Military Ground Vehicles of Your Nation [NO MECHS] Mk.IV

[TheFall]

Modern tank ammunition is all fin-stabilized so rifling isn't necessary. Rifling actually shortens your absolute range, I think, because it reduces the muzzle velocity compared to a smoothbore weapon.

Well then, what is the largest hunk of metal you can throw more than a mile with modern means.

Im thinkin a 16-inch navel cannon.

[Hladgos]

Would a relativistic projectile even disintegrate though? Does it even interact with the target long enough?

Maybe if you tried to shoot THROUGH a planet.

You are talking FT. Leave, as I did for a moment and take this to the FT question thread thing.

[Indeos]

Well then, what is the largest hunk of metal you can throw more than a mile with modern means.

Im thinkin a 16-inch navel cannon.

Nazis had bigger railway guns, and I'd imagine an ICBM is somewhat larger than 16 inches.

[The Akasha Colony]

Aren't those basically obsolete? There's gotta be some reason only one NATO nation uses rifled guns.

I thought that if a bullet wasn't rifled, it would veer around a bit randomly, like muskets and their shots. Or does it just make the round go further?

Rifling reduces range since it increases barrel friction, which leads to lower muzzle velocities. Modern guns and ammunition can be manufactured to much tighter tolerances, and combined with fin-stabilization, are just as if not more accurate than rifling. Using a rifled barrel also dramatically reduces the effectiveness of HEAT ammunition, the most common type of general-purpose anti-vehicle ammunition.

Aren't those basically obsolete? There's gotta be some reason only one NATO nation uses rifled guns.

The British are really fond of HESH for some reason.

Rifled barrels don't agree too well with sabots, which are Pretty Damn Epic^TM.

HESH can be used for demolitions, since it's still an explosive. But it's useless against any remotely modern armored vehicle.

(Image)

MBT=Morning Star

Uses a photon cannon that fires photon shells. Think of Star treks photon torpedos, but on extremely smaller scale.

So it just fires antimatter shells? Because that's literally all a photon torpedo is. It has basically nothing to do with photons at all.

[The Kievan People]

Would a relativistic projectile even disintegrate though? Does it even interact with the target long enough?

Maybe if you tried to shoot THROUGH a planet.

You are talking FT. Leave, as I did for a moment and take this to the FT question thread thing.

[TheFall]

So does anyone think my photon shells would work? Basicly it is just a downsized photon torpedo that can be shot out of a cannon.

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

Would a relativistic projectile even disintegrate though? Does it even interact with the target long enough?

Maybe if you tried to shoot THROUGH a planet.

There are two prevailing views on this: that it will pretty much instantly explode or that it will just carry on penetrating through everything.

Sadly, we probably won't know until we start slinging around relativistic projectiles.

[Sevvania]

(Image)

Here are four concept tanks.

Top-Left: A StuG-inspired assault gun with a fixed casemate and a stubby 88mm gun.
Top-Right: A 100mm cannon with a simple gunshield offering moderate protection.
Bottom-Left: Rotating turret with 120mm gun. But I dunno how I feel about it, it's kinda ugly.
Bottom-Right: Another open-top design, albeit with a more protective gunshield. This variant sports a 150mm howitzer.

Thoughts? Which should I use?

Repost because sand.

[Vitaphone Racing]

Would a relativistic projectile even disintegrate though? Does it even interact with the target long enough?

Maybe if you tried to shoot THROUGH a planet.

There are two prevailing views on this: that it will pretty much instantly explode or that it will just carry on penetrating through everything.

Sadly, we probably won't know until we start slinging around relativistic projectiles.

ITT NASA's next mission

[Galla-]

Would a relativistic projectile even disintegrate though? Does it even interact with the target long enough?

Maybe if you tried to shoot THROUGH a planet.

Good question, I don't know. I think we can safely assume that for the sake of the discussion, it'll explode violently either on or near the surface.

Esp. so since rly I'm p sure the only way to find out is by shooting RKVs at planets.

[The Grand World Order]

(REPOST DUE TO AIDS SAND)




Mmm. Ohh myyy.

