C&C3 vs. Battletech

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Jedi Master Spock
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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Mon Oct 13, 2008 8:52 pm

PainRack wrote:So no limits applies suddenly?
So the reasons for inaccuracy in your estimation are transparent.
Found it. 1.5kg for a solar recharger, providing 45 power points per hour. I can't link up to the fossial fuel quotes unfortunately, since I lost the relevant materials.
1.5 kg does not give area, which is what's necessary to resolve the solar charger question.

Anyway, I ran a search on "cray" "power point" site:classicbattletech.com, and got that he recalls someone coming up with 6 MJ/PP based on the fossil fuel charger (ref here).

I found Cray and Fallguy's discussion here. In that, the 6 MJ per power point comes up.

However, we have a couple serious scaling issues here, and if you prefer to avoid game mechanical arguments, this relies heavily on game mechanics. It also is subject to some problems. The CSHL is not the only choice; another quick Google search will get you this structurally similar argument, which goes to 65 MJ/PP based on different benchmarks and rounding.

A Blazer, IIRC, is the standard "laser infantry" weapon, and if I have the right stat block, consumes 10 PP for something like 1/3 damage point, which gives us a very different D/PP ratio than the CHSL. Your mileage may vary, but there tends to be a general problem scaling from large differences.

In general, VS debaters have preferred effects-based analysis to game-mechanical analysis, and universally, it's better to work directly from a weapon than to scale across a couple orders of magnitude (as we are when we use human-scale game mechanics to resolve BattleMech energy levels). On CBT.com, game mechanics seem to be king.

It's nice if the lasgun and lascannon match up pound-for-pound, but we prefer to analyze the effects of each one, if available, separately. And if that led us to the conclusion that they use radically different power packs, or have huge differences in effect, so be it. (Unfortunately for Thanatos, effects-based analysis doesn't support radical differences in lasgun/lascannon technology.)
Not exactly..... I actually disagree with him since he believes the standard translation of modern cannons firepower to damage point.
Standard meaning what? The point in the recent rulebook about the weapons roughly equivalent to modern MBT cannon dealing 0 damage to mechs, with heavier modern guns dealing reduced (but actual) damage?
Haha. Not in this case. have you EVER reviewed the physical damage calcs from physical attacks? They're not pretty.
Try me. Since BT armor is basically superconductive for shock (basically "hard" for speeds of projectile up to mach 10, turning a 10 cm projectile into damage distributed across multiple square meters) we're not actually worried too much about kinetic energy density, as we are with "soft" armor. (Basically, all RL armor is "soft" at hypersonic speeds.)

We're worried about total momentum of a projectile. So a 30 ton mech moving at 51 kph has the same momentum as a Mach 10 125 kg gauss rifle round, and should deal similar damage. Fudge that by 10% in the event that the impacting mech doesn't completely stop in the process of whacking the other - let's say 56 kph, to be safe - since the gauss round will pretty much stop when it hits a mech.

So, tell me - I don't have a rulebook in front of me - does a 56 kph 30 ton mech hockey-player body-check deal comparable damage to a gauss rifle, to within the total margin of error for the system (considering we have mech-weight, mech-speed, and damage point as variables, <25%)? If so, then the damage rules are perfectly consistent with super-hard armor shattering. If not, then you have cause to complain.
Really? So pray tell, what is the autocannon speed?
Variable depending on munition type and autocannon, clearly enough.

In general, almost certainly supersonic to low hypersonic
Is it hypersonic, ultrasonic or just sonic in nature from game mechanics? And if its ultrasonic, why is it that its damage nature is LESS than a Gauss rifle, which is 2,2?
Gauss rifles are ~ mach 10, per the Compendium and Master Rules. Mach 2.2 is contradicted by those, and by all references to Gauss Rifles as hypersonic weapons - numerous in the fiction - and is therefore easily discarded.
Or if we do reject the quote in favour of hypersonic quotes, why is it that the Gauss rifle range is LONGER than the autocannon? Or MGs vs AC/2s? Why is it that a much faster 20mm autocannon deals the exact same damage as the 20mm machine gun? Which is actually essentially a gatling cannon?
Try a heavier round with a higher velocity and much larger propellant charge, lower number of shells, and better flight characteristics with a tighter grouping in a shorter timespan for the autocannon. The machine gun probably delivers less kinetic energy, but as I pointed out above, we're not actually as concerned with the KE within the BT system, although it's crucial in comparison to other universes, both to understand how ridiculous BT armor is, and to examine its effects on other targets.

They're also only the same to within resolution of the system. In this case, that means they could be 1.5 and 2.5 damage points, respectively, which would mean the AC/2 actually does almost 1.7 times as much "true" damage as the machine gun. Always remember how much accuracy you're working with.
Lol. I didn't say it was manufacturing. I said it was the Clan Wolf REPLENISHMENT rate. Which is exactly how fast Clan Wolf could replace Battlemechs with Omnimechs.
Of course, it gets even worse. Since the Clan sibko community only produces thousands of babies, the entire Clan military force only has tens of hundreds of new recruits joining them yearly.And that's an upper estimate. There is a reason why the Clans could never have occupied the Inner Sphere.
Thousands total, or thousands per Clan?

I will note the record has them occupying a substantial territory within the Sphere as a result of their invasion, so they seem to have worked out something.

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Post by PainRack » Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:56 am

1. The Solar Recharger has no description of area. However, since its portable, such a facillity is obviously NOT a kilometers wide desert array.

2. The Blazer rifle is NOT the standard laser rifle. That would be.... the laser rifle. Be it an Intek or other model. The Blazer rifle is essentially a pumped up dual pulse laser rifle.

3. Effects based? Your usuage of an outlier point to discuss firepower aside, there's examples ranging from pulse lasers bouncing off roads in Endgame, small lasers setting wooden shacks on fire in Invading Clans, Small Laser being stopped by metal cover from Lostech......
It's nice if the lasgun and lascannon match up pound-for-pound, but we prefer to analyze the effects of each one, if available, separately. And if that led us to the conclusion that they use radically different power packs, or have huge differences in effect, so be it. (Unfortunately for Thanatos, effects-based analysis doesn't support radical differences in lasgun/lascannon technology.)
Other than the fact that the Lascannon has a infinitely larger power advantage, as seen by its ability to one shot kill Space Marines in power armour? Or the fact even the lasgun can melt/vapourise doors while you're going to rely on sustained output from the small laser for melting through armoured hatches from Battletech?
Standard meaning what? The point in the recent rulebook about the weapons roughly equivalent to modern MBT cannon dealing 0 damage to mechs, with heavier modern guns dealing reduced (but actual) damage?
Yup. My contention is that based on the Merkava, the Steiner missile incident, Battletech armour isn't solely ablative. As stated, my stance is not directly canonically supported.
So, tell me - I don't have a rulebook in front of me - does a 56 kph 30 ton mech hockey-player body-check deal comparable damage to a gauss rifle, to within the total margin of error for the system (considering we have mech-weight, mech-speed, and damage point as variables, <25%)? If so, then the damage rules are perfectly consistent with super-hard armor shattering. If not, then you have cause to complain.
First of all, I'm not going to address the science parts... Material science was never my forte, and I know that its complicated, but you can't simply ignore the fact that its the energy that counts when deforming(not surprising when ke is derived from momentum via Newton second law).But, nope, it doesn't. To even duplicate the gauss rifle damage, you would need a hundred ton mech kick, or the use of a hatchet attack or TSM.
DFA fubars the calcs however, with relatively low damage by dividing the weight of the mech by 10 and mutiplying it by 3, then scattering the damage.
Ditto for charging damage, which divides weight of mech by 10 and then mutiplying it by hexes moved. Default damage for charging mech is tonnage divided by 10...
Thousands total, or thousands per Clan?

