Science fiction AFVs

On the whole the AT-AT can't be regarded as a fantastic APC. They can't be getting much better than a couple of M113's worth of troops in there. Perhaps better to ditch the personel carrier role of the AT-AT and make it into a dedicated assault platform. We already have our heavy guns at the front where we need them so perhaps one or two heavy AA weapons on the back and a few anti infantry weapons like blasters and grenade launchers in the belly to make any attempt to close assault an AT-AT that bit more fun. Then have separate APCs carrying the troops.

There are a couple of downsides to such an arrangement.

1) The Empire Strikes Back might have been a very short film.
2) It's still not going to get them over my anti AT-AT ditch. (see lots of posts back)

 

Problem with battletech is ridiculously ineficient tecnology.
Heavy (half a ton) machineguns can hit a target at only 90 meters, and long range missiles only at 630 meters.
With Battletroops, another game in the saga centering on infantry combat, even with their lousy weapons, a 7 man squad could take down most mechs.

And take into account that i like battletech.

 

The problem with Sci-fi AFVs is that most of them concentrate on looking cool rather than being useful.
There are very few realistically useful designs out there. We've had 7 pages of discussion, in which we've mainly discussed Imperial walkers from Star Wars.

One APC from Alien got a mention.
The ridiculous things in Matrix 3 got laughed at.
Battlemechs have been slammed by a fan of theirs!

What else is there?

 

I frankly struggle to think of any other examples.

 

Unless we enter Warhammer...
any enthusiasts out there?

 

Used to be. The Imperial machines are loosly based on real world tanks but with traits that were abandoned by the middle of WW2 ie hull mounted heavy weapons. Cousin of mine scratch built himself 40K scale Baneblade super heavy tank. Impractical but impressive.

Their all moderately practical but would a retrograde step compared to modern real world tanks. The one exception would be the Space Marine Land Raider which manages to have almost all the flaws of the orginal WW1 British Tanks plus a few of it own. The hull is so short that if it tried to any kind of a steep slope it would tumble end over end back down. Switched over to DBM a year or so back since it would be damn near cheaper to buy a real army than a Games Workshop one.

 

Okay, I'll open the grounds for your own theories then. If the Mobile Infantry AKA Starship Troopers actualy had been supported by armour, what do you think it would look like? What weaponry would or should it use against fields full of spiders and a few huge beetles?

Oh, and Corp, thanks for mentioning the hatch. I've only seen that part of the movie twice, once when I was really small and once when I was contemplating the contrast between the coolness of the Hoth assault and the stupidness of the previous SW movie.

 

But if the sentinels just flew in and shot missles, then the battle scene would have been much shorter, albeit more realisitic. Now who wants to watch the humans with thier unarmored weapon transports look up at the hole in the dock ceiling, and then see 1000 missles streaking at them? What we need to remember is that The Matrix is supposed to make money (through entertainment), not satisfy our thirst for realism in battles between machines and humans.

 

Someone had to go and spoil our fun!

I would envisage lots of quick-firing cannon (30mm - type caliber), with a few support weapons (90mm?). Maybe use of flame-throwers & napalm as well.
Basically a troop of Scorpion light tanks would have done the job!

 

Some of those Russian AA tanks might be even more fun for bug splatting! :bang:

 

Or the American one with a Gatling on top! Used by the Israelis for infantry support, I believe.
Oh, hey, how about an Ontos-type weapon, firing 6 x 106mm recoil-less cannon loaded with 'beehive' anti-personnel rounds?

 

Ok as I see it we basically need four vehicle type. All will be tracked all will have enclosed turrets.

Vehicle one: This one would make up the bulk of tanks. Fit with some kind of rapid fire heavy machine gun weapon. Any kind of Gatling gun arrangement should do the trick. Vehicle should be armoured sufficently to resist its own weapon at close range (say fifty metres). The idea being that if bugs manage to close assault one vehicle others can hose it down to get them off.

Vehicle two: Basically the same as a real world MBT except with a beefed up machine gun armament as well same its AT gun.

Vehicle three: Some kind of modernised Churchill crocodile style flame thrower tank.

Vehicle four: An IFV as long as the men inside have ports to fire their personal weapons through any of the real world types should do.

Plus the usual long range artillery and air support.

These should win any open ground engagement without too much difficulty.

If you end up tunnel fighting I would favour Warhammer 40K Terminator power sult with lots and lots of flame throwers.

Finally instead of having a big fleet of ships in orbit that only seem to exist to get shot at and give Dennis Richards somewhere to look pretty, equip them to provide fire support. I would recommend large caliber rail guns. Firing from orbit these should provide nuclear scale yelds without the pesky glowing in the dark afterwards business.

 

Sounds like a good reason to exist to me...

I think maybe having 20mm/30mm cannon would be more effective than machineguns, but otherwise I would agree wholeheartedly with Ebar.

 

Ok 20 or 30mm canons plus a grenade launcher on each machine point straight up to provide airbursts directly over the tank plus a special place on at least one ship for Denise Richards to stand or sit.

 

Can this be near me?
Or should we just have her as nose art on all Starship Trooper vehicles?

 

Just make sure she doesn't touch anything important or say anything

 

I could cope with that!
Just a room full of cameras - after all, the morale of our Troopers is important!

 

On a serious note - I don't reckon that the bugs (at least the smaller variety) could actually penetrate reasonable armour. The only way they could damage armoured vehicles is to up-end them. Therefore Ebar's suggestion of an extremely localised grenade-launcher, plus maybe gatling-gun equipped vehicles to 'hose down' swamped AFVs is a good one.

 

The draw back being that you might have to accept machine guns rather canons so the hose down option in avalable for vehicles that are in close order.

The beasties from the film ALIENS appear to be a far tougher problem. The whole acid for blood thing makes idea of hosing down or air bursting a grenade over a swamped AFV suicidal. The aliens also appeared to have the strength to rip hatches open on at least IFV's. Here you would want to go for the 20 to 30mm canon option to make damn sure anything you hit is completely dead and not going to get any notions about not being dead any time soon! It would be far more important for the colonial marines to win an open field engagement at longer ranges than it would be for the starship troopers. Any AFV that get swamped is in far more trouble. I have a couple of thoughts that might give an AFV at least a chance.

1) Built in electric generator to shock any aliens off the hull. However the generator might take up too much space inside to be practical.
2) Cover as much of the AFV as possible with several layers of reactive armour and simply blast them off. However still might end up covering the vehicle in metal munching blood.

If you have to tunnel fight against them (which you all most certainly will) I reckon stick mostly to flame throwers since the chance of blood splash is minimised. Give your marines suits that in some way keep a layer of something alkaline between them and the beasties. It wouldn’t give much protection but it would give some.

 

A Katyusha-esque rocket launcher to blanket the mass of aliens with from a distance.

Rather than spending unnecessary resources on armoured vehicles, better to get a large number of mobile weapon platforms or field/infantry guns backed by artillery. Equipment would consist of area-effect weaponry such as napalm, fragmentation and HE rounds as well as rapid-firing devices such as gattling guns. You might want to position a few flamethrower-equipped heavy tanks at the front to deal with any aliens that make it past the wall of lead. The idea is not to let them close up at all.

Some infantry should also be equipped with armour-piercing rocket launchers to deal with those oversized beetles which burrow out of the ground. (The rocket launcher shown in the recruitment ad during the end of the show packs some pretty impressive firepower).