M1 Abrams vs Nova Tonk size comparison
- Thread starter Montoya
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You don't need to put the A2 away. That's a fine Tonk delivery system too, in a hot zone. You can make hamburger out of enemy troops, then land the tonk and troops to take control .. I mean if you're not going to drop an asteroid on the place.
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
Tonks exist in Mechwarrior as a bridge between smaller fodder vehicles and larger Mechs, based upon economics. Tonks are much cheaper than Mechs. Without Mechs (SC), Tonks become ship fodder instead of Mech fodder. However, massed tanks have enough power to kill a Mech.
What you're suggesting is the same issue in Mechwarrior: that any real combat ship that appears over a battlefield should dominate it. Same in SWC--Wraith battle cruisers were designed specifically to dominate on the battlefield rather than in space, though they are excellent at both. Same with battleships per-WWII. Whenever a battleship appeared it so outclassed and dominated cruisers that it was an entirely different class of craft. That didn't end until flattops appeared. The dynamic ruled naval warfare for perhaps 3,000 years? and was only replaced by the consequences of flight.
Point is, this would be more obvious if we had a stronger sense of the cost of a ship. We lack this because we experience the cost of the largest and most powerful ships as less than a weekend ski trip. Given what we know of Tonks, the best way to cope with them is fly an HH or Polaris over the field, with its S3 shields blocking everything the Tonk can do and obliterating whole formations in little time. OTOH, Tonks not massed and forming a nice target, should rule when there are no ships on the field and they oppose only other vehicles. SC has already stated such conditions WILL occur-- that ships can't manage certain kinds of planetary weather, etc. I would expect things like high winds to make ships impossible to fly, and suddenly the Tonks rule. So transport pilots looking to drop a Tonk for an assault will be looking at expected weather conditions, etc. I love intricate gameplay like this!
For perspective on the cost of a "superweapon" like a battleship, during the run-up to WWII, both Germany and Japan threw their limited resources into superweapons: V2's, superlarge tanks, and battleships. The Japanese could have built 90 destroyers for the cost of the Yamato. Things would have gone very differently if they had done this. Certainly, with the world's largest guns and heaviest armor, Yamato would have dominated in any conflict against other surface vessels, but the rise of aircraft as serious anti-ship weapons forced Japan to keep Yamato in reserve for most of the war, to the point she was referred to often as "hotel Yamato".
So think wisely about buying super-weapons. Sherman tanks won over Tigers at the Battle of the Bulge (Ardennes) from sheer numerical superiority. In SC, the equation governing power in the field is not dominated by economics so much as how much firepower each player can wield. That number is generally in favor of each step in larger ships, which is why ships' crew numbers are designed the way they are. The players wielding the highest firepower are those aboard the largest ships, or there would be little reason for team play.
What you're suggesting is the same issue in Mechwarrior: that any real combat ship that appears over a battlefield should dominate it. Same in SWC--Wraith battle cruisers were designed specifically to dominate on the battlefield rather than in space, though they are excellent at both. Same with battleships per-WWII. Whenever a battleship appeared it so outclassed and dominated cruisers that it was an entirely different class of craft. That didn't end until flattops appeared. The dynamic ruled naval warfare for perhaps 3,000 years? and was only replaced by the consequences of flight.
Point is, this would be more obvious if we had a stronger sense of the cost of a ship. We lack this because we experience the cost of the largest and most powerful ships as less than a weekend ski trip. Given what we know of Tonks, the best way to cope with them is fly an HH or Polaris over the field, with its S3 shields blocking everything the Tonk can do and obliterating whole formations in little time. OTOH, Tonks not massed and forming a nice target, should rule when there are no ships on the field and they oppose only other vehicles. SC has already stated such conditions WILL occur-- that ships can't manage certain kinds of planetary weather, etc. I would expect things like high winds to make ships impossible to fly, and suddenly the Tonks rule. So transport pilots looking to drop a Tonk for an assault will be looking at expected weather conditions, etc. I love intricate gameplay like this!
