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Old 04-10-2017, 09:04 PM   #1
clu2415
 
Join Date: Jun 2016
Default Ultra-Tech mortar examination

The closer I look at these mortar boxes, the less sense they make.

The 40mm Mortar box weighs 12 pounds with 8 pounds of that taken up by ammo. It has four preloaded tubes of grenade/mortar shells. The description states: "A four-tube version of the 40mm UGL. Designed for remote control firing, it has a cable jack and its own short-range radio (p. 44)." Except it uses 4 grenades per tube instead of the UBGL's 5 grenades. The downloaded tubes still weigh the same 2 pounds though. Does the supply depot shoot one grenade out of each tube, add .4 lbs of glitter, and pass them to mortar troopers? Maybe!

Without those four preloaded barrels, we still have our base station that weighs four pounds. Minimum power radios and computers weigh nothing or close to it, so I guess the 4 lbs empty weight has a .5 lb C cell in there and some sights and elevation controls. Sure.

The 64mm mortar box has six tubes with 5 grenades each. The whole thing weighs 160 pounds and a full reload weighs 80 pounds. Each grenade is 2 lbs, so each empty tube is 3.33. Take all the ammo and tubes off and you have an 80 pound base. What are we lugging around 80 pounds of nothing for? Are there a couple of E cells in there for the squad to recharge off of? Could we have a skeletonized version where we pile local rocks on to make up the weight instead of flying 80 pounds of steel around the world?

This brings me to Pyramid 3, #37 Tech and Toys II. Dr. Mark Gellis brings us the 64mmPLB Commando mortar, which lifts concept of the TL6 Watervliet M2 (HT146) into TL9, shaves off 4 pounds, adds +1 acc, and increases the range. Right next to it is the Hotchkiss-Brandt Commando, coming in at 17 lbs empty. If I were to update this to TL9, I would carve a single mortar tube off the mortar box and mate it to 1/6 of the dead weight base station: 13.3 lbs empty, with each reload tube 13.3 lbs. Carrying six of these actually makes more sense because you can still tape them together into the big daddy mortar box if you feel like it, but you can also engage your target from multiple directions or engage multiple targets remotely.

TL9, where the commando mortar is a regular mortar and the "heavy chaingun" is lower caliber than the TL8 Chain Gun (trademark Orbital ATK).
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Old 04-11-2017, 07:54 AM   #2
Rupert
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
Default Re: Ultra-Tech mortar examination

Quote:
Originally Posted by clu2415 View Post
TL9, where the commando mortar is a regular mortar and the "heavy chaingun" is lower caliber than the TL8 Chain Gun (trademark Orbital ATK).
Calibre has next to nothing to do with TL, and the 'heavy chaingun' is clearly so-named because it's bigger and heavier than the 'storm chaingun', and not because of any comparison with TL8 kit. It is also obviously a heavy machinegun equivalent, not something intended to equal a 20-30mm autocannon.

UT doesn't really have a weapons in the auto-cannon weight range - almost all the weapons are small arms or HMG sized, or heavy vehicle weapons. The exception are the plasma/fusion gatling guns.
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