- Location
- SEAsia
- Pronouns
- Thou
Suspension of disbelief. We're looking for the right balance of cool and just real enough.
Could we add gulag prisoners as part of our imports from Mother Russia?
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That Time I Became A Dictator Of A Small Asian Communist Nation
- Thread starter HeroCooky
- Start date
- Original
Suspension of disbelief. We're looking for the right balance of cool and just real enough.
Could we add gulag prisoners as part of our imports from Mother Russia?
Here's my rough plan for the vote. Definitely closer to the "improve the chassis/give the IT new toys" blocs rather then the radical redesign group. I tossed away the last of my ability to care about making the mechs really pay anything beyond lip service to the laws of physics when we started diplomatically bludgeoning people over the head with our Nazi wunderwaffe electronics and everything we derived from them, so I'm just working with the "mechs are cool" mindset right now with pretty much zero cares beyond that.
[X] Plan: Rugged Terrain Rationalization
-[X] While the first generation Iron Tiger was, is, and will continue to be a pride of the nation as the very first war mech produced, it is very clearly a design made by engineers stumbling around in the darkness of possibilities with absolutely no experience on how such a platform could, would, or should work on a modern battlefield. Now equipped with institutional knowledge gained from shoving the first generation into pretty much every role we could think of and seeing how poorly the mech handled it, the second generation of Iron Tigers would pare back the various armaments and equipment to focus on the roles it was determined mechs could have a place in. The seeming downgrade of the visible weapons loadout led to jokes and rumors about the first generation being a run of high tech "super prototypes" for a mass production variant, but those few who have sat behind the controls of both know the new mech is anything but, not that they're going to say anything with the classification level they're behind though.
-[X] Internal Systems and Equipment
--[X] NBC Protection: With the benefit of hindsight the full SCARS, while entirely functional with some potential for possible extreme environment vehicles, is rather overkill and taking up mass and cockpit volume that could be better used for other systems. While the airtight seals and cabin overpressure features are retained, the new protection suite does away with the sealable vents, on-board air storage, rebreather system, and CO2 scrubbers. They are replaced with just a heavy duty filter and, most crucially, an air conditioning unit, reducing the overall mass and volume of the system.
--[X] "Stalking Tiger" Glassless Control System: An evolution of the Tigerlink "overseer" system that collated all the important data on the Iron Tiger's systems before displaying them in an accessible manner via computer screens, the Stalking Tiger goes one step further. Using our recent advanced in electronics and computing technology, the Stalking Tiger removes the cockpit viewports entirely (except for a single compact periscope backup). Instead, taking advantage of the freed up internal space, the surrounding environment will be primarily viewed on an array of computer screens spread across the interior front and sides of the cockpit displaying a live feed from a number of cameras facing multiple directions on the exterior of the Iron Tiger. This allows for a greater field of view for the pilot, without even alerting the enemy that the Iron Tiger is looking in their direction, while also increasing cockpit protection by allowing additional armor to cover where the viewports once where. The Stalking Tiger also includes night vision cameras, while retaining and expanding on the Tigerlinks's overseeing capability by taking another shot at linking weapon T&T, determining where the weapons are pointed and using that information to superimpose a targeting reticle on the live feed for the pilot. An enterprising young engineer even put forward the idea of mounting cameras on the back of the Iron Tiger's palms, allowing it to peek around corners in urban areas without exposing more than a hand if the feed can be successfully routed up the Iron Tiger's arms.
--[X] Gyro Stabilization System: It is hoped that with a few more years to poke around in the Laufpanzers and gain experience with the Iron Tiger that our scientists have closed the technical gap between them and the original designers of the Laufpanzer, letting us natively create a new gyroscope system that doesn't waste so much mass as our first native attempts.
