From: djwj <djwj@e...>
Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 11:38:52 -0600
Subject: Re: Name that Doodad....
(See the archive of GZG digest 280. Very humurous) Keg of beer... Brings back memories. My first tabletop (instead of hex-board) wargame was a Battletech game where the objective was a brewery. Lets try some other one liner obvious choices for the barrel on front. how about: An armored winch. After all the engineering package dosen't take up capacity (at least I haven't found it in the rules), so just bolt one on. An ammo drum, wouldn't be the first time a military design company had made a deathtrap (the original Bradley A.P.C. as an example) An armored housing for an air filter to keep dirt and fragments out of ducted fans used for forward propulsion. The figs do have "engine apretures" on back, sometimes you can see them between the flash. Besides Iv'e personally never liked the idea of mounting an A-Grav generator for "falling" forward movement. It too easily brings to mind the idea of a cartoon character holding a magnet... (remember gravity moves the lightest object the fastest, and sticks it to the heavier object. A 4 ton tank moving at 150mph may have 1,000 mph or more winds preceeding it, much less the two to three hundred pound infantryman they keep picking up as they pass infantry emplacements, Hey a use for those GW40K cannister platoons, throw them at a GRAV tank and let them engage it in melee while they are stuck to the hood. 8D) Badly placed survival gear in a 55 gallon drum. Water. Okay, now for my Paramount Studios Technospeak entry: The forward cylindrical feature is the housing for the Advanced Threat Detection and Analysis Sensor Array (ATDA-SA). Backstory: The NAC command, pressured by the supply staff of the 103rd Blood Tigers, an elite special forces company, made a request for a multi role vehicle with easy access and maintence away from friendly lines. Royal Armaments Inc. made the FV700 MMRAV family and won the production contract. The Modular Multi-Role Armored Vehicle was an instant hit amongst command staff and technical crews for it's ease of repair and it's fast turnaround in the repair bays. The modules could be unlimbered quickly and repaired from angles that were previously unaccessable, while the remainder of the vehicle, often in working order, would be off performing it's intended function. Later, in the spinward rim colonies an ESU commander named Yuri Ling was making successful advances against NAC forces. The first thing Commander Ling attacked was the artillery and air support platforms, with his own artillery, air support, but especially his own elite special forces. Then while the support cannons were waiting for AEV's to return from trench digging and minelaying to the command lines to repair the damage the ESU forces would rapidly advance across the battlefield while the main NAC forces had no artillery cover, and their aircraft were busy in air-superiority dogfights, unable to take advantage of the air defence "umbrella" they were so accustomed to having. This tactic disturbed the NAC comand, and although this was happening on an outermost colony world, the continued colonization of more and more worlds, meant that garison forces were streched thin and still streching. If ESU had found a tactic that could break their lines it would be a serious blow to the NAC. Something had to be done about the interruption to the support cannons and their invalulable cover. Battle Advanced Technology (BAT) industries came up with the FW series support vehicles. The original specification called for a modular turret that could be quickly moved from hull to hull changing a damaged AA gun with a working artillery gun off a damaged hull, quickly consolidating the working elements in to as many tanks as possible. Unfortunately this was all but impossible as the design spec for the turret became larger than the proposed chassis. Increasing the size of the chassis was proposed, and rejected due to cost considerations as the increased chassis would be not only more expensive but harder to work on, something the FV series was intended to combat. Other proposals included multi-tank formations: if the artillery sensor was damaged roll up another one so the cannon could keep firing (rejected due to the need for specific placement of vehicles relative to each other.), Trailer modules (couldn't move fast enough if front lines were overrun, these things were still too expensive to loose casually) and a host of even more rediculous ideas, Man portable systems was one of the most extravigantly silly. General Garret Stuart (ret.) was brought in to assist in creation of the vehicle. As it turned out the NAC had a "strong enough to bend" tactic that called for all forces to fall back while command section repairs were underway, and return strong once completed. The invention of the GRAV made ground combat speeds too high to make effective use of this tactic. However the BAT research team theorised that