NationStates Jolt Archive


Admiral A-1 Mk III (revised)

Sileetris
28-10-2004, 03:16
Code Name: Admiral A-1, Mark III
Unit Type: Super Heavy Assault Tank
Dimensions: Length 22.5 meters; width 10.2 meters; height 7.5 meters
Maximum Weight: 406 tons
Powerplant: 1 x GenTech Bubble fusion reactor; 300 MW output
Propulsion: 2 x 12-wheel tread set driven by individual engines
Performance: Maximum land speed: 65 km/h; 180-degree turn time: 8 seconds
Crew: 5 (commander, driver, 3 weapon engineers)

Offensive Weapon Systems:
1x 200mm linear cannon: A weapon which, like a railgun, uses electromagnetic forces rather than gunpowder to fire its projectiles. However, the conductive projectiles fired from a linear gun don't come into physical contact with the firing mechanism, and are instead accelerated using attractive and repulsive magnetic forces, as in a so-called magnetic levitation (maglev) train. Although the acceleration produced is relatively small compared to that of a railgun, a linear gun can yield similar muzzle velocities if its barrel is long enough, and the lack of physical contact eliminates friction heat and wear on the barrel. The length of the gun combined with the incredible power output of the Admiral A-1's reactor gurantees extremely powerful magnetic fields, and thus, high velocity. Capable of penetrating almost any amount of armor.

3x 155mm Short-Range Howitzer: Mounted in a triple turret with short barrels, these guns are intended for general area suppression, direct fire on enemy positions, and obstacle destruction. They utilize caseless ammunition, like most of the projectile weapons on the Admiral A-1.

4x 90mm Linear Cannon: Mounted in seperate turrets to provide 360 degree coverage, they are similar to the main gun,except that the smaller weapon means lower velocities and shorter range. Still, they have more penetration than almost any standard projectile weapon.

2x 20mm Rotary Vulcans: These are mounted in the 'high mount' turret, and are designed for general suppression and anti-aircraft useage. Like their smaller 14mm bretheren, they use electromagnetic rotation and caseless ammunition.:

12x 20mm Metal Storm 'Infinite Repeaters': Used for general anti-vehicle, antipersonnel and anti-aircraft purposes, their incredible firing rate allows them to output a truely astonishing amount of firepower.Each gun position is composed of 20 barrels each containing 500 rounds. The weapons systems themselves protrude from small ball turrets all over the hull, the better to spray their firepower in every direction.

1x Imp SAM Turret: Imp missiles are small, high-speed, anti-aircraft kinetic kill weapons. The turret carries 20 of them in 2 racks and can fire 10 at once between 4 second rearms. Mounted on the port weapons blister.

6x 60mm Metal-Storm Automatic Mortars: Mortar weapons capable of extreme rates of fire, multiple types of ammo are available, usually the standard loadout is 2 tubes with high explosive, 2 tubes with anti-infantry, and 2 tubes with smokescreens. Mounted on the back deck.

1x Flamethrower: Pumped up version of everyone's favorite bunker clearing weapon. The flamethrower uses a special fuel mixture containing thermite which allows it to totally ruin vehicles and metal objects usually not affected by flamethrowers. The pressure it fires at is similar to the hoses on firefighting boats, meaning it can tear apart wearhouses and basically any small structures. The flamethrower depletes so much oxygen that unprotected people in the area of the tank will suffocate.

12x 14mm Rotary Vulcan: Seven-barrel high-speed guns designed to intercept and destroy incoming missiles with a high degree of efficiency and accuracy. They are constantly kept spinning in battle by rotary magnetic fields, and are fed by truely prodigious amounts of caseless ammunition. All twelve are mounted all around the tank, to provide 360 degree overlapping coverage.

12x 40mm Electromagnetic Grenade Launchers: Uses magnetic acceleration to achive greater range than a normal launcher, designed for various purposes including some indirect combat support roles such as chaff deployment, decoys, anti-infantry useage, etc. Six are mounted on each side of the tank.

