Re: Walkers, was RE: grav

----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard and Emily Bell" <rlbell@sympatico.ca>
To: <gzg-l@csua.berkeley.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2001 7:13 AM
Subject: Re: Walkers, was RE: grav
>
> Laserlight wrote:
>
> > From: John Atkinson <johnmatkinson@yahoo.com>
> >
> > > They are in there for battletech idiots who love Giant Robots[tm].
> > >  They were never intended to be balanced against tanks
> > > because Giant Robots are a lousy military idea.
> >
> > In this ficton.  I'm not a Battletech player myself but I can see
why
> > some people find it fun.  If you can come up with PSB to support it
> > with a reasonably straight face, and it's fun, why not?  Also, it
can
> > lead to some very impressive paint jobs, since after all there's not
> > much point in putting camo on them...
>
> The only decent psb for walkers was in DP9's "Heavy Gear".  The combat
> walkers were general purpose construction exo-skeletons with added on
> armor and weapons.  Larger combat vehicle were tracked.
>
> The problem with walkers is that incoming fire (compared to a
> conventional tank's perspective) hits the top or bottom, instead of
the
> front and sides.  This is less of an issue if most weapons become top
> attack, but as long as heavy penetration is primarily delivered by
vast
> amounts of MV, the walker is at a severe disadvantage.  In the
> hypothetical case of a walker being a tank hull on legs, there is
still
> the problem of the legs being much heavier than treads and legs have
to
> deal with much more mechanical stress.

Much more.

For those that can remember back to the first Alien movie - there was a
walker-ish fork-lift. It had a Caterpillar logo on the side. Caterpillar
has
actually received orders/requests for these items, as a result. Anyway,
Cat
would like to make them, and actually investigated doing so, _but_ there
are
two considerations: first, the stress and hydraulic requirements on the
legs
are immense. Second, the initial engineering work pretty much
demonstrated
that their center of gravity when trying to carry any weight pulled them
right over. And where are you going to put any kind of counter-balancing
weight? And even if you find a place then the first issue is compounded,
etc....

OK, forklifts and combat walkers are different but the leg stresses
remain
valid issues on both and if you imagine a weapon impact on one, you can
pretty much start comparing it to the stresses of the forklift carrying
something - and watch it fall right over.

That all said, they are cool, to look at. Make good arty observation
units.
And are fun to shoot.
Works for me.

> The biggest nail in the walker's coffin is that any technology that
makes
> a walker practical also vastly improves the performance of a
conventional
> tracked vehicle to keep it ahead.  The musculature to actuate the legs
> allow for autotensioning tracks that can even change length to
> accommodate changes in running gear geometry (lower the hull to hide,
> raise the hull to drive faster over rough terrain).  Advanced
materials
> to lighten the legs can also be used to reduce the unsprung weight of
a
> tank to make them really fly (figuratively) crosscountry.
>
> Mecha look cool because they re-personalise combat.