Sci-fi Weapons, Vehicles and Equipment

As with most quick swaps your not likely going to be doing this in the middle of the fire fight unless the swap is very simple. By simple I mean your just swapping something like barrels but using the rest of the same stuff. This is a more retreat a little bit behind something where you can do the swap safely and then move back into combat. Something just behind the line of contact where you would dump packs, casualties, and spare ammo would be a good place for that.

edited 1st Aug '15 10:30:30 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Most spare barrels are at least 1/2 to 1/3 the length of the weapon. A weapon needs fixed "headspace".

An M249 just needs a lever. A barrel swap on the M2 requires at least 15 minutes, two soldiers and a headspace & timing guage. I know, I've done both.

All night at the computer, cuz people ain't that great. I keep to myself so I won't be on The First 48

Thanks for the feedback!

I suppose the issue I'm trying to solve is what to do if you're equipped for controlling a crowd mostly composed of Species A when you unexpectedly encounter a crowd mostly composed of Species B (assuming that your RCV's current weapon isn't effective/safe against both)?

Locking you up on radar since '09

You can do a M2 Barrel swap in about a minute with two troops and that is including head space and timing. 10-15 seconds to unscrew and dump the first barrel another 10-15 to attach and do the initial screw in and back off, and about 20-30 seconds to do head space and timing. Of course that is still around a full minute of the gun being down. The newer ones have the quick change barrel feature.

Quick change barrels are your friend in general. You don't want to be hauling around a half dozen different barrels though. Barrels can add up to a surprising amount of weight really quickly.

If you are talking about doing a more serious swap like say changing caliber, weapon type, or attaching/ditching extra bits you want a bit of breathing room to get it done.

Flanker: Planning and recon. Either have a unit that has weapons for both species or an ability do to a hot swap. You could also use multiple units each armed accordingly.

If you say use something like a plug and play module with all the bits it just needs the universal mount on the RCS you can drop Species A kit at the launch point or a nearby cache point and attach gear for Species B.

edited 1st Aug '15 12:20:39 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

So. What would be some effective ways of counteracting G Force?

Would the floating chair system from Gundam work at all?

The easy answer is to increase the time frame over which your accelerate up to speed. The more sudden the change in velocity the more g forces you have to contend with. This also applies for slowing down or stopping. If you can manipulate gravity you could laugh at those puny g forces or use the ever popular "inertial dampners" solution.

Doesn't the Gundam system use the big bag of handwavium for that on top of the ridiculously huge mecha? They certainly use it for just about everything else.

edited 10th Aug '15 4:22:25 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

Modification of the crew's body. I don't know much about how exactly high g causes problems, but it may involve nanobots weaving reinforcements of the cardiovascular system, making it both tougher and more powerful. Perhaps tiny artificial muscles surrounding blood vessels, to make sure everything gets what it needs.

Nah Gundam used Minovsky Physics and that was just to explain why people were back to fighting in the visual range.

One of the upgrades to Mobile suits was a floating seat in a panoramic cockpit. Supposedly it's to counteract G Forces.

Some Gundam series have been pretty good about G forces all things considered. We got Amuro passing out from the G Forces when he launched the Core Fighter too quickly, and in Wing one of their suits was so absurdly fast the G forces actively harmed people.

That chair was basically an EM cradle wasn't it? It might give you a little bit of duration for short term gs but if you start piling it on and keeping it up not so much. The good thing about g force is it goes away or reduces once you stop accelerating.

The biggest problem with g forces is it forces the blood in your body to pool in the direction of the force. If it pools away from the brain you get grey outs/black outs. If it pools into the brain you get red outs. It can pool anywhere there there are blood vessels and arteries to carry blood. The more and larger the blood vessels and arteries the worse the effect. So towards the legs or head is pretty bad because of how our circulatory system is oriented. But to the sides like your arms and sides of your legs is not as bad.

