I think even if actual battletech BattleMechs actually came out irl, they would be about as useful as the tank or IFV. Sure both would have upsides and downsides, but for the most part, whoever detects first, and consequently whoever fires first, hits first, penetrates first, kills first, is the winner. Which means mechs would get incapacitated from one shot... Just like tanks do irl.
I think this is way cooler than ablative armor which takes a million years to kill each other in introtech. I especially hate people who insist on banning through armor criticals.
Obviously if a mech gets penetrated its going to die.
Also, drone mechs are way better than manned mechs. Not in battletech of course, because the people who make the game are stupid doodooheads.
Also, because of ground pressure only mechs up to 35t would work irl.
>Obviously if a mech gets penetrated its going to die.
A hole through a non critical area is just a hole
Stop worrying about ground pressure. Horses don't and neither did dinosaurs.
just make bigger feet. big clown shoes.
>only mechs up to 35t
My standard for mechs are Patlabor and VOTOMS, this is more than enough
35t would get you the entire Light BattleMech category in BT.
>Also, because of ground pressure only mechs up to 35t would work irl.
This fricking nonsense? Let me guess you think if you cut a pizza into more slices you get more food?
>doesn't know what maximum compression is
Oooooooof
Clearly someone that's never had to hammer a grounding rod into the ground.
>guiding rod
Try fence posts during winter boy. By your logic buildings should sink completely underground.
stay in your containment board chud, we've had this thread a trillion times
Yeah, heavy gear is better anyways.
fricking love me some battletech, but the hovertanks are the ACTUAL MVP of the series. For every battletech there's easily 1000 tank
I got removed from the Whatsapp group for my local-ish Battletech group for constantly bringing tank, jump infantry and aero armies. The group leader was a massive sperg and hated losing to it, especially when his assault mechs would get wrecked by a bunch of chumps clambering all over them. Foot infantry dumped in a forest was always great for BV efficiency too.
He could have just told me to stop and I would, but he disliked confrontation unless it was some lore issue where he would info-dump on you if you ever made a mistake.
i like the idea of combined arms but i imagine games take absolutely ages. having a full lance on lance with assault mechs included already takes 5+ hours with my slow ass opponents.
You got kicked out because you weren't a fun opponent. Remember that it is a game and you're not climbing some ELO ladder to be the best there ever was. You're playing with a small group of friends that want some sporting fun.
Don't blame them for tiring of your stale gimmick.
Nta but combined arms armies are great fun and anyone that says otherwise is a fricking neck beard weeb. It's even more accurate. If you don't want to lose to infantry and tanks, it's really not hard to bring gear that obliterates them of which there is plenty
Which is kinda funny because those lists melt when something like this shows up
It might be more that opponent is tired of waiting for anon to move twenty units to his lance of four.
I'm more of a delayed gratification type,
I have a lot of fun watching players freak out when they're carefully laid infantry line gets wiped out in one turn from a hail of flamer/MG fire
>bring legal list to game
>follow rules
>get kicked by some salty grog because you're having fun wrong
God forbid anyone plays anything except assaults on a featureless square.
>clan
Hey homosexual, you're a homosexual.
You dare to refuse my batchall!?
>refuse
No clanner, I bid my penis, who do you bid?
I bid my ass in an extended trial of position.
I bid the stealth minefield you drifted into when you blip'ed in system that, at the moment, has you flagged as neutral READYSETGO!
Why didn't he just put a flammer on them? Literally just melts infantry
The humble tracked SRM carrier is the GOAT and is the most meta thing in Battletech beyond the pre robot nuke ships.
>battlemechs
I've wondered if the Clan hyper-assault gauss would be the equivalent of the powerguns in Hammer's Slammers.
PPCs doing 15 (instead of 40) points of damage are just too weak, IMO.
They'd still be insanely good, mechs function in sci-fi magic.
God those arm guns look fricking stupid. Just make a normal turret like picrel.
Done!
A Ukraine thread died for this.
/tg/anon here. In the homebrew wargame I've been working on I go the other way, Mechs are Pacific Rim sized, act like battleships or carriers and try to survive through spamming countermeasures instead of agility/hiding.
Anything with that high of ground pressure is stupid shit and best kept to works of fiction anon. What advantage are those legs providing over a decent pair of tracks? Absolutely none.
Even the dumb shit in pic is more sensible.
how about smaller scale mechs for operating crew-served weapons?
See, now thats just based because if you slap some armour on it sufficient to stop small arms then you've got a Space Marine.
The strength enhancement to carry a load and run faster without tiring is better than the armor gained. Even if you can facetank a .30cal GPMG, AP .50cal, or grenade shrapnel you really don't want to test it.
