Leopard 2A7I vs RX-78-2 Gundam

[Connor MacLeod]

Perhaps he somehow thought of Muv-Luv as more 'Realistic' or something then Gundam, and that obviously if they can built robits then their tanks must be at least on par with them or something?

Its odd he would think it more 'realisitc' given some of the shit he was claimng. 2 GJ KE tank rounds is not exactly what I call 'realistic'. There's way too much handwaving to go around. you might call it 'plausible' with sufficient handwaving and magic, but definitely not realistic.

(Of course this totally ignores the tanks in Gundam and other similar shows or even the GUNTANK [Which remains hilarious] so I could be totally wrong.

Frankly I looked at the wiki and Muv Luv looks about on the similar level of sci fi 'hardness' as Gundam, give or take a few techs. Gundam seems a bit better in the beam weapons and space colonization/spaceships department, and forcefields, but thats about it. They both take a combined arms approach to warfare, where giant robots complement rather than dominate everything - although Gundam seems to emphazie more 'giant robots as space fighters', where Muv Luv seems to be 'We can't use aircraft, so I guess we'll use flying robots' or near as I can tell. Either way both universes make a good effort to make the inclusion of giant robots as internally consistent as possible, so you can at least give them that.

Though on a related but slightly different topic, why are so many people all 'lulz robits unrealistic and silly' (Okay they can be silly but can't everything?), I mean hell I have a friend who's a big Sci Fi and fantasy fan, loves 40K, won't even give a mecha show a try to see if he'll like it or not because of argument, despite how the shows recommended are good for characterisation, interesting storytelling/themes and internally consistent with how their robits work and the implications of the technology and justifications for them, it's pretty damn annoying.

He seriously thinks 40K is MORE realistic than shit like Gundam? That is.. bizarre given 40K definitely qualifies as 'silly'. Both make sense to me, but I'd still say Gundam is more 'plausible' than the two since it goes for a harder bent than 40k does and it operates on a much deeper level thematically. As to why he's biased.. I can't speak for him, but in my own experience my own prejudices were dictated more by not having seen the shows and going off what I'd read/learned/been told by others. Thats sort of a bad habit to get into, as when I actually watched the shows I didn't think they were nearly as bad as I thought.

Maybe ask him WHY he likes shit like 40K - what things he likes/dislikes, and then work from there.

[Sea Skimmer]

I suspect if you took the original Chobam ceramics and had the missile actually explode against it, without the steel shell, it'd literally be blown apart.

Well yes, being blown apart is the point of the ceramic layer, by being blown apart it expands and deforms the other layers which increases the thickness of the armour from the point of view of the penetrator.

Chobham is incredibly effective against even multiple shaped charges, there are instances of Chobham protected tanks surviving 50+ RPG hits in Iraq (both M1s and Challengers).

The tanks being used in Iraq had far more advanced armor then the original Chobham. The Challanger II that took that many hits took them all on the frontal armor, while impressive its kind of a limited example because all reality the result might have been the same had it had a comparable mass of plain steel armor, as most of the RPGs in use in Iraq were old models even by the standard of RPG-7. Its feasible to mount enough steel to stop that kind of attack. On the other hand, say the much newer RPG-29 was in tests able to defeat the frontal armor of a T-90 with heavy reactive armor fitted with a portion of shots (four of ten IIRC), and penetrated the frontal armor of a Challanger II with a single shot though the vehicle was not destroyed, only put out of action. That's why you now see Challanger II tanks with a big block of applique armor on the lower hull. In at least one case the edge of the frontal turret of an M1 Abrams was pierced too. This really points to a side issue, which is that even one a single surface like the frontal turret, the armor thickness and composition varies considerably on a main battle tank. It gets worse for the M1 Abrams because the turret and other composite armor is modular, and the US Army sometimes takes the DU out because its so damn heavy. I really have no idea if the tanks on COIN duty would have had it fitted or not, but I suspect they may not given the huge weight additions of all the ERA, improved track (longer lifespan) mine kits and other upgrades. Though on the other hand the NATO spec for tracked vehicles on bridges is now 85 tons.

