Hydrocarbon Fuel Cells for 3e

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

Yeah, kind of hard to keep the power generation low when you need ADS systems as standard (in this case, a 2mm gatling railgun and a 1.6MW gatling UV pulse laser per turret), have various power-hungry sensors (high-res LIDAR, I'm looking at you) to stay relevant, your main weapon is an Electrothermal Chemical gun (with slightly heavier rounds than what's used in Vehicles) backed by a revolving missile launcher, and a 2MW main wheel drivetrain.

The drivetrain is grossly overpowered (an actual Fennek has a 179 kW drivetrain); Vehicles is good for a gaming approximation but hardly realistic. Its handling of sensors is also fairly problematic. The rest of those components can and should be powered by batteries or an auxiliary power plant, as they aren't going to be used most of the time.

[Fred Brackin]

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

t, with the humvee equiv, the total power consumption is 3,233kW minus the two 50kJ/RoF50 1.6MW gatling UV lasers.

Are you trying to power your energy weapons directly out of the power plant? I always used power cells wit 100 shots or more that rechaged out of combat.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The drivetrain is grossly overpowered (an actual Fennek has a 179 kW drivetrain); Vehicles is good for a gaming approximation but hardly realistic. Its handling of sensors is also fairly problematic. The rest of those components can and should be powered by batteries or an auxiliary power plant, as they aren't going to be used most of the time.

Well, given that they're dealing with stealth-happy groups like the Brotherhood of Nod (who love thermo-optical camo and their pseudo-black globe system) and the GLA (camouflage out the wazoo) while dealing with the horror of a tib-infested wasteland (where you'll need those sensors on all the time because tib-mutated wildlife kill tanks if you're not careful)...

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

Are you trying to power your energy weapons directly out of the power plant? I always used power cells wit 100 shots or more that rechaged out of combat.

Without an appropriate fusion/fission plant? No. I've been using power cells to approximate capacitors for the lasers. For example, that 1.6MW Gatling laser has 1000 16MJ capacitors, the idea was that, under combat loads, the two sets of capacitors would be trickle-charged if need be. Sure, for something like the Fennek/Humvee hybrid it would be only 250kW per set of banks but it's better than waiting for hours like in Heavy Gear.

[Ulzgoroth]

Frankly, of operating on realistic chemical fuel, operating huge amounts of high-energy systems continuously, and having good endurance, you probably have to pick at most 2.

Also I might suggest not characterizing a vehicle with multiple CIWS installations as a Humvee...

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

Well, given that they're dealing with stealth-happy groups like the Brotherhood of Nod (who love thermo-optical camo and their pseudo-black globe system) and the GLA (camouflage out the wazoo) while dealing with the horror of a tib-infested wasteland (where you'll need those sensors on all the time because tib-mutated wildlife kill tanks if you're not careful)...

Given all that, you should definitely be using passive sensors because they don't make you show up like a beacon saying 'kill me'. Active sensors in ground combat are mostly for rangefinding on targets previously detected by other means. Also, my point about sensors is just that the Vehicles rules for sensors are pretty badly broken because they use the wrong scaling rule.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

Frankly, of operating on realistic chemical fuel, operating huge amounts of high-energy systems continuously, and having good endurance, you probably have to pick at most 2.

Also I might suggest not characterizing a vehicle with multiple CIWS installations as a Humvee...

The reality of the situation is that, well, it's going to be in the coming days as guided micro-missiles and ATGMs proliferate to ubiquitous levels. We're starting to see vehicles be fitted with ADS systems, and it's only going to get more common as time goes on. It would probably be a situation where everyone and their brother slaps ADS systems -or, as you put it, CIWS- on every vehicle that can do so just to stem the missile-a-paluza that a future battlefield is going to be.

Let alone CnC's in/famous 'vehicular/building and guided weapons are 100% accurate unless shenanigans (like, oh, CnC Generals' China's ECM tank 'lol'ing missiles)' battlefield.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Given all that, you should definitely be using passive sensors because they don't make you show up like a beacon saying 'kill me'. Active sensors in ground combat are mostly for rangefinding on targets previously detected by other means. Also, my point about sensors is just that the Vehicles rules for sensors are pretty badly broken because they use the wrong scaling rule.

