"Technically the first thing built inside a mech is the human" Incorrect. Most mechwarriors are piloting hardware older than them. Kill the meat, spare the metal and all that.
I paused the video when Steve said that and was going to comment about as well, but you beat me to it. Another way it was put (in cannon): "Life is cheap. BattleMechs are expensive." - Advertising slogan, Irian BattleMechs Ltd.
@@ShuRugal I mean, even then, for some 'mechs that's not true. The Cataphract was cobbled together out of spare-parts and existing technology, in one way or another, that mech predates it's builders by virtue of being a pseudo-frankenmech. That's to say nothing of Omnimechs and Inner-Sphere knock-offs of Clan mechs.
Some people get super stoked about the intergalactic politics and intrigue. I'm here for the intricacies of logistical networks, mech factory operations, and rampant corporate espionage.
In my head canon, 'Mechs were created to perform small war crimes because big war crimes were outlawed by a bunch of killjoys. Quantity has a quality of its own, as they say...
Quantity, does have a Quality, all of its own. This is a military 'truism'. A 'truth' of Military thought and philosophy. An example would be to flood a table battlefield with something as 'cheap' and replaceable as a 'swarm' of Locust, or perhaps Spider Mechs, or a combination of both. Then send this 'swarm' to confront the foe's Heavies and Assaults. Far more agile, they can nearly always 'get behind' the much slower Mechs, and eventually core them out from the rear. Their speed makes them VERY hard targets to hit, and they can close to 'minimum' ranges where Heavy weapons just cannot target them effectively. An example of this: Enemy: 4 100-ton Mechs. Myself: 37 Locusts, modified to all carry 3 Medium Lasers. End results: 4 'dead' Assaults. My losses: 5 destroyed, 11 damaged. Is it any wonder that my Playing Group 'banned' such swarms? Yes, Quantity DOES, indeed, have a Quality all of its own.
thats never really explained because each mech is covered is lots of defiantly shaped pieces. and if their composite then that makes it even harder because you cant just cut the peices from a sheet without damaging the carbon weave
Build priority #1, Power plant, power plant start up so if something goes wrong it's just the plant that goes up. #2, Power plant shut down. #3, Sub frame #4, Miomar mussles, outer frames, etc. Heat sinks and wepons, in/on torso. Armor.
Ferrofiberious armor is expensive but when you consider the logistics of moving tons of armor across interstellar distances the reduced weight makes up for it
There is a 'balance' between FFA and 'standard' armor. FFA takes up space that could be used for other equipment, weapons, or things like Heat Sinks. Standard Armor does not take up that added space, and thus is best for Mechs that are designed to maximize the use of their available internal structures. FFA is expensive, and hard to produce. Standard armor is fairly common, and widely available, almost anywhere. It is your choice which to use for what Mech design.
@@franksmedley7372 In a strictly economical sense, Ferro-Fibrous Armor should be better since it's going to benefit immensely more from weighing less, as that is a tremendous amount of energy savings in transporting it. Though to be fair, Battletech as a setting has always played things fast and loose with things like economics and technological progression (and regression; Lostech really should never have been a thing when you consider the TRIVIAL COST of just making remote back-ups of libraries for key-technologies.) It shouldn't be surprising that it doesn't quite grasp how things like mining, refining and mass-production works either.
@@atmosdwagon4656 I tend to agree with you. Even though massive numbers of nukes were used in the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars, some 'hardened' sites would have survived. Especially if buried deeply enough. Those sites could easily contain the entire knowledge base of Mankind. So, LosTech should never have been 'a thing'. It would require extensive effort to wipe out ALL space based mining and manufacturing throughout Human controlled space. A ludicrous amount of wasted military power to 'control' what? A planet? A nation? A cluster of nearby star systems? Destroying the infrastructure that is used to build what you are using is just plain STUPID. Even today, 2023 CE (Common Calendar Era), There are so many copies of the entire 'Library of Congress' that even if the entire world was nuked back to the 'dark ages' level. It would only take a Century or so to rebuild to have nearly everything we have now. Two centuries to ensure that happens. And that is even considering a reduction of world populations reduced from around 7.9 Billion people, down to a few Million. And I mean, a FEW million... less than 10 million, and even down to a single million, scattered around the world. The only difference the lesser numbers would make is increasing the time to recover. But, that is the scenario dreamed up by the Game's makers. And that is what the 'universe' setting requires to make the game even faintly 'believable'. I have been arguing for decades that with the spread of the Helm Memory Core across space, and into the Periphery, that Periphery worlds should have easily matched pre-Star League technologies in the 150 years since the game's starting date of 3025. Even starting with a 'wild west' style colony in the deep Periphery, in 150 years, they should be able to 'bootstrap' themselves up to Inner Sphere type worlds, able to manufacture everything needed to build their own advanced Mechs, Vehicles, Drop Ships, and even Jump Ships. Several such 'backwards' worlds, given the Helm Memory Core, should be able to at least trade back and forth for needed items and materials, using existing trade networks, which would become MORE frequently visited by 'Free Traders' out to make a profit. Such a multi-planet effort would easily be able to bring themselves up to Inner Sphere, 3100s tech level in a century and a half. But, alas, that is just my opinion.
@atmosdwagon4656 But you also have to think about the production capabilities that were destroyed. So what if you theoretically know how to build a glass rifle? That doesn't matter if every factory in your borders that was capable of building them ate a nuke, and no one has the capability to rebuild all those machines.
I found the logistics of the game interesting. Enough so, that I designed Mechs to use only the most available, and thus cheapest, weapons and equipment. Many of my designs were 'banned' by my Playing Group for being 'unfair' to fight against, and 'not fun' to play against, due to me winning more often than not. Also, I NEVER had to field a Mech with less than fully functional, fully ready, weaponry. Many of my opponents could not say as much, nor could balance their books as well as I did and keep their Mechs in prime operating condition. Kinda hard to do, when most of your Mechs use 'rare' weapons that are hard to obtain, costly to procure, and require far more maintenance to keep them functioning. Now add in the factor that at one point I was limiting the number and types of Engines available for my designs. The 300 Vlar Engine being an example. Useful on 100, 75, 60, 50, 30, 25, and 20-ton Mechs. This simplified my procurement, maintenance, and repair of said Engines. It also ensured that I could 'hot swap' an engine from one Mech to another as needed. The 300 Vlar Engine was not the only example, just one of several that allowed me to obtain replacements, repair and replace Engines far more quickly than other Players could do so. Allowing me to field my forces faster than they could accomplish. That, in itself, was a 'moneymaker', since I could do more in less time, than they could.
@@franksmedley7372if you have time I'd love to read more about this. What weapons did you use? What mech chassis? And what other measures did you use to out logistics your opponents?
@@temp3608 cant be bothered buying it online and then waiting weeks for shipping to Australia, much easier to just modify an stl file and stick it in the printer
I find it funny how I just bought Battletech a day ago and I'm already getting videos like these recommended to me. I appreciate the lore dive! Always nice to learn about franchises other than Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, lmfao.
So Fusion reactors aren't bomb-like, as IRL if a fusion reaction messes up, it just stops working and shuts down. FISSION engines will definitely explode however.
@@warlynx5644The Battletech Armored Warfare book covers this. The generator explosion isn't caused by the fusion material itself, it's the rapid superheating of air that gets sucked into the vacuum housing several million degree plasma and explosives expanding. It's like instant boiling water, it's purely a thermal expansion reaction, not a nuclear reaction.
@@justgeo4288 Thing is in MW5, when you kill a mech via core crit, the entire thing fizzles with blue energy before detonating in a mini mushroom cloud. Of course, mushroom cloud =/= nuclear explosion (any big boom can cause one), but it’s something that immediately brings to mind nukes. TL;DR: A nuclear reactor in a work of fiction blowing up in a mushroom cloud tends to symbolize nuclear explosion
There are different types of fusion reactors being experimented with here and now. Some of them are using radioactive elements. A big issue right now is the created plasma has currents and eddies, causing the plasma stream to occasional rub up against the housing walls bombarding the very material with high energy causing the elements within to under go fission and release radiation. When a battlemech's fusion core is damaged enough the rules say it explodes, that could well mean critical functions keeping the magnetic field in place and the fuel input keeps going for a little bit, so the plasma stream is colliding with the housing, melting holes through it, and making holes as well as causing fission to happen on the various materials of the reactor and the battlemech itself. Then throw in that the various manufactures may well require different fuel material that some may be more radioactive then others, so there are now say 100 variants of a reactor fussion reactor power level, leading to several thousands total on how each and every reactor can explodes, expire softly, just shut down, make a high pitched noise, ect, ect. So for game mechanics it's all handled generically, .. unless a group of players are going to have special critical damage effects for each mech in play..?