If you have enough g forces it can cause tissue damage especially if you are exposed to a lot of them over a very short time frame. Like the sudden stop in a car crash for example. That puts a lot of g force strain on your body. Gradual build up isn't as bad but you can't stay there for long. Other concerns is it makes the heart work harder putting strain on the circulatory system. If it puts enough pressure on your circulatory system over a long enough time frame it can cause arteries to spasm, pain, numbness, and other problems in your limbs. Your eyes are actually susceptible to pressure and it can cause vision issues in the short term from the shifting blood and fluid in your eyes.

G suits of various types put pressure on various parts of your body to slow the pooling. Like the stunt pilots for red bull and fighter pilots for example. The catch is they don't keep piling on the high g forces over a long period their exposure is short so the equipment and the high g techniques help keep the problem of blood pooling to a minimum. If you maintain that direction g force the G suit can't stop the pooling only slow it down. It basically gives your G force resistance but doesn't negate the sum total of the effects.

The other issue is that at even lower g's like 3 g it is hard to move around because your body effectively weighs more then it does on earth. The more g forces the more pronounced the effect. Humans can with stand somewhere around 100g's across one second but sustained 7g's for 10 minutes was said to be physically stressful on the early astronauts. Basically humans have a high tolerance for short term high g force but lower tolerance for sustained.

This is why in some of the harder sci fi books the big ships take a long time to get up to speed like in the books by Ian Douglas the Heritage trilogy and the Inheritance trilogy. The far roving space ships have to take a long time to accelerate up to high speeds and take just as long to slow back down to avoid overloading the passengers and crew with g forces.

One solution is to limit how fast and how long any sudden changes of acceleration occur. Keeping the duration of the acceleration short the pilot could handle some high g forces. I am pretty certain being the center of several rapid g force changes is likely unpleasant.

That is some nasty equipment if it is dumping enough gs to cause injuries. What kind of hellish machine accelerates so violently it does that?

Who watches the watchmen?

Hellish machine is accurate seeing as the suit was the Talgeese. The precursor to the Gundams, it's a large beast of a machine that takes most weapons fire head on with large thrusters meant for intense acceleration to pursue fleeing targets.

And really now? So that's how the chairs worked.

It was the Talgeese? Man I forgot about that but then again I last watched Gundam Wing nearly two decades ago.

Who watches the watchmen?

It can reach 15 G speeds. It is a monster!

So... if we had artificial gravity in ships would that counteract it?

Like even basic centrifugal gravity would help.

Given that is what are you experiencing yes if it existed gravity manipulation could counter it. If your system counters every directional input it experiences even only up to a couple of g's worth of counter it would be very effective. It would reduce all major points of stress on the squishy meat bag and negate the need for things like g suits and special techniques pilots use to resist g forces if you keep the boundries of what you can counter. If it could maintain the effect over time you could keep up a degree of acceleration without worrying about what will happen to meat bag.

Now a downside is should such a system suddenly fail mid g load the meat bag could get a nasty surprise. Keeping the G suit and training might be a good idea if you can't counter all or in the event of a system failure.

edited 10th Aug '15 1:57:00 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Who watches the watchmen?

The chance of the artificial gravity failing, and the resulting Newtonian Physics, is a common trope in military science fiction from what I've seen. Kevin Forstchen (IIRC) was fond of the expression "Strawberry-colored paste" to describe the hypothetical result.

That said, the only work I recall actually having that happen was Honor Harrington, where damage to the artificial gravity during battle or overly stressful maneuvers was a danger to be considered by commanders.

So Megabots USA has started up a Kickstarter video for their large robot.

Apparently they got a former Mythbuster, the creators of Battlebots, 2 companies in tracked vehicles, and a NASA representative.

There are claims that this will advance robotics, though will it? the Link

edited 18th Aug '15 5:55:43 AM by EchoingSilence

Very interesting discussion of g forces there; I had always wondered why in hard sci-fi big ships had to accelerate very slowly.

BTW, if you were to create the sci-fi equivalent of NATO's Assault Breaker weapons (i.e. munitions/weapon systems designed to cripple or destroy large scale mechanised offensives), what would you go for?

Locking you up on radar since '09

You looking to use it in space or planet side? Planet side is easy.

