Battletech Story Brainstorming

[LordSunhawk]

You do realize that they were raiding *slave camps*, right? I don't blame them for deciding that the Inner Sphere was FUBAR, that they didn't have the strength to just burn it all down so it can start fresh, and heading off to do their own thing free of the stupidity.

Regardless, I'm currently cogitating a thinly-veiled Modern Earth (to keep RL politics out) ISOTing into 3020 BTech Periphery.

 

[bullethead]

you constantly keep ignoring the stated advancements in material sciences that BattleTech has. For instance, Endo Steel is explicitly stated to require zero gravity manufacture and "uniformly mix high-density steel with lower-density titanium and aluminum. Rhenium is also used in this process."

Bruh, I hate to say this, but... That's nowhere near as impressive as you think it sounds.

Like, sure, the actual alloy might be super impressive in its mechanical properties, but everything else around it is very meh, especially its massive volume disadvantage relative to the normal structure. It's also very "no shit, people should be coming up with all sorts of new Zero-G only alloys", and "Why the fuck are they using casting instead of extrusion or additive manufacturing?"

BattleTech's problem is that it's made with a very superficial understanding of all the big parts of technological development, which makes sense due to its when it came from. This wouldn't be a super big problem and could be handwaved, if it weren't for the line devs actively demonstrating that they're stupid and possibly spiteful. The whole debacle of their rebuttal to the "Why don't monitors (max tonnage DropShips with Warship grade weapons) exist?" question means that you can't take anything they say at face value, because there's tons of fiat to make the setting work the way it does.

I don't doubt that the lasers and PPCs pack a punch and the mechs/vehicles can take a beating. I just don't know if they'd pack an overwhelming punch or take a lot of beating against modern gear, because BattleTech is a house of cards

As such the idea that Earth could easily trade it's "better" computers to build up Cbills actually has a LOT of bottlenecks JUST from infrastructure alone. Assuming we CAN actually retroengineer a lot of BattleTech's hardware, we still lack the machines to build the machines to build the machines for a lot of it, and that would not be something we can bypass or repurpose.

To be super real, I don't even know if it's worthwhile to reverse engineer the actual production methods BattleTech uses. I wouldn't be surprised if the Terran Hegemony deliberately poison pilled everything by proliferating inefficient production methods, which they then further sandbagged with their black boxing.

Maybe pre-Reunification War Taurian manufacturing equipment might be worth it. Anything past that is suspect.

 

[Blasterbot]

For the Story idea I think that a Great house would crush the ISOT Earth. throw some pirates at them though and that would be more interesting. the pirates first landing would be in a population dense area. so they hit either India or China 1st. hell definitely china. loads of factories that build loads of cheap shit and a large population to enslave? too tempting. have them come back and hit other places and get away with it for a while until they get unlucky to land in near a U.S. base or Fleet group. probably won't knock them out but could cause casualties.

alternately rather than open with a raid you could open with one of the periphery powers discovering ISOT Earth. rather than raiding they try and either trade with or incorporate the ISOT Earth into their territory. the massive population being able to spread out to their other worlds. the massive industry needing some retooling but being a massive boon.

You would definitely need to nail down when you arrive in the timeline. landing in 2900 would be different from 3000 from 3050 from 3060 from 3100.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

A Great House without FASAnomics would crush ISOT Earth by being a hundreds-of-worlds pocket empire, in a one-on-one duel. If canon FASAnomics is retained, the industrial output of BTech worlds is so comically tiny that the U.S. alone has a manufacturing output exceeded only by most of the peak Star League put together.

Sounds ridiculous? FASAnomics is that bad -- it's canonical that the Great Houses' militaries are so small that they only field regiments as their largest-scale units, with the SLDF being the only force that ever fielded divisions. Whereas in real life, the United States alone fielded nearly a hundred divisions back in World War II when our population was less than half the size it is now.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

A Great House without FASAnomics would crush ISOT Earth by being a hundreds-of-worlds pocket empire, in a one-on-one duel. If canon FASAnomics is retained, the industrial output of BTech worlds is so comically tiny that the U.S. alone has a manufacturing output exceeded only by most of the peak Star League put together.