"Typically the first thing that's gonna be built inside the mech is the human" Honestly, probably not. Considering some of these mechs are family heirlooms.
For some odd reason I have a soft spot for the Cataphract class heavy Battlemech even though I have absolutely no idea why. It is a heavy class mass produced Frakenmech originally created for one of my last favorite factions in the setting though its widely used by my favorite faction. It belongs to my favorite weight class sure but the armament is noting close to my preferred loadout. I like all energy weapon jump jet equipped heavies. In fact one of the things that annoys me about the 3025 era is officially AKAIK there are no stock heavy models or official variants from that period that combine a heavy mass, jump jets, and an all laser or all laser and PPC weapon loadout. To me that lack makes no sense at all because the technology exists and there's actually a 70 all energy and jump jet design that's a simple field refit of an older design but for the lore says it wasn't introduced until 3040ish
Theres a lot of things in general i dont like about 3025, tech and mechwise its literally the worst unless youre Wolf’s Dragoons, Comstar or just lucky af. Most of the mechs that period i like are also rare and even most of my favorite Inner Sphere mechs or variants dont appear till around or after Clan Invasion.never been a fan of the “we dont have shit” setting
@4:00 - a lot more than two people do the nasty. The mech pilot might actually be younger than the mech, but a whole bunch of engineers and mechanics are inside the mech before the first pilot ever touches it.
@@theangrygermanlad1328 I'm sure there are some examples of athletes pulling some mucles and other injuries but probably nothing on the level of pulling a joint out of a socket, from pure stress
@@sheilaolfieway1885 well even athletes aren’t using full muscular ability. But I could probably find an example of such injuries given enough keywords
@@jamesricker3997 that's Stackpole's own take and it is a bad one. Outside his novels, no author brings them up due to how lore-breaking it is. Thankfully it has been fixed that fusion engine "explosion" is the shockwave of expanding steam or hot air instead of nuclear.
Fusion Engines do 'explode', but not like a Nuclear device. The Plasma ring can be broached, and the plasma can thus escape the magnetic torus, melting anything in its path. But that plasma very rapidly cools to nothing. What causes the 'damage' is the 'explosive' nature of the shockwave of such a 'destruction', caused by the rapidly expanding and cooling plasma before it dissipates. The near-vacuum in the center collapses and the Mech will take damage as the air collapses back around the Mech at near sonic speeds, furthering the damage already done.
edit: hello i felt something was off so i fact checked myself and i was slightly mistaken, fusion reactors DO produce neutron radiation, just not long lasting radioactive polution, i apologize for my attitude. What tf did i just hear!? nuclear fusion does NOT produce radiation, thats the main reason people are researching it cus it DOESNT produce radiation making it the cleanest most efficient power source we've descovered. this really hit me hard cus the battletech universe goes into fine detail about the inner workings of things as far as ive been told so i didnt think they'd overlook something so critical.
Now my internal Engineer is just screaming that we have cranes that can hold up well over 100 tons right NOW. Running the maylmar with juice is unneeded at first. Sure, you should test the bundles as you install them properly. However the way you described the build process just doesn't seem believable now. We have real world tanks that weigh heavier than an atlas that can lifted up on. Don't get me wrong, I love Battletech world setting (pre real world politics mucking it up) but the numbers and such always seemed to fall short of what they should be able to do and are. If the Battlemechs were more closer to real life.... Oh may GOD they would be so much more powerful.
The issue with applying too much real world logic to battletech is that it becomes impossible to avoid the issue that anything which makes the mechs better would make the tanks better-er. Tanks don’t waste tonnage on legs, and can’t trip. So it kinda gets handwaved in the setting to justify mechs. But yeah, I think he does overstate how hard it is to work on mechs. The field refit rules say a crane is most of what you need for most basic things (repairing or fixing armor, changing where a heatsink or Ammo bin is, etc). Even a weapon swap takes a fair amount of time but not more than a crane. Factory level work is when you’re trying to replace the entire skeleton frame or radically change something like shoving a portable longtom into a hunchback lol. But really, you should just buy a new copy of the mech with the frame you want instead of ever paying to swap frames (ex: it’ll always be better to buy a new build IS endo steel HBK than pay the factory to take your existing HBK entirely apart and reinstall all the bits and bobs on a new made frame). Only exception is if no one makes the desired frame for a standard model, at which point you’re paying for bespoke one-off manufacturing and the price really was never a concern. A Solaris combatant or perhaps leader of a large merc company could probs justify such an expense-after all, the individual mech warrior can only die once, so money spent avoiding that is always a good investment from their perspective. Even then, you’d start by looking around for a close enough alternative. It’s gonna be cheaper to make your super HBK-6P custom from a salvaged HBK-IIC than to pay Clan Sea Fox for a one-off clan endo 6P frame. I think reactor replacement also takes advanced facilities, but I’m not sure it’s all the way back to factory, still more than the average mechbay. Anything beyond a 1:1 replacement for the reactor, such as installing a larger one or an XL package, however, would require factory facilities. But a merc company that’s traveling for a few months to get to a new contract could conduct pretty basic modifications (ex: swap to shorter or longer range weapons of broadly the same type and tonnage), install heatsinks, adjust armor load, etc in their mechbays. Swapping a ballistic for a laser, or vice versa, way harder. Probably can’t be done in any reasonable time in a basic mech bay because the mech doesn’t have the right feeds, connections, conduits, etc-would need a refit kit or equivalent purchased for purpose set of parts. But, like, an AC20 to a LBx10? Doable.
Dude ok no lie. This is super geeky shit. But its what im into honestly. Like i love lore. Not really a giant fan of the game i have played it on and off on pc. Not tabletop. But when i was playing D&D (AD&D Second edition btw). Some how my character that was a theif somehow ended up with a mine. And I literally worked otu all the logistics about it and he provided the prices per whatever. Like that was what our little 1 and 1 game became. Didnt last long it was boring as hell for him to DM it lol. But when yo usaid that about it being very geeky. Oh yes also i used to play excel spreadsheet simulation aka eve online!
Hello SI I just HAVE to interject here. Fusion Engines are NOT 'Nukes'. There, said it... now to explain myself. Although nukes have two major variants, Fission and Fusion, they both rely upon nuclear materials, like Uranium. Fusion Engines, though, use Deuterium. Deuterium is non-radioactive, and is merely Hydrogen with an 'extra' Neutron in its core. Battletech Fusion Engines CAN 'burn' regular Hydrogen, but the fuel is kinda hard to contain (since Hydrogen can 'migrate' through any container), and can explode in the presence of a spark and atmospheric air. You don't even need pure Oxygen to make it explode. Deuterium, on the other hand, is usually available as 'heavy water'. Common H2O (2 Hydrogen atoms, 1 Oxygen atom). This does necessitate that you run an electric current through the fuel to get the Hydrogen for Fusing, but that is 'safe' in comparison to the above. So, the heavy water is 'split' and the Hydrogen collected, compressed, and fed into the Fusion Engine's fusion chamber. At NO point is there enough pressure for explosion, since the fusion engine feeds the hydrogen into a 'ring' of magnetic fields. Now, I am NOT saying that Fusion engines cannot 'explode'. They definitely can. BUT, I am saying such an explosion is NOT nuclear. And, as far as 'explosive' effects, Fusion 'explosions' are very anemic compared to any military nuke. The thought of a Fusion Engine exploding like a nuclear device is derived from a story by Michael Stackpole, and has been repeatedly cited as a 'false' depiction of such an explosion. A Fusion Engine failing usually just 'bleeds' out the accumulated plasma from the containment ring and melts, or vaporizes, most of the Mech nearby. Fusion Engines CAN explosively fail, though. And in that case, they resemble any other 'conventional' explosive, just a bit more energetic. There is NO radiation left over from the explosion, although the Fusion Engine itself would have remaining parts that would be low-level radioactive hazards. So, Mechs do NOT 'stackpole'... I.E. Act like a Nuclear Bomb. The smallest 'nuke' ever made had a yield of 10 tons of TNT. That is a significant 'bang', and has all the associated nuclear hazards. Even the largest Fusion Engine (used for Mechs, not Ships or Warships), during a catastrophic failure, would have a yield of less than 10 tons of TNT. And although blinding, and damaging if close enough to the epicenter of the blast, it would yield NO radiation effects. This is why Fusion is used to generate power, and not nuclear reactors. A nuclear reactor that could power a Mech would be smaller, lighter, and able to run a Mech for multiple decades before needing refueling. But, any failure of the reactor would cause the Mech to become radioactive itself, and cause a massive nuclear hazard to the surrounding area. Not really useful for a 'weapon' that moves itself and can take catastrophic damage on the battlefield. You, like most other people, do not understand the difference between Plasma and Nuclear materials.