The Divine Tiger's primary armament is a modern high-pressure 152mm gun/missile system, which, given the technology available today, gives the Divine Tiger some serious firepower potential. The on-board computers allow for the gunner to cycle through thermal "hotspots" (which another tank would most certainly be) for automatic aiming, though of course, manual aiming via side-stick or yoke is certainly a feature. Said computer targeting programs also permit the gunner to target signals given by friendly forces, thus allowing for much easier indirect fire. The DT's secondary armament is typically a 20mm autocannon, though a good number (dubbed Fat Mamas or Longcats) are equipped with .50BMG machine guns. Tertiary (as in, the commander's gun) armament is typically a Browning M2, either on an electronic mount or with a ballistic shielding system surrounding the hatch. There is also room for a fourth machine gun, as the DT can carry an optional fourth crew member for in-field maintenance or as a reserve. This fourth gun is never one weapon in particular; it can range from an M-MG42 to a GMG to a TOW.

The missiles the DT can carry vary, with some of them guided by infrared, others by active RADAR homing, some by wire, and so on and so forth. One of the most commonly carried missiles is a 152mm tank-launched top-attack missile, with three main variants: one designed for anti-tank purposes (obviously), one as an anti-personnel beehive (flechette) munition, and one as a cluster bomb for mechanized infantry detachments. The Divine Tiger is also capable of firing a 152mm version of the SADARM shell.

The DT is also equipped with an Infantry Denial System, which is to prevent the tank from getting mobbed from all sides. The general workings of it feature grenade launchers positioned to give a 360 degree field of fire, with the launchers defaulting to firing at 30 feet from the tank. As said before, this is designed to prevent the tank from being mobbed by hostile infantry. Obviously, the IDS is not to be used if the DT is supported by friendly infantry.

Armor also varies on the Divine Tiger. The DT was designed to have almost all of its armor easily removed at a proper depot, thus allowing for easier maintenance and modularity. The standard Army package (and it should be noted that the Army makes the most use of these) makes the Divine Tiger weigh 88 tons, equipped with Chobham-Dorchester composite armor, depleted uranium mesh, et cetera. The DT comes equipped with a noble gas fire suppression system and blowout panels. Newer Divine Tigers are being built with automated active protection systems, and operations are underway to equip the GWO's current tanks with them. Certain tanks that are deemed more important (i.e. commanding tanks, specialized equipment tanks), or tanks about to go into an area with an even higher danger than usual, are also equipped with a complete ERA suite.

The DT's communications systems are designed to work with the GWO's BattleCOM network, displaying GPS, friendly/hostile forces (via the transmission and automated response to certain radio signals), live satellite uplink, remote vehicle slaver, and, of course, direct contact with the force's BattleCOM operators.

That's the DT in a nutshell.

[The Akasha Colony]

So does anyone think my photon shells would work? Basicly it is just a downsized photon torpedo that can be shot out of a cannon.

Drop the 'photon' moniker. Seriously. Because it has nothing to do with photons. All it does is shoot shells loaded with antimatter. Which can be done, but not practicably with modern technology. Of course, if it's hurling antimatter shells around, it'll need a very long range to not catch itself in the explosive radius, and there's a good chance an armored target could shrug it off.

(Image)

Here are four concept tanks.

Top-Left: A StuG-inspired assault gun with a fixed casemate and a stubby 88mm gun.
Top-Right: A 100mm cannon with a simple gunshield offering moderate protection.
Bottom-Left: Rotating turret with 120mm gun. But I dunno how I feel about it, it's kinda ugly.
Bottom-Right: Another open-top design, albeit with a more protective gunshield. This variant sports a 150mm howitzer.

Thoughts? Which should I use?

Repost because sand.

Do you have size specs for the vehicle? It'll come down to whether you expect it to be involved in the thick of fighting, which determines whether or not the extra crew protection from an enclosed casemate is worth it.

[Hladgos]

You are talking FT. Leave, as I did for a moment and take this to the FT question thread thing.

I try my best to insult people.

[Sevvania]

Repost because sand.

Do you have size specs for the vehicle? It'll come down to whether you expect it to be involved in the thick of fighting, which determines whether or not the extra crew protection from an enclosed casemate is worth it.

Nao with tanker bros for comparison.

[The Akasha Colony]

Do you have size specs for the vehicle? It'll come down to whether you expect it to be involved in the thick of fighting, which determines whether or not the extra crew protection from an enclosed casemate is worth it.

Nao with tanker bros for comparison.

I'd go with either of the two on the right. The upper one looks like the gun would be good enough to serve as an AT weapon in a pinch, while the lower one is a pure infantry gun with a nice, big explosive shell.

[Lubyak]

So does anyone think my photon shells would work? Basicly it is just a downsized photon torpedo that can be shot out of a cannon.

