Replacing PDCs

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

Yeah, with a lot more infantry in a formation you really need to consider turning the standard infantry weapon into an AP0, Damage 1, Shots 2 weapon. There'd be optimization pressure from the military to get a more rapid fire weapon in everyone's hands. Because against soft, numerous targets you need the biggest number of shots possible because you are going to penetrate anyway.

Actually, of concern; AP0 means that standard infantry formations can do no damage whatsoever against anything with any armour. Is this as intended?

Good point about the AP0. I had originally intended that weapons with AP0 couldn't damage an armoured target. A rifleman with an M-16 could blast away all day at a tank without success, although you could include light anti-tank weapons in your infantry formations and machine gun equivalents have some capability against armour. I was not trying to simulate infantrymen throwing Molotov cocktails at tanks though. Now I am thinking about it a little more, the issue is though that infantrymen can wear armour too, so powered infantry would be invulnerable to other infantry. I might make the basic weapon AP 0.5 and add an improved personal weapon with AP 1 or higher. However, I don't want to get into a situation where massed infantry is massacring tanks. Maybe I need to spread out the armour range a little more.

Shots is not intended to simulate a real rate of fire. It is the number of attacks in a combat phase. So infantry might fire multiple times as a single 'shot'. If i increase that, I would also need to increase machine gun shots, etc. The single infantryman with a personal weapon is going to be the baseline for everything else. You might have a thousand infantryman in a battalion with a thousand shots. A tank battalion might only have 60 vehicles (for example). so has 120 shots (assuming both slots are anti-vehicle weapons), or up to 420 shots with an anti-vehicle weapon and a automatic anti-personnel weapon. The tanks would presumably be much better armoured as well, although much more expensive.

Formation sizes will be up to the players, so you can design battalions, companies or even platoons if needed and call the unit and formation whatever you like. So you might have an individual infantry unit with personal weapons and powered armour that you name a Storm Trooper and then create a formation of those units called a Storm Trooper Legion. There won't be any reference in the design to standard Earth unit sizes as they vary by country anyway. The formation will have a total size though and HQs will be able to manage up to a certain size.

[83athom]

Good point about the AP0. I had originally intended that weapons with AP0 couldn't damage an armoured target. A rifleman with an M-16 could blast away all day at a tank without success, although you could include light anti-tank weapons in your infantry formations and machine gun equivalents have some capability against armour. I was not trying to simulate infantrymen throwing Molotov cocktails at tanks though. Now I am thinking about it a little more, the issue is though that infantrymen can wear armour too, so powered infantry would be invulnerable to other infantry. I might make the basic weapon AP 0.5 and add an improved personal weapon with AP 1 or higher. However, I don't want to get into a situation where massed infantry is massacring tanks. Maybe I need to spread out the armour range a little more.

Definitely need to expand the range a bit. However, I think you were quite close for the stats overall. One thing that could get around the lightest unit of infantry is to make it a "Conscript" or "Militia" unit that will always have a base armor of 0 to 1 (simulating essentially wearing nothing but BDUs and a helmet). Of course, in reality their uniforms would likely be able to stop small arms (pistols and knives), but in no way provide protection against a rifle (technology equivalent). Then you would have to add something between "Light" infantry and "Powered" infantry. Going back to my Halo examples; The Marines would likely equate "Light" infantry, Spartan IIs and IIIs and Mk I ADS are "Powered", and something like the Mk III being a "Heavy Powered". However, the ODSTs have a somewhat heavier armor with some being assisted by an exoskeleton suit which is derived from the Mjolnir armor of Spartans, yet not as big, powerful, or armored as Spartans (IVs do not count, because they aren't full "super soldiers" like IIs and IIIs). They could be classed as a "Medium" or "Assault" Infantry, being a step between the lightly armored Regular/Light infantry and full out armored Powered infantry.

Formation sizes will be up to the players, so you can design battalions, companies or even platoons if needed and call the unit and formation whatever you like. So you might have an individual infantry unit with personal weapons and powered armour that you name a Storm Trooper and then create a formation of those units called a Storm Trooper Legion. There won't be any reference in the design to standard Earth unit sizes as they vary by country anyway. The formation will have a total size though and HQs will be able to manage up to a certain size.

Would we be able to mix non-like unit types within formations. For example, could we have a single formation with 100 infantry, 12 vehicles, and 1-2 "aircraft" if we so desired?

[Hazard]

I was talking something more along the lines of an AC-220 Vulture Gunship from halo. It literally is a flying tank with 4 30mm autocannons, 2 SAM launchers (each launcher fires 9 missiles in a volley), and 2 ASM (air to surface) launchers (each fire 4 at a time). And remember again, this is WITH TN technology, not being analog to current technology.

