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Collimatrix

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Everything posted by Collimatrix

  1. Collimatrix
    OK, for those of you who just jumped into this; this competition is a sequel to the 2239 competition, and set in the same universe. The backstory is that in 2029, a massive nuclear war devastated human populations across the globe. The USA fractured into tiny statelets. By 2250, the Dianetic People's Republic of California (no, you're not supposed to take this setting seriously) has been locked in wars off and on for the past decade with the Cascadian Republic (an amalgamation of Washington, Oregon, and a poorly-defined border running somewhere through Idaho and Nevada), as well as Deseret. The Cascadian Republic has a smaller manufacturing base than the DPRC, but if their APFSDS spec is anything to go by, they have a slight technological lead. Deseret is comparatively sparsely populated, but the difficult terrain and toughness of its Mormonhadeen fighters mean that it is not an easy opponent. The DPRC has a roughly 1960s level of manufacturing technology, although their current arsenal is badly dated. The goal of this competition is to design a new heavy tank for their forces. Because a great deal of written material has survived from before 2029, you aren't designing a 1960s tank, per se. You are designing a tank with 1960s levels of technology but with the benefit of hindsight.
  2. Collimatrix
    OK, time to start playing around with armor arrays.
  3. Collimatrix
    I'm pretty sure the pyrotechnic flares used for luring away heat-seeking missiles use a similar PTFE/aluminum mix.
  4. Collimatrix
    Just so everyone is on the same page as I am, @N-L-M is putting a lot of work into making this contest more streamlined than the last one. Some of this will be in how the submissions are handled (e.g. there will be two separate threads, one for discussion of the contest, and another for the final submissions so the judges don't have to go searching through the main thread to look for the submissions), but also a lot of work is going into a set of equations and standards for figuring out the effectiveness of composite armor that you don't need a PhD to understand. The goal is to get something that's realistic-ish, but that can be calculated using an excel spreadsheet.
  5. Collimatrix
    I had heard that Anthem went through development hell, and also that the gameplay (especially end-game content, or lack thereof) was disappointing. This review really brings those two complaints together. It really does look like the game was originally intended as a single-player experience, and that the multi-player aspect was grafted on hastily later.
  6. Collimatrix
    Ah. That clarifies things a lot.
  7. Collimatrix
    This quote stood out to me: Does that mean there's more to come?
  8. Collimatrix
    Agreed. I think it is telling that no videos of the BMPTs sent to Syria in actual combat have surfaced.
  9. Collimatrix
    It is my personal goal that my submission for this contest will have more road wheels and torsion bars than the next two tanks combined.
  10. Collimatrix
    I wonder how much more of an armed force could be made "elite," for whatever value of "elite" you choose, if you had sports medicine/hormone therapy/stem cell magic that could wring another 10 years of peak performance out of them.
  11. Collimatrix
    I don't buy that upgrades of the depth you're talking about require any smaller a factory than just making a new tank. You're stripping the tank down to the hull, pulling off the old suspension elements and putting new, high-performance ones on, potentially pulling the turret and replacing it with a new one, pulling the powerpack, etc. So, aside from welding up a new chassis, you still need a facility with gantry cranes capable of handling the weight of the vehicle (if you want to get the upgrades done this century), you still need the ability to pull and install new powerpacks, etc. You might be able to pull a quick one over the government, just because congresses and parliaments are filled with self-important know-nothings, but the bottom line is the only thing you're economizing on is the metal box that you put all the important stuff on. Why is the T-14 taking so long? I can guarantee you it's not problems with the underlying chassis itself.
  12. Collimatrix
    Oh yeah, that would be great. Could you toss it into this thread?
  13. Collimatrix
    @N-L-M is still working on the solicitation. I've seen parts of the rough draft. So, it's coming soon.
  14. Collimatrix
    The extra useless steel certainly doesn't help, but it is far from the most serious problem. Older tanks like the T-55 or M60 have much worse suspension than modern tanks. Do you also upgrade that? These older tanks also have drastically inferior engines and transmissions. Do you upgrade those as well? Their fire control systems are quite old. Do you upgrade those too? At this point, you are basically using a T-55 shaped box that you're going to put modern systems into. Is that meaningfully cheaper than an all-new tank? Even modern tanks are made of steel. Maybe even mostly of steel. The underlying hull needs to be made of something that can withstand the automotive stresses and provide a firm backing for the composite armor packages that are welded/bolted to them. Steel is cheap, and RHA-grade armor steel has enough toughness that it can work as a structural material while doubling as an additional layer of protection. Furthermore, ERA doesn't _completely_ stop HEAT warheads. The tip of the shaped charge jet, also called the jet precursor typically punches through the ERA without being disrupted very much. So there needs to be some sort of armor behind the ERA element to stop the jet precursor.
  15. Collimatrix
    This looks like a very exciting game show!
  16. Collimatrix
    I would suspect that in a war that is mainly light infantry vs. light infantry, the professional army would run up the score pretty well against lesser forces. But in a war with more artillery, mines, air strikes, and other means of killing people more democratically, their advantage would be blunted since people are getting exploded left and right somewhat irrespective of skill level. But it's hard to imagine a situation beyond two nation states going head-on in a years-long war of attrition where you would have people operating artillery who don't qualify as elite, professional soldiers.
  17. Collimatrix
    South... African... Super-Soldiers? ... Aw shit.
  18. Collimatrix
    There has been a shooting in Utrecht on the public transport system.
  19. Collimatrix
    I'm not well-versed in all the details, but as I understand it, getting the correct metal microstructure for high-performance plate armor at those thicknesses is a function of changing the temperature of the steel as it is heat treated with fairly precise timing. The alloying elements widen the timing window and make it easier to get right. That said, the armor isn't made in the slipway. It's made in some sort of monstrously complex steel foundry that is hopefully right next to the slipway. But reducing the armor protection doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be able to turn the savings in cost and steel into another ship if you're bottlenecked on adequately large drydocks for making capital ships in.
  20. Collimatrix
    I haven't read any grand historical summaries, but surely the relative popularity of citizen vs. professional soldiers has waxed and waned? I was under the impression that for most of the Classical period, Greek hoplites were basically citizen militias barring exceptional state-funded formations like the Theban sacred band... or those slave-beating assholes with the Lambdas on their shields. Roman legions were professionals, but wasn't this rather exceptional for the period? Most of the Gallic forces they whomped on, for instance, were basically tribal militias with small cadres of elites/chieftains. This is probably a large amount of why the Romans were able to whomp on them so thoroughly, of course. But then again, weren't the predominant forces of the entire migration period almost entirely not professional soldiers? Certainly the soldiers of the (embattled) sedentary empires would have been largely professionals, but I can't imagine the Goths, Alans or Huns really having professional soldiers. It's not clear to me how a nomadic and illiterate tribal confederation could really have the level of organization to have professions, per se. Oh, and ditto the Mongols.
  21. Collimatrix
    What do we know about Object 420?
  22. Collimatrix
    There is some sort of active shooter scenario at a mosque in Christchurch, NZ: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-47578798
  23. Collimatrix
    Do you have a high speed camera? Those are surprisingly cheap now. If it is bolt bounce, the problem is that your bolt carrier is moving forward too quickly.
  24. Collimatrix
    Hopefully with somewhat less incest than the Ptolemies.
  25. Collimatrix
    What are those things in front of the turret cheeks?
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