"Tracked vs Hover vs Grav Armor - How do you pick?" Topic

Seeing all of these great looking 15mm armor units being produced, I'm thinking about getting some armor for some skirmish gaming. I'm thinking whether you choose tracked vs other types will depend on the ruleset, to an extent, but you can always make house rules. Also a big factor is how cool they look, and then maybe you design a backstory around a particular type. Or maybe if you're using different aliens, you would use primarily a particular tech level, with tracked being lowest tech, and anti-grav high tech? So low tech is cheap and reliable, high-tech expensive and more prone to break-down? I'm thinking perhaps Ork-like aliens with plenty of tracked and wheeled vehicles; advanced tech races, Tau-like, with a few high tech anti-grav units. Or maybe multiple tech levels within the same race, front-line elite troops with highest tech, militia with lowest tech. But those are just my thoughts. How do you folks out there decide which armor types to get? And how many of each type? Light, medium, heavy, support, APC? I don't know much about armor, I'm an old retired squid. Any help will be much appreciated.
Luckyjoe

a good place to start is of course ground zero games.
they have battle packs, iirc. choice of tracked, wheeled, hover, grav. each pack comes with a load of appropriate armor and roughly 50 infantry(you choose the faction). A very nice way to get some vehicles that look like a coherent battleforce. I got the tracked and its a great force. several heavy, medium and recon tanks, some apcs, and even a few unmanned gun drones
--of course you should probably buy one of each type of battle force while the dollar to pound is so good

Coolness and backstory.

wierd stuff like walkers would have to have a reason to be there, such as the terrain. Walkers for jungle or hovers for marshy or arctic. Grav I'd probably leave to high-tech not-Tau aliens types.

Ive always wondered in the far future if afv would be obsolete. maybe the only vehicle would be for transport/communications. each apc carries a sophist.array of comms and jamming anti jamming toys. only purpose of vehicles is to transport troops and call in smoke rounds and precision orbital/offtable artillery. airstrikes for hardened positions/tanks. infantry assaults could be prepped by orbital artillery followed by smoke/gas barrage
and then the mobile infantry to mop up.
of course that would mean a lot less cool toys

Strictly on looks. A lot of "hover" stuff looks dumb to me and I find that tracked stuff usually looks a lot more bad@$$. But mostly I have to look at it and say, "I like that". I usually don't pick up more than 3 of any one vehicle type.
Mongo

I've got my bag of popcorn ready and I'm waiting for CogComp to appear…

I prefer tracked vehicles myself but that is mostly because the ones available look better than the hover/grav varieties.

Tracked vehicles also have a link to modern vehicles and I can relate to the practicality of being able to stop and power down, without dropping out of the sky.

Recoil is also something to be taken into consideration…the thought of firing a big gun on a hover craft makes me laugh…round goes forward…tank goes backwards :)…

Yes you could have sci-fi compensators and buffers but when push comes to shove…tracked tanks are more 'earthy and gritty'…

Coolness all the way. Practical considerations play very little role in my sci-fi gaming.

This usually leads me toward tracked stuff, as like many others, it has a gritty tough look to it. To me many times a hovercraft with skirting just looks like a tank wearing a dress. However, yesterday I just got a whole bunch of Mechwarrior CMG armor in the mail and my favorites from the batch were almost all the hover vehicles. Not much skirting, and they just looked cool!

If the trend continues, and follows the Hammer Slammer line, artillery will become less available as things are fielded to shoot down the shells. With all the random rocket attacks after the main combat, I am actually surprized that system has not been deployed already.

or do what I do. GOTTA GET EM ALL!!!

or do what I do. GOTTA GET EM ALL!!!

More often than not I resemble that remark . . . . .

Jeff

If I recall..MIT had that mobile laser system ready back in 2002 and in recent years they fit it to an outdated AFV chassis. I would be shocked if they are not already out there.

Something I have a problem with when building out a force is the logistics vehicles. I can't see the logic in a grav truck. Seems like a waste. Does anyone else here mix propulsion systems in their force?

I like the mix , low grade troops get lower tech , elites field the best .
Go with what looks good . I have some 28/25mm old crow stuff and mix and match it .
For 15mm, GZG has the widest variety , but do not rule out the up and comers as they have very nice stuff too .

When I look at Sci Fi equipment I look for what I see as possible. Does the concept of the vehicle work. Then I look for the coolest factor. When I like something I tend to buy to much of it.