Actually, no that's not a flying tank. That's a gun ship, and if it takes AA fire it's probably going to feel it quite a lot.

And if it takes an AT shot it's going down in flames and itty bitty pieces.

I mean, make no mistake that sounds like a very nasty weapon to face, but it has not the staying power of a tank. It's a raider more than anything with that load out.

Good point about the AP0. I had originally intended that weapons with AP0 couldn't damage an armoured target. A rifleman with an M-16 could blast away all day at a tank without success, although you could include light anti-tank weapons in your infantry formations and machine gun equivalents have some capability against armour. I was not trying to simulate infantrymen throwing Molotov cocktails at tanks though. Now I am thinking about it a little more, the issue is though that infantrymen can wear armour too, so powered infantry would be invulnerable to other infantry. I might make the basic weapon AP 0.5 and add an improved personal weapon with AP 1 or higher. However, I don't want to get into a situation where massed infantry is massacring tanks. Maybe I need to spread out the armour range a little more.

Consider establishing a 'cut off' %value in the armour piercing calculations, below which armour can't be penetrated by a weapon. I mean, on equal tech level % penetration chance is equal to (AP/Armour)^2, but it also inherently favours the higher tech level because of how the values get multiplied as tech level increases. But somehow I think that modern day tank armour is more or less effectively impervious to WW2 or earlier AT weapons. Because of this, if the total Armour value is sufficiently greater than the AP value of the shots that land there is no damage no matter how many shots land, which limits the use of blobs of infantry with anti infantry weapons with low level AP values in an anti tank role.

Now, the cut off I don't know about, but this lets you do things like assign a minimal AP value to base infantry weapons that go up against a (base) Armour rating of 4 vehicle and lose regardless of the fact that a vehicle formation would have far fewer units than an infantry formation in a peer technological situation.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, no armour infantry blobs kind of break the system too; as the piercing calculation is AP/Armour, zero armour means that if they get hit they take full damage and die with their only hit point, but at the same time as technology increases (and thus training costs) they're not going to get more expensive armour. Because they have none in the first place even if they get Fortification bonuses that let them dodge getting hit. However, all other unit types do have armour and thus escalating armour and weapon costs while unarmoured infantry are both comparatively cheap because they only pay for their weapon and get large numbers and thus large numbers of shots.

This makes blobs of unarmoured infantry equipped with the biggest guns they can carry probably very effective for their price, especially in roles where they can fort up and dodge fire. This can get very weird in some situations.

Shots is not intended to simulate a real rate of fire. It is the number of attacks in a combat phase. So infantry might fire multiple times as a single 'shot'. If i increase that, I would also need to increase machine gun shots, etc. The single infantryman with a personal weapon is going to be the baseline for everything else. You might have a thousand infantryman in a battalion with a thousand shots. A tank battalion might only have 60 vehicles (for example). so has 120 shots (assuming both slots are anti-vehicle weapons), or up to 420 shots with an anti-vehicle weapon and a automatic anti-personnel weapon. The tanks would presumably be much better armoured as well, although much more expensive.

Okay, that's reasonable.

Formation sizes will be up to the players, so you can design battalions, companies or even platoons if needed and call the unit and formation whatever you like. So you might have an individual infantry unit with personal weapons and powered armour that you name a Storm Trooper and then create a formation of those units called a Storm Trooper Legion. There won't be any reference in the design to standard Earth unit sizes as they vary by country anyway. The formation will have a total size though and HQs will be able to manage up to a certain size.

I'd advise you to pick a minimum design component size (apparently platoon) and a minimum deployment size (that is, the point where the game renders a unit). Battalion sized works fine for that and gives you a lot of flexibility in design without burrowing players under massive lists of units. You do need to consider how you want to handle troop transports now; with such a large possible range of troop formation size there's no longer a 'one size fits all' option that would manage it all. You also need to look at how much you want each unit type to weigh in transport space, because transporting heavy armour has different demands than transporting infantry does, even with the same weight in troops and material.

[Steve Walmsley (OP)]

I am working on costs and sizes. The basic principle is a base size for the unit type, plus a base size for each component type (on the assumption that adding larger weapons means a larger vehicle / static mount). The size is then modified by the armour to create a cost. All this is compared to a infantry unit with 1000 men using basic weapons for comparison

For example, I have the following base sizes:
Infantry 0
Static 2
Vehicle 6
Super-heavy Vehicle 18
Aircraft 12

Weapon Sizes (at the moment) are as follows

Personal Weapon 1 (AP 0.5)
Improved PW 1.25 (AP 1)
Machine Gun 3
Heavy MG   5
Light AT 4
Medium AT 8
Heavy AT 12
Super-heavy AT   18
Light Bombardment 5
Med Bombardment 10
Heavy Bombardment 15

So if we have a 'Medium Tank' with Medium AT and MG, plus armour strength 4. That is a total size of 17 (or about 59 vehicles for the same size as a 1000 man unit). Cost is Size x Armour, which would be 68. So for the same cost as 1000 men with basic weapons, you could have 15 medium tanks.

