Challenging Spocktard to a debate

[Azazal]

OK,back from work.

Paragraph:

Ammunition:
12 Demolisher shells carried on board
Plasma dynamo charges 200 therms therms/second on full revolution
Laser generator capable of full charge from dead in 2 hours, good for 1 hour of full combat

[NecronLord]

Laser generator capable of full charge from dead in 2 hours, good for 1 hour of full combat

3.9 megawatts - full charge of 7.2 gigajoules. Not too shabby. Not great, but not too shabby. I have my doubts about '1 hour of full combat' though.

[Ford Prefect]

and the ocean vaporizing/fish detonation by a civilian laspistol in Eye of Terror.

I thought we had a sacred covenant that stated that we were not to speak of the Fish Calc.

Space Marine power armour (unspecified, presumably standard/artificer) is not penetrated by repeated shots from an assault cannon. From IA4, the assault cannon fires a 'fixed cartridge round with a dense metallic core covered in a non metallic sheath with a diamantine tip for armour penetration.' The cartridge is small but accurate at short ranges.

This has happened before; I always forget the name of the book, but a Space Marine protects a woman from ornithopter gunfire by holding himself over her. No mention is actually made of the caliber, though if it was less than 20mm, I'll eat my hat.

[Murazor]

This has happened before; I always forget the name of the book, but a Space Marine protects a woman from ornithopter gunfire by holding himself over her. No mention is actually made of the caliber, though if it was less than 20mm, I'll eat my hat.

This would be one of Uriel Ventris' Ultramarines in Nightbringer, IIRC.

[Connor MacLeod]

Laser generator capable of full charge from dead in 2 hours, good for 1 hour of full combat

3.9 megawatts - full charge of 7.2 gigajoules. Not too shabby. Not great, but not too shabby. I have my doubts about '1 hour of full combat' though.

Actually at 3.9 megawatts, the lascannon would fully charrge to roughly ~28 gigajoules (2 hours = 7200 seconsd x 3.9 megajoules/second = 28.08 Gigajoules)

The "hour of combat" doesnt really tell us though how that energy is used how ever (is it a short pulse or a sustained pulse? A quick rapid burst of lasfire, say in the millisecond range, could still be pretty nasty) nor does it account for how many shots its good for, or any sort of "cycle time" between shots.

This particular model of lascannon may just have a less advancecd or outright shitty cooling or slow-charge capacitor (the battery would charge the capacitor before discharge, I believe lascannon still operate similarily to lasguns.) Its not as if such dichotomies havne't been claimed before (thank you Imperial Armour 1, which i say only slightly sarcastic.)

[Connor MacLeod]

Oh yay, you've found the Logan Lubera cross sections!

Awesome, go find the Basilisk one!

Alas these are the only 2 I have.

Pity this is some good shit. I'd love to see the basilisk one too.

[Connor MacLeod]

As an aside, I just noticed the Chimeras can be equipped with blocks of reactive armor. That'll go a ways toward settling an argument that popped up on /tg/ some time back on whether the Imperium used that or not.

It also runs on "bio-gas" which I thought was funny (40K's made more advances than we have in biofuels!)

They also don't list promethium (or even diesel) for fuels on the Russ, (it might be "other", but that seems rather odd given how commonplace Promethium is supposed to be.) - I'd take this to mean the speed/performance of the Russ is dependent upon the engine. (Promethium, having vastly more energy density than conventional fuels, could give either more range or greater performance, if not both.)

Edit: took out the horsepower bit. I remember a discussion with Thanatos on the chimera vs Russ, and I should probably look into that more before making conclusions

[Connor MacLeod]

OK,back from work.

Paragraph:

Ammunition:
12 Demolisher shells carried on board

Edit: fuck I forgot this part.