Well, that's wildly exaggerated. I freely admit that FASAnomics is THE artificial template that makes 'Knights Riding Mechs' the common way that planets trade hands in the Innersphere prior to the clans.

As for your production statement...really, that's just laughable.

Sounds ridiculous? FASAnomics is that bad -- it's canonical that the Great Houses' militaries are so small that they only field regiments as their largest-scale units, with the SLDF being the only force that ever fielded divisions. Whereas in real life, the United States alone fielded nearly a hundred divisions back in World War II when our population was less than half the size it is now.

RCTs (Regimental Combat Teams) are a thing in Battletech along with other formations.

Yes, WWI had Divisions of equipment. However, it's equipment that's wildly outclassed by the tanks that the Houses could DROWN RL Earth in. They wouldn't need 'Mechs.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Seemingly relevant, somebody did the math on how much energy it takes to remove a single point of armor from a BattleMech. Based on how a PPC would treat Rolled Homogenous Armor per XTRO: 1945, it's around 90Mj. An Abram's main gun is thus roughly equivalent to a Light Rifle and would do... zero damage to a BattleMech.

Well, that's wildly exaggerated. I freely admit that FASAnomics is THE artificial template that makes 'Knights Riding Mechs' the common way that planets trade hands in the Innersphere prior to the clans.

As for your production statement...really, that's just laughable.


RCTs (Regimental Combat Teams) are a thing in Battletech along with other formations.

Yes, WWI had Divisions of equipment. However, it's equipment that's wildly outclassed by the tanks that the Houses could DROWN RL Earth in. They wouldn't need 'Mechs.

I'm of the opinion that fielding such tiny armies is partly social trauma in the Inner Sphere. During the first two succession wars, plenty of planets are noted to have had nigh-impenetrable armies of Star League 'Mechs and Tanks that the Great Houses couldn't get through. Those planets all "Fell off the Map" as the Great Houses just always immediately resorted to orbital bombardment, nukes, or bioweapons rather than try to take them.

Putting an army of ten million dudes together on one planet has been a counter-survival strategy in BT for a long time. You don't do it unless you can also put together that many fighters, WarShips, and Battle Stations to prevent Ortillery from making your dudes irrelevant, and in that case the ten million dudes on the planet are going to be pretty bored since nothing can land to fight them anyway.

 

[Spartan303]

My thinking is that FASAeconomics would allow Earth to compete at some level as current economic models are not FASA. Earth is always going to be outnumbered and outgunned. Economically there is no way that they could compete with empires that have hundreds of worlds to their one. And maybe a few they bring under their umbrella later. The goal isn't to dominate and force the IS or the Clans to capitulate to them and become a high level player in the Great Game who holds all the cards. Its about survival and keeping their independence, to maybe one day be its own Star Nation state. That was always my problem with 'Entry with a Bang' and 'The Coming Storm'.
There was always this arrogance in those stories that 'we'll show those barbarians what true civilization is' and 'Our way is the superior way, thus they should learn from us'. Its arrogant presumption and bullshit and disrespects the setting.

Here there would be no out of universe knowledge to draw from. No stealing of Memory cores. Earth would have its technology which was different from the future of the 1980s that BTech has. They'd have an ally who would give them a heads up a few years in advance to what was coming and who they might be able to trust, but who also might screw them or use them for their own ends (Wolverine.) And maybe some very high end pieces of technology that are game changers...if they could get them to work right. But by themselves are too few and quirky to make a difference in the current fight...but might have huge strategic implications later should Earth survive and develop them. (That might also make them a target for everyone if they know Earth has it.)

 

[The Whispering Monk]

My thinking is that FASAeconomics would allow Earth to compete at some level as current economic models are not FASA. Earth is always going to be outnumbered and outgunned. Economically there is no way that they could compete with empires that have hundreds of worlds to their one. And maybe a few they bring under their umbrella later. The goal isn't to dominate and force the IS or the Clans to capitulate to them and become a high level play in the Great Game who holds all the cards. Its about survival and keeping their independence to maybe one day be its own Star Nation state. That was always my problem with 'Entry with a Bang' and 'The Coming Storm'.
There was always this arrogance in those stories that 'we'll show those barbarians what true civilization is' and 'Our way is the superior way, thus they should learn from us'. Its arrogant presumption and bullshit and disrespects the setting.