A 'Heavy Tank' with Heavy AT and HMG and armour strength 6 would be size 23 and cost 138. Compared to the 1000 man unit, you could have 44 tanks in terms of size and 7 in terms of cost. Cost & Size are both relevant because size is a factor in terms of troop lift capacity, while cost is an economic factor.

This feels OK. The issue is that static, non-armoured weapons are very cheap compared to tanks (although fine in terms of size). I am planning to make static weapons much less useful when attacking (perhaps shots / 3) and they are more easily destroyed so this may be fine anyway. However, I wouldn't mind some comparison with real world in terms of cost.

BTW, if we take the above Medium and Heavy Tank designs and compare to an infantry unit with 1000 troopers armed with Personal Weapons. Assuming 100% hit rate, a Medium Tank formation of 60 vehicles would kill 420 infantry and lose 3 tanks. The heavy tank formation of 45 vehicles would kill 315 infantry and lose 1 tank. If we assume the infantry are armed with the Improved Personal Weapon, the tank losses change to 8 and 4 respectively. If the tank formations fought each other, The Medium tanks would kill 27 heavy tanks and lose 45 of their own tanks. So Medium is better for flexibility but Heavy better vs other tanks.

If the Heavy Tank was changed to a 'Tank Destroyer' configuration with double Heavy AT and no MG, it would wipe out the Medium Tank formation but only kill 90 infantry.

There will be some other factors involved though. Base to hit chance will be far, far lower given the time increment for ground combat and vehicles will be harder to hit than static or infantry units (not decided yet exactly how the 'mobility' factor will be used). Conversely, infantry on defence can be fortified, making them harder to hit too.

I think the model so far has some interesting decisions in terms of order of battle and attack/defence will be very different in terms of unit capability.

I haven't added aircraft weapons yet but will get to it.

[83athom]

Actually, no that's not a flying tank. That's a gun ship, and if it takes AA fire it's probably going to feel it quite a lot. And if it takes an AT shot it's going down in flames and itty bitty pieces. I mean, make no mistake that sounds like a very nasty weapon to face, but it has not the staying power of a tank. It's a raider more than anything with that load out.

Think you should do a little more research before you respond about something you don't really know about. It is covered top to bottom in heavy layers of titanium armor, and can take greater amounts of fire than the Scorpion tanks (both the M808 and the M820) and Grizzly main battle tank. Its one of the very few things in the Halo universe that can actually take a hit from a Glassing Beam without being destroyed. Those 30mm cannons are essentially the future version of the Gau-8 that is designed for AT use today, and the AC-220 is using DU rounds instead of API/HEI rounds that the A-10 uses. Yes, it is designated as a gunship just as the AC-130 today. However the "Gunship" notation is for heavy aircraft with heavy weaponry that is meant to be assaulting ground forces. It literally is a flying tank to the extreme, and the perfect example of what an "aircraft" can be under TN mechanics. And that was my point, to give an example.

[Hazard]

I am working on costs and sizes. The basic principle is a base size for the unit type, plus a base size for each component type (on the assumption that adding larger weapons means a larger vehicle / static mount).

Even if it didn't mean a bigger vehicle/static mount it'd mean quite a lot of other things need to be bigger. Like the munition, which will also take storage space.

The size is then modified by the armour to create a cost.

Note; this means that if you don't increase your armour tech/techline for ground units but do increase your weapons tech you get lots of really cheap (if vulnerable) hard hitting ground units. You may want to consider adding a cost for weapon technology level as well, size alone won't cover it. Eggshells armed with hammers favours the eggshells so long as they're cheap enough to ship in bulk.

This feels OK. The issue is that static, non-armoured weapons are very cheap compared to tanks (although fine in terms of size). I am planning to make static weapons much less useful when attacking (perhaps shots / 3) and they are more easily destroyed so this may be fine anyway. However, I wouldn't mind some comparison with real world in terms of cost.

Easiest way to handle? Allow only Bombardment weapons to be used by Static units when on the attack. This would indicate then that Static units are, well, static. This makes them fine and cheap defensive frontline units with non-bombardment components and potent and cheap artillery on the offensive. A delay/fortification requirement for Static units before they can start operating would be reasonable to symbolize set up time, while other unit types are immediately ready for combat.

