Yes, I know the stats for the turret were posted earlier and I know the trade-offs. To know whether its worth it we need to have that information in context. Perhaps we'll want to keep the main gun as is. Perhaps we'll want to turret it. Perhaps we'll need to downsize the gun to keep within the tonnage limits. At this point it's just speculation.
Project Knight [Mecha Design Bureau]
- Thread starter Verisaimilitude
- Start date
- Original Sci-Fi Fantasy
The Warthog carries only three drones, and while our comms make them resistant to EW they're still light drones that are probably very easy to shoot down. And if you're relying on drones for that sort of work, then you should really just invest in a dedicated drone carrier (which doesn't need to be a mech at all, and which is probably very cheap). The fact that it's difficult to rely on the main gun when attacking is a huge downside for heavy weapons platform.
Our mech actually just has a chance to fall over if it tries to fire on the move:
The drones are "underwhelming":
And the secondaries don't carry much ammo:
None of these things are especially problematic while fighting from prepared defensive positions, but they all suck if you're on the attack. Aside from our main gun which must be directly pointed at anything, our options are to use our very limited drones that we rely on for situational awareness or to use our limited secondary ammo. Or we could hope that we have other units to deal with that--but then, why is our mech not simply providing fire support? It's not as if it's especially heavily armored.
Do you know what going hull down is? It's when you hide as much of an AFV behind some sort of cover, exposing only the weapons you intend to engage with. This is just saying that our mech can crouch in and out of cover, not that it's tactically mobile. This is also mainly relevant when fighting from a prepared defensive position.
Yes, our mech which is optimized for long-range engagements against armored targets, ideally from a prepared defensive position, is going to be very good at killing tanks. This does not mean that it's well suited to spearheading armored thrusts into enemy defenses, because it is again very bad at dealing with anything that isn't directly in front of it. It'd be much better a few kilometers back firing at difficult targets using information gathered by units that don't have to either expend very limited munitions or pray that there's a more flexible unit nearby every time an anti-tank team or enemy AFV ambushes it from anywhere that's not the front arc.
No, we only have three drones, and we definitely want them to mostly be used as scouts so the main gun on our heavy weapons platform can engage from range. They're also extremely vulnerable to APS, so we really can't rely on them to deal with anything other than maybe infantry. If the Warthog is operating as fire support and is able to dedicate more drones to self-defense and save its secodary ammo it's not a huge issue, but if you want them to conduct an armored thrust it's very awkward.
Not having a turret is just really, really bad if you're not fighting defensively. There's a very good reason why every AFV built today uses a turret.
- Location
- his hidden lair
I see, so it's really down to personal bias. The Warthog isn't just a glorified SPG, the Object is hot dogshit with far worse stats practically across the board and is categorically outgunned. You're completely discounting all the subsystems the Warthog has in order to identify targets at long range, network with it's peers, and inconceivably- point the gun and armor towards the enemy.
People are genuinely interested in the Warthog, it's performed exceptionally in trials, and it has several advantages you seem to have 0 interest in acknowledging. All your dismissal has done is discount your own argument- we've compared it to tank, it trounced the tank, it has a lot more utility and flexibility in terms of engagement ranges and methods than a tank. It exceeded or met every combat metric we possibly could measure it against outside of the Amazonian contract.
My argument is that the Warthog is a solid mech. Because we've been told it's solid. Because it has stats in excess of what was expected for a trooper mech, because it has superior firepower, solid pilot ergonomics, excellent situational awareness, battlefield networking, and a primary weapon that can exploit the awareness, has the range to coordinate, and flexible ammo options. You realize for all that your talk about the lack of a turret that a typical bipedal mech using hands doesn't have one either? And that the torso twist almost certainly isn't 360 degrees right?
