generations.
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2008-10-22, 02:35 | Link #1194 | |
Star Designer
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What Ithekro said about legs is correct. Mobility of your armaments is the priority in battle. Units that boast serious firepower that have an ability to freely move around the fleet, provide support, fight in formations independently, carry out missions and finally, act as decoy to draw the attention away from civilian ship is and I'll say it again IS what you need on battlefield. It's not something debatable, it's an argument that you can't possibly deny. Ok, now that we know our Macross technology can provide us with mobile heavy weaponry we need to figure out a way for them to actually make use of it. So they need a stable support to fire once they land. Why not legs then? It's simple, provides mobility, does not weight as much as many other options, can host additional stabilizing equipment like verniers and thrusters and heck, we have the TECHNOLOGY not to make it as fragile as a soldier from 6 decades ago would think. There is no meaning to this discussion. Macross has the technology to create those amazing machines. They have designers who develop the Fighters or other crafts for militaristic purpose, to fight a battle not to damn break apart. It all follows the basics of Military strategy, the unit types I mean. Why do people insist on integrating an 2008 A.D. way of thinking into a universe where our current technology / ideas is so obsolete that it's laughable...
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2008-10-22, 03:50 | Link #1195 | |||
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Here read this; Navy Railgun Test Sets Record Quote:
Further more a large ship can handle more load for EM shielding.Which is actually just copper messed lining which absorbs the EM field then bleeds it off into earthing systems. Steel also gives EM shielding since it is highly conductive. Flying in mid-space you can't do that and considering the limitation inside I don't think the engineers will fully shield navigations and other systems if they don't need to. Quote:
As I said before the navy doesn't have a working railgun deployed on ships and won't have one for a while. There still doing research on how to make the gun work properly. |
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2008-10-22, 04:11 | Link #1196 | |||||||||||
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On top of which, there's no point in adding treads to a FLYING mecha. Quote:
As for gripping something in zero-g, you don't need to grip onto it except with magnetic clamps or whatever other technology you're using to fix yourself on the surface. However, with the amount of sheer force that firing those railguns apparently generates, it'd be NICE to not be pushed backwards or down... or off the surface of the ship. Or into the line of fire of that destroyer shooting beneath your platform. Y'know, because getting shot hurts and tends to kill you if you take enough damage or hulls your cockpit or rips through your vital organs. I'd be glad to help you discover this, if needed. Quote:
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Oh, and at 07:42 of Ep 7 on the Gattai sub I saw a detail I forgot - it has a THIRD 'leg' that drops from the back of the Konig Monster that further braces the cannons... which gives it all the theoretical advantages of treads (a murthering large area of surface to use to spread the force of the firing through and to make it effectively part of a larger body for the purposes of the force Here's a picture: See what I mean? It's similar in concept to the stabilizing legs of a modern howitzer - those legs on the back and the bracing mounts around the leg serve the same purpose here. Quote:
Really, the main reason treads are useful in tanks is because they're better than wheels in rough terrain; it's a mobility thing. And again, to repeat the blatantly obvious, the thing FLIES. Quote:
As for the turning around part, it's already been addressed. Which again? The fact the Konig Monster has legs, or the need to spread the force of firing into a larger body versus having to have the Konig bear all of it while moving along a certain vector? This is where quoting what the previous guy says helps... the way I just did, including the post # and the name of the person I'm quoting. Quote:
F= Unknown. We don't know how much force the firing of four railguns with reaction warheads loaded is. m=100 tons + mass of Dulfim, due to the bracing that effectively made them one body as far as the calculations are concerned. a=the m/s2 resulting from figuring out the first two. The reason I bring this up is because firing the railguns means you're going to be pushing yourself backwards a certain distance. d=v0 * a * t + 0.5 * a * t^2. This doesn't take into account the direction of travel initially and what it'll end up being due to the gun's firing, but we're trying to keep things RELATIVELY simple here. But that's why I wanted to figure out the acceleration, since all the other factors we'll know based on the firing of the gun (and presumably, the designers of the Konig know the force involved). Now, the thing is this - if you're braced against something, you don't need to figure out the vectors involved and thus have to compensate for them. Furthermore, given that they're using thrusters that have reaction mass to move, you're not burning fuel holding yourself still to fire the gun... and with how they showed the Dulfim's hull crumpling a bit when the braces pushed into it, there's a whole lotta force there. With a several thousand-ton warship serving as the effective mass the force is acting on, acceleration (and thrust backwards) is negligible; certainly simpler than figuring out the vectors and how much fuel you have to burn to hold yourself in place... and less firing of the thrusters, which means you're not going to be wearing those out as fast either. Firing thrusters versus holding yourself still - which is the simpler mechanism? Apparently in this case, fewer points of articulation and points of failure. Plus, presumably with overtechnology, less weight than an equivalent tread set. All the force is going into the braced legs, the braces around the legs, and on the back of the Monster... rather than into the individual linkages in the track sections, the wheels, torsion bar, etc. And they cover more area, to boot, for extra bracing. And, as others have pointed out, part of the reason we use sabot rounds and have reached a plateau in gun technology on vehicles is because we can't really get much more force out the tube without overwhelming the treads or brake systems involved. Here, we really don't need the mobility advantage of the tread system, and the feet provide more area of contact than treads the same size of the vehicle would've. Plus a flying tank with treads looks fucking silly. Treaded vehicles don't do too good in those terrain obstacles either. Again, we're talking about humans using technology developed from alien technology which focused on legged vehicles. On top of the fact that a flying vehicle with treads is a fucking stupid idea for the amount of mass involved. Quote:
See above. Also see WildGoose and Eva's posts on why they don't just use battleships for fire support. But to sum their arguments up, it comes down to this: 1) Battleships don't get too close to ground forces, unless they're Macross-class ships. Most UN Spacy craft are designed to be space-only, just as most Zentradi and other races' craft are. To put it bluntly, you have to be mentally retarded to want flying battleships that are atmosphere AND space capable, unless they're colonization platforms or you want to spend a shitload of money for something that likely won't perform as well as a dedicated spaceborne battleship or a wet-navy one. Close air support is provided by planes for a REASON - and fire missions are provided as often by mobile artillery as anything else, because the artillery can GET to the theatre of operations whereas your battleship may have problems steaming up into Idaho to fire a shot at the enemy. 2) Railguns do appear on capital ships - the original SDF-1 had them, the New Macross series of ships MAY have them, and other capital ships as well. However, space-based artillery is usually a losing proposition unless your objective is to blow a lot of things up without regard for the environment you're dropping KEWs on. Or, if your aim's a tad off (which can happen, despite what the strategists and weapons vendors say about foolproof systems... or if you get bad intel, or someone screws up the coordinates), you just blew your own army away. Congrats. 3) Mobile artillery is nice, since you don't have to have huge fucking guns which fire thousands of miles and take minutes to get there. Mobile artillery also means it's mobile enough to avoid getting taken out by COUNTER-artillery batteries, who are waiting to calculate the positions of the guns who shot those big explosive rounds at the army who has them. You know... by moving. So, you've got those big, ugly pieces of Destroid which, as you pointed out, barely move. How do you fix this? Well, you can fly them out if you've got enough power in the airframe and technology you trust to propel them along and make them change shape... you can wheel them out on treads, or you can teleport them from place to place. Obviously, #3 is not an option. #2 is out because the treads aren't going to take the shock of firing unless the rest of the frame's braced with bracing struts or legs that push into the ground and spread the force of the rail cannon's firing through them... or unless you make the platform massive enough that the shot doesn't matter, in which case you've got a bigger target to shoot and more headaches as you need bigger treads to move the bigger mass. #1 is the option that the UN Spacy, via Northrom Grumman took; it's a heavy mother, but it's fairly mobile as far as an artillery platform goes as it can fly to keep up with the rest of the UN Spacy forces, which