Which brings up another interesting question I was considering with this guys calcs. Whilst I'm not the most well-informed on materials science and tank guns, I'm pretty sure that the way modern tank rounds (especially kinetic energy penetrators) work is far different than he is assuming. I recall reading that penetration by Kinetic energy penetrators behaved differently than, say, WW2 era projectiles, because the means of penetration was different due to the differences in velocity, shape of the round (smaller cross section to concentrate force on a smaller area) and density. I think it was related to hypervelocity impacts itself but I wasn't sure if it was quite the same things (I remember materials behaving more like fluid but not actually like, melting, whereas hypervelocity stuff is way more.. explosive, and that actually degrades penetration. Which is also why 'faster isn't laways better' with tank rounds too, now that I am thinking of it..)

Just thought I'd double check.

Yes different calculations are required to deal with high density long rods then that which are relevant for steel or composite ammunition from WW2, without considering the fact that even for the same type of ammunition our materials are now simply much better which already changes the behavior of the ammo on impact. Making your own calculations vs special armor mixtures is basically impossible, even for armed services its mainly established via lots of live fire trials. That's why everyone just uses RHA for comparisons, as near meaningless as the results can become.

Past about 2km/s impact any known projectile material is going to be shattered and different penetration mechanisms come into play, the projectile also becomes radically more vulnerable to erosion because its surface area is so vastly increased (lots of armor is based on shattering precisely for this) but in reality optimal performances can be found at slightly lower velocities. For tungsten the critical velocity is higher then DU, which is why the Germans adapted a 55cal 120mm gun, while say the US Army remains completely satisfied with a 44 caliber weapon which is entirely capable of producing the desired velocity for DU ammo and the Russians and Chinese use compromise 50cal guns in part because they place more emphasis on firing HE shells at long range to engage anti tank defenses. When faced with a need for more firepower everyone sought 140mm and greater caliber weapons to simply fire much larger projectiles at more or less the same speeds we already had.

Steel armor under impact does behave like a fluid, its hardness is meant to resist this, while its ductility is intended to let it flow before it cracks up. I'm looking for some HD images of it at the moment, Shep has them if nothing else, of the 600mm thick Shinano faceplate the USN managed to put a 16in shell through in tests. Its a really neat example of armor as a fluid because if you look closely you can see places where intact chunks of highly hardened armor face have actually been moved by the softer backing which flowed under the impact.

[Connor MacLeod]

thats another thing about the calcs that bugged me. He was focusing totally on 'hardness' to the exclusion of all else (EG ductility) when you want a combination of factors to provide 'ideal' armor. The fact he was using diamond as a baseline, and ignoring ductility,

I wonder if I was confusing shaped charges with KEPs when it came to mechanism though.

[energiewende]

Yeah. The infantryman might be able to land a hit, but Gundams are so mobile that a dismounted infantryman has effectively zero chance of even engaging them. It's sort of like trying to fight aircraft with AA guns, at best. You need to park huge numbers of AA guns all over the place, and most of them will not actually engage the enemy at a given time, because the aircraft can pick and choose where to fight and you can't stop it.

Or, like, an infantryman trying to fight an aircraft with a man-portable AA missile.

Which is in fact the intended operational use of such weapons.

[Jub]

Yeah. The infantryman might be able to land a hit, but Gundams are so mobile that a dismounted infantryman has effectively zero chance of even engaging them. It's sort of like trying to fight aircraft with AA guns, at best. You need to park huge numbers of AA guns all over the place, and most of them will not actually engage the enemy at a given time, because the aircraft can pick and choose where to fight and you can't stop it.

Or, like, an infantryman trying to fight an aircraft with a man-portable AA missile.

Which is in fact the intended operational use of such weapons.

Man portable AA weapons are pretty terrible at the job though. They're sort of okay against a chopper flying low and slow, but said chopper is less maneuverable than a Gundam piloted by an ace, and the RX-78-2 certainly has an ace in the cockpit. There's also the targeting issue if M-particles are an issue on the battlefield as, as well as he fact that most anti-armor missiles are designed to go top down into the thinnest armor on a rather unmaneuverable - next to a Gundam - target. This isn't even getting into the question of if a man portable weapon will carry a warhead large enough to hurt the RX-78-2.

In all it's a rather poor solution and certainly less effect than a tank would be.