20x 10mm Point Defense Guns: Essentially a 10mm rapid-fire machinegun with a camera and millimeter band radar scope sitting on a 1000 round cassette of caseless ammunition, the turrets are slightly smaller than a human torso. With a firing rate of 1100rpm they attempt to kill infantry and shoot down missiles.They are mounted in small armored blisters protruding from the hull.

Defensive Capabilities:
Armor composed of depleted uranium, titanium and ceramics with high-density deflective beads, thick enough to resist a 180mm ETC round. Layer of aerogel with cold plasma suspended inside provides energy weapon dissipation and anti-spalling capabilities. Thin layers of carbon-nanochainmail prevent spalling. "Electric armor" capacitor system vaporizes armor-piercing metal jets used in RPGs. Next generation reactive armor panels fitted above this disrupt energy weapons as well as kinetic kill devices. Spacing fence detonates RPGs and grenades prematurely and harmlessly. Internal compartments seperated by full scale armor. Treads made of full armor, roadwheels are spheres made of spun carbon-nanofiber with compartmentalized tires overlayed on them. Treads and roadwheels are protected by armored skirts. An extensive point defense system provides protection against large anti-tank missiles. Twelve grenade launchers fire airburst grenades at infantry, launch chaff, and lay smokescreens. Lack of an exhaust system gives low IR signature. Naval-grade radar jammer. Internal areas kept in vacuum to prevent fires, chemical extinguishers instantly freeze room and deplete oxygen.

Sensors:
Decked out with almost every sensor imagineable including; fluid superlenses, IR, millimeter band radar scopes, nightvision, ultraviolet, electromagnetic, olfactory, LIDAR, Sileetris's famous HSCDEADGR radar, satellite imagery uplink, and mounting a small launcher for camera drones. Despite its size, the vehicle is often aware of an opponent before they are aware of it.

Powerplant:
The vehicle is powered by a high output Bubble Fusion reactor generating 300 MW.

AI Computer System:
Many of the Admiral A-1's functions are extensively automated, requiring little to no crew attention. It will automatically track and engage incoming missiles, but requires firing commands issued by the gunnery crew to attack any other target (though it will automatically target enemies and provide verbal warnings and threat ratings, along with a suggested response). Of course, any weapon can be overridden and manually controlled at any time.

Crew:
5 crewmembers are assigned to sit in an armored control room deep inside the tank. A small area with folding bunks, a cooler with stores of dehydrated food, a chemical toilet and a full (if cramped) emergency medical system are provided to allow for long-term deployment in the event the unit should be stranded behind enemy lines.

Army Integration:
Houses very powerful, state-of-the-art networking and communications equipment to allow for battlefield coordination between friendly units.

Air Drop Capability:
Features integral solid fuel thrusters to slow descent, and built-in attachement points for a large-scale parachute system.
Axis Nova
28-10-2004, 03:18
Based on the criticisms in the other thread, I tossed together a new version for the Mk III that hopefully fixes all the problems with the other one. Those of you from the other thread will notice that the weapon count has gone down somewhat and many of the weapons themselves have been changed. In addition, those cruise missiles were removed as I deemed them inappropriate for the unit's role. =P
New Empire
28-10-2004, 03:32
Hmmm... Great. Now I'll just have to skip past Ogre Mk One and go straight to Two.

Bah.

Anyway, very nice.
Auman
28-10-2004, 03:33
You may have toned it down, but its still, most obviously, a load of garbage. Its 406 tons, loaded with all sorts of ridiculous weapons(I stopped my count at 32) and the fact that its 406 tons and still airdroppable is what really irks me. The Admiral A-1 doesn't exist in my opinion.
New Empire
28-10-2004, 03:36
When he says airdroppable... They strap rocket engines on to it to keep it airborne.
The Phoenix Milita
28-10-2004, 03:42
Please tell me what plane you plan to airdrop a 406 ton tank out of?
Scolopendra
28-10-2004, 03:50
Why not be honest and call it a Bolo Mark... what, this'd be around XIII or so?... put a Hellbore on it and declare that it has a multimegaton/second fire rate.
Auman
28-10-2004, 03:51
Please tell me what plane you plan to airdrop a 406 ton tank out of?

