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In lugnet.off-topic.geek, Daniel Rubin wrote:
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I think this would depend on the efficacy of the hover mechanism. Depending
on the technology involved, it could be faster then a tank with treads
running on the same sort of power source would be (there’s alot of mass in
tank treads, and therefore alot of inertia). Also, hover tanks should, in
theory, be immune to land mines, which would allow for faster overall
advancement of a fighting line.
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If military history has shown us anything, it’s that nothing is immune to
landmines if it moves. It’s just a matter of developing a landmine that’s
capable of being triggered by a hover tank (and trust me, if hover tanks happen,
someone will figure out how to make a landmine to match it). There have been
some absolutely freaky mines developed, including one that is triggered by boats
that travel over it, but only if they go fast. The idea there was that
attacking boats would want to get in, pop open a can of Cream of Medieval soup,
and either get the heck out of Dodge, or plant the flag on captured territory.
Friendly boats, on the other hand, could leisurely putter into the harbor,
unafraid of getting blown away by defensive artillery. Assuming the hover
technology that makes hover tanks feasible doesn’t cause a downward pressure
effect that’ll set off the current leading mines, it’s still only a matter of
time before someone could figure out a way to catch them, be it a magnetic
trigger that picks up on any iron content passing over it, some exotic trigger
that detects the energy used to make the tank hover, or even converting the
radar capsule from explosive shells for use in a landmine. Of course, since
set-them-and-forget-them mines are now banned by international treaty, IIRC, it
should be a null issue anyways.
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Theoretically, a hover tank could be made to maintain a distance from the
ground less than or equal to that occupied by the wheels on a normal tank,
so that it would not be higher in the air.
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Without actually developing the requisite hover technology, there’s no way of
putting forth an educated guess as to whether hover tanks would need extra
height to house the hover-tech, or if they could sit even lower because the
technology would require less height than what conventional tanks require in the
underbelly.
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Also, while I don’t think that oceans or mountains make a compelling
argument for hover tank desirabilty,
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Oceans don’t, but beaches do. Being able to launch a hover tank assault from
international waters would go a long ways towards eliminating the need for
specialized beach assault boats, though to completely get rid of them we’d still
need hover Humvees, hover APCs, and hover artillery.
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rivers, and bridge destruction do.
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It would certainly be more convenient, but we’ve got bridge-laying technology,
so it would still be a matter of whether the hover-tech would be durable enough
to warrant using hover tanks instead of or in combination with treaded tanks.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Tanks or Power Armor
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| (...) I agree on the fact that, no groundforces are immune to mines, but regarding treaties, they only survive as long as politicians back them up and with regarding the mines, sorry, the bad guys still have them and won’t sign any treaty so they're (...) (20 years ago, 30-Aug-04, to lugnet.off-topic.geek, lugnet.build.mecha, lugnet.space, FTX)
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