Anyhow, IA1 gives the Demolisher 25 rounds, as opposed to this. Either the round difference is because of differences in calibre or the type/nature of the round (something rarer/more devastating here?) or it has to do with the autoloader (possible, but the diagram doesn't look to be any more/less roomy than anything in the IA books. Hell, by Imperial terms "autoloader" could just mean "Servitor with augmetic arms/muscles")

Anyhow, with 12 shells we're also told the tank has a 4 ton "combat load". Now, I'm not sure what all of that is (fuel, supplies like rations and shit, etc.) but I can't see anything save fuel being significant, and that not much more than a ton or two, if even that (2000 kg of fuel assuming gasoline is going to be 90 GJ worth of energy, while a Russ will, over its ~10 hour operational range, consume about 20 GJ given its horsepower rating. And given the "extra fuel for extre range" bit, I'm probably being generous)

Anyhow, we can assume 2 maybe up to 3.5 tons devoted to the ammo.
Going by the 12 shell figure each shell would be ~167 kg (about half that for the 25 shell from IA1) At 3.5 tons for all 12 shells... 291~ kgs (or about nearly 300 kg).

The fact that it has an autoloader also establishes a lower limit: I'd guess a shell would have to be at least 40-50 kg before its too heavy ot load by hand, and possibly 100+kg.

This would mesh roughly well with the large bore of the demolisher cannon (as I've discussed before), so the fact that they seem to be 100-300 kg would make sense. And thats'a big, nasty shell.

Plasma dynamo charges 200 therms therms/second on full revolution

So at "max" capacity, it takes 21 seconds to "charge" the plasma guns.

200 therms also works out to (200 therms x 100,000 BTU x 1.05 kilojoule) 21 GW charging time. Not bad.

This means probably that the "max power" output of the sponson plasma guns is 445 GJ, (with the afofementioned chargeup time) while the "sustained" output (at max charge) is 21 GW.

For the record, aren't Sponson weapons similar to "man portable" versions of the same weapon

[PainRack]

I did forget about the P-Hawk, however, the VTOL was using a door mounted MG, something that no conventional vehicle has. Again, suggesting this is the portable MG from infantry weapons, not mech based.

The only other game fluff evidence for MGs being .50 calibre or smaller is the Elemental SMG/MG.

It's a 12.7mm gatling on the vtol man. There's no way in hell one of those is even remotely portable on the infantry level, and calling even a normal .50 cal a portable infantry weapon is fairly ridiculous.

You might be able to get away with calling it a vehicle/mech LMG, but even that's pushing it.[/quote]
Dude. I seen .50mg Cals. Our Airforce Super Pumas uses those for fire suppression instead of 7.62, earning the laughter of the US Army who point out that even 7.62 is hard to aim from a moving heli, much less a .50 cal.

And since the heavy MG from the RPG is an emplaced weapon, there isn't any reason why this doesn't refer to that.

[consequences]

Again, gatling. As in multiple barrels, the mounting frame, and the machinery to spin the fucker. This puts it well above the 90-120ish pounds for an M2, along with the weight of any significant ammo supply.

Hence, not even remotely an infantry weapon.

[legio mortis]

I'm a little hesitant to count those scans as 100% canon. While there is some cool information there, they just seem...wrong. The Demolisher tank itself seems way too small. Either those are giant crewmen, or that is one small seven meter tall tank. Also, I noticed that it shows the Chimera having "conventional steel armor", and a rather small bit at that.

[Ford Prefect]

Also, I noticed that it shows the Chimera having "conventional steel armor", and a rather small bit at that.

Conventional steel armour of a civillisation from thirty eight thousand years in the future. There is no reason to assume that what the Imperium considers to be conventional steel to be what we consider to be conventional steel.

Mind you, some people will harp on about the 'conventional steel' nonsense, but they're usually so against 40k to the point of dishonesty or outright stupidity (the wall of ignorance, essentially).

[NecronLord]

Actually at 3.9 megawatts, the lascannon would fully charrge to roughly ~28 gigajoules (2 hours = 7200 seconsd x 3.9 megajoules/second = 28.08 Gigajoules)

...

Wow...

What a mistake to make.

[PainRack]

Again, gatling. As in multiple barrels, the mounting frame, and the machinery to spin the fucker. This puts it well above the 90-120ish pounds for an M2, along with the weight of any significant ammo supply.

