Why do you place those chunks of metal (reactive armour?) on the missile launcher? That thing should be disposable, any way. Also, reactive armour require relatively thick conventional armour to be laid over (hence no reactive armour on light APCs and jeeps). Possibly you should limit reactive armour only to the key locations of the mech, to keep the weight down. Like, cockpit and armoured shields, while leaving limbs without reactive armour.
Perhaps all those plates don't need to be reactive armour but perhaps they can be be just regular add-on armour that is mounted over the regular hull with some space between it. A bit like an RPG cage but then solid.
Well, if the extra armor prevents your missiles from exploding before they leave the rack...
I'd be a little worried about all that fuel and HE in a nice exposed container, waiting to go off right above my left eye. One good burn through on a laser shot in side deflection and BOOOOOMM!!!
Well, my idea was, that if missile is hit, it either jetissoned, or exploded outright on the shoulder. However, even if it is the later case, the main direction of explosion will be focused forward, where warhead faces, and not downward. This way, the mech itself won`t be damaged seriously. Of course, this won`t work for sort of "high explosive" warhead. But hell, why will the mecha carry those? Missiles are good for defeating heavy armour, and HE warhead won`t be a wise choise for such task.
And now, we are looking at current variant. If something heavier then 7.62 mm will hit this "plated armour", I doubt it won`t explode the missile any way...
Well, if you mean by "cannister" what I refer to as the missile pod, then the missile pod is right over the left shoulder of the mech. If a weapon penetrated the missile pod from the side (it could still hit the warhead front on, but that is a much smaller target) then it would set off a fuel explosion which would probably chain fire the whole pod. This explosion might be big enough to rip up the upper shoulder points on the mech at least. If the warhead contained any explosives (rather than just a big dumb penetrator) the explosion would be much worse. A little armor around the missile pod would be nice protection.
Oops. Scrap the canister stuff. I`ve misread your post in a hurry, sorry. Othervise, your opinion is clear. IMHO emergency jetissoning system is still a better idea.
wow....umm....I thought it looked cool on the missile launcher, didn't really give it too much thought, lol. I think protecting the legs of the mech is very important, same as some modern mbts often have era plates completely covering the wheel/tread assembly. And I think for a mech legs are even more important than treads for a tank, if a tank gets threads shot out from under it, it can still return fire, if a mech gets the legs shot out from under it, it's pretty much screwed. On a note of the armour I might be ripping all the panels off of it and replacing it with more modern styled panels that conform the body better.
its doesnt have to be reactive Armour it can just be ablative Armour! That makes more sense practically and can be lightweight. Its just to take the damage ad when its beat up enough it can just fall off!
Berkut, look how VT (Vertical Tanks) from "Steel Batalion" are made. I mean the legs. The armor is sort of "screen" or "shield" in front of actual machinery. I think that`s the best choise if you want to up the armor of the legs, while keeping them thin. Abalative armour is one of the variants, however, abalative armour is HEAVIER then reactive armor of comparable protective capabilities.
About legs. Yes, legs are surely the weakest point of any walker. However, if you want to keep walker highly mobile (and that`s the only advantage over ckassical weapon platforms) you shoud keep the mech relatively light. And light construction sippose, that heavy armour is placed only on key locations. Probably, knee joints should be uparmoured, and the hips/groin. However feets and shins are too low from the ground to be aimed effectively
Apart from looking very cool I don't see how VT style shields are a lighter alternative than small panels like on current mbts (although as you can see I dig the shields too purely because of the looks). These "shields" would actually be much heavier in pound for protection because to protect the same area on the mech they would have to be larger, not to mention that having large heavy shields some distance from the leg would make it much more difficult to move because due to inertia they would try to swing around like crazy all the time (take a dumbbell, put it close to your chest and move around a bit, now hold it with your arm fully extended and move around a bit, same thing here). Shins could be very nicely targeted by infantry with RPGs in ambushes, or even by other mechs since their weapons are fairly high off the ground.
