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[Loud Whispers]

Well drones are certainly becoming a big thing in the air, they have a lot of advantages over standard helicopters and fighters/bombers, although there are drawbacks and issues that mean that they probably won't phase out standard aircraft any time soon.

Drawback:
Not big enough to hold all the dakka a human piloted fighter-bomber can carry.

believe it or not, lasers.

This is how you know we live in the future. My first reaction wasn't all "O_O", it was more along the lines of "that's so last year's news."

I was having this exact conversations with one of my friends back in 2010, saying how they're a bit more anti-climatic than anticipated. It's more like a flash then you're on fire than "PEW PEW."
Ah science, you outdo my expectations.

A big enough gun is a big enough gun. You get more than enough firepower with a couple of machine guns, then all that's required is a main gun to engage other armor.

Yeah, if you're living in WWII.

Pretty much everything invalidates armour these days. Tanks aren't exactly made to be moving cover these days, they're made with the gun in mind. What I was alluding to was the railgun, which happens to need a really big power sauce (think vinegar but larger).
What I'm hoping is that someone WILL try to put these things on wheels; and before you know it, BANEBLAAADES.

[Strife26]

Mmmmhm. I certainly live in world war two. Not like it's my full time job or anything.

[Scoops Novel]

Lasers or synthetic diamond weaponry and armour? Actually, what the hell will we use for armour? We've surely got better then bulletproof vests today.

[Zrk2]

Mmmmhm. I certainly live in world war two. Not like it's my full time job or anything.

Never.

In other news, I'm trying to figure out how tanks with 16" guns, a la Iowa Class Battleships (IIRC) would work.

[Strife26]

You'd have to make it really really big, most likely. Ultra-heavy instead of just a super heavy. Wouldn't be worth the trouble, I'd venture, at least not until someone shoves a reactor into their vehicle. Then, power problems go away and who knows what'll develop.

Now, I'd think that trying to get a 120mm to punch like a 16 inch, that'd be the way to go.

[TheBronzePickle]

Make the barrel a lot sturdier, perhaps graphene-enhanced steel or something, and then shove the projectile in there with a big block of C4.

[Strife26]

Then you've got major recoil problems, and the only way to deal with battleship sized recoil is with a battleship sized mass. Or digging in before firing, which isn't much good in modern, mobile warfare.

Maybe rigging it up with a two stage recoiless rifle system? Those don't tend to scale up all that easily, from my understanding, though.

[TheBronzePickle]

Recoilless rifle wouldn't work, anyway, a tank's a closed compartment and recoilless rifles work by letting the gases escape out the back. You could always put extra recoil dampeners on the guns, increase the tank's tread size for friction, weigh it all down and pray that the rest only lifts the tank a few feet.

[Strife26]

Why make it a closed compartment? I mean, if putting something that big's gonna require a complete redesign anyway, why not? I'm almost thinking something like a MGS Striker, devil-vehicle that it is.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[TheBronzePickle]

A recoilless rifle wastes most of the energy at that size, though. With a closed-breach cannon, the bullet gets the full force of the propellant explosion. With a recoilless rifle, it gets half, with the other half going to expelled gasses coming out the back. It doesn't scale up well because the mass of the projectile increases exponentially as the bore increases linearly, so you'd have to use a hell of a lot more explosives to achieve the same result.

[Strife26]

True, but if you're gonna take the full force of the recoil, how do you operate with a vehicle that isn't the size of a Maus?

[Loud Whispers]

Lasers or synthetic diamond weaponry and armour? Actually, what the hell will we use for armour? We've surely got better then bulletproof vests today.

Reactive armour+awesome carbon allotropes.

Then you've got major recoil problems, and the only way to deal with battleship sized recoil is with a battleship sized mass. Or digging in before firing, which isn't much good in modern, mobile warfare.

Railgun

No recoil, no explosives, no gases. Just electromagnetic and kinetic energy, all the way. Power source, gun, wheels = big tank with big dakka.

[TheBronzePickle]

Making a power source big enough with current technology would take the kind of tank that you'd fit the 16-inch gun safely on anyway.

Honestly, though, a 16-inch gun is overkill. That much explosive would cause massive collateral damage, and a solid slug would probably hurl the tank into the next city over instead of penetrating its armor simply because of the size. Better to keep a small gun and give it a faster potential muzzle velocity.

[Guardian G.I.]

US Army will replace everything with remote controlled drones. Everybody else will develop EMP weapons in responce.
World War 3 will probably look like an average robot uprising sci-fi film.

[Vattic]

Railgun

No recoil, no explosives, no gases. Just electromagnetic and kinetic energy, all the way. Power source, gun, wheels = big tank with big dakka.

But railguns do have recoil. Pushing the slug away from you will cause equal and opposite effect in the other direction. You end up with exactly the same problem: big slug means you need a much larger vehicle to compensate.

Edit: You could always have it fire rockets as they have little recoil.