Of course, this presumes that unlike current mechanics attack/defense isn't binary and decided by who gets there first but there's instead a way to exchange initiative. If attack/defense isn't binary a mechanic to shuffle unit positions would be nice.

BTW, if we take the above Medium and Heavy Tank designs and compare to an infantry unit with 1000 troopers armed with Personal Weapons. Assuming 100% hit rate, a Medium Tank formation of 60 vehicles would kill 420 infantry and lose 3 tanks. The heavy tank formation of 45 vehicles would kill 315 infantry and lose 1 tank. If we assume the infantry are armed with the Improved Personal Weapon, the tank losses change to 8 and 4 respectively. If the tank formations fought each other, The Medium tanks would kill 27 heavy tanks and lose 45 of their own tanks. So Medium is better for flexibility but Heavy better vs other tanks.

Sounds about right, and favours the tanks. Of course, this presumes no fortification, which may cause the balance to shift.

There will be some other factors involved though. Base to hit chance will be far, far lower given the time increment for ground combat and vehicles will be harder to hit than static or infantry units (not decided yet exactly how the 'mobility' factor will be used). Conversely, infantry on defence can be fortified, making them harder to hit too.

Mobility factor? As I offered previously, having the mobility advantage may lower the treshold for hitting support/rear echelon positions instead of front line positions.

I haven't added aircraft weapons yet but will get to it.

To be honest, something can be said for giving them the same weapons options as vehicles and give them special rules instead.

Think you should do a little more research before you respond about something you don't really know about. It is covered top to bottom in heavy layers of titanium armor, and can take greater amounts of fire than the Scorpion tanks (both the M808 and the M820) and Grizzly main battle tank. Its one of the very few things in the Halo universe that can actually take a hit from a Glassing Beam without being destroyed. Those 30mm cannons are essentially the future version of the Gau-8 that is designed for AT use today, and the AC-220 is using DU rounds instead of API/HEI rounds that the A-10 uses. Yes, it is designated as a gunship just as the AC-130 today. However the "Gunship" notation is for heavy aircraft with heavy weaponry that is meant to be assaulting ground forces. It literally is a flying tank to the extreme, and the perfect example of what an "aircraft" can be under TN mechanics. And that was my point, to give an example.

Look, if your gunship can eat more fire than your tanks the guys designing the armour for your tanks were a bunch of muppets and should be fired. Out of a cannon. Because the number of potential directions and angles for incoming fire are very different and limited for a tank compared to a gunship you can optimize much more aggressively against them, which means better armour in its role for the same weight and volume.

As for the 30mm rotary cannon, you do realize that the A-10 was designed in the 1970s and even on the design table the GAU-8 was never meant as the primary anti tank weapon for the A-10? That's what the Maverick guided missiles were for. The GAU-8 was meant to chew up Soviet APCs and infantry in cover, and it's pretty good at that.

Now, the A-10 could kill a 1970s Soviet tank with the GAU-8, but that would mean engaging it from a constrained angle and the back of the tank. This would then imply 2 scenarios. 1) The tank crew frakked up massively to the point an A-10 can fly up its backside, or anyone else can hit their tank's back, or 2) the A-10 flew into the teeth of the Soviet air defenses, turned around (and made itself a nice target for all the AA in the process) and is now gunning for the tank. Doing the last without becoming a flaming wreck was expected to be impossible. Or meant that the enemy forgot their AA.

[alex_brunius]

So if we have a 'Medium Tank' with Medium AT and MG, plus armour strength 4. That is a total size of 17 (or about 59 vehicles for the same size as a 1000 man unit). Cost is Size x Armour, which would be 68. So for the same cost as 1000 men with basic weapons, you could have 15 medium tanks.

A 'Heavy Tank' with Heavy AT and HMG and armour strength 6 would be size 23 and cost 138. Compared to the 1000 man unit, you could have 44 tanks in terms of size and 7 in terms of cost. Cost & Size are both relevant because size is a factor in terms of troop lift capacity, while cost is an economic factor.

This feels OK. The issue is that static, non-armoured weapons are very cheap compared to tanks (although fine in terms of size). I am planning to make static weapons much less useful when attacking (perhaps shots / 3) and they are more easily destroyed so this may be fine anyway. However, I wouldn't mind some comparison with real world in terms of cost.

