Some Thoughts on MBT's from a Veteran Tanker

[Klockan]

Are you guys for real? Of course they wont make a tank just suck, they are humans and they will try to keep things balanced. Yes, having a rotatable turret is better than having a fixed turret, which means that the tank with the fixed turret will be stronger in other ways. Same as how a tank that can strafe will be weaker in other ways than a tank that can't strafe. Thus in PS1 where the magrider was the only tank that could strafe it was significantly weaker than the other tanks. But now the lack of rotatable turret will mitigate that so the magrider wont be significantly weaker than any of the other tanks. In PS1 the hovering cost the tank ~33% armor and damage, in PS2 it cost its turret. Thus instead of just having light and medium tanks like in PS1 the Vanu will also have a heavy tank in this game.

[vVRedOctoberVv]

@Gug


Ummm, no MBTs are not "primarily" tank destroyers. A tank destroyer is a dedicated weapon platform, usually a fairly light, high speed vehicle with disproportionately powerful weaponry geared specifically for armor penetration.

A battle tank is a general purpose, heavily armored, mobile weapons platform, consisting (usually) of a variety of small caliber weapons for close range anti-infantry (12.7mm and 7.62mm usually, in varying quantities, but typically at least one of each). They typically also have a large (often smoothbore) caliber weapon with variable ammunition types, such as high explosive (HE) rounds suitable for soft targets (people, unarmored vehicles, buildings) and a wide variety of armor piercing rounds (Sabot, HEAT, Phosphorous, and so on and so forth).

In WWII, there were a variety of classes of tanks, but they were all concentrated into the "Main" battle tank, which is roughly equivalent to a medium/heavy (depending on a nation's design philosophy).

Being a "tank destroyer" is one role a "tank" can fill, but if tanks were primarily "tank destroyers" than there would be no point in having a tank in the first place.

[Inq]

Originally Posted by Gugabalog

As MBTs are generally designed as tank destroyers as opposed to infantry support platforms (Think Stryker as opposed to Abrams) If the mag got a front armor buff/has heavy ass armor on the front it will be viable.

NoDachi is right here, MBT's are not solely designed to be tank destroyers they are multipurpose, they cover many roles and are designed as such.

[Tactical Pony]

Originally Posted by Grognard

Im really not sure, to be honest. I did think of some possibilities, that I am just not sure would be a good fix:

1. As the OP mentions, the strafe and rearward acceleration must be very powerful.

2. I think the rearward speed must cap higher than the true tanks, so Mags can pull off a "Darth Maul", and keep the enemies in the "arc of acceptable risk", situationally.

IE. I say Darth Maul, because of the way he constantly was breaking close contact with Jin and Obi with rearward movement.

3. If the Vanu "Tank" is to be the only tank with an alternative design approach, then lets extend the paradigm, and add a little more "Vanu Tech", and give it a real, configurable, locational damage model... Rather than the front/rear/side/top modifier model on the more conventional true tanks (as I understand it), they could make the MagRider locations independant hit pools, and perhaps even configurable. The total hit pool would still amount to the same total (less than Vanguard, more than Prowler), but Mag pilots could side-grade their armor pools to their own play style.

4. The secondary gun could be more powerful in relation to the main gun. In other words, instead of a 75%main/25%secondary relationship, the Mag could have a 50%main/50%secondary relationship. This may only be practical for the AV role though...

All, or some of these, in concert might fix the problem, or make no difference at all. But its all I came up with.

I get it

you, playing vanu, want a magrider with a rotating turret, that moves back faster than everything moves forward, that strafes, that goes over water, that has multiple damage points so that one needs precision targeting to fight against it effectively, and that transforms into megatron.

I, playing TR, want to replace our MBT with our Invader

but for the sake of balance, we cant always get what we want.

Now, as for the potential problem with the magrider, if it is determined in the beta that there is substance to your claims outside of the test tube environment that is your mind, a more legitimate solution can be worked out at the time.

[Blackwolf]

See I haven't played other online FPS games since PS1 (too small). But I have played great tank games. My favorite was a game called Thunder Brigade. The tanks in this game were completely unique and not unlike Magriders sound now.