are also aerospace mobile. So, it flies - great. Now, how do you make this all work out? A flying destroid/artillery platform with treads? Mmm.... maybe it's not a good idea. The treads are going to be heavy, or the plane has to be really heavy, due to the need to brace it against the force of the four rail cannons. Too heavy a mass, and you don't fly at all without some major Overtechnology. Plus, the treads themselves are going to add a lot of weight to the platform. Now, option #2 is to go with proven Overtechnology (the VF system), which happens to be leg-based. You understand the technology, it's proven through time and trial, and you understand the physics of firing the gun pretty well. Great. Oh, one problem - Overtechnology-based legged vehicles all seem to include a Battroid mode. Damn those crazy Protoculture guys, so enamored of humanoid mecha which look like the Vajra. I guess it can't be helped; we'll put a Battroid mode in there. On the upside, given reports of how Quamzin kicked a Monster down during one of the battles after the SDF-1 landed and then proceeded to rip it apart, maybe a Battroid mode wouldn't be a bad idea; at least that way I have hands and a way to direct those damned vulcan cannons at a Zentradi if he somehow gets near the Konig Monster. We'll toss it in anyways - it's not like it'll add to the mass of the mecha, not significantly, given how Overtechnology works... and it's built into the system. Plus, this'll be easier for pilots who are trained on 'regular' VF's to adapt to, since they're all used to Battroid mode anyways. So, our theoretical engineering team goes to design the flying artillery platform, which we'll call VBX-6. Now, another issue is 'do we want this thing to be able to fire the railcannons in all three modes'? Presumably, they look at this and run simulations and do all sorts of calculations to figure out the force of the cannons firing, the amount of thrust they can pack into the platform, and the amount of reaction mass it carries. Plus the design issues with trying to put railguns in, and whether you want to have them interfering with the aerodynamics of an already massive and likely-to-be ungainly platform. After much consideration, the engineering team reluctantly concludes that it is not possible to fire them while in flight. The calculations show that the force generated is likely to be great enough that it will make flying a bitch; either they conclude there's not enough reaction mass onboard to counter even one firing, that there's not enough reaction mass onboard to fire and then fly home safely afterwards, or that the idea of firing in the direction you want to go is impractical and/or stupid. Or it creates too much drag in atmosphere, since these things are expensive enough (and the UN Spacy goes into atmospheres enough) that you don't want to have an artillery platform that can't land on a fucking planet or fly through its atmosphere without using an inordinate amount of fuel or reaction mass/power. It's stupid! And, another designer points out, the original Monster design was pretty good as a mobile artillery platform outside of its major mobility issue which the flight-form fixes. Satisfied, they then turn their attention to the specifics of the other modes; GERWALK and Battroid. Gerwalk should be relatively easy, due to the insight of an unknown engineer who said it was simpler to reuse the existing (and proven) design for this mode. Perhaps the head designer's eyes unfocus for a second as he or she remembers his or her grandfather who piloted one of those ugly green Destroids which turned the tide the afternoon Quamzin drove home an attack which scattered and destroyed several Valkyrie teams while disabling the close-in turreted defenses. The outmatched Defender and Phalanx crews tried to hold back the Zentradi, burning as they were dragged down one by one, but managing to resist long enough for the three-man Monster teams to be lifted to the deck, employing their railguns and missile launchers to sweep the deck of enemy mecha in an afternoon of scorched air and roaring explosions with Death clapping in delight. Or maybe this was merely a fantasy of the chronicler - history only records that the dogged defense followed up by the employment of that mobile artillery platform turned the tide in that battle, as well as the final battle in Boddole Zer's Fulbtzs-Berrentzs class mothership. It was a time-proven platform, with but one major weakness which was being remedied with this variable bomber. A proven gun platform which could carry the prerequisite number of rail cannons and munitions required, which mostly needed redesign to accomodate the Overtechnology necessary to make it a Variable craft. The frame would have to be lightened as much as possible in key areas to make room for the transformation gear, and to make sure the mecha wasn't too overweight - the original was about 300 metric tons after all. Eventually, after much consultation, redesigning, and computer modelling we see the prototype show up... and then, by 2051 the VB-6 has entered deployment with the UN Spacy. What a long, difficult birth that was. But... apparently the UN Spacy, and other forces, are quite happy with the results. Sure, it can't fire its guns in flight and it needs to transform to GERWALK to fire its gun... but boy, it sure kicked a lot of ass when it was used, and it could fly places. Both Aegis Focker and Canaria Berstein are more than willing to show you how well the platform works. Quote:
We've all pointed out that this is based on a technology which is fifty years old by the time of the series, pointed out that the technology they're using for the legs is based on older technology from a civilization with a fetish for walking mecha (else we'd see treaded Glaugs... which in hindsight is a rather silly picture), and therefore technological progress has continued along those lines because nobody in the Protoculture bothered to make Overtechnology for making treads work better, and humans were happy to continue that trend because it made fighting fifty-foot tall giants easier. Space artillery doesn't work too well unless it's used as a strategic or theater weapon, which is why they've got flying Destroid artillery platforms and tracked mobile artillery/direct gun platforms - we've seen those used in episode 1 and 2. However, those are useful only in certain situations - like when you've got roads to work with, and the enemy comes to you. They fire missiles because they don't have to worry so much about the recoil as you can 'cold launch' a missile or let it build up speed after the initial booster gets it off your vehicle. Also, the VB-6 Konig Monster is useful as an artillery platform because it can keep up with the rest of its support and the units it's supporting as good mobile artillery is supposed to be able to do. The reason variable fighters exist is because they're primarily designed to be manned missile platforms which also serve as infantry against fifty-foot tall giants who roam the galaxy in packs numbering in the millions, and not all of whom are friendly. The reason to use legs instead of treads for the VB-6 is becaue the treads are likelier heavier than the legs in question are, because it let them reuse a proven platform which worked well, and because the feet on those things already cover more area than the treads would've as far as providing bracing goes... especially once you put down all those other supports. Why do you want to brace yourself in space? Because that way the force of the firing works on a larger effective mass, which means your artillery platform stays put better. The reason you don't want to use thrusters to 'counter' the force of it is because that means you're burning fuel to stay in place, and you're not carrying an unlimited amount - I'm sorry, but Macross is NOT Wing Commander where the thrusters scoop an unlimited amount of fuel out of space to use for propulsion, nor is this Star Trek where impulse engines and inertial compensators apparently allow for near-inertialess movement. Plus it's less of a headache to brace than to compute vectors to fire your thrusters against to compensate for the force of the firing, if you can. Why not fire in the direction you want to go? Because the target's fucking moving, and you either have to move with it, or else be braced well enough so you know YOU'RE not moving and thus have only one vector to calculate instead of multiple ones (you before firing, the target's movement, how you have to change vectors to fire at the target, your vector after firing, etc). Plus, gun rounds aren't necessarily cheap AND they do damage when they hit something. If you're escorting a fleet, or if you're attacking an enemy force, I'd want to make sure I wasn't killing teammates every time I needed to change directions or move a certain way. Treads in space don't make sense, treads on the surface of a planet make damned little sense when you're flying to where you want to go, and the big goddamned feet plus bracing struts cover more surface area than your treads did, and are probably less likely to fail under the force of the shooting. Your treads have multiple points of failure - just as the legs do, but at least the legs act as one bloody units when locked down, whereas those wheels in the treads move unless you've got an impressively good braking system which may very well FAIL during the firing, or be so worn out (or the treads themselves get worn out) that you have to shell out for replacements fairly bloody quickly compared to the well-understood legs that served the Konig Monster's father for years. Rule of thumb for an engineer: you don't break what works. You don't redesign something that doesn't need to be rengineered because you want to, unless there's an overriding concern to be addressed, or else because it's more elegant or cheaper to build, or sturdier. Treads were not used during the first War on the Monster; treads aren't used here because the HWR-00 Monster didn't use them, and it worked well, and the feet were fucking fantastic for bracing its 300-ton mass due