BTW, if we take the above Medium and Heavy Tank designs and compare to an infantry unit with 1000 troopers armed with Personal Weapons. Assuming 100% hit rate, a Medium Tank formation of 60 vehicles would kill 420 infantry and lose 3 tanks. The heavy tank formation of 45 vehicles would kill 315 infantry and lose 1 tank. If we assume the infantry are armed with the Improved Personal Weapon, the tank losses change to 8 and 4 respectively. If the tank formations fought each other, The Medium tanks would kill 27 heavy tanks and lose 45 of their own tanks. So Medium is better for flexibility but Heavy better vs other tanks.

But if the Medium tanks cost less then half of the Heavy tanks per unit (68 vs 138)... doesn't this mean that Medium vs Heavy tanks would actually be a win for the mediums in terms of enemy cost destroyed (3060 Medium tanks cost lost vs 3726 cost Heavy tank cost lost)?


Heavy tanks with superior armor & guns should probably be more cost efficient vs Medium armor as well if you want good balance.

[Hazard]

In cost, yes, but not in shipping.

Heavy tanks at size 23, with 27 losses come up to 621 in shipping capacity. Medium tanks at size 17 and with 45 losses come to a total of 765 in shipping capacity. Because of this, if your major constraint is shipping rather than costs Heavy Tanks are more efficient.

The real question for effectiveness comes at the end of the battle though; who have more combat capacity left.

The medium tanks, with 45 tanks lost out of 68, would have lost about 66% of their combat capacity. The heavy tanks with 27 out of 44 tanks have lost about 61%. This would then slightly favour the heavy tanks just as with shipping, while also costing more.

[QuakeIV]

In relation to all of this, I'd like if ground forces burned through some kind of supply material at a high rate.  That way ground wars are expensive to sustain.  I think that 'logistics units' that get consumed by friendly units are a really hamfisted way of achieving that personally, but if you could for instance drop huge stockpiles of 'munitions' by the ton from cargo ships, or even just MSP, and then the ground units gobble that up as they fight, I think that would be a really fun addition.  That way if you cut off ground forces from supply they will eventually starve (though I can understand this not applying to the AI since it would probably struggle to handle that intelligently) and also ground wars suddenly become very expensive as mentioned.  You have to come up with a crapload of supplies somehow, either continually or at least by having a large stockpile in your arsenals.  That way ground forces dont just sortof magically fight without any help once dropped.

e:  I have edited this several times now and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, sorry for its somewhat disorganized state.

[83athom]

Look, if your gunship can eat more fire than your tanks the guys designing the armour for your tanks were a bunch of muppets and should be fired. Out of a cannon. Because the number of potential directions and angles for incoming fire are very different and limited for a tank compared to a gunship you can optimize much more aggressively against them, which means better armour in its role for the same weight and volume.

There are numerous reasons for this. Mainly; when they were designed and for what purpose they were designed for. The UNSC was in the middle of a insurgency during the time these were designed. Because of this conflict, the tank could be fired on from a similar number of, if not more, directions than the Gunship. The tank was intended for urban combat against soft targets (insurgents with rifles and very rarely some old rockets) and fire support across open fields. They were designed to be fast over all terrain, hence the 4 treads with independent suspension, to provide mobile fire against groups of enemies preferring to stay away from actual fortified locations. The Vulture on the other hand was designed to combat those said fortifications. They were designed to rapidly drop from orbit over the fortification and hang over the target while blasting apart structures and armored targets with missiles while tearing apart vehicles and people with its autocannon fire, all while being shot at by return rocket and cannon fire from the insurgents.

And you seem to be confused on some things. First off, I wasn't commenting on the weakness of the tanks, but the toughness of the Vulture. The Vulture is essentially a small warship with a crew of 6 that only really operates in an atmosphere (dropped from a larger, carrier like warship from low orbit, or operating from an airbase). As such, it has thick armor plating (even thicker than some actual warships). And arguing about "optimization for size/weight/volume" is just stupid in this context. The Scorpion is a MBT about 10m long by 8m wide with the hull going about 2m up (main cannon brings total height to 4m). The Vulture on the other hand is 35m long, 21m wide, and about 10m tall in the midsection. It is much more massive than the tanks. https://orig00.deviantart.net/71a5/f/2015/253/d/6/07_unsc_a_by_white0222-d993rvi.jpg (for side on comparisons).

As for the 30mm rotary cannon, you do realize that the A-10 was designed in the 1970s and even on the design table the GAU-8 was never meant as the primary anti tank weapon for the A-10? That's what the Maverick guided missiles were for. The GAU-8 was meant to chew up Soviet APCs and infantry in cover, and it's pretty good at that.

