Battletech Story Brainstorming

[ShadowArxxy]

...I honestly expected better from Battletech's side of things, to be honest.

The Battletech stuff is "more advanced future" as imagined in the 80s, but imagined in the 80s by people who weren't actually familiar with the state of military things and so actually set the performance parameters to be incredibly low.

For one thing, they clearly didn't understand that tank cannons reached well into the supersonic muzzle velocity range by WWII, with even low-velocity stub barreled cannons like the Sherman and early Panzer IVs being (barely) supersonic. So when they make a point in the fluff that Gauss rifles make supersonic cracks and regular autocannons *don't*, they nerfed BTech ballistic performance beyond belief without even appearing to realize so.

 

[Spartan303]

...I honestly expected better from Battletech's side of things, to be honest.

Well, lets gets some more perspectives, shall we?

@S'task , @CurtisLemay @Speaker4thesilent . Id love to get more perspectives on this. This is fun and fascinating.

 

[Battlegrinder]

In addition, even though 'regular' Battletech cannons have supposedly advanced to the point of rapid-firing autocannons being the norm, normal BTech autocannons fire once per round, and a BTech round is supposed to be 10 seconds, so their RoFs are 6 rounds per minute for all ACs, 12 rounds per minute for Ultra ACs, and 36 rounds per minute for Rotary ACs. This means that the 25mm Bushmaster autocannon on a Bradley IFV, which has a rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute, is the equivalent of thirty three AC/2s compressed into a single weapon. . . while also weighing just 119 kilograms as opposed to six tons.

I don't think that's correct. Per the wiki (citing the tech manual, which I currently don't own), many autocannons are burst fire weapons, not single shot, and the single shot they fire in gameplay is an abstraction. From the AC/20 page:

As an example of the rating system, the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon was a 150 mm weapon firing a ten-round cassette in a ten-second period, while the ChemJet Gun was a 185 mm weapon firing a four-round cassette in the same period. As both weapons were capable of firing 200 kilograms of ammunition in a 10-second period, at an effective range of just under 300 meters, they were both classified as autocannon/20s.

I would also note that given the BattleTech rifle family is, per BT canon, descended from modern tank cannons and has severe problems penetrating modern BT armor (and in the case of the light rifle, is entirely unable to do so), arguing that modern weapons are so powerful they can easily defeat BT armor directly contradicts BT canon. Logically, other modern weapons would presumably be just as ineffective).

Given that BT has frequently reinvented 20th century weapons and technologies decades or centuries later (rocket launchers and reactive armor come to mind), technologies that BT also had during it's own 20th century. This suggests to me that while those technologies in their modern forms obviously existed, the newly added BT versions of them are only superficially similar in function and the underlying technology is very different.

That's not to say that particular rule is the be all, end all for debate, but I would take it more to mean that the BT devs are aware of the issue that the setting was based on a poor understanding of military technology circa 1980 and, rather than try and rework the setting, have elected to intentionally break with reality and intentionally want to make any sort of 1:1 comparison with modern technology difficult.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

Oh, no. Definitely ahead in ballistics.

If you start comparing just WWII autocanons to BT's you'll find them better in the MG, AC/2 and probably the AC/5 range in terms of weight and range.

Though we basically stopped making Autocannons when missiles started getting better.

We do have systems for SPAG that let us do things like put 8 shells on the same spot every minute or so, at the same time of impact.

Modern tank crews train for 8 rounds a minute minimum, handloaded IIRC.

There's a NATO 120mm (currently) about 4 long ton smoothbore tank gun that's had several iterations. That's at least AC/10 if we made the loading mechanism automated (Basically the difference between a cannon and an autocannon). With effective ranges measured in km.

Granted that loading mechanism might add a few tons, I don't think it'll add 8 it'd need to match weights with a BT AC/10.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Oh, no. Definitely ahead in ballistics.

If you start comparing just WWII autocanons to BT's you'll find them better in the MG, AC/2 and probably the AC/5 range in terms of weight and range.

Though we basically stopped making Autocannons when missiles started getting better.

We do have systems for SPAG that let us do things like put 8 shells on the same spot every minute or so, at the same time of impact.

Modern tank crews train for 8 rounds a minute minimum, handloaded IIRC.

There's a NATO 120mm (currently) about 4 long ton smoothbore tank gun that's had several iterations. That's at least AC/10 if we made the loading mechanism automated (Basically the difference between a cannon and an autocannon). With effective ranges measured in km.

Granted that loading mechanism might add a few tons, I don't think it'll add 8 it'd need to match weights with a BT AC/10.

Ok, well for one thing the weapons ranges for BT are explicitly truncated for gameplay purposes.