to the way it was initially designed. On top of this, it's all built using Overtechnology developed by a culture which was fascinated with the bipedal form, to the point that many of their vehicles apparently incorporated legs and thus the technology that Earth's miclones used in the first war, which was based on this Overtechnology, used the same design principles. And they worked bloody well good enough to save thousands of lives on the SDF-1. If you want to blame anyone, start with the Protoculture. Beyond that, you've yet to prove anything; that firing thrusters is better for the VB-6, that it doesn't need to be braced and can use the force of its firing, that treads are better than legs which worked for a mecha three times as heavy as a VB-6, and that orbital weapons are better for tactical employment than a mobile artillery platform which happens to be mounted on a Destroid. Last edited by Haesslich; 2008-10-22 at 05:02. Reason: Corrected ze grammar |
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2008-10-22, 12:15 | Link #1197 | |
Senior Member
Join Date: Oct 2004
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I can not possibly respond to so much all in one post, so for now I'll just address Ithekro's
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If you want to protect civilian ships, you use military ships. Not a mobile turrent that needs to clamp on to something in order to shoot. That's a terrible idea. Ith, you have already demonstrated that you don't really understand how combat works in space. It's not the same as flying in the air, it's more similar to a Mac truck trying to drive on ice. Taking advantage of recoil in weapons is part of combat tactics. In any case, the idea of a mobile turrent that needs to clamp on to a bigger ship in order to fire is really really stupid on its own. Well guess what? It's an issue whether you want to admit it or not. Legs are complicated and prone to malfunction. They are also very vulnerable. If you shoot one off, then its screwed. Legs are unstable. You can knock a walker on its ass from the recoil generated by its railguns alone. That's ignoring any impacts it recieves from enemy fire. So if they are so vulnerable, you need a DAMN good reason to use them, when there are no simpler alternatives out there, that can do the same job as good or even better. Well, there ARE simpler alternatives to bracing for recoil. So far the argument for legs has been, they can brace for recoil (yea right, it'll be knocked on its back), they allow the machine to move on the ground, and they can clamp on to bigger ships in space (which is pointless). In my opinion, only the first two are actually useful tasks, but lets assume all three are useful. So is there a simpler mechanism that can brace for recoil, allow the machine to move on the ground, and clamp on to bigger ships? Sure. You can brace for recoil better if it was shaped more like a tank. Low profile, wide base, and has supporting struts that extend outward. Move on the ground? Just use treads. They are simpler, weigh MUCH less than legs, easier to repair, spread the weight of the machine over a much larger area than legs, and can move a massive machine better than legs can. Clamping on to a bigger ship? Someone said the legs have claws on them that allow them to dig into another ship's armor (destroying it in the process), which allows for a impromptu clamp (and a stupid one at that). Well if it's useful, then the claw-like devices are what clamps the machine in, not the legs. Just incorporate that into the struts and body of the machine. No need for legs at all. Last edited by Daigo; 2008-10-22 at 12:31. |
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2008-10-22, 13:11 | Link #1199 | ||||||||||
NERV Personnel
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If a fleet was under heavy enemy fire and needed to deploy VB-6's, would the person charge worry about some repairable hull damage as opposed to being completely wiped out? The engineers who designed the VB-6 most likely had to make some compensations in creating an artillery platform that could perform in space as well as on the ground. With no gravity in space they had to develop some means to keep the VB-6 stable and they decide don the clamping method as opposed to adding even more and stronger thrusters (the QCX-76A Jormungand from MS Igloo alone had over 8 massive thrusters to compensate for the recoil). Quote:
If you look at the position of the legs of the VB-6 relative to the base of its main guns, they are almost aligned. This results in the bulk of the recoil being taken in by the legs (and the third stabilizer then deployed). Hence it maximizes the effectiveness of the stabilizers as well as distributes the force over the surfaces of all three limbs (and their large 'feet' which have a total area close to that of if not greater than if if it had treads) rather than just the rear half like a tank. |
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2008-10-22, 18:16 | Link #1200 | ||||||
Go to DMC! Go to DMC!
