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Post by Darthtabby on Apr 16, 2014 21:49:10 GMT -7
Okay, here's question to ponder. What weapons and tactics can a non Arm Slave equipped forces -particularly foot soldiers- employ to defeat an Arm Slave threat? Engaging Arm Slaves with anti tank missiles or rockets is an obvious option, but what other kinds of weaponry and tactics might a hard pressed force make use of?
One possibility might be targeting joints or gaps in the armor with heavy machine gun fire. Even if that can't destroy the AS it might be possible to immobilize it. Sensors might also be a good target -even if they're behind transparent armor of some kind, how well can they see if that transparent armor is covered in cracks from enemy fire?
I've also wonder if it would be possible to make mines that would be effective against Arm Slaves. There are anti-tank mines but would they be effective given the vastly different shape and method of movement use by Arm Slaves? Arm Slaves don't have treads that an explosion can shred, and when it comes to mines employing shaped charges their feet provide a much smaller target area than a tank's underbelly.
Anyone got any thoughts/ideas on this subject?
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Post by the_kumatei on Apr 17, 2014 3:58:47 GMT -7
The anime showed the mujahadeen taking out savages, right? Just stay out of site, and place explosives on them. The big thing there was staying out of site and using the environment. The people were obviously no match for the AS, so they had to hide, similar to how the ASs have to hide against choppers and tanks.
The mechs in the book are not as large as the mechs in the show, so I imagine rockets of any kind would be an issue. Betters ASs would have better armor, but being a humanoid shape, there are many exposed joints that could also be hit.
Placing mines for their feet would be a good idea. With a smaller area than tanks, there would be less of a chance that the mech stands on the mine, but there are remote detonating mines that could be detonated manually. If your in a canyon/crevice/hallway, mines would work better. Being a bipedal mech, losing it's feet would be a huge problem.
I just remembered the side-story episode where the Urzu team took out the savages. Apparently the savages cant see in thermal? I guess that this being fiction, those tactics work too.
We see tactics used in Afghanistan and Iraq, where they ignore the tanks/tracks and try getting opportunistic shots at unmounted soldiers. It is not impossible, but rare, that guerrilla mortars tactics could be used on armored vehicles.
Then there are team tactics. If the mech is afraid of a tank or a chopper, then one could be used to pin it down. Troops with rocket launchers could attack from the sides. I guess it depends on terrain.
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Post by Darthtabby on Apr 17, 2014 13:09:35 GMT -7
I've read that the Arm Slaves are larger in the anime before, but they don't usually seem grossly oversized to me (though there is that one scene of Mao's M9 standing atop the TDD-1). At any rate we know that Arm Slaves are supposed to be about eight to ten meters in height and relatively light by armored vehicle standards. The effectiveness of the HEAT warheads used on most anti-tank rockets is actually highly variable. There are plenty of cases of light tanks and armored personnel carriers surviving hits from anti tank rockets -in some cases multiple hits. Then again that sort of thing led to rounds that were optimized for enhanced behind armor effects rather than pure penetration. Oh, and just to complicate things apparently HEAT rounds can fail to work properly if they impact armor at an angle. One thing I wonder about is what the armor on an AS can actually protect against. It's actually a rather complex issue, as a round that can penetrate at short range at a shallow angle may not penetrate at long range or extreme impact angles. Given how high off the ground an Arm Slave's torso is the angle of impact issue could get particularly complicated as rounds fired by an opposing AS may be coming in from a completely different angle from rounds being fired by targets close to the ground. I also wonder if Arm Slaves are more heavily armored in certain spots then others. Perhaps the torso is more heavily armored than the limbs for instance. As far as mines go, some designs might be effective but I'm not sure any old anti tank mine would do the trick. A small mine that can damage a tanks tracks isn't necessarily going to be able to blow the feet off an Arm Slave. And I'm not so sure about the type that fire a shaped charge jet at the underbelly of a vehicle. A very large mine with a lot of explosive or some kind of advanced mine similar in principal to this one might work though.