This. In urban environments, the denser the better, it'd be a good way to add some mobile fire support without having a tank or IFV or whatever be restricted to streets. Smaller profile, moving through and taking cover in buildings. Need some buddies to reload him every now and then. Won't replace regular infantry (power armored or otherwise) but could be a nice close mobile range heavy weapons platform. Still get shrekt hard in open fields by tanks and IFVs though.
something nice and compact that you could fit in a garage, yeah
that's more power armor instead of a small mech, no? 6 feet is kinda ridiculous if it still has an actual wienerpit.
Do you even fricking know what's inside a mech? They use artificial muscles for movement. Poking a hole through the fibres does not automatically disable the limb.
Yeah but in real life we have targeting systems that actually work unlike Battletech, so you'd just ram a APFSDS round though its centre mass each and every time and crit/disable its reactor and then its just a ragdoll piece of shit collapsing under its own stupid weight.
Iirc insetting everyone just has top tier EW capabilities leading to shit targeting and absurdly short distances as lore explanation for the gameplay.
ah yes, the gundam excuse.
Not true if you consider the fact that artillery, airstrikes and accurate pre-mission force strength assessments exist. The real reason the OP is wrong is his lack of consideration for armour. They use space age armour and shit.
You can use APS to afford extra verticality.
I see the feudalistic morons have forgotten how to create a competent optical fire control system as well. For frick's sake, we've had coincidence rangefinding for literally centuries. At the barest minimum they oughta have that.
Shit targeting combined with BAR10 armor means that you need a LOT of firepower at close range (velocity loss energy diffusion in atmosphere) yet morons say that the ranges in game are a abstraction OK? The only problem is that brawling and melee combat are a vital part of the tabletop and lore, compare to Mechwarrior Online and LRM/PPC/RAC boats, it's the same as 40k tabletop vs modern combat
No, it isn't. The reason a laser has only 270m of range "in setting" is because the hexes on then map are 30 meters across. It's a board game and trying to make sense of the fiction as anything other than just a narrative of a literal board game is fricking moronic as shit. They give half a dozen different reasons that a gigawatt powered laser has less range than a real infantryman with an M4. The reason for this is because you're not supposed to think about it, you just know that ML goes 9 hexes and accept it. Whatever the author put in there are the literary equivalent of jangly keys in front of a baby. It's just a distraction for you to gloss over the hole in the logic. Same reason a machine gun weighs 1,100 pounds and needs a literal metric ton of ammunition. It's just a board game.
>muh electronic warfare
>muh aiming hard
>muh atmospheric ionization
It doesn't fricking matter. 9 hexes, that's what matters.
Armor in the BT universe is too tough to penetrate, so instead the focus is on ablating it
>they would be about as useful as the tank or IFV
Correct, it would be a 1-crew IFV that would be very agile in an urban environment.
However with drones, all vehicles are more vulnerable to indirect fire guided munitions. Active CIWS, TROPHY etc systems to include prototype lasers are the new hotness. Drones are also becoming more resistant to jamming and AI assistance and control is also improving.
The battlefield of the future is very uncertain and very dangerous for anyone not in an IR invisible bunker with 18in of overhead cover.
Drones man, it is going to get worse.
>whoever detects first,
Uh yeah, about that. The tank is going to win first simply by being a third of the size. Also the maxim is a cliche that misses a lot of nuance that you're not seeing.
You would be amazed what they've got locked up in the black projects. There's all kinds of stuff that they won't let the public know about for a whole boat load of reasons. These threads are always funny to me.
Jagermech was an anti aircraft platform and long range mech. It's the only potentially viable platform that might see a similar type of real life counterpart.
Ignoring the "reasons it was replaced" and placing real live value to it, I can see its upper torso being a turret top for tanks. Dual value for legs in "mine-resistant" walkers or adverse terrain that walkers get proven to traverse if that time comes. (I said IF, not WHEN)
I'd say LRM boats and similar long range fire support would be effective, a Catapult for instance can shoot and scoot with the best of them. Maybe some of the smaller light mechs like Locusts for scouting in terrain where wheels or tracks are an issue like mountainous terrain.
The bottom would SHRED the top.
>bolter AC2 equipment
>small laser and SRM2 are multilaser and krak missiles
40k bolters can kill armored vehicles in game, and in IRL a bolter could penetrate tanks from the side. A small laser is only useful against infantry and crit seeking.
