Warning - Long, Long, Long post ahead
Hoyr said:
While I don't mind us having input on the design we most likely don't have any military vehicle designers in the thread (speak up if you are one). SB (and SV) has a minor issue with "must have the shinies", "everything and the kitchen sink", perceived hypercompetence and perfectionism syndrome.
Disclaimer 1: I'm an Engineer. Just, you know, a
Software Engineer not a mechanical or electrical engineer. Pretty much everything that follows is stuff I learned online or at high school. So if we have any actual engineers, scientists or mathematicians willing to check over my stuff, great!
Disclaimer 2: There are a number of assumptions been made in this post, since there is a lot we just don't know, and while I'll try and list them all here in the assumptions section I'll possibly miss a couple since I'll be updating it as I write.
Assumptions
- The Repulsor is actually a Quantum vacuum plasma thruster rather then a particle beam emitter
- My reasoning for this is that having the Repulsor be a particle beam just doesn't make sense to me and that having it be a super Q-thruster actually makes more sense.
- One of the theoretical issues I remember seeing brought up with relation to Q-thrusters is that since they only exist for a short period of time where does the momentum imparted to them go? While there is likely a more realistic answer I'm going to say that it's emitted as a beam of pure kinetic energy. Mostly since it's the exact kind of pseudo-science that would fit in both Iron Man and Mass Effect and having a Repulsor effectively emit pure kinetic energy does seem to fit it a lot better then a particle beam.
- Oh and there is actually more data and math for using a Q-thruster as an engine then there is for using a neutral particle beam, or at least that I could easily find.
- The standard palm Repulsor is 100mm in diameter
- This is based off the average male hand palm been ~84mm and since it's in the Iron Man suit it's likely a bit bigger then Tony Stark's actual palm.
- And of course 100mm is a nice number.
- The Iron Man suit from Iron Man 1's Arc Reactor produces 3GW of power and that 1GW of that power is used by the four Repulsors.
- We don't really know the details of the second gen Arc Reactor so I'm just assuming it has the same power but is more stable with a longer life.
The four Repulsors on the Iron Man Mk III suit have the same thrust and energy consumption.
- The standard palm repuslor has a thrust of 25,000 newtons
- I've seen calcs ranging from 700 newtons up to 24,000 newtons and given that we're using a lot more advanced materials and design techniques then Tony Stark had available it makes sense for Revy's repulsors to perform better.
- That and it's yet another nice round number to play with.
The Tiger has a Maximum mass, close to that of the M2 Bradley's
22,797kg, of 25,000kg.
The Mako's main gun delivers the same energy to target as the M107 projectile
Repulsors scale up based upon their area. So a 200mm Repuslor would have 4 times the area and hence 4 times the force.
- Simply because it makes the most sense of any approach I can think of.
Repulsor weapons convert the input electricity into output raw kinetic energy at 100% efficiency. Or close enough not to matter
I can't remember any instances of Repulsors burning anyone, be they the target or the user, and no mention of them overheating. Given that this is comic book tech having somewhere between 99.99999% and 100% efficiency isn't too surprisingly.
Preparatory Calculations
So before I start on the actual designs I want to work out a bunch of numbers.
Repulsor Power Consumption:
Going by the assumptions above a standard palm sized Repulsor consumes 700MW of power (2,800MW / 4 = 700MW) this gives it a power consumption of
700,000 / 25,000 = 28KW per newton.
Tiger IFV Repulsor Thruster Calcs:
So I've skimmed through the planet list on the wiki and the highest gravity I found was Aganju with 5.3g and most the planets had less then 1g with a few just a bit over. Which makes sense since humans don't operate that well at higher gravities. Still why not over do the Tiger?
Going with a maximum designed gravity of 6gs and requiring 3gs of acceleration on top of that, for manuevering/dodging/ect, gives a total acceleration required of 9gs.
