How fast does a grav tank stop at any speed?
Zparkz,
Why is everyone continuing to assume that grav tanks routinely move at their top speed on the battlefield?
All the problems associated with high speeds have been note, stuff like a huge sensor signature, NOE problems, turning, stopping, all of it. Yet the thread is still blithely assuming that grav tanks zip around in battle at 600+ kph.
How much space does a grav tank need to turn?
Not much if it's moving like a tank and not zipping along at 600+ kph.
FASA had a tank game for Renegade Legion that had very good rules for tank movement. That game treated the tank like it was on ice. only the air friction stopped it from moving, if thrust was dropped.. Maybe it could be possible to adapt those rules to Traveller?
That sounds like a nice idea. Of course you don't need to worry about your grav tanks acting like hockey pucks when their thrust is lost if they aren't moving at 600+ kph in battle in the first place.
I'll explain this once again.
Grav tanks can use their high speed to travel to and from orbit, make strategic deployments, and undertake operational movements. However when grav tanks enter an environment in which the enemy can target them, such high speeds are a deadly liability.
In a tactical, as opposed to a strategic or operational sense, all gravitics allows you is movement across previously forbidden terrain. Gravitics means tanks needn't worry about ground pressure like their tracked bretheren, so they can move through swamps, over snow and ice, and cross rivers and other bodies of water at will. Grav tanks still fight like tanks however, no matter what sort of "ground" is beneath them. They use hull down positions, sprint from point to point at manageable speeds, and cover each other during movement. In combat grav tanks move and fight like tanks. That's why they're shaped like tanks.
In a 57th Century battlefield full of tac-missiles, plus direct and indirect energy weapons, if you fly you die. If, in an area in which an enemy can potentially see you, you're moving so fast that you can't turn sharply, slow rapidly, or stop quickly, then all you've done is hang out your ass to be shot off.
Form follows function. Grav tanks look like tanks because they fight like tanks. Period.
Bill