Well seeing how in universe many mech fusion plants are well over a century old running on only basic maintenance and can sustain multiple hits from AC/20 scale weapons before shutting down. So they are no where as fragile as the host seems to think.
@@foff3804 : On top of that, they are serviced by personnel that only faintly know what they are doing, with tools a bit more crude than what were designed to be used to perform the task. A failing Fusion Engine Plasma explosion can be seen as an 'explosion', but NOT like a Nuclear Bomb. Bright? Yes. Violent? Yes. Destructive? Again, yes... But no where nearly as destructive or wide-ranging as a Nuclear explosion, since the plasma rapidly cools as it expands. And finally, no lasting radioactive effects.
I've loved this mech stuff ever since the animations as a kid, having them in Tiberian Sun as GDI was incredibly awesome at the time. Unfortunately I've had my buzz killed by several engineering friends when asking why we don't have these babies instead of tanks. Something something resources something tanks easier to repair and maintain something something take a single leg out on a mech and it's just done. I'd love to hear a well versed response to those answers, because I simply don't have one.
Naw that isnt the real issue. The real issue is the violence of firing a weapon of any power. Firing a 120mm smoothbore tank gun mounted on the shoulder of a 70 ton humanoid mech would be absolutely impossible. It would never be able to brace that recoil, at such a high center of gravity. Battletech at least tried to make this more realistic by reducing the range of higher damage weapons, thus saying "it packs less powder in an ac20, than an ac2, thus lower velocity for higher calibers." So in effect your ac2 is your bog standard 20mm cannon from any ww2 fighter plane. But an ac20 is a 40mm bofors howitzer, lobing those larger rounds at such a low velocity, they couldnt hope to hit anything beyond a hundred yards. Weapons like that would be completely useless on a real battlefield. I know the art always shows AC20s to be very large bore (think hunchback) but again, no standing mech could handle that recoil, if it was in fact lobbing a 200mm round with any force. Missiles and lasers of course, would have no recoil and are completely feasable. Recoiless Rifles are a possibility, but they should just be considered rocket launchers. They are low velocity and rely on shaped charges to deal damage, same as a howitzer or rocket. The Abrams is 70 tons of very heavy vehicle. That's an assault mech. A large portion of that massive turret is dedicated to recoil absorbtion, and that 70 tons still rocks back noticeably. th-cam.com/video/pm6yYi-JugY/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=AiirSourceMilitary Now put an equivilant force in the arms of a humanoid... th-cam.com/video/OEZh87vCrYI/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CLSJack
Now of benefit of legs, if you could (as demonstrated in Robotech) get the agility of a human, is the fact that rough terrain is no longer an issue. Boulders would stop a tank in it's tracks, but a mech could step over, or even on them. Soft muddy terrain, where tracks would sink to the chassis, may only be ankle deep to a mech, again making it a non issue. This would open up all kinds of areas to deployment of battle mechs, especially frontiers where there are no roads. Tanks are very limited in where they can be deployed, and anywhere else your only option is infantry without any armor support. Wheeled vehicles are even worse off. The battletech rules handled all this very well. But the real benefit mechs bring over all other vehicles in Battletech, is the ability to throw hands. Tanks are a lot less scary if you can just punt it onto it's roof without breaking your stride. All in all though, I think mechs will always be fantasy. People will dabble, because we love them so much, but the tallness and limited weapon systems they could use just make them not very viable. 40k space marine armor or elementals on the other hand, yeh that will probably happen. Just armor the infantry, because quantity has a quality all it's own. th-cam.com/video/O7hgjuFfn3A/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=TheChach
@@hohenzollern6025 that that moving over to a hexopod or tetropod leg set up while reducing the torso and arm profiles to effectively a centered turret solve some of the issues with getting legged and not being able to handle firing proper tank sized guns? Not really humanoid anymore, but still a walker mech by definition.
@@holstatt6896 Recently saw some boston dynamic vids, where they spend weeks programing their robots to something silly... and they are getting very dextrous. I was impressed with how far they've come. Now if they could just work on controlling them with stick and rudder inputs with a mix of AI they might be on to something. We may get some recreational mechs in our lifetimes! Yeh I often thought about the Scorpion as a viable option. With what I saw in those vids, they could probably do it, squeeze an actual gun into a hull and handle the recoil with a 4 legged design. th-cam.com/video/-e1_QhJ1EhQ/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=BostonDynamics
@@holstatt6896 Silly, but amazing... th-cam.com/video/fn3KWM1kuAw/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=BostonDynamics I can guarantee somebody involved is a battletech fan, and they're thinking about it.
I know this is a year old video but i have to note Fusion engines are realitivly safe considering, your mixing up fission wiht fusion fusion is much cleaner and safer than fission, unless things SERIOUSLy go wrong a fusion engine has enough shielding inside of it to prevent a castrophic failure typically it's more like a boiler explosion as the super heated air leaks out of the hole poked in the engine, sarna notes this, I would think an exploding fusion engine is more safe than say an exploding Diesel or other ICE engine.
GM has never stopped making machines of war. Fun fact: The main gun on the A-10 Warthog ground attack jet. It is made by GM. So fast forward 1000 years. GM has never changed.
The GAU-8? That’s General *Electric* not General *Motors*. The GAU’s support infrastructure is from General Dynamics, which GM Defense was sold to, but GM Defense’s involvement with the GAU-8 is minimal, if I’m not mistaken. That said, General Motors does have a fair bit of involvement with defense contracting; one of their most well-known vehicles being the Humvee, which was originally an American Motors General product until GM bought them in the 80s/90s. GM is also known for a lot of transport and patrol vehicles including the GMC CCKW, the M1008/1009 CUCVs, and the Stryker ICV. GM, like many automakers, has built war machines for a very long time.
Whenever someone tries to explain why a space faring civilization with cheap and reliable ground to space craft (like dropships), FTL travel with hundreds of colonized planets or at least systems with self sustaining populations, doesn't have the mineral wealth to build something I can't but shake my head. Nothing against the video or the work here, it's just bad writing by people 40 years ago they didn't really understand what a multi trillion ton nickel iron asteroid means in terms of the total amount of iron humanity has mined. Or how easy it is to work with in micro gravity assuming you are a competent space traveling civilization. And it's not just iron and nickel you will find. A whole grab bad of platinum group elements tag along, and not just a few tons worth, more like millions and millions of tons.
Gm has always made warmachines and munitions, fact. Same as honeywell, and a lot of others. In fact most big companies today are around due to ww1 and ww2.
I don't think the legs of the frankenmech at 21:45 are those of a Warhammer or an atlas, but rather those of either a Highlander, a 90-ton mech that was famous for being the first assault mech to mount jump jets.
I would pay you :D If I had any money. Since my income currently is nil, my paying you will have to wait a little. Other then that, a nice video once again.