As for betting the farm on it? We're spending a handful of budget on this, catastrophizing this into the decision that will make or break the company is just childish and petty. A modular assembly line means even if we do pivot production, or do a major refit- the loss of production will be actually minimized. Your insistence that this mech can only go on to die in droves is just a purely personal take rooted in a fixation on a fully turreted main gun that is effectively alien to most mecha tropes.
I also note you have complete ignored all the quotes and references I used to support my argument. The ones that indicated our major customers probably want more Warthogs but are worried about our ability to supply them in a reasonable timespan. By this point, your argument has superseded any point you could have reasonably made and is as far I'm concerned just indicating it's not worth having these sort of discussions.
Here's a quote from the largest customer we had, the one who needs to be most concerned about fighting a major conflict against Zaibatsu style mechas:
Congratulations, the infantry team was forced to engage the combat drones or identified by recon drones and was revealed. They disintegrate under overlapping fire from a Warthog platoon advancing in echelon. You can't have quantum infantry teams positioned perfectly to engage a lone Warthog and ignore that these things have excellent situational awareness, very interconnected and robust comms, and aren't intended to operate alone and unsupported- kinda like how a tank works actually. Funny how that works.
The mere fact those drones got shot down is valuable- and in formation with a bunch of other drones and Warthogs, would likely reveal whatever position engaged the drones. And chances are with 20-60km of range, the Warthogs can then engage said position. I'm going to encourage you to take a step back and realize that you're trying to pick and choose scenarios and facts to serve the argument by this point rather than make an argument derived from the facts and acknowledge those factors in said scenarios.
Edit: it's fine when you disagree with us, and you're probably right in that this is a wonky early design. But that doesn't mean a wonky design can't be incredibly successful- but by refusing to at least acknowledge where we're coming from, and what bits of the quest we're deriving our conclusions from, the quality of this entire discussion gets lowered.
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What advantages?
It has a really big gun and legs. That's how it's better than a comparable tank, assuming that tanks don't carry comparably sized main armaments. A tank can just as easily carry drones or operate alongside other units, but has the added benefit of having a turret, which means a properly stabilized gun and all the flexibility you get from a turret. I'd actually bet that a comparably priced tank would perform better against the Senshi than our mech solely due to the fact that our mech is begging to be flanked by jumpjets in a cool action sequence.
The Object is worse if you're fighting a high-end military but it's meant to be a cheap AFV, and it does that with excellent flexibility. They're going to sell loads of them for anti-insurgency and to serve as low-end filler.
There's a huge difference between a small frontal cone, and being able to twist the torso a bit and having weapons mounted on the hands or arms. None of your arguments seem to address the fact that having a very limited engagement arc on your primary weapon is extremely tactically limiting.
Yes, and in reality the infantry team would not be operating alone, your Warthogs are being fired upon by artillery and air units, the drones are being shredded by enemy APS, and a Senshi has just performed a sick jump into the middle of your Warthogs and is doing some crazy shit to them.
You seem to be under the impression that I'm saying that the Warthog is literally incapable of conducting offensive operations. Obviously, that's silly. Any AFV can. You could replace every single instance of "warthog" with "M109 Self-propelled gun" in your example and still be correct. But as basically an SPG on legs, the Warthog is not at all suited for that sort of thing, and you'd obviously be much better off using a tank or mech with better flexibility. If we build the capacity and nations go to war, Warthogs will probably be used to conduct offensive operations, and they'll be worse at it than a vehicle that was designed for them.
The issue is we've taken Tanks from basically all the power, and this mech has better mobility, equivalent armor, equivalent firepower, and better situational awareness. It went against Gladius which while not a Major power mainstay was still considered high end and beat said units in the solo matches at 2:1 odds. In team fights it became an entirely lopsided affair.
The Hog isn't weak, in fact it's already more than a match for a top-of-the-line tank if we assume the Hulong or thor can also 2vs1 Gladius tanks, and it get better the more of them you field as a cohesive group. This thing could easily have been called the Wolf becuase it's a pack hunter.