These were hover tanks. But they didn't have turrets, they were essentially floating turrets. You controlled your thrust with WSAD and your mouse controlled your aim. In order to shoot a target, you aimed your whole tank because even the gun mounted on it was set strait forward and the entire tank sat in a little invisible bubble which gave it full unrestricted rotation and movement.

Two serious difference between Thunder Brigade and PS2 though. One is that there was virtually zero vegetation on the landscape to run into. Obstacles were mostly hill or mountainous terrain. In fact the terrain was more or less barren except for hills and mountains. Second is tanks could rotate and aim in any direction while traveling in any other direction, they could also elevate themselves to about 20m into the air and maintain direction, speed, and their ability to aim anywhere.

The point is those tanks were awesome to drive and fight in. The Magrider has the potential to provide a new and unique means of tank combat and I think we should run with it. If the tank can strafe and travel in reverse as quickly as it can drive forward, then having a turret would actually create a weakness to the vehicle. In the sense that your target might not always be directly in front of you where the thickest part of your armor is located.

[Gugabalog]

Originally Posted by NoDachi

A main battle tank (MBT), also known as a battle tank or universal tank, is a tank that fills the heavy direct fire role of many modern armies. They were originally conceived to replace the light, medium, heavy and super-heavy tanks.

as opposed to

A tank destroyer is a type of armored fighting vehicle armed with a gun or missile launcher, and is designed specifically to engage enemy armored vehicles. Many have been based on a tracked tank chassis, while others are wheeled.
Since World War II, main battle tanks have largely replaced gun-armed tank destroyers although lightly armored anti tank guided missile (ATGM) carriers are commonly used for supplementary long-range anti-tank work. However, the resurgence of expeditionary warfare in the past twenty years has seen the emergence of gun-armed wheeled vehicles, sometimes called protected gun systems, which may bear a superficial resemblance to tank destroyers, but are employed as direct fire support units typically providing support in low intensity operations such as Iraq and Afghanistan.

And the direct fire support MBT's provide generally trump the protected gun systems which supplanted WW2 era MBT's in an urban enviroment. As MBT's are the rule of open ground warfare and invalidate wilderness infantry entrenchment quite heavily (barring other infantry terrain advantages i.e. height in a mountain/valley area) in order for an MBT to be succesful at pushing ground it must be a capable Tank Destroyer in addition to any other secondary roles.

I.E. Lightnings and Sunderers are the infantry support while MBT's counter that support. Not that all mentioned are stuck in that specific role.

A specific instance of the media stream in question was earlier in the thread and should be studied around 9:37

[Inq]

Originally Posted by Klockan

Are you guys for real? Of course they wont make a tank just suck, they are humans and they will try to keep things balanced. Yes, having a rotatable turret is better than having a fixed turret, which means that the tank with the fixed turret will be stronger in other ways. Same as how a tank that can strafe will be weaker in other ways than a tank that can't strafe. Thus in PS1 where the magrider was the only tank that could strafe it was significantly weaker than the other tanks. But now the lack of rotatable turret will mitigate that so the magrider wont be significantly weaker than any of the other tanks. In PS1 the hovering cost the tank ~33% armor and damage, in PS2 it cost its turret. Thus instead of just having light and medium tanks like in PS1 the Vanu will also have a heavy tank in this game.

Even if they keep the fixed gun it would still make more sense to have the main cannon mounted higher on the hull rather than at the lowest point.

Take a hover tank design from any other IP (Star wars/WH40k/Quake/BF2142, you name it) you want and you will see they are either turret mounted or fixed and high mounted on the hull. Its not some random coincidence - It simply does not make sense any other way.

[Gugabalog]

Originally Posted by Inq

Even if they keep the fixed gun it would still make more sense to have the main cannon mounted higher on the hull rather than at the lowest point.

Take a hover tank design from any other IP (Star wars/WH40k/Quake/BF2142, you name it) you want and you will see they are either turret mounted or fixed and high mounted on the hull. Its not some random coincidence - It simply does not make sense any other way.

^ This.

[Klockan]

Originally Posted by Inq

Even if they keep the fixed gun it would still make more sense to have the main cannon mounted higher on the hull rather than at the lowest point.

