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[Totally Pointless] Question: Antigrav or wheels/track
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Hello,
as mentioned above this is pointless ATM since Cryptic said there are no ground vehicles planned every time someone brings up the infamous dune buggy from "Nemesis".
But I've been experimenting with a few ideas for a series of Klingon tanks, tankhunters, troop transports.
The usual motorpool you need for an extended ground campaign with no ships in orbit or working transport inhibitors.
And I wanted to your thoughts:
would the KDF go for old-fashioned or highly mobile?
as mentioned above this is pointless ATM since Cryptic said there are no ground vehicles planned every time someone brings up the infamous dune buggy from "Nemesis".
But I've been experimenting with a few ideas for a series of Klingon tanks, tankhunters, troop transports.
The usual motorpool you need for an extended ground campaign with no ships in orbit or working transport inhibitors.
And I wanted to your thoughts:
would the KDF go for old-fashioned or highly mobile?
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Klingons would build things with battlefield conditions in mind, and I think they would prefer that their equipment works when it needs to and can be fixed in a time frame relevant to the battle, with parts that may be available in this battle.
If thats sill anti grav, they'd use that. If its not, I'd wager wheels. Engines by then are going to be small, light, cheap, simple and utterly reliable.
Oh man, this takes me back to Trek Vs. Star Wars discussions. When a two manned fighter like the Peregrine can carry a quantum torpedo launcher and a phaser bank, ground vehicles like tanks would be obsolete. You can make an entire invasion force out of Runabouts, Shuttles and Fighters and do the job of the entire "Imperial Army" faster and cheaper.
So I guess to answer your question, anti-grav.
Yeah, reminds me of such discussions too.
I was actually tempted to look at my "The Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels" books again.:)
Anyway there are several problems with airborne vehicles that plague current models as well.
What do you do when the weather does not permit them to fly?
What do you do when the enemy has effective anti-air defenses?
You can indeed blow up the enemy with a nice airstrike.
And then?
Aircraft can clear an area but you need ground-foces to hold it.
And "Nuking", "Photoning", "Quantuming", "Plasmatizing" or or thowing any other kind of whickedly powerul bomb at 'em is not always a good idea.
Sure you can turn the enemy's camp into a glass crater but what if you want to actually use what they're holding?
'Trek-specific:
Ground vehicles (any propulsion method) don't have to waste space on interstellar propulsion and can add other systems (stealth, armor, better sheilding) to increase their chances of survival.
So Fighters, Runabouts or shuttles won't be ideal in any situation either.
Also realistically speaking the Peregrine is roughly 30 by 30 meters, making it the size of a Boeing 737.
I bet you can build something like that in a far more compact fashion as a ground-based unit.:p
The thing with anti-gravitiy that worries me a bit is that Starfleet spent resources desgning a rifle that would work in areas Phasers would not.
They did not field it (probably because it actually works) but it seems there are areas where 24th century tech simply fails.
I'm not sure antigrav, which would rely on a stable gravitiy field to work properly and reliably, which would probably have a constant energy signature when used as opposed to an insulated conventional ground vehicle is always such a good idea.
And I realized designing a "hovertank" is much easier than designing a vehicle with tracks or wheels so I'm actually putting myself into a whole lot of trouble with this idea.:)
Reinforce shields and inertial dampeners?
Reinforce shields and launch torpedoes.
Ohh, EFFECTIVE anti-air defense. Okay. transport security team in to disable.
Reinforce shields and transport... actually, you can probably just pass on reinforce shields and use the larger runabouts cargo hull to carry a modular transporter cage. Clear the area, transport it piece by piece to the ground with an engineer capable of inserting tab A into slot B and soon you've got a bulk transporter pad. Those marines/security/warriors who would have been sitting in a transport craft can instead spend the first part of the date kicking back in the reinforced barracks.
[quote[And "Nuking", "Photoning", "Quantuming", "Plasmatizing" or or thowing any other kind of whickedly powerul bomb at 'em is not always a good idea.
Sure you can turn the enemy's camp into a glass crater but what if you want to actually use what they're holding?[/quote]
That's where the phasers come in. Back in TOS time they could be set to stun and then used to bombard a city block. That may only work on the mobster planet but I'm calling it canon regardless.