Hence, not even remotely an infantry weapon.

Errr....... Let me rephrase my sentence. I was referring to the RPG class weapons, which had heavy MGs. Frankly, there's no reason to believe that there isn't a class of weapons between 7.62mm GPMG to the 20mm autocannons mounted on tanks.

[consequences]

Again, gatling. As in multiple barrels, the mounting frame, and the machinery to spin the fucker. This puts it well above the 90-120ish pounds for an M2, along with the weight of any significant ammo supply.

Hence, not even remotely an infantry weapon.

Errr....... Let me rephrase my sentence. I was referring to the RPG class weapons, which had heavy MGs. Frankly, there's no reason to believe that there isn't a class of weapons between 7.62mm GPMG to the 20mm autocannons mounted on tanks.

Yeah, it's probably called a mech scale LMG, does one point of damage.

Of course, we already know from the assorted autocannon silliness that caliber isn't the sole determining factor, so we could easily have a .50 cal with a nightmarish rate of fire that equals the damage output of a 20mm to b-tech armor.

[PainRack]

Yeah, it's probably called a mech scale LMG, does one point of damage.

Of course, we already know from the assorted autocannon silliness that caliber isn't the sole determining factor, so we could easily have a .50 cal with a nightmarish rate of fire that equals the damage output of a 20mm to b-tech armor.

Shrugs.... Not impossible. Although such a gun would break the system, but then again, with all the holes in it, who's going to notice another one?

[PainRack]

lol. He actually quoted the rainstreet quote from Endgame in another thread.......

[PainRack]

Yeah, it's probably called a mech scale LMG, does one point of damage.

Of course, we already know from the assorted autocannon silliness that caliber isn't the sole determining factor, so we could easily have a .50 cal with a nightmarish rate of fire that equals the damage output of a 20mm to b-tech armor.

I was just relooking over some Btech stuff and found something.
Apparently, the Clans DO have LMGs, well, this on top of their MGs which are describe as light MGs in some fluff. Unfortunately, I don't have the weapons list which show the damage and other game stats for this relatively new, level 3 equipment introduced something in 3060.

[SAMAS]

Light MG's?

Aren't those the ones that only do one point of DMG to heavy (i.e.: standard BTech) armor, but have a range of 5-6 hexes?

Mind you, that's off the top of my head.

[Thanatos]

OK, sufficient delay has passed to post this.

Opening statement:Game mechanics. In general, while game mechanics may be suspect, and may also be treated as a lower level than fluff or fiction, a certain amount of information may be extracted from game mechanics - at least where not contradicted by the fiction, fluff, other game mechanics, or physics, and always subject to resolution errors and poor
approximations.

I'm going to stop you right here on the 40K front. As I said before, the tabletop rules are not canon for obvious reasons.

For example, under the new rules a glancing hit has been reducing in effectiveness by 30% and can no longer destroy a vehicle. Did armor get considerably tougher? No, because the game data does not reflect the source because of balance concerns.

How balanced? The movie marines list from the German White Dwarf recreated fluff marines on table top and they had characteristics close to that of the table tops medium armor. I seem to remember telling you all this before.

Preliminary assertions:
These can be justified via a combination of fluff, fiction, and the above

principles.

Finally getting to some meat here. One thing I would ask: Could you stop mixing units and notation? You go from saying kilojoules to using joules with scientific notation instead of kilojoules, then skip over to megawatts for a thermal weapon.

* Warhammer 40,000:
o The lasgun has an actual effective yield on the close order of 2 megajoules in observed incidents, and a power pack with a rated capacity of 19 megajoules.

Close enough to not bother arguing, although it should be noted there's a wide variety of lasguns and lasgun settings.

o A bolter has a probable total yield per bolt, including kinetic and explosive energy, in either the e5 or e6 joule range. It is an automatic weapon, normally fed with magazines of 20-30 .75 caliber rocket-propelled explosive bullets.

