Why does UT concealable armor suck?

[Apache]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

I feel that people arn't looking at the paradigm enough. Battlesuits arn't the bee's knees because they make you armored like a tank. Battlesuits are awesome because they allow a single soldier to carry an arsenal approaching an IFV, while remaining protected against most anti-personal effects. They allow you to carry the sensors and comms to securely operate RPVs on the front lines and serve as a command net. They can conceal you.

Increasingly modern warfare is about one thing: if we can see you, you can die. So you stop trying to armor up to prevent kill from direct fire, and you gear up for the indirect fire and obfuscation.

Yup.

Just my 2 quatloo's.....I would prefer gauss/emag to ETC weapons simply due to the lower signature. Yeah, the dart makes a noise when it goes supersonic, but there is no smoke/flash to give your position away. And if you tune the weapon to fire at just below supersonic...you have yourself a very, very nasty sniper weapon.

And ammo weight/cost IS an issue. The typical infantryman, as of 2010, carries at least 10 magazines of ammo when he goes on patrol. Sometimes more. While I love 7.62mm, and I cherish my M14 SOPMOD, I am ever so glad everybody else is carrying an M4.

As for popping battlesuits.....that's what LAWS/AT4's are for.

And .50 cals...:)

[Phoenix_Dragon]

Originally Posted by chandley

If you actually look at these vest/jackets, they are remarkably thin.

From what I can find, the Level III Dragon Skin is about an inch thick. I had a much harder time finding the actual thickness of the Interceptor body armor, but it appears to be about two inches. A typical Second Chance style concealable vest, on the other hand, appears to be about a third of an inch thick for a IIIa version. More concealable than a tactical vest maybe (And about the same as some plate carriers), but not all that thin.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Mailanka

So basically, you're saying that they did it all wrong and that they should have given Gauss weapons more damage because... they're higher TL, and that this whole "gauss weapons are basically APEP for free" nonsense needs to go because it's "totally unrealistic."

Higher velocities and energies is one of the fundamental reasons people like the idea of gauss weapons. That is lacking from being shown in UT. ANd of course their armor penetrating effect means that they should have a Legality rating of 1.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

That's what Gauss ammo is: some form of tungsten-alloy. It's lighter and cheaper than the storm carbine's ammo, because it's LIGHTER.

Not that much lighter. Keep in might the WPS includes all that propellant and such which shouldn't increase in cost when you switch from ball to APEP.

A 4mm round weights in at a hulking .006lbs for a shot, while the 5.7mmCL comes in at .013lbs. The conventional round has to have shaped high explosive as a propellant(or it uses a binary propellant), will likely require a round that is heavily engineered to produce a lightweight cladding that is likely shed out of the barrel if it's APEP. On the otherhand, the Gauss ammo is nothing but a small "needle" or "nail" shaped projectile, one that is likely very easy to make numerous copies of in a hurry.

Still not enough difference to reasonably account for cost differences. If you have a 5.7mm saboted round, then the round itself is not far from 4mm.

Why do people constantly compare the 10mmCL to the 4mm gauss? It's like comparing a .388 Lapua to a 5.56mm. Compare things that are in the same, or similar roles. The 10mm Storm Carbine is better compared to the 10mm railgun, rather than the 4mm gauss rifle.

Because there is no battle rifle version of a gauss weapon in the book.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

That and the 15mm ETK has $40 bullets. That's again, $400 per weapon. The Gauss railgun can be issued on a squad basis, and has the firepower to drop a battlesuit with it's dart. The 15mm AMR is heavier.

The strength of electro-Mag weaponry is their cheap, inexpensive and lightweight ammunition. When you expend thousands of rounds trying to get one kill, that's savings. When we're talking about millions, maybe even billions of rounds of ammunition? Major savings.

Of course you are assuming superscience batteries then, and the savings compared to APEP doesn't make a lot of sense as the projectiles are similar. Being somewhat cheaper makes sense, but really the only weapon I can see that is just markedly better than its chemical version is the Gauss shotgun. It does twice the dammage. Now toss in a APEP slug and you have a serious weapon.