I will note the record has them occupying a substantial territory within the Sphere as a result of their invasion, so they seem to have worked out something.
The Clans created a eugenics program that birthed thousands of genetically enhanced babies every year
Mechwarrior 3rd Edition.
As for the record, their military is still a mere FRACTION of the Inner Sphere. Even the FRR had more troops than any of the Invading Clans, and House Liao alone controls more planet than any Clan pre invasion, or has more troops. Their success came entirely from the fact that they were superbly trained and well equipped. A single mech trinary after all plowed an entire combined arms unit into the ground during the First Wave of the invasion.
Try a heavier round with a higher velocity and much larger propellant charge, lower number of shells, and better flight characteristics with a tighter grouping in a shorter timespan for the autocannon. The machine gun probably delivers less kinetic energy, but as I pointed out above, we're not actually as concerned with the KE within the BT system, although it's crucial in comparison to other universes, both to understand how ridiculous BT armor is, and to examine its effects on other targets.
You do know that wasn't a single question? The AC/20 have a much smaller ammunition weight than the Gauss rifle round, yet it does more damage at shorter ranges. Unless you believe that the round itself has no casing or propellant charges. Each of the issues about acs is answerable when considered alone, its when you lump it together that it becomes a problem.
Hell, try the fact that the Gauss rifle imparts MORE momentum and MORE ke than the AC/20 or AC/10, and yet only the AC/20 is sufficiently deadly enough to cause the target mech gyro to need to compensate. Or that the Heavy Gauss Rifle has so much recoil that it would unbalance the mech, but has no such influence on the target mech.
Gauss rifles are ~ mach 10, per the Compendium and Master Rules. Mach 2.2 is contradicted by those, and by all references to Gauss Rifles as hypersonic weapons - numerous in the fiction - and is therefore easily discarded.
Twice that of any conventional weapon is NOT Mach 10. One could easily argue that means conventional weapons are barely sonic or subsonic in nature.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Wed Oct 15, 2008 9:55 pm

PainRack wrote:1. The Solar Recharger has no description of area. However, since its portable, such a facillity is obviously NOT a kilometers wide desert array.
You have up to 80 kilojoules per power point per square meter within the RPG mechanics. I agree that doesn't compute well to ~ 1 GJ/damage point for energy weapons regardless of benchmark, but I point again to the epistemological weakness of your stance. You're relying heavily on game mechanics between two different game systems - BattleTech and the MechWarrior RPG - and further working across a substantial scale gap.
2. The Blazer rifle is NOT the standard laser rifle. That would be.... the laser rifle. Be it an Intek or other model. The Blazer rifle is essentially a pumped up dual pulse laser rifle.
Which is what you would use for laser infantry intended to take potshots at BattleMechs, right?
3. Effects based?
Yes, based on actual description of effect.
Your usuage of an outlier point
I challenge this claim. Show that it is an outlier.
to discuss firepower aside, there's examples ranging from pulse lasers bouncing off roads in Endgame, small lasers setting wooden shacks on fire in Invading Clans, Small Laser being stopped by metal cover from Lostech......
By all means, cite such examples in detail. I'm not going to take your word for numbers based on a second hand description with unstated analysis underlying it.

I agree the Endgame one is problematic, but I've presented quite a few examples already in my debate with Thanatos pointing towards gigajoule to tens of gigajoule range energy weapons.
Other than the fact that the Lascannon has a infinitely larger power advantage, as seen by its ability to one shot kill Space Marines in power armour?
Infinitely, no. Order of magnitude difference, yes.
Or the fact even the lasgun can melt/vapourise doors while you're going to rely on sustained output from the small laser for melting through armoured hatches from Battletech?
On a single burst to melt enough rock to slip a BattleMech up? On a single glancing shot to instantly kill multiple people in an explosion of heat and light?

Melting down metal doors does not put the lascannon above where I estimated them to be. I went over this at great length with Thanatos; there's few events that even suggest them to be within an order of magnitude of the bar I set.
Yup. My contention is that based on the Merkava, the Steiner missile incident, Battletech armour isn't solely ablative. As stated, my stance is not directly canonically supported.
I agree it isn't solely ablative on all scales. There is published material strongly suggesting that.
First of all, I'm not going to address the science parts... Material science was never my forte, and I know that its complicated, but you can't simply ignore the fact that its the energy that counts when deforming(not surprising when ke is derived from momentum via Newton second law).
Armor penetration models qualitatively vary based on how you model hardness/softness of the material. (See Nathan Okun's page for detailed discussion of basic armor penetration formulae and the "hard" and "soft" cases.)

Basically speaking, you have two typical scenarios. One, the armor is more or less "soft" - only the thin layer of the thick armor currently being deformed resists the impact. In this model, you have density of kinetic energy as the defining model, and penetration is proportionate to the square of the velocity.

Two, the armor is "hard" - all remaining layers contribute to the remaining resistance. Here, penetration is proportionate to the first power of velocity. Basically speaking, we move from density of kinetic energy to momentum. Failure tends to be more catastrophic when the armor fails - you get hard "plugs" of armor punched out and fast-moving bits of shrapnel.

Now, BT armor is definitely "hard," but there's a serious issue. Even in the "hard" model I summarized above, you're only working with the armor directly under the projectile - hence the density term. You're working with energy or momentum per unit area. BT armor, however, is so incredibly "hard" and distributes shock so quickly that a 10 cm mach 10 projectile interacts with several square meters of armor. The limit is plate size rather than projectile size.

And what that means is that not only the underlying layers, but the armor to either side is also helping distribute the momentum. That moves us from the momentum density of the "hard" models to simple momentum.
But, nope, it doesn't. To even duplicate the gauss rifle damage, you would need a hundred ton mech kick, or the use of a hatchet attack or TSM.
DFA fubars the calcs however, with relatively low damage by dividing the weight of the mech by 10 and mutiplying it by 3, then scattering the damage.
Ditto for charging damage, which divides weight of mech by 10 and then mutiplying it by hexes moved. Default damage for charging mech is tonnage divided by 10...
Check your math. 30 tons, divided by ten, times five hexes, gives fifteen damage, the same as a gauss rifle. A mech with a top speed of five hexes has, according to the descriptions readily available online, a top speed of 54 kph, about 4% off from what I suggested. Well within MOE, and in fact, about as close as possible within the resolution of the system.

Do not doubt that BattleTech armor's material composition is nothing short of magical - nothing distributes shock at speeds in excess of 0.001c AFAIK - but I'm not seeing the horrific inconsistency described. DFA numbers are a little low for one mech jumping on top of another one, but none of the rest stands as particularly egregious given the above model for BT armor.

Now, I doubt the original designers of BattleTech thought about it that way. They designed it that way to make the game work well - but there's a surprisingly coherent underlying explanation, if you happen to be looking at just the right models.
The Clans created a eugenics program that birthed thousands of genetically enhanced babies every year
Mechwarrior 3rd Edition.
For all we know, that could be anything short of a million, but that would refer to all the Clans.
You do know that wasn't a single question? The AC/20 have a much smaller ammunition weight than the Gauss rifle round, yet it does more damage at shorter ranges.
Check your math. An AC/20 gets five shots per ton, a gauss rifle eight.

While the propellant weight may well lead to the AC/20 having a smaller shell, it's also high-explosive, as opposed to inert. It also definitely has a lower velocity - less than half - that of a Gauss rifle, which helps explain why in the game it has a shorter range. It may also be the case that its large warhead is more sensitive to deflection at off-angles. (HEAT jet, perhaps? Maybe a series of shaped charges?).

I've mentioned this before: The example of the Gauss rifle makes it clear that autocannon do most of their damage via their explosive warheads.
Unless you believe that the round itself has no casing or propellant charges. Each of the issues about acs is answerable when considered alone, its when you lump it together that it becomes a problem.
Not necessarily. Even different kinds of AC/20 have radically different calibers (120mm vs 200mm) and are clearly radically different weapons.
Hell, try the fact that the Gauss rifle imparts MORE momentum and MORE ke than the AC/20 or AC/10, and yet only the AC/20 is sufficiently deadly enough to cause the target mech gyro to need to compensate.
Depends on how much of an explosive is in the round. Think about that carefully. Detonating a high explosive adds a lot of momentum and energy to the impact site.
Or that the Heavy Gauss Rifle has so much recoil that it would unbalance the mech, but has no such influence on the target mech.
According to what I see, the Heavy Gauss Rifle does a base of 25 damage, requiring a piloting skill on the target mech.

It also seems to have a curious damage-loss-at-range effect. Perhaps that it what you meant? Now that is illogical. The heavy gauss round should if anything be less affected by air resistance.
Twice that of any conventional weapon is NOT Mach 10.
It is at least mach 10. We have mach 5 conventional ballistic weapons now, and they are clearly available in the BTverse (see discussion of subcaliber sabot rounds and the Zeus sniper rifle in Close Quarters).
One could easily argue that means conventional weapons are barely sonic or subsonic in nature.
One could... in the 18th century.