Weapon mass isn't tampered with for gameplay (well, it is, but not in that sense), but I think you might be skewing things a bit in favor of real life. For example, a BT machine guns weighs half a ton (quarter ton for the clan model), while a real life one like the M2 weights about 85 lbs. Clear win for real life, right? No, because the weight given for the BT one isn't just the gun itself, it's the gun, the mounting, ammunition feed, the motors that allow it to traverse and actually aim, etc. Everything that needs to be installed to make that weapon actually work as part of the overall mech, which will add a lot of extra weight.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I would also note that given the BattleTech rifle family is, per BT canon, descended from modern tank cannons and has severe problems penetrating modern BT armor (and in the case of the light rifle, is entirely unable to do so), arguing that modern weapons are so powerful they can easily defeat BT armor directly contradicts BT canon. Logically, other modern weapons would presumably be just as ineffective).

BT Rifles are supposed to be 80s tank cannons, but these would be pre-hypervelocity guns and again, the writers clearly were totally unfamiliar with the actual capabilities of 80s weaponry and falsely pegged it at levels on par with early WWII.

 

[Doomsought]

Vastly superior ballistic weapons, with hypervelocity tank cannons having order-of-magnitude superior performance over even "lostech" Gauss Rifles, and artillery being an absolute leveller.

I think I need to remind everyone that the game rules explicitly state that all weapon ranges are significantly reduced compared to their "real" performance for the sake of play-ability.

While they didn't explicitly say what the real ranges are, based on comparing the AC/20 to a similar boar siege cannon I've come to the conclusion that the real maximum ranges being 10x the game long range (this gives a nice round number) Though the effective ranges will be significantly less, say half that, so 5x the game long range

Incomparably superior electronics, leading to vastly more capable fire control, smart weapons, sensors, electronic countermeasures, and counter-countermeasures.

Lol no. Mech sensor suites are insanely more advanced than modern ones. They have the noise filtering capabilities on their computers to use seismic sensors while moving, and they also make use of magnetic aberration sensors (which are infamously finicky).

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Ok, well for one thing the weapons ranges for BT are explicitly truncated for gameplay purposes.

Weapon mass isn't tampered with for gameplay (well, it is, but not in that sense), but I think you might be skewing things a bit in favor of real life. For example, a BT machine guns weighs half a ton (quarter ton for the clan model), while a real life one like the M2 weights about 85 lbs. Clear win for real life, right? No, because the weight given for the BT one isn't just the gun itself, it's the gun, the mounting, ammunition feed, the motors that allow it to traverse and actually aim, etc. Everything that needs to be installed to make that weapon actually work as part of the overall mech, which will add a lot of extra weight.

Hint: an all-up mounting for a Bushmaster 25mm gun, including mounting, feed, targeting systems, everything, is 1,984 pounds including 220 rounds of ready ammunition, and that's on an independently traversing and tracking mount that's more advanced than anything even imagined in Battletech's backwards-future, on top of being real-life OmniTech.

Those mounts can literally be hot-swapped in five minutes flat.

 

[Battlegrinder]

BT Rifles are supposed to be 80s tank cannons, but these would be pre-hypervelocity guns and again, the writers clearly were totally unfamiliar with the actual capabilities of 80s weaponry and falsely pegged it at levels on par with early WWII.

Rifles aren't specifically 80s tank cannons, they were used up into the age of war. And regardless of what the writers understood about weapons technology of the 1980s, what they wrote down was that BT armor is immune/borderline immune to modern tank guns. Even if they vastly underestimated how powerful those guns are, that doesn't change what they wrote.

Hint: an all-up mounting for a Bushmaster 25mm gun, including mounting, feed, targeting systems, everything, is 1,984 pounds including 220 rounds of ready ammunition, and that's on an independently traversing and tracking mount that's more advanced than anything even imagined in Battletech's backwards-future, on top of being real-life OmniTech.

Those mounts can literally be hot-swapped in five minutes flat.

So in BT terms, it's a machine gun that weights twice as much as a standard MG and is unable to penetrate mech armor.

EDIT: I don't understand why you're trying to hype up this off all weapon systems. Even if we run with your idea of "BT is just future 80s made by people that didn't understand 80s tech", the bushmaster would still be useless against mechs as it is not capable of engaging even 80s era MBTs.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

So in BT terms, it's a machine gun that weights twice as much as a standard MG and is unable to penetrate mech armor.

In BT terms, it's a beyond-hyper, beyond-rotary AC/2 with its own independent Targeting Computer and turret that can fire thirty shots in a single action against any target in its own firing arc with perfect accuracy, firing hyper-advanced armor piercing sabot ammo that tears through 'Mech armor like butter.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

In addition, even though 'regular' Battletech cannons have supposedly advanced to the point of rapid-firing autocannons being the norm, normal BTech autocannons fire once per round, and a BTech round is supposed to be 10 seconds, so their RoFs are 6 rounds per minute for all ACs, 12 rounds per minute for Ultra ACs, and 36 rounds per minute for Rotary ACs. This means that the 25mm Bushmaster autocannon on a Bradley IFV, which has a rate of fire of 200 rounds per minute, is the equivalent of thirty three AC/2s compressed into a single weapon. . . while also weighing just 119 kilograms as opposed to six tons.