Will a Senshi outperform it? Yes. Will the more advanced Mecha that a Senshi is a stripped-down version outperform it? Also yes, clearly. But I can almost guarantee that they are going to cost more per unit by a substantial margin. Meanwhile the Hog is almost as cheap as the Millie while having a vastly broader and stronger combat envelope, the only hitch being technological concerns, which naturally become cheaper as technology progresses. There is a massive gulf between cheap fodder mechs that are the Millies and the Zanbatsu's wunderwaffen. That's where the Hog is, and most of us see that as a starting point that will keep it relevant for several years if not longer.
As for the firing arc, it's not ideal, i'd admit, and should we ever get a chance to modernize the skeleton and minimize it's weight with a better more compact design of one, i would move heaven and earth for that free up tonnage to be a big gun turret. That said, our hog can still turn fairly quickly on its legs, fast enough nothing but another mech could take advantage, and even then, they'd need to be fairly close, or the Hog unsupported by its brethren to be able to take advantage.
There's no debate that this is a new design and has teething issues but saying this is just a massively inferior SPG basically takes the Qm's writing and uses it as toilet paper. Mechs in general, due to their quasi-magical status are noted to perform better than more normal vehicles, and this design has provably trounced what is regarded as a high-end tank with aplomb for a lot less expenditure of funds and resources than one would expect. Respect that.
Yes, as I've said multiple times, the Warthog is very good at fighting defensively. It's a purpose built defensive heavy weapons platform. Of course it'll kill tanks. But that doesn't mean that it's versatile, or that it's not an SPG that we've strapped legs to.
Doctrinally it basically works best as a WW2 tank destroyer. It's very good at dealing with armor, but it's not suited for offensive action. Which isn't a problem, necessarily, but my point is that we really shouldn't rely on it becoming a mainstay and invest into producing as many of them as possible. Which is what we just did.
Also why do people act like other tanks or mechs won't have drones or good comms? Both of the other mechs use universal mounts that can easily carry a drone bay.
Or you know, It keeps going while the machine gun and Grenade launcher on it's anti-personal turret tuns the anti-tank team into paste. Which is why it's there in the first place, and well within it's capabilities to do, and it's firing arcs do cover. while the Point Defense ont he Same Turret automatic blows up the missile before it hits us.
EDIT: nevermind, point was gone over by others, ignore.
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No but don't you see! What happens when Schrodinger's Anti-Tank infantry Spawn into existence Behind the Warthog in it's blind spot, After going completely Unnoticed by the Infantry who would be accompanying the Warthog, The warthogs drones And also wielding Munitions that would mission kill the warthog... but not a warthog with a turret, despite the Turret eating more weight and if anything leading to a vehicle with LESS armour.
Except it's not JUST a defensive bulwark. If it was then the Qm would have noted that in the ten different combats we had, where in we did better on the defense than the offense. Given that waws not noted and instead it was a blow out? That tells a vastly different tale, no? So reducing it to that when it is not one is folly. As for versatility? It's a tank mock up, drone support network, communication node, mobile fire support and an armor asset. While perhaps not as versatile as the massively overbuilt Senshi, it is very versatile, especially given the competitors are overbuilt and super expensive face puncher or discount dan's security mecha.
Doctrine is too new and too varied in this infant field to be declared. The only people with the ability to have claim to set the best doctrine are the people who came up with the Mech in the first place, and frankly the Zaibatsus are likely lagging in personelle, where they exceed most in everything else. So of course, thier first mechs are hyper over designed wunderwaffens made to suit their very very tiny recruitment pool. But saying the doctrine of tanks is how we must set mech doctrine is fundamentally faulty. If mechs were solely mechanical that might be prevalent, perhaps. But they are not, and how pilots have been buying into the Hog hype showing that there is mystical component. Thus, while we can make estimations on effectiveness we cannot and will not know for sure until metal hits the road. Pursuant to that the mech and it's agile legs are just as able to turn as a heavy turret, perhaps more so. Turrets especially heavy gauge ones tend to take a large amount of time to turn, it's not instant. While arms move even better it's not inconceivable that the legs on the design work well enough that the lack of turret, isn't a major disadvantage. While a turret would be amazing to have, i don't see it as essential for the design at current. Furthermore, you are wholly discounting it's actual active anti-personnel turret at the front, which gives it a great deal of ability to clear softer targets.