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Post by the_kumatei on Apr 17, 2014 20:05:46 GMT -7
8 meters, is 26 feet according to google. They are as tall as an M1 Abrams is long, so size-wise they are comparable to a tank, but as you've noted, small mines that damage treads may not do much against thicker feet. The shape of the limbs would matter a lot when it comes to explosives. The issue with HEAT rounds is they do need to hit at a good angle. Explosions, like other forces, take the path of least resistance, which is usually the open air around the solid armor. It loses a lot of its energy that way. HEAT rounds work by using that explosion to compress the inverted copper cone inside the round into a bolt of molten metal, which gets punched through the tank armor. The front of the rpg round crumples onto the tank armor and effectively temporarily seals it onto the armor while the bolt goes through. Sort of like how a crash-test car crumples onto the wall during a collision. The bolt doesnt have anywhere else to go but forwards at that point. This is also the downside to the round. If it hits at an odd angle, it loses a lot of its energy (its diverted), or the round could explode the bolt (wiki says its often called a "carrot", so I could use that terminology) and the bolt may not be aimed inwards towards the center of the tank. Think of it as a sword hitting armor at an angle and not peircing through. So collision angle and the shape of the mech mean a lot. This is why a lot of tanks stopped having round bodies and went to angled ones. A circle hit dead-on is flat, relative to the thing hitting it, and a round-top + flat-wall of WWII tanks were absolutely terrible. Savages have rounded bodies, with it angling away from the center. I've seen some knight armor do that, but it wasnt as exagerated. I think it would be relatively good at protecting the pilot. M9s are doing the same idea around the cockpit. They are also much skinnier and nimbler, and RPGs are relatively slow compared to bullets. I guess that helps. Plot-armor is strong too. Javelins can attack from above, since a flat tank is much larger when looked at from above. Oddly enough this works in the mech's favor since they are smaller when looked at from above. As far as AS rifles go, dont they fire heat? I dont remember. As far as mines go, savages have relatively flat feet, and I imagine they would get fucked up by mines rather easily. In fact hitting the legs anywhere would cripple it, since its very top heavy. M9s seem to have thicker gundam-esc feet, with a smaller surface area. They would do better against mines. Trying to shoot a jet at the underbelly of a mech would only deal significant damage it it managed to make it up to the hip, but since theres so much ground clearance, mechs would probably shrug those off. Any round that deals with spalling would probably be inneffective too. Damage to the leg of a bipedal creature is still really bad. I think ASs would handle it better than battletech-like mechs. I put a link to a youtube video of AI developped for walking. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FGM-148_Javelinen.wikipedia.org/wiki/M1_Abramsen.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_chargewww.youtube.com/watch?v=CyMOwuUClrs
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Post by Darthtabby on Apr 18, 2014 8:10:13 GMT -7
Are you sure about HEAT rounds needing to form a seal? I don't really get the impression that's necessary. The issue I was referring to with sloped armor was with fuses not working properly when they impacted it. This was quite a problem with at least some early HEAT warheads, though it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue with later ones (I'm not sure if its an issue at all with some of the more modern designs). I would think Arm Slaves would use HE rounds for engaging soft targets and high velocity solid shot (possibly subcalibre sabot rounds) against well armored targets. Swapping between the two would be as easy as switching magazines and cycling the action. HEAT rounds aren't very common in automatic cannons in the 20-40mm class, probably because diameter is such a big factor in determining how much penetration a HEAT round has. If the warhead of the 66mm rocket Sousuke took with him on the Merida Island assault is supposed to have trouble with Arm Slave armor what hope does a 30 or 40mm shell operating on the same principle have? Speaking of AS armor, there are apparently lightweight armors that can stop multiple high velocity armor piercing rounds from a 25mm cannon at close range. If they can actually reliably stop 25mm APFSDS rounds up close it might be able to stop more powerful rounds at longer ranges or certain impact angles. Not sure how well they would do against HEAT rounds though. By the way, the reason a lot of modern tanks have such angular armor surfaces is actually because of issues with making the composite armor they use in curved shapes. Modern shoulder fired anti tank weapons generally are pretty low velocity. The classic RPG-7 is actually pretty difficult to hit things with, not so sure about the newer RPG-29. The western Carl Gustav and Breda Folgore recoilless rifles are much easier to hit tanks with than a RPG-7, but their warheads are only 84mm and 80mm respectively, so its questionable whether they'd do very well against AS armor (the widely used AT4 rocket is also only 84mm, though a larger 120mm "AT12-T" was apparently in development at one time). By contrast a RPG-7 or 29 can use 105mm HEAT rounds that have substantial penetration. Javelins (which would probably have a different name in the FMP verse since the term "Javelin" is used to refer to missiles similar to the cancelled LOSAT missile in the FMP verse) actually have a direct attack mode as well as a top attack mode. Since they're infrared homing they could actually be very effective against Second Generation Arm Slaves that are powered by hot running gas turbines. Javelins are super expensive though and I doubt they're sold to just anybody. As far as mines for anti AS use goes, I wonder if a powerful explosion might knock an AS off balance rather then doing much damage on its own. Then again there are those gaps in the armor plating. I've wondered if some sort of "jumping" mine might be useful against an Arm Slave. A large explosive that jumped up and exploded behind the AS might damage the knee joints or something.
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