Now if I can only get some done and try out some rules.

I prefer tracked just because there is so much disagreement over antigrav technology. If I do include antigrav vehicles they will have repulsor field and function much like a hover craft. They don't fly they just get to ignore rough terrain and water obstacles.

Grav for me, since I like equipment and troops from the far future:

link

There's nothing better than launching a planetary invasion from orbit, and having your Grav Armor scream through the atmosphere at Mach 3, before dropping down to Nap of the Earth level to go hunting for enemy forces.

One thought on the grav truck: it could go where conventional trucks couldn't. For that same reason, the US Army took M113 chassis and built a truck body on top, resulting in the M548:

link

We used M548s both as cargo carriers and to carry the Volcano FASCAM mine-launcher system.

Luckyjoe I went through all the same questions in my head as you. All have their place, but in the end, GRAV says Sci Fi more than anything else.

I don't worry about our present day preconceptions on the technology that will be practical in the future – I always remember the statement (and I paraphrase) that "one day, there will be as many as six computers in the UK and they might even fit into the size of a living room"

I buy Sci Fi armour that I think looks cool, preferring those that reflect basic armour principles – the T-34's of Sci Fi.

Cheers
Mark

I play Moderns and Near Future, so track for me. The vehicles have to be similiar or just upgrades of current equipment.

Hi, folks. Thanks very much for all of the helpful comments. I appreciate you taking the time to answer. Now all I have to do is pick some units out. We're really spoiled for choice now in 15mm. So far on the coolness factor I am leaning toward the Combat Wombat Centurion Medium GEV Tank, because I think they will compliment my Blue Moon Orion Republic Heavy Infantry, though I also really like the ultra-futuristic look of the Top Gun Grav tanks.

For me it depends on the army your building. If you are going for rag tag rebels they would use what they can get there hands on. Some super force of a large imperial nature would have the latest and best tech. I built a force that is like a terrorist cell. Some of them have the latest high tech stuff and some of them I got vehicles from 15mm moderns range 8)

I'm finding that my human armies end up with wheels/tracks (with air power for the richer forces) or legs if they're a more advanced human power. Tracks and legs tie humans down to the earth; we are an earthbound people, and even in traveling to the stars I can see that tendency remaining.

My aliens, for the moment, are primarily Khursan's. As a result, my alien forces are the ones using grav tech.

Current Events or Near-Future? Wheels. Tracks are a maintenance nightmare, and no longer necessarily provide improved offroad capabilities.

I do allow for some tracked types… every once in a while you need to bust out the really big guns.

Eventually, I'm going to be using direct-thrust vehicles (cyberpunk AVs) instead of helos.

I prefer to focus on the Fiction part more than the Science part of "Science Fiction". That way I can do what the heck I want!!
CW

I go tracked… I don't like hover vehicles at all(hover bikes do get a pass) complete opinion here I feel it is too star trek, I want gritty and dirty and tough. I just don't feel it with a floating tank

For me,

1) Tracked,
2) Highly Mobile Wheeled
3) Hover/GEV

"Tracks are a maintance nightmare, and no longer necessarily provide improved offroad capabilities."

The Canadians have discovered that their LAVs are stuck traveling on the roads in Afghanistan, due to lack of mobility off road. Now they have changed their minds and probably wont be updating their LAVs and are looking for a tracked APC. This goes along with the fact that the gun version of the LAV is not as good as the Leopard 2. So it is back to using a MBT and finding an APC that can keep up with a MBT on the move on all terrain.

Well, the Germans do produce the Marder, which is apparently a very nice IFV.

I agree, you can't do armor on the cheap. Wheeled vehicles are great for some areas, where there are lots of road and trails, but not so good in mud, or deep, soft sand.

We've had grav analogues since the Montgolfier brothers. Trouble is, they tend to go pop. Same might be true of grav vehicles.

In fact, if you have grav *armour* that can move around and shoot, it has to have either very, very light armour (leaving a place for tracked and walker types) or very, very powerful engines (which would be far better used for UFO-like manoeuvrabality). So you may see grav APCs and attack craft but not grav tanks. One of the reasons why tanks still exist is because a steel-and-ceramic box is cheaper than a sophisticated attack chopper…

As for hover, well Cog Comp effectively took the wind out of its skirts with his posts so no joy there.

The usual criticisms of walkers apply; probably District-9 sized battlesuits will be the biggest.