I concur with The Phoenix Militia here...

...See, you wont be dropping this thing out of a C-130 Hercules...this thing will need the largest Strategic Airlifter ever conceived to transport it.
Scolopendra
28-10-2004, 03:52
When he says airdroppable... They strap rocket engines on to it to keep it airborne.
And you still need an airplane to drop it out of... unless he's planning on using an Energyia booster to turn it into an ICBM payload (apologies to the Russians if I spelled it incorrectly), at which point it'll have to counteract landing at around escape velocity of 11.2 km/s...
Axis Nova
28-10-2004, 04:00
I don't use airplanes, chief-- read up on me a bit. Axis Nova uses very large fusion powered airships to move crap around.

You tend to need to do things like that when you're a landlocked nation with the air being the only way to move things in and out.

And re the bolo comment, I'm sticking with the linear cannons because they're simple and effective.

Also, all further bitching related to the weight of this thing will be ignored. 406 tons is reasonable enough for something this size.
The Phoenix Milita
28-10-2004, 04:01
nvm
Scolopendra
28-10-2004, 04:19
http://www.snowder.com/earth/usa/Arizona/graphics_arizona/crater.jpg
Oops. Looks like the landing retro rockets failed.

Not to mention there's the surface area issue, the ground pressure issue, the ground speed issue and wear on the tracks, the fact it's an eighth the volume of the Crawler Transporter (http://apollomaniacs.web.infoseek.co.jp/apollo/crawlere.htm) used to move Saturn V moonrockets and yet can carry more weapons than it has surface area, much less volume for ammunition after putting in reactors, a command room at least the size of a minivan, the frickin' intensely massively huge parachutes that would be needed to drop it...

Still, it's not that big a deal. It's the size of a large house and no matter what the sales propaganda says it's probably got a situational awareness equal to any tank. It has a massive antennae farm, so any decent EM weapon can fry its systems and blind it (because antennaes == direct conduit around hardening == electronics capable of being fried); if it dares go 60kph it'll just grind its treads into powder unless they're made of unobtanium, and it still won't be able to spot Lone Infantryman In A Ditch (TM) with a thermite grenade when he sneaks up, pops the grenade into the treads, and turns the tank into a blind bunker.
Axis Nova
28-10-2004, 04:28
http://www.snowder.com/earth/usa/Arizona/graphics_arizona/crater.jpg
Oops. Looks like the landing retro rockets failed.

Not to mention there's the surface area issue, the ground pressure issue, the ground speed issue and wear on the tracks, the fact it's an eighth the volume of the Crawler Transporter (http://apollomaniacs.web.infoseek.co.jp/apollo/crawlere.htm) used to move Saturn V moonrockets and yet can carry more weapons than it has surface area, much less volume for ammunition after putting in reactors, a command room at least the size of a minivan, the frickin' intensely massively huge parachutes that would be needed to drop it...

Still, it's not that big a deal. It's the size of a large house and no matter what the sales propaganda says it's probably got a situational awareness equal to any tank. It has a massive antennae farm, so any decent EM weapon can fry its systems and blind it (because antennaes == direct conduit around hardening == electronics capable of being fried); if it dares go 60kph it'll just grind its treads into powder unless they're made of unobtanium, and it still won't be able to spot Lone Infantryman In A Ditch (TM) with a thermite grenade when he sneaks up, pops the grenade into the treads, and turns the tank into a blind bunker.