The way Battletech regards GM is hilarious. “They have their roots in a pre-spaceflight company but didn’t come into their own and become a household name until they started building mechs” is absolutely asinine in the funniest way. One can only hope they stopped using shitty plastics though; have not been particularly fond of replacing interior paneling on my trucks
2:25 Honestly, I don't understand why mining of all things would be difficult for any faster-than-light capable civilization. People greatly underestimate the sheer amount of raw mineral material available in our one planet IRL (Earth), let alone the orders of magnitude more available in free floating asteroids in our Solar System alone. (at the time of this comment, we're looking at developing the first generation of autonomous space-mining missions following a major achievement in engineering; landing on a moving asteroid and returning safely with samples.) So if the Solar System alone has untold gigatons of available metallic ores (common and rare alike) amidst its asteroids and terrestrial mining ops (which in Battletech, includes Mars and briefly, Venus before Amaris ruined it again) why would The Inner Sphere, a region that has HUNDREDS of colonized worlds, ever struggle with this? The largest Battlemech clocks in at 100 tons. There are real world Main Battle Tanks that weigh more than half of that on their own. (granted, this is Inner Sphere tonnage and not real life tonnage, assuming for a moment that it's one thing that deviated from real life since the Inner Sphere is inexplicably not using the Metric System from old Terra. It's estimated that Battlemechs, even with a large amount of their volume being comprised of something as insanely lightweight/low-density as Myomer, should still weigh at least twice what they do in setting) So by math alone, it's not the total available material that's the constraining factor on mech production; especially in a setting where open military conflict is common. Now, actually building the stuff? That's easier to believe as a restriction as the super-modern composited materials alone are going to be tougher to actually make since none of that stuff is naturally-occurring. Endo Steel for example, is said to be expensive because it requires Zero-G forging methodology to make; which is not quite as simple as just making a big forge in the vacuum of space since you have to worry about power and heat management on top of the usual quality control issues of moving processed material between radically different environments. (something that is actually important in, say, the construction of modern vehicle/tank armor and ship hulls) Of course, the setting goes against itself on this in other places. For example, standard mech armor is around a third of the cost of whatever the standard mech structure/frame material is (that is, not Endo Steel or any Composite form). The fact that freaking PIRATES are building it in the ass-crack of nowhere means it probably isn't that hard to actually make once you know the process. Again, Battletech as a setting is rich, but like so many others, its understanding of logistics, industry and engineering is pretty pedestrian. Which is odd since FASA had a lot of folks who were actually rather well-educated on that exact sort of stuff given the work they did on Shadowrun and its design document citing sound concepts from Economic Game Theory, Pareto, and other mass-measurements of human activity.
Would it be more efficient if a mech is made laying down or standing up? I just thought of that lol Repair times are still stupid though. Even if technology had gone down hill they still wouldnt take a month to repair a mech in a universe where mechs are still the main weapon.
The mechanism to lift a 'mech from horizontal to vertical would likely be heavier and more expensive than a hoist that just has to hold the torso at the right height while the legs are built. And if the main supports are attached to the torso at the shoulders, that naturally keeps them out of the way of where the myomer bundles for the legs need to go.
@@bfrobin446 So true but assembly line purposes seems it would be alot faster to make a mech. a the end of production something hoists it up connects it turns it on and walks away. Building while standing up seems like it would need alot more cranes and what not to construct vs at the end just one way to hoist it up.
@@ajac009 If you bring the parts to the 'mech, you can have one or two cranes in each assembly bay and reuse the same cranes for every step that needs a crane: arm frames, weapons, armor segments, et cetera. On an assembly line, every station that adds a heavy part needs the hardware to lift/lower/turn that part. So I'd expect that there's some break-even number of bays that you can build for less than the cost of an assembly line, and if your rate of production is limited by demand or by the speed of the subassembly production lines, that number of bays will often be enough. Plus, there are design considerations. In a static bay, you can connect external power when the torso arrives and leave it connected until you start the reactor. On an assembly line, you have a lot more pressure to keep the 'mech off external power as much as possible so you aren't connecting and disconnecting cables as it moves from station to station. If the 'mech was designed with the assumption that external power will always be available, it might be easier to build it that way than to design an assembly line around the steps where external power matters.
"i dont know if its possible for a human body to rip its leg off running" ive not seen that, but ive seen plenty of torn biceps and pectorals- Literally lifting too much for the tendons to withstand the pull.
Actually fusion reactor won't blow up in way you think, conditions aren't right. Even if you were to increase the flow he2 to reactor chamber most probably happen is a meltdown or coolant explosion. Probably only way to get any type of explosion is to dump all reactants into fusion chamber and fuse everything. I believe most of the mass of a typical fusion engine are the built-in heat sinks not shielding. Your premise is flawed. Yes mechs are complex machines, but they're also designed with field maintenance or repair taken into consideration. Myomer is supposed to be replaceable in the field. Fusion engines are supposed t9 be swappable. Field salvage is an important part of any operation
@8:00 - it's probably not possible for a human to rip his own leg off just by running, but it's fairly common for guys in the power-lifting community to rip their muscles clean off their ligaments. Especially steroid users.
ok so on the human muscles thing our muscles technically do posess the capacity to break their own limb off and tear themselves apart but we neurologically unable to tell them do that because that would really fucking stupid. but in the case of outside influence like electrocution you could get your muscles to excert their full force but that's not a good thing and very damaging
I have an objection, because technically, fusion material is not fissile material, and... that's... yeah. They shouldn't 'explode', that's a fissile issue. EDIT: I know that they 'do', but it's technically not a nuke in the classic sense.
So, lots of misinformation in this video about how Battletech reactors work. I don't think Sci is aware of the differences between a fusion reactor and a fission reactor, especially given the stated differences in-universe in Battletech. For example, the fusion cores can't "go nuclear". The explosions you see when you core a mech aren't a nuclear explosion, they're more like a boiler explosion that's happening because of good old fashioned thermal expansion from outside air hitting the superhot plasma inside the reactor. Similarly, Fusion Cores can very easily be shut off. This is true both IRL and in Battletech. The biggest differences between IRL fusion and Battletech fusion is Battletech reactors run off protium (the hydrogen typically found in *everything* that has hydrogen in it) instead of tritium or deuterium, and the scientists in Battletech cracked cost-effective fusion in 2021.
"Technically the first thing built inside a mech is the human"
Incorrect. Most mechwarriors are piloting hardware older than them. Kill the meat, spare the metal and all that.
I paused the video when Steve said that and was going to comment about as well, but you beat me to it.
Another way it was put (in cannon):
"Life is cheap. BattleMechs are expensive." - Advertising slogan, Irian BattleMechs Ltd.
yeah, but the people who built and tested the mech are older than the mech. they were in it before any pilot takes it onto the battlefield.
@@ShuRugal
I mean, even then, for some 'mechs that's not true. The Cataphract was cobbled together out of spare-parts and existing technology, in one way or another, that mech predates it's builders by virtue of being a pseudo-frankenmech. That's to say nothing of Omnimechs and Inner-Sphere knock-offs of Clan mechs.
Some people get super stoked about the intergalactic politics and intrigue. I'm here for the intricacies of logistical networks, mech factory operations, and rampant corporate espionage.
In my head canon, 'Mechs were created to perform small war crimes because big war crimes were outlawed by a bunch of killjoys. Quantity has a quality of its own, as they say...
That is just about official canon .
Quantity, does have a Quality, all of its own. This is a military 'truism'. A 'truth' of Military thought and philosophy. An example would be to flood a table battlefield with something as 'cheap' and replaceable as a 'swarm' of Locust, or perhaps Spider Mechs, or a combination of both. Then send this 'swarm' to confront the foe's Heavies and Assaults. Far more agile, they can nearly always 'get behind' the much slower Mechs, and eventually core them out from the rear. Their speed makes them VERY hard targets to hit, and they can close to 'minimum' ranges where Heavy weapons just cannot target them effectively. An example of this: Enemy: 4 100-ton Mechs. Myself: 37 Locusts, modified to all carry 3 Medium Lasers. End results: 4 'dead' Assaults. My losses: 5 destroyed, 11 damaged. Is it any wonder that my Playing Group 'banned' such swarms? Yes, Quantity DOES, indeed, have a Quality all of its own.
That's more correct than would I like to admit.
Seriously and with no joke. Hell yeah logistics and industry madness of the Inner Sphere
Tex had to get that Charger back by 5.
Park violations and when you get a boot on your *Mech,* well, consider yourself SOL.
Man had to full tilt his mech into the rental booth for the mech 😂
@@fistofthetiger1591 That's a *BIIIG* boot.
and a Casper reference, nice.
i don't know what's worse, reminding a grown man of his father's curfew or the fact he was driving a Charger.
"Nukes are mearly an inconvenience" (BAGPIPES INTENSIFY)
Freeeeeeeeedom!!!!!!
We didn't hear no bell ring.
Merely*
@@Masakari6 surprised it took this long for someone to correct that XD
@UnyieldingMass Only recently got back into Battletech. Sorry to keep you waiting
Actually Jingles : The armor can be field repaired in about 15 min and is the fastest thing to get repaired
thats never really explained because each mech is covered is lots of defiantly shaped pieces. and if their composite then that makes it even harder because you cant just cut the peices from a sheet without damaging the carbon weave
Build priority
#1, Power plant, power plant start up so if something goes wrong it's just the plant that goes up.
#2, Power plant shut down.
#3, Sub frame
#4, Miomar mussles, outer frames, etc.
Heat sinks and wepons, in/on torso.
Armor.
To quote Tex: "Children study tactics. Men study logistics"
What do women study? 🤣
@@Magikarp-4everthey studied how to rebuild what's left of society and the people that went off to fight it.