Force = Mass * Acceleration
Force = 25,000 * 9*9.81
Force = 25,000 * 88.29
Force = 2,207,250 newtons
This would require 88.29 palm sized Repulsors. That's obviously impractical so lets scale them up. The Mako had 4 thrusters so keeping with that design each Repulsor would have to provide 551,812.5 newtons of thrust.
551,815.5 = 25,000 * (Scale Factor)^2
(Scale Factor)^2 = 551,815.5/25,000
(Scale Factor)^2 = 22.07262
Scale Factor = sqrt (22.07262)
Scale Factor = 4.70
That gives a diameter of of 470mm which isn't unreasonable given the size of the vehicle we're talking about here. By my estimates it's about the size of one of the tires. The question will be mounting. Preferably the thrust count be vectored but I'm sure Revy and her team of experts can figure out a way of dealing with it.
With a power consumption of 28KW per newton and a total force of 2,207,250 between the four Repuslors it's simple math to show that the Repulsors at 100% would consume 61.8GW or about twelve and a standard sized arc reactors.
Tiger IFV Main Gun Calcs
A Repuslor equivalent to the Mako's main gun would be absolutely
tiny.
32,147,764 = 700,000,000 * (Scale Factor)^2
(Scale Factor)^2 = 32,147,764/700,000,000
(Scale Factor)^2 = 0.0459
Scale Factor = sqrt(0.0459)
Scale Factor = 0.21
For a Diameter of 21mm. For reference the Barrett XM109 sniper rifle is cambered in 25x59mm.That's before factoring in that the Repulsor can fire for hours, flight from US to Afghanistan, on end while the Mako's cannon can only shoot once ever couple seconds.
If we actually use a 155mm barrel the Tiger would be outputting 1.68GW or about 401kg of TNT equivalent every second. Again for reference the Tomahawk cruse missile 454kg of TNT equivalent.
Now that might sound like supreme overkill, and for most targets it is, however we know that Repulsors can be turned all the way down to at least 1% power and that they can increase power in at least 1% increments. So that actually gives the 155mm main gun a variable yield between 168,175,000J (40.19kg or 5x Mako) and 1,681,750,000J (401.95kg or 52x Mako).
Of course a serious issue here is the recoil. At 155mm it's enough to give the Tiger 0.24gs of acceleration. I have no idea how much recoil that is for a vehicle but it seems like quite a bit. Of course the Tiger could use it's Eezo core to dampen the recoil and the gun itself would likely have a lot of recoil dampening built into it.
Tiger IFV Micro Missile Capacity:
The M2 Bradley carries 2,200 rounds of 7.62x51mm for it's M240 machine gun.
A 7.67x51mm round as a rim diameter of 12mm and an overall length of 69.9 mm giving it a rough volume of:
V = Pi * (0.5*12)^2 * 69.9
V = Pi * 6^2 * 69.9
V = Pi * 36 * 69.9
V = Pi * 2516.4
V = 7,905.5mm^3
The Micro Missile is about the same size as the 10mm Auto which has a rim diameter of 10.80mm and an overall length of 32mm giving it a rough volume of:
V = Pi * (0.5 * 10.8)^2 * 32
V = Pi * 5.4^2 * 32
V = Pi * 29.16 * 32
V = Pi * 933.12
V = 2931.5mm^3
So for each 7.62x51mm round you can fit:
Ratio = 7,905.5/2931.5
Ratio = 2.70
Giving a rough number of rounds for the same size area as using in the Bradley at:
Rounds = 2,200 * 2.70
Rounds = 5,940
So lets just round it up and call it 6,000 Micro-Missiles.
Tiger Design Specifications
PI-IFV-01A
Role - Rapid Insertion, Infantry Support and Autonomous Operation
Weaponry:
- Primary Weapon - Paragon Industries 155mm turret mounted Repulsor cannon
- Secondary Weapon - Paragon Industries 10mm Coaxial mounted Repulsor cannon.