There is a spacial efficiency argument to be made here. But I still think it's ideal to use warp capable 'small craft' if only because they will be capable of so much more outside of planet side combat.
Maybe, but why would you? That device would need special transport to any world but the one it was manufactured on and would just sit collecting moth balls the vast majority of the time. In Trek the success or failure of Empires is decided by their respective Navies and its far better to invest those resources into a ship that can help, in some small manner, turn the tide of those fights.
Yeah, I can see the problem there, but you're severely hindering mobility to deal with a fraction of situations. Surely it's better to shield your propulsion system from duonetic energy field-like phenomenon than sacrifice that?
The Klingons also prefer to fight indiginous populations useing technology that is basic and not thatfar beyond the local ways and means. . Greater honor is accrued if the fight is challenging. Thes no great honor for a warrior when conquest is not much differnt the stepping on ants. Ship board replicators would most likely be able to replicate appropriate ground vehichles, and any needed logistical support (fuel/ammo/repair parts/armor patches etc.) as needed for any given situation. For planetary conditions where energy weapons do not work, Slug throwing weapons (coventional firearms) could also be replicated. Most likely fairly high tech recoil compensated stabilized types for a variety of conditions and situations. Everything from long range sniping weapons, to support weapons in the form of mortars, light gun tube artillary, rocket artillery, crew served support weapons of the antopersonal, anti vehichle types as needed. Neg Var class ships are capable of ransporting several hundred ground troops, while the canon Chacellor class carries over 1200 groound troops. Being able to place starship class weapons in ground emplacement could make the use of space/orbital bombardment chancy at best. It could in fact be a real greatway to loosa an intire fleet and really irritate the locals at the same time. On top of which, if your trying to conquer a planet, shooting up the real estate you want to keep by the use of planetary bombardment jsut make for a non viable long term economic cost. Its one of those things where the threat of it happening is usually far more usefull then the actuall occurance.
I would expect the Klingons to have some sort of all terrain multi axle vehichle with full off road capabilty in several sized that can serve as a troop tranport, cargo transport, weapons carrier etc etc etc. mounting light armor to protect from anto personel weapons, and some fairly robust shields to defend from heavier ordance. And also mounting a fairly standard sensor suite that is somewhat more powerfull then a hand held tricorder.
The federation starfleet would most likely have much the same. There is several references in Trek lore to the use of slug thrower assult weapons. I understand they work quite nicely on the borg.
Ground vehicle wise, I imagine it'd be basic but reliable and effective. Something like Humvees but with really powerful engines.
But in all honesty, I can't envision "tanks" as such, since if they needed to defend against aerial or space attack, they'd be able to field aerial and space assets themselves, so what I can envision is APCs for rapid deployment of heavily armed infantry and a fire support weapon for use during deployment, with large versions of energy weapons (sort of like a Bren gun or the "Burp gun" from WWII. And maybe photon "bazookas" (how's THAT for an addition to ground combat?).
But in general, I feel the ammount of firepower that could be safely used on the ground would be man-portable, maybe in fire teams of several guys for heavy weapons for example. Artillery I can imagine, large tracked photon mortars etc. Cloaked artillery would be quite "Klingon", I rather liked the Brotherhood of Nod "Stealth Artillery" from C&C3 Kane's Wrath.
That would work against someone like the Children of San-Tarah but against someone who's familiar with transporter tech like the Dominion, the Romulans or the Federation?
We know there are numerous ways to block transporters or to make them unreliable, like materials in the ground (could be included in a building's construction) to inhibitors to forcefields, to scramblers etc.
On AR-558 the area was so permeated with jamming and counterjamming they couldn't even scan as far as they could see and therfore had to rely on walking to get anywhere.
Both sides seemed to have a secured landing area where the ships could send troops and equipment whiout worrying they would materialize inside a rock but otherwise...no point to point.
So what then?
Do the "march of doom" to the target from Star Trek V, hoping to find some dudes with horses you can trick with a fan-dance?
I bet someone like Martok or Klag trying that would be hilarious but ultimately not very effective.
