Robert S. Dean · 29 January 1992 · reply to #3571
In your letter dated Mon, 27 Jan 92 13:35:23 CST, you wrote:
>
> BTW, rob, your comment about TL15 infantry being too vulnerable and all
> their targets being too invulnerable (to them) sounds a lot like what they
> said after WW2. And WW1. And the Franco-Prussian War. And the American
> Civil War. And the Thirty Years War. And the Hundred Years War. And
> Alexander's conquests. And the Persian Attacks on Greece. and...
Maybe. BUT, I'm not arguing that this problem would necessarily exist in
the "real" Imperium. What I am saying is that it does exist in the rules
of Striker, which we are using as a model for development of our picture of
future trends.
Let me put this another way. In the real world, defense and counter succeed
each other in sort of a progressive escalation. The earliest tanks had armor
which could shrug off rifle caliber machine gun bullets (hopefully) and the
infantry eventually countered with the anti-tank rifle. As engines got better,
more armor was added to the tank, and the anti-tank rifle was neutralized.
This situation prevailed at the beginning of WWII, and infantry was essentially
forced to depend on artillery in the form of limited numbers of anti-tank guns
for defense against tanks. Then someone developed the shaped charge warhead
which again allowed some sort of man-carried attack which could threaten an
armored vehicle. The situation remained stable (more or less) through the
70's, with man-portable shaped charge attacks gaining range with the intro-
duction of missiles. Now, the development of reactive and composite armors
have changed the situation again, to the point where it is possible to design
a tank which can shrug off infantry attacks in most circumstances...I'd suspect
that it isn't cost effective to do so because the weight/speed/cost tradeoffs
are not favorable. Presumably the next step is either a man-portable kinetic
kill missile (heavy, lots of fuel needed) or an improved shaped charge method
which will counter the newer armor.
The trouble with Striker is this: There are distinct limits to the development
of kinetic kill and shaped charge weapons. We know what they are, and what
tech levels the maximums can be achieved in. The tech level chart shows
advances in armor outstripping the ability of kinetic kill and shpaed charge
warheads to defeat it, roughly at TL14 with the introduction of superdense
armor. Now, the overall battlefield situation is not brought to the level of
the 14th century, where armored men had a hard time injuring each other on the
battlefield because power generation technology and energy weapon technology
keeps up with armor technology, and it is impossible to design a tank so well
armored that some sort of weapon can't punch through it. The trouble is, from
the point of view of the infantry, that that weapon is likely to weigh 3/4 of
a ton and require another 5-6 tons of power plant to support it. That makes
it non-portable, even for battledress equipped infantry, except of course by
their carriers, which are effectively tanks.
Anyway, beyond TL13 or so, I would guess that the optimum armor thickness for
tanks is going to be about 60...enough to shrug off infantry and low tech
weapons, but not so much that you can't load enough power plant into it to
push the limits of air speed, since speed will be the next most useful
attribute, even if you don't allow Striker's evasion rule.
Would you care to suggest a class of infantry weapons that is not currently
covered by the rules that will threaten a grav tank?
Rob Dean