I listen to an hour-long powerpoint presentation on defense economics every Sunday, hell yeah I wanna hear about 'mech production logistics.
Perun is doing God's work in public defense information, I swear.
Comments about Perun doing a guest spot in a Tex video is literally how I got into battletech
Ferrofiberious armor is expensive but when you consider the logistics of moving tons of armor across interstellar distances the reduced weight makes up for it
There is a 'balance' between FFA and 'standard' armor. FFA takes up space that could be used for other equipment, weapons, or things like Heat Sinks. Standard Armor does not take up that added space, and thus is best for Mechs that are designed to maximize the use of their available internal structures. FFA is expensive, and hard to produce. Standard armor is fairly common, and widely available, almost anywhere. It is your choice which to use for what Mech design.
@@franksmedley7372 In a strictly economical sense, Ferro-Fibrous Armor should be better since it's going to benefit immensely more from weighing less, as that is a tremendous amount of energy savings in transporting it.
Though to be fair, Battletech as a setting has always played things fast and loose with things like economics and technological progression (and regression; Lostech really should never have been a thing when you consider the TRIVIAL COST of just making remote back-ups of libraries for key-technologies.)
It shouldn't be surprising that it doesn't quite grasp how things like mining, refining and mass-production works either.
@@atmosdwagon4656 I tend to agree with you. Even though massive numbers of nukes were used in the 1st and 2nd Succession Wars, some 'hardened' sites would have survived. Especially if buried deeply enough. Those sites could easily contain the entire knowledge base of Mankind. So, LosTech should never have been 'a thing'.
It would require extensive effort to wipe out ALL space based mining and manufacturing throughout Human controlled space. A ludicrous amount of wasted military power to 'control' what? A planet? A nation? A cluster of nearby star systems? Destroying the infrastructure that is used to build what you are using is just plain STUPID.
Even today, 2023 CE (Common Calendar Era), There are so many copies of the entire 'Library of Congress' that even if the entire world was nuked back to the 'dark ages' level. It would only take a Century or so to rebuild to have nearly everything we have now. Two centuries to ensure that happens. And that is even considering a reduction of world populations reduced from around 7.9 Billion people, down to a few Million. And I mean, a FEW million... less than 10 million, and even down to a single million, scattered around the world. The only difference the lesser numbers would make is increasing the time to recover.
But, that is the scenario dreamed up by the Game's makers. And that is what the 'universe' setting requires to make the game even faintly 'believable'.
I have been arguing for decades that with the spread of the Helm Memory Core across space, and into the Periphery, that Periphery worlds should have easily matched pre-Star League technologies in the 150 years since the game's starting date of 3025.
Even starting with a 'wild west' style colony in the deep Periphery, in 150 years, they should be able to 'bootstrap' themselves up to Inner Sphere type worlds, able to manufacture everything needed to build their own advanced Mechs, Vehicles, Drop Ships, and even Jump Ships.
Several such 'backwards' worlds, given the Helm Memory Core, should be able to at least trade back and forth for needed items and materials, using existing trade networks, which would become MORE frequently visited by 'Free Traders' out to make a profit. Such a multi-planet effort would easily be able to bring themselves up to Inner Sphere, 3100s tech level in a century and a half.
But, alas, that is just my opinion.
@atmosdwagon4656 But you also have to think about the production capabilities that were destroyed. So what if you theoretically know how to build a glass rifle? That doesn't matter if every factory in your borders that was capable of building them ate a nuke, and no one has the capability to rebuild all those machines.
@@axelmaldonado2642 exactly, the sheer scale of destruction would be unimaginable
If logistics isn't sexy, then I don't want to be sexy.
I found the logistics of the game interesting. Enough so, that I designed Mechs to use only the most available, and thus cheapest, weapons and equipment. Many of my designs were 'banned' by my Playing Group for being 'unfair' to fight against, and 'not fun' to play against, due to me winning more often than not. Also, I NEVER had to field a Mech with less than fully functional, fully ready, weaponry. Many of my opponents could not say as much, nor could balance their books as well as I did and keep their Mechs in prime operating condition. Kinda hard to do, when most of your Mechs use 'rare' weapons that are hard to obtain, costly to procure, and require far more maintenance to keep them functioning. Now add in the factor that at one point I was limiting the number and types of Engines available for my designs. The 300 Vlar Engine being an example. Useful on 100, 75, 60, 50, 30, 25, and 20-ton Mechs. This simplified my procurement, maintenance, and repair of said Engines. It also ensured that I could 'hot swap' an engine from one Mech to another as needed. The 300 Vlar Engine was not the only example, just one of several that allowed me to obtain replacements, repair and replace Engines far more quickly than other Players could do so. Allowing me to field my forces faster than they could accomplish. That, in itself, was a 'moneymaker', since I could do more in less time, than they could.
@@franksmedley7372 that story is way too good for a TH-cam comment. 👍
@@franksmedley7372if you have time I'd love to read more about this. What weapons did you use? What mech chassis? And what other measures did you use to out logistics your opponents?
ooooh this will be perfect to listen to while i kitbash a Locust into a Gùn, thank you!
Also, GM better hurry up with that fusion engine
"Cmon GM, Where's my fusion engine? Huh?"
why not just buy a gùn?
@@temp3608 cant be bothered buying it online and then waiting weeks for shipping to Australia, much easier to just modify an stl file and stick it in the printer
So, you want a mech that can chase down the bullets it just fired, or you want the fastest self-propelled artillery cannon ever?
GM getting into the Fusion Engine business and designing mechs rings pretty true considering they've played a big part in WW2
Gives a whole new meaning to "Screamin' Jimmy". 😊
I find it funny how I just bought Battletech a day ago and I'm already getting videos like these recommended to me.
I appreciate the lore dive! Always nice to learn about franchises other than Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica, lmfao.
One of us! One of us!
''Generic Greetings!''
first video from this channel and i already love it
For the record, those windchime background musics make it really scary to listen to this on commute.
Its the OST to the game FTL
So Fusion reactors aren't bomb-like, as IRL if a fusion reaction messes up, it just stops working and shuts down. FISSION engines will definitely explode however.
Which apparently PGI didn’t seem to get the memo about
*Cough cough* MW5 mech reactor explosions *Cough cough*
@@warlynx5644The Battletech Armored Warfare book covers this. The generator explosion isn't caused by the fusion material itself, it's the rapid superheating of air that gets sucked into the vacuum housing several million degree plasma and explosives expanding. It's like instant boiling water, it's purely a thermal expansion reaction, not a nuclear reaction.
@@justgeo4288 Thing is in MW5, when you kill a mech via core crit, the entire thing fizzles with blue energy before detonating in a mini mushroom cloud. Of course, mushroom cloud =/= nuclear explosion (any big boom can cause one), but it’s something that immediately brings to mind nukes.
TL;DR: A nuclear reactor in a work of fiction blowing up in a mushroom cloud tends to symbolize nuclear explosion
i know i'm a year late but
fission reactors generally will just shut down if they take damage, latent heat production may then damage things.
There are different types of fusion reactors being experimented with here and now. Some of them are using radioactive elements. A big issue right now is the created plasma has currents and eddies, causing the plasma stream to occasional rub up against the housing walls bombarding the very material with high energy causing the elements within to under go fission and release radiation.
When a battlemech's fusion core is damaged enough the rules say it explodes, that could well mean critical functions keeping the magnetic field in place and the fuel input keeps going for a little bit, so the plasma stream is colliding with the housing, melting holes through it, and making holes as well as causing fission to happen on the various materials of the reactor and the battlemech itself.
Then throw in that the various manufactures may well require different fuel material that some may be more radioactive then others, so there are now say 100 variants of a reactor fussion reactor power level, leading to several thousands total on how each and every reactor can explodes, expire softly, just shut down, make a high pitched noise, ect, ect. So for game mechanics it's all handled generically, .. unless a group of players are going to have special critical damage effects for each mech in play..?
"The first thing to be built is the human"
Some of these mechs are 500 years old, so ymmv
"Typically the first thing that's gonna be built inside the mech is the human" Honestly, probably not. Considering some of these mechs are family heirlooms.
Hope their mechs were better quality than my Chevy Equinox. Aaaaah, the high quality of the Admiral Kusnetsov. A legend.
I felt that
@@RafaMieses th-cam.com/video/Ogb_ydFTa4A/w-d-xo.htmlsi=E8UVMBrtrIo-c1ls
considering by now most mechs are hundreds of years old, no the first thing made is not the pilot, in many cases.