Yes, I do realize that. However, you also have to realize protection on tanks have taken quite a turn that made them more protected against those missiles and less protected against the 30mm shells. The armor protection on the back half of the sides of the tanks is actually quite anemic compared to tanks in the past, and it is generally quite flat. And you still missed my point of the AC-220s armament being derived from the Gau-8, not being equal to it. They use much more advanced and powerful propellants, more advanced shells, better parts, etc. The 30mm on the Vulture probably could tear up our modern day tanks from pretty much most angles of attack, that is if it doesn't just take it out with one of its air to surface missiles. Wait a second... isn't that just like your example of the A-10 using its Maverick missiles? *gasp* Also, you do realize that the Gau-8 was designed primarily as a weapon to fill the anti-tank role?

Now, the A-10 could kill a 1970s Soviet tank with the GAU-8, but that would mean engaging it from a constrained angle and the back of the tank. This would then imply 2 scenarios. 1) The tank crew frakked up massively to the point an A-10 can fly up its backside, or anyone else can hit their tank's back, or 2) the A-10 flew into the teeth of the Soviet air defenses, turned around (and made itself a nice target for all the AA in the process) and is now gunning for the tank. Doing the last without becoming a flaming wreck was expected to be impossible. Or meant that the enemy forgot their AA.

If, in your scenario, the A-10 could do a vertical dive onto the soviet tank (which it can't) it would tear apart those tanks anyways. This is more like what would happen when using the Vulture. It hangs above while dropping ordinance directly on top of the enemy, right into the engine decks of our soviet era tanks.

[Hazard]

In relation to all of this, I'd like if ground forces burned through some kind of supply material at a high rate.  That way ground wars are expensive to sustain.  I think that 'logistics units' that get consumed by friendly units are a really hamfisted way of achieving that personally, but if you could for instance drop huge stockpiles of 'munitions' by the ton from cargo ships, or even just MSP, and then the ground units gobble that up as they fight, I think that would be a really fun addition.  That way if you cut off ground forces from supply they will eventually starve (though I can understand this not applying to the AI since it would probably struggle to handle that intelligently) and also ground wars suddenly become very expensive as mentioned.  You have to come up with a crapload of supplies somehow, either continually or at least by having a large stockpile in your arsenals.  That way ground forces dont just sortof magically fight without any help once dropped.

e:  I have edited this several times now and it doesn't seem to be getting much better, sorry for its somewhat disorganized state.

It's alright. The logistics unit factor has been raised before, and the exact same supply mechanic change has been offered as a solution too. You aren't wrong about logistics units being a kind of poor mechanic on the face of it.

There are numerous reasons for this. Mainly; when they were designed and for what purpose they were designed for. The UNSC was in the middle of a insurgency during the time these were designed. Because of this conflict, the tank could be fired on from a similar number of, if not more, directions than the Gunship. The tank was intended for urban combat against soft targets (insurgents with rifles and very rarely some old rockets) and fire support across open fields. They were designed to be fast over all terrain, hence the 4 treads with independent suspension, to provide mobile fire against groups of enemies preferring to stay away from actual fortified locations. The Vulture on the other hand was designed to combat those said fortifications. They were designed to rapidly drop from orbit over the fortification and hang over the target while blasting apart structures and armored targets with missiles while tearing apart vehicles and people with its autocannon fire, all while being shot at by return rocket and cannon fire from the insurgents.

Look. It's impossible to get the same all around threat profile an aerial vehicle faces with a ground vehicle. And I mean literally impossible. Sure, mines and the like are a potential threat, but for a tank in the field most threats are going to be from the front, the sides, the top (air launched ATMs) and the back, with little comparative threat from the ground/below. Minefields are great, but once detected you can avoid or clear them, thereby cancelling their threat.

Because of this, you can stuff much of the armour weight that would otherwise be needed to protect the bottom right into the areas most under threat; the front and sides. And because a tank will be facing threats from those directions at roughly the same height from the ground as the armour you can angle the armour for even better armour protection.

Now, you say that these tanks are often brought into urban environments for a combat role. First, what moron would do that, the top is vulnerable. 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, 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.

And you seem to be confused on some things. First off, I wasn't commenting on the weakness of the tanks, but the toughness of the Vulture. The Vulture is essentially a small warship with a crew of 6 that only really operates in an atmosphere (dropped from a larger, carrier like warship from low orbit, or operating from an airbase). As such, it has thick armor plating (even thicker than some actual warships). And arguing about "optimization for size/weight/volume" is just stupid in this context. The Scorpion is a MBT about 10m long by 8m wide with the hull going about 2m up (main cannon brings total height to 4m). The Vulture on the other hand is 35m long, 21m wide, and about 10m tall in the midsection. It is much more massive than the tanks. https://orig00.deviantart.net/71a5/f/2015/253/d/6/07_unsc_a_by_white0222-d993rvi.jpg (for side on comparisons).