Finally of the three mechs we've looked at, only one has made dedicated room for Drones, and only one has for sure made a strong communication suite. The Millie is made as cheap as possible, frankly if they have comms at all i'd be surprised. It's made cheap on the cheap to be a goon. It's useful for defensive efforts where it can mob the enemy, but on anything approaching a normal battlefield it'd fair as well as an urbanmech, too slow, too weak, too frail to be useful. Hence why even most armies are giving up on it becuase they have tanks that work better.
As for the Senshi? It probably does have good Comms, but i doubt it has drones. Why would a mech focused on face punching anything and everything need drones? Why wouldn't it not go all in on lethality, either in armament, durability so it can use it's armament, or speed so it cna face punch faster. Doctrinally the Senshi doesn't want or need such, it's designed role was "High king facepuncher of all the things" or a Bear as opposed to a pack hunter designed to work with allies to bring down even the largest of targets through coordination of attacks and information.
We have hit the happy midpoint between cost, ability and intended use case with the Hog, and while i don't expect it to be on top forever, right now the only competition is literally fodder worse than a good tank or an overbuilt and overcosted lone wolf agenda mech designed to be amazing at everything for a vastly higher cost and resource overhang.
The turret while regrettable doesn't cost us much if any utility and we are sitting upon an entirely unexploited market when war is looming, if there was EVER a time to make sure we can pump out frames? It's now, while everyone is loosening purse string for a fight, but the shooting hasn't begun so people are trying to fix things over buying new ones.
It's a Field artilliery of Mechs? Possible to use decently on its own, great at indirect fire, and absolutely devastating when used with units that can protect it from it's downsides. Even worse when used from a defensive position. Never something an enemy force can ignore safely, always having to have a plan to deal with them, or insure that the forces are never in a position that they can land a strong hit.
Meanwhile, other Mechs in that range are either overspecialize or trying to Out tank the Tanks.
Meanwhile, other Mechs in that range are either overspecialize or trying to Out tank the Tanks.
Not really, Field artillery has a notably poor performance when enemies get close, and poor mobiltiy compared to other forces, neither of which has been demonstrated in the Hog.
The Warthog did well in its trials which were either 1v1 or lance v lance against a second-tier tank, but it won the trials because the tank's EW systems couldn't disrupt the drones well enough and even though they managed to shoot the drones down relatively quickly, it still gave our mech the advantage in situational awareness and time to manuever. Since that's like 95% of winning an AFV duel, of course our mechs won. In an actual combat scenario we would probably expect both forces to have supporting assets, and for the tanks to have recon of their own. It's great that the Warthog is good at AFV duels--that's why we put such a big gun on it--but tank destroyers fell out of favor for a reason.
People keep saying that our mech is versatile, but how? Three drones which are easily shot down does not make it particularly versatile. The secondaries carry very little ammo; 2000 rounds for the APS, only a thousand rounds for the HMG and 50 40mm grenades. It's unlikely to be able to engage more than once or twice without needing to resupply, which is not an issue on the defense and terrible on the offense. We don't have the ability to easily swap out modules like other mechs either, since we've gone with a simpler mount type. And any sizable force should have C&C and drone carriers with or without our mechs.
