Mecha Design Quest

There was a time for revolutionary ideals, and there was a time for calm conservatism. However, you were French, so those two concepts were kind of backwards sometimes. Like today.

Once you explained to Gregory, the structural designer, that you were mounting the Soixante-quinze in your mecha, there was a large amount of standing clear as the yelling and the screaming and the waving of hands started. A ton and a half, just in cannon, would be a nightmare to arrange for, plus the weight of ammo. Still, working with Matthew, he thought he could figure out a way to mount it without sending everything to shit.

The trick would be you would end up with a very… avian, that would be the kindest word for it… design. Digitigrade legs would support a reasonably wide body, with a long nose that would hold the majority of the armor and the cockpit. Directly behind the cockpit would be a firewall, and then the engine-ammunition-loader compartment, with a truly fucky layout. Working with Niels had allowed them to come up with a somewhat not theoretical way to lay out the recoil cylinders for the gun that allowed it to have only the barrel outside the mecha, which had allowed them to position the gun off centerline. To counterbalance this, the natural and obvious solution was to put the engine and the transmission en echelon of the gun. This meant the loader was sitting next to the transmission, loading from ammo racks that were next to the engine, above and below the drive shaft, and under his seat.

The machine guns were, meanwhile, planned to go in a chin turret below the cockpit. Thanks to the powers of incredible theft, your team had managed to get Workshop 1's turret system from them in exchange for their gyro, and in the bargaining also got the control yoke they'd set up. Due to the size of the gun and the belts, you couldn't actually rig a full turret system, but you could do something almost as good: plus-minus fifteen degrees of elevation, over a full 60 degree arc over the front of the mecha. The only issue was ammunition was… well, restricted. The core problem was that the 13.2mm round meant the action was too energetic for the old design of belt-stripper that was in turn a modification of the feed strip stripper, and since the mle.1927 wasn't designed to be a mecha weapon, it wasn't actually given a belt feed adapter. As such, you were stuck running a kitbashed together drum magazine, giving each gun a meager 90 rounds.

Niels was already beating on heads over in Hotchkiss Arms & Artillery, but until that fight got finished you had to contend with the fact that your 'light firepower' had been kneecapped. Ideally, the fact you had a monstrously huge cannon would cover this sin. Ideally.

In the meantime, though, it was back to the supplier fights. After the success of the Fourmi, you had suppliers crawling out of the woodwork trying to get you to pick up their parts and contracts. From the littlest widget to the biggest actuator, someone was trying to get in your supply chain. After weeding out the obvious fakers, you were back with the basics.

Guilimont & Sons were back with their custom cockpit design services, and after being subcontracted for some of the work on the Requin order, had upscaled to an actually decent shop. While this cockpit was simpler, you still had to integrate the chin gun yolk into the arrangement, as well as the sighting systems for everything. Workshop 1 was talking a big game about their new 'synthetic aperture aligned holographic gunsight' and if you wanted a chance in hell as to getting that thing integrated, you'd need to get someone who actually knew a fair bit about cockpit systems to do it. As good as Conrad was, the man was already starting to go gray from the mess that was running the control mains to the engine off-center of the mecha, much less the transmission mains that had to go on a special structural member to make sure the engine shaft didn't get torqued if the hull got a good whack thrown on it.

The next, and potentially most interesting contractor offer you got was actually American, of all things. Bethlehem Steel had developed a new armor formulation and annealing technique for nonstructural armor plates, and had a representative offering to license it. The technique only worked on at least 20mm plate, though, which would get very heavy, very quickly. Far more importantly, it would have to be plate: you couldn't use a cast feature here. That in turn meant weight cost to set up the framing for it. Could be lighter in the end than a cast glacis, could be heavier. You weren't sure.

Continuing on, OSEN was back with their super-speed actuators from the Fourmi design, now improved to be able to handle up to eighteen tons gross weight. When you mentioned this was a twenty-ton mecha, the response was that with 'reasonable doubling as per standard industrial knee construction', you could easily mount up to thirty tons on the design, in exchange for a bit of a whack knee configuration.