By the end of the 19th century, the British navy was firing things in excess of mach 2 all the time. 20th century autocannon regularly reach mach 3. The first APDS rounds used by the British were mach 3.7 back in WWII; 20 years later, the Soviets had APDS rounds exceeding Mach 5. We can actually shoot things faster than mach 5 using conventional guns, but it doesn't seem worthwhile, and the mach 5 Zeus sniper rifle is the fastest muzzle velocity cited for a conventional gun in the BT fiction I analyzed.

"Hypersonic" is a term you're not even going to try to apply until you're pushing mach 5, so not only does the mach 2.2 claim completely contradict all common sense and multiple core rulebook descriptions of the gauss rifle, it also contradicts every reference to gauss rifle rounds being hypersonic.

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Post by Trinoya » Thu Oct 16, 2008 9:45 am

I've gotten a copy of crusader clans. While reading it confirms a lower mech count than initially thought, it still is fairly high end when considering total number of clans... The same goes for elementals (which have greater numbers than I initially assumed in clan wolf, as well as in Jade Falcon).

Next up:

The Firemoth is too small to carry AP gauss rifles.
It's alternate configuration F... and specifically it has THREE Anti-Personel Gauss Rifles. Since I can't hand you books through the computer you'll have to settle for this: http://sarna.net/wiki/Fire_Moth

In regards to your continued assertion that mechs don't do guard duty (and then you assertion that they do do guard duty with even HEAVIER mechs, but only light slow mechs... but only heavy mechs.... but they don't guard at all) I'm going to just ignore it now... Your statements are strange at best... One moment you're shouting "They don't guard anything" the next your trying to say, "only certain types..." When all I'm saying is that 20-40 ton mechs have been employed as guards.

The short of it is you don't know what you're talking about from any type of military or logistical stand point. Mechs of all types and sizes have been seen in countless books guarding convoys and drop ships, supply lines and factories. Hell the RPG is BUILT around light mechs defending things. From the innersphere, to comstar, to clan... they use mechs to guard things, deal with it. Oddly you seem to acknowledge this fact but suddenly are assuming, for god knows why, that they just can't seem to order someone in a 20-40 ton mech to guard something if it isn't super special in some way... which it doesn't have to be... It's stupid, and I'm not playing that game anymore since it isn't even relevant to this scenario. The clan has nothing to guard... just an enemy to wipe out and force surrender from... I'm sure I'll see a 'concession accepted' statement to all of this, but frankly, I don't even know what point you're trying to make with it anymore... I think the review I did of your statements is proof enough of why no one would.

Moving on to more relevant issues.

GDI Numbers:
Trying to figure out the numbers of the GDI military is... well, difficult to say the least. GDI has to govern roughly eighteen individual territories, none of which are directly connected, and this is ignoring all their yellow zone obligations.

So this is what we have: Northern Europe, North Eastern American Seaboard, British Isles, South Eastern Arabian Peninsula, Portugal, Japan, Korea, Southern end of South America, Canberra: Australia, South African Republic, Southwest North America, South Island, New Zealand, Southwest Africa, Madagascar, Iceland, Alaska, Chukotskiy: Koryakskiy, Greenland, and the Himalayas.

This is it... GDI controls only that and nothing more for the purposes of what they must defend. Nod has already been soundly taken care of in large part by the GDI and itself... therefore, unless someone can prove to me that this will be a protracted engagement... I think we can safely rule out Nod interference of any substantial worth for at least the first two weeks.

Now, I've been nice up to now and given GDI 1.5 million soldiers in independent fields (compared to the US military three million soldiers, I'm being very generous), even though no concrete numbers have been given and GDI was becoming less focused on the military... AND have just gone through a major war, AND just went through the total destruction of much of Europe, AND has a shattered infrastructure due to nods attacks earlier...

But for our purposes, within this post, I'll concede that GDI has 1.5 million combat ready units.

Lets get some approximations going for total numbers here: I'm going to ignore the fact that there is now going to be an even distribution in regards to high end 'heavier' troops and vehicles when compared to crappy light end cannon fodder troops. I'm doing this so the math is nice and easy, and significantly more GDI favorable. We can narrow it down into the following groups:
Light Infantry (riflemen)
Heavy Infantry (zone trooper)
Light Ground Vehicles (GA-APC)
Heavy Ground Vehicles (tanks of all types)
Light air Vehicles (orcas)
Heavy Air Vehicles (firehawk)
Logistics (Engineers/Harvesting/Environmental Control/Transportation)

That's seven groups... Or 214,386 people in each individual field. Lets reduce it down to six total, since we assume GDI is smart enough not to send Engineers and Harvesters into battle (not saying they won't use them in battle operations, but they won't be on the front line). This gives us Six groups of 214,386, or a total of 1286316 battle ready men. Now then we have to spread these people out evenly over GDI territory.

Now then, assuming each group is spread evenly across the earth... We get 71,462 combat ready soldiers in each zone... 11,910 of each individual type.

Now, the primary battle here is going to be tank on mech action. Looking at the numbers we can give ourselves a total number of tanks that the GDI can field with this formula 214386/4 (average tank crew) = 53596. Lets divide this four ways for Predators and Mammoths both with and without rail guns (since were going to, again, assume it's even). This gives us 13399... high end. Of course, this is all spread out amongst 18 areas... or 744 of each type in any one blue zone... that's roughly 2976 tanks per blue zone. GDI suddenly just became a lot more manageable.

Now then... how big an area do these tanks have to police... well... Lets have a look:

ImageImage

Up top I have a rough description of the areas, of course it should be assumed that they are broken up into about 18 'blue zones.' The rest of earth you shouldn't even walk around outside without a mask on... It should be noted, that many blue zones have unusual 'pyramid' like structures that are very large... such as this one:

ImageImage

Not exactly good tank country if you ask me... Though I would expect mechs to be jumping around like mad.

Now, before anyone thinks I'm being mean to GDI here with those numbers: The US military fields some where around 8,000 M1As... And has only about 3 million people in its military... if wikipedia is to be trusted that is. Of note: The US military did not just loose a large number of soldiers in a war, did not have to deal with the destruction of a good part of Europe, and does not have to deal with a world in which 80% of its surface either can not at all or can just barely support human life... All of those facts are being ignored for these numbers.

Now, before I continue, I just want to get a few things out of the way:


Assumption: A majority of GDI should be located in, or heading towards, Europe after the LTB detonation. This would be to assist in their reconstruction and rescue operations after the millions of deaths that happened.

Fact: The Supreme leader of GDI forces is an idiot who does not understand how to wage war and is singlehandedly responsible for the death of numerous GDI soldiers, and one of the worst catastrophes earth has ever seen.

Fact: GDI space assets are a non issue. The clans presumably can safely destroy them at distance, or at worst with heavily armed fighters. Clan space superiority, however, is a non issue, because they can not bomb from space... however this greatly improves their chances for air superiority... as well as utilizing naval forces in atmosphere.

Assumption: We are forgoing the use of nuclear weapons as to utilize them would mean the clan would have no second thoughts about scorching the surface of the earth. More importantly, because the nod Nuclear arsenal was just recently rendered useless by GDI in Cario. This nicely removes both sides most powerful weapons (ion cannons/nukes, and orbital bombardment).

Fact: GDI was totally unprepared for the sudden strike of an ill equipped alien force of equal power to their own. They were overwhelmed and had lost entire cities in a matter of hours (with total destruction of those cities). This says something about GDI response time and also says something about GDI stationary defense forces.

Fact: GDI command is now located at the Pentagon.

Now then, this is going up against ten galaxies from Jade Falcon, Five galaxies from Clan Wolf (the primary strategists for this fight), and another six galaxies from Ice Hellion... The total naval assets of the invading force is enough to wipe out the GDI alone... The only rule is they can't bomb from orbit...

I maintain that the initial invasion forces will be half of Jade Falcons galaxies and Ice Hellions Galaxies. Clan Wolf will come in for clean up operations after the initial attack.

The number of drop ships being used alone makes this a sight to behold... With roughly 4 mechs to the drop ship...

For the purposes of naval assets... I'm going to say only Jade Falcons will get involved, with all other naval assets defending the ships in orbit.

This gives us in total some 23 ships with some very high end fire power involved in the fight... though I think a much more conservative number is appropriate... Something more around 5-8, with the rest providing close air support only, and not engaging ground targets. Once the target has been destroyed the clan naval forces will move in in full force to over see the evacuation of their forces... Then they will ask for GDI to surrender...

The goal is simple... destroy the Pentagon and much of the GDI command structure and pull out. Seth would be proud. Director Boyle can pick up the pieces and continue to be an idiot hiding in Iceland.

