Post by sebastiangrey on Oct 26, 2014 15:51:23 GMT
Here are my thoughts, and bear with me, cause I've been up about 24 hours at this point. I may be a little loony 
From what I can see in the comic proper, the main weapon system (Which I'm going to hereby dub the MS-1, for brevity and clarity in case other weapons systems are fleshed out.) of the "common" Keleres soldiers seem to have is something akin to a short-barreled cross between a FAMAS and an SA80, without the bullpup design. There's good news and bad news here. The good news is it seems solid, heavy, and about as reliable as the Kalashnikovs. The downside is that it's got decreased accuracy due to both the semi-automatic and automatic features of the weapon (see below paragraph for a better explanation on projectile mechanics and limitations) and the weapon's short barrel.
(The next paragraph can be skipped if you just want to take my word for the rough values in the 3rd paragraph. I'm just showing my work)
The problem with "take whatever we have today and double it" is that bullets have kinda reached the point where there's not much we can do to improve their overall characteristics without diminishing other, crucial properties of the round. To wit; the killing power of a round is determined by a number of chaotic, hard-to-predict variables. In general, a slower, heavier round that fragments inside a body will cause a lot more damage than a fast, light round that zips through without fragmenting. As the Rangers found to their chagrin in Mogadishu, those sweet armor-piercing rounds we developed to penetrate body armor will punch right through an unarmored person. There's so little kinetic energy transfer that the person may not even know they're hit, and be surprised to find a nice, pencil-sized hole in their chest after the fight is over. Probably fatal, but not immediately so. Oops. In addition, heavier, faster bullets will fly further and more accurately than light, slow ones. I forget the exact measurements, but the hole a Barrett light-fifty will put in you at 50 yards is a lot smaller than the hole at 300 yards, because the round slows more and is more prone to tumble. In general, tumbling, low speed and fragmentation= better damage, and less accuracy. High speed and stability are accurate, but make it harder to put a person down in a single shot. In addition, the further you fire a round, the more time the target will have to shift, the more variables will be stacked on it... long range direct fire is really a game of diminishing returns. Basically, you can pick more killing power or more range and accuracy, but not both.
To that end, using current statistics for the 5.56x45mm NATO round, I figure you can reach out and touch someone at 400-450 meters (benefit of HUDs, training, and improved understanding of the underlying physics. Most 5.56 rounds will travel accurately up to 300 meters IRL), and be the most damaging per strike at roughly 350-400 meters. I'd imagine Minerva would have equipped its soldiers with hollow-points, both to prevent over-penetration from the target into civilians and to maximize the chance of a clean kill. Not much good against body armor, but if it hits a soft spot it'll tear a hole big enough to waltz through. Alternatively, if you really want to double one of the stats, a laser range-finder in the rifle and a "smart" gyrojet round with variable thrust would be able to maximize killing power by both hitting the velocity sweet spot and detonating unburned fuel inside the target would work. And make people into ground beef. (The MS-1 also seems to have 20 round straight magazines. We may consider changing to the 30 round sickle magazine.)
Insofar as vehicular production goes... Forget building tanks, immediately. If we don't stall the enemy out in the boonies, we won't be able to build enough of them. I'm thinking much, much lighter. Think dune buggy with an armored flanks, a metric s***ton of ammunition, and a heavy machinegun mounted on the top. Two, maybe three man crew, but everything not critical to crew and vehicle support should be given over to ammunition storage. I don't care how much ammo you bring to a firefight, before long your magazines start to feel distressingly light. Pile as much ammunition on these outriders as possible without compromising speed and self-sufficiency. Ideally, we should be able to pluck volunteers off the street, give them some light training, and turn them loose with these vehicles into the green zone, where some would harass the flanks of enemy movements using the superior range of the machine gun while others would take to darting behind the main body of the army to attack supply shipments. Resupply could be achieved through aircraft. The point of these 'marauder corps' would be to have a roughly self-sufficient, long term bunch of asskickers fouling up enemy movements throughout the green zone and forcing them to guard absolutely every resupply route the enemy attempts. Every man guarding the routes is another man not actively hunting our men. The downside would be that in a prolonged engagement, where the marauders were unable to retrograde, they'd be boned. Speed and maneuverability is life for these guys. The 2-3 man crew would be broken up something like this; Driver/TC, Gunner/Mechanic, and RTO/Navigator.
Fully functional tanks should (IMHO) be constructed at a rate of about 1.5 a week. (1 the first week, 2 the second week, 1 the third, 2 the fourth, etc.) Being much lighter and less labor intensive, I'm thinking Marauders should be constructed at a rate of about 5 a week. If there's not already a name for the tanks, I'd suggest Massoud.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
Personal hero of mine.