Naturally, you talked this over with Yves, who agreed with you this was bullshit. After telling that rep to come back with a real fucking product and a liter of blinker fluid, you then got to the other actuator company, the Societie du Frachamps, who were offering a thirty ton actuator designed for industrial quadrupods. It was a little bulky, but what made it a serious offer was that it was a specially designed actuator designed for digitigrade legs. This was important, since a plantigrade knee- such as a human knee- had totally different loading patterns than a digitigrade knee- like a chicken's for instance. While Yves said he could design around the unorthodox knee, there were risks involved. There always were.

The question of outsourcing was weighing heavily on things, which also happened to impact the next big discussion: armor and armoring. The fact of the matter was, your mecha was expected to take a beating this time around, and actually trying to deliberately protect it was going to be, well, hard. More importantly, everyone had opinions on how to lay said armor out.

Your first design group wanted a harsh, angular forward array. With Yves backing them, the plan was to use a sharp, 45-degree leading edge to create four mirrored slopes of perfectly homogeneous rolled armor plate of 35mm. The pilot would have an armored 'conning box' to place his head in with vision slits, and a top hatch. The sides would be flat 7mm sheet steel, with the hips protected by a set of stamped covers of the same hiding them. Internal protection would consist of placing the drive train in an armored alleyway of the same 35mm steel, the driver in a box of 10mm rolled steel, and the loader being issued a rosary in case of a penetrating hit. The largest issue with the design would be getting all that forward armor plate to stay welded to the frame, followed shortly by all the added nose weight.

The second team, by contrast, wanted a smooth, single-piece cast and gently sloping dome piece, of approximately 50mm, with an upper panel of 35mm. The pilot would sit, protected by the lower glacis, with his head and shoulders protected by the 35mm panels, with vision blocks and a topside hatch. The sides would have a tumblehome slope, composed of 15mm rolled steel, with no internal armor divisions. The hips would be shadowed by the tumblehome, and the rear would be protected with a downward-facing pair of skid plates in 35mm steel.

The last team, meanwhile, was simplest. Their plan was a single rolled and cemented 55mm plate, at 25-degree back slant, with a series of six bulletproof, tempered glass panels in a near-115mm thick array that was two panels wide and three deep (with the center at steep angle) to stop any incoming fire. There was also a conning box above, but it was marked 'secondary' on the armor proposal. The rest of the mecha would be covered in near-flat 15mm armor, with the sides protected by a thin, 4mm corrugated sheet steel layer of ablative armor to promote rifle fire ricochets. This skirt would also extend to completely enclose the hips.

With all designs, a set of 'pilot's armor' was also presented. While the Great War had forced many mecha pilots into protective garments, this would be the first 'proper' set of mecha pilot's armor. With a cloth gambeson top and bottom, leather pants and light shoes would have protective studding, as well as large gaiters to make sure the garments stayed sealed. On the upper body, a chain-reinforced wax-cure leather jacket would be the main protective layer, and a heavy helmet with steel inserts and mask would protect the head.

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VOTES
One per category please.

Contractors

[] [ACTUATORS] Develop these in-house
[] [ACTUATORS] Buy the knee assembly and actuators from the Societie du Frachamps. Better safe than sorry for your legs.

[] [STEEL] Develop this from French manufacturers
[] [STEEL] License the Bethlehem Steel face-hardening technique.

[] [COCKPIT] Develop this in-house.
[] [COCKPIT] Subcontract out cockpit design and equipment to Guilimont & Sons. Sure, it'll cost more, but the features they can work in will be worth it.

Armoring Scheme
[] [ARMOR] Go with scheme 1: proud, very faceted glacis; and little else for armor.
[] [ARMOR] Go with scheme 2: Large cast glacis, protected piloting position, well-sloped sides, dedicated rear armor.
[] [ARMOR] Go with scheme 3:Flat, monobloc glacis with armored vision port and ablative skirts