[Grandmaster Jogurt]

Or, like, an infantryman trying to fight an aircraft with a man-portable AA missile.

Which is in fact the intended operational use of such weapons.

The issue is that the person is so much slower than the mech and the ranges so relatively low due to terrain and minovsky interference and all that that the short range of an AA gun works better for an analogy.

And as for soldiers in vehicles using missiles, I remember Stark or Ford posting a clip from Igloo of the kind of antipersonnel weapons that mobile suits have that work well when the soldiers give up the low profile of going on foot.

[Simon_Jester]

Before World War Two there was basically only two kinds of armor-piercing ammunition. One was a solid block of hardened metal that would just slam through the armor plate like a bullet through a wooden plank- or such was the hope. The other was a normal artillery shell that contained an explosive charge, with a delayed impact fuze that would blow up the shell a millisecond or two AFTER it struck a surface. The hardened nose of the shell would (theoretically) penetrate the armor, then the shell blows up after it's through.

Neither of these types of shell work very well against extreme thicknesses of armor plate, unless you make them impractically large for land warfare (i.e. battleship guns). Even then, explosive armor-piercing rounds tend to be vulnerable to things like "decapping" and failing to blow up correctly if they hit a thin layer of outer armor.


Since World War Two there's been an explosion of different types, all of which are informed by what we've learned about the physics of materials. A lot of what we now talking about (materials behaving like fluids at high speeds) was always there, but now we understand it well enough to design weapons that use it to advantage, instead of to disadvantage.

Yeah. The infantryman might be able to land a hit, but Gundams are so mobile that a dismounted infantryman has effectively zero chance of even engaging them. It's sort of like trying to fight aircraft with AA guns, at best. You need to park huge numbers of AA guns all over the place, and most of them will not actually engage the enemy at a given time, because the aircraft can pick and choose where to fight and you can't stop it.

Or, like, an infantryman trying to fight an aircraft with a man-portable AA missile.

Which is in fact the intended operational use of such weapons.

Actually no, it's worse, because the effective range of most AT missiles is only a few kilometers. Unlike normal aircraft, Gundams don't fly in straight lines at altitudes where you can easily track them and predict when they'll fly overhead, or at least they don't have to. So your engagement time is limited to the period during which you can launch an attack that hits faster than the pilot can react.

Since you're fighting with wire-guided missiles, that really does limit your effective range to a few thousand meters... at which point you're back down to the performance envelope of AA guns against planes, rather than AA missiles.

[chitoryu12]

Not to mention that even if the Gundam was moving in a predictable parabolic arc, all of the parts of its body can move independently much like a human being. The actual control scheme is kept too vague to really tell how pilots move the parts so well, but even mass produced suits piloted by conscripts are shown to be easy enough to move with some level of dexterity and Amuro is an outright psychic ace who has reflexes so fast that the Gundam needed to be modified with frictionless joints to keep him from burning out the servos with his speed. He doesn't need to move the entire mobile suit onto a different flight path to dodge a projectile when he can move individual body parts out of the way. I'm fairly certain at least some UC series have actually shown this occurring, especially with Newtype pilots.

I still find the idea of "anti-laser coating" deflecting a Gundam's beam rifle laughable. Never mind that it's not a laser at all, but the beam is powerful enough to go through an entire armored battleship with no noticeable loss in velocity. Saying that this ablative coating could absorb 2 or 3 beam rifle shots is implying that a single tank has armor and heat dissipation many orders of magnitude superior to an entire capital ship. Even if the coating was strong enough to boil away and dissipate all of the energy, I can't imagine the amount of heat that would be radiated. They had better have some damn good air condition in that tank. And hopefully they're not parked near any of the flammable part of a grassy plain.

[Gunhead]

The use of missiles against flying robits would not be all that different how you'd use laser riding AA-missiles against aircraft. They'd basically be ambush weapons you'd deploy around an area you want to defend and connect them with visual air surveillance to give early warning. You'd just need a lots of both to make for an effective coverage and preferably you'd want to engage a singular target with multiple missiles. This is not at all different how one establishes a credible ATGM defense in the first place. You place your tubes in favorable locations, post scouts and lie in ambush till the enemy tanks appear.