-[X] Weapons
--[X] "Dragon Spite" 57mm Mech Autorifle: While the 57mm caliber itself has shown promise in it's ability to penetrate lightly armored vehicles as well as retain stopping power when punching through concealment and light cover that would protect against lighter rounds, the tri-barrel gun currently firing them is overweight, overbuilt, poor at the AA work it was marketed as being able to do, and still has to reduce performance to avoid misfiring. The new rifle does away with 2/3s of the barrels and the idea of using it for anti-air entirely, instead being an electrically driven chain gun with the ability to extract and eject misfired rounds in order to increase reliability. Without the need to fill the sky with enough lead that one of the shots may hit an airplane, the rate of fire can be reduced slightly to reduce wear and further improve reliability as well as cooling. The designers made a significant effort to integrate the Autorifle into the Stalking Tiger system without too much hassle, a fixed camera mounted above the gun barrel in a way that emulates looking down gunsights to provide an alternate firing view for the pilot if it can be used better, or they in case suspect that the Stalking Tiger's target reticle may be off. Further work to provide modernized ammunition in the caliber, as well as being able to swap between them in combat, culminated in a new HEDP shell for use against infantry and light targets and an APDS shell for penetrating armored targets.
--[X] "Pouncing Cat" Over-the-Shoulder ATGM (Back-mounted): The Lightningbolt is a really good cannon that has some of it's own programs going to try to mount one on a tank, but it's not as suited the roles we will be putting the new Iron Tigers in. So while the Lightningbolt will likely stick around in some form due to the Iron Tiger's modular nature in case we ever need to haul a tank cannon through dense forest for some reason, the Pouncing Cat laser beam riding ATGM was developed to serve as s new heavy anti-armor weapon of the Iron Tiger shock troops while being lighter and easier to maneuver with than a full-size cannon. Taking as many technologies from the Lightningbolt as possible, the Pouncing Cat is not a single shot launcher, but one that has it's own autoloader to allow for repeated shots without requiring multiple tubes, even if it has a much shallower ammo pool then the cannon due to the larger ammunition. The ability Lightningbolt to aim and shoot at a target in it's arc independently also makes a reappearance in the form of letting the Pouncing Cat keep the guidance laser on the target after firing, even as the pilot may shift their attention and the Iron Tiger to engage other targets. Meanwhile the low recoil launch of a missile has much less of an adverse effect on the balance of the mech allowing for easier firing on the move. The missile itself is a standard HEAT warhead as it was the simplest and least likely to be messed up. While the ATGM does have it's much longer official name, the fact that the missile is guided into it's target by what is essentially a military grade laser pointer is the source of it's "Pouncing Cat" nickname.
--[X] Iron Tiger Scale Combat Engineering Tool - Shovel Axe Hybrid (ITSCET-SAH): An entrenchment tool built for Iron Tigers to use, it is only minimally collapsible to maintain integrity, with one side of the shovel blade sharpened to allow it to serve as a passable axe, in case any trees need to be felled or structures torn down. Made out of the same material as the Dragon's tooth, it could theoretically be used against enemy armor the same way it's used against trees while having greater reach than the knife, but that's very much not the purpose it was made for.
Another possibility I'm thinking about is having the ATGMs be overfly top attack instead using an EFP firing downward, or even getting the missile to roll on it's side and launch it sideways so it could technically shoot around corners in urban areas.
[X] Plan: Rugged Terrain Rationalization
-[X] While the first generation Iron Tiger was, is, and will continue to be a pride of the nation as the very first war mech produced, it is very clearly a design made by engineers stumbling around in the darkness of possibilities with absolutely no experience on how such a platform could, would, or should work on a modern battlefield. Now equipped with institutional knowledge gained from shoving the first generation into pretty much every role we could think of and seeing how poorly the mech handled it, the second generation of Iron Tigers would pare back the various armaments and equipment to focus on the roles it was determined mechs could have a place in. The seeming downgrade of the visible weapons loadout led to jokes and rumors about the first generation being a run of high tech "super prototypes" for a mass production variant, but those few who have sat behind the controls of both know the new mech is anything but, not that they're going to say anything with the classification level they're behind though.