Take a hover tank design from any other IP (Star wars/WH40k/Quake/BF2142, you name it) you want and you will see they are either turret mounted or fixed and high mounted on the hull. Its not some random coincidence - It simply does not make sense any other way.

Yup, the current tank design with low mounted turret doesn't make sense, from a gameplay perspective it isn't a problem however since as I said the devs will try to keep things balanced so the tank will get other advantages intead. From a realism perspective you should know that it was made by crazy engineers, maybe they could squeeze 10% extra power into the cannon if they had it closer to the main body like it is now or something? WW2 Germany also had many flawed designs where they tried to boost a single attribute at great expense of other equally important attributes. If you look throughout history flawed designs are very common since usually the guys who fight and the guys who design weapons are completely different persons.

Edit: But I think the main reason is is there is because it was there in PS1 as well. Not the main turret maybe but that doesn't really matter, there is just as much reasons to mount any weapons as high as possible.

[Tactical Pony]

Originally Posted by Inq

Even if they keep the fixed gun it would still make more sense to have the main cannon mounted higher on the hull rather than at the lowest point.

Take a hover tank design from any other IP (Star wars/WH40k/Quake/BF2142, you name it) you want and you will see they are either turret mounted or fixed and high mounted on the hull. Its not some random coincidence - It simply does not make sense any other way.

Originally Posted by Klockan

Yup, the current tank design with low mounted turret doesn't make sense, from a gameplay perspective it isn't a problem however since as I said the devs will try to keep things balanced so the tank will get other advantages intead. From a realism perspective you should know that it was made by crazy engineers, maybe they could squeeze 10% extra power into the cannon if they had it closer to the main body like it is now or something? WW2 Germany also had many flawed designs where they tried to boost a single attribute at great expense of other equally important attributes. If you look throughout history flawed designs are very common since usually the guys who fight and the guys who design weapons are completely different persons.

This and that

...now im just waiting on the other thing...

[NoDachi]

Originally Posted by Gugabalog

A specific instance of the media stream in question was earlier in the thread and should be studied around 9:37

go on. Deconstruct that stream for us.

See how you can substantiate your argument of the magriders viability from that.

I'm in for a laugh anyway.

[AzureWatcher]

Originally Posted by Inq

Even if they keep the fixed gun it would still make more sense to have the main cannon mounted higher on the hull rather than at the lowest point.

Take a hover tank design from any other IP (Star wars/WH40k/Quake/BF2142, you name it) you want and you will see they are either turret mounted or fixed and high mounted on the hull. Its not some random coincidence - It simply does not make sense any other way.

Agreed. I hope some of the vehicle designers from SOE see this.

[Gugabalog]

Originally Posted by NoDachi

go on. Deconstruct that stream for us.

See how you can substantiate your argument of the magriders viability from that.

I'm in for a laugh anyway.

What a troll...

Because the Magrider is forced to forward face to engage either A) it is rationalized by increased firepower attributes or B) it is to encourage tankers to keep the forward armor always facing the target as if it wasn't already obvious. If the answer is B then there should have been extra design emphasis on the forward armor and thus it should either A) receive heavier armor if the forward armor is not currently sufficient or B) already have that heavy forward armor.

Between that and how it's ability to strafe give's it the tactical initiative it should be a monstrous tank.

With regards to that media stream, the tank appeared sluggish and pathetic suggesting it is not currently in working order and the discussion was about how to make it so.

[Klockan]

Originally Posted by AzureWatcher

Agreed. I hope some of the vehicle designers from SOE see this.

Have you guys seen this?

It is still the same tank design and it still look ridiculous. But if it was ok in PS1 why is it not ok now? Real tanks keep all their weapons high, not just the maingun. And you can even switch around the guns so the top gun becomes anti tank and the bottom becomes anti infantry so then we basically got the old mag back, except that the top turret would have 360 degrees rotation.

[Blackwolf]

I'd say the easiest "realism" perspective to go by was that it was just easier to armor and protect if placed closer to the body. Turrets are possibly the weakest part of real world MBTs and if the Vanu thought about which part of the tank gets the main gun, the part that has the heaviest armor and highest level of protection would be ideal.