On foot you're also succeptible to the elements, the flora and the fauna.
And there are beings out there that can harm a Klingon.
Also even if you manage to fend them off, you'd want to consereve your strength for the actual battle not waste it on your way there.
I respectfully disagree. If your culture is going to be serious about warfare you'll need ground vehicles. Transporters and sensors seem way to easy to foul up, aerial bombardment has too many limitations, and even if you can pull off pin point teleportation infantry alone may not always have the strength for the task at hand.
So you need ground vehicles. Now you don't really need giant bulky mainline battle tanks that fight massive WWII style rolling engagements against massed troops. That sort of thing would be easier to sort out wit aerial bombardment, but what you do need is a maneuverable weapon platforms for focused attacks that can double as a troop transport in a pinch.
Think of it like a Stryker meets a flying Delorean. Sure it would be a technical challenge to create retractable wheels that still provide ample propulsive power, but nothing compared to the challenge of creating a device that warps the surrounding space-time continuum the way a true anti-gravity device would.
Because Klingons never waste space on fluff.
There'd need to be space reserved for an internal housing, additional moving parts (meaning additional weight); two kinds of movement on the same vehicle.
We've also seen in the "Cutting the Cord" mission that it's fairly easy to disrupt an antigrav system.:)
I seriously doubt extending the wheels would still work after the vehicle was crashed into the ground anyway.
It would also only be practical with wheels, not with tracks.
I've considered ways to retract those, but in the end you'd have to retract them as a whole if you want to keep the track on the wheels and not hanging lose somewhere.
And then you'd need a housing big enough to contain the whole thing in one piece...
The only antigrav systems we've seen were also large semi-exposed surfaces on the underside of the vehicle which would mean no decent protection to the belly.
http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081026030032/memoryalpha/en/images/d/dd/Galileo_5.jpg
But even if be assumed they'd manage to get the system into the sides somewhere between the wheels (would again only work with wheels because tracks would be in the way) there'd be problems with adequately protecting the system against enemy fire because the wheels would be in the way.
The Scorpion fighter seems to have its "wings" more for sideways protection of the propulsion system than for actual movement
http://database.obsidianfleet.net/wiki/images/Scorpion.jpg
adding those to a ground vehicle would either interfere with movement, or they'd have to be extended when the wheels are retracted which would be again more space and weight used up by it and we'd also be getting into the realm of a show I grew up with:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2Z1yLO9C-Q
Just kidding but it's too complicated for an actual in the field military vehicle.
You'd also need double the spares to repair it in the field.
I'm currently working on a counterproposal: a central hull that contains basically everything except propulsion with connection points at both sides allowing you to easily slap on either antigrav or conventional propulsion before the mission.
I've also gotten around the need for a conventional engine: the Batpod in the second Nolan Batman has its engines inside the wheels and they are synchonised for operation.
I'd imagine by that time engines can be that small and reliableat the same time.
You'd also end up with a pretty redundant system irresptive of the system you use, wheels or tracks because you can use every individual wheel unside the track for propulsion so even if one breaks down you still have the others to keep you going.
Transporters and sensors may be way to easy to foul up, but that's more an argument from strengthening sensors and transporters. The limitations of ariel bombardment are directly tied into the accuracy of such an attack, the more accurate you can make your runabouts the fewer limitations you have. In addition to that, a low flying shuttle or runabout will have the shielding and firepower necessary to do any job we'd see from armor. And the infantry that are being transported in are capable of carrying multi-kiloton bombs, hand held weapons that cut through solid rock in seconds with pinpoint accuracy, and now, apparently, forcefields.
It may have been budget constraints that prevented the writers from ever putting any heavy ground vehicles into the game, but a military strategy centered heavily around support from warp capable space ships and their support craft makes sense given the technology we've seen in game.
A maneuverable weapon platform capable of spearheading a focused attack and that can double as a troop transport in a pinch? A Runabout could do all of these things.
There is also another problem:
When you're in a Runabout flying around without sensors, you'll be down to "eyeball Mk1" sensors
meaning flying high and/or fast is going to get problematic at some point.