Who watches the watchmen?

Rocket artillery. Particularly guided, rapid fire and/or cluster munition varieties.

Secondly I'd go for attack VTOL's. Higher speed subsonic craft fulfilling the attack heli role with boost capabilities. Kinda like a Hornet or Harrier. May likely be armed with munitions intended to engage as many targets as is possible e.g. missiles that can engage both aircraft and armored vehicles. Conversely, such munitions will be designed to be carried in bulk even if it means a loss of firepower against hard targets like tanks which you can simply hit a second time anyways.

Third would be Main Battle Tanks and Armored Walker Systems (Mecha) that can take up defilade (hull-down, etc.) positions along ridges/hills/etc., behind buildings/structures and more. Main battle tanks will be based on the concept of deployability. How quick and how many can you get to an area. Meaning the tank itself may actually defeat its opposing counterpart in 1 to 1 battle and quite easily but is designed to run across terrain quickly and/or be transported by a wide variety of transports especially aerial Dropships. Walkers will be designed with booster systems for limited flight, ground surfing and jumps to get into position or escape quickly from defilade in case it can't "run" fast enough. Walkers will be equipped with stuff that gives them supreme firepower and/or shoot and scoot capabilities alongside large quantities of ammo. Meaning no large bore cannons or stuff like that. Machine guns, autocannons, missiles and rockets will be their stuff. MBT's will be large bore cannon (1 or 2) with coaxial HMG's and the capability to either fire guided shells and/or hypervelocity (railgun, etc.) munitions.

Lastly, the good old fashioned trench. A good even if ad hoc trench network or line can stop a mechanized attack in its tracks. Anti-grav hover vehicles will tip and get stuck, tracked vehicles will do the same, wheeled and all vehicles will be forced into pre-determined kill zones if possible. The trench line will be of course dug in with infantry with AT/AA weapons.

Perhaps a kind of nuclear bomb with a hundred or so devices protruding from it, each using the reaction to emit an incredibly intense beam of neutrons, which from the little I've read seem to be able to do horrible things to material. These devices can turn some degrees in any direction, and before detonation each is aimed at a tank.

If the tanks are nuclear-powered, aiming at their fuel could have interesting effects.

edited 28th Aug '15 4:25:28 PM by ManInGray

Lol. I like that go for the nuclear option up front.

For non-nuclear I have thoughts rather similar to Tom's. Though WAAAM[[note:Wide Area Anti Armor Munitions]] was the program for the aircraft and helicopter systems that gave us the improved Maverick and the Hellfire missiles. The idea behind the Hughes AGM-124 Wasp is a solid one. An aircraft carrying a large payload of compact but still lethal fire and forget missiles. It was to be loaded in a massed fire/mass deployment arrangement. The idea was that with fewer aircraft they could achieve proportional or greater damage then their massed Soviet Counterparts. Think something like the APKWS[[note:Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System]] or the DAGR[[note:Direct Attack Guided Rocket]] Guided Rocket systems. Those systems can give the parent craft around four times the number of guided munitions over Hellfires. With modern warhead tech smaller warheads are becoming increasingly capable of penetrating even heavily armored tanks. For example the M77 DPICM's[[note:Dual Purpose Improved Cluster Munitions]] on a flush contact with armor have a penetration of 4" or around 100mm of armor with a 4m frag radius. The AP/Light-Armor variant can pen up to 3"/75mm and has larger frag radius. The munition is very small and fits in the palm of your hand. The guided EFP Anti-Armor Skeet are another example of a small warhead with big punch.

Assault Breaker gave us better targeting and tracking tech as well as some strategic level weapons like the CAM missile. Basically a modified Pershing missile for dispensing run way cratering or sub-munitions. It also helped further stand off cluster options and improve other systems.

So say you have something like the Wasp missile. Compact and carried in large quantity by all systems. Next you need a way to target them all and then fire them. Two ideas for that one. The obvious send small drones gun, catapult, hand tossed, air dropped etc to scout and target. Then it feeds back targeting info and the fire and forgets are away. The other option is similar but uses gun or rocket fired one shot camera, sensor, and data link packages. They basically do the same thing but don't need any sort of additional controls to pilot.