-[X] Internal Systems and Equipment
--[X] NBC Protection: With the benefit of hindsight the full SCARS, while entirely functional with some potential for possible extreme environment vehicles, is rather overkill and taking up mass and cockpit volume that could be better used for other systems. While the airtight seals and cabin overpressure features are retained, the new protection suite does away with the sealable vents, on-board air storage, rebreather system, and CO2 scrubbers. They are replaced with just a heavy duty filter and, most crucially, an air conditioning unit, reducing the overall mass and volume of the system.
--[X] "Stalking Tiger" Glassless Control System: An evolution of the Tigerlink "overseer" system that collated all the important data on the Iron Tiger's systems before displaying them in an accessible manner via computer screens, the Stalking Tiger goes one step further. Using our recent advanced in electronics and computing technology, the Stalking Tiger removes the cockpit viewports entirely (except for a single compact periscope backup). Instead, taking advantage of the freed up internal space, the surrounding environment will be primarily viewed on an array of computer screens spread across the interior front and sides of the cockpit displaying a live feed from a number of cameras facing multiple directions on the exterior of the Iron Tiger. This allows for a greater field of view for the pilot, without even alerting the enemy that the Iron Tiger is looking in their direction, while also increasing cockpit protection by allowing additional armor to cover where the viewports once where. The Stalking Tiger also includes night vision cameras, while retaining and expanding on the Tigerlinks's overseeing capability by taking another shot at linking weapon T&T, determining where the weapons are pointed and using that information to superimpose a targeting reticle on the live feed for the pilot. An enterprising young engineer even put forward the idea of mounting cameras on the back of the Iron Tiger's palms, allowing it to peek around corners in urban areas without exposing more than a hand if the feed can be successfully routed up the Iron Tiger's arms.
--[X] Gyro Stabilization System: It is hoped that with a few more years to poke around in the Laufpanzers and gain experience with the Iron Tiger that our scientists have closed the technical gap between them and the original designers of the Laufpanzer, letting us natively create a new gyroscope system that doesn't waste so much mass as our first native attempts.
-[X] Weapons
--[X] "Dragon Spite" 57mm Mech Autorifle: While the 57mm caliber itself has shown promise in it's ability to penetrate lightly armored vehicles as well as retain stopping power when punching through concealment and light cover that would protect against lighter rounds, the tri-barrel gun currently firing them is overweight, overbuilt, poor at the AA work it was marketed as being able to do, and still has to reduce performance to avoid misfiring. The new rifle does away with 2/3s of the barrels and the idea of using it for anti-air entirely, instead being an electrically driven chain gun with the ability to extract and eject misfired rounds in order to increase reliability. Without the need to fill the sky with enough lead that one of the shots may hit an airplane, the rate of fire can be reduced slightly to reduce wear and further improve reliability as well as cooling. The designers made a significant effort to integrate the Autorifle into the Stalking Tiger system without too much hassle, a fixed camera mounted above the gun barrel in a way that emulates looking down gunsights to provide an alternate firing view for the pilot if it can be used better, or they in case suspect that the Stalking Tiger's target reticle may be off. Further work to provide modernized ammunition in the caliber, as well as being able to swap between them in combat, culminated in a new HEDP shell for use against infantry and light targets and an APDS shell for penetrating armored targets.
--[X] "Pouncing Cat" Over-the-Shoulder ATGM (Back-mounted): The Lightningbolt is a really good cannon that has some of it's own programs going to try to mount one on a tank, but it's not as suited the roles we will be putting the new Iron Tigers in. So while the Lightningbolt will likely stick around in some form due to the Iron Tiger's modular nature in case we ever need to haul a tank cannon through dense forest for some reason, the Pouncing Cat laser beam riding ATGM was developed to serve as s new heavy anti-armor weapon of the Iron Tiger shock troops while being lighter and easier to maneuver with than a full-size cannon. Taking as many technologies from the Lightningbolt as possible, the Pouncing Cat is not a single shot launcher, but one that has it's own autoloader to allow for repeated shots without requiring multiple tubes, even if it has a much shallower ammo pool then the cannon due to the larger ammunition. The ability Lightningbolt to aim and shoot at a target in it's arc independently also makes a reappearance in the form of letting the Pouncing Cat keep the guidance laser on the target after firing, even as the pilot may shift their attention and the Iron Tiger to engage other targets. Meanwhile the low recoil launch of a missile has much less of an adverse effect on the balance of the mech allowing for easier firing on the move. The missile itself is a standard HEAT warhead as it was the simplest and least likely to be messed up. While the ATGM does have it's much longer official name, the fact that the missile is guided into it's target by what is essentially a military grade laser pointer is the source of it's "Pouncing Cat" nickname.
