A Conversation With the Kerbal Military

[Gargamel]

So I'm in a career game, and I've built a heavy lift cargo plane to help recover lift stages that have returned to the planet.    To do this, I built a crawler using the Konstruction mod to lift and carry upto 3.75m stages into cargo plane.  Not that I actually go and do it, i Use the recovery mod to handle it, but it was fun designing it all.

But then I thought Hey! this would be cool for a modular system of weapons platforms, being able to dock with the plane and deploy on demand.

So I gave myself a few credits boost to help with the R&D costs, and built some dockable, modular rovers that carry the BA mod weapons.  And of course, since they are rovers, they've got electric motors for propulsion, and solar panels for power. 

Then I started imagining how that conversation with military liaisons would have gone:

 

Colonel: "Good morning gentlemen, how is the modular air defense system project coming along?"

Rocket Scientist: "Excellent! We have a few radar platforms, a couple missile platforms, and a AAA platform.  All of which are autonomous and self propelled.  They all dock nicely into the cargo plane as you specified."

C: "Autonomous eh? So no operator?"

RS: "Well no, we didn't have enough staff on hand to drive all the units at once, and the one pilot we did have available is too lazy to run between the units."

C: "Hmm. Ok I guess that will work.  What type of power plant do you have driving the units?"

RS: "Ah well, they are electric motors."

C: "Electric.  That should be fairly quiet.  I'm assuming they run off battery power, but what type of generator do you use to recharge the batteries?  How long will it's fuel last?"

RS: laughing "Generator?  Oh no Colonel, they're charged by the solar cells.  Generators weigh too much, fuel runs out.  Solar is way more efficient."

C: "Solar!? Well, how long do the batteries last at night?"

RS: "Oh... about a couple hours, then it goes into hibernation mode until the sun comes up and recharges the batteries"

C: "So... our air defense network doesn't work at night?"

RS: "Not really, No...."

C: "There's got to be another way to power these...."

RS: "Well, we do have the fuel cell systems..... They work of reacting the rocket fuel we'd have to store on board the unit, and it-"

C: "Wait, you said rocket fuel?  You mean you'd have tanks of rocket fuel strapped to these things?"

RS: "Well, yes..."

C: "So anyone with a pea shooter would be able to blow this thing sky high?"

RS: "Errr... well.... I guess."

C: "What else do you have to power the units?"

RS: "Well.......  we do have these small nuclear reactors that would fit ni-"

C: "Nuclear.... reactors........"  Gets up and slowly backs out of the room.

[Jas0n]

Let's be honest, if Jeb is any indication of how successful kerbals act, the Colonel would be hyped about nuclear reactors.

Also on a side note, real life military vehicles have tanks of fuel, tons of explosives, and nuclear reactor, all next to human operators, so honestly the kerbal way is safer.

[Gargamel]

9 hours ago, Jas0n said:

Let's be honest, if Jeb is any indication of how successful kerbals act, the Colonel would be hyped about nuclear reactors.

Also on a side note, real life military vehicles have tanks of fuel, tons of explosives, and nuclear reactor, all next to human operators, so honestly the kerbal way is safer.

Yeah, but they're usually armored in some fashion.   This is space gear we're talking about, lite and efficient is way here, not military grade by any means.  

[Chakat Firepaw]

1 hour ago, Gargamel said:

Yeah, but they're usually armored in some fashion.   This is space gear we're talking about, lite and efficient is way here, not military grade by any means.  

Adding armour is just a matter of, well, adding armour.

[Rocket In My Pocket]

3 hours ago, Chakat Firepaw said:

Adding armour is just a matter of, well, adding armour.

Well, considering that any military vehicle is a compromise between protection, mobility, and firepower; it's never really as simple as just "adding more armor."

You'll always have have to give up some mobility or firepower for that protection. This goes double for something that has to be shot into space, where weight is the most crucial design factor.

Also, anything with armor is going to be shot at by weapons that can defeat said armor which is why tanks don't run on gasoline anymore, lol.

[Chakat Firepaw]

On 26/07/2017 at 3:13 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Well, considering that any military vehicle is a compromise between protection, mobility, and firepower; it's never really as simple as just "adding more armor."

That wasn't meant to imply that adding armour is free in terms of performance tradeoffs.  Given that what was being discussed was vehicles for use in military applications, there is a good chance that the mass penalty of metal slabs, (and the resulting reduction in the number of units that can be carried¹), is more than acceptable.

1: Assuming the transport is massing out and not bulking out.  If the limitation is how many AAA/artillery/radar platforms can fit in the transport rather than how many it can lift then adding armour isn't a problem.

[Gargamel]

The aircraft has no problem carrying the weight, as it's designed to carry 4 fully fueled Orange tanks in a 2x2 arrangement.  I can fit 2 and possibly 3 of these platforms on the plane with a little wiggling and strategic application of lard.

It's the platforms themselves.  The drive motors are severely under powered and can barely make it up the cargo ramp as it is.  Adding more wheels tends to invite the Kraken, and the platform will tend to tap dance off into the distance. 

[Guest]

On 7/26/2017 at 4:13 PM, Rocket In My Pocket said:

Well, considering that any military vehicle is a compromise between protection, mobility, and firepower; it's never really as simple as just "adding more armor."

You'll always have have to give up some mobility or firepower for that protection. This goes double for something that has to be shot into space, where weight is the most crucial design factor.

Also, anything with armor is going to be shot at by weapons that can defeat said armor which is why tanks don't run on gasoline anymore, lol.

One more post and you have 1000, congrats

[Rocket In My Pocket]

10 minutes ago, Aperture Science said:

One more post and you have 1000, congrats

Wow, I hadn't even noticed, thanks for pointing that out! Lol.

Happy one thousandth post to me!