For perspective on the cost of a "superweapon" like a battleship, during the run-up to WWII, both Germany and Japan threw their limited resources into superweapons: V2's, superlarge tanks, and battleships. The Japanese could have built 90 destroyers for the cost of the Yamato. Things would have gone very differently if they had done this. Certainly, with the world's largest guns and heaviest armor, Yamato would have dominated in any conflict against other surface vessels, but the rise of aircraft as serious anti-ship weapons forced Japan to keep Yamato in reserve for most of the war, to the point she was referred to often as "hotel Yamato".
So think wisely about buying super-weapons. Sherman tanks won over Tigers at the Battle of the Bulge (Ardennes) from sheer numerical superiority. In SC, the equation governing power in the field is not dominated by economics so much as how much firepower each player can wield. That number is generally in favor of each step in larger ships, which is why ships' crew numbers are designed the way they are. The players wielding the highest firepower are those aboard the largest ships, or there would be little reason for team play.
Hmm now that you mention it... If I'm not wrong tecnically you aren't require to land... the Nova could be air droopped...
TLDR... Bigger is better, that's what she said ;)
It's certainly big enough to flatten a lot of soldiers on the ground...
Patrick Spaceman
Grand Admiral
If 5 tonks do not transform into Voltron or Chōdenji Machine Voltes V then I am probably melting my tonk.
Err.. I like the general idea... but that also mean crew are required to wear a comdom-like fancy and coolorful suite while drive it... not sure I'll like to do that...
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
Granted we don't have roads for tank treads to tear up, rivers to bog down in while crossing, bridges that need to support the weight, narrow streets to navigate, and similar.
Even given all that the Tonk is still too big.
Since World War 2, which gave us the Maus, the KV-2, and similar designs, tanks have gotten shorter, and smaller while getting faster and better protected.
Modern tanks are typically less than 8 feet tall, down from the 13+ feet tall of WWII.
Now the higher up a person is the more distant the horizon, so the further you can see. So Tanks of WWII had a reason to be taller.
Additionally tanks, at the start of the war, were, relatively, immune to infantry, at range.
During WWII two things changed. The deployment of the bazooka, and the development of the ground attack aircraft. Suddenly bigger was no longer better.
Since WWII the development of the Anti-tank guided missile, the Attack Helicopter, Ground Surveillance Radar, Side Looking Airborne Radar, guided artillery, air to ground guided missiles and most recently drones all meant that tanks had to be less visible in order to survive.
Attack Helicopters are especially lethal, using terrain masking and long range (relatively) Anti-tank missiles. (Apache Helicopters accounted for roughly 75% of tank kills during Desert Shield/Desert Storm.)
In Star Citizen where the horizon is closer, where heavily armed star ships are very fast but can also act as an attack helicopter, and where the environment is usually hostile, bigger tanks are just bigger targets.
Even given all that the Tonk is still too big.
Since World War 2, which gave us the Maus, the KV-2, and similar designs, tanks have gotten shorter, and smaller while getting faster and better protected.
Modern tanks are typically less than 8 feet tall, down from the 13+ feet tall of WWII.
Now the higher up a person is the more distant the horizon, so the further you can see. So Tanks of WWII had a reason to be taller.
Additionally tanks, at the start of the war, were, relatively, immune to infantry, at range.
During WWII two things changed. The deployment of the bazooka, and the development of the ground attack aircraft. Suddenly bigger was no longer better.
Since WWII the development of the Anti-tank guided missile, the Attack Helicopter, Ground Surveillance Radar, Side Looking Airborne Radar, guided artillery, air to ground guided missiles and most recently drones all meant that tanks had to be less visible in order to survive.
Attack Helicopters are especially lethal, using terrain masking and long range (relatively) Anti-tank missiles. (Apache Helicopters accounted for roughly 75% of tank kills during Desert Shield/Desert Storm.)
In Star Citizen where the horizon is closer, where heavily armed star ships are very fast but can also act as an attack helicopter, and where the environment is usually hostile, bigger tanks are just bigger targets.
I'd theorise Urban Warfare also played a huge role in tank design.
The last World War conflict highlighted a lot of weaknesses in large AFV design as infantry could hide and pop out much closer to a vehicle in an urban setting than on an open battlefield and if a long tank was slowed down trying to get round corners or windy roads, a quick limpet mine with a shaped charge and that's that tank out of action and potentially the road blocked entirely.