Here there would be no out of universe knowledge to draw from. No stealing of Memory cores. Earth would have its technology which was different from the future of the 1980s that BTech has. They'd have an ally who would give them a heads up a few years in advance to what was coming and who they might be able to trust, but who also might screw them or use them for their own ends (Wolverine.) And maybe some very high end pieces of technology that are game changers...if they could get them to work right. But by themselves are too few and quirky to make a difference in the current fight...but might have huge strategic implications later should Earth survive and develop them. (That might also make them a target for everyone if they know Earth has it.)

I think you're on the right track here. Earth (Not BTs Terra) is a garden world with LOADS of pre-existing infrastructure that can readily adapt to new technologies the BT'verse provides. The hard part is going to be keeping Comstar/WOB from either taking over or forcefully removing Earth's inventiveness from the current playing field.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Seemingly relevant, somebody did the math on how much energy it takes to remove a single point of armor from a BattleMech. Based on how a PPC would treat Rolled Homogenous Armor per XTRO: 1945, it's around 90Mj. An Abram's main gun is thus roughly equivalent to a Light Rifle and would do... zero damage to a BattleMech.

And yet a .50-caliber machine gun explicitly, canonically causes significant damage to Battlemechs, and first-rate Battletech infantry still use M-16s as a standard weapon. As a whole, the intersections of real world and BTech are wildly inconsistent.

 

[Bear Ribs]

And yet a .50-caliber machine gun explicitly, canonically causes significant damage to Battlemechs, and first-rate Battletech infantry still use M-16s as a standard weapon. As a whole, the intersections of real world and BTech are wildly inconsistent.

Actually, it canonically cannot. For starters, the Devs have stated that BT uses only metric and any imperial measurement is to be considered non-canon. Second, a 50-cal is considered to be equal to a Support Machine Gun per XTR0:1945 which does 0.94 damage, all damage against a 'mech is rounded down so you could empty the entire box into its shin and the 'mech won't have a scratch.

You can damage a 'mech by hitting it with enough machine guns all in the same spot, its ablative nature makes the armor vulnerable to sandpapering effects if enough ammunition hits the same place at the same time. This is the canon explanation for why a machine gun can potentially do more damage than a tank rifle, and why all 'mechs use autocannons instead of large single-shot weapons. Gauss Rifles get around this limitation by throwing around projectiles an order of magnitude larger than modern day tank shells.

Edit: It's worth noting per that XTRO that most tank weapons only hit as hard as infantry weapons by BT standards, f'rex the 57mm cannon on a Sherman does 0.57 damage, while a guy tooling around with a Thunderstroke Rifle is doing 0.55 and a Mauser 960 hits for 0.60. Heck, the Stersnacht Python pistol hits for 0.28. A "Vintage Assault Rifle" clocks in at 0.17 and is considered about the same in range and damage to a lot of sidearm pistols their infantry carries.

 

[Spartan303]

I think you're on the right track here. Earth (Not BTs Terra) is a garden world with LOADS of pre-existing infrastructure that can readily adapt to new technologies the BT'verse provides. The hard part is going to be keeping Comstar/WOB from either taking over or forcefully removing Earth's inventiveness from the current playing field.

I honestly don't see ComStar being a big issue until after contact is established with the IS in some regular capacity. Earth is likely just a backwater world in the Periphery. There are dozens if not hundreds there that don't have Interstellar Communications or any meaningful Comstar Presence.

Afterwards, maybe. But not initially.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

I honestly don't see ComStar being a big issue until after contact is established with the IS in some regular capacity. Earth is likely just a backwater world in the Periphery. There are dozens if not hundreds there that don't have Interstellar Communications or any meaningful Comstar Presence.

Afterwards, maybe. But not initially.