-Gunhead

[Jub]

I thought of another issue. Given the need for effective early warning systems and the upkeep of the men carrying the tubes, would a man portable solution to the mobile suit issue be more or less cost effective than a system based around armored vehicles? This isn't taking into account M-particles which changes the balance even more.

[Gunhead]

I thought of another issue. Given the need for effective early warning systems and the upkeep of the men carrying the tubes, would a man portable solution to the mobile suit issue be more or less cost effective than a system based around armored vehicles? This isn't taking into account M-particles which changes the balance even more.

Vehicles can carry bigger missiles and considering you want to fire multiple missiles + comm equipment + surveillance gear + you need lots of men to do this, vehicle support is basically essential. Armored is preferable but not strictly required. Man portable AA missiles no matter how basic have a hard time without vehicles and same goes for ATGMs.

-Gunhead

[Stark]

A MANPADS probably won't have enough of a warhead to do anything anyway.

Early in OYW they used wire-guided AT missiles against Zakus, but the combination of interference and Zaku reaction (and poor Federation doctrince and training) meant they weren't very effective. It looks like the complex shape of a robit also makes hits less reliable damage wise, but at this point in the war they certainly hadn't had any time to devise specific fuses. Of course, the missiles still work; Gundam isn't the ROBITS RULE ALL thing people think it is. The basic light vehicle, seen in multilple militaries, is a 6-12 tube wire-guided AT missile AFV (it was the 70s lol) but they suffer the same problems.

[Jub]

Off topic a bit, but what series or movie is that scene from? I've watched some Gundam, but not that particular show.

[Stark]

It's from MS IGLOO. The series is 6 eps of Zeon faithful confronting the callous, evil, hopeless nature of their government through the symbolism of abandoned or futile wonder weapons and 3 eps of the Federation forces on Earth recovering from the shock of rout to counter-attack and throw Zeon back into space before a shinigami drives them all insane.

[Jub]

Thanks, I figured it was IGLOO based on the CG, but wasn't sure.

[Simon_Jester]

The use of missiles against flying robits would not be all that different how you'd use laser riding AA-missiles against aircraft. They'd basically be ambush weapons you'd deploy around an area you want to defend and connect them with visual air surveillance to give early warning. You'd just need a lots of both to make for an effective coverage and preferably you'd want to engage a singular target with multiple missiles. This is not at all different how one establishes a credible ATGM defense in the first place. You place your tubes in favorable locations, post scouts and lie in ambush till the enemy tanks appear.

-Gunhead

Yes; the problem is then that the weird ECM issues associated with the Gundamverse tend to make things more compliated for the ambusher. Communication and coordination are affected, and I imagine that it's hard to get a large, dispersed force to coordinate against a single fast-reacting target.

Although, as Stark's clip shows, it can still work. Then again, these look like pretty big clompy giant robots, as opposed to zippy agile ones...

[Stark]

Yeah, they're 'ground type' Zakus, which have most of the 'space-use' boosters etc removed. They just have the backpack rockets which they use more for tactical mobility hops of a few km than flying. At this point only high-end suits can fly.

I think it's a good scene because it highlights the soft elements, like the soldiers' poor training, the pilots' over confidence, the luck of hit locations, etc. They could easily have got lucky and taken the first Zaku out with their first barrage and been able to maintain their ambush instead of losing the initiative.

[Connor MacLeod]

I think its a dynamic that goes both ways. We see in 0079 that Zeon soldiers aren't used to fighting on the ground (more specifically, they hate it) and I suspect the vehicles they designa nd the nature they engage in the war reflects this. They're used to war in space, not war on the ground.

Likewise the federation weren't familiar with spacenoid weapons, which could make it hard to effectively cripple or destroy them (not knowing where to target to destroy or knock them out, aside from the obvious points like the sensors, limbs, etc.)

[chitoryu12]

I need to re-watch 08th MS Team, since it has a sequence involving guerrillas on foot fighting Zeon mobile suits in the jungle.

[Zinegata]

I think its a dynamic that goes both ways. We see in 0079 that Zeon soldiers aren't used to fighting on the ground (more specifically, they hate it) and I suspect the vehicles they designa nd the nature they engage in the war reflects this. They're used to war in space, not war on the ground.