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.

Yes, I do realize that. However, you also have to realize protection on tanks have taken quite a turn that made them more protected against those missiles and less protected against the 30mm shells. The armor protection on the back half of the sides of the tanks is actually quite anemic compared to tanks in the past, and it is generally quite flat. And you still missed my point of the AC-220s armament being derived from the Gau-8, not being equal to it. They use much more advanced and powerful propellants, more advanced shells, better parts, etc.

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.

The 30mm on the Vulture probably could tear up our modern day tanks from pretty much most angles of attack, that is if it doesn't just take it out with one of its air to surface missiles. Wait a second... isn't that just like your example of the A-10 using its Maverick missiles? *gasp* Also, you do realize that the Gau-8 was designed primarily as a weapon to fill the anti-tank role?

Yes, that would be similar to how an A-10 would be using its Mavericks, which is also how it should be using its Mavericks.

And no, the GAU-8 was never meant as an anti tank weapon. It was meant as an anti armour weapon. There is a difference.

That difference being that while all tanks are Armoured Fighting Vehicles, not all Armoured Fighting Vehicles are tanks. Armoured Personnel Carriers are also AFVs, as are self propelled artillery guns, and self propelled AA guns, and practically every other vehicle on the battlefield because nearly all of them have some degree of armour meant to protect crew and passengers from incidental low caliber fire and shrapnel.

The difference is that tanks have relatively thick armour compared to all other AFVs, which have much thinner armour. And because they have thinner armour they are vulnerable to the GAU-8 (or rather, were, modern AFVs have improved to the point the GAU-8 is no longer (as) effective).

If, in your scenario, the A-10 could do a vertical dive onto the soviet tank (which it can't) it would tear apart those tanks anyways. This is more like what would happen when using the Vulture. It hangs above while dropping ordinance directly on top of the enemy, right into the engine decks of our soviet era tanks.

Doubtful actually. The turret armour was too thick to penetrate even at the best possible angle. The engine deck armour would indeed be more likely, but, well, there's a few very important constraints in that attack angle, most to do with not wanting to pancake the plane. That you have to fly up well above the battlefield to set up your attack run and basically dare every soviet AA gun to light you up from miles around instead of much more sensibly flying close to the surface and hiding among the terrain is also important.

[Garfunkel]

This argument over Halo is completely pointless. It's basic physics that a ground vehicle will always be better armoured than a flying vehicle. And that a low-height tracked vehicle can be better armoured than a high-height walking vehicle. It's true that modern air vehicles are extremely squishy and the few examples - A-10, Mi-24 Hind - that aren't are both pretty "low tech" and still much more vulnerable than any tank.  Yes, a rifle round is not going to bring a C-5 Galaxy down but anything that can kill a M1 Abrams main battle tank will absolutely wreck anything that flies. And there is no logical reason that I can think of that would make TN tech turn that logic upside down, making fliers sturdier than tanks.

Steve, that comparison between Infantry, Medium & Heavy tanks seems spot on based on what I remember of the manufacturing costs and times of Pz IV vs Pz V Panther vs Pz VI Tiger in WW2. If I remember right, it went something like ~20 Tigers or ~40 Panthers or ~50 Pz IVs took the same amount of money and time to manufacture. So the basic logic and math behind the classes seems sound. I like the direction this is going.

While I will miss PDCs, I think the Static unit class will be a good replacement. Allowing them to only use Bombardment weapons while on "offensive" is a great idea too, Hazard.

As for the unarmoured blob with guns problem, I don't foresee it being a massive one. Military sci-fi trope above all others is the gigantic horde of enemies trying to overwhelm your position and they aren't always just throwing spears either, so them carrying advanced guns fits nicely in. Being able to reproduce some of those "Last Stand" situations will be awesome!

[Hazard]

While I will miss PDCs, I think the Static unit class will be a good replacement. Allowing them to only use Bombardment weapons while on "offensive" is a great idea too, Hazard.

Thank you, it seemed obvious. I mean, what else are they going to do, call the defenders cowards for not throwing themselves at the guns of the Static unit?

As for the unarmoured blob with guns problem, I don't foresee it being a massive one. Military sci-fi trope above all others is the gigantic horde of enemies trying to overwhelm your position and they aren't always just throwing spears either, so them carrying advanced guns fits nicely in. Being able to reproduce some of those "Last Stand" situations will be awesome!

Well, it depends. Let's run the numbers.