Here's the thing, from my understanding active stealth (i.e. thermo-optic cloaks and the discount black globe system on the stealth tank and later aircraft) detection in CnC Tiberium is an active system, not a passive one. Apparently stealth systems got to the point where you can't rely on passives to detect them. Camo can be countered by passive but stealth? Only active.

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

The reality of the situation is that, well, it's going to be in the coming days as guided micro-missiles and ATGMs proliferate to ubiquitous levels. We're starting to see vehicles be fitted with ADS systems, and it's only going to get more common as time goes on. It would probably be a situation where everyone and their brother slaps ADS systems -or, as you put it, CIWS- on every vehicle that can do so just to stem the missile-a-paluza that a future battlefield is going to be.

ATGMs have been ubiquitous for decades, in the (rare) scenario of high-tier forces facing off.

I'm not aware of "micro-missiles" being a significant concern for anyone, but I might have missed it. There does seem to be something like that on some recent Chinese AFVs, though I don't remember being able to find an explanation of what they're for.

APS/ADS are a thing now, some of them even on vehicles lighter than main battle tanks. They don't, that I'm aware of, incorporate high-energy automatic weapon turrets. And it seems a pretty good bet that they won't for vehicles where energy economy is a significant concern.

Also, you implied more than one defensive weapon turret. On what you're calling a humvee. That's more like a loadout for a heavy APC/IFV, not a very light utility/recon vehicle.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

Here's the thing, from my understanding active stealth (i.e. thermo-optic cloaks and the discount black globe system on the stealth tank and later aircraft) detection in CnC Tiberium is an active system, not a passive one. Apparently stealth systems got to the point where you can't rely on passives to detect them. Camo can be countered by passive but stealth? Only active.

That implies that both their stealth systems and their active sensors are magic.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

ATGMs have been ubiquitous for decades, in the (rare) scenario of high-tier forces facing off.

From my understanding, it's less 'ubiquitous' and more 'very common'... although it might be our definitions of ubiquitous being skewed.

Recent advances in technology have made ATGMs more man-portable while at least retaining effectiveness. I wouldn't be surprised that everyone would be running around with a light version of the Javelin-made-TAC Missile in the future. This is especially interesting given that the US Army has been implementing something akin to the TAC missile by using the radar variant of the Hellfire in its new SHORAD system.

I'm not aware of "micro-missiles" being a significant concern for anyone, but I might have missed it. There does seem to be something like that on some recent Chinese AFVs, though I don't remember being able to find an explanation of what they're for.

Think of it this way, just a while back Rathyon had revealed a 40mm micro missile that can be used in the bog-standard underslung grenade launcher. This capability gives soldiers a decent-sized boost to their anti-vehicle/structure capability using an HEDP warhead similar to the ones used in the standard HiLo grenades.

While the HEDP warhead wouldn't be dangerous for, say, a tank, it would be for something like light combat cars (like the humvee and successors) and APCs at the minimum with certainty against any electronics and other sensitive equipment.

APS/ADS are a thing now, some of them even on vehicles lighter than main battle tanks. They don't, that I'm aware of, incorporate high-energy automatic weapon turrets. And it seems a pretty good bet that they won't for vehicles where energy economy is a significant concern.

The energy ADS system is for hypersonic missiles, which would be immune to anything that doesn't use a UV (or X-Ray) wavelength pulse laser thanks to that plasma sheath. Note the only other weapon in that ADS unit is a 2mm gatling railgun that is fairly short-ranged compared to the UV pulse laser.

Also, you implied more than one defensive weapon turret. On what you're calling a humvee. That's more like a loadout for a heavy APC/IFV, not a very light utility/recon vehicle.

Well, the big problem is that you design your forces against your enemies, and when two of them love to make sure that they get fire in all directions (either with lots of launchers or quite a few rapid-fire launchers)...

... unless you've got your turrets using electromagnetic levitation mountings (i.e. instead of a traditional turret mounting, they're in a maglev environment, which makes them far faster at the fraction of the mass cost), you're going to need multiple turrets. Since you need NBC capability to keep out Tiberium (at the minimum)... EM turrets aren't going to be viable.