- Secondary Weapon - 6x Paragon Industries Micro Missile VLS (6,000 missiles)
- Other - 4x Paragon Industries IFC Class Variable Equipment Mounts
Defensive Systems:
- Paragon Industries Advanced Ceramic Armour
- Paragon Industries Castra Kinetic Barrier Projector Network+
Power System:
- 17x Paragon Industries Arc Reactors (5GW)
Motive System
- 4x Paragon Industries 470mm Repulsor thrusters
- 6 Wheel All Terrain Drive System
- Paragon Industires Light Duty Eezo Core Mass Nullification System
Complement:
- 1x Driver/pilot (Optional)
- 1x Gunner (Optional)
- 6x Passengers
Additional Systems:
- Vacuum rated with full hostile environments package.
- Neural interface control system
- Communications Relay
- Battle Network
- Advanced Paragon Industries VI system providing full Fire Control as well as Remote and Autonomous operation.
- Heat resistant underbelly with deployable wheel shields allowing for high speed atmosphere entry.
The Paragon Industries 01A is a revolutionary design combining top of the line technology with an inspired design to create the most advanced and capable Infantry Fighting Vehicle in Citadel space and beyond.
The Tiger carries seventeen of our patented Arc Reactors which gives her a previously unheard of eighty five gigawatts of power at her disposal. Combined with the our never before seen Repulsor technology gives the Tiger a stunning two point two
meganewtons of thrust.
Not only does this allow the Tiger to operate in full hovercraft mode it also means she's capable of not only reaching orbit but combing back down all on her own. The specially designed heat resistant underbelly means she can make high speed entries as well as low speed powered entries giving you the choice of a rapid but noticeable entry or a slow but stealthier approach. Remarkably she is capable of all this without even activating her Eezo core. Allowing it to be best put to use in other ways so as lowering the strain of the rapid acceleration on the crew.
However our Repulsors are limited to simply providing the Tiger with ludicrous levels of thrust, no, they are capable of a lot more. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the Kzinti Lesson, in application if not by name, the better the engine is as a drive the better it is as a weapon.
The 155mm Repulsor Cannon is capable of putting out a sustained beam of over one and a half gigawatts of golden destruction to anything unfortunate enough to get in it's way. The best thing is that it's fully adjustable. There will be times when you want to blast an enemy tank without vaporising the building behind it and that is why the Repulsor Cannon is capable of easily and rapidly shifting from one hundred percent power all the way down to one percent power and back up again at a moments notice.
Of course there are times when even one percent is too much and for that we have the 10mm Repulsor coaxially mounted, allowing for energies as low as 70KW. For even more functionally the Repulsor isn't limited to just sustained beam mode. No it's capable of of rapid pulses, some lasting just fractions of a second.
Still for all it's amazing capabilities the Repulsor isn't well equipped to deal with some of the more precise tasks needed. Like taking out hostage takers without harming the hostage, a problem I myself ran into during the Batarian raid on Mindor. At the time I didn't have a solution but now I do.
The Paragon Industries Micro Missiles are capable of rapidly and effectively taking out enemy infantry without harming any civilian or allied forces in close quarters. The Tiger carries six thousand
This is all pretty impressive but we haven't gotten to the best bit yet. Thanks to our never before seen neural interfaces the Tiger's crew can control her not through haptic interfaces, or even buttons, but through their very minds. Combined with our revolutionary VI this means the Tiger can literally respond at the speed of thought.
Speaking of our new VIs that brings me to the final part of my presentation, Autonomous Control. Yes, you heard right, the Tiger is fully capable of independent operation. Facing heavy Anti-Air and not willing to risk your soldiers lives trying to make an entry? Well now you can send down a Tiger in Autonomous Control mode and have it track down and destroy the Anti-Air and clear an LZ for a manned landing.
To wrap up; the Tiger contains a number of revolutionary and and wholly unique technologies that alone would make it an attractive choice but together make the Tiger into
the most advanced Infantry Fighting Vehicle in existence.
End Notes
Yeah. I was planning on doing up the Gladius as well but at 2,268 words and 8 I think this is more then long enough.
) Having the crew being able to take over is just reasonable.