--[X] Iron Tiger Scale Combat Engineering Tool - Shovel Axe Hybrid (ITSCET-SAH): An entrenchment tool built for Iron Tigers to use, it is only minimally collapsible to maintain integrity, with one side of the shovel blade sharpened to allow it to serve as a passable axe, in case any trees need to be felled or structures torn down. Made out of the same material as the Dragon's tooth, it could theoretically be used against enemy armor the same way it's used against trees while having greater reach than the knife, but that's very much not the purpose it was made for.
Another possibility I'm thinking about is having the ATGMs be overfly top attack instead using an EFP firing downward, or even getting the missile to roll on it's side and launch it sideways so it could technically shoot around corners in urban areas.
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- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The problem is that a workable AA gun for modern applications requires support from radar and tracking systems; otherwise it just can't keep up with agile attack helicopters and jet-powered fixed wing CAS aircraft.
So a designated Iron Tiger "flak" variant is going to need to be hauling around a lot of specialized hardware that is useful only for engaging aircraft. Which is fine, but means you really ought to be custom-designing the mech around that equipment, not trying to fit it to every mech off the assembly line.
Alright so, our stuff is modular right? So we should be able to make a modular kit for doing that kind of thing. I was thinking like a command tiger, such that it handles all that stuff and then sends the data to the other tigers for targeting and the like? Does that make sense, or is that not really a viable kind of thing?
So an Iron Tiger with a high powered radar, communication suite and computer system?
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
Watchful Tiger variant pairs nicely with Bird-hunter Tiger variant.
That was what I was thinking. Command and Control tiger, able to get the details from other systems, crunch the numbers, and give out firing solutions for other Tigers.
- Location
- poland
Something like boston dynamics mule, only the size of delivery van, optional big mounting point for radar/heavier weapons?
- Location
- California Conservation Corps
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Makes the most sense to me. One of two Iron Tigers are dedicated to air search and targeting and provide that info to the other tigers. Sure it's not quite as good as a unitary design, but you can just keep adding more guns by bringing more Iron Tigers. That plus the fact that they can end up in places in one expects an AA emplacement should make them at least somewhat useful.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
People. What about the air defense role makes a walker an attractive mobility platform?
Just stick a IT derived long travel suspension on your IADS vehicles.
Just stick a IT derived long travel suspension on your IADS vehicles.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
We're working with 80s-ish technology here. It's certainly possible to do radar-guided fire control that way, but it's going to be tricky to make it work reliably. Especially if you can't just park all your vehicles (trucks, mechs, whatever) and rig fixed cables between the various units. There are a lot of advantages to having the targeting radar and the actual AA gun mounted on the same platform, and a lot of disadvantages to having a whole mech
I mean, if you're operating from the premise that mechs are just inherently bad at everything because REALISM, that's a valid statement, but in that case we're going to wind up progressively pushing back mechs farther and farther until they just don't exist anywhere in the setting ever anymore, which kind of defeats the purpose of voting for them during (so to speak) character generation.
If you're not operating on the premise that mechs inherently stink at everything because REALISM, then answers include:
1) Ability to get up high in rolling or hilly terrain where conventional air defense vehicles would be limited to operating in the valley bottoms,
2) Just plain keeping up with and being uniform and compatible with the regular mecha, who are also valid and get to fite gud.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The balance of Realism vs Mecha that I think holds the most water is to use them as ultra-heavy infantry in urban combat, combat engineering, and as organic fire support in very rough terrain.
These seem like logical doctrinal niches.