All of this is wrong for Battletech.
A 'round' in an AC can account for a single shot weapon system OR a rapid fire AC that pumps out a dozen or more shells at a time. The variance is simply by manufacture, but IN GAME they have the same characteristics by class of AC.
ALSO please note that BTECH has outright stated that current-day weapons can't even penetrate 'mech scale armor. They bounce right off without any appreciable damage. This includes current SABOT technology.

 

[Battlegrinder]

In BT terms, it's a beyond-hyper, beyond-rotary AC/2 with its own independent Targeting Computer and turret that can fire thirty shots in a single action against any target in its own firing arc with perfect accuracy, firing hyper-advanced armor piercing sabot ammo that tears through 'Mech armor like butter.

Per general dynamics, the sabot rounds from the bushmaster are only rated to penetrate APCs, not tanks (nor is anywhere close to hypervelocity). And even going by your argument that BT is based on a misunderstood version of the 80s, even the modern APCs that the bushmaster is able to engage have worse armor than a 1980s tank (in large part because modern APCs are mostly upgraded 80s APCs). Mechs have similar armor to tanks, therefor a weapon that cannot engage an 80s tank cannot engage a mech.

And you keep hyping up the fire rate as being absurd by BT standards, it's not. As I said before, BT weapons are not firing one shot every ten seconds. Even the name "autocannon" implies this, as autocannons are by definition capable of rapid fire.

As an example of the rating system, the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon was a 150 mm weapon firing a ten-round cassette in a ten-second period, while the ChemJet Gun was a 185 mm weapon firing a four-round cassette in the same period. As both weapons were capable of firing 200 kilograms of ammunition in a 10-second period, at an effective range of just under 300 meters, they were both classified as autocannon/20s.

 

[Doomsought]

My conversion of game scale to real scale for btech is long range x5 for effective range and x10 for maximum range.
If we reverse this process on the bushmaster, it has a game scale long range of 20 hexes. Which puts it right between an AC/2 and light AC/2 in range, but it lacks the penetration power of an AC/2. I'd give it just 1d6 agianst infantry and 1 point of damage against BAR 5 (industrial) armor.

 

[Jormungandr]

Since this is about a Modern Earth (or close to) using modern/current advancements in reinventing, improving upon, or reimplementing Battletech technology, we'll go for realism and in-universe technical data (such as the km range of missiles, et cetera) over game rules and limitations because of said game rules -- note that this also includes if claimed B'Tech feats given by the developers make no sense.

For example, if there's a dumbass claim by them that "modern weapons cannot penetrate B'Tech armour" as a cover for their deficiencies in worldbuilding/understanding technology at the time, it's considered a bullshit "a Wizard Did It!" if a modern MBT cannon can clearly Swiss Cheese said armour (note this is an example, not a claim).

 

[Bear Ribs]

It's also worth noting that BT Autocannons do not do any damage from kinetic energy. All the damage is delivered via High Explosive Armor Piercing rounds. This is especially apparent with the Hypervelocity line, an HVAC/2 uses the exact same ammo as an AC/2, but explicitly has a vastly higher muzzle velocity which it uses to increase range. Despite the increased muzzle velocity, it still does the exact same damage.

Hmm, pretty cool. So this how about this scenario:

Somebody's decided to bring BattleTech to the big screen, it's going to get the Marvel treatment. They're doing the Warrior Trilogy first. You're in charge of casting and need to bring three actors to the table to play Grayson Carlyle, Lori Kalmar, and Duke Ricol as the leads. Who are your choices, among actors who are alive and available today, for those roles? Bonus round: Who would you choose if you could select currently-unavailable deceased or retired actors?

Trying to answer my own scenario:

Grayson is really hard to cast. He's only 15 at Decision at Thunder Rift and 15-year-old actors don't do action roles, they do teen heartthrob roles. So I'd need to either find an up-and-comer with no history (preferred) or caste an older actor and use makeup to make them look younger. Assuming I need to do the latter, I think Tom Holland would work, he's got a certain amount of action chops and while in his mid-20s, that's about as close as we're going to get in today's Hollywood.

Lori Kalmar: Chloe Grace Moretz has the right look and age (adjusting for the fact that we can't really cast 15 year olds, I mean she's about the same age as Tom Holland). She also has played some action roles and has a history of challenging herself to avoid being typecast so she may jump at being a giant robot pilot.

