Simon_Jester wrote:I agree with Siege- superheavy ground units 'feel' wrong to me. Even in the 20th century we'd already passed the point where concentration of firepower was the key to warfare: two 30-ton tanks were often better than one 60-ton tank of the same generation. The atom bomb just underlined that.
Pretty much ever since the Second World War the trend has been towards increased dispersal of firepower at all levels- bigger and more powerful weapons handed to individual soldiers, units spreading out to cover more and more ground per man or vehicle, and constant effort going into communications and coordination of those men.
And so working out a coherent doctrine that bypasses the problem of "what can be seen can be killed" by sheer concentration of physical might in one place seems... perverse, to me. It's an outmoded approach, sort of like trying to replicate knights in shining armor in space- amusing as an exercise, but not my vision of the future.
So I'd rather just have several thousand artillery tubes spread out over a continent to drop suborbital rocket-assisted shells on one place than try to mount all several thousand tubes on the same platform to dominate-by-fire the entire continent (as Ryan does).
You do realise that there's such a term as "critical mass" right? As much as it is romantic to you and appeals to your sense of aesthetics for something to get cut by "a thousand cuts", there are countless other parameters to be considered, not least reactor efficiency that typically sweet spot with regard to the mass/performance ratio.
And that trend you speak of? You do realise that the real reason behind it was more budget cuts than anything else? Which resulted in issues when America invaded Iraq in Iraqi Freedom because they couldn't cover enough ground with the scanty few soldiers they could bring? Set piece battles aren't the norm nor should they be expected.
ANd in any case, if I were ever to be crazy enough, I'd construct a giant mech to carry a monstrous anti-orbital weapon, that so happens to be able to turn that weapon against another city. So not only can I shoot down the random puny frigate, I can blast cities to pieces.