For some odd reason I have a soft spot for the Cataphract class heavy Battlemech even though I have absolutely no idea why. It is a heavy class mass produced Frakenmech originally created for one of my last favorite factions in the setting though its widely used by my favorite faction. It belongs to my favorite weight class sure but the armament is noting close to my preferred loadout. I like all energy weapon jump jet equipped heavies. In fact one of the things that annoys me about the 3025 era is officially AKAIK there are no stock heavy models or official variants from that period that combine a heavy mass, jump jets, and an all laser or all laser and PPC weapon loadout. To me that lack makes no sense at all because the technology exists and there's actually a 70 all energy and jump jet design that's a simple field refit of an older design but for the lore says it wasn't introduced until 3040ish
Theres a lot of things in general i dont like about 3025, tech and mechwise its literally the worst unless youre Wolf’s Dragoons, Comstar or just lucky af. Most of the mechs that period i like are also rare and even most of my favorite Inner Sphere mechs or variants dont appear till around or after Clan Invasion.never been a fan of the “we dont have shit” setting
Is this possibly the one and only Raging Canadian?!? OMG idk how I found this channel, but I love it!
It is, I had much the same reaction
@4:00 - a lot more than two people do the nasty. The mech pilot might actually be younger than the mech, but a whole bunch of engineers and mechanics are inside the mech before the first pilot ever touches it.
The Fireball doesn't have any design quirks like that, it's just poorly armed for a mech of its time due to its massive 220XL engine in a 20t mech.
Technically, a human *can* rip their limbs apart by running. Not necessarily *off* but definitely apart
I seem to recall in halo Master cheif ripping his leg a bit to keep up with another spartan..
@@sheilaolfieway1885 yeah but thats HALO, im talking real life. Our skeletal-muscular system is not built to support Full ablast
@@theangrygermanlad1328 I'm sure there are some examples of athletes pulling some mucles and other injuries but probably nothing on the level of pulling a joint out of a socket, from pure stress
@@sheilaolfieway1885 well even athletes aren’t using full muscular ability. But I could probably find an example of such injuries given enough keywords
I remember anepisode of the worlds strongest man contest, were an contestant broke his arm arm wrestling….
Nice to know that someone else uses the word kersploded.
Fusion engines are actually pretty safe and don't explode.
They can, but it is an extremely rare occurrence
It is referred to "Stackpolling" in universe
@@jamesricker3997 that's Stackpole's own take and it is a bad one. Outside his novels, no author brings them up due to how lore-breaking it is.
Thankfully it has been fixed that fusion engine "explosion" is the shockwave of expanding steam or hot air instead of nuclear.
Fusion Engines do 'explode', but not like a Nuclear device. The Plasma ring can be broached, and the plasma can thus escape the magnetic torus, melting anything in its path. But that plasma very rapidly cools to nothing. What causes the 'damage' is the 'explosive' nature of the shockwave of such a 'destruction', caused by the rapidly expanding and cooling plasma before it dissipates. The near-vacuum in the center collapses and the Mech will take damage as the air collapses back around the Mech at near sonic speeds, furthering the damage already done.
I love the background music. Forgot which game it's from.
Its the FTL full ost.
I once made a 100ton mech armed with nothing except AC2. Like 10 or 12 of them... it's purpose. Crit damage... it was stupid but funny when it worked
edit: hello i felt something was off so i fact checked myself and i was slightly mistaken, fusion reactors DO produce neutron radiation, just not long lasting radioactive polution, i apologize for my attitude.
What tf did i just hear!? nuclear fusion does NOT produce radiation, thats the main reason people are researching it cus it DOESNT produce radiation making it the cleanest most efficient power source we've descovered. this really hit me hard cus the battletech universe goes into fine detail about the inner workings of things as far as ive been told so i didnt think they'd overlook something so critical.
"Generally insignificant".
Please Spheroid...keep believing that ;)
Ok Clanfag
@@DaytonaRoadster, that you think we're Clanners....wrong.
That you would such a slur, might not be what TH-cam considers cool.
You lost to a bunch of green troops from the army of space AT&T bro. Lol
@@foff3804, and you failed to read. Good job on that one.
@@foff3804that was the clans, not the periphery.
Getting into the hard logistics and tech of my favorite setting?
Oh, good sirs, you earned a subscriber today.
Best stuff since Tex. Thank you for the video.
Now my internal Engineer is just screaming that we have cranes that can hold up well over 100 tons right NOW. Running the maylmar with juice is unneeded at first. Sure, you should test the bundles as you install them properly. However the way you described the build process just doesn't seem believable now. We have real world tanks that weigh heavier than an atlas that can lifted up on.
Don't get me wrong, I love Battletech world setting (pre real world politics mucking it up) but the numbers and such always seemed to fall short of what they should be able to do and are. If the Battlemechs were more closer to real life.... Oh may GOD they would be so much more powerful.
The issue with applying too much real world logic to battletech is that it becomes impossible to avoid the issue that anything which makes the mechs better would make the tanks better-er.
Tanks don’t waste tonnage on legs, and can’t trip. So it kinda gets handwaved in the setting to justify mechs.
But yeah, I think he does overstate how hard it is to work on mechs. The field refit rules say a crane is most of what you need for most basic things (repairing or fixing armor, changing where a heatsink or Ammo bin is, etc).
Even a weapon swap takes a fair amount of time but not more than a crane.
Factory level work is when you’re trying to replace the entire skeleton frame or radically change something like shoving a portable longtom into a hunchback lol. But really, you should just buy a new copy of the mech with the frame you want instead of ever paying to swap frames (ex: it’ll always be better to buy a new build IS endo steel HBK than pay the factory to take your existing HBK entirely apart and reinstall all the bits and bobs on a new made frame). Only exception is if no one makes the desired frame for a standard model, at which point you’re paying for bespoke one-off manufacturing and the price really was never a concern.
A Solaris combatant or perhaps leader of a large merc company could probs justify such an expense-after all, the individual mech warrior can only die once, so money spent avoiding that is always a good investment from their perspective.
Even then, you’d start by looking around for a close enough alternative. It’s gonna be cheaper to make your super HBK-6P custom from a salvaged HBK-IIC than to pay Clan Sea Fox for a one-off clan endo 6P frame.
I think reactor replacement also takes advanced facilities, but I’m not sure it’s all the way back to factory, still more than the average mechbay.
Anything beyond a 1:1 replacement for the reactor, such as installing a larger one or an XL package, however, would require factory facilities.
But a merc company that’s traveling for a few months to get to a new contract could conduct pretty basic modifications (ex: swap to shorter or longer range weapons of broadly the same type and tonnage), install heatsinks, adjust armor load, etc in their mechbays.
Swapping a ballistic for a laser, or vice versa, way harder. Probably can’t be done in any reasonable time in a basic mech bay because the mech doesn’t have the right feeds, connections, conduits, etc-would need a refit kit or equivalent purchased for purpose set of parts. But, like, an AC20 to a LBx10? Doable.
Dude ok no lie. This is super geeky shit. But its what im into honestly. Like i love lore. Not really a giant fan of the game i have played it on and off on pc. Not tabletop. But when i was playing D&D (AD&D Second edition btw). Some how my character that was a theif somehow ended up with a mine. And I literally worked otu all the logistics about it and he provided the prices per whatever. Like that was what our little 1 and 1 game became. Didnt last long it was boring as hell for him to DM it lol. But when yo usaid that about it being very geeky. Oh yes also i used to play excel spreadsheet simulation aka eve online!
Hello SI
I just HAVE to interject here. Fusion Engines are NOT 'Nukes'. There, said it... now to explain myself.
Although nukes have two major variants, Fission and Fusion, they both rely upon nuclear materials, like Uranium.
Fusion Engines, though, use Deuterium. Deuterium is non-radioactive, and is merely Hydrogen with an 'extra' Neutron in its core. Battletech Fusion Engines CAN 'burn' regular Hydrogen, but the fuel is kinda hard to contain (since Hydrogen can 'migrate' through any container), and can explode in the presence of a spark and atmospheric air. You don't even need pure Oxygen to make it explode.
Deuterium, on the other hand, is usually available as 'heavy water'. Common H2O (2 Hydrogen atoms, 1 Oxygen atom). This does necessitate that you run an electric current through the fuel to get the Hydrogen for Fusing, but that is 'safe' in comparison to the above. So, the heavy water is 'split' and the Hydrogen collected, compressed, and fed into the Fusion Engine's fusion chamber. At NO point is there enough pressure for explosion, since the fusion engine feeds the hydrogen into a 'ring' of magnetic fields.