Duke Ricol: I feel like Mark Hammil would really nail this. He has the chops, he's got a big draw with the Sci-Fi crowd, and he likes playing a villain even though he keeps getting typecast as a hero. The fact that Hasid Ricol is also a bit morally ambiguous, a patriot for the evil empire who's willing to be both ruthless and honorable rather than a cackling loon, is also going to mean we need a particularly good actor here.

 

[Battlegrinder]

For example, if there's a dumbass claim by them that "modern weapons cannot penetrate B'Tech armour" as a cover for their deficiencies in worldbuilding/understanding technology at the time, it's bullshit if a modern MBT cannon can clearly Swiss Cheese said armour (note this is an example, not a claim).

That's a reasonable argument to make...the problem is with actually applying it in this context. We know what the devs have said about BT armor, and how it's stats work....and that's all. What it actually is, what it's made of, ect, we have no canon info on that and are just speculating, so there's no way to know if a modern tank could clearly swiss cheese it and the devs are just BSing, because we don't have the information to determine that.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

@Bear Ribs

1. Tom Holland as Grayson...I'm almost sold on this. I'm trying to think of an alternate actor I know of that would be better. Haven't yet.
2. You're choice on Lori Kalmar fits well. 👍
3. Mark Hamill could become an inspired choice for something like this. I just don't know if he's still youthful enough for the role, though CGI and makeup may make this work.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

I don't think that's correct. Per the wiki (citing the tech manual, which I currently don't own), many autocannons are burst fire weapons, not single shot, and the single shot they fire in gameplay is an abstraction. From the AC/20 page:

Some autocannons are burst fire, but the fluff names them as firing a single shell or an equivalent burst of smaller-caliber shells. For example, an AC/20 is a single-shot ~200mm cannon (example: Tomodzuru), or a four-round 185mm (example: ChemJet), or a ten-round 150mm (example: Crusher SH).

 

[ShadowArxxy]

If we're going by real-life examples: Battletech 'Mech armor is defeated by massed machine gun fire, and while BTech machine guns are a genericized category, the Browning .50-caliber is explicitly listed as an example. Even if we discard game mechanics (which place MG fire at 2 points of 'Mech-scale damage), this pretty much absolutely refutes any concept of 'Mechs "shrugging off" modern weapons.

 

[Skitzyfrenic]

No, because the weight given for the BT one isn't just the gun itself, it's the gun, the mounting, ammunition feed, the motors that allow it to traverse and actually aim, etc. Everything that needs to be installed to make that weapon actually work as part of the overall mech, which will add a lot of extra weight.

No, I actually did account for that in a lot of my musings, because this isn't my first 'why do BT ballistics suck so much' rodeo.

That's one of the reasons why I specified WWII MGs, AC/2s, and maybe AC/5s. Because I've actually looked them up, and they manage to fit more guns per ton up past the AC/2 range, but it pretty rapidly gets much heavier in WWII technology.

But since you brought up MGs, the turret on a HMMWV weighs 200 pounds. That includes the controls, the big ass ring gear for spinning around, and a bunch of armor that wouldn't be on the 'MG weight' in BT since the armor would be part of mech's but we need to change up the format of the control to smaller gears and give it at least a 90 degree cone from it's hardpoint. Probably fair to say that it weighs about the same at that point swapping armor for a more complex control system gun-side and gun side ammo feed. ~285 pounds with a mounted Ma Deuce. That's .1425 tons. Less than a Clan weapon for a .50 cal machine gun. It even has 200+ pounds to play with to even weigh the same, for basically the same weapon that is described in BT. 12mm or .50cal. Also it's something that's still used and effective in BT as the M2 is actually listed somewhere.

Bofors 40mm L/60 (The WWII to 1990s weapon that would fit the profile of an AC/2 as far as I can tell. Though the Oerlikon 20mm might be the AC/2 and the Bofors the AC/5 bracket. It has been a hot minute since I last spent hours doing this research for fun) has a carriage weight (it and it's mount) of 1,151 lbs, or a little over half a ton. Normally has a crew to operate it. But just to reach the six tons of a BT AC/2 it has ~5.5 tons of control motors systems and ammunition feed.

The weight, in WWII tech, starts to rapidly get heavier than the BT counterpart. Given that the best information I can find on an Abrams places it's entire turret (cannon, controls, specialist systems, electronics, mounts, armor etc) is that it weighs 27 tons. And that's a 105mm (or about the /5 to /10 range) cannon. Without knowing how much of that can be stripped away, I can't lock in anything for that.

In the low caliber end, modern tech is absolutely better than BT tech, worse case we'd need to actually start building autocannons and HE rounds again. In the interim, I think I'm right to believe our missile tech makes Clanner missile tech look like noobsauce.

I think we have superior high caliber end cannon tech in terms of power, and effectiveness, but not weight.