The diorama looks cool, but shouldn't such a beast be full defilade below the treetops, using its periscope to track its prey and only popping up momentarily to snipe as necessary?
CT Only: Do Grav "Tanks" look like Tanks?
- Thread starter Golan2072
- Start date
The diorama looks cool, but shouldn't such a beast be full defilade below the treetops, using its periscope to track its prey and only popping up momentarily to snipe as necessary?
I suspect it already has, and is now cruising along, with its periscope up, to view the far horizon, due to the planet's curvature. With the periscope deployed, it will most likely detect the enemy first at very long range, while also minimizing its own profile to opponents.
You don't get to command a state of the art, ultra-high tech, Super Heavy Grav Tank, without taking Grav Armor Tactics 101.
;-)
You don't get to command a state of the art, ultra-high tech, Super Heavy Grav Tank, without taking Grav Armor Tactics 101.
;-)
I love the hex based camo on the first ones. Do those offer a DM against GURPs players, since they can't see them as well?
Thanks, this gave me a good laugh today :rofl:
Yes.
That so irritated me, the hexes on deckplans. That and no metric, but they make up for it with the 3D ship artwork. That was sweet.
Yes, it does, because they can see them, but now they think it is a starship.I love the hex based camo on the first ones. Do those offer a DM against GURPs players, since they can't see them as well?
That so irritated me, the hexes on deckplans. That and no metric, but they make up for it with the 3D ship artwork. That was sweet.
Last edited:
I did a bit of both.
On one hand, I had grav tanks that were designed for NOE flight and had heavy armour. They would largely hide behind terrain or other obstacles and provide fire support, pop-ups and generally behave quite tank-ishly. They were capable of free flight but were not designed for combat in this mode.
On the other hand I had grav gunships, which were designed for something more like close air support. They would also be heavy on stand-off weapons, fast and agile with enough armour to withstand any practical rapid fire weapon. Also, these gunships would not necessarily have the super-heavy guns of the NOE tanks.
Grav APCs tended to sit in the middle. They could be used in NOE (and some had deck mounted turrets) or they could be free-flying transports to get troops to a LZ quickly.
This was a TL 11-12 'verse and I did this with slightly house-ruled Striker.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
It will depend on what you view the mission or missions of the grav tank to be. The tank originally started out as a mobile protected fire support vehicle to assist the infantry in the attack by neutralizing the machine gun positions that had not been knocked out by the previous artillery barrage, and evolved into the armored behemoths of today that are quite good at knocking out opposing tanks, but are very poor at assisting the infantry by fire support. That has been left to heavy infantry weapons and on-call artillery support. So, is the grav tank an armored fire support vehicle, an anti-armor vehicle, or a bit of both? That answer will to a degree dictate its armament and configuration.
How high is it operating? If Nape-of-the-Earth, then it will likely appear similar to existing tanks. If reaching to high altitudes, then the pressure of having all-around fire power becomes a more pressing issue. The need is to be able to engage targets at both a higher and a lower altitude, which implies turrets mounted on both the top and bottom of the vehicle. Mountings on the bottom complicate landing, and may require the addition of protected landing gear. Alternately, the turrets could be mounted on the sides of the vehicle, similar to the early British tanks of World War 1, which would not complicate landing, and allow for engaging targets both above and below. Or you could mount the turrets at the nose and tail to achieve the same coverage.
You do need to keep in mind that the more mountings, the more hull volume is required, which means more cost. An air/raft runs 600.000 Credits, so even a lightly armed and armored vehicle is likely to run over a million credits, while a very heavily armed and armored vehicle is likely to cost on the order of a starship.
In My Traveller Universe, the special armors mentioned in MegaTraveller cost considerably more than soft steel, which I view as mild steel, or hard steel, which I view as rolled homogeneous weldable alloy plate. Hard steel runs 5 times the price of soft steel. The laminates run 10 times. Crystal Iron, which I view as needing to be grown into the correct shape, starts at 100 times the cost of a soft steel hull. It goes up from there. If you want massive protection, then be prepared to pay for it.
IMTU - the trepida is the archetypical grav-tank. low-slung, able to hide in the shallows. But capable of functioning as a low-manervability attack chopper as well.
Dedicated air-attack sleds tent to look not too far from helicopters, but without the rotors.
Dedicated air-attack sleds tent to look not too far from helicopters, but without the rotors.
If you're modeling on helicopters, consider that they probably don't need tailbooms since grav-drives don't produce torque requiring a tail-rotor on a long lever arm to counteract.
I'm a Form Follows Function guy. Grave tanks look like tanks because they fight like tanks, attack speeders look like ground attack craft because they fight like ground attack craft, etc.
Obviously, grav tanks won't have treads, bogies, road wheels, etc. because they no longer need that stuff to move and attack speeders won't wings, rotors, tail booms, etc. because they no longer need that stuff to fly.
Obviously, grav tanks won't have treads, bogies, road wheels, etc. because they no longer need that stuff to move and attack speeders won't wings, rotors, tail booms, etc. because they no longer need that stuff to fly.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
I am modifying the drawing of a CH-37 Mojave cargo copter into a grav cargo carrier, and one of the things it getting rid of the tail and adding a cargo door to the rear of the fuselage. The lift modules are in the stub wings, while the forward drives are in the engine pods on the end of the wings. Power plant is on top.
Tailbooms are still useful - for some aerodynamic flight controls. Throw a rotor there for faster yawing, or even a small pair of vertical plane T-plates...
