Now, you say that these tanks are often brought into urban environments for a combat role. First, what moron would do that,
The same morons that gave an alien species that had advanced technology watermelons at first contact because that is what they thought an image of them taking away a planet from them meant (yes, this is canonical).
the top is vulnerable.
Assumption, not fact. The Top of Scorpion tanks are actually quite well protected because it was designed that way because adapting lore from FPS titles is tricky for people for some reason (it had equal protection all round except for one variant having a weak spot on its butt).
Second, if your choice is a tank, which can be knocked out from above while also not likely to be able to elevate its gun high enough to retaliate,
Again, assumptions. The tank in question has its turret quite elevated above its hull, about 2 meters high. It is a remote control turret and has quite a lot of elevation and depression available to it. IIRC I have seen it when the canon was almost vertical because the tank was targeting an airborne light target.
or a gun ship that is apparently much more sturdy and likely to survive enemy fire in all directions and can answer with a rapid fire 30mm cannon straight to the face of the offender, why are you not using the gunship? It's the obviously superior choice due to ease of response, speed of response and likelihood of survival to make said response.
For a few reasons; The Vultures are very expensive to build and maintain while the tanks are not. The Vulture is built at a dedicated facility while the tanks can be built from most automotive factories if given the right parts. Also, the Vulture can't fit into a city street. Again, it is 25m wide while the tank is only 8m wide. And cities in the UEG are very tall (a "small" tower would give the Burj Hhalifa an inferiority complex) The final reason is because the Vulture has a lot of bad press to it when fighting the insurgents as it is seen as extreme overkill (which then fuels reasons for more people to join the insurgents which then makes the cycle continue).
Look, I'm confused because the way you talk about the Vulture it's the obviously superior option for all roles normally filled by tanks. It's faster, it's tougher and it throws more boom at the enemy. Sufficiently so in fact, that it's a wonder the UNSC still uses tanks instead of turning over all their tasks to Vulture gunships.
Like warships, Vultures could only be built so quickly. Tanks on the other hand, the UNSC could roll dozens of them off the assembly lines a day. The reason they don't ramp up production of the Vultures is lot on me as well. Most of the books and sources besides the video games are all pretty much focused on the space battles, Spartans, and sometimes the Insurgents. Could very well be that they repurposed the majority of the Vulture production facilities int producing actual warships to stop the Covenant in space instead of waiting to fight them until they are on the ground. They are just like this. For another thing, they are trying to push an advanced fighter design with twin 30mm Gatling guns and a missile system to replace their current fighter design which has 2 110mm Gatling cannons (yes, you read that right) and a 120mm dorsal turret with a 360 degree rotation on top of the bomb/missile bay. Oh, and that older design also goes faster than the "advanced" design, and is a lot tougher. Yah, it sounds stupid doesn't it?
Everything that you can do to a 30mm rotary cannon weapon system with such advanced technology you can do with missiles. In fact, the only way a 30mm cannon can be a better option than the much beefier warhead offered by an ATM is if all tank armour is if reactive armour that is guaranteed to perfectly defend against the first impact but the underlying armour cannot defend against 30mm shells.
Question; would you rather build Anti-Tank missiles when your enemies tank is quite vulnerable to most things and usually lacks a large amount of AA cover, or Anti-Ship missiles to blow up that enemy in space before they reach the ground?
~snip~
Fine, I'll stop with my analogies as they seem to be getting taken out of context when I use them.
Sure, your sci-fi magic plane could be better armored than an M1 Abrams. But a tank made by the same culture as the magic plane could be even heavier armored. You say anti-gravity will allow aircraft to be much more heavily armored. Why can this not also be applied to tanks? Maybe TN tanks hover several inches off the ground thanks to an anti-gravity generator? Maybe they still use treads, but an anti-grav generator compensates for 90% of the weight, making it much more mobile than it's sheer size would suggest. Maybe it uses shields instead of armor?
As we have had this discussion I will cut it short. I agree. Its that simple. A "tank" would benefit from most technologies a "plane" would. Yes, I understand that. I was pointing out what "could" be, and I could be wrong myself. I was just using an example to act as an analogy for what I was trying to say.
The over-penetration argument doesn't work. If you have a 100mm dual-purpose AA/AT cannon, you don't fire your AT rounds at planes, nor your AA rounds at tanks. You fire an HE round with a really sensitive fuse at aerial targets, and an AP round at armored ground targets. This is not a TN-tech only problem either, dual-purpose field guns like the Flak 88 et al were very common in WW2 and did exactly what I describe above. Yes, it takes a different ammo type but unless you want Aurora to track that as well, this is extraneous.
Again, I agree. I was simply rage posting that his logic on the survivability of planes was flawed somewhat. I have 2 assignments and a test due tomorrow (technically later today as it just past 1:00 am), and another due the next day. I'm just very tired as I was balancing that with a busy weekend attending a wedding and doing other things. Off to bed.