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Post by PainRack » Fri Oct 17, 2008 12:50 am

Trinoya wrote: In regards to your continued assertion that mechs don't do guard duty (and then you assertion that they do do guard duty with even HEAVIER mechs, but only light slow mechs... but only heavy mechs.... but they don't guard at all) I'm going to just ignore it now... Your statements are strange at best... One moment you're shouting "They don't guard anything" the next your trying to say, "only certain types..." When all I'm saying is that 20-40 ton mechs have been employed as guards.
Lol. You sir, are ridiculous. I specifically asked what you meant by light mechs, because your classification of their roles within the Clans were in error. The Clans do not use Light Mechs for guard duties. Stop strawmanning my points.
Not specifically anyway. Their roles within the Clans are orientated around their speed and firepower, and tying down a light mech for static duty is usually anaethema to good tactics. The Baboon and Uller are the closests mechs which do pull such duties, and even here, the Baboon is meant for fire support.
The caveat is of course, design does not neccesarily follow use.
This is it... GDI controls only that and nothing more for the purposes of what they must defend. Nod has already been soundly taken care of in large part by the GDI and itself... therefore, unless someone can prove to me that this will be a protracted engagement... I think we can safely rule out Nod interference of any substantial worth for at least the first two weeks.
Except that ZOCOM and Steel Wolf both establishes that GDI has military presence in Red and Yellow Zones, including conventional NOD territory.


And of course, all your statements essentially just strawmanned one point of mine. The Clans military are smaller than GDI, and in that single corps of troops, GDI fielded more soldiers than the Invading Clans frontline galaxies. IOW, you're NOT going to be able to use one single Clan to invade and occupy Earth, because you don't have the manpower.
Fact: GDI was totally unprepared for the sudden strike of an ill equipped alien force of equal power to their own. They were overwhelmed and had lost entire cities in a matter of hours (with total destruction of those cities). This says something about GDI response time and also says something about GDI stationary defense forces.
Despite the damage done to Europe, GDI also pulled together local assets devastated by both the Tiberium Bomb, GDI campaign as well as earlier NOD strikes, the destruction of various GDI Blue Zones and cities and the Scrin assault to successfully counter-attack and secure Germany and other GDI zones such tha the Scrin diversionary attack was crushed within a week. That's incredible.
Fact: GDI command is now located at the Pentagon.
Actually, that's debatable. GDI command is scattered across various bases. The Player gets the Pentagon because you're the Eastern Seaboard commander, and it turns out that the remainding Command Centres got hit badly enough that they were unable to coordinate GDI forces. However, by this point in time, its unknown whether Iceland has recovered enough to provide a command facilllity, altough General Granger, the presumably highest surviving GDI senior officer is located at the Pentagon.
Now then, this is going up against ten galaxies from Jade Falcon, Five galaxies from Clan Wolf (the primary strategists for this fight), and another six galaxies from Ice Hellion... The total naval assets of the invading force is enough to wipe out the GDI alone... The only rule is they can't bomb from orbit...
Which was never in contention. The contention was your errorneous assumptions about Clan military strength
You have up to 80 kilojoules per power point per square meter within the RPG mechanics. I agree that doesn't compute well to ~ 1 GJ/damage point for energy weapons regardless of benchmark, but I point again to the epistemological weakness of your stance. You're relying heavily on game mechanics between two different game systems - BattleTech and the MechWarrior RPG - and further working across a substantial scale gap.
Except that both mechanics were orginally intended to mesh together. Witness the Support Laser/Small laser augmentation.
Which is what you would use for laser infantry intended to take potshots at BattleMechs, right?
Actually, anti Elementals. The laser rifles meant for use against Battlemechs are either the standard Intek laser rifles, or as speculated, augmentated heavy laser rifles with military powerpacks. The canon itself is divided on the issue. However, Blazers were specifically invented so as to provide infantry with some anti elemental capability. Although the Dragonsbane was also soon introduced.
I agree the Endgame one is problematic, but I've presented quite a few examples already in my debate with Thanatos pointing towards gigajoule to tens of gigajoule range energy weapons.
More examples with no description of surface area? Pray tell, how is the entry in Invading Clans, when the Elementals turned up the power on the small lasers and set the wooden shack on fire somehow now invalid?
On a single burst to melt enough rock to slip a BattleMech up? On a single glancing shot to instantly kill multiple people in an explosion of heat and light?
Which invalidates that Small lasers require sustained fire to burn through armoured hatches? Or that an infantry SRM fired in the midsts of an headquarters can kill an Elemental but leave surrounding people alive from the Stackpole Clan trilogy?
Check your math. 30 tons, divided by ten, times five hexes, gives fifteen damage, the same as a gauss rifle. A mech with a top speed of five hexes has, according to the descriptions readily available online, a top speed of 54 kph, about 4% off from what I suggested. Well within MOE, and in fact, about as close as possible within the resolution of the system.
SCATTERED damage. That means the force/energy is actually not being applied over a single armour plate but rather over multiple locs, which would actually argue for a DECREASED energy.
For all we know, that could be anything short of a million, but that would refer to all the Clans.
Right. So the Clan population would now jump by a million yearly and still be sustainable? Or not expotentially increase especially given the normal means of conception found in the rest of the Clan castes? Do you even check your statements for consistency with the rest of the Btech franchise?

Check your math. An AC/20 gets five shots per ton, a gauss rifle eight
And as specifically mentioned, unless you believe the AC/20 has NO propellant or casing, that would mean its has a smaller weight. This even though it is specifically mention that caseless autocannons are able to cram more rounds into a ammuntion slot because.... its caseless.
While the propellant weight may well lead to the AC/20 having a smaller shell, it's also high-explosive, as opposed to inert. It also definitely has a lower velocity - less than half - that of a Gauss rifle, which helps explain why in the game it has a shorter range. It may also be the case that its large warhead is more sensitive to deflection at off-angles. (HEAT jet, perhaps? Maybe a series of shaped charges?).
Its still APHE. Using explosive rounds and either the 10 shot model, or worse, hundred shot models from the Dark Age Hatchetman, you're going to get middling worth of explosives contained in each round. Furthermore, the range/speed issue is also another area of difficult quantification. The quotes actually state that AC/20s are ultrasonic,with some even having it as hypersonic. The same ranges of speed used to describe Gauss rifles.
It also seems to have a curious damage-loss-at-range effect. Perhaps that it what you meant? Now that is illogical. The heavy gauss round should if anything be less affected by air resistance.
Yes.
It is at least mach 10. We have mach 5 conventional ballistic weapons now, and they are clearly available in the BTverse (see discussion of subcaliber sabot rounds and the Zeus sniper rifle in Close Quarters).
You're using infantry weapons to discuss mech weaponery? This when conventional weaponery from the game mechanics actually has it as just 300m to similar game speeds?

We even learn that Mechs autocannons were specifically designed to be different from modern day weapons.
"Hypersonic" is a term you're not even going to try to apply until you're pushing mach 5, so not only does the mach 2.2 claim completely contradict all common sense and multiple core rulebook descriptions of the gauss rifle, it also contradicts every reference to gauss rifle rounds being hypersonic.
And? There are still MORE examples of Mach 2.2 than twice the conventional speed from inline game canon sources, which has no actual description of speed for its so called conventional weapon, and the hypersonic Mach 5.5 is similarly part of the varying quotes about Btech ballistic weaponery.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Oct 17, 2008 2:16 am

PainRack wrote:Except that both mechanics were orginally intended to mesh together.
Not particularly tightly.
Witness the Support Laser/Small laser augmentation.
Witness the radically different range.
More examples with no description of surface area? Pray tell, how is the entry in Invading Clans, when the Elementals turned up the power on the small lasers and set the wooden shack on fire somehow now invalid?
By all means, quote away.

However, I suspect the incident in question hasn't even been carefully quantified by you.
Which invalidates that Small lasers require sustained fire to burn through armoured hatches? Or that an infantry SRM fired in the midsts of an headquarters can kill an Elemental but leave surrounding people alive from the Stackpole Clan trilogy?
An infantry SRM is not necessarily the same thing as a BattleMech SRM, and Elementals are perfectly vulnerable to lucky hits.

As I said, if you want to show anything, show it. I'm not going to accept vague references to incidents that I'm supposed to somehow divine your quantification for (and accept) without actual quotes and actual analysis.
SCATTERED damage. That means the force/energy is actually not being applied over a single armour plate but rather over multiple locs, which would actually argue for a DECREASED energy.
Same total momentum, same total damage.
Right. So the Clan population would now jump by a million yearly and still be sustainable?
This is a multi-planetary group. An annual "birth" rate of a million could easily be a drop in the bucket.