And most likely a mech like this would have some active protection too, no? Even the Israeli and S-Korean tanks have either a small rocket- or shotgun-based system to shoot incoming mortar rounds and missiles.
yea, most modern mbts have optional active protection systems
the european mech has a laser interceptor paired with a radar for hard kill and optronic countermeasures and smoke grenades for soft kill. The soviet one had two shotguns with a radar as well as smoke/optronic cm but I'll replace the shotguns with a laser for the gen 2 upgrade
Berkut, the idea of the shield, distanced from main armour, is not in weight. Basicly, main idea is to disrupt the stream of explosion exhaust that is produced by cumulative warhead. The shield can be quite light and unable to stop the shell by itself, but it will lower the impact of the enemy fire to a reasonable value. If you just make the armour thicker - result will be the still unadequate, but overweighted protection. Actually, active defence systems are actually a better choice any way. Instead of relatively unreliable and hazardous lasers and shotguns, why don`t you use the mortars like in "Arena" system?
As for legs - next question arised - how tall is this mech? From the picture, I`ve got an impression, that it is relatively small and compact.
hmm, that's a good point, but then even better to use cage like armour like western afvs do. I messed around with armour a bit and didn't get a good result, I'm keeping the era plates, we'll see about shields.
Well this isn't today, current time is around 2030 and it's something of a parallel universe I guess. Lasers could be much more realiable.
It's quite large, well by realism standards they are anyways, by mech standards not that large I guess. They stand a bit over 10m
Aren`t mechwarrior`s largest mechs 18+ meters tall? I can`t be sure, but somehow thought that light ones were about 11-12 meters (those stollen from Macross especially) and the heaviest - about 16-18.
Well, if that thing is so large, then it surely have to keep shins protected. And, possibly is able to carry adequate armour for ERA usage. I thought that it was 2-4 meters high at the very best.
Well, its funny, but specs on a mechwarrior mech (aside from weapons, heat, and weight) are kinda vague. I was quoting from the MW4 manual I had on the Atlas. Try to find actual sizes on the internet. Everything but dimensions can be found... Besides, I just don't think the Gluag officer pod was that big.
The only mech I can think of that was really huge was the Marauder II and I was using the scale (244:1?) on the 2" model I have. It was around 40-42 feet tall. (14 meters?)
Well, its funny, but specs on a mechwarrior mech (aside from weapons, heat, and weight) are kinda vague. I was quoting from the MW4 manual I had on the Atlas. Try to find actual sizes on the internet. Everything but dimensions can be found... Besides, I just don't think the Gluag officer pod was that big.
The only mech I can think of that was really huge was the Marauder II and I was using the scale (244:1?) on the 2" model I have. It was around 40-42 feet tall. (14 meters?)
The Atlas is supposed to be THE tallest 'mech at 16m. Most designs in the game average 10m. The 3050 Omnimechs stand 10m (except the Thor/Summoner at 12m). The Locust (taken from... Doughram IIRC) is 14m due to it's long, skinny legs and the Spider stands at 12m for the same reason. Designs like the Jenner and BlackHawk/Nova stand around 8m due to their squat shape.
The general rule for game play is that each unit is 10m tall. Each elevation level (regarding buildings and hills) is 6m. And unless specified in blueprints or fiction, most 'mechs don't have a set height. As a modeling and scale issue though, it may be better to go by cockpit size.
the size was clearly stated in first "mechcommander" game, if I recall correctly. Also, "Macross" designs have all dimensions set by their desighners. For example VF-1 Valkyrie (Wasp) is 12m tall.
Hehehe, nice lance! I can see him now, charging through narrow streets, skidding into buildings while making tight turns and impaling any light armoured vehicle that's unfortunate enough to bump into him...
thanks, I've been think about animating these things for a while now too. To be quite honest I don't think it would be all that difficult at all. The really hard part would be making enough good environment for them to raise hell in and I'm ****ting pants at the thought of animating damage
the melee weapons are more of a mech to mech thing, the reason being mechs can fairly easily dispatch any other vehicles with ranged weapons, but mechs have very strong and expensive armour and active defences so if no ranged weapons will get through its possible it may become a fist fight, and always better to hit the other one with a spear than a gun barrel, heh. Another reason being a spear like this would probably last no more than 5 hits before it would become completely ineffective so they would try to make the hits count
Yeah, reach is an advantage in close range combat so a spear is a good weapon for it. Once the armour is pierced it's easier to touch deep within the mechanics and destroy vital stuff. Still, it would be quite a sight to see that mech come running around a corner, stumbling on an armour patrol and jamming that blade right into the driver compartment of an APC.