Yep. The ultimate example of this folly is the Magella Attack tank - which has a detachable turret that can fly around. While that can work inside of an O'Neill colony (the center of the colony is zero-G), on Earth the fuel runs out after a few minutes so in practice the "flying turret" option is never used.

That said Zeon did adopt very quickly. It was only a few months development from the space-centric Zaku II to the two revolutionary ground combat Mobile Suits - the flight-capable Gouf and the hovering Dom which can reach something like 300 kph in speed.

The RX-78-2 Gundam by contrast was still a relatively "traditional" Mobile Suit (focused on space combat), albeit the raw power of its thrusters allows for some ground-based "hopping" ala the (book-based) Heinlein Mobile Infantry.

OTOH, there is evidence that Zeon had a lot of help from Federation defectors. Setting notes for instance say that the Zeon submarine force personnel have distinctly Earthnoid names (how they differentiate that I don't know for sure) - indicating that their submarine fleet is manned largely by defectors; who also provided technical know-how for underwater combat and technology.

Likewise the federation weren't familiar with spacenoid weapons, which could make it hard to effectively cripple or destroy them (not knowing where to target to destroy or knock them out, aside from the obvious points like the sensors, limbs, etc.)

Maybe with the Mobile Suits in particular, but it's worth noting that the majority of Space Colonies actually chose to remain with the Federation (so there would be no shortage of Spacenoid experts), and the leading Mobile Suit developer from Zeon (Dr. Minovsky) actually defected to the Federation prior to the war. It may be more of the EF's infamous red tape preventing anything useful getting done despite having the data right in front of them.

[Zinegata]

Simon, it sometimes seems that some mobile suits don't have meaningful armour at all (ie can't stop common peer weapons) but have very strong shields instead. Given the emphasis on agility the shield is certainly more useful than the same mass of armour spread over the suit, but I think they use specific materials/manufacturing/active systems to make them as resilient as possible. The RX-78-2 wouldn't have that sort of thing though; I think its shield is made out of thicker armour.

Yep. The essential conceit of Minovsky-grade beam weapons is they apparently destroy stuff at the molecular level, rendering any amount of armoring via sheer mass largely moot (don't ask me how it works exactly). This is why the Gundam, equipped with a beam rifle, is able to destroy enemy capital ships in a few shots even without resorting to nuclear weapons.

In this environment agility really is king, and avoiding shots is more paramount that absorbing them. This is partly why the Gundam Mk II has lower-grade armor than many of its contemporaries (e.g. The Rick Dias).

The use of shields may also have to do with the nebelous "anti-beam coating" tech that are supposedly incoporated in shields, which basically reflect rather than absorb beam fire. Maybe such coating needs a large, relatively flat surface area like a shield, which is why it's not simply incorporated into the Mobile Suit itself? The shield on its own without anti-beam coating tech honestly doesn't make a lot of sense in the context of the RX-78-2; because the whole machine is armored with Luna Titanium which is supposedly largely immune to conventional weapons fire.

[chitoryu12]

Also, the Federation basically started at an advanced level. The Guntank was a ridiculous mess that's useless except as a mobile artillery, but the Guncannon and Gundam were both armed with ridiculously powerful beam rifles. Even the GM, their first mass produced mobile suit, carried a powerful energy weapon at least some of the time (often MORE damaging than the Gundam's beam rifle, which was overpowered for its job; the beam spray gun carried by a GM fired a shot that hit a wider area with more than enough energy to blow it to bits and wasn't as excessive as a beam rifle). Plus the beam sabers being standard issue, which definitely outclass superheated axes. The Zeons took until the Gelgoog to actually get mass produced beam weapons out to their mobile suits, and they were piloted by amateurs because it was the very end of the war and they were out of pilots.

And they STILL made enough spare parts for the Gundam that they could get a line of RX-79s out for the ground war and make them limited front line units, rather than a one-off prototype piloted by an ace. That Lunar Titanium armor is ridiculous in its strength, and they could field a whole team of mobile suits with them.