I'd imagine they'd be hard to do in MT, given that we're finding it extremely difficult to produce reasonably sized quantitied of antimatter. I can't see it being useful, as the cost of producing the shells would be so ludicrously high as to make it impossible.

Even in FT, I'd imagine anti-matter shells would be like a super powerful HE round...if you have the tech to make an anti-matter shell, no doubt you have the technology to produce a lulzy railgun on your tank instead, which would likely be more effective against armor. Anti-matter, I'd imagine, would be limited to long range weapons like artillery and other such systems.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Aren't those basically obsolete? There's gotta be some reason only one NATO nation uses rifled guns.

The British are really fond of HESH for some reason.

Rifled barrels don't agree too well with sabots, which are Pretty Damn Epic^TM.

Rifled barrels can take all ammunition, they just need slip rings.
Brits really like HESH because they refuse it's no longer effective against armour, but also believe it to be effective against buildings.
That it may be, but many of the tankies here believe plain old HE outperforms HESH in both roles.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

Well then, what is the largest hunk of metal you can throw more than a mile with modern means.

Im thinkin a 16-inch navel cannon.

Try 36".
You could make them much bigger than that.

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

Largest hunk of metal?

Time to break out the nukes and tunnel-boring machines, boys. We've got a nuclear pulse gun to build!

[Samozaryadnyastan]

RAWR
http://doc-evilonavich.deviantart.com/a ... n-29999385

Could a nuclear pulse gun fire a small projectile at relativistic velocities?

[Crookfur]

Do you have size specs for the vehicle? It'll come down to whether you expect it to be involved in the thick of fighting, which determines whether or not the extra crew protection from an enclosed casemate is worth it.

Nao with tanker bros for comparison.

no.4 gun in number one setup would look pant wettingly good. it might be stupidly over crowded but it woudl look nice... of course any of the guns woudl look nice on the casemate hull and IMHO the 120mm gun would eb the best all roudn choice for a medium tank based design with a 150/152mm being saved for a heavy tank chassis. Yeah i'm totally not inspired by the russian SU series AT ALL!

generally speaking gun chocie for this sort of thing tends to involve whatever is at hand and what the operating branch can get thier hands on without pissing off other branches (i.e. cavalry/armour vs artillery branches and the politics there of as seen with the british and germans during ww2, possibly amoungst the americans as well).

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

RAWR
http://doc-evilonavich.deviantart.com/a ... n-29999385

Could a nuclear pulse gun fire a small projectile at relativistic velocities?

Sadly not. It should be ludicrously easy to hit escape velocity, though. A 300-ton nuclear bomb managed to launch a one-tonne steel plate at somewhere past 70 kilometers per second by complete accident, after all. Anyways, doc's thing is clearly insufficient. You don't have a real nuclear pulse gun until you're using hundred-plus-kiloton nuclear shaped charges to propel multi-meter projectiles at multiples of the solar escape velocity, using kilometer-plus barrels and compressed hydrogen propellant. Talk about a muzzle blast!

Shooting out the side of Mount Everest. Because why the fuck not.

[Samozaryadnyastan]

I remember that story xD
Part of the initial test phases for the ORION concept, wasn't it?

Also, I am talking about something really small, and relatively low c-frac as a projectile.
Maybe even an M829A3 KEP at 30% c

[Our Most Resplendent Goddess Sen]

Nah, it wasn't one of the Orion tests. Those were ablation tests using coated steel balls during otherwise normal nuclear weapons tests. As you can imagine, it was quite hard to find the balls afterwards!

No, the plate-launching was a complete and total accident on every level. They were doing a safety test with the bomb at the bottom of a 500-foot shaft, trying to figure out how large of an explosion they would get if just one of the detonators went off by accident, as opposed to the full set required to get a proper initiation. They expected a yield of maybe a couple pounds.

They got 300 tons.

As it turns out, to really get high projectile velocities with a nuclear device, you need to be right on top of it or else you might as well have used a pile of regular explosives. So how did that one-tonne manhole cover at the top of the shaft get launched? As it turns out, there was a five-foot thick concrete plug sitting right on top of that bomb, so when it went off that concrete plug got turned into a spectacularly hot vapor and promptly acted like propellant in a 500-foot gun barrel...

[Immoren]

I was wondering that does autoloader on T-80 (and whatever other tanks using similar loader) have similar penetrator lenght restriction as T-72/90 style autoloader?