You could certainly say this of a mech like the Senshi, with its jump jets, array of high-end weapons and probably other cutting edge systems. Even the Millies have two light mounts and one medium carried mount, even if they're mediocre in all other aspects except price. But we haven't built that. We've built, again, an SPG on legs. Nobody has been able to present a cogent argument for why this is not the mech equivilent of an SPG, or why it would want to do anything besides SPG tasks. It carries one large gun in a casemate mount, a few drones for recon, and a limited self-defense turret.
It turns like a tank. This was noted as a positive in the field testing, but tanks do not turn especially quickly. Tanks usually have turrets to mitigate this.
The turret costs so much utility. The only modern AFVs that don't mount cannons in a turret are actual SPGs that use limited traverse turrets. Even way back in WW2, the only times you would mount a cannon in a casemate is if your gun was too big to put in a turret (like the USSR's SU-152) or if you were broke and needed the cheapest possible way to put a gun in an AFV (like the German Stugs). Once technology improved to the point that we could put reasonably large guns in turrets at a decent price, we completely stopped building fixed mount guns. The Warthog is almost purpose built for WW2-era tank destroyer/assault gun doctrines. It's able to traverse difficult terrain, moves reasonably quickly, and gives up flexibility in exchange for a really big gun. It performs best on the frontlines when it's supporting infantry, less well armed mechs or the like, and has limited ability to defend itself.
If war does break out, then we will probably end up selling a lot of Warthogs because the market is so bare, but that doesn't mean that it's not an SPG with legs. It'll probably see use as a tank-equivilent because it's an armored vehicle with a big gun, but it'll be worse at it than actual tanks if it's not on the defense.
How do you think the infantry accompanying it are going to be travelling, exactly? Are they just really good at running and surviving artillery fragmentation? Perhaps they'll be buttoned up in an IFV with less situational awareness than the mech itself?
And the secondary turret is nose mounted. Even if we ignore the very limited ammo it carries (3,050 total rounds of all types), it's not going to have full coverage of even the sides of the mech. Our mech is very, very front focused.
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It's more the more a comparison of the role they play in the battlefield, then actual capabilities. And even then it's only the closest approximation to their capabilities in comparison to other Mechs, Tanks, and IFV's that would be part of a combined force. It's closer than "tanks" or "Strategic/tactical Artillery", much less "infantry" or "Calvary"
though Calvary might be applicable, as in a charge, the warthogs would be somewhat scary and dangerous. capable of putting fire directly on the target their heading for, and tough enough that you need dedicated counter-fire. Not something you would want to use warthogs for unless you had no other decent choice.
- Location
- his hidden lair
I see. So you have no interest in actually engaging with the quest outside of humoring your own biases. Like the fact the Warthog trounced the tanks it was matched up against.
So the enemy gets to operate with artillery, and air support but the Warthogs are completely unsupported? You are throwing out comical strawmen and just shifting goalposts. I'm sure you think this is profound, and that the proof of your argument is only vindicated by those coming out to disagree... But you have gone from talking about an anti-tank infantry team launching an ambush... to a full combined arms offensive involving not just infantry, tanks, and aircraft- but the cutting edge super high performance mecha, against a force that is so nebulously defined it's just some vague quantity of Warthogs. This is comically tone deaf.
I had a whole bunch more, presenting other scenarios, and questioning the 'scenarios' you've presented... but I just don't really care. You think the Warthog is a glorified SPG... that doesn't seem to be a popular opinion. The original topic of expanding production has been thoroughly settled, so there's absolutely no point in even having this argument any more. Next time, I encourage you to engage with the text, use quotes, reference stats and mechanics- because even if I had agreed with your arguments... your supporting hypotheticals are just doing you absolutely no favors.
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It's not a matter of opinion. The Warthog is objectively closer to an SPG than any other AFV, including conventional mecha. SPG is a fairly broad term and the warthog is closer to the outdated assault guns than modern artillery pieces, but it's quite difficult to argue that a casemated big gun with some secondaries and lighter armor is anything else.
