[Ultra-Tech] Infantry drones and robot gun carriages

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Then you simply drop artillery/ortillery/bombs on the smoke. You can see the smoke even if you can't see what is inside it. And if you can see it, you can kill it.

Blind artillery/ortillery strikes on general areas where you know there are enemy, but don't know exactly where, are several orders of magnitude less damaging to the enemy than precision-guided strikes on specific targets. The difference between WWI artillery and 21st+ century air strikes/artillery against targets in the open.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Then you simply drop artillery/ortillery/bombs on the smoke. You can see the smoke even if you can't see what is inside it. And if you can see it, you can kill it.

Killing the smoke isn't particularly productive. 'If you can see the approximate area it is in, you can kill it' is a much stronger statement. If that holds I'd advance that the only infantry-like niche possible is a sneaky observation drone. And that probably won't work either, because people will just annihilate any cover that one of those could be in before moving assets close enough to be observed.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by Sunrunners_Fire

Then you simply drop artillery/ortillery/bombs on the smoke.

I think the idea here is that the whole battlefield is covered in multi-jamming smoke[1], constantly. Yes it's painful and expensive, but at TL 10 it is doable, and it is hard to imagine a TL 10 tech base where clear visibility to *any* sensor doesn't lead to precision munitions in short order.

On the other hand, if you want to up the swashbuckler quotient, limiting visibility, audibility, radio, and all that jazz to <10 yards has a lot of potential. Big effin grunts in power armor with whatever TL10 considers an efficient melee weapon looming out of a muffling, sparking fog and going nuts on each other.

[1] Of course, whatever this stuff is called by technical specialists, most folks are gonna call it "Fog of War."

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by martinl

I think the idea here is that the whole battlefield is covered in multi-jamming smoke[1], constantly. Yes it's painful and expensive, but at TL 10 it is doable, and it is hard to imagine a TL 10 tech base where clear visibility to *any* sensor doesn't lead to precision munitions in short order.

On the other hand, if you want to up the swashbuckler quotient, limiting visibility, audibility, radio, and all that jazz to <10 yards has a lot of potential. Big effin grunts in power armor with whatever TL10 considers an efficient melee weapon looming out of a muffling, sparking fog and going nuts on each other.

[1] Of course, whatever this stuff is called by technical specialists, most folks are gonna call it "Fog of War."

THis is the best idea ever. TL10 vibrohalberds with superfine blades, here we come! Playing this one out a bit more...a TL10 heavy battlesuit gives +20 Striking ST and has DR 150/100. THey are SM +1.

An SM+1 halberd with superfine and vibro options is sw+9(5) cut. Assume a power armor trooper of ST 14 at TL10, ends up with striking ST 34, for 6d+1 sw, total 6d+9(5) cut. With adds to dice, that's 8d+2(5) cut. Effective DR of the powered armor is 30/20. Average damage on the large vibrohalberd is 30. So the armor is too tough for cutting through torsos and skulls, but you can cripple limbs routinely (30-20 = 10 cut = 15 injury vs crippling threshold of 8 for ST 14 humans). Note that an AOA (Strong) results in +6 damage (or +8 if you use the adds to dice conversion). So, with that, you can actually cut through the powered armor skull and torso armor! So, an AOA (Strong) to the skull with this SM +1 superfine vibrohalberd results in 36 (or 38) -30=6x4 = 24 injury to the skull. That's a KO.

Hahahaha, that is awesome.

[jeff_wilson]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Assuming the bots never need to receive, yes. You can also have a circuit breaker to at least limit the damage. Problem is that you're adding cost and complexity, and you have a very small amount of space to work in.

The bots can have staggered, pseudorandom listening windows scheduled for each class of peers they need to hear from, and if partial coverage is available they can coordinate to keep their peer-to-peer LOS from being exposed to yours.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by martinl

I think the idea here is that the whole battlefield is covered in multi-jamming smoke[1], constantly. Yes it's painful and expensive, but at TL 10 it is doable, and it is hard to imagine a TL 10 tech base where clear visibility to *any* sensor doesn't lead to precision munitions in short order.

I wasn't really assuming the entire battlefield, simply a large enough chunk around each unit to make obliterating the whole area they might be in with bombardment impractical. I figured each unit would have expendable observation and commo assets outside the cloud.

A sufficiently dense battlefield would result in a universal smoke blanket, but sparser forces could still use this.

Also, of course, there's no guarantee that a given smoke cloud actually has a real unit inside it rather than an decoy.

[apoc527]

That gets even funnier at TL11 with hyperdense SM +1 vibrohalberds and dreadnought battlesuits. The weapons now do +1 damage for TL 11 vibro and get a (10) AD. The suit only has 50 more DR and grants +10 more Striking ST (7d sw, about).

So, sw+10(10) --> 7d+10(10) --> 10d-1(10) vs DR 20/15. LOL.

[ericthered]

On "Fog of War"

This can be partially overcome with wires. Physical wires leading to the cameras and what not. This doesn't make the Fog meaningless, it adds a strategic element. I'm assuming that something works to detect at short range: lay tons of superfine wire to hidden cameras all over the fog bank, and seed it with explosives. This is expensive, but productive in patches. Your basic infantry unit is now whatever lays your cameras and wire. As well as the basic thing that kills it.

Also, Ranged weapons will still be effective at that range... though there will be little aiming and the fog will reduce a lot of beam weapons.

[martinl]

Originally Posted by apoc527

TL10 vibrohalberds with superfine blades, here we come!

Maybe as a sidearm. I suspect a TL 10 battlesuit "melee weapon" is something more like the bastard child of a three-way between an SMG, a Lawgiver, and a 20mm grenade launcher.

[apoc527]

Originally Posted by martinl

Maybe as a sidearm. I suspect a TL 10 battlesuit "melee weapon" is something more like the bastard child of a three-way between an SMG, a Lawgiver, and a 20mm grenade launcher.

A 25mm "revolver" with HEMP rounds would make sense. Keep in mind, though, that the SM+1 halberd has a Reach of 5, I believe. If visibility was literally 10 yards, the halberd is quicker than an aimed grenade pistol!