This is quite a bit off since modern rifle rounds of similar caliber and velocity to the 8.25mm autogun are in the the 5-6KJ range.

o The Earthshaker artillery cannon has ballistic performance similar to WWII-era artillery

Actually, it has performance far superior to WW2 arty. You grabbed your figures from one of the IAs but seem to have mysteriously left out the muzzle velocity of 814 meters per second which translates to a range of around 70km.

For comparison sake, the M107 HE is the standard modern 155mm round and it has a muzzle velocity of 540m\s and a 42kg warhead and has a range of 15km. Which is probably where the incorrect 15km range figure comes from, IA is notoriously inconsistent.

o Regular tank guns have similar destructive power to modern tank cannons against buildings.

Modern guns are well below the level of 40K guns. The Conquerers gun had a recoil force of 190 tonnes while a modern 120mm has a recoil force of 56 tonnes. Shell effectiveness and ammunition type play a part.

Keep in mind this is the light cannon version of the Leman Russ and that's just the recoil force. Also remember that tank guns are far more powerful than arty guns.

,and some appear to have a probable muzzle energy on the rough order of half that of the Earthshaker cannon while using standard munitions

Actually, like modern tanks they have far greater muzzle energy than artillery. So already we can see you're way off track on tank guns and how they stack up.

o A normal lascannon fired under ordinary circumstances has a yield that is on the
close order of, or below, 2 gigajoules, including no significant area effects

I find this highly spurious, as your previous calcs using supposition that reduced the yield, resulted in a figure of 6 gigajoules. Where did you pull this lower figure from? Especially since Hellguns are in the low to mid range double digit MJ according to IA5 and events from fluff. And they don't stack up well compared to multilasers, much less lascannons.

o A meltagun has an effective output-to-target most likely between 1 and 10
gigawatts.

Meltas can vaporize whole swaths of troops with a single burst and cause flashburns from superheated air.

Jurgen's melta ripped a ragged hole through their lines, vaporising flesh and bone, to leave a narrow corridor of flash-burned victims writhing and screaming on either side where the air around the superheated plasma burst had scorched and seared them, and the rest of us opened up on the survivors to widen it

Triple MJ to single GJ secondary effects.

And a Melta is an inferior AT weapon compared to the Lascannon. Jurgen has to aim for a weak spot to disable the track of a Leman Russ. In storm of Iron multimeltas rated at high double GJ were unable to directly destroy a Demolisher and only succeeded because they managed to melt the barrel without the TC knowing when he fired.

It is a broad-impact thermal weapon with limited range and ammunition.

Limited ammunition? Where do you get that from?

o Lascannon, battle cannon, meltaguns, and earthshaker cannon all have a fair chance of penetrating even Land Raider armor in a single hit. Other weapons with a reasonable chance of piercing any regular tank armor include Tau railguns and a variety of anti-tank missiles.

This seems rules pulled. In fluff, only high end AT weapons have any near guarantee of a first round kill.

o Total armor protection on a WH40K tank is not particularly impressive by modern standards and potentially vulnerable to single-hit kills from modern tank weapons.

That's because you're using the "conventional steel" quote out of context purposely. Any quote referring to "conventional steel" is done by in universe fluff and refers to Plasteel which is the metallic material in common usage on Imperial vehicles.

Any calc using the assumption of RHA is flawed to begin with.

o Armor materials used in WH40K exceed modern armor materials per unit mass and per unit volume. In the special case of Space Marine vehicles, mounting advanced armor, standard

composition appears to be typically comprised of a 20-25mm layer of radiation hielding/paint/environmental insulation, which has minimum effect against laser weapons and bullets, followed by a layer with very close to 5x the protection of conventional steel armor.

Again, its refferring to the plasteel armor on the Leman Russ.

o The primary armored vehicle chassis for the Imperial Guard, which are the Imperium's primary users of armored vehicles, has a maximum off-road speed of 21 kph. On the road, it still only goes 35 kph, about the speed of a running Space Marine.

Actually, there is plenty of evidence of extreme speed governors, which are routinely removed by crews (known in universe as being overcharged) despite being forbidden by regulations.