To this point SC has not got any/many accessible urban areas to be able to block a tonks progress... Forest areas which tanks also struggle with do exist however so it'll be interesting to see how Novas deal with the trees of Microtech...?
This is an interesting consideration... for now they'll deal with tree like ships does: crash on it and eventually get stucked...
In the future when CIG will finally finalise the teck for interacting enviroment, like the grass bend while you walk trougth it, ithere will be a possibility for bring the tree down, at leeas the small one I suppose...
Considering the shape of it I'm moost worried about ground clearance: I0ve never travel long distance with an ground vehicle, but most of the time terrain doesn't feel "confortable" even of a small rover like the Cyclone, bigger things like the Nova could be a nightmare to handle
Very good point about the size/ground clearance issues! On loads of moons and the planets, most of the enviroment is tightly packed with impassable small-medium outrcoppings of rocks or junk metal or whatever.
I've spent lots of hours on moons in the past, driving around whatever I had at the the time, Greycat, ROC, Cyclone... It's literally a constant slalom course, whether you are in a Graycat or that big ex-soviet looking 8 wheeler AA thing. Some parts are so tightly packed with rocks and shit that you have to reverse out and find another way around them because even a ROC can't really fit through them...
So while the tonk might be useful and fun on the flat desert sands of Daymar or ice fields of Yela, it will be a pain to drive unless it can pass over all the smaller stuff as it's supposed to IRL. I don't doubt they want it to work like that, but I doubt the current implementation of stuff like rocks on the ground will allow for the smooth ride it's supposed to be.
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
When I was trained in MOUT, and trained MOUT (Movement Over Urban Terrain) tanks, even M1's, were not brought into the environment. In general they sat outside and fired into buildings.
Granted in Stalingrad tanks were used in the city. In fact they were built in the city, while combat occurred in the factory, and drove off the assembly line right into combat, but in general that is terrain you avoid in a tank. :)
Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
True, and stranger still; we actually found out about this by accident.
Bazookas were not very effective against the really big tanks. Shermans had to hit them in just the right spot at very close range. However, the killingest platform for killing any tank in WWII gets very little press in the West, since virtually all of them built were given to Russia to fight on the Eastern Front. Recall that was were most of the war really was, where Germany had most of her troops and where the most combatants were killed on both sides. Germany had lots of tanks there, but Russia was given a fighter designed for another purpose (along with kajillions of trucks and trains from the US) that turned out to be the ideal tankbuster, the P-39 Aircobra.
The P-39 was designed in response to need for a craft in the interceptor role, but because its designer had a love of BFGs, he moved the engine behind the cockpit, and put the tractor prop rotating on the fixed barrel of a 37mm monster cannon. The thing was not much use for hitting fast moving objects like other planes and people, but like the cannons on the Harby, it killed big tough targets real good.
Little known fact: the Russians used the American built P-39 Aircobra to rack up the most kills of any American built fighter of any conflict, at any time in history. Most of its meals were German tanks.
That's where the concept of the A-10 later came from.
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Shadow Reaper
Space Marshal
While we're on the issue of vehicles again, I'm curious if anyone else is impatient to get on the X1s. I just do not get why CIG has not released that entire line. It seems to me there would be very few changes from the Nox, and we'd have 3 more vehicles. Maybe I should become a whiner. Where is the whining and complaining department?
I remember seeing grey-box animations of people getting in and out of an X1 in one of the SC videos over a year ago. I'm assuming it's not a s42 asset and so on the backburner until that game comes out.
Very likely yes considering that some thanks as served father and son of a same family and they are still not planned for being rtired from service ... (I men the tank, not the marine...)
Actually aside from some improvement into the guts, like aiming system, engines etc, tank development is basically halted since cold war. There ware some experiment done during that period (expecially on the URSS side), but nothing reallly come into full prodiction.
The most "un-ortodox" tank design is the swedish Stirdsvagn 103, or the S-stank:
all other design are bsically reiteration of the same concept: a flat chassies with a angled surface turret, the whole with the lowest profile as possible.
Extvagant design like the Sturmtiger developed during the end of WWII are no longer needed, even the whole concept of the tank-hunter design had been besically scrapped with the advent of helicopter and guided missile.