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
Personally, I think they'd look more like this:
The gun(s) would be flush with the edge of the vehicle, and a smooth flattened sphere shape would be both aerodynamic and give better ballistic protection from most angles.
The vehicle would function more like a flying turret than a modern tank. After all, you could easily have it flying in one direction while the armament is pointed in another. Since it can climb and dive, the armament can be fixed in position and the vehicle simply rotated to aim it sort of like a flying S-Tank.
The gun(s) would be flush with the edge of the vehicle, and a smooth flattened sphere shape would be both aerodynamic and give better ballistic protection from most angles.
The vehicle would function more like a flying turret than a modern tank. After all, you could easily have it flying in one direction while the armament is pointed in another. Since it can climb and dive, the armament can be fixed in position and the vehicle simply rotated to aim it sort of like a flying S-Tank.
I can see a few problems with the Strv 103 model.
"Hull down" can still provide benefits if only against sensors rather than main weapons, you can bring a turret on target faster than an entire vehicle, and moving in one direction while aiming in another depends on how gravitics works IYTU.
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Hmm, you do have a point there. I might have to modify my drawing modifications.
Enoki
SOC-14 1K
IMTU, rotation of a grav vehicle is independent of its motion. It can be flying in one direction but faced in another. Yes, if you want to change the vector of movement, that takes time due to inertia, but simply rotating the vehicle is just as fast as any turret could be rotated.
Hull down can be accomplished, if that's a requirement, best by having the gun on a disappearing mount rather than in a turret. That would be cheaper, and there'd be far less exposure. This has been tested with modern AFV off and on with the crew operating things by remote control.
I see little problem with more advanced technology doing that, particularly with weapons that have little or no recoil.
You mention inertia and yet somehow fail to realize that the entire vehicle will mass more and have more inertia than just a turret.
Disappearing mounts still need to be able to train in order to aim. So, unless you're constantly repositioning the entire vehicle to aim, that disappearing mount is a turret.
Try looking at it again. Imagine a grounded grav tank needing to bring it's fixed gun on target. The Strv 103 was able to do elevate, depress, and partially train it's main gun by manipulating it's suspension. Your grav "Strid" doesn't have a suspension so it needs to use it's lifters instead. Will you be able to "goose" those lifters in small enough increments to make the minute, fraction of a degree, adjustments necessary to aim the main gun?
Grav tanks will look like tanks because they'll fight like tanks. As tanks, they'll need a way to aim their main gun independently of the main vehicle's orientation and direction of movement. That need means there will be a turret of some sort. Not necessarily a manned turret, the "remote" turrets of 2300AD seem very likely, but the gun will be able to move without moving the vehicle as a whole.
Last edited by a moderator:
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The concept of a tank implies that it takes a lot to take one out, compared to a fighter bomber, where you need to get a fragmentation warhead just in close enough proximity.
Sorry in advance, but I am hard wired to instinctively 'push back' a little and test any statement presented as an 'absolute' ...
1. What is the current tracking speed of a turret? How many seconds does it take the turret of an M1A1 tank (or any other modern tank) to rotate 360 degrees and how many seconds would it take a helicopter to rotate 360 degrees? Clearly a turret rotates faster than a tracked vehicle turns, but does it rotate faster than a flying vehicle rotates? The answer may determine whether a turret is as essential on a Grav Tank as it is on a Tracked Tank or as unnecessary as a 360 degree turret on an attack helicopter.
2. As technology advances, is human physiology the limiting factor? Aircraft are already capable of G-forces that will render the pilot unconscious, so aircraft performance is currently limited to human physiology. Will both the TURRET and the GRAV TANK of the Far Future be capable of rotational speeds beyond the limits of human physiology making the choice of rotating a manned turret or rotating a manned Grav vehicle a designer's choice (with both subject to the same human limitations).
While this statement in and of itself is a physics certainty (the whole vehicle must, by definition weigh more than just a turret on the vehicle), two questions occur to me.
1. What is the current tracking speed of a turret? How many seconds does it take the turret of an M1A1 tank (or any other modern tank) to rotate 360 degrees and how many seconds would it take a helicopter to rotate 360 degrees? Clearly a turret rotates faster than a tracked vehicle turns, but does it rotate faster than a flying vehicle rotates? The answer may determine whether a turret is as essential on a Grav Tank as it is on a Tracked Tank or as unnecessary as a 360 degree turret on an attack helicopter.
2. As technology advances, is human physiology the limiting factor? Aircraft are already capable of G-forces that will render the pilot unconscious, so aircraft performance is currently limited to human physiology. Will both the TURRET and the GRAV TANK of the Far Future be capable of rotational speeds beyond the limits of human physiology making the choice of rotating a manned turret or rotating a manned Grav vehicle a designer's choice (with both subject to the same human limitations).
If that weapon is a laser, then the last piece of equipment is a mirror to rotate and swivel to make fine adjustments.
Is there anything to suggest that the grav lifters cannot make small adjustments? The problem is the opposite of a typical tank turret. For a tank, the question becomes "how do you keep the gun pointed at a target when the vehicle is bouncing violently" ... and the answer is weapon stabilization. For a Grav vehicle, the platform is stable and the weapon needs fine adjustments ... surely modern stabilization technology could provide the fine movement if the vehicle cannot.
If one desires a vehicle to fight like a tank, then free-flight capability is wasted and inefficient. You should build an "Ogre" or "Bolo" based on Tracks or Air-Cushion which will be more efficient. A vehicle that combines the armor and weapons of a tank with the flight envelope of an Attack Helicopter occupies a different niche on the battlefield and should employ different tactics.
Similar threads