Adding a drone bay and legs to a 20th century AFV does not magically make it something else. Waving your arms and nebulously chanting that I'm "not engaging with the quest" and "being biased" does not change the fact that you could take a next-generation SPA from the current day, put it on legs and add some armor and basically end up with a warthog.
I haven't seen a single argument that explains why the Warthog is not effectively an SPG. It did well in 1v1 and lance scale engagements against tanks, which is pretty much how TDs performed against tanks when used correctly. It doesn't have any of the systems that differentiate a tank from an SPG, and while you could argue that it's a cross between an SPG and a mech, it only takes the legs from mechs.
You act like I'm not engaging in the quest material or the argument, but at no point have you actually presented anything approaching a reason why the Warthog is different from an SPG, or why it would be employed differently than one. It's good at killing tanks and it has secondary systems? Do you know what else was good at killing tanks and had secondary weapons?
EDIT: Also, it really just feels like I'm arguing with a bunch of people who are unfamiliar with AFVs in general. I mean, I said that nobody built turretless tanks after WW2 and nobody corrected me? Not only was the Strv 103 a turretless AFV, it was actually classified (by the Swedes) as a main battle tank.
Now, this doesn't actually help your argument much because it was an "MBT" that was designed specifically towards defensive warfare and was replaced with the conventional Leopard 2, but it is an error I made regarding a fairly well known tank.
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Metal gear? I mean it armed with a impressive array of close range weaponry like Gatling guns and rockets and the one from soild has a interconternal rail gun...
you've brought up some good points, but those have consistently countered by the other side, then brought up again and again by you. Yes the warthog has downsides and weakness, and putting its main weapon on a turret would improve it a fair bit. But that's just taking it from a Good Mecha, to a Great Mecha. It has problems, but nothing that will prevent it from doing its job. Just not as well as if it had a turret instead.
It still kicks ass of its opponents. It still looks good to buyers both in demonstrated performance and on paper, for how much it costs. And it's going to take years of development before anything can be designed to outperform it in its role/nitch. And years more of producing and selling warthogs to nations that need the mechs now, not several years down the line.
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Huh…
@Verisaimilitude how are future sales of warthogs be handled, beyond the contracts we have already signed? Will some of that money be put into our development funds, or is it just going straight to the shareholders?
It still kicks ass of its opponents. It still looks good to buyers both in demonstrated performance and on paper, for how much it costs. And it's going to take years of development before anything can be designed to outperform it in its role/nitch. And years more of producing and selling warthogs to nations that need the mechs now, not several years down the line.
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Huh…
@Verisaimilitude how are future sales of warthogs be handled, beyond the contracts we have already signed? Will some of that money be put into our development funds, or is it just going straight to the shareholders?
Okay, but if you think about it Metal Gear Rex is basically an SPG the same way that a ballistic missile submarine is an MLRS.
No, my point is that while the warthog is good in its niche (defensive fire support, it's a walking SPG) it's not a great all-rounder. Being turretless severely limits its ability to conduct offensive operations, so while it can do them if it has to it'd be much better to use something else.
This is an issue because we've gone all-in on building warthogs, so if it turns out that buyers don't want a ton of defense optimized mechs then we'll have trouble using our production capacity.
On that note, I wonder if our mecha has firmware installed to send us combat data.
Good question. I think I'd prefer that to be happening somewhat in the background.
As much as I would've preferred another construction site and more funding for R&D, the decision has been made. To make the most out of it we should design a Warthog variant that is more suited to other mission profiles. Allow the buyers to mix-and-match their choice of pig-themed mecha.