Now, I am NOT saying that Fusion engines cannot 'explode'. They definitely can. BUT, I am saying such an explosion is NOT nuclear. And, as far as 'explosive' effects, Fusion 'explosions' are very anemic compared to any military nuke.
The thought of a Fusion Engine exploding like a nuclear device is derived from a story by Michael Stackpole, and has been repeatedly cited as a 'false' depiction of such an explosion. A Fusion Engine failing usually just 'bleeds' out the accumulated plasma from the containment ring and melts, or vaporizes, most of the Mech nearby.
Fusion Engines CAN explosively fail, though. And in that case, they resemble any other 'conventional' explosive, just a bit more energetic. There is NO radiation left over from the explosion, although the Fusion Engine itself would have remaining parts that would be low-level radioactive hazards.
So, Mechs do NOT 'stackpole'... I.E. Act like a Nuclear Bomb. The smallest 'nuke' ever made had a yield of 10 tons of TNT. That is a significant 'bang', and has all the associated nuclear hazards. Even the largest Fusion Engine (used for Mechs, not Ships or Warships), during a catastrophic failure, would have a yield of less than 10 tons of TNT. And although blinding, and damaging if close enough to the epicenter of the blast, it would yield NO radiation effects.
This is why Fusion is used to generate power, and not nuclear reactors. A nuclear reactor that could power a Mech would be smaller, lighter, and able to run a Mech for multiple decades before needing refueling. But, any failure of the reactor would cause the Mech to become radioactive itself, and cause a massive nuclear hazard to the surrounding area. Not really useful for a 'weapon' that moves itself and can take catastrophic damage on the battlefield.
You, like most other people, do not understand the difference between Plasma and Nuclear materials.
Well seeing how in universe many mech fusion plants are well over a century old running on only basic maintenance and can sustain multiple hits from AC/20 scale weapons before shutting down. So they are no where as fragile as the host seems to think.
@@foff3804 : On top of that, they are serviced by personnel that only faintly know what they are doing, with tools a bit more crude than what were designed to be used to perform the task. A failing Fusion Engine Plasma explosion can be seen as an 'explosion', but NOT like a Nuclear Bomb. Bright? Yes. Violent? Yes. Destructive? Again, yes... But no where nearly as destructive or wide-ranging as a Nuclear explosion, since the plasma rapidly cools as it expands. And finally, no lasting radioactive effects.
Building a mech? Remember, safety first, production firstest!
"An unholy amount of fusable material"
Bro, they just use protium. It's literally the most common form of matter in the observable universe.
The funnest explanation of how the fuck myomer is supposed to work.
I wonder what the budget is for duct tape and bailing wire.
I've loved this mech stuff ever since the animations as a kid, having them in Tiberian Sun as GDI was incredibly awesome at the time.
Unfortunately I've had my buzz killed by several engineering friends when asking why we don't have these babies instead of tanks.
Something something resources something tanks easier to repair and maintain something something take a single leg out on a mech and it's just done.
I'd love to hear a well versed response to those answers, because I simply don't have one.
Naw that isnt the real issue. The real issue is the violence of firing a weapon of any power. Firing a 120mm smoothbore tank gun mounted on the shoulder of a 70 ton humanoid mech would be absolutely impossible. It would never be able to brace that recoil, at such a high center of gravity.
Battletech at least tried to make this more realistic by reducing the range of higher damage weapons, thus saying "it packs less powder in an ac20, than an ac2, thus lower velocity for higher calibers." So in effect your ac2 is your bog standard 20mm cannon from any ww2 fighter plane. But an ac20 is a 40mm bofors howitzer, lobing those larger rounds at such a low velocity, they couldnt hope to hit anything beyond a hundred yards. Weapons like that would be completely useless on a real battlefield. I know the art always shows AC20s to be very large bore (think hunchback) but again, no standing mech could handle that recoil, if it was in fact lobbing a 200mm round with any force. Missiles and lasers of course, would have no recoil and are completely feasable. Recoiless Rifles are a possibility, but they should just be considered rocket launchers. They are low velocity and rely on shaped charges to deal damage, same as a howitzer or rocket.
The Abrams is 70 tons of very heavy vehicle. That's an assault mech. A large portion of that massive turret is dedicated to recoil absorbtion, and that 70 tons still rocks back noticeably.
th-cam.com/video/pm6yYi-JugY/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=AiirSourceMilitary
Now put an equivilant force in the arms of a humanoid...
th-cam.com/video/OEZh87vCrYI/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=CLSJack
Now of benefit of legs, if you could (as demonstrated in Robotech) get the agility of a human, is the fact that rough terrain is no longer an issue. Boulders would stop a tank in it's tracks, but a mech could step over, or even on them. Soft muddy terrain, where tracks would sink to the chassis, may only be ankle deep to a mech, again making it a non issue. This would open up all kinds of areas to deployment of battle mechs, especially frontiers where there are no roads. Tanks are very limited in where they can be deployed, and anywhere else your only option is infantry without any armor support. Wheeled vehicles are even worse off. The battletech rules handled all this very well.
But the real benefit mechs bring over all other vehicles in Battletech, is the ability to throw hands. Tanks are a lot less scary if you can just punt it onto it's roof without breaking your stride.
All in all though, I think mechs will always be fantasy. People will dabble, because we love them so much, but the tallness and limited weapon systems they could use just make them not very viable. 40k space marine armor or elementals on the other hand, yeh that will probably happen. Just armor the infantry, because quantity has a quality all it's own.
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@@hohenzollern6025 that that moving over to a hexopod or tetropod leg set up while reducing the torso and arm profiles to effectively a centered turret solve some of the issues with getting legged and not being able to handle firing proper tank sized guns? Not really humanoid anymore, but still a walker mech by definition.
@@holstatt6896 Recently saw some boston dynamic vids, where they spend weeks programing their robots to something silly... and they are getting very dextrous. I was impressed with how far they've come. Now if they could just work on controlling them with stick and rudder inputs with a mix of AI they might be on to something. We may get some recreational mechs in our lifetimes!
Yeh I often thought about the Scorpion as a viable option. With what I saw in those vids, they could probably do it, squeeze an actual gun into a hull and handle the recoil with a 4 legged design.
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@@holstatt6896 Silly, but amazing...
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I can guarantee somebody involved is a battletech fan, and they're thinking about it.
Great stuff! This is what's missing in BattleTech fan vids on youtube. You got ya self another subscriber! First 1000😁
Myamer tearing itself,I think I want to make a mech,and name it after Kevin nash >_>
I know this is a year old video but i have to note Fusion engines are realitivly safe considering, your mixing up fission wiht fusion fusion is much cleaner and safer than fission, unless things SERIOUSLy go wrong a fusion engine has enough shielding inside of it to prevent a castrophic failure typically it's more like a boiler explosion as the super heated air leaks out of the hole poked in the engine, sarna notes this, I would think an exploding fusion engine is more safe than say an exploding Diesel or other ICE engine.
GM has never stopped making machines of war. Fun fact: The main gun on the A-10 Warthog ground attack jet. It is made by GM. So fast forward 1000 years. GM has never changed.
The GAU-8? That’s General *Electric* not General *Motors*. The GAU’s support infrastructure is from General Dynamics, which GM Defense was sold to, but GM Defense’s involvement with the GAU-8 is minimal, if I’m not mistaken.
That said, General Motors does have a fair bit of involvement with defense contracting; one of their most well-known vehicles being the Humvee, which was originally an American Motors General product until GM bought them in the 80s/90s. GM is also known for a lot of transport and patrol vehicles including the GMC CCKW, the M1008/1009 CUCVs, and the Stryker ICV. GM, like many automakers, has built war machines for a very long time.
Whenever someone tries to explain why a space faring civilization with cheap and reliable ground to space craft (like dropships), FTL travel with hundreds of colonized planets or at least systems with self sustaining populations, doesn't have the mineral wealth to build something I can't but shake my head.
Nothing against the video or the work here, it's just bad writing by people 40 years ago they didn't really understand what a multi trillion ton nickel iron asteroid means in terms of the total amount of iron humanity has mined. Or how easy it is to work with in micro gravity assuming you are a competent space traveling civilization. And it's not just iron and nickel you will find. A whole grab bad of platinum group elements tag along, and not just a few tons worth, more like millions and millions of tons.
The urban is the peek of desighn
Gm has always made warmachines and munitions, fact. Same as honeywell, and a lot of others. In fact most big companies today are around due to ww1 and ww2.