Feel free to think that if you want to. As I've said to many others, if you hate it so much, ignore it. I feel I've made quite a good effort at fixing this thing, and I don't feel like arguing about it.
Scolopendra
28-10-2004, 04:52
This ain't hate. Hatred would be OMG IT FRICKIN SUXZ0RS J00 CAN'T DOO IT. This is criticism (in the sense of value estimation and feasibility, not just bashing) from an engineering standpoint and a slightly teasing sense of humor. Nothing's stopping you from making a superheavy tank (except ground pressure, and that's false data anyway). There are, however, feasibility issues that go into it. Right now, the major problems are that the tank is too light to go with its current dimensions and arsenal, is too small to mount the entire arsenal indicated, and does not appear to be suffering the negative effects of superheavies (i.e. being slowed by the simple fact that dragging a thousand tons overland with enough torque to get over hills and terrain is difficult).

If you're not interested in improving the product, hey, can't stop you. Heck, as a Bolo or Ogre ripoff it's fine as a loosely-defined Very Big AFV, which can be a perfectly decent storyline tool. Still, once real numbers with real units start getting put on, that's tying it to a not-necessarily-friendly engineering reality. While that may be desirable for describing how much it pwns, it also opens up all of the weaknesses involved. One of the weaknesses of a huge tank is that it is massive, and one of the weaknesses of mass are wear on treads and subsequent limitation on ground speed; the general inability (or extreme difficulty) of airdropping such a vehicle (a thousand tons landing at even ten or twenty miles per hour is not good at all for the shock absorbers), and other such problems which must be engineered through. Of course, that either requires additional effort on your part to think it through or at least to say "hey, fine, no worries, it's a Big Giant Tank, treat it as such." It's to be expected that whenever anyone posts something like this up, it's going to be critiqued--it's a chance to improve and excel, not a derisive comment on your abilities.
Auman
11-11-2004, 00:18
I agree with Scolo. There needs to be some changes to the design, if only to prevent accusations of wanking. I suggest that you increase the surface area of the tank, slow it down to at least 30kph and ditch the airdrop capability.

When using this in a war I would suggest the following:

-Deploy only in cases where you have complete air superiority.
-Defensive Situations.
-Command & Control.
-Mobile Firebase.
-Permanently second a company(atleast) of Mechanized troops to its defence.

The Admiral A-1 is a vehicle I would see you putting your battlefield commanders into. With the high armament, protection and communication this vehicle possess' it would be pretty useful in that role.
Axis Nova
06-04-2005, 03:31
Refresh my memory... why again didn't I work on this more?

*considering modding this a bit and then deploying it to back up his tank destroyers*

BTW, since I'm more educated than the last time around, I can safely say the ground pressure argument is crap. Otherwise every house would squish itself down to bedrock.

(I can go into more detail but I really don't care to)

Also, I think the first thing I'll do is yank the Metal Storms on this thing. =p
Javea
06-04-2005, 05:03
Perhaps because it's unrealistic? :P

Javea's (failed) Vesuvius Mechanized Fortress (I reclassified it as such after doing the math/engineering/physics of it all :-D ) was roughly the same dimensions and weighed around 8 times the amount. I designed it to be virtually immune to what most moderntech artillery/armor can dish out, and to serve as a landbased "flagship".


Vesuvius Mechanized Fortress


Dimensions:
10.98m width
17.57m length
2.9-3.2m height (3.62m max, with cannon turret)

Powerplant:
Gas/Nuclear Hybrid Turbine Engines System
~45,000 HP

Drive:
8 x Uber Caterpillar Tracks

Armour:
~~Classified~~ (Top Secret: Javean MBT armour thickness on bottom, twice JA thickness for all other exposed)
~925 sq meters exposed (before turret)

Armament:
1 x 220mm
12 x 50 cal (1545rds each, shielded, ~groundlevel, AI-controlled, ammo cannot be reloaded)

Combat/Communications Systems:
JRW Mark III Limited-Artificial Intelligence



Weight:
~3,000 metric tons (after everything)

COST:
Armor-
1016.18 sq m x $160k (per sq m) = $162,588,800
Powerplant-
~$200,000,000?
Armament-

Spare Ammunition-

Combat/Comm Sys-

Other-

TOTAL: ~$600,000,000