(Valias could probably say a few things in that regard)
So you can either invest resources into anti-jamming tech that might be overcome by a jammer powered by a planetary generator because it has more joice or you find a way around the problem that most likely costs less than designing and building a totally new set of sensors and outfitting every Runabout in the fleet with it.
We've also seen something that resembled a vehicle in "Nor the Battle to the Strong" and we know the Klingons pretty much traveled the old fashioned way throughout the episode (they marched).
Mechanised infantry would be faster, have more pinpoint firepower (especially against shielded static defenses infanty weapons could not penetrate) and a shielded APC would also keep your troops alive for a longer period.
That said, of course it would be a little more difficult if the army actually tries to capture the planet intact without any damage to infrastructure.
Anyways, though only soft canon, I like how DeCandido described it in his Gorkon / Klingon Empire novels - where the Klingons favored reliable and rugged wheeled vehicles with a distinct simplistic look even for the civilian versions.
I think it is true that space superiority from starships and fighters would make ground formations largely obsolete and I really don't think Starfleet has a tank corps, but the way how I am interpreting this is that these KDF vehicles are meant more for conflict with lesser developed species in order to speed up a campaign or for policing subjugated populations. When your enemy doesn't have much tech to begin with, it's probably a lot more efficient to keep a couple hundred comparatively cheap ground vehicles crewed by common warriors on the planet rather than having a fully-equipped warship stuck with riot control duty on some farm world.
I'd assume something similar could be used on an occupied world rather well, especially since it would be sturdy enough to take out whatever resistance there might be left.
I'd imagine something similar to the BMP line would fit them rather well
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BMP-1
it's tracked, amphibious and it can easily mount a nice disruptor gun that could probably overload a personal shield with one shot alongside a nice grenade launcher with varialbe ammo (for example Photon and Plasma grenades) with greater range than infantry weapons.
As for the BoP, well it does have a certain psychological effect but it is also somewhat vulnerable to torpedoes.
It also has a limited firing arc with its guns.
I've been designing a vehicle a bit larger than a shuttle that I actually intended for artillery but it could also be used against...well large things hanging in the air.
I based it on the Sturmtiger, which was armed with a 380 milimeter anti-submarine mortar modified to fire rocket-propelled grenade shells
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmtiger
Given regular Starfleet Photons have a diameter of 700 milimeters the torpedoes fired would be somewhat small but several of them fired in concert would probably make life for a BoP rather miserable.
Dust is an old enemy of a surprise attack
But antigravitiy vehicles would also cause dust clouds due to the displacement of air caused by their movement, so to reduce that they'd have to either move as slowly as conventional vehicles or climb higher which would make them more visible at a distance.
I also wonder a bit how big of a issue anti-grav is actually since DS9 itself proved a problem to using it ("Melora").
So they can't use antigrav tech in some artificial gravities due to some compatibility problems.
I wonder how big a hassle it would be when your troops got to a planet realizing the equipment can't handle the way the planet's gavitiy works....
So my thoughts right now are that antigrav is probably practical in the civilian sector and perhaps even reliable enough.
But the question I would have if I met one of the salesmen for those tings would be": "Does it only work on Earht, or can I take it with me when I move to some other planet".
Perhaps it would have to be recalibrated to work in another world, assuming it's equipped to be recalibrated.
I've also take a look at the problem of "airstrikes" and my solution is completely insane.
I took Valias' idea of "flak" and recalled that the Yamato used a special 18 inc anti-air ammo in WW2...which was totally inefective.
However I combined the concept with MIRV-tech and 24th century miro-torpedoes.
The result is actually an anti-air artillery shell.
I based it on the rocket-propelled grenade shell of the Sturmtiger as a reference and increased the caliber but reduced the length of the shell itself.
The Sturmtiger used a shell with a 38 centimeter caliber and shell length of about 150 centimeters.
My model has a caliber of 40 centimeters and a length of 90 centimeters, making it comparatively small.
(meaning I could have actually gone a lot bigger)
The outer casing is 2cm thick, the grenade itself is hollow except for a central "stem" that goes from top to bottom through the entire lenght of the grenade.