if repairs were streamlined, they might be able to make effective use of this tactic to make up for time spent in repairs. The FV series tank was made Gravitic itself to get the most out of a retreat, and given modular components that could be replaced in one minute or less, the largetst replacement component was the turret and ammo bins. That could take from fifteen minutes up to half an hour, but with a retreat at GRAV speeds that might give enough time to make that interval feasable. In order to cut down the time on replacing the turret many common components between the A and T variants were fitted to the chassis, and some components not considered necessary for either, but still might be useful, were as well dropping the necessity for them to be moved from one chassis to another, as well as providing replacement parts without a supply line. The barrel looking object seen on the front of the FV series support vehicle is one of the components that was not absolutely necessary for the artillery gun but mounted anyways. The Intel corp. Argus mark V Advanced Tactical Sensor had a new cousin: The Argus II ATDA-SA, which incorporated advanced magnetic resonance imaging as well as a gravatic pulse detection system, with the traditional active/passive radar/milimetric, thermal, low-light, and telescopic imaging suite common on most support vehicles. The problem with the Argus II was its size. It was too large to be placed in place of smaller less efficient systems, and less effective than larger sensor array's common to command and Anti-Battery-Radar carriers. This made the Argus II a technical masterpiece but a tactical orphan. Intel believed that the Argus III would be able to replace smaller sensors in ten years. Meanwhile back at BAT industries the design was taking shape. The engineers had a problem installing the tactical analysis and IFF sensors on the T variant turret. The sensors required massive weight counterballancing that the turret ring couldn't handle. When the turret was applied and the tank was overpressured the turret twisted sideways in the ring, binding it in place. BAT researcher Jeremy Halles worked on some of the Argus II's side components, one of which was the parallax compensation for the long-array layout of the sensors. The Parallax compensation consisted of a computer that constantly calculated the angle differential between the leftmost and rightmost sensors to arrive at an accurate target point. Jeremy believed that the computer could handle one more set of variables, the parallax between the sensors and the gun. This would still involve placing sensors on the gun barrel itself, but they wouldn't be as heavy as the complete sensor array planned for the turret. Mounted on the forward chassis, the Argus II would cover the detection and analysis duties. Intel was happy to sell the Argus II to BAT even with the agreement that BAT would do the modifications, this would be the first mass order of the Argus II and Intell was gratefull to be able to unload their "white elephant". Originally the Argus II was to be placed in the hull itself, but it was too large to be placed in the forward knife edge, and so ended up in a barell shaped housing on the front of the tank. The placement of the Argus II ATDA-SA on the FV series chassis had one other effect that was not intended. The artillery batteries were capable of adding to a commander's knoledge of the forces arrayed on the battlefield. The use of multiple magnetic resonance sensors in a line up to 1.2 KM long enhanced rangefinding and technical analysis of the enemy on the battle field. With the final results in prototype, BAT requisitioned a NAC combat group to perform maintence on the prototypes, swapping every component from one vehicle to another. At the demonstration for the "brass" the tank components were swapped in less than seven minutes, each tank swarming with groups of two moving one component each, while a crane and three crew moved turrets between the chassis. Generals at the demonstration were concerned with the fact that this was expected to be done under-fire and sometimes while moving at gravatic speeds. BAT produced a platoon of each tank for NAC military to perform tests. After two months of trials NAC ordered limited production of the FV series. Some of the production went to the 103rd Blood Tigers, who immediately ordered another platoon of each to replace their aging support platoons. After that order colony garrissons began flooding I-Corps supply with requisitions for the FV series support tanks. NAC command was forced to order unlimited production for the FV series from BAT. Destruction of the Argus II often gains the comment "Blind as a BAT", and the FV series isn't popular amongst toy makers as children often think that the barell on front makes it look less cool than the MBTs. Okay that's my contribution to the theory. As to the fact that I may have too much time on my hands: "Aren't we all just killing time before the final oblivion anyways?"