I dont think a bolter can breach the side of a tank, its what 80 cal? Its a lot smaller then one would think, at best its 50mm of pen, wich is in the 20mm range , those round dont look hyper sonic capable, and its very hollow since it as a rocket motor and explosive payload, its probably only an inch of solid projectile, realistically it should not pen more then 14.5 black tip
Bolters usually are rated as .75 with heavy bolters as "1 and special armor piercing ammo can be issued. The standard bolt is a LAPHE and through metamaterials can penetrate (in older editions) a Leman Russ from the sides and rear, and can threaten Terminators with concentrated fire.
>small laser is a multilaser
A small laser does three points of damage. Armor provides 16 points of protection per ton.
So one shot from a small laser is capable of slagging 413 pounds of ablative armor.
Your lame fetish nuns are jobbers and would get literally cooked by a near miss since 80% of them don't wear helmets.
>I think even if actual battletech BattleMechs actually came out irl, they would be about as useful as the tank or IFV.
then why would you develop them if tanks and IFVs do the same thing just fine
>me from 1995 to 2024
The MW2 soundtrack still plays in my head.
If we're accepting Battlemechs as they exist in the Battletech Setting then they'd just be hyper expensive heavy IFV's.
The reason Battlemechs work in their own setting is that in the world of "Pony Express FTL" like Battletech, mass, firepower, and mobility are the most important balancing factors in war. When your campaign will take you from a primordial volcanic hell hole planet and its one science outpost, an atmosphereless moon with lower gravity and a deep space radar base, then to a fully earth like planet with a city in a continent sized mangrove swamp, Battlemechs make perfect sense because they carry enough firepower, armor, and mobility to get the job done well enough in each environment. If you CAN bring tanks, vtols, bombers and fighters you do 100% of the time, mechs are just the most useful compromise in most cases.
>ignores the logistical footprint
A mech only requires ONE operator. VTOL's and ASF's match this but can't hold territory or loiter to support other units. A Mech requires only one human. Tanks and other AFV's require 2-4 people, each of which require training, food, space, pay, and transportation. All the while a Mech has better survivability and maneuverability than the equivalent conventional vehicle.
Everything that lets mechs be crewed by one man would also let tanks be crewed by one man. The reasons why tanks want more than one man are also the same reasons why mechs would want more than one man.
>thinks tanks can be crewed by one
Remove any visibility and maneuverability of a mech and that's what you get with a tank.
Automatizing most of the tank functions is impossible, because...???
I'm a mechgay btw
>putting a 3-4 crew vehicle under the control of one
In most mech fiction mech pilots use direct neural interface or a medium (LCL neurohelmet) to impart control over the mech, and the brain would have a much easier time translating those commands to legs than treads. Also fighter aircraft are usually only piloted by one.
>repairing a tank by yourself
Oh frick that.
We can command treads right now with just a joystick, no hi-tech magic even needed.
>and the brain would have a much easier time translating those commands to legs than treads
Bro... Press a fricking pedal or a button or a lever with any of your limbs...
Take the Heavy Gear pill
Canadian Votoms is dead.
Nope, still alive. They released 3rd edition a year and a half ago.
go with the maschinenkrieger route
>2 legs
>2
lmao
Nice but
>can't fit into a mech-sized ditch and do good parkour
Not very universal
frickin patlaba
yeah I watched that too ya shylock
I think one of the only few mech that are better then any other ground vehicle is the NEXT from 4 awser, if you have a anti tank capable vehicle that can go over mach 1 and move in all directions like a helicopter you win any war, you get air and ground superiority all at once.
Actual BattleTech mechs have scifi science wizardry that the writers have carefully left open ended about the limitations and capabilities of in the neurohelmet.
The general rule seems to be the more extension of your body you treat the mech the more migrain you get, but just casual driving and treating the thing like a weapons platform is not very taxing.
So if we plopped an Orion into the real world with the slider set all the way to fiction you could have sprinting super tank moving 60kph launching dozens of javelins at individual targets and shooting down helicopters with lightening while doing sommersults to into a prone position to dodge return fire. It can relocate any time because fusion engines and it never runs out of ammo because energy weapons, only needing to re-arm for ballistic and missle stockpiles, both of which are vast and onboard.
And if the slider is set to maximum realism you have a very expensive tank with a generally bad profile and it gets wienerpitted by a hellfire in the assembly area before the op starts.
We already have the technology to make human-sized mechs (robot drones), scaling it up in order to support IFV/Attack plane weaponry isn't that farfetch, O would actually be curious about how bipedal systems may become so energy efficient as to compete with classic tracks, it may require a different approach but it may still be interesting to see solutions.
By the way, a mech may actually have the advantage to replicate human movements such as using arm mounted limbs popping out from behind cover, in fact, a mech using cover the way a human does on the current war would make for higher survivability
There's nothing stopping normal vehicles from having "arm mounted limbs"