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10 yrs ago
I'll be away on a trip for a few days so my activity will be low
11 yrs ago
I'll be on vacation for a few days so my activity will be low

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@White FeatherThis is what that nation roughly looks like:

Of course I'll be refining them quite a bit.
Actually, I already did and still wish to continue with that.
So what happens to the main human faction? One of the reasons why I mademy nation to eventually meet the Federation again. Sure that was far from my only goal but overall I lost my inspiration what I wished to do with them. Seeing how this RP may outlive Duck's newer game I suppose I can use the Morteans here.
@White Feather@Inkwell Do you mind if I meet you with a differwnt civ instead?
I don't mind either solutions. A Dwarven nation is long overdue, for example.
Anyways, on a totally unrelated note, it's been a while since we talked about the infamous "blank spots" on our maps.

Can't we fill these with NPC races?
I mean ASTA and another player was supposed to join at first, so was a few other players but that was over a month ago.
Either we need to re-open sing-ups or fill the spots up with NPCs.
What do you think?
<Snipped quote by Willy Vereb>

But would a man-portable railgun system carried by two men with exoskeletons be viable against light vehicles? Without too much armor, a round fired from this should be able to punch through thin metal and maybe medium armored vehicles. But this coil mortar sounds interesting in concept. Perhaps I'll use that instead.
Hm, it'd be sorts of an engineering marvel.
I mean it'd be seriously edged out to match tank railguns at armor-defeating role in spite of being smaller and operated by a much lighter unit.
It'd also question why don't everyone starts adopting such system if it actually works against tanks.
But let's get back to the technicalities.
Because the barrel is 4 times shorter with the same acceleration the gun can only achieve half the velocity compared to tank railguns.
Or to be exact, this is the force of the railgun. You can compensate by using lighter load and lighter rails.
Reducing weight to 1/4th can balance out the speed/length scale here.
You can then compensate the loss in weight by reducing the cross-section of the impact.
Half the diameter, quadruple the theoretical penetration.
Defeating armor is kind of a complex thing though so you can't just safely say this. Actually since the impact energy is halved the tank may absorb the impact still while the heavier slug will penetrate better.

Okay, I won't bore you further with the details.
Point is, it's possible but the chance of scoring a kill will be a gamble even with all these mods.
Overcharging will be inevitable to give the weapon just a faint more edge.
Also the recoil will require bracing/stabilizing to the ground to be properly handled.
I say you would better focus on anti-tank warheads to kill tanks. Meanwhile your railgun can be used against hard targets and bunkers that aren't as well-rounded in protection as contemporary tanks.
<Snipped quote by Willy Vereb>

Wouldn't said coil gun mortar still need to be quite large? And the purpose of the rail gun isn't to defeat tanks but light armored vehicles. The cumbersome nature is also a reason why it rarely sees use outside of defensive positions due to the time required to set up the gun.
Well, it needs an energy source (which would likely look like a car battery in size/weight), the launch tube/system (kinda the same weight as a larger ATGM nowadays), some kind of pod to provide stability and of course the warheads.
It'd be a two-man system alright but it won't be particularly that bad in regards of weight.
Like I said it'd be like a somewhat heavier mortar system.
Actually, there are plans to make mortars launch their projectiles via coilgun mechanisms.
Each of your projectiles would only have half the weight compared to missiles with similar role, so about 10-15kg a piece.
The weight of the Mortar could be reduced by CNT or other carbon-polymers, although I think it might be counterproductive at one point due to the recoil.
So perhaps 50-100kg for the weapon system alone.
Let's surmize.
10-15 kg per warhead, let's say they carry 3-4.
15kg for the battery
60 kg for the weapon itself.
Unless the two are already encumbered this set-up is viable for a two man team.

<Snipped quote by Willy Vereb>

It is a fairly large gun, when I said two people operate it I meant that's the only thing they carry. But yes, they use anti-tank warheads. Faster than missiles.
Problem with electronic weapons that they are even more cumbersome than conventional weapons.
Unless you go under certain limits.
Granted, you probably don't need the gun for more than a few shots so perhaps putting together several or dozens of regular "railgun rifle batteries" is enough to power the system.
The barrel would still require to be crazy-long and overall we talk about tons of weight here to make an "anti-tank railgun".
Then there's the much-obvious issue with the recoil. You'd need a large and rather stable platform for any level of safety and reliability during fire.
If you want an actual anti-tank railgun you need a tank, a comparable vehicle or something like a towed field artillery.
That's why I didn't recommend this to you.

Having something more similar to an altered coilgun mortar could be more viable.
Basically think of a coilgun but it launches a warhead at higher velocities. Somewhere around the supersonic range, for example.
This of course renders your system into an actual cannon with the recoil to deal with which explains why the weapon is heavy and needs two men to operate.
Personally I'd still prefer missiles for their softer launch and guided nature but it's really just a matter of opinion.

<Snipped quote by Willy Vereb>

So basically switch the two for their current positions?
More or less.
And try to stick with ATGMs for infantry-use anti-tank methods.
Or at best try to use coilguns to launch anti-tank warheads.

@MetalLover
Could you review my expanded military section?
Coilguns are generally a bad idea if you need something powerful yet compact. If you want something strong you have to start from the size of a truck.
I mean a coilgun with a size of a truck, not a coilgun mounted on trucks.
Railguns are preferable in general.
If anything I'd replace the 7 giant gun emplacements with coilguns. They are less needy in maintenance which may help to keep the big guns more affordable.
If you don't like that name, call them Gauss Guns/Cannons. This and coilguns are practically interchangeable in meaning.

Also if you can have a coilgun/railgun that can threaten tanks then so could you build a conventional gun with it.
And if it can threaten tanks with a gun, then obviously that's a tank gun in size. Meaning it would be anything but man-portable.
Like I said before railguns and such are no OP wonderweapons. They are just a different mechanism.
Another question which I suppose is also kind of late.
Since it's the future how much CNTs will be available?
Near-future plans involve reducing its cost to 100 dollars per kg which is about 3 times the price of tungsten (granted, tungsten is also about 14 times denser than CNT so the same volume of material will worth about 20% that of tungsten).
But that's the near-future.
Can CNT become an almost common material for our setting?
I mean it's almost mandatory for exoskeletons and such.
I also made the Bocskai III tanks entirely out of this.
As always CNT is no wondermaterial and isn't the ultimate form of protection or whatever. It has various potentials, though.
For starters it absolutely replaces aluminium, light alloys or even many of the plastic-based materials.
Including Kevlar, of course. New body armors would be made of CNT which would weight the same (or less, if we consider the exclusion of steel plates and such).
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