"Thousands" can refer to anything within a span three orders of magnitude wide.
And as specifically mentioned, unless you believe the AC/20 has NO propellant or casing, that would mean its has a smaller weight. This even though it is specifically mention that caseless autocannons are able to cram more rounds into a ammuntion slot because.... its caseless.
Well, further, we have hundreds of kilograms of shells flying through the air in (say) Endgame descriptions. So a pretty reasonable fraction of weight is actual shell.
Its still APHE. Using explosive rounds and either the 10 shot model, or worse, hundred shot models from the Dark Age Hatchetman, you're going to get middling worth of explosives contained in each round. Furthermore, the range/speed issue is also another area of difficult quantification. The quotes actually state that AC/20s are ultrasonic,with some even having it as hypersonic. The same ranges of speed used to describe Gauss rifles.
Middling worth of what kind of explosives? I'm not expecting modern TNT any more than I am when I look at WH40k explosive rounds. I actually am expecting total energy not terribly dissimilar from gauss rounds.

A mach 5 weapon can be described adequately as hypersonic.
You're using infantry weapons to discuss mech weaponery? This when conventional weaponery from the game mechanics actually has it as just 300m to similar game speeds?
The quote says any conventional weapon.
We even learn that Mechs autocannons were specifically designed to be different from modern day weapons.
And? Such is what we expect.
And? There are still MORE examples of Mach 2.2 than twice the conventional speed from inline game canon sources,
I'm going to call you on this one. The "twice the conventional speed of any conventional weapon" is part of a description that is repeated verbatim in at least four editions of the core rulebook - CityTech 2nd edition, BattleTech Compendium, BattleTech Master Rules, and BattleTech Master Rules (revised).

It's probably also recycled in some other books.

The "mach 2.2" bit, so far as I know, is a single mention in a Yellow Jacket description in a single book. It's also patently absurd. A primarily kinetic weapon of the 31st century is not going to have a speed that barely rivals modern rifles.
which has no actual description of speed for its so called conventional weapon, and the hypersonic Mach 5.5 is similarly part of the varying quotes about Btech ballistic weaponery.
If you have the quotes, produce them.

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Post by PainRack » Fri Oct 17, 2008 4:19 pm

lol. I quoted Warriors of Kerensky and utterly forgot about this portion.
Caste Warrior: Percentage 0.01 Population: 110,500.

I'm sorry, but I miscalculated. That entire corps of GDI forces OUTNUMBERS the entire Clan military.

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Post by Jedi Master Spock » Fri Oct 17, 2008 7:23 pm

PainRack wrote:lol. I quoted Warriors of Kerensky and utterly forgot about this portion.
Caste Warrior: Percentage 0.01 Population: 110,500.

I'm sorry, but I miscalculated. That entire corps of GDI forces OUTNUMBERS the entire Clan military.
Well, if the average lifespan of the warrior caste is 30 years (cited as "old" in Exodus Road) then that would be about 3-4,000 per year. If the caste count only includes those that have passed their training and not gotten washed out into another caste, and the average career length in the military is only 5 years, that would still only be 22,000 new warriors per year.

That also gives the total population - 10,000 * 100,000 = about a billion.

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Post by Trinoya » Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:49 am

Except that ZOCOM and Steel Wolf both establishes that GDI has military presence in Red and Yellow Zones, including conventional NOD territory.
That's odd... I thought I was being really nice when I said they can IGNORE their yellow zone obligations so that you can get higher end defensive numbers... Either A) you're not reading my posts or, B) You clearly want me to give you even lower numbers.

So much for being nice. Since you are so apt to loose them, here you are!

Yellow zone defense incorporates a presumed additional fifty percent (and I'm still going to ignore red zones because your numbers just will be pathetic then). The numbers we are dealing with now are significantly lower and might help explain why GDI fared so poorly against the sudden attacks by Nod and the Scrin. So, how many forces does GDI have to defend its numerous yellow and blue zone obligations now?

Increasing our distribution we get an adjustment to troop levels that is about 20,417 per zone. Each group in a zone comprises around 3,402 of each type. Lets go back into the Tank vs Mech warfare that is the primary focus of this debate.

850 tanks of various types.. or 212 fully upgraded mammoths to defend the eastern seaboard... and only 6804 infantry, only half of which are worth any concern.

Of course, we could also assume an even distribution across cities, since obviouslly they are not all within DC or a hop skip and a jump away, however, it's already sad enough... So I'm going to forgo making your numbers even more useless since I don't actually want to count every major city and 40% of the military bases on the east coast of the United States.

Thank you for letting battletech win.

And of course, all your statements essentially just strawmanned one point of mine. The Clans military are smaller than GDI, and in that single corps of troops, GDI fielded more soldiers than the Invading Clans frontline galaxies. IOW, you're NOT going to be able to use one single Clan to invade and occupy Earth, because you don't have the manpower.
I've already stated I will be using three clans now... regardless of if you missed that point or not, it was stated. Furthermore, I've quite proved that GDI does NOT have the capability to bring these forces to bear fast enough due to its logistical constraints on man power and where they need to be right now (which is Europe).
Despite the damage done to Europe, GDI also pulled together local assets devastated by both the Tiberium Bomb, GDI campaign as well as earlier NOD strikes, the destruction of various GDI Blue Zones and cities and the Scrin assault to successfully counter-attack and secure Germany and other GDI zones such tha the Scrin diversionary attack was crushed within a week. That's incredible.
No, it's sad, at best. The Scrin arrived and did not expect a military engagement. They proceeded to create a diversion to buy time for the construction of the towers. They succeeded on levels, taking out numerous cities and finishing one tower. The only reason they attacked cities was to buy time... and the GDI fell into that trap wonderfully.

None of it is incredible or even noteworthy, except perhaps worthy of how stupid GDI was in fighting the Scrin and Nod due to inept leadership telling them to throw more and more men into the fray...
Actually, that's debatable. GDI command is scattered across various bases. The Player gets the Pentagon because you're the Eastern Seaboard commander, and it turns out that the remainding Command Centres got hit badly enough that they were unable to coordinate GDI forces. However, by this point in time, its unknown whether Iceland has recovered enough to provide a command facilllity, altough General Granger, the presumably highest surviving GDI senior officer is located at the Pentagon.
The pentagon was stated to be the last viable command center for GDI forces. There is no contradiction to this statement as far as I am aware (though if you can provide one I'll be more than willing to listen). GDI command is varied, obviously, but frankly, it isn't THAT varied when they state that the pentagon is where they are consolidating their command forces. Also a note in regards to Iceland: The Iceland command center was still being rebuilt (and we can assume is partially operational). Still, even you admit, Granger is at the pentagon... and frankly, he is the most competent leader GDI has at this time, and the only real voice against the Director.

But I digress: I'm looking at Crusader Clans and I must say, it's interesting. I'm counting, just right now... 214 Mech Trianaries for jade falcon... approximately somewhere around 3255 mechs of various types... and about 575 elementals. These aren't the exact numbers, by any means (after all, Ice Hellion is also invading, with Clan Wolf too), but they are a good figure to get the ball rolling.

So here is the situation for you... numerous drop ships descend on the greater DC area... Blasting the roof of the pentagon open, with elementals descending into it... Mechs begin destroying the major bridges while Aerospace fighters from Ice Hellion patrol the skies (with support from warships and drop ships). Power stations are disabled, highways destroyed and within an hour everyone in the pentagon is dead or captured... The mechs pull out of DC before substantial forces can arrive to meet them, the Drop Ships taking them to safety and repair.

Even if the entire eastern seaboard defensive fighting force was located at DC (some 20,417 soldiers) there are STILL more mechs than tanks (850) from jade falcons forces alone. Hell, potentially there could be more drop ships than there are tanks with rail guns.

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Post by PainRack » Sat Nov 29, 2008 2:50 am

Trinoya wrote: That's odd... I thought I was being really nice when I said they can IGNORE their yellow zone obligations so that you can get higher end defensive numbers... Either A) you're not reading my posts or, B) You clearly want me to give you even lower numbers.
lol. Real life just eased up on me, and upon rereading the threads, I just had to comment on this..........................

