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[Nirur Torir]

I just want the armor to look like overlapping plates.

I want LR sensors since we have LR missiles, and since space battles are decided so quickly, whoever gets LR capabilities first will have a decisive advantage. Fakeedit: And LR sensors will help with blockading.

Admittedly, we've been spending lots of revisions on space, but I'd like to keep going for one more turn. We need to keep A2 locked down so we can get our tanks there so they don't get the exotics.

[Madman198237]

That might be a good idea.

However, I'd recommend this: Let's see how many tanks (And how good they are) we can get, alright? If we don't get enough to win on every front we need to, we do artillery now. Otherwise, we do artillery next turn (Possible railguns/coilguns to make best use of the design?)

[Nirur Torir]

Two tank units, for A2 and B2 would be enough, alongside LR sensors. Those should let us keep C2's orbit against their current spaceforce with just a single Iliad, and let us use an Iliad and the IMW on A2.

On the other hand, we can't get any tanks off on a contested orbit, so I'm not sure about sending 1 of 2 tanks to B2, and I will fight against any plan that only has a single Iliad over A2. Without LR sensors, I'd want everything there - I really do not want to lose that planet.


If we do go with artillery for revise, I think we should just make them basic missile vehicles, without doing fancy things like railguns.

[Madman198237]

That's what I said.

If we do artillery on a revision (Instead of LR, for example) it's rocket/missile-based.

If we do it on a design, we work a technological innovation in. Then, we design railguns, and nuclear reactors so our railguns can get ludicrously powerful.

[Nirur Torir]

That's what I said.

Oh. Yes, sorry about that.

I feel that starting with high-speed launchers for artillery would be spending too much effort solving a problem that we don't have yet, and that we should start with anti-infantry warheads instead if we're going for dedicated artillery instead of a bolter upgrade.

Also, we only really have one easily knocked out item (kevlar), and I would prefer to use that slot for fortifications made with military printers.

[Madman198237]

Well, the thing is, railgun artillery is an EXCELLENT place to start for both space combat and orbital bombardment. Basically, you accelerate a few hundred pounds of tungsten or some similar high-temperature material (For working in atmosphere, so it doesn't melt on the way in), and you get Call of Duty: Ghosts. In which, the ODIN system is actually almost reasonable. It'd WORK, which is just crazy.


Oh, and fast-firing anti-fighter railguns would be fun as well. As well as an almost-invisible-to-radar and nearly-stealth-fighter to attack their fighters with a railgun system. Be great for interdiction, as it'd be fast.


Really, what CAN'T you do with a railgun?

[10ebbor10]

3 Crocodile Light Tank: Nirur, Madman198237, 10ebbor10

[Nirur Torir]

Really, what CAN'T you do with a railgun?

Tracking missiles or indirect fire (the main thing I want artillery for), and acceptably durable weapons near our current tech level (as I understand it, the rails deform after a few shots, and need to be replaced). They do work pretty well against super-heavy vehicles, which we're unlikely to fight in the next ten turns, or heavy fortifications, which can be breached in simpler ways.

Given that they're still far from armor or shields that can take basic ortillary, and that atmosphere slows things anyway, I don't know whether a low or mid tech level railgun firing mechanism is worth tonnage that could be used for more rods or more firing ports. They're very powerful just with a gravity assist.

[Madman198237]

Actually not.

If we do Halo-style full-ship massive MAC (Mass Accelerator Cannons)-style weapons, then yeah, they can't track things. But the US Navy's present railgun prototype(s?) are small enough to be fit in a destroyer turret (Like a WWII guns-and-torpedoes destroyer) and still fire at extreme speeds in atmosphere. This makes it relatively easy for us to make one we can track missiles and shoot them down. (Large fractions of the speed of light? YES!) The problem in atmosphere is that the ammunition almost inevitably deforms on contact with the air. Deformed rails ARE an issue, but not after just a few shots. Plus, we're sci-fi. We can make non-deforming rails. Heck, it's probably possible, if we were to invent room-temperature superconductors and small fusion reactors or incredibly efficient batteries, to use a railgun system that never actually requires the projectile to touch the rails.


The basic premise of the railgun/coilgun/MAC gun is to invalidate all armor they might produce. If we make it, and then simply don't deploy it, we'll have a foolproof instantaneous one-turn hard counter to any armored vehicles they deploy. As well as a new toy for all our spacecraft. Speaking of spacecraft, for fun, I felt like writing something up:

Pillar-class Artillery Vessel
Using the hull of an Iliad-class, this interesting new development makes use of the full length of the hull, removing the missiles in favor of a huge railgun, based on the tech of Old Earth. The weapon stretches the length of the vessel, allowing for relatively gradual accelerations to high fractions of c. The weapon always points forwards, and all the thrusters are optimized for rapid turning over speed. The vessel fires a very large metallic rod, capable of punching through a planetary atmosphere to strike the ground with devastating force.


----This would be a good first development. A rod fired like that can reach speeds that result in impact detonations with strengths of more than 12 tons of TNT. Solves our artillery problems for all time, and as we upgrade sensors, we upgrade the ships to be capable of engaging hostile targets. Plus you can just have a few slabs of printed circuits sitting nearby to do all the firing calculations.

[10ebbor10]

A rod fired like that can reach speeds that result in impact detonations with strengths of more than 10 kilotons of TNT.

A rod dropped from orbit can reach those explosives.

A rod fired at high fractions of C would eliminate the planet.

[Madman198237]

High FRACTIONS of c is just about 1/10 to 1/5. Also, no, it wouldn't. That amount of mass would have to be travelling, not at a fraction, but rather at >60% of c. Travelling faster and faster adds mass to the travelling object, but not enough to literally destroy the planet.

A rod dropped from orbit reaches such ugly things as terminal velocity. Although that does depend. Let me see... This is the video. They're usually fairly reliable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rx5XyspHldk

I have to watch it myself, I'm not sure if they did the math for dropped or fired from orbit.

Whoops, never mind. Not quite that high. It would reach 11.5 tons of TNT impact detonations, roughly.

Of course, being accelerated out of a spaceship would likely give it better damage potential. I've got to find out where I heard 15 kilotons... Maybe I misheard something.

[Nirur Torir]

The basic premise of the railgun/coilgun/MAC gun is to invalidate all armor they might produce. If we make it, and then simply don't deploy it, we'll have a foolproof instantaneous one-turn hard counter to any armored vehicles they deploy. As well as a new toy for all our spacecraft. Speaking of spacecraft, for fun, I felt like writing something up:

That is not artillery. That is an anti-tank gun. They serve different roles, and artillery would be useful immediately. Our bolters should work decently against their first armored vehicle, giving us a turn to prepare a more dedicated response.

I don't think our first artillery should be orbital. That would both raise the cost and require us to keep orbits locked-down to use.

[Madman198237]

Artillery and antitank are the same roles. The only possible difference is if you want mortars, which can only be fired up. However, howitzers can be fired directly or indirectly, giving them all sorts of field applications. Antitank/antiarmor is just one of them.

[Nirur Torir]

Railgun anti-tank weapons aren't going to be effective with indirect fire or at extreme ranges(in atmosphere).

[Madman198237]

That's why it's a railgun HOWITZER. It would be capable of doing everything indirect or direct.