Trailers

Oerjan said:

The grav trailer needs its own near-full-sized grav engine. Simply
providing the lifting force isn't enough; it also needs the
side-to-side maneuvering capability as well or it'll whip out in every
curve
the
main vehicle makes (imagine driving with a loaded trailer on smooth ice,
with smooth tyres... then remove the ground friction :-/ ). 

==> I concur, though you may find because you're hauling it behind, if
you
were going at speed, drag would possibly keep is straight behind you
(think
dragging a glider behind a plane). 

The only
thing which keeps a usable grav trailer from being a straight-up
robotic vehicle is that it'd take its maneuvering commands from the
main vehicle instead of from an on-board computer brain. GEV trailers
have exactly the same problem.

==> Well, yes and you don't need to wire big perceptual brains into them
either...

>Maybe the AG unit (or GEV) unit in the trailer is powered by some
>sort of electrical PTO from the main vehicle 

That assumes a *seriously* over-sized powerplant on the main vehicle,
though. Very unlikely, unless the main vehicle is purpose-built for
towing
grav/GEV trailers.

==> Unlike modern military wheeled tow vehicles? Have you noticed many
of
them have an awful lot of  overpower to tow heavy trailers... and
they've
got to drag them versus friction on the surface (yes wheels aren't too
bad... but an air puck has to be better). So if the lift energy can be
supplied, the energy to pull might be less. 

==> And if you are towing it behind something with the same kind of
powerplant that can lift a 250 metric ton main battle tank (aligned
crystaliron armour, a 200 gigawatt pulse laser, a GMS, and multiple
smaller
armaments, plus an ECM suite) but which has no armour (ie a grav truck
or
tractor) or which only has minimal armour and some engineers aboard
(CEV),
this seems quite believable to me. That mass of armour you sacrifice on
the
tank is probably enough for any two trailers....

==> But, YMMV. It all boils down to how abundant your power is, how
efficient your AG and GEV propulsion/lift systems are...