I agree that it wouldn't be a quick thing...unless Comstar found Earth first...in which case...well, it'd be interesting.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Actually, it canonically cannot. For starters, the Devs have stated that BT uses only metric and any imperial measurement is to be considered non-canon. Second, a 50-cal is considered to be equal to a Support Machine Gun per XTR0:1945 which does 0.94 damage, all damage against a 'mech is rounded down so you could empty the entire box into its shin and the 'mech won't have a scratch.

Per Sarna on Machine Guns:

Some weapons are occasionally described as .50 Cals but this is likely to be more a generic terminology for machine guns. One instance of this is the M100, described in different sources as being a .50cal[23] (12.7mm[32]) and a 12.5mm,[21] the figure expressed in mm would be considered the canon as BattleTech Universe officially uses the metric system. Vehicular machine guns in BattleTech can be anywhere from caliber 12.5mm, up to 20mm, (30mm enters into the range of Autocannon territory in BattleTech) depending on the model. Infantry scale models are usually smaller, but there are support weapon variant guns firing larger caliber shells above 20mm as well.


(The M100 is on the Phoenix Hawk just so you don't have to go digging. And that it does 2 damage there against other mechs, IIRC)


So something in that ballpark, which in 1945 does .94 damage (not a big jump to 1) as a12.7mm x 99 (or the 50 BMG) round. Assuming, of course, that there haven't been small, iterative improvements in things like grains or material sciences for the modern Ma Deuce. The Russian Kord is 12.7mm x 108 and is from 1998.

According to here the 50 BMG is better for range, but the 12.7x108 is the more damaging round and was originally anti-material/armor.

I looked up the muzzle energy of a 50 bmg and it's between 14 and 20 kJ. If a PPC impacts armor with 90 MJ or 90,000 kJ per 1 damage, there's literally no way a 1945 M2 deals .94 damage in a single attack. It would take more than 6,400 shots from the M2 to equal 1 damage.

Flat out, someone is very wrong somewhere with their math. And, honestly, given your follow up about how 1945 tank weaponry fares, my money is on FASA and CGL. Which then borks the redditor's math.

BT machine gun ammo has to insanely huge, or the powder has to be some sort of miracle explosive. With miracle material science bullets. And it's something that we can explicitly build with 1980s science and industry base, since Machine Guns are a tech rating of B.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Per Sarna on Machine Guns:

Some weapons are occasionally described as .50 Cals but this is likely to be more a generic terminology for machine guns. One instance of this is the M100, described in different sources as being a .50cal[23] (12.7mm[32]) and a 12.5mm,[21] the figure expressed in mm would be considered the canon as BattleTech Universe officially uses the metric system. Vehicular machine guns in BattleTech can be anywhere from caliber 12.5mm, up to 20mm, (30mm enters into the range of Autocannon territory in BattleTech) depending on the model. Infantry scale models are usually smaller, but there are support weapon variant guns firing larger caliber shells above 20mm as well.


(The M100 is on the Phoenix Hawk just so you don't have to go digging. And that it does 2 damage there against other mechs, IIRC)


So something in that ballpark, which in 1945 does .94 damage (not a big jump to 1) as a12.7mm x 99 (or the 50 BMG) round. Assuming, of course, that there haven't been small, iterative improvements in things like grains or material sciences for the modern Ma Deuce. The Russian Kord is 12.7mm x 108 and is from 1998.

According to here the 50 BMG is better for range, but the 12.7x108 is the more damaging round and was originally anti-material/armor.

I looked up the muzzle energy of a 50 bmg and it's between 14 and 20 kJ. If a PPC impacts armor with 90 MJ or 90,000 kJ per 1 damage, there's literally no way a 1945 M2 deals .94 damage in a single attack. It would take more than 6,400 shots from the M2 to equal 1 damage.

Flat out, someone is very wrong somewhere with their math. And, honestly, given your follow up about how 1945 tank weaponry fares, my money is on FASA and CGL. Which then borks the redditor's math.

