Walking battletanks?

Originally posted by drunk
I have never played the game talking about but my vision of a Walking Battle Tank is the 1 we allsaw in Star Wars u know the 1 with 4 legs.

AT-AT. Those were so cool in The Empire Strikes Back. I pretty much agree with every post on here. Mechs are just too complicated in real life. They are real cool in games and such. MechAssaul on XBox was pretty cool.

Originally posted by necro99
*cough*ATGMMAGNET*cough*

That is pretty funny. You are right, one ATGMMAGNET would take care of any walking Mech. I still think that they are not very practical.

[Edited on 3-15-2004 by nyarlathotep]

[Edited on 3-15-2004 by nyarlathotep]

i think that if you could have something mabye thirty feet high then it could be deadly in rough terrain

i think its a ridiculous idea. first of all a large amt of weapons will do you not good because you'll be dead before you take one shot. They would not do well on rough terrain unless you could somehow make the base of the foot conform to the ground upon which the mech is walking. Also a 30 ft. machine with low armor? Thats a death trap for the pilot. You would either trip of the uneven terrain or get shot to death by conventional tanks and fighter planes. Untill more advanced armor and weapons technology appear stick to conventional tanks

How is such a monstrocity supposed to be powered, nuclear testicles?

It would weight way too much to be that well protected ...whats to stop it from sinking in the mud or better yet whats to prevent if from falling over ?

When you project into the future one can look into the past by the same amount as a yard stick to see how far you can reasonably expect to go.

Emphasis of modern armor design is on reducing mass to increase strategic deployablity without sacrificing fightablity. The key is internal volume to be protected.

Example:

The German Leopard -1 tank weights ~41 tons ,has an internal volume of 18m^3 and houses 4 crew ; a 105mm gun plus 60 rounds & ammo for 2 x MGs. This also includes a 830 Hp diesel engine plus 1000L fuel to give it a radius of 600km road. THis gives it a frontal protection of ~ 17cm Steel and allround protection of around 4cm.

Now about the same time the LEO-1 was in development the french developed a competitor design , the AMX-30 . This duplicated alot of the LEO-1 design but had an allround armor of ~ 5cm steel and a frontal arc protection of ~20cm steel armor and only weight 37 tons! How day do DAT!

The AMX-30 internal volume was only 13 m^3 ,so the overall weight dropped to 90% of the German tank. However the AMX-30 tank would be cramped and the ROF would have only been 8 RPM when the german tank could do 15 RPM, so there was no way the germans were going to touch the AMX-30 tank.


Mean while the Brits toyed with a tinny tank. It weight 16 tons and also had an allround protection of ~ 4cm spaced armor as well as a frontal armor of around >22cm steel ! The allround protection could stop a contemporary RPG-2 HEAT warhead and would offer good protection against RPG-7! That was alot better than either of the French or German designs.

The key was that there was only one man in the tank, thus it only had an internal volume of around 4-5m^3. So despite its small size , it was protected better than the 37-41 ton tanks.

The main weapon was an externally mounted gun pod and thus didn't have to be armored or included in the armor volume mass. To do this it mounted two auto loaded 120mm Wombats [like recoiless rifles] each with 7 rounds of HESH or HE . Attached to each wombat was a HMG with its own ammo supply.

Thus not only did it help to reduce internal volume to be armored [and thus AFV mass] , all the dangerous ammo was stored externally . With the auto loader it could theoretically do ~16 rpm ...even though it would run out of ammo after about a minute ;-)

For the late 1950s time period , this was a brilliant concept! The british however dropped the idea as too impractical in the context of a NATO/WARPAC conflict , but it remains as a benchmark of the alternative thinking of the late 1950s early 1960s.

In truth thats a good thing cause the the first time the tank got hit by a 100mm APC round the single crew member would have been injured if not even knocked unconsious....cause a 16 tonner just can't absorb the KE of such an impact.


The point is that after 40-50 years of development the basic situation has not changed or improved. With ATGM you could double or quadrupple the killing power of the main weapon, by using HELLFIRE type ATGM...but you'd still run out of ammo in a minute.

With modern armor technology one could double or even quadrupple the effectiveness of the armor potential of such a one man tank, which would be enough to stop a 125mm APFSDS...but whats the point , the KE of an 125mm round would probably still kill the crew, or atleast disable the tank on the first hit!

Best one can hope for is an active defence systems, but no one has yet fielded one that can stop an APFSDS ever time!


[Edited on 29-3-2004 by psteel]

no offence but for **** sake this is a ****ing idea not a proposal to the united nations where thinking about if it could be done and frankly a walker would be very effective at thirty feet with armor those things could cross mountains or at least near vertical hills u dumbass and secondly id like 2 c a tank go across marshlands or heavy forests !
wheres ur smart coment back to that !

Originally posted by devilwasp
no offence but for **** sake this is a ****ing idea not a proposal to the united nations where thinking about if it could be done and frankly a walker would be very effective at thirty feet with armor those things could cross mountains or at least near vertical hills u dumbass and secondly id like 2 c a tank go across marshlands or heavy forests !
wheres ur smart coment back to that !

Don't know who your rude comments are directed at but you said rough terrain ...that includes marshes and forest etc.

The whole idea of weapons design has to fit into basic criteria...making it bigger is the opposite direction all weapons development is going. The current trend is towards smaller more deployable package and lighter evolutions of proven designs has been shown to be the way to go.

Battle systems have to fit into existing carriers; Airlift /Ro-Ro containers or Amphibs or railgauge lines etc....these components should grow in size and delivery capability.

Besides on the battle field the key is to avoid been seen, and that means smaller is better. Very little can match the utility of the human . Extend the eyes with minnie drones. Extend the reach with FO missiles that can be directed through the minnie drones. Improve survival with uniforms that allow the troops to blend into the back ground and have kevlar abdomine protection with NBC protection and wound treatment capabilities. THat makes alot more sence .

I can see exoskeletons for logisitics personel to rapidly move super heavy loads in ammo/POL dumps etc...but containerizing has already solved alot of that problem already. Beyond that these systems have little utility.

Why try and reinvent the wheel?

Now if you took something like the 2 man Wiesel and added a gun pod like the british tinny tank that would weight 3 tons . This becomes helicopter portable and could greatly increase scouts /airborn troops reach etc.

hey look on a walker you could have the firepower to support infantry without the need for a tank
and secondly tanks can get bogged down
thirdly tanks cant float!
fourthly walkers would be ideal platforms for some weapons
and they would be excellent for intimidation dont ya think?