Well standard on paper, the hand-picked crews had tinkered and modified the tanks

over the last three months of war, and he expected a tech-priest would have a heart attack

if one ever saw some of the changes they'd made.
----
The comms set was squawking nonsense as he pressed it hard against his ear, trying to listen over the clanking of tracks and the rumbling of the big overcharged engine of the

Vanquisher.

There's a good amount of inference at them being able to pull modern speeds easily when properly tuned.

That's ignoring all the contradictions in IA itself in the statistics from vehicle to vehicle much less compared to the rest of the universe, as I mentioned before. Which is ironic, as I seem to remember you having problems with a book that you believed to be non reflective of the universe in question.

Incredible something or other?

o Powered battle armor have not been witnessed surviving the application of
gigajoule-energy weapons.

Depends really on the type of armor. There have been numerous GJ events, from repeated Hellgun fire to close range plasma detonation.

o Titans have powerful void shields that regenerate fairly quickly.

OK?

* BattleTech:
o A particle projector cannon's shot puts out a total energy in the e10 joule order of

magnitude, and causes significant harm to infantry who happen to be simply near the target.

The large laser is not far off from this and similarly causes lethal thermal effects on

nearby humans. Even small/medium grade lasers have been observed causing significant

destruction in the e9 joule range.
o A standard gauss rifle is a 100mm 125kg caliber hypersonic solid slug of some

ferromagnetic material with a kinetic energy of 720-1000 megajoules, and enough momentum to

cause a BattleMech to skid, plow, or lurch multiple meters. The muzzle velocity of other

gauss weapons is similar, although not necessarily exactly the same.
o The gauss rifle described above will either barely pierce or barely be stopped by a 10

gram/cm^2 layer of BT armor.
o Armor used on BattleMechs generally exceeds the penetration of modern tank rounds by a

comfortable margin.
o BattleMechs are quite nimble, and have superior mobility to tanks with similar top speeds.
o Powered battle armor mount weapons that are on par with the very lightest weapons used on

BattleMechs.
o Most BattleMechs have a rated top speed between 60 and 100 kph. Most tanks also fall in

this range.
o One heat point in the game from an energy weapon represents on the close order of one

gigajoule of waste heat.
o Damage value is in general proportionate to armor shattered (kinetic weapons)

melted/vaporized (thermal weapons), or a combination of the two (explosive weapons).
o BattleTech battle armor and BattleMechs tend to be jump-capable, like Tau crisis suits.
o The high explosive component of BattleTech autocannon shells accounts for the majority of

their destructive effect against BattleMechs. The precise explosive mechanism of these

uranium-tipped supersonic shells may vary.

Evidence needed.

* Comparing the two, we find that:
o Downsizing the BattleTech gauss technology to a 1 point or 2 point weapon leaves it with

enough armor penetration to threaten a Land Raider regardless of choice of scaling factor.

As gauss weapons in this damage range exist, and are deployed by battle armor, gauss-armed

BattleTech battle armor units are capable of piercing Land Raider armor.
o Based on the above information about energy weapons, and game mechanical information

accounting for resolution error, the small laser almost certainly exceeds 2.3 GJ, which in

turn means it has a higher yield than the lascannon, which threaten Land Raiders via the

same mechanism (concentrated laser energy). This means that small-laser armed BattleTech

battle armor units are capable of defeating Land Raider armor.
o The first two items suggest a general case, which is to say that nearly all BattleTech

battle armor (excluding a handful of light models that do not always mount full-strength

anti-BattleMech weapons) can individually threaten Warhammer 40,000 vehicles up to and

including the Land Raider.
o The PPC is at least five times as powerful as the lascannon and has fringe thermal

effects. Land Raider armor will not handle this, although it is possible that a few Space

Marine passengers will survive the destruction of their transport and the rest of their

squad.
o The full strength gauss rifle is wasted on the Land Raider, as the majority of its kinetic

energy is likely to exit the opposite side of the vehicle.
o From these two examples, we may conclude BattleMechs' primary weapons, which are also the

primary weapons of heavier tanks in the BTverse, are likely to mission-kill Warhammer 40,000

conventional tanks with any direct hit, even at extreme range for the weapon or a relatively

poor angle of impact with the armor.
o The fact that BattleTech battle armor very often survives hits from energy (high velocity

particle and laser) weapons that would kill a Space Marine outright (or a even Warhammer

40,000 tank) demonstrates superior protection against concentrated thermal attacks, as well

as superior durability of PBA suits.