BT machine gun ammo has to insanely huge, or the powder has to be some sort of miracle explosive. With miracle material science bullets. And it's something that we can explicitly build with 1980s science and industry base, since Machine Guns are a tech rating of B.

The big answer is that almost no BT weapons actually deliver damage via kinetic energy. As I pointed out with the identical damage between autocannons and hypervelocity autocannons, autocannons don't do any damage whatsoever from the shell hitting, only from its explosive payload. BT's always been pretty consistent about this, the intro to the Mackie as the first-ever Battlemech had a finger-thick sheet of armor stop a Merkava's armor-piercing shell with no damage whatsoever, while a primitive PPC and AC/5 both core a tank in one shot.

One of the tanks opened fire. Its shot was true and hit the 'Mech just above the right hip. Everyone in the brightly lit bunker seemed to hold his breath as all the readouts fuzzed into snow at the blast interference. No damage! A piece of steel no thicker than my finger, strengthened by radiation casting techniques and impregnated with a sheet of woven diamond fibers, had stopped cold an armor-piercing shell. That same shell would have gone straight through a third of a meter of normal steel.

The tracking cameras watched as the Colonel swiveled his chest to bring his weapons to bear. Twenty years of my life seemed to focus into a single action that would take no more than five seconds. I watched as Colonel Kincaid used his sensors - my sensor - to pick out the tank hidden behind a group of small trees and bushes. He fired both his PPC and autocannon. Both shots were direct hits and the tank erupted into a ball of flame.
A thunderous cheer swept the bunker, while everyone present began to slap me on the back. Instead of feeling pleased at the 'Mech's performance, I felt increasingly sad.

As far as being accurate I have no doubt BT is guilty of rather heinous crimes against physics, but it is pretty clear that in-universe their weapons are supposed to be dramatically superior to what Earth can produce today.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

As far as being accurate I have no doubt BT is guilty of rather heinous crimes against physics, but it is pretty clear that in-universe their weapons are supposed to be dramatically superior to what Earth can produce today.

Except that's not true for everything. As we are specifically talking about machine guns: A tech rating of B is late twentieth century technology. A M100, or any mech or vehicle mounted Machine Gun, capable of dealing '180 MJ' of energy to... 1.25? tons of armor in a 10? second period, can be built using technology available in the late twentieth century.

That's per the rules. Their machine guns are not superior.

(I couldn't find anything on Autocannons but they officially 'start' showing up in BT as AC/2 in 2290 which is technically something like a C+ tech rating in terms of when they were invented but not like with what techbase they can be made. Being the twenty third century but not the Age of War)

Not B levels of technology with C or D levels in one specific military area, but B levels of tech. Nothing imported needed. We already have a B tech rating if not a pseudo B+ due to deviations.

Maybe their exact method is what makes the difference, their exact manufacturing. But all that means that all that we are supposed to need is probably a tooling change.

Any explosive capability has to fit a 12.5mm bullet/casing/round that can be manufactured on a techbase equalivalent to, explicitly, our late twentieth century. As technology and history didn't start changing until the very end of that time period in Battletech.

But we already build this, though. Mk 211 mod 0 (1981) and the Mk 169 mod 2 (Only found referenced on Wikipedia) both exist in 50 BMG.

All of this means we can and absolutely do build L1 machine guns with our current levels of technology. We can and already build, per everything I've found, machine guns in the in the 12.7mm range
that can deal '180 MJ' or 2 damage of energy to Battletech BAR 10 armor.

And it means that the 1945 XTRO M2 doing .94 damage with solid rounds makes considerably more sense. Except it's wildly inconsistent when you start comparing that M2 and the M2 with explosive rounds to everything else.

But if an M2 can successfully manage to do 2 damage to BAR 10 with explosive rounds, the only thing that's apparently needed to go from .94 to 2 damage, then the rest of our arsenal AFV+ will sure as fuck do damage to BAR 10, as long as they have explosive rounds.

None of the math works out if 90MJ is the amount of energy it takes to actually take .625 tons of BAR 10 armor off. For any weapon except allegedly the PPC.

The math is all wrong, and we're working off of FASA, which means the problem is there if we attempt in anyway to rationalize BT canon tech with IRL tech.