So really, it is just a tossup between wheels and tracked. As Doug Redshirt says, military strategists may predict that "tanks are over, manned fighters are over" etc. and then the realities of war hit and you're back with what works.

My take on Grav Armor is that if you can negate the gravity, you can make it as heavy as you want, if you have space for the armor, and can afford to produce it.

In fact, if you have grav *armour* that can move around and shoot, it has to have either very, very light armour (leaving a place for tracked and walker types) or very, very powerful engines (which would be far better used for UFO-like manoeuvrabality). So you may see grav APCs and attack craft but not grav tanks.

Given that we're talking about, essentially, magic, I don't see that your statement there has anything backing it.

I like big, heavy grav-tanks. Depending on what flavour of magic you wish to use in your setting, there's no reason why an anti-gravity system shouldn't be a low-drain system. Luke's speeder floated even while the engine wasn't running, after all, so the energy requirement wasn't an issue to that society.

I like them because to me, they're a subtle demonstration of technological superiority – I don't need to abide bythe universe's rules, and I'll float if I want to.

It's possible that invasion forces taking on less-advanced societies – in a War of the Worlds-type scenario – might use grav-tanks partly for the psychological advantage.

My only problem with grav armor is that you could then have a grav gun. This would be along the lines of a railgun only more effective, higher speeds and less energy required. How do you put enough armor on a tank to stop a round that is only limited in speed by the friction it creates with air while traveling?

The Canadians have discovered that their LAVs are stuck traveling on the roads in Afghanistan, due to lack of mobility off road.

Hadn't heard that, but I prefer the 'Shinseki'* future-Stryker concept: 150hp per wheel and central tire inflation, with active ride-height controls.

Soft dirt? drop the tires to 15psi and increase ground clearance. Still sliding? 8x150hp electric motors have torque NOW, and are likely to get you either very stuck or instantly unstuck.

*from James Cobb's short story "CAV".

Don't get me wrong, I like the Slammer's stories, but ACVs are just asking for trouble. That's why I am exploring DTVs instead.

My take on Grav Armor is that if you can negate the gravity, you can make it as heavy as you want, if you have space for the armor, and can afford to produce it.

Or if the grav plates doubled as armour…

My only problem with grav armor is that you could then have a grav gun. This would be along the lines of a railgun only more effective, higher speeds and less energy required. How do you put enough armor on a tank to stop a round that is only limited in speed by the friction it creates with air while traveling?

The gravitational force is tens of orders of magnitude weaker than simple electromagnetism. The only advantage of this is the ability to manipulate regular matter. In fact, if you had such a field in a gun, you'd have Star-Trek style grav shielding to boot, something like our Khurasan croc strike barges.

@Luckyjoe: I have built the various armour/hull, size and mobility classes into the game Grunts (apologies for self-promotion).

My objective was for players to be able to look at any manufacture model and confirm size, mobility, weapons systems and armour. Grav is the best for speed of course, with some variation within the class e.g. hi-tek grav has the edge on speed by a small amount. This reflects the models from GZG because they have the standard tek grav and the more advanced models where the grav "panels" are built into the hull.

Here is an example card for a tracked tank from Khurasan: link

I was going to add that the move rating in Grunts is in inches. So this link tracked model has a standard move of 6 inches, however all models can make a double flank speed move so it can cover 12inches of the board. Hover and Grav are faster and so are smaller hulls. So a Scout class tank can cover much more ground than the heavies in the link.

There are 5 classes for size in Grunts: Scout, Light, Medium, Heavy and Assault each have an effect on the mobility speed of which there are also 5 types : Walk, Tracked, Wheeled, Hover and Grav. Vehicle Type also influences the speed and armour of a unit, Tanks having the most armour and being the heaviest and support vehicles e.g. APC's having lower armour and slightly higher speed.

There are also then "Perkz" which can boost the speed and other factors to break the standard builds e.g. Pick a Tank type then select scout size, then mobility type e.g. Grav.

You are then presented with a standard for speed/armour but to add more variation you can select a Perk like "Improved Power Plant" which would provide a +1 inch to speed for your specific tank build.

I hope these ramblings make some sense!

Hi, Robin. Thanks very much for that description of Gruntz. It was very kind of you. I downloaded v.06 of the rules. They look very interesting and very professionally produced.

No problem LuckyJoe, If you need any help with the rules or have any ideas drop me a PM. Thanks