Are you daft? We're were comparing the total numbers of the C&C military vs the Clans. OF COURSE those numbers count!
!
So, how many forces does GDI have to defend its numerous yellow and blue zone obligations now?
Which will change the fact that GDI were able to concentrate large number of forces in the Blue Zones to combat both NOD and the Scrin? This even after the Tiberium explosion and the NOD conflict wreaked havoc with GDI in Europe?
Thank you for letting battletech win.
And the Clans will of course focus thousands of mechs at each point to win a battle? This even though climatic battles like the Battle of Tukayyid actually saw battles being resolved around the Cluster vs division level? This ignores both Clan and Sphere tactics which would spin combat down into much smaller tactical levels.
I've already stated I will be using three clans now... regardless of if you missed that point or not, it was stated. Furthermore, I've quite proved that GDI does NOT have the capability to bring these forces to bear fast enough due to its logistical constraints on man power and where they need to be right now (which is Europe).
Except that they DID bring those forces to bear against the Scrin and against NOD.
No, it's sad, at best. The Scrin arrived and did not expect a military engagement. They proceeded to create a diversion to buy time for the construction of the towers. They succeeded on levels, taking out numerous cities and finishing one tower. The only reason they attacked cities was to buy time... and the GDI fell into that trap wonderfully.
Which changed the fact that GDI was able to respond to such an attack within days and concentrate scattered units into a cohesive military force............... how?
None of it is incredible or even noteworthy, except perhaps worthy of how stupid GDI was in fighting the Scrin and Nod due to inept leadership telling them to throw more and more men into the fray...
You obviously have no concept of how difficult it is to organise military forces. Granted, this is forced upon the player due to game mechanics but that's how the game universe works.
The pentagon was stated to be the last viable command center for GDI forces.
In the opening weeks of the war. This conflict occured much later, and we're STILL talking about the Pentagon being the world command centre.
Also a note in regards to Iceland: The Iceland command center was still being rebuilt (and we can assume is partially operational). Still, even you admit, Granger is at the pentagon... and frankly, he is the most competent leader GDI has at this time, and the only real voice against the Director.
He's the last surviving general and the military leader of GDI due to the chain of command. He was the most senior of the surviving general staff who survived the Philadelphia and the opening days of the war.
That doesn't change the fact that the Iceland command centre was capable of coordinating operations and indeed, created its OWN tiberium bomb and deployed them to Rome so that you had the choice to use it against the Scrin.
So here is the situation for you... numerous drop ships descend on the greater DC area... Blasting the roof of the pentagon open, with elementals descending into it... Mechs begin destroying the major bridges while Aerospace fighters from Ice Hellion patrol the skies (with support from warships and drop ships). Power stations are disabled, highways destroyed and within an hour everyone in the pentagon is dead or captured... The mechs pull out of DC before substantial forces can arrive to meet them, the Drop Ships taking them to safety and repair.
Which would change the fact that the Clans would find it difficult to occupy Earth against GDI and NOD resistance because of their low numbers....... how?

We also ignore how unrealistic your tactics are in terms of battletech, where the Clans attempt to avoid civilian targets and infrastructure as part of their ideology, where the Clans don't cooperate with each other military unless via elaborate contracts... Even multiple dropship landing into the midst of a city may be impossible due to navigational and other difficulties, although no hard limits other than the now defunct Battlespace game exist.

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Post by PainRack » Sat Nov 29, 2008 3:11 am

Trinoya wrote: That's odd... I thought I was being really nice when I said they can IGNORE their yellow zone obligations so that you can get higher end defensive numbers... Either A) you're not reading my posts or, B) You clearly want me to give you even lower numbers.
lol. Real life just eased up on me, and upon rereading the threads, I just had to comment on this..........................

Are you daft? We're were comparing the total numbers of the C&C military vs the Clans. OF COURSE those numbers count!
!
So, how many forces does GDI have to defend its numerous yellow and blue zone obligations now?
Which will change the fact that GDI were able to concentrate large number of forces in the Blue Zones to combat both NOD and the Scrin? This even after the Tiberium explosion and the NOD conflict wreaked havoc with GDI in Europe?
Thank you for letting battletech win.
And the Clans will of course focus thousands of mechs at each point to win a battle? This even though climatic battles like the Battle of Tukayyid actually saw battles being resolved around the Cluster vs division level? This ignores both Clan and Sphere tactics which would spin combat down into much smaller tactical levels.
I've already stated I will be using three clans now... regardless of if you missed that point or not, it was stated. Furthermore, I've quite proved that GDI does NOT have the capability to bring these forces to bear fast enough due to its logistical constraints on man power and where they need to be right now (which is Europe).
Except that they DID bring those forces to bear against the Scrin and against NOD.
No, it's sad, at best. The Scrin arrived and did not expect a military engagement. They proceeded to create a diversion to buy time for the construction of the towers. They succeeded on levels, taking out numerous cities and finishing one tower. The only reason they attacked cities was to buy time... and the GDI fell into that trap wonderfully.
Which changed the fact that GDI was able to respond to such an attack within days and concentrate scattered units into a cohesive military force............... how?
None of it is incredible or even noteworthy, except perhaps worthy of how stupid GDI was in fighting the Scrin and Nod due to inept leadership telling them to throw more and more men into the fray...
You obviously have no concept of how difficult it is to organise military forces. Granted, this is forced upon the player due to game mechanics but that's how the game universe works.
The pentagon was stated to be the last viable command center for GDI forces.
In the opening weeks of the war. This conflict occured much later, and we're STILL talking about the Pentagon being the world command centre.
Also a note in regards to Iceland: The Iceland command center was still being rebuilt (and we can assume is partially operational). Still, even you admit, Granger is at the pentagon... and frankly, he is the most competent leader GDI has at this time, and the only real voice against the Director.
He's the last surviving general and the military leader of GDI due to the chain of command. He was the most senior of the surviving general staff who survived the Philadelphia and the opening days of the war.
That doesn't change the fact that the Iceland command centre was capable of coordinating operations and indeed, created its OWN tiberium bomb and deployed them to Rome so that you had the choice to use it against the Scrin.
So here is the situation for you... numerous drop ships descend on the greater DC area... Blasting the roof of the pentagon open, with elementals descending into it... Mechs begin destroying the major bridges while Aerospace fighters from Ice Hellion patrol the skies (with support from warships and drop ships). Power stations are disabled, highways destroyed and within an hour everyone in the pentagon is dead or captured... The mechs pull out of DC before substantial forces can arrive to meet them, the Drop Ships taking them to safety and repair.
Which would change the fact that the Clans would find it difficult to occupy Earth against GDI and NOD resistance because of their low numbers....... how?

We also ignore how unrealistic your tactics are in terms of battletech, where the Clans attempt to avoid civilian targets and infrastructure as part of their ideology, where the Clans don't cooperate with each other military unless via elaborate contracts... Even multiple dropship landing into the midst of a city may be impossible due to navigational and other difficulties, although no hard limits other than the now defunct Battlespace game exist.

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Post by Trinoya » Tue Dec 02, 2008 12:46 pm

are you daft
This is interesting since the line of statements that laid to this particular quote are all about me giving you numbers and higher concentrations and you ultimately failing to understand that the GDI will defend the blue zones, not the yellow zones… All I attempted to do was give you higher end figures which is why I stated I was being nice. You trying to act as though there are mystical numbers that I some how was not taking into account has no bearing on the debate at hand. I presented the numbers and their distributions in the previous post I made so lets move on.


First and foremost: I’m going to ignore the numerous worthless statements and red herrings you have created after this brief addressing: Over a month passed and the best you could come up with, the most repeated argument you had, was to ignore any point that was being made and respond with, “It doesn’t change this fact all the way over here out in no point being made land.”

Moving on:
And the Clans will of course focus thousands of mechs at each point to win a battle? This even though climatic battles like the Battle of Tukayyid actually saw battles being resolved around the Cluster vs division level? This ignores both Clan and Sphere tactics which would spin combat down into much smaller tactical levels.
The novels clearly indicate that when it comes to earth normal clan tactics are out the window, and that Clan Wolf does not subscribe to the normal tactical limitations of the clans and their honor system. Since the GDI and Nod know nothing of the clan honor and bidding system they will be unable to play that card to their advantage as well (in fact, it is more likely to work to their disadvantage).