 

[Spartan303]

Except that's not true for everything. As we are specifically talking about machine guns: A tech rating of B is late twentieth century technology. A M100, or any mech or vehicle mounted Machine Gun, capable of dealing '180 MJ' of energy to... 1.25? tons of armor in a 10? second period, can be built using technology available in the late twentieth century.

That's per the rules. Their machine guns are not superior.

(I couldn't find anything on Autocannons but they officially 'start' showing up in BT as AC/2 in 2290 which is technically something like a C+ tech rating in terms of when they were invented but not like with what techbase they can be made. Being the twenty third century but not the Age of War)

Not B levels of technology with C or D levels in one specific military area, but B levels of tech. Nothing imported needed. We already have a B tech rating if not a pseudo B+ due to deviations.

Maybe their exact method is what makes the difference, their exact manufacturing. But all that means that all that we are supposed to need is probably a tooling change.

Any explosive capability has to fit a 12.5mm bullet/casing/round that can be manufactured on a techbase equalivalent to, explicitly, our late twentieth century. As technology and history didn't start changing until the very end of that time period in Battletech.

But we already build this, though. Mk 211 mod 0 (1981) and the Mk 169 mod 2 (Only found referenced on Wikipedia) both exist in 50 BMG.

All of this means we can and absolutely do build L1 machine guns with our current levels of technology. We can and already build, per everything I've found, machine guns in the in the 12.7mm range
that can deal '180 MJ' or 2 damage of energy to Battletech BAR 10 armor.

And it means that the 1945 XTRO M2 doing .94 damage with solid rounds makes considerably more sense. Except it's wildly inconsistent when you start comparing that M2 and the M2 with explosive rounds to everything else.

But if an M2 can successfully manage to do 2 damage to BAR 10 with explosive rounds, the only thing that's apparently needed to go from .94 to 2 damage, then the rest of our arsenal AFV+ will sure as fuck do damage to BAR 10, as long as they have explosive rounds.

None of the math works out if 90MJ is the amount of energy it takes to actually take .625 tons of BAR 10 armor off. For any weapon except allegedly the PPC.

The math is all wrong, and we're working off of FASA, which means the problem is there if we attempt in anyway to rationalize BT canon tech with IRL tech.

So you're saying, our modern day weapons can hurt them.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Except that's not true for everything. As we are specifically talking about machine guns: A tech rating of B is late twentieth century technology. A M100, or any mech or vehicle mounted Machine Gun, capable of dealing '180 MJ' of energy to... 1.25? tons of armor in a 10? second period, can be built using technology available in the late twentieth century.

That's per the rules. Their machine guns are not superior.

(I couldn't find anything on Autocannons but they officially 'start' showing up in BT as AC/2 in 2290 which is technically something like a C+ tech rating in terms of when they were invented but not like with what techbase they can be made. Being the twenty third century but not the Age of War)

Not B levels of technology with C or D levels in one specific military area, but B levels of tech. Nothing imported needed. We already have a B tech rating if not a pseudo B+ due to deviations.

Maybe their exact method is what makes the difference, their exact manufacturing. But all that means that all that we are supposed to need is probably a tooling change.

Any explosive capability has to fit a 12.5mm bullet/casing/round that can be manufactured on a techbase equalivalent to, explicitly, our late twentieth century. As technology and history didn't start changing until the very end of that time period in Battletech.

But we already build this, though. Mk 211 mod 0 (1981) and the Mk 169 mod 2 (Only found referenced on Wikipedia) both exist in 50 BMG.

All of this means we can and absolutely do build L1 machine guns with our current levels of technology. We can and already build, per everything I've found, machine guns in the in the 12.7mm range
that can deal '180 MJ' or 2 damage of energy to Battletech BAR 10 armor.

And it means that the 1945 XTRO M2 doing .94 damage with solid rounds makes considerably more sense. Except it's wildly inconsistent when you start comparing that M2 and the M2 with explosive rounds to everything else.

