Musings

I was daydreaming at work today, musing about tanks and the guns in DS II.
This is why I'm not a manager yet.

Anyway, it got me thinking about the artwork and figures I've seen out there,
by almost all the game companies, even our most highly exalted one, and began
to wonder about how weapons design will affect overall tank design in the
future.

Specifically, I began contemplating the future of the traditional
box-on-a-box turret, and how this design would be affected by specific
systems.

This was all heavily influenced by my infatuation with MDC's. Even before I
found DSII, when I played that MegaIndustry Game of Walking Combat Machines
that Wannabe Anime, I had a fascination with the potential of
supermagnetic-driven rail type weapons.

This resulted in me wondering how different a MDC would look as compared to a
HVC or HKP. For starters, the breech would be radically different, and

smaller. There would be no need for a serious recoil buffer. Since there's no
propellant, there's no need for a firing pin, just a simple electrical switch.
In general, since a gauss slug is pulled, not pushed, the space taken up by
the part of the gun that stays inside the turret would drastically decrease.
There's no need for an ejection port, merely a feed for the slugs. And since
it fires solid slugs, dense and much more compact than a propellant driven
round, and since there is no propellant or casing involved, the space taken up
by ammo storage and protection would be either A: Decreased or B: more
efficiently used. Furthermore, since ammo type would probably be uniform, or
at most, quite easy to automatically load, the loader's position could
possibly be eliminated.

This got me thinking that the future turret could be much more loow slung,
perhaps round and sunken into the hull, with the gun protruding from it closer
to the deck. Perhaps the problem of gun depression could be offset
by hydraulic systems, like in the Swedish S-Tank.  In general, this
would
lower the profile of the tank yet still leave it with a fully-traversing

turret.

Then I realized that the HEL lends itself to this advantage even more.

At first this was merely an exercise in esthetics, trying to draw a cooler
looking tank. But then, inevitably, like any true gamer, I began to wonder
about it's application to game mechanics. Here's what I came up with as
tentative suggestions:

1. Since a lowered turret makes the tank inherently more stealthy, make
stealth levels cheaper for any vehicle whose largest weapon is a MDC or HEL.
(Perhaps 18 x Vehicle Size Class per LEVEL)

2. Since HVC's, HKP's, and DFFG's use ammo that contain propellant, it seems
reasonable that they run a higher risk of destruction from a hit to the ammo
bay. This can be simulated by the following rule:

When a vehicle carrying a DFFG, HKP, or HVC is hit and the attacker

does not destroy it but either A: draws a Systems Down - Target chit or
B:
draws enough valid chits to Damage the target, replace the chits and redraw
the same number of chits. Ignore any result except a BOOM chit or another
Systems Down - Target. If either of these is drawn in the second draw,
the vehicle is knocked out by a hit to it's ammo bay. If not, the results of
the initial draw stand.

Just some ideas. What do you think?

Tanks are pretty sexy.:) Your musings, as someone pointed out, are planned for
the next generation tank. I think on the last TLC show I saw, the next US main
battle tank will have little or no turret, much lower profile etc. etc. just
as you said. I believe one of the primary design goals though was also to
require less people inside. I think the new design requires only 2 people. I
don't know the timeframe, but I'd figure less than 20 years for them to be in
service. But what about after that? Knights and horsemen, the earliest form of
'tank' dissapeared from the battlefield when the power of the weapons
available to men on foot made them too expensive and too inneffective. New
metals and ceramics and more importantly, new propulsion systems that could
support them, allowed them to once again take the field. How long before this
happens again and tanks are no longer useful? Maybe not too long with an
infantryman's ability to paint a laser on the side of the tank and a missle
launched from 5 miles away. Will new materials and new propulsion allow tanks
to make another
appearence?  Well, with anti-grav, the propulsion system is definetly
there. Armor on tanks is already becoming 'active', and I think it reasonable
that adding more slabs of iron on to the side of a tank won't cut it. Some
form of active defence, or at least a 'powered' defence would form the armor.
How many people as the crew this time... I'd argue
0.  :)

Currently stealth seems to be the popular method for survival on the
battlefield, although the new jet fighters still have a lot of their design
dedicated to speed an maneuverability, I think the A10s are being retired as
their durability isn't considered the way to protect the soldier who crews it.
Who can say what will be useful in the future. Speed, stealth or increadible
defences. If (when) a breakthrough in fusion or other energy source allows
massive amounts of energy to something as small as a tank, the possibilities
are... open.

> On Thu, 24 Feb 2000, Brian Bilderback wrote:

> I was daydreaming at work today, musing about tanks and the guns in DS

> there, by almost all the game companies, even our most highly exalted

> systems.

> Brian wrote:

There have been designs for a M1 with a remote turret. Somewhere in my stack
of stuff, is a picture of a M1A3 with a remote turret, basically the gun and a
magazine. Then there's the French tank with the remote turret.

> Then I realised that the HEL lends itself to this advantage even more.

Indeed it does. Have a look at the THEL here:
        http://www.smdc.army.mil/FactSheets/Photos/THEL.jpg
Basically a ""telescope"" the size of a rubbish bin mounted on top of an APC.

> At first this was merely an exercise in aesthetics, trying to draw a
(Perhaps 18 x Vehicle Size Class per LEVEL)

I would suggest that a turretless tank have a one step signature improvement
over it's turreted tank equivalent.

I thought of that, allowing 1 free level of stealth for vehicles with weapons
systems that allow for more low profile turrets, but decided it was just too
much of an advantage, that's why I came up with the idea of lowering the cost
for the stealth slightly.