Bring back the ballistic missile carriers tactical or theatre because they have large payloads capable of laying the hurt down on the enemy with conventional warheads. Your various strike craft like time described carry the FF's and maybe their own sensors ground units launch drones or gun fired sensor sets and then use those to target the FF's from ground forces or hand off to air assets FF's.

Who watches the watchmen?

Micro drones that can fly up the barrel or the exhaust pipe of a tank and kill the gun/engine.

You can cut the time by ditching 'shipshape' decking and instead use 'rocketshape' decking, that way, your primary drive essentially simulates gravity, which at 9.81 m/s^2 (earth gravity), means you hit the sea-level speed of sound in under 40 seconds, Earth orbital velocity in under a quarter-hour, Helios-B's (the fastest spacecraft to date) top speed in a fraction under 2 hours, and 0.01c in just over 3½ days. With that too, the only real danger you have to worry about is the thrusters being violent enough to knock unbraced crew off their feet, that and sudden death if the enemy gets a shot through, but that's not usually an issue of acceleration.

A good design can solve a lot of issues.

edited 29th Aug '15 4:26:56 AM by MattII

Awesome responses, thanks guys!

I think we've quite handily answered how the concept might work planetside! Since you've piqued my interest, let's take a look at space.

@Major Tom:

Thanks very much! That's very useful.

Heh, going straight to nuclear weapons, I see!

I do like the idea, however - it seems like a very precise way of disabling vehicles (and if you don't mind the intense radiation, I suppose you may be able to recover them afterwards).

@Tuefel:

Very nice! So in my understanding aside from the obvious requirements of multiple munitions and precision guidance you'd be looking for a system that's "universal" (i.e. everything from an IFV to a fighter can carry it).

I like this idea because of its unconventional nature - and just imagine the morale effects of seeing a swarm of those coming at you!

edited 29th Aug '15 5:27:20 AM by Flanker66

Locking you up on radar since '09

Flanker: More or less that is the direction we are heading. Many of the systems are integrated now to one degree or another and many units have the ability to target or hand off guidance and targeting data across multiple platforms via data links. Possibly the biggest component of that is the integrated communication and targeting components. The guided munitions side of things guidance is already pretty sophisticated and capable. We are getting to the point where we can really squeeze down the size of guidance kits into rather small packages and due to that small size give just any munition multi-sensor capabilities. There are a variety of munitions that have three or more tracking and targeting systems that are not the same type of detection and tracking. Like having mm wave radar, IR, and laser detection. There are for example both ground and multiple air units that can use the Hellfire and Hellfire II Missiles as well as the Hydra family of rockets. Which means with the right kit can also use the guided rocket kits.

For example there is a turret that can mounted on a ground station or even JLTV/HUMVEE that holds 8 DAGR rockets and two Hellfires. With enough properly linked and sophisticated guidance you could mount your guided weapons on a wider array of platforms and bring the same fire power from any unit against a wider variety of targets.

One of DARPA's pet projects is to give the squad level units the ability to call fire support like a FACC or ANGLICO Team. The device they are after integrates with some sort of HUD element that they can see a projection of the target and the munitions estimated foot print and place the coordinates more precisely. I also read something interesting a month or so ago about a supposed newer targeting set up that uses a laser designator coupled with some form of positional indicators to generate a target data set. Basically the laser doesn't use a continuous beam or constant pulses but a few short ones to generate the target data and feed to the weapons. They can then rapidly zap the target at the mid and near terminal phase to update the target info so you could in theory use it to track and target moving targets. The reduced laser targeting signature makes it harder for laser designation detection and counter laser systems to detect and interrupt the targeting. If I can I will dig up the articles it was from one of those round about locations.

Who watches the watchmen?

Great, a weapon that can only be dealt with by, ooh, a giant fan, a water-cannon, etc. Also, sp much will be spent on fuel, power-plant etc, that I can't see there being huge amounts left over for actual payload.