But if an M2 can successfully manage to do 2 damage to BAR 10 with explosive rounds, the only thing that's apparently needed to go from .94 to 2 damage, then the rest of our arsenal AFV+ will sure as fuck do damage to BAR 10, as long as they have explosive rounds.

None of the math works out if 90MJ is the amount of energy it takes to actually take .625 tons of BAR 10 armor off. For any weapon except allegedly the PPC.

The math is all wrong, and we're working off of FASA, which means the problem is there if we attempt in anyway to rationalize BT canon tech with IRL tech.

Lolwut? Battletech has a single world government for Earth by 2014, the KF Drive theory was laid in 2018, they had working Fusion Engines in 2021 and flying infantry using jetpacks in 2025. By 2110 they'd terraformed Mars into an Earth-like planet using their massive spacelift abilities to throw comets at it and already had multiple colonies in other star systems. Their timeline diverges mighty quickly.

It's worth noting that the 2 damage machine gun weighs 500 kilograms (The M2 is less than 40), these are not the same weapons. The browning is stated to require 0.6kg of shells to do its 0.94 damage while a machine gun uses 0.5 to do its 2 damage. Something is very fundamentally different about the weapons themselves.

The clan machine gun is also tech level B yet the Inner Sphere can't build them. Meanwhile, compound bows are tech level C. You're being way too rigid in what you're thinking of as tech levels, they are a mix of knowledge, industrial power, and whatever magic lets the clans build clantech and prevents everybody else from doing so.

So you're saying, our modern day weapons can hurt them.

You can pretty much justify anything using the right bits of canon or quasi canon. I know of one story that had 'mechs getting one-shot by snipers using barrets to shoot the pilots through the canopies on the theory that "Bullets can damage battlemechs" though the readers called foul on that one.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Lolwut? Battletech has a single world government for Earth by 2014, the KF Drive theory was laid in 2018, they had working Fusion Engines in 2021 and flying infantry using jetpacks in 2025. By 2110 they'd terraformed Mars into an Earth-like planet using their massive spacelift abilities to throw comets at it and already had multiple colonies in other star systems. Their timeline diverges mighty quickly

Yes. After the early 90s. It does change rapidly.

Timeline on Sarna

Relevant bit:
'The earliest events distinct to the BattleTech universe occur after the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The United States, Europe and Japan announced in 1994 their intention to jointly construct an orbiting industrial facility named Crippen Station, which was successfully launched eleven years later. A 1997 coup d'état by hardline communists restored a militant, Soviet-style government in Russia and sparked a "Second Cold War" with NATO that lasted until the start of peaceful reforms under premier Oleg Tikonov in 2005. The republic crumbled in 2011, igniting a civil war that drew in NATO and saw the successful use of the Western Orbital Defense Network (WODeN), successor to the earlier Strategic Defense Initiative, to intercept a preemptive Russian missile attack against western targets. The war ended with a Western Alliance victory in 2014.'

The Cold War ended in December 1991. USSR collapsed, war was over. No major changes in the twentieth century until then.

This means that we had the same techbase until the end of the century. A lot happened in only eight years.

It's worth noting that the 2 damage machine gun weighs 500 kilograms (The M2 is less than 40), these are not the same weapons. The browning is stated to require 0.6kg of shells to do its 0.94 damage while a machine gun uses 0.5 to do its 2 damage. Something is very fundamentally different about the weapons themselves.

The clan machine gun is also tech level B yet the Inner Sphere can't build them. Meanwhile, compound bows are tech level C. You're being way too rigid in what you're thinking of as tech levels, they are a mix of knowledge, industrial power, and whatever magic lets the clans build clantech and prevents everybody else from doing so.

So, what I got out of that was explosive rounds at .6kg over 10s will likely exceed 1 damage but end up rounded down to 1. Since .94 is with non-explosive ammunition, and being explosive is key in dealing damage to BT armor.

And that means for 500kg I can probably do 2-4 damage with 1.2-2.4kg of ammo a round if I strap 2-4 M2s together. 500kg is at least one, if not 2 Oerlikon 20mm autocanno- sorry machine gun, at ~92kg a pop, plus all the bits and bobs you need it to be properly automated and ruggedized.