Increasingly modern warfare is about one thing: if we can see you, you can die. So you stop trying to armor up to prevent kill from direct fire, and you gear up for the indirect fire and obfuscation.

And seemingly stop worrying about being able to use direct fire to kill your opponents.

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Phoenix_Dragon

From what I can find, the Level III Dragon Skin is about an inch thick. I had a much harder time finding the actual thickness of the Interceptor body armor, but it appears to be about two inches. A typical Second Chance style concealable vest, on the other hand, appears to be about a third of an inch thick for a IIIa version. More concealable than a tactical vest maybe (And about the same as some plate carriers), but not all that thin.

My point is that UT lacks a concealable but often somewhat noticeable armor similar to what say police wear now. It has armored clothing that is heavier than normal clothing but looks just like it, and armor that is not concealable at all.

I just wish that there were actual concealablilty stats on armor like there are on firearms.

[Allu]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

My point is that UT lacks a concealable but often somewhat noticeable armor similar to what say police wear now. It has armored clothing that is heavier than normal clothing but looks just like it, and armor that is not concealable at all.

The "Typical Armor by TL" box on UT p186 explicitly states that police officers wear concealable reflex (at TL9) armor. Don't hesitate to make them wear heavy (as per tailoring armor) concealable armor. That'll make it less concealable. If they run into somebody who's armed with something their armor can't stop they'll do what policemen do in such situations today. Call the SWAT team (who wear Combat Hardsuits).

[blacksmith]

Originally Posted by Allu

The "Typical Armor by TL" box on UT p186 explicitly states that police officers wear concealable reflex (at TL9) armor. Don't hesitate to make them wear heavy (as per tailoring armor) concealable armor. That'll make it less concealable. If they run into somebody who's armed with something their armor can't stop they'll do what policemen do in such situations today. Call the SWAT team (who wear Combat Hardsuits).

Is that any better than except against lasers than the ballistic armor I was citing?

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by Verjigorm

Why do people constantly compare the 10mmCL to the 4mm gauss? It's like comparing a .388 Lapua to a 5.56mm. Compare things that are in the same, or similar roles. The 10mm Storm Carbine is better compared to the 10mm railgun, rather than the 4mm gauss rifle.

Because the weapons serve similar roles. It's like comparing the TL 5 Musket to the TL 8 Assault Rifle. The point is not that they have similar caliber, but that they're both battlefield weapons typically given to soldiers

(and frankly, I'd rather compare the Gauss Rifle to the Assault Carbine, but I fear I'd be accused of white-washing then).

The Portable Railgun, by contrast, is not an infantry weapon, but a sniper weapon. It's much closer to the Anti-Material Rifle in purpose than it is to Carbine.

[Mailanka]

Originally Posted by blacksmith

Higher velocities and energies is one of the fundamental reasons people like the idea of gauss weapons. That is lacking from being shown in UT. ANd of course their armor penetrating effect means that they should have a Legality rating of 1.

Fine, you're right. You'd expect that a given round with a given weight would have more energy and firepower than a chemical round. Let's compare those, as Verjigorm suggests:

The 10mm "Rifle" round
APEP ETC Storm Rifle: 12d(3) pi. Cost per round: $12 Acc 5.
Portable Railgun: 15d(3) pi+. Cost per round: $0.8 Acc 7.

The 7mm "Machine gun" round
APEP ETC Minigun: 9d(3) pi-. Cost per shot $5.4 Acc 4
Gauss HMG: 16d(3) pi. Cost per shot: $0.24 Acc 8

The 18.5 "Shotgun" round
ETC Close Assault Weapon: 5d+5 pi++. Cost per shot: $1.8. Acc 3
Gauss CAW: 8d pi++. Cost per shot: $0.37 Acc 4

Clearly, gauss weapons have higher velocities, as we can see from their superior Accuracy (and range). Clearly they have higher energies than their ETC counterparts. We use the Gauss Rifle because 6d+2(3) pi- is sufficient. It's sufficient to penetrate most armor, to inflict a sufficiently nasty wound, and "MORE POWER" doesn't always equal "Better."