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- Location
- US
Well, that's just it. We're still in the very beginning stages mech history. The "something else" that would be better to use hasn't been built yet, and it's very unclear (in-universe and out) if it will be built before the next big conflict sets off. The Warthog may not necessarily be an ideal mech for all scenarios, but it's good enough, and for a lot of military spenders good enough and available immediately is better than ideal but unavailable until two years after the shooting has started. The hope with the Jovian station is that by getting out lots of Warthogs quickly, we can take advantage of this initial boom where people are looking for the best mechs they can get their hands on, but our competitors simply won't have anything on hand yet. Eventually, the boom will fade and our competitors will catch up and fill those offensive niches, but by then we'll have a new product to switch our production lines to.
of course it's not a great all rounder. To get a great all rounder at this point your looking at a hero mech costing thousands of times more the the earthing, with decades of research time.
it's a decent mech that'd great at its main roles, and decent enough to use in others(though far from good in several) It's cheap enough that people will want to buy it now, rather than wait years/decades for something better to be made, because they want to survive.
And if it doesn't, then so what? We makes slightly less profit in the short term(but still a profit) and we can get our next mech into production months earlier then we can now.
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Sure, that's a fair argument, and I've already brought up the idea that we might get decent sales by being the only midrange option on the market. But I spent the last day arguing with people who decided to die on the hill that the Warthog was actually an incredible all-round trooper mech and not the heavy weapon platform we actually designed.
Yeah, if we're doubling down on the warthog then we should just go all-in. I think we've only spent 15.5 tons of mass on weapons and mounts though, so it'd probably be very difficult to fit any heavy turret. A medium turret is probably doable, and if we went with a few universal mounts it would be a pretty compelling complement to existing fire support hogs.
- Location
- Midwest
the warthogs pretty neat but we gotta build a scopedog now.
another source of insperation is the m6 bushnell
though that depends completely on what concept/contract we pick out as the bushnell bulk is more suited to being a trooper then a fast scout.
- Location
- his hidden lair
Because the Swedes' specific scenario is so completely distinct from the Warthogs' that it would be a bit much trying to claim they were turretless for similar reasons beyond being hardware vaguely geared towards defense against a superior power.
As for why? It's because the term SPG is being used too much and too vaguely, it's overshadowing the times where you're trying to acknowledge the opposing argument even if it's technically correct. You earlier compared it to the M109, a dedicated artillery vehicle that has no business being exposed to direct fire unlike the Warthog. In this argument you seem now to be comparing it to a tank destroyer, which is way closer to being a closer comparison but still not quite accurate since it can fulfill both roles.
I'm going to assert that the Warthog is capable as both a tank destroyer, self propelled artillery piece, and assault gun- it can engage enemy armor at a choke or at long distance where it's superior range and limited traverse are most favorable, it can put relatively large high explosives on a fortified position with direct fire without hiding behind paper armor, and it can accurately put shells on a target at a respectable distance- without an extensive time to set up or travel locks on the gun no less. Am I being unreasonable?
So this brings me to this crux- you seem upset that people have doubled down on what you see as a niche vehicle and feel we need to broaden it's value or we've fucked up- but very quickly and roughly looking at WW2 AFVs...I'm counting ~22k Soviet SPGs out of ~107k and ~22.3k German SPGs out of ~46.1k. That looks like a significant chunk of potential AFV market share to me. Now, that was very rough and I only included the roles I felt the Warthog could perform, so no SPAAGs and I don't think APCs were included in either total as well.
This relies on guidance from WW2 as opposed to modern armored warfare- but considering I don't think a humanoid mecha maps very well on to that either and WW2 is the root of popular military tropes and understanding (including a lot of mecha tropes)- so it seems as good a place as any for now. How would those militaries not have killed for a platform that could cost effectively cover all those roles in such a way that it's very likely more than the sum of it's parts? A lot of those roles vanished into the MBT for precisely that reason, but a separate vehicle concept that combines those roles isn't necessarily inferior.
The customer who *seems* to be the most militarily capable, had the most stringent requirements in terms of combat performance for the vehicle, and had the expectation of fighting Zaibatsu warmecha- the SCC, were the happiest and largest customer. Until proven otherwise, I'm going to assume they weren't idiotic to buy in.
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