Actually, with 80kg of M2 (that's two), pretty sure I could build a rugged, military grade, quarter ton gun mount using 80s level machine shops and materials for a hardpoint given that HMMWV's have turrets that with a M2 mounted are only like 150 kg if my napkin math is right (The turret is ~200 pounds). It's not like it has to go 360 degrees, or be armored, like the HMMWV's turret. Need a semi decent cone for aiming, the gun end of the automated ammo feed (pretty sure that exists already so I don't have to try very hard), and maybe set something up to clear jams. That last one might take some thinking.

And I'm not very skilled at that kind of work. But that's clan tech weight and damage on a tech level of B, just not ammo efficiency.

Most of the weight has to be in the controls and ruggedization packages. Armor is counted on the mech. So any armoring should not be weighed against the machine gun... pod.

And naw, I'm not being too rigid about tech levels, FASA just had no fucking clue what they were doing with techlevels because they're all over the fucking place. Like most of their stuff. Their timeline is all kinds of fucking weird, for instance. How old was McKenna again when he did his thing? Like 19? 22?

It is, however, canon. And using canon to avoid Loki's Wager is a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, if I was being too rigid about tech levels, you are being way too rigid about what makes a machine gun do 2 damage. Like it weight exactly 500kg. And using exactly .5kg of munitions over ten seconds.

How rigid are we supposed to hold to the rules? Because mechs have a nigh impossible density. And so many weapons have such shit range that we could pummel the fuck out of any BT force from far beyond their engagement ranges.

But what the tech rating is, is canon. A 12.5mm explosive round burst can, in 10 second segments, chip away at more than 1 ton of armor for .5kg is also canon. And it can be built with technology that we canonically already have access to.

(I wonder what they did to get the ammo so light? Probably actually fires slower, but it is explosive. They might have better explosives that can be made with B tech but had to be discovered at a higher level.)

12.7mm explosive round burst, in 10 second segments, given the information that you've provided, Mr. Ribs, should clear at least one point of damage pretty gracefully. Even if it isn't as efficient per ton.

We can absolutely do damage to mechs with "Modern" infantry scale, crew serve weapons. And if we can do damage with an M2, we can absolutely use HE rounds in our tanks for much better damage numbers.

We haven't even gotten into if things like how well our artillery would do. Or our missiles.

We would not be helpless in the face of any BattleTech ground force. They would be extremely tough, but even against a sizable force, we could emerge victorious. Like I'm pretty confident LCT sizable. We could definitely beat an LCT (so long as they didn't have air and ignored their dropships) sized force.

Of course, we'd have to figure out that we need to use HE munitions, and we might not do that before we actually lose. That (and not dying too quickly because I haven't the foggiest about how our armor would hold up beyond 'not well') would be the crux, I think.

It's their ASFs and DropShips. Our airbreathers just couldn't hack it against that performance, laser weaponry, and toughness. I'm not sure how our anti-air defenses would work here either. And DropShips give ridiculous strategic mobility. And can be used to drop KKVs if they're feeling dickish.

Edit: Tapping out for the night. Bed time. Maybe pick this up tomorrow, depending on IRL shit. Was still good talk. Good fun, no hard feelings.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

According to here the 50 BMG is better for range, but the 12.7x108 is the more damaging round and was originally anti-material/armor.

I looked up the muzzle energy of a 50 bmg and it's between 14 and 20 kJ. If a PPC impacts armor with 90 MJ or 90,000 kJ per 1 damage, there's literally no way a 1945 M2 deals .94 damage in a single attack. It would take more than 6,400 shots from the M2 to equal 1 damage.

For the record, the .50 BMG was originally designed as an anti-armor round as well.

And yes, the scalings are totally off each other. This is exactly why I said the handful of intersection points are inconsistent. Some of the data points are even bizarrely inconsistent within universe, i.e. explodium machine gun ammo cookoffs.

 

[Doomsought]

BTech explosives are significantly more advanced than our own. They can even make microprocessors out of explosive, which is a key component of their micro-missiles.