For those that are not aware: The moment the GDI and Nod are declared to be “defeated” the clans will expect no further resistance. Should it appear they will simply wipe all GDI and Nod citizens from the surface of the earth (but hey, at least the mutants still get to live). Since the weapons to do this are on board their drop ships (though granted, not in significantly higher concentrations) they can do this particular bombing in atmosphere too…

Short of it: There will be NO counter resistance past the first instance. The moment the GDI or Nod command structure formally surrenders the war will be, for all intents and purposes to the clan, over... Anyone who continues to fight will simply be killed and with overwhelming force used to make a point.
You obviously have no concept of how difficult it is to organise military forces.
You clearly have no knowledge on the capabilities of the universes we are dealing with. Stop spewing BS now or from this point forward you will be ignored. That said…

The US military can respond anywhere in the world with substantial force in around 24 hours and can perform full deployment in a matter of weeks.

GDI and Nod, in comparison, show deployment of substantial military force and full forces in about half that time (although looking at some Nod incidents we may get higher end ground deployment by nod forces by a significant margin). GDI is able to deploy a good portion of its military in about 12 hours to any particular region with Nod being able to do similar feats in about 9-10 hours. GDI had a better deployment time during the second tiberium war, but they also had significantly more bases to deploy from. It should be noted as well that the Philadelphia allowed rapid deployment of forces in minutes anywhere in the world but that this capability is essentially lost.

The clans have the full deployment option available to them in a matter of minutes as well. Having total and complete space superiority in this situation allows full deployment in mere minutes of their ENTIRE force if they chose too. There is also no reason that they wouldn’t deploy in substantial numbers against a dishonorable enemy as well.
Except that they DID bring those forces to bear against the Scrin and against NOD.
No they didn’t, now you’re lying. Had they brought a majority of their forces to bear many cities would have NEVER been destroyed. Hell the cities that were destroyed were in a location that should have had the bulk of regional forces. The simple fact of the matter was the GDI was fighting an opponent that while technologically superior in many ways, was par with them as far as military capability went… and the GDI were tactically outsmarted and outgunned… not technologically.

What ended up happening during the final “big GDI push” in italy, their largest offensive? They lost… TO NOD. Scrin forces got away, and Nod successfully defended a target that was shooting at them as well. Nod forces were in more disarray than GDI and yet they still managed to defend the tower long enough before GDI finally destroyed the Relay Node which they had somehow, only recently, realized was important (even though it was spewing a planetary wide radiation field that reached to the moon and was visible to the naked eye…).

In the opening weeks of the war. This conflict occured much later, and we're STILL talking about the Pentagon being the world command centre.
He's the last surviving general and the military leader of GDI due to the chain of command. He was the most senior of the surviving general staff who survived the Philadelphia and the opening days of the war.
None of this matters, Granger will be dead or captured in the opening hour of the conflict… and the pentagon will be destroyed.
That doesn't change the fact that the Iceland command centre was capable of coordinating operations and indeed, created its OWN tiberium bomb and deployed them to Rome so that you had the choice to use it against the Scrin.
First and foremost: There is no counter evidence to the pentagon currently still being the center of all major command decisions and therefore the world command center… The closest you have is the fact that there is another command center mentioned, though we do not know any additional information in regards to its current status.

Secondedly and to borrow your statements: This changes the fact that the clan will be taking these command centers out with absolutely no substantial counter attacks being able to be utilized against them how?

In the opening hour of the battle the entire GDI command structure will be gone. What is so hard to understand about that?
Which would change the fact that the Clans would find it difficult to occupy Earth against GDI and NOD resistance because of their low numbers....... how?

We also ignore how unrealistic your tactics are in terms of battletech, where the Clans attempt to avoid civilian targets and infrastructure as part of their ideology, where the Clans don't cooperate with each other military unless via elaborate contracts... Even multiple dropship landing into the midst of a city may be impossible due to navigational and other difficulties, although no hard limits other than the now defunct Battlespace game exist.
I’ve addressed the issue of occupation.

And for as ‘unrealistic’ as you believe my tactics are in terms of battletech I provided more than enough reason for them to use them… I even said the tactically ‘dishonorable’ clan wolf would be planning the invasion for total success… which, btw, large concentrations of numbers or overwhelming ‘dishonorable’ force is on par for them.

In regards to them not working together: Well gee, we already know the clans, all clans, have one goal that overrides everything else. Earth, and for the purposes of this debate I believe it states, “how many clans are needed.”

Three.

Of course, you’ve managed to ignore numerous things (like the fact that more drop ships than tanks of any substantial threat will be involved in an engagement) so I’m not terribly surprised that you’ve managed to forget what the thread is about again.

Remove space forces of GDI (Done in the opening minutes of the war)
Conquer all blue zones with as little collateral damage as possible (done by destroying the GDI command staff and literally dropping forces right into GDI bases)
And weed out nod resistance (Done by clan honor demanding that the honorless be destroyed with extreme prejudice. The first nuke and nod is bye bye!).

But I digress…

The real winners? The Forgotten.

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Post by PainRack » Sat Dec 06, 2008 9:37 pm

Trinoya wrote: This is interesting since the line of statements that laid to this particular quote are all about me giving you numbers and higher concentrations and you ultimately failing to understand that the GDI will defend the blue zones, not the yellow zones… All I attempted to do was give you higher end figures which is why I stated I was being nice. You trying to act as though there are mystical numbers that I some how was not taking into account has no bearing on the debate at hand. I presented the numbers and their distributions in the previous post I made so lets move on[/quote].
Actually, its about you attacking a red herring and me once again pointing out that the Clan military is vastly outnumbered by GDI or NOD, which was the WHOLE point of my post!
The novels clearly indicate that when it comes to earth normal clan tactics are out the window,
Guess what? Wrong again. Clan Jade Falcon is explictly stated to be so tradition bound that she would not abandon single combat.
and that Clan Wolf does not subscribe to the normal tactical limitations of the clans and their honor system. Since the GDI and Nod know nothing of the clan honor and bidding system they will be unable to play that card to their advantage as well (in fact, it is more likely to work to their disadvantage).
Which has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that the Clans don't cooperate well together due to their traditions, the fact that Clan Wolf DOES subscribe to the normal limitations of the honor system. The only mention of them abandoning such precepts is during the Jade Wolf refusal war, and even this is inconistently implemented.
Which I would like to say, means once again, the tactics you're dreaming of is pure fantasy.
For those that are not aware: The moment the GDI and Nod are declared to be “defeated” the clans will expect no further resistance. Should it appear they will simply wipe all GDI and Nod citizens from the surface of the earth (but hey, at least the mutants still get to live). Since the weapons to do this are on board their drop ships (though granted, not in significantly higher concentrations) they can do this particular bombing in atmosphere too…
Except that wholesale bombardment and killing of innocent civilians from space is also anaethema to Clan honour. Even when the Clans commit massacres, they do so in a tradition that honours their conservation of firepower precepts. The sole exception is warship against jumpship/space stations, and this is probably because space assets are not protected under the original Ares convention.
Short of it: There will be NO counter resistance past the first instance. The moment the GDI or Nod command structure formally surrenders the war will be, for all intents and purposes to the clan, over... Anyone who continues to fight will simply be killed and with overwhelming force used to make a point.
Right. That's why Clan Smoke Jaguar, Clan Jade Falcon and even the Ghost Bears still face active anti clan resistance forces on their planets, with Jade Falcon still commiting troops to recapture planets "liberated" by such resistance groups during the Refusal war up to the FedCom Civil War.
The US military can respond anywhere in the world with substantial force in around 24 hours
Actually, no they can't. Even the most optimistic predictions of deploying a single airborne brigade has not been tested in reality.
and can perform full deployment in a matter of weeks.
Both Iraq wars showed that this isn't true. The best the US can hope for is in forward basing of the MEUs, which along with prepositioned war-stocks in Germany and other key areas of the world.
It should be noted as well that the Philadelphia allowed rapid deployment of forces in minutes anywhere in the world but that this capability is essentially lost.
Lost because of Clan superiority or because you're referring to the events of the Third Tiberium war? If so, the ability to drop pod Zone Troopers clearly show this is not.
The clans have the full deployment option available to them in a matter of minutes as well. Having total and complete space superiority in this situation allows full deployment in mere minutes of their ENTIRE force if they chose too. There is also no reason that they wouldn’t deploy in substantial numbers against a dishonorable enemy as well.
Not if they want to deploy in force. Even basics such as loading up of dropships with supplies and mechs, prepping dropships for launch can take hours. The MPUs don't launch from a dry start.