Join Date: May 2008
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Let's look at those reasons. 1) The escorts should, if things go well, keep enemy ships and fighters off the convoy they're escorting. This means being able to shoot them down or to drive them off before they get into the middle of the convoy, and shooting down missiles or drones as necessary. However, this being a universe in which anything that can theoretically happen will eventually happen, escort craft may not be able to keep the enemy out of the convoy. 2) At this point, the convoy has to defend itself from incoming missiles, mecha, and raider ships. With the amount of infrastucture required to support a Macross cannon, to the point where New Macross ships and similar craft have the Macross Cannon in its own seperate component/ship, it means that the room for the weapons and their support components (spare parts, generators to support the energy requirements for the weapons, storage for munitions) will have to come out of the carrying capacity of these transports; this means losing cargo space, crew space, or equipment space. Or increasing the hull size to allow for this extra room. Plus extra personnel to handle the weapons, which means extra crew accomodations are necessary. 3) The UN Spacy doesn't seem to be big believers in making sure every civilian ship is heavily armed, or the corporations which build these don't believe in it... or they can't sell these ships to Macross fleets at a reasonable price. Or, just as reasonably, they don't want to be equipping the raiders with premade privateering vessels (transports and small multipurpose craft with a lot of guns and turrets). So, they send UN Spacy detachments along with each fleet, or with private fleets... or the private fleets buy armed frigates at great expense and under whatever end-user certificates the Macross universe and the UN Spacy requires them to buy them under. 4) Thus, when the enemy breaks through, you have fighters to intercept other fighters... and it turns out those VB-6 Konig Monsters already have anti-aircraft guns and their immediate ancestors were used as walking gun turrets in the first war as well, albeit in pre-prepared positions and under pre-planned deployments for the most part. They're self-contained turrets, don't need to be refueled or rearmed by the transports, and can move themselves back to their home carrier when done. Plus, unlike the escort craft, they can fire FROM the ship they're defending and not worry so much about hitting the people they're defending, unlike the escorts who have to worry about what a missed shot will do to the transport which may move into the line of fire. For the most part, the escorts keep the raiders off the convoy. The gun-turret use is a secondary function, but it's one with historical precedents in the Macross universe and undoubtedly a function considered by the designers of the VB-6. Quote:
... no thesis? Alright, then we'll continue to challenge your claims. Here's mine. "Taking advantage of recoil in weapons is part of combat tactics" - uh.... yeah, whatever. On Earth, we try to AVOID the recoil, or otherwise dissipate it, unless you're talking about automatic weapons which use the recoil to load the next round into the gun. Notice that this is only used to load the gun, not to create an advantage in combat. As for using it 'to advantage in combat'... minor shots aren't going to change your vector too much. Major ones.. yes. And somehow I don't see rotating to fire your guns RIGHT INTO THE MIDDLE OF YOUR FUCKING FORMATION to be all that useful in terms of defense, nor do you want to shove yourself backwards every time you're shooting at someone if the guns use that much force to drive the damned projectiles down-theatre. That's probably -the- big reason that no other fighters carry heavy guns like railcannons - instead they stick with micro-missiles or energy weapons which don't apply that much force to the firing platform. Even the missiles shoot out, then after orienting on the target, kick in their boosters to move at ludicrous speeds. They don't use their guns to 'turn' them in combat.. and neither do the big capital ships, since their mass, relative to the size of the projectile and the force applied to it, is enough that any effect from the 'recoil' is negligible. Ergo, "Why the fucking Monster locks itself down to take a fucking shot, so it doesn't blow itself off the fucking hell and into someone's line of fire, or have its own shot go astray". Quote:
Also, I should note that the way the guns fired suggested the recoil of the cannons was being driven down perpendicularly into the hull... and right along the lines of the braces deployed. The barrels moved in the assembly, and the line of movement seemed to drive along a line which 'coincidentally' moved into the braces. The legs aren't taking the brunt of the shock there, but the braces - and from what we saw, they spread it along a VERY wide base and those three backside components. Y'know... sorta like a tank with its wide base, but with more coverage. Notice that tanks aren't using a wide base that COMPLETELY covers the ground either - the weight is usually spread across the treads which total about maybe a third of the width of the tank's base... and the shock is spread mostly along the back half of the tank, with the front half just trying to hold still so the treads don't roll back too much. It's low to the ground, but at the same time it covers around as much, if not less, area than the feet of the VB-6 Konig Monster does relative to its own main body... and without the extra bracing struts. Of course, modern MBTs only really fire sabot rounds... and yet most treaded vehicles of the type you claim to be more practical in Macross for this purpose don't really have all that much contact with the ground relative to their body area. What they do have is good brakes and shock-absorber systems built into the gun to handle the recoil... which we also see in action on the VB-6. Remember seeing those barrels recoil into the hood just around them, at the base of the mecha? Quote:
Twenty feet of tank treads, according to some reports I've seen based on the feasability of recycling them, weighs one ton. The M1A2 Abrams is approximately 33 feet long, and you've got two tracks. The way the track system is designed along with the roller wheel at the top of each tread (IIRC), means you'd need about 76-77 feet (thereabouts, given the shape of the tread system), and you've got two of them. Now you've got 7 wheels per side (6 road wheels, one roller wheel). Then we add the torsion bar, the power train, and everything else required to turn gas turbine output into rotational motion. The fucking treads alone are a tenth of the weight of the M1A2 Abrams tank - just the treads, not even the drive system. Add the rest of the components together to make those treads move on wheels to drive the tank along the ground, and it adds up to an awful lot of weight. Just to 'brace' or 'move' a flying artillery piece along the ground. We KNOW what treads weigh for a 70-ton tank, and those treads and brakes are required to hold it still to fire its main cannon. Which fires a sabot round out of a 120mm cannon. Now compare this to a VB-6 Konig Monster which flies, and which has four main cannons. If those main cannons are direct descendants of the original HWR-00 Mark II Monster, they're each 40cm-bored railcannons. Pictures of the Konig Monster in action suggest, based on its specified size, that the bores are indeed 40cm wide, if not a tad bigger. Firing missiles isn't a big deal, nor are firing the Vulcan cannons - with space, if you're travelling along a certain vector it takes an equal amount of force directed in another direction to change the vector. Firing those guns doesn't create that amount of force, which is why VF's can turn on a dime, fire at a foe while in flight, and not get shoved back several meters. Alas, this is not the case with the railcannons, which compared to the rest of the VB-6 are fucking massive in terms of the size of the projectile and the force used to send it to its target relative to a several thousand-ton capital ship using a similar railcannon to shoot at a target. On top of which, you forgot about the Battroid/Destroid mode which is, as I said before, an apparent part of Overtechnology... perhaps because the Protoculture got their hands on some Gundam DVDs that somehow fell out of a time warp and became such big mecha otaku that they focused on such things... and had the engineering know-how to make them work. Or maybe it's because they were so focused on the Vajra Queen worship and emulating its form in their own creations (Bird-Man, etc). Besides which, the VB-6 still uses the fucking struts. It's just those struts appear to be built up to have Overtechnology-driven leg tech as well. It's certainly a more practical design than treads which weigh, without any mechanisms to move them, a full tenth of the vehicle's mass. Oh, and they're recycling an older, proven design from the first war whose leg was designed the exact same way... and which worked. EDIT: I just reread the post and noticed a typo - those should be 40 CM cannons, based on their relative size to the Destroid. Basically 400mm in bore, or about 15.75 inches in diameter. Last edited by Haesslich; 2008-10-22 at 21:18. Reason: Corrected units. 40mm = 40cm. Mistyped. |
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