It has a diameter of 12 centimeters.
It contains the guidance system, a targetting computer and the actual engine.
Clustered around the stem are the microtorpedoes, all pointed in flight direction.
They are on four "tiers" with the topmost containing slightly less torpedoes than the lower three ones.
All of them taken together, I hae managed to get 184 micoro-torpedoes into the casing (no kidding), meaning the artillery vehicle I've imagined could fire one of these into the air which would then aquire a while squadron of shuttles/runabouts as a target an fall apart to release its torpedoes unto them.
Should take care of an incoming airstrike pretty effectively, even if we assume it would take 10 miro-torpedes to blow up a single runabout.;)
I very much like the idea of a somewhat "soviet'ish" look concerning wheeled Klingon ground vehicles, though. Take a BMP, maybe change the shape of its windows and add a red colour tint, add a disruptor turret and some KDF decals and you're good to go.
Some soft canon sources such as the FASA RPG or the RTS game "New Worlds" may also serve as inspiration, though the FASA RPG comes from a time where the Klingons were portrayed a bit different. Both sources also make heavy use of anti-grav technology, which I still deem unfitting for Klingons simply due to not being as reliable. Large "Mako"-like wheels are just more rugged, more low-tech, easier to repair/maintain and somehow feel more fitting. It's all a matter of interpretation and preferences.
They also appeared on "Enterprise" where they were pretty much used like C-4.
Of course a "Spatial Grenade" (I think they used spatial instead of the old 60's space-grenade" because it gave the illusion it was not just a regular thing with the term space added to it) could be fired from a regular launcher to provide "flak" against shuttles at close range.
The purpose of my artillery shell was mostly to fend off shuttles at long range.
Close in a turret mounted disruptor would be far more useful indeed.
As well as "beam strips" on the hull of the vehicle.
I was thinking two front and two rear, like on a shuttlecraft.
They could also take care of infantry trying to neak up on the vehicles.
After looking at what APC designs are around I consider the Patria modular IFV to also be a nice inspiration.
It has such a...positive aura.:p
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_80_yaznP3lM/TUJ9YR_xe0I/AAAAAAAABnA/MhHFkcrn5AQ/s1600/Patria_AMV_Karlovac.jpg
http://x.bbs.sina.com.cn/forum/pic/47471c530104oft2
http://www.patria.fi/68d761004ea681e2a7dcafb9b9cdcf9b/Patria+Nemo+on+Patria+AMV.JPG
I would go for old-fashioned...but then again I do not remember more than maybe 1 or 2 vehicles in the Star Trek series..movies, and such...I don't know about the books because I never read them..... So....what exactly are we talking about for KDF as far as the vehicles go?...anybody have pics?
The number of canon KDF ground vehicles is zero.:)
Ah...something else they can develop freely but won't look KDF in my mind...lolz
HMM, do only those things that were in the shows look Klingon to you, or is it just that same people don't manage to get the feel of Klingon stuff right?
Not technically true. There is the Klingon ground assault vehicle mentioned (but never seen) in the VOY episode "Elogium".
He asked "anybody have pics?"
And my response to that was the number is zero.
*EDIT: referring to anything that was visible and could be used as a reference point you can actually base something on*
You got pics of that thing?:) (rhetorical question)
Also, now I want a Targ scoop, too.
Simply because when you want to go for practical, a Toron shuttle or General's Chariot with tracks is not really useful in heavy terrain.
It's pretty much the same gripe I had with the hovertanks in "New Worlds": they looked somewhat alien, but they only worked because the were hovering one or two meters above ground.
Otherwise they'd get stuck in the next anthill.
So as a reasonable minimum of enclosed combat vehicles that could be used in possible atmospheres and possibly even in a vacuum, I've come up with the following:
1.1
an all-terrain amphibious combat scout vehicle similar to a real-world light tank
[1.2
possibly a variant of said scout with a fixed forward heavy gun as a fire-support or tank-destroyer unit]
2.1
an all-terrain amphibious armed and armored troop tansport for 8-10 soldiers
[2.2
possibly a command variant with additional sensors and its passenger compartment converted into a mobile command center]
for heavy ground-based firepower, I'd propose a heavy vehicle also in two variants
3.1 armed with a large disruptor cannon but not for vehicle to vehicle combat but to destroy fortifications and defenses with heavy firepower.