Hmmm animating this thing ey, should be doable, although it would take some effort,into setting it up the hydraulics. Perhaps you should have a chat with brain_damage? He's modeling an urban warzone for use with his Macross YF-19...
umm, not exactly rigged as such. All the elements are grouped and linked with pivots moved to respective locations to allow me to move stuff around on appropriate axises. (did that make any sense?) I don't think there is any point to make a rig in 3ds max for a model like this, I think that's more for models where geometry is actually changed (muscles and such) when you rotate or move anything
put on the laser interceptors, also a comparison shot with the original soviet mech (unmarked, sorry I couldn't find the version with flags and all, I think it's on my laptop). Still left to do: acceleration assist jets, and I want some more shielding around the shoulder area, plus all the markings....and maybe some more details here and there (that empty area above/behind the "head" is pissing me off, I cut it out to make the thing look more compact and reduce front profile but I have to do something with it)
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I'd be a little worried about all that fuel and HE in a nice exposed container, waiting to go off right above my left eye. One good burn through on a laser shot in side deflection and BOOOOOMM!!!
And now, we are looking at current variant. If something heavier then 7.62 mm will hit this "plated armour", I doubt it won`t explode the missile any way...
Just wondering, where do you see the canister?
About legs. Yes, legs are surely the weakest point of any walker. However, if you want to keep walker highly mobile (and that`s the only advantage over ckassical weapon platforms) you shoud keep the mech relatively light. And light construction sippose, that heavy armour is placed only on key locations. Probably, knee joints should be uparmoured, and the hips/groin. However feets and shins are too low from the ground to be aimed effectively
Trophy Active Protection System
DROZD (Thrush) Active Protection System
Active protection system - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
the european mech has a laser interceptor paired with a radar for hard kill and optronic countermeasures and smoke grenades for soft kill. The soviet one had two shotguns with a radar as well as smoke/optronic cm but I'll replace the shotguns with a laser for the gen 2 upgrade
As for legs - next question arised - how tall is this mech? From the picture, I`ve got an impression, that it is relatively small and compact.
Well this isn't today, current time is around 2030 and it's something of a parallel universe I guess. Lasers could be much more realiable.
It's quite large, well by realism standards they are anyways, by mech standards not that large I guess. They stand a bit over 10m
Well, if that thing is so large, then it surely have to keep shins protected. And, possibly is able to carry adequate armour for ERA usage. I thought that it was 2-4 meters high at the very best.
The only mech I can think of that was really huge was the Marauder II and I was using the scale (244:1?) on the 2" model I have. It was around 40-42 feet tall. (14 meters?)
The Atlas is supposed to be THE tallest 'mech at 16m. Most designs in the game average 10m. The 3050 Omnimechs stand 10m (except the Thor/Summoner at 12m). The Locust (taken from... Doughram IIRC) is 14m due to it's long, skinny legs and the Spider stands at 12m for the same reason. Designs like the Jenner and BlackHawk/Nova stand around 8m due to their squat shape.
The general rule for game play is that each unit is 10m tall. Each elevation level (regarding buildings and hills) is 6m. And unless specified in blueprints or fiction, most 'mechs don't have a set height. As a modeling and scale issue though, it may be better to go by cockpit size.
the melee weapons are more of a mech to mech thing, the reason being mechs can fairly easily dispatch any other vehicles with ranged weapons, but mechs have very strong and expensive armour and active defences so if no ranged weapons will get through its possible it may become a fist fight, and always better to hit the other one with a spear than a gun barrel, heh. Another reason being a spear like this would probably last no more than 5 hits before it would become completely ineffective so they would try to make the hits count
Hmmm animating this thing ey, should be doable, although it would take some effort,into setting it up the hydraulics. Perhaps you should have a chat with brain_damage? He's modeling an urban warzone for use with his Macross YF-19...
Now That's a Knoif!
/Crocodile Dundee
new AA module. Can double as an anti vehicle/infantry gun