Redeploying forces is NOT a simple matter of loading up a ship and saying go here, go there. You're talking about mindboggling areas of logistics, basing and tedious planning. And I'm not going to talk about how the Clans took months to respond to Operation Bulldog or how the Galtor campaign show that even units that are awaiting in space would take too much precious time to deploy, sufficient that they would be unable to rescue their allies since there isn't even a need to discuss game canon to pierce your fantasy scenario.
No they didn’t, now you’re lying. Had they brought a majority of their forces to bear many cities would have NEVER been destroyed.
The Scrin assault on the cities were repulsed in a matter of DAYS. This despite the fact that the original GDI forces and reinforcements were badly overwhelmed and nearly wiped out. To make things worse, they then launched a counter attack into Berne, securing Europe for their operations. And this was actually done worldwide. The Scrin Campaign map shows that Europe, the US and parts of Russia were all targeted.

Hell the cities that were destroyed were in a location that should have had the bulk of regional forces.
They were also the areas that would had been most badly hit by the Second Tiberium War.
and the GDI were tactically outsmarted and outgunned… not technologically.
How on god earth were they outsmarted? The Scrin launched a diversionary attack on GDI blue zone cities, GDI responded and built together a c
What ended up happening during the final “big GDI push” in italy, their largest offensive? They lost… TO NOD.
Errr..... they actually won. Did you play the same game? We know GDI forces were actually conducting multiple offensives across multiple zones to take down the towers, and in Italy, two major campaigns were actually going on. One to destroy the tower and the other, to destroy the Tiberium Node Point.

Kane merely scarificed enough soldiers that the last tower reached completion and thus became invulnerable, delaying the GDI advance long enough.

Even for the Foreman, what happened was that the foreman essentially abandoned all remainding Scrin forces on Earth to be hunted down and destroyed by GDI cause the computer knew that staying longer would jeopardise the entire expedition.
First and foremost: There is no counter evidence to the pentagon currently still being the center of all major command decisions and therefore the world command center… The closest you have is the fact that there is another command center mentioned, though we do not know any additional information in regards to its current status.
WTF? Who said anything about me contesting the Pentagon isn't an important and the hub of remainding GDI military commands? I am pointing out that it ISN"T the SOLE, ONLY GDI command centre.

Secondedly and to borrow your statements: This changes the fact that the clan will be taking these command centers out with absolutely no substantial counter attacks being able to be utilized against them how?
Except....... this has absolutely no bearing the point being made. That GDI doesn't have a single command centre.

Or have you forgotten that the SB scenario already debated this topic to death a long time ago, even venturing into more exotic discussions about tiberium poisoning and irradiation of mechs. My sole points of contention is your utterly wrong views of Battletech.
And for as ‘unrealistic’ as you believe my tactics are in terms of battletech I provided more than enough reason for them to use them… I even said the tactically ‘dishonorable’ clan wolf would be planning the invasion for total success… which, btw, large concentrations of numbers or overwhelming ‘dishonorable’ force is on par for them.
Right. And the next thing we know, the Borg would actually used massed combined firepower on the Federation, the Galactic Empire would shoot people instead of trying to take them prisoners and Seperatist droids would be able to concentrate on actually doing their mission instead of pausing in mid stride and then ordering the logical next step.

But hey, at least you're admitting your viewpoints are pure fan fantasy.
In regards to them not working together: Well gee, we already know the clans, all clans, have one goal that overrides everything else. Earth, and for the purposes of this debate I believe it states, “how many clans are needed.”

Three.
3 Clans to provide barely sufficient manpower to occupy a continent?
Of course, you’ve managed to ignore numerous things (like the fact that more drop ships than tanks of any substantial threat will be involved in an engagement) so I’m not terribly surprised that you’ve managed to forget what the thread is about again.
Right. And of course, we ignore the niggling point about how dropships are non combatents in clan tactical philosophy, we ignore the point about how GDI and NOD is actually able to repair and rebuild their armies and forces much more easily and rapidly than the Clans and that commiting such a small force would essentially cause the Clans to lose via virtual and literal attrition.

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Trinoya
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Post by Trinoya » Wed Dec 17, 2008 10:39 am

I went through the bulk of your post, dissecting it piece by piece until I realized I was hitting a brick wall. No substance, even your attempts at providing points (with the exception of drop pods, btw, I was referring to space superiority there) ended up being you repeating the same tired, "they just wouldn't do that," argument... followed by, "the GDI did X" repeated for the third or fourth time. As such, this shall be my final post in this topic in regards to you sir.

Fact: The clans have disobeyed their honor system for things as trivial as having someone escape their grasp (I believe that resulted in the destruction of an entire city)

Fact: The Clans have appreciable forces that they can deploy at a moments notice anywhere in the world.

Fact: The clans have full control of space around earth.

Fact: For any tactical failings the clans may or may not have, the GDI and the Brotherhood of Nod have significantly more... ranging from the minor (killing key command staff officials for no reason), to the major (destroying much of europe, letting loose a cyborg army upon the planet... having 95% of your command structure killed by networking your defenses in an easily attacked and destroyable location).

Fact: Boyle is an idiot. If for no other reason, even assuming that the clans are forced to bring in clan after clan after clan, C&C will loose because Boyle couldn't lead an army through a thick fog with out blowing up half of Europe...

Fact: The GDI defenders have too much ground to protect with their limited forces. I went ahead and took the most populated cities on the east coast and tallied it on up and got 68 cities that had a sizable population. I must say, it was quite telling about the GDI defenses...

12-13 tanks... or about three fully upgraded mammoths. You think that is bad... Only about 100 infantry will be in DC. Now granted, reinforcements aren't 'days' away, and in fact would only minutes in some cases (such as from FT Meade or possibly Norfolk), but still... this is sad.

Fact: For as 'non combatant' as you would like to make Drop Ships appear, the simple fact of the matter is they are armed to the teeth and do engage targets when they have too... Of course, with the numbers now cranked out... they don't have too...

Hell... You could take out DC with a Trinary.

See, this is what this is really coming down to (regardless of how much you would like to pretend that it comes down to my fantasy battle plan that isn't supposed to be taken seriously anyway).

You seem to think that GDI will so greatly out number the clans that they could not possibly meet them in a battle.

Not only have I proven this to not be true, but the clan forces have more than enough military at their disposal to deal with any major threat that GDI could possibly throw back at them.

As much as your fantasy about an on going war involving greater numbers vs the mechs involved, boiling down into a long fought resistance might make for a good story... it's just that... a story. Resistences need food... they need resources... and the Clans can simply deny it, or weaken it as they must... And again, any use of nuclear weapons invalidates the restrictions of any and all treaties and will let the clans respond in kind upon the offender, per honor.

I don't know what is so complicated really...

1. Space Superiority, Obtained in the opening hours of invasion
2. With such a small distribution of forces, blue zone primary defenses could be destroyed in a matter of weeks if they take their time. Collateral damage would be to factories and distribution centers, as well as bridges.
3. Resistance can be starved out, or if clan honor is insulted, wiped out with precision strikes from ships as needed. Absolute worse case scenario is that tiberium is allowed to take its toll on the civilization at large and the clan comes in later on to pick up the pieces.


On a final note: What on earth are you smoking in regards to US deployment. US forces were alerted and mobilized for Panama on December 19th and in operation on the 20th, and all theoretical deployments for a non nuclear war with the USSR postulated that accounting for weather, chemical, biological, and naval factors, that US full deployment against the USSR could be accomplished in 12-20 days (with a third scenario being a full month to two months in the event of winter invasion with near total blizzard like conditions).

Now I'll give you that the United States certainly does not have the transportation support and logistics that it did during the Cold War, but that doesn't change the fact that with the positioning of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th fleets, and distribution of cold war bases, total US deployment against a focused enemy is entirely possible within that time frame.

Furthermore, your assertion that it isn't possible because the US didn't use full deployment in Iraq is absurd. Full deployment isn't done for conflicts that are on a scale anywhere below World War III due to all other US military obligations world wide. The scale of the conflict required for the United States to mobilize all of its forces would have to be extreme...

But I digress from this, and I grow tired of this particular debate. No new evidence was presented to ever counteract the pitiful GDI defense capability, and until you can give me something other than repeating, "they beat the scrin diversionary forces back," this frankly has finally become not worth my time or effort.

Additionally the condescending nature of both of our posts coupled with the mirror like nature of yours has led me to feel confident that my decision to bow out gracefully is the right one, even though I'm sure various camps will always take such a thing as a sign of defeat, should you choose to do that, congratulations, you have won the internet... Sadly, I am not the saint that JMS is and therefore am simply incapable of taking this seriously any more.

To put it short... I am sorry brick wall, but I will not pound my head against you any longer. Have a good day and enjoy the holidays.

^_^

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