Going to need to see proof of all of this. You especially need to prove that the game data matches the universe and back up any calcs with fluff.

o The fact that a ridiculously thin layer of BattleTech armor can halt a hypersonic

projectile with enough momentum to cause a 100 ton BattleMech to stagger or skid multiple

meters demonstrates extraordinarily superior protection against kinetic attacks, as well as

the superior durability of the BattleMechs and BattleTech armored vehicles that handily

survive multiple attacks from weapons that make a mockery out of the Land Raider's

adamantium-ceramite alloy shell.

And this. Especially since Imperial Guard vehicles have withstood the same thing on their side armor.

Re-laying the gun took a vital second. In that time, the second tank fired again and hit the Wrath squarely. The impact was enough to lurch all sixty-two tonnes of armoured machine several metres sideways. But it didn't penetrate the twenty centimetre-thick armour skin.

Inside, the crew were dazed and they'd lost most of the forward scopes."

* Sample unit comparison between a BattleMech and Warhammer 40,000 tank. Both are sixty tons; we compare the stock Leman Russ to the 3025-era Kuritan staple, the DRG-1N

Dragon. The Leman Russ is plainly the inferior war machine - and also far more realistic to our modern eyes, not coincidentally:

Matter of opinion till otherwise backed up.

+ Dragon: AC/5 (40 rounds) - this is a fair match for the Battle Cannon.

Again with the proof needed.

+ Dragon: 2 medium lasers - each of which is more powerful than the lascannon

Again, proof needed.

o Mobility:
+ Leman Russ: 35 kph on the road, 21 kph in the field. Capable of scaling hills, rolling over small obstacles/pits, fording streams, churning through meter-deep mud, etc. Turns slowly. Does not shoot well on the move (see Conqueror variant).

Ignoring the bits about speed I commented on before: I have no clue where you got the idea it turned slowly. It can also go through far higher than meter deep mud since its got a great deal of torque among other features, such as legendary reliability.

You are also incorrectly referencing the Conquerer part of IA: It was found that it had better accuracy on the move because it had a better stabilizer.
The description of the arch-enemies knock off Leman Russ and how it relates to the Conqueror

LeGuin had it right. Examples of old, sub-Imperial standard technology, the Reavers lacked any auspex guidance or laser rangefinding. It was also clear they had no gyro stabilizers. Once the Conqueror guns were aimed they damn well stayed aim-locked thanks to inertial dampers, no matter how much bouncing and lurching the tank was experiencing. That meant the Conquerors could shoot and move simultaneously without any appreciable loss of target lock. The AT70s fired by eye and any movement or jarring required immediate aim revision.

They're also noted as having inferior armor, poorer rate of fire and haphazard cross country performance compared to a Russ.

They get a big brother later that tries to copy the Leman Russ

Hurling specialist AT shells, the three Imperial tanks got down to business, their first three or four salvoes turning the Blood Pact's well-ordered chase advance into a bloody riot. The Wild One crippled one of the big AT83s with its first shot and killed it with its second. The AT83 Brigands, larger than their more primitive cousins the 70s, were, on paper, the Urdeshi forge world's equivalent of the Leman Russ. They had auspex guidance, weapon stabilisers and torsion bar suspension. They were the Blood Pact's best battle machines, not counting the very few ancient super-heavies they had inherited from defeated Guard units."

+ Dragon: 86 kph rated maximum speed. Capable of stepping over large obstacles,

climbing cliffs, extended underwater operations, wading through mud deep enough to completely immerse a tank, etc. Pivots on a dime; usually fires on the move.

