Illustration: Military Grav Vehicles

wbnc

Cosmic Mongoose
grav_high_agility_utility_vehicle_by_wbyrd-dayit6e.png

High Mobility Utility Vehicle
A fully enclosed and pressurized "Air raft". it carries four soldiers a driver, and vehicle/team commanderIts performance is about equal to the average air raft. this version has supplemental armor packets attached for extra protection from man-portable weapons. You can enter the vehicle through three hatches on the top of the vehicle, or through a large double door at the rear of the vehicle.

It would serve the same role as a Humvee, or land rover carrying small groups of men, and supplies or acting as a patrol vehicle. ou could fit it with a pintle mounted weapons on the hatch behind the driver and commanders roof hatches but in flight that might require some sort of safety restraint. And if you plan on going into vacuum, tainted or toxic atmospheres or extreme altitude with the hatch open you might want to wear some breathing gear.



Grav Fire support Vehicle.
grav_fire_support_by_wbyrd-dayit4r.png

This version carries weapons it can act as a mobile heavy weapons section to support infantry, conduct rear area security patrols, or carry out scouting duties. the addition of a remote turret makes it a bit cramped inside which means it can't carry anyone but the crew and extra munitions. It would be deployed to support other troop carriers to provide heavy on the spot fire support.

This one is armed with a Plasma gun, heavy machine gun, and a six pack of RPG type launchers.It can't stand up to heavy vehicle weapons or starship grade weapons, but it's not intended to engage a true combat vehicle.

And yep I will be statting these out and packing them up with some of the vehicles I have roughed out....as soon as I get my hands on the vehicle handbook and go over the final version :D
 
Good stuff, but on my phone screen the contrast is rather low, and overall it's a bit dark.

I could repeat my opinion on turrets for primary weapons, but maybe that doesn't apply at this generation of vehicle.
 
Your armored version needs much smaller windows... :)

Armored vehicles, even armored cars, don't need large windows to be shot out. They should have slits for viewing, but at that TL they would be more likely to have internal viewscreens and cameras that allowed for a panoramic view.
 
steve98052 said:
Good stuff, but on my phone screen the contrast is rather low, and overall it's a bit dark.

I could repeat my opinion on turrets for primary weapons, but maybe that doesn't apply at this generation of vehicle.

I'll run it through gimp to tweak the contrast and brightness once I have it finalized... one issue with doing things on one monitor and people viewing it on another type of screen is that it may look totally different to the other person .

The weapons mount caused me a lot of head scratching on this one. It has to be low profile to keep the vehicles shipping size down..so you can carry lots of them inside a transport ship or small craft...maintiann a great deal of flexibility since it hs to engage a full 360x180enggmentenvelope, and remain pretty basic cut down on mass and complexity... I played around with a couple of ideas but this is the closest I came to a satisfactory arrangement....and it was well not at all satisfactory.....Ideas would be welcome at this point.

Infojunky said:
I don't like it, but I don't hate it either, can't put my finger on what the problem is....
fair enough...I had my own reservations, but then again I always do. At some point, I have to stop and go "close enough" and see if I can get some feedback to refine the idea a bit.

phavoc said:
Your armored version needs much smaller windows... :)

Armored vehicles, even armored cars, don't need large windows to be shot out. They should have slits for viewing, but at that TL they would be more likely to have internal viewscreens and cameras that allowed for a panoramic view.

I plan on addressing that in next revision...either by adding protective panels that can be positioned over the windows in case of incoming fire. Or by adding a sensor/optic turret and slit windows. with advanced composites and the angle of slope I put on the windows, I am thinking that they are probably pretty resilient at least as tough as the steel and kevlar ( or closest equivalent) hull of the vehicle.
 
wbnc said:
I'll run it through gimp to tweak the contrast and brightness once I have it finalized... one issue with doing things on one monitor and people viewing it on another type of screen is that it may look totally different to the other person.
Funny, now that I'm lookingat it again on the same screen in different room light, it looks fine.

The weapons mount caused me a lot of head scratching on this one. It has to be low profile to keep the vehicles shipping size down..so you can carry lots of them inside a transport ship or small craft...maintiann a great deal of flexibility since it hs to engage a full 360x180enggmentenvelope, and remain pretty basic cut down on mass and complexity...
It's a good compromise. For that size of main weapon, it's pretty good. For a grav main battle tank, however, I think I'd make the main weapon a spinal mount, as with a real world A-10 or a large Traveller warship.
 
wbnc said:
The weapons mount caused me a lot of head scratching on this one. It has to be low profile to keep the vehicles shipping size down..so you can carry lots of them inside a transport ship or small craft...maintiann a great deal of flexibility since it hs to engage a full 360x180enggmentenvelope, and remain pretty basic cut down on mass and complexity... I played around with a couple of ideas but this is the closest I came to a satisfactory arrangement....and it was well not at all satisfactory.....Ideas would be welcome at this point.