Size of a unit is equal to (base)+(Weapons) Infantry has a base size of 0, and Medium Anti Vehicle has a Weapon Size of 8. The combined size is thus 8. The size of units in a 1000 size formation is 125.
The size of a medium tank is 6(base)+8(Medium Anti Vehicle)+5(Heavy Machine Gun). Combined size is 19, 52 units in a size 1000 formation (52.6etc, actually, but we're using integer units for this)
Cost is size*armour, so for the medium tank it's 76, and for the unarmoured blob of medium AT toting infantry is 8*0, which is 0.

I think the system just broke.

Still, let us continue.

We will compare the ability to inflict casualties, presuming a 100% hit rate, for 1 round of combat measured in a 1000 size formation. Effectiveness of infantry AT (AP4) versus Armour rated 4 is (4/4)^2, so 1% pierces and does 6 damage, equal to vehicle HP. As a result, in 1 round the 125 AT guns large AT unit kills 1 medium tank and has a 25% chance of killing another.

In return 52 AT guns speak and wipe out 52 AT infantry units. Then the heavy machine guns start rattling, make 6 attacks each and mulch the remaining 73 infantry operated AT guns with 312 1 damage point attacks. End result is overwhelming victory for the tanks.


We will compare again the ability to inflict casualties, but this time based on a total cost of 1000.
The tanks cost 76 per unit so there's 13 per 1000 cost.
The infantry costs... literally nothing. Total amount per 1000 of cost is literally infinite.

The tanks go first and make 7 attacks between their two weapon systems that will always pierce enemy armour and kill them. 7 times 13 is 91, so 91 infantry AT guns die. When the infantry fires a literally infinite amount of AT fire hits the tanks. As such all tanks die.


The system mechanics Steve used are different (it implied that 0 armour infantry cost equal to their unit Size), but this is the rules as I currently understand them.

Also, infantry suck even more than I thought before. They desperately need those Fortification mechanics. And we need to know them so we can run the numbers.

[83athom]

This argument over Halo is completely pointless. It's basic physics that a ground vehicle will always be better armoured than a flying vehicle. And that a low-height tracked vehicle can be better armoured than a high-height walking vehicle. It's true that modern air vehicles are extremely squishy and the few examples - A-10, Mi-24 Hind - that aren't are both pretty "low tech" and still much more vulnerable than any tank.  Yes, a rifle round is not going to bring a C-5 Galaxy down but anything that can kill a M1 Abrams main battle tank will absolutely wreck anything that flies. And there is no logical reason that I can think of that would make TN tech turn that logic upside down, making fliers sturdier than tanks.

And there is the key words. "Basic Physics". TN tech goes against the face of all things "basic physics". You used it a bit wrong here, but still I'll give it to you. Yes, for the same weight, the low height vehicle beats both the flying vehicle and the walker. However, operating on the concept of Trans-Newtonian we circumvent one of the driving forces of "basic physics", gravity. When you take gravity out of the equation, you can make "aircraft" sturdier than "tanks" because then the line blurs between what is an aircraft and what is a tank. Yes, when looking at examples of modern equipment and technology, there is absolutely no way a plane would be "more sturdy" than a tank. However, we can only theorize about the possible effects TN tech might have on warfare. This talking of Halo does have a point as it is giving examples of a possibility. And that possibility is that an aircraft with thicker armor than the M1 Abrams could survive a hit that would take out the M1. That is all that I've been saying. There is no rule of physics that state that "an object in the air always is less sturdy than a similar object on the ground" and continuing to argue that that is the case is absolute stupidity. Yes, for the same weight and size the tank can focus its protection because it knows where any possible damage will come from. Yet an "aircraft", especially one that is far heavier with far thicker armor facing all directions, isn't automatically squishy because it flies in the air.

Oh, and before I forget. IRL planes are able to take hits that would kill tanks. This is because of over penetration. Shoot a tank with a 100mm cannon, it hits and penetrates the armor that then causes spalling that kills any crew members in its path, destroys any components the shell hits, and could possibly knock that tank out in that single hit (not even counting the times the crew would bail from the tank even if only minor damage took place). The same shell hitting a plane on the other hand; It hits the relatively thin skin of the plane, creates only a tiny bit of spalling because there was hardly anything there to begin with, then exits out the other side rarely hitting anything to vital (fuel tanks are self sealing, control surfaces and control lines have backups, etc), the plane then flies off with the pilot compensating for a hole somewhere on his plane that largely is unaffected otherwise. And before the comeback of "but what about a shell with an HE component", that is the point. It takes different things to take out an aircraft IRL than a tank. The tank would barely even blink when hit with the HE yet it would tear the plane apart. And this is where I think our conversation is falling apart. Both you and Hazard seem to be still equating "aircraft" in sci-fi with an "aircraft" IRL and not the "warship" it realistically could be (and what I was giving an example of).

[Barkhorn]

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?

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.