IADS on the other hand doesn't really seem to benefit? Like, putting your SAMs and radars in very rough terrain doesn't confer a defensive advantage because the enemy will be hunting them from the air anyway.
And if you want to mount them somewhere high up you just prepare those positions to accept a few trucks driving up that hill and parking at the top.
One of the big issues is that the same tech that makes mechs viable also improves the handling of traditional vehicles on rough terrain, so we really need to look for places where legged locomotion in particular has the advantage.
It doesn't help that as an island nation, our security situation overwhelmingly favors air attack against us, which mechs are less than ideally placed to help with.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
On the other hand, we're definitely envisioning these mechs for expeditionary warfare or to equip foreign powers, so that's in play.
All I got for a suggestion right now is that we could/should build something like a "simple walking tank" model and use it for training, Garrisons and to send out to our foreign allies faster and that they will have a more easier time getting their people too learn how to maintain and use them? Like talking something like the mechs from battlefield 2142.
- Location
- 47° 09′ S, 126° 43′ O
So, I was rereading the quest and a question came to me, why did we have so much trouble finding educated personnel?
As far as I know at that time Guangchou is the only country that is open and benevolent towards LGBTQ + people, why educated people (thus those who have the money to pay for the trip and the knowledge to know that Guangchou exists) who are LGBTQ+ are not emigrating to Guangchou?
Is this something that has been explained?
Or am I missing something?
As far as I know at that time Guangchou is the only country that is open and benevolent towards LGBTQ + people, why educated people (thus those who have the money to pay for the trip and the knowledge to know that Guangchou exists) who are LGBTQ+ are not emigrating to Guangchou?
Is this something that has been explained?
Or am I missing something?
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- Pronouns
- He/Him
Because Guangchou was kinda seen as a shithole before the last couple years. It would be like becoming a refugee in North Korea. Even with the understanding that they treat LGBTQ+ people as people, the general assumption is that all people are treated terribly, so only the truly, unimaginably desperate are going to do that. Now, LGBTQ+ people are way more likely to have reason to feel that level of desperation that cis-het people, but it's still not going to be super common.
- Location
- 47° 09′ S, 126° 43′ O
So if we improve our reputation enough, we are likely to see lgbtq+ refugees arrive?
- Pronouns
- She/Her
We are already getting a lot of highly placed defectors via RAINBOW ROAD, but you have to remember: this is the 80s. How many queers are deep in the closet? How many are willing to throw away their lives to go to a nation half way around the world? How many can even afford the trip?
Encouraging more immigration is definitely on our to do list, but a lot of the people we want to poach are on the wrong side of the east/west split.
Encouraging more immigration is definitely on our to do list, but a lot of the people we want to poach are on the wrong side of the east/west split.
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mind, at the same time, given how bad the US is getting in the 80s, how much longer before we start appearing better by comparison?
Because the US is rapidly leaning towards a civil war, ora t least a lot of secretarian violence, and sticking around when you know, there is that country where you can finally marry your partner, and don't have to hide everything.....
Well, can appear quite tempting.
HeroCooky
Unverified Monstergirl
Those goddamn secretarians, always taking notes and helping other people run their jobs!
Night_stalker
Slava Ukraini!
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Funnily enough, mom was one, but you get the idea.Those goddamn secretarians, always taking notes and helping other people run their jobs!
Especially given some of the people in the war supporting Reagan might be uh, the kind who want pyres for LGBT+ people, so all the more reason to leave.
Barondoctor
The things I chase come to me.
- Location
- The other side of the mirror
- Pronouns
- He/His/Him
And winning horse races by dozens of lengths. Oh wait that's secretariat.Those goddamn secretarians, always taking notes and helping other people run their jobs!
I recently had an utterly stupid idea about Guangchou appearing in the OTL and what the various consequences of that would be, and one of the various thoughts of this would be people trying to get a reaction from us by dropping the "surprise" that Russia and China are no longer communist and the we respond that we aren't that surprised about the information, also our official declaration of Russia as an enemy of Communism and all that the revolution fights for, and the various reactions of that is funny to me.