A pop up turret could maintain the lower profile when not in use.
 
steve98052 said:
wbnc said:
I'll run it through gimp to tweak the contrast and brightness once I have it finalized... one issue with doing things on one monitor and people viewing it on another type of screen is that it may look totally different to the other person.
Funny, now that I'm lookingat it again on the same screen in different room light, it looks fine.

The weapons mount caused me a lot of head scratching on this one. It has to be low profile to keep the vehicles shipping size down..so you can carry lots of them inside a transport ship or small craft...maintiann a great deal of flexibility since it hs to engage a full 360x180enggmentenvelope, and remain pretty basic cut down on mass and complexity...
It's a good compromise. For that size of main weapon, it's pretty good. For a grav main battle tank, however, I think I'd make the main weapon a spinal mount, as with a real world A-10 or a large Traveller warship.
hetzer_at_by_wbyrd-daxp1qb.png

Sort of a sci-fi take on a Hetzer...

AndrewW said:
wbnc said:
The weapons mount caused me a lot of head scratching on this one. It has to be low profile to keep the vehicles shipping size down..so you can carry lots of them inside a transport ship or small craft...maintiann a great deal of flexibility since it hs to engage a full 360x180enggmentenvelope, and remain pretty basic cut down on mass and complexity... I played around with a couple of ideas but this is the closest I came to a satisfactory arrangement....and it was well not at all satisfactory.....Ideas would be welcome at this point.

A pop up turret could maintain the lower profile when not in use.
Now that's an idea, since its not carrying troops it has the internal space to spare. It'll be challenge to model it but I have the time.
 
Mostly off topic:

It would be cool to see a few kinds of ship innards.
I drew a few parts, top down and side view two-dimensional, in Inkscape.

- A power plant, based on some GURPS Traveller assumptions, most notably the idea that a fusion plant includes its own fuel supply for 200 years of operation in a volume similar to the reaction core. It's also pretty small compared to some other editions of Traveller, including Mongoose. I made those parts spherical. Another part was a large rectangular-ish thing that was meant to be a heat exchanger, and there was also a recycling chiller for the fuel tank. All were connected by assorted pipes. I neglected to include a connection to external radiator plates, and didn't bother with a triggering system, but in my imagined design it would resemble laser inertial compression ridiculously miniaturized.

- A maneuver drive, which was kind of a boring set of blocky things with a bulky link to the power plant.

- Crew stations.

- Stairs, iris hatches, etc.

- No jump equipment, because it was for a non-starship, specifically a Modular Cutter with a cargo module and a portable starport control office.

The overall design was more schematic than representational.

I could try to find them and share. The parts would be scaled wrong for Mongoose, but might be good to share for ideas.
 
steve98052 said:
Mostly off topic:

It would be cool to see a few kinds of ship innards.
I drew a few parts, top down and side view two-dimensional, in Inkscape.

- A power plant, based on some GURPS Traveller assumptions, most notably the idea that a fusion plant includes its own fuel supply for 200 years of operation in a volume similar to the reaction core. It's also pretty small compared to some other editions of Traveller, including Mongoose. I made those parts spherical. Another part was a large rectangular-ish thing that was meant to be a heat exchanger, and there was also a recycling chiller for the fuel tank. All were connected by assorted pipes. I neglected to include a connection to external radiator plates, and didn't bother with a triggering system, but in my imagined design it would resemble laser inertial compression ridiculously miniaturized.

- A maneuver drive, which was kind of a boring set of blocky things with a bulky link to the power plant.

- Crew stations.

- Stairs, iris hatches, etc.

- No jump equipment, because it was for a non-starship, specifically a Modular Cutter with a cargo module and a portable starport control office.

The overall design was more schematic than representational.

I could try to find them and share. The parts would be scaled wrong for Mongoose, but might be good to share for ideas.

I have never turned down a chance to share goodies :D
 
wbnc said:
I plan on addressing that in next revision...either by adding protective panels that can be positioned over the windows in case of incoming fire. Or by adding a sensor/optic turret and slit windows. with advanced composites and the angle of slope I put on the windows, I am thinking that they are probably pretty resilient at least as tough as the steel and kevlar ( or closest equivalent) hull of the vehicle.

The M270 SPLL on the MLRS system has louvered covers for the windows. If you check out the wikipedia entry, down towards the bottom you'll see an image with the louvers lowered. The challenge will be the construction and materials. For the MLRS the louvers were there mostly for rocket blast protection, not ballistic. Large windscreens like that don't cover up well with secure armor. I think so long as you keep your vehicle as being more of an auxilary vehicle that's NOT designed to really engage true armored vehicles you would be ok. But it would still be far better to armor-up the front and use cameras/viewscreens.
 
Back
Top