Also, looking through the earlier pages of the comic, I noticed those amusing ship-prow body armor designs I missed/forgot about the first time. Ya'll are killin me.
From what I can see in the comic proper, the main weapon system (Which I'm going to hereby dub the MS-1, for brevity and clarity in case other weapons systems are fleshed out.) of the "common" Keleres soldiers seem to have is something akin to a short-barreled cross between a FAMAS and an SA80, without the bullpup design. There's good news and bad news here. The good news is it seems solid, heavy, and about as reliable as the Kalashnikovs. The downside is that it's got decreased accuracy due to both the semi-automatic and automatic features of the weapon (see below paragraph for a better explanation on projectile mechanics and limitations) and the weapon's short barrel.
(The next paragraph can be skipped if you just want to take my word for the rough values in the 3rd paragraph. I'm just showing my work)
The problem with "take whatever we have today and double it" is that bullets have kinda reached the point where there's not much we can do to improve their overall characteristics without diminishing other, crucial properties of the round. To wit; the killing power of a round is determined by a number of chaotic, hard-to-predict variables. In general, a slower, heavier round that fragments inside a body will cause a lot more damage than a fast, light round that zips through without fragmenting. As the Rangers found to their chagrin in Mogadishu, those sweet armor-piercing rounds we developed to penetrate body armor will punch right through an unarmored person. There's so little kinetic energy transfer that the person may not even know they're hit, and be surprised to find a nice, pencil-sized hole in their chest after the fight is over. Probably fatal, but not immediately so. Oops. In addition, heavier, faster bullets will fly further and more accurately than light, slow ones. I forget the exact measurements, but the hole a Barrett light-fifty will put in you at 50 yards is a lot smaller than the hole at 300 yards, because the round slows more and is more prone to tumble. In general, tumbling, low speed and fragmentation= better damage, and less accuracy. High speed and stability are accurate, but make it harder to put a person down in a single shot. In addition, the further you fire a round, the more time the target will have to shift, the more variables will be stacked on it... long range direct fire is really a game of diminishing returns. Basically, you can pick more killing power or more range and accuracy, but not both.
To that end, using current statistics for the 5.56x45mm NATO round, I figure you can reach out and touch someone at 400-450 meters (benefit of HUDs, training, and improved understanding of the underlying physics. Most 5.56 rounds will travel accurately up to 300 meters IRL), and be the most damaging per strike at roughly 350-400 meters. I'd imagine Minerva would have equipped its soldiers with hollow-points, both to prevent over-penetration from the target into civilians and to maximize the chance of a clean kill. Not much good against body armor, but if it hits a soft spot it'll tear a hole big enough to waltz through. Alternatively, if you really want to double one of the stats, a laser range-finder in the rifle and a "smart" gyrojet round with variable thrust would be able to maximize killing power by both hitting the velocity sweet spot and detonating unburned fuel inside the target would work. And make people into ground beef. (The MS-1 also seems to have 20 round straight magazines. We may consider changing to the 30 round sickle magazine.)
Insofar as vehicular production goes... Forget building tanks, immediately. If we don't stall the enemy out in the boonies, we won't be able to build enough of them. I'm thinking much, much lighter. Think dune buggy with an armored flanks, a metric s***ton of ammunition, and a heavy machinegun mounted on the top. Two, maybe three man crew, but everything not critical to crew and vehicle support should be given over to ammunition storage. I don't care how much ammo you bring to a firefight, before long your magazines start to feel distressingly light. Pile as much ammunition on these outriders as possible without compromising speed and self-sufficiency. Ideally, we should be able to pluck volunteers off the street, give them some light training, and turn them loose with these vehicles into the green zone, where some would harass the flanks of enemy movements using the superior range of the machine gun while others would take to darting behind the main body of the army to attack supply shipments. Resupply could be achieved through aircraft. The point of these 'marauder corps' would be to have a roughly self-sufficient, long term bunch of asskickers fouling up enemy movements throughout the green zone and forcing them to guard absolutely every resupply route the enemy attempts. Every man guarding the routes is another man not actively hunting our men. The downside would be that in a prolonged engagement, where the marauders were unable to retrograde, they'd be boned. Speed and maneuverability is life for these guys. The 2-3 man crew would be broken up something like this; Driver/TC, Gunner/Mechanic, and RTO/Navigator.
Fully functional tanks should (IMHO) be constructed at a rate of about 1.5 a week. (1 the first week, 2 the second week, 1 the third, 2 the fourth, etc.) Being much lighter and less labor intensive, I'm thinking Marauders should be constructed at a rate of about 5 a week. If there's not already a name for the tanks, I'd suggest Massoud.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
Personal hero of mine.
Also, looking through the earlier pages of the comic, I noticed those amusing ship-prow body armor designs I missed/forgot about the first time. Ya'll are killin me.