An example of such a vehicle would be the KV-2 tank which was also not intended for vehicle to vehicle combat.
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/rkkaww2/galleries/KV/KV_2M41/photo/KV_2M41_06.jpg
(I'd propose a turret that does not look like a giant shoebox)
3.2 a turretless variant with a large photon torpedo/grenade launcher based on the Sturmtiger I mentioned earlier in this thread.
As a result you'd have three hulls with two variants based on each hull.
Two hulls for rapid operations and one only to be deployed when encountering heavy resistance you that cannot be taken care of via airstrikes or with the fire-support version of the combat scout (probably not too often the case).
I've made a few sketches for the combat scout and the APC which I'll post later today with a few additional comments about them and the alternative approaches also seen in the real world.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/PT-76-batey-haosef-2.jpg
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9d/PT_76_7_DOW_TBiU_12_3.jpg
Since the system has two intakes and two outlets and it even allows reverse thrust, maneuvers like turning and even backwards movement are possible with this system.
An alternative way of motion is for example used by the M113 troop transport:
it uses its tracks to movement in water.
I guess you can imagine which method is faster.
My idea for a modern 24th/25th century solution would be to go a step further and give the tank vectorized exhaust, allowing it to operate underwater as well.
Since it is fully enclosed and has a life support system like a shuttlecraft this would not be a problem.
http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/5384/kdfscouttank.jpg
Scale is in meters, please don't be confused by the commas, in Germany it is customary to use a comma instead of a dot as a decimal seperator.
So 0,5 is the same as 0.5 (meters) for example.
Current dimensions are (with turret)
Length 6.67 meters
Width 3 meters
Height 2.4 meters
compared to the PT-76 the wheels are gigantic.
I did this for two reasons:
To actually make it look at least a tiny bit alien.
Since the engines are inside the individual wheels, there needs to be enough space inside them to mount a credible engine.
Otherwise it would be like saying the motor of he proverbial Duracell Bunny is powerful enough to move a tank.
The turret houses a disruptor gun as a well as a micro torpedo launcher, allowing it to engage both air and ground targets at various distances.
It has a crew of 4
Commander
Driver
Gunner
Sensors/Defense System operator
real-world tanks of this size would have a loader instead.
But since a Disruptor gun does not need shells and the Torpedo System works automatically and it's a scout vehicle it has powerful passive and active sensors along with some stealth to remain undetected it replaces a loader's place with a Senson Operator.
The second vehicle is a straighforward APC, pretty much an enlarged version of the tank, but with the capability to carry 8 grumpy well-armed soldiers in full space suits if the need arises.
http://img402.imageshack.us/img402/4818/kdfapc.jpg
Current dimensions are (with turret)
Length 8.25 meters
Width 3.5 meters
Height 2.8 meters
It also has the ability to operate in water.
It has a smaller disruptor gun in a different turret.
The turret may appear to be somewhat out of proportion, however to keep enough space inside the vehicle available for the troops, several systems for turret control that on the tank are inside the chassis had to be put int the APCs turret insead.
There is a hatch at the rear for entry and exit but no airlock, so in a hazardous environment the three-man crew will have to wear protective gear as well when the door is opened unless a forcefield similar to those in a shuttlebay is used to keep the compartment protected.
This might not always be possible when the vehicle wants to keep its energy emissions down or power is needed elsewhere.
On both vehicles, there are also several beam-strips similar to those on shuttlecrafts to provide additional firepower and short-range protection.
I'll come up with some optimal locations and add those later.
I'm sorry but my drawing skills are still lacking and of course at least two angles are missing right now (forward and top).
I'll try to remedy that as soon as possible.
Assuming I get a decent chunk of time in the next weeks, I'll try to make 3d models as well, those always work much better than my drawings.:)
In general, I already kind of liked some of the ideas that the "New Worlds" RTS has presented, just that I'd have changed their antigravs to a more traditional and reliable means of movement.