Unfortunately its also a mech, with all the tremendous flaws that come along with that. Here's a hint: Its going to suck at everything you think its going to be good at. Oh I'm sure its probably done some of those in fluff, but in any realistic environment its boned.

o Armor:
+ Leman Russ: Vulnerable to single hits from own weapons. Surviving multiple hits from own

weapons unlikely.

Requiring multiple hits to kill is actually standard for the Leman Russ.
A couple examples:

An AT70 lobbed a shell at the Wild One that tore away its sponson and part of its track skirt. Another hit the Demands With Menaces on the turret destroying its vox-mast, pintle mount and laser range-finder, and killing the assistant gunner with explosive spalling.

Wounded but not down, the Demands With Menaces plunged forward, laying its guns at the Reaver responsible. Corbec saw the top-hatch pop and the commander emerge, oblivious to the danger, to verify aim with a handscope now his range-finder was

Emboldened by the sight of a Leman Russ burning, the Brigand stirred forward again, and hammered a shot at the Access Denied that crushed its front bracings and fore-hull plating.

There's also a volume of examples in Honour Guard where concentrated fire is required to take down a Russ. That includes main gun and lascannon fire.

+ Dragon: Unlikely to be destroyed by single hits by weapons half an order of

magnitude more powerful than own weapons. Surviving more than a dozen hits from own weapons

very likely.

That's because its own weapons are underwhelming for the weight class its in.

o Personnel commitment:
+ Leman Russ: Crew of 4.
+ Dragon: Crew of 1

Clearly goes in the Leman Russ' favor if you know anything about ground combat.

[/quote]

[harbringer]

Quote:
+ Dragon: 86 kph rated maximum speed. Capable of stepping over large obstacles,

climbing cliffs, extended underwater operations, wading through mud deep enough to completely immerse a tank, etc. Pivots on a dime; usually fires on the move.

Unfortunately its also a mech, with all the tremendous flaws that come along with that. Here's a hint: Its going to suck at everything you think its going to be good at. Oh I'm sure its probably done some of those in fluff, but in any realistic environment its boned.

The problem with that statement thanatos is that by SOD a mech can do that, even if they shouldn't be able to this it pretty much falls under the same heading as - FTL anti grav engines let alone the warp and all the other things we have trouble with in reality. So yes big bipedal machine of death isn't realistic but as there is evidence for it you have to then say ok it can do that but there will be limits. Thats the problem with battletech it just rapes the laws of physics but it is a nice game same could be said of heavy gear for that matter (yes play that too).

[PeZook]

You should've really pressed him about that Titan Legion. He asked about the outcome of the battle, and this trumps everything.

[Peptuck]

Ignoring the bits about speed I commented on before: I have no clue where you got the idea it turned slowly. It can also go through far higher than meter deep mud since its got a great deal of torque among other features, such as legendary reliability.

You may also want to throw in that scene from Honour Guard where the Pardus Conquerers pull an instant brake-and-pivot-turn in place so hard they throw up mounds of dirt.

Page 151 of The Saint Omnibus, Honour Guard:

Gearboxes and differentials grinding, the tanks of Kleopas's wing rotated almost on a point, spraying up loose earth, and presented at the hindqurters of the enemy line. All Leman Russ pattern tanks, like the Conquerors, delivered deliciously low ground pressure through their track arrangement, and possessed fine regenerative steering. These almost balletic turns were a trademark move.

Emphasis mine. Leman Russ tanks are able to whip around on a dime, standard.

[Imperial Overlord]

He's right about the limited ammo for melta guns. They go through fuel tanks pretty fast. Of course, he's scoping them at from 1 to 10 gigajoules and Caves of Ice establishes a lower limit of 25 gigajoules.

[Venator]

He's right about the limited ammo for melta guns. They go through fuel tanks pretty fast.

Inquisitor gives a mag size of 5 for the Meltagun and Multi-Melta.

Dark Heresy (still trying to decide what they were smoking when they did the layout) seems to be consistent.