Yep. The essential conceit of Minovsky-grade beam weapons is they apparently destroy stuff at the molecular level, rendering any amount of armoring via sheer mass largely moot (don't ask me how it works exactly). This is why the Gundam, equipped with a beam rifle, is able to destroy enemy capital ships in a few shots even without resorting to nuclear weapons.

If I remember correctly, beam weapons are simply the UC form of particle beam weapons. Minovsky particles are fused into mega particles, which are massive and electrically neutral. Contain them in an I-Field lattice and launch it at a target.

The reason the Gundam was able to use a beam rifle at ALL is because they created an E-cap that contained highly condensed Minovsky particles, so the rifle just delivers the minimum of energy needed to form them into mega particles and launches it instead of being fitted with a massive generator that has to do all the work. Then you just take it back to the base and refill it.

The use of shields may have to do with the nebelous "anti-beam coating" tech that are supposedly incoporated in shields, which basically reflect rather than absorb beam fire. Maybe such coating needs a large, relatively flat surface area like a shield, which is why it's not simply incorporated into the Mobile Suit itself?

The most effective anti-beam defense I recall in the early war was the I-Field generator. It basically creates a lattice of Minovsky particles that exert a repulsive force against mega particles. You shoot a beam rifle or swing a beam saber at it, it'll do nothing.

The main problem they found out was that it did absolutely nothing against PHYSICAL weapons, so a mobile armor with an I-Field shield can just be shot with conventional mobile suit arms until it explodes. And even then, the I-Field isn't skintight; a mobile suit can just charge through the lattice (if it can survive the resulting gunfire) and shoot the mobile armor just fine. And while I don't think this was ever covered in canon, mega particles DO have mass that's impacting the I-Field. The energy has to go somewhere, and while Big Zam could absorb a Gundam's beam rifle just fine, I think a more powerful shot would cause undue stress on the field generator. It already has the problem of only being capable of operating for about 20 minutes before the massive powerplants needed to power everything risked overheating.

[Stark]

Except we see armour being effective against various beam weapons. Anyone can just pick up a silly huge power gun, but most suits don't (especially later in UC where many suits use increasingly low-power weapons). This reaches an extreme at Torrington where beam SMG fire is pretty ineffective against Zee Zulus while doing fine against most of the older suits. Treating 'beam weapons' as a homogenous group is wrong.

And literally no non I-field shield ever reflects anything. Even modern shields vs old Axis suits show the blast being dispersed and deformed by the shield rather than 'reflected'.

Ie this shield emerges totally unmarked. Of course this puts the emphasis back on agility to create high-damage hits around powerful mobile defences, like when a Rezel/Jegan team tried to take out the Banshee and got utterly, totally ruled despite effective tactics because they literally could not even move fast enough.

[chitoryu12]

Except we see armour being effective against various beam weapons. Anyone can just pick up a silly huge power gun, but most suits don't (especially later in UC where many suits use increasingly low-power weapons). This reaches an extreme at Torrington where beam SMG fire is pretty ineffective against Zee Zulus while doing fine against most of the older suits. Treating 'beam weapons' as a homogenous group is wrong.

The One Year War beam weapons were downright overpowered. "Shoot through a battleship" isn't really an exaggeration with the RX-78. The downside is that the Gundam only held 16 shots before needing to toss the E-cap in a recharger back at White Base. Though against a single tank, I don't think we'll need to worry; even a near miss isn't something I'd want to be exposed to.

On the subject of the original debate, I'm not familiar with Muv-Luv. It has an anti-laser coating, but are the Muv-Luv lasers actual lasers? And what the hell do they DO when they hit a target?

Edit: I need to correct myself on my previous post on mega particle weapons. They don't actually contain the shot in an I-Field when it's in the air; the just use one I-Field to condense the Minovsky particles into mega particles, then have a second I-Field shaped like a tube that directs the ensuing stream of high energy particles away in a beam shape instead of just blowing the whole gun to pieces. Not really too relevant a correction to the discussion, but a correction nonetheless.

[Stark]

There's a reason as beam weapons became more widespread power moderated and then decreased. You might even say that it was easier to make super powerful weapons than smaller or weaker ones, especially given how small weapons remained bullets for a long time. Stuff like R -78s rifle is massively wasteful, especially with a low skill pilot.

But hey at least near misses will knock the tank over. :v