Live, laugh, love, logistics
I don't think the legs of the frankenmech at 21:45 are those of a Warhammer or an atlas, but rather those of either a Highlander, a 90-ton mech that was famous for being the first assault mech to mount jump jets.
That was my thinking too.
I would pay you :D If I had any money. Since my income currently is nil, my paying you will have to wait a little. Other then that, a nice video once again.
"two people donthe nasty and make a MechWarrior."
*Laughs in trueborn*
Sorry couldnt help myself
Got to admit it is the stupid little things that always are interesting.
comment for traffic, keep on going my dude!
Standard and Ferro Fibrous Armors DO NOT ablate. The special Ablative Armor is what ablates.
I hear the background music from FTL!!!!
The way Battletech regards GM is hilarious. “They have their roots in a pre-spaceflight company but didn’t come into their own and become a household name until they started building mechs” is absolutely asinine in the funniest way. One can only hope they stopped using shitty plastics though; have not been particularly fond of replacing interior paneling on my trucks
30 ton mechs? No m8 try Ultralight being 10-15 tons. Even before that 25 tonners
GM and Chrysler competed for the US Army's XM-1 program, Chrysler won the contract with their gas turbine design which resulted in the Abrams
2:25 Honestly, I don't understand why mining of all things would be difficult for any faster-than-light capable civilization. People greatly underestimate the sheer amount of raw mineral material available in our one planet IRL (Earth), let alone the orders of magnitude more available in free floating asteroids in our Solar System alone.
(at the time of this comment, we're looking at developing the first generation of autonomous space-mining missions following a major achievement in engineering; landing on a moving asteroid and returning safely with samples.)
So if the Solar System alone has untold gigatons of available metallic ores (common and rare alike) amidst its asteroids and terrestrial mining ops (which in Battletech, includes Mars and briefly, Venus before Amaris ruined it again) why would The Inner Sphere, a region that has HUNDREDS of colonized worlds, ever struggle with this?
The largest Battlemech clocks in at 100 tons. There are real world Main Battle Tanks that weigh more than half of that on their own. (granted, this is Inner Sphere tonnage and not real life tonnage, assuming for a moment that it's one thing that deviated from real life since the Inner Sphere is inexplicably not using the Metric System from old Terra. It's estimated that Battlemechs, even with a large amount of their volume being comprised of something as insanely lightweight/low-density as Myomer, should still weigh at least twice what they do in setting)
So by math alone, it's not the total available material that's the constraining factor on mech production; especially in a setting where open military conflict is common.
Now, actually building the stuff? That's easier to believe as a restriction as the super-modern composited materials alone are going to be tougher to actually make since none of that stuff is naturally-occurring. Endo Steel for example, is said to be expensive because it requires Zero-G forging methodology to make; which is not quite as simple as just making a big forge in the vacuum of space since you have to worry about power and heat management on top of the usual quality control issues of moving processed material between radically different environments. (something that is actually important in, say, the construction of modern vehicle/tank armor and ship hulls)
Of course, the setting goes against itself on this in other places. For example, standard mech armor is around a third of the cost of whatever the standard mech structure/frame material is (that is, not Endo Steel or any Composite form). The fact that freaking PIRATES are building it in the ass-crack of nowhere means it probably isn't that hard to actually make once you know the process.
Again, Battletech as a setting is rich, but like so many others, its understanding of logistics, industry and engineering is pretty pedestrian. Which is odd since FASA had a lot of folks who were actually rather well-educated on that exact sort of stuff given the work they did on Shadowrun and its design document citing sound concepts from Economic Game Theory, Pareto, and other mass-measurements of human activity.
CN-9A Centurion pride.
Is it possible that something overlaps the audio visualization from about 5:30 for roughly a minute?
Would it be more efficient if a mech is made laying down or standing up? I just thought of that lol Repair times are still stupid though. Even if technology had gone down hill they still wouldnt take a month to repair a mech in a universe where mechs are still the main weapon.
The mechanism to lift a 'mech from horizontal to vertical would likely be heavier and more expensive than a hoist that just has to hold the torso at the right height while the legs are built. And if the main supports are attached to the torso at the shoulders, that naturally keeps them out of the way of where the myomer bundles for the legs need to go.
@@bfrobin446 So true but assembly line purposes seems it would be alot faster to make a mech. a the end of production something hoists it up connects it turns it on and walks away. Building while standing up seems like it would need alot more cranes and what not to construct vs at the end just one way to hoist it up.
@@ajac009 If you bring the parts to the 'mech, you can have one or two cranes in each assembly bay and reuse the same cranes for every step that needs a crane: arm frames, weapons, armor segments, et cetera. On an assembly line, every station that adds a heavy part needs the hardware to lift/lower/turn that part.
So I'd expect that there's some break-even number of bays that you can build for less than the cost of an assembly line, and if your rate of production is limited by demand or by the speed of the subassembly production lines, that number of bays will often be enough.
Plus, there are design considerations. In a static bay, you can connect external power when the torso arrives and leave it connected until you start the reactor. On an assembly line, you have a lot more pressure to keep the 'mech off external power as much as possible so you aren't connecting and disconnecting cables as it moves from station to station. If the 'mech was designed with the assumption that external power will always be available, it might be easier to build it that way than to design an assembly line around the steps where external power matters.
"i dont know if its possible for a human body to rip its leg off running"
ive not seen that, but ive seen plenty of torn biceps and pectorals- Literally lifting too much for the tendons to withstand the pull.
Actually fusion reactor won't blow up in way you think, conditions aren't right. Even if you were to increase the flow he2 to reactor chamber most probably happen is a meltdown or coolant explosion. Probably only way to get any type of explosion is to dump all reactants into fusion chamber and fuse everything. I believe most of the mass of a typical fusion engine are the built-in heat sinks not shielding.
Your premise is flawed. Yes mechs are complex machines, but they're also designed with field maintenance or repair taken into consideration. Myomer is supposed to be replaceable in the field. Fusion engines are supposed t9 be swappable. Field salvage is an important part of any operation
Steve was a good choice.
@8:00 - it's probably not possible for a human to rip his own leg off just by running, but it's fairly common for guys in the power-lifting community to rip their muscles clean off their ligaments. Especially steroid users.
need a video on franken mechs in cannon
Honestly? I am more surprised no company made say a quadruped mech JUST to make field repair/maintenance easier as a mobile mechanic station.
Why not do repairs in space? Negates the weight issues when replacing heavy parts.
I believe that was a thing in the star league era the had orbital factory assembly plants taking advantage of zero g. Before wars destroyed them.
@@777dragonborn makes sense.
ok so on the human muscles thing our muscles technically do posess the capacity to break their own limb off and tear themselves apart but we neurologically unable to tell them do that because that would really fucking stupid. but in the case of outside influence like electrocution you could get your muscles to excert their full force but that's not a good thing and very damaging
Have the meck lay down to setvice it easier.
Does GM not make war machine engines now?
I have an objection, because technically, fusion material is not fissile material, and... that's... yeah. They shouldn't 'explode', that's a fissile issue.
EDIT: I know that they 'do', but it's technically not a nuke in the classic sense.
As a middle-schooler I could have designed better ‘Mechs than Star League and Clan engineers… More ‘Mechs need consideration for going “hull-down”.
The complexity, as in parts count, battle mechs are ridiculous. There’s so much to go wrong.
So, lots of misinformation in this video about how Battletech reactors work. I don't think Sci is aware of the differences between a fusion reactor and a fission reactor, especially given the stated differences in-universe in Battletech.
For example, the fusion cores can't "go nuclear". The explosions you see when you core a mech aren't a nuclear explosion, they're more like a boiler explosion that's happening because of good old fashioned thermal expansion from outside air hitting the superhot plasma inside the reactor. Similarly, Fusion Cores can very easily be shut off. This is true both IRL and in Battletech. The biggest differences between IRL fusion and Battletech fusion is Battletech reactors run off protium (the hydrogen typically found in *everything* that has hydrogen in it) instead of tritium or deuterium, and the scientists in Battletech cracked cost-effective fusion in 2021.
still my only issue with this video is that mech in the back he calls an atlas that is blatently not an atlas
point of order. Fission REactor=/=Fission bomb. Fusion reactor=/=Fusion bomb. REactors can't explode likle a nuclear bomb. Literally impossible.
nuclear reactors don't explode like bombs do. That's a common misconception.
This is why a tank will always be better...peroid
Not entirely wild for GM to be making mechs given they already make all kinds of military crap
Stompy robot