"GEV Engineering Vehicle?" Topic

I'm toying with the idea of fielding an engineering vehicle for my GEV-themed army… but I'm not sure a GEV would make a practical vehicle.

I assume adding a bulldozer blade would unbalance a hovercraft!

Any sort of a crane would also be problematic, wouldn't it?

I'm thinking of a vehicle that would transport engineers and provide basic engineering functions (digging, demolitions, firefighting).

A mine clearing, personnel carrier type of engineering vehicle (a GEV version of the Israeli Puma), with line charges and maybe a demolition gun.

An ARV-GEV would be rather large, flatbed type, with an a-frame.

Israeli Puma…

No, you probably mean…

Lack of traction would make it impossible to use it as a bulldozer or tow vehicle for anything not also on an air cushion.

Yes on the second pic, sadly all I get for the first is a red "X".

Another role for a GEV engineering vehicle would be as a bridging vehicle, much like the "M3" or "GSP". A group of these would turbo along, slip into body of water( or swamp ), link up, and make a rapidly deployed bridge for non-ACV units. Since they are self propelled, they don't need powerboats for stationkeeping, and would be fitted with area defense weapons. I've thought of scratchbuilding a unit of these to allow my armor forces to maintain a rapid pace of advance, and greater tactical flexablity.

The Bulldozer, earth moving, & trenchdigging role is best for tracked, wheeled, and even mecha type vehicles.

I did a BiC pen sketch of a combat engineer mecha that I need to finish and find a way to produce. It's basically low slung quad(like the Battletech Scorpion), with a massive bulldozer blade in front, a massive front mounted rocket mortar, line charge launchers, a small laser & MG turret, and rear mounted backhoe. A variant had the backhoe replaced with a "BTM-3" style ditching digger. Yet another had the bulldozer blade replaced with a massive mine flail, and large line charge launchers in place of the backhoe. There was even one where the rocket mortar was replaced by flamethowers, and backhoe with a giant version of the "TOS-1" rocket launcher.

Lack of traction would make it impossible to use it as a bulldozer or tow vehicle for anything not also on an air cushion.

Wouldn't a large-enough GEV vehicle have the momentum to be able to do some earthmoving? Maybe not from a standing start…

By the way, GZG has a grav/GEV engineering vehicle in the microscale Future Wars line. link

They also sell a pack of engineering "parts." link

A smallish crane is fine on a hover chassis, as long as it stays stowed until the jack-stand legs are deployed. Most cranes don't move around while in the act of lifting and shifting. Excavators are similar, though they do have reasons to move a little. Only dozers really need ground traction all the time.

By the way, GZG has a grav/GEV engineering vehicle in the microscale Future Wars line.

Hah! I was painting a couple of those just this afternoon!
When I first bought them (on Ebay, no name description) I thought the crane was some odd sort of energy weapon.

I figured the same as GypsyComet… the thing sets down on terra-firma before initiating the lift.

Dave Drake described the 'Wrenchmobile' as a Lowboy trailer but with hover fans under each end. Take a Combat car and weld it to each end of a flatbed.

Unless you're talking about a stupidly-high thrust unit like a Combat car, you aren't going to do any earthmoving with a GEV. And combat cars can only move earth 'sandblaster' style, pitch a couple fans forward and the rest to provide motive force.

Even the Blower artillery stopped and shut down the fans before firing.

The only GEV arty I know of that fired on the move was smallish guns (90mm railguns), and the whole rig went into a computer-controlled jump to create a Time-on-Target barrage from each vehicle. (Man, I love the HRT-68s from Heavy Gear)

It might use Burrowing Explosive charges instead of a Dozer blade (And no, it just wouldn't work with Momentum. It would hit the dirt and smack to a halt, pulping the crew.)

Seems like the tech level for GZG's Tuffleyverse setting (or Hammer's Slammers, for that matter) is high enough that an engineering vehicle might well have a pair (or several pairs) of robotic arms for doing engineering work. Why mount a crane when you can have ctual arms with grippers that can do anything a crane can and more? Cargo handling, ammo loading, wrassling replacement fan assemblies into place, scooping out hasty entrenchments in no time, that sort of thing. You'd still need to be grounded with jacks out to do much with them, but as GypsyComet pointed out, that's the norm for any mobility type, not just GEVs.

And really, is there ascifi AFV ever made that wouldn't be made more versatile with the addition of a couple of waldo arms?

In my initial work on Slammers stuff, I thought a blower dozer might be ok but – having spoken to Dave Drake when he was writing Paying the Piper he confirmed that a tracked vehicle was the way he wanted to go (Lion is spot on about the Wrench mobile as well).

Maybe their's mileage in something with blower technology that deploys tracks when using the blade but two (one of which is always redundant) drive systems seems like a non starter when you can load the dozer onto the afore mentioned lowboy and get the best of both worlds.

John T

Maybe their's mileage in something with blower technology that deploys tracks when using the blade but two (one of which is always redundant) drive systems seems like a non starter when you can load the dozer onto the afore mentioned lowboy and get the best of both worlds.

Somewhat related note, wasn't their a 6mm minis range a long while back that had "low tech" grav tanks that also had tracks as a backup system? I could see that being kind of plausible, at least in as far as any AG drive can be called plausible. Using the gravs would give you better speed and let you cross all sorts of terrain, but you might switch to tracks for a lower profile or just because you need to switch power from lift to weaponry or force shields or something.

The US Army identifies three primary missions for combat engineers: mobility, countermobility, and survivability. All forces need access to these three things on the battlefield.

GEVs can certainly perform mobility missions with respect to breaching obstacles, bridging antitank ditches, MICLIC'ing minefields, marking safe lanes, etc.

Countermobility is also possible, at least as far as land mine warfare, FASCAM mines, emplacing obstacles, building cribs and abatis, etc. Digging a tank ditch might be a bit out of their league, though.

Survivability is where you get into the problems for GEVs. You can certainly ground the vehicle and use a power shovel to dig in fighting positions for infantry, but digging in a hull-down or full defilade position for a main battle tank is going to require nothing short of an earthmover. It might be possible to create an auger-driven system such as you see in snowblowers, where some type of mechanism is used to break up earth and fling it away from the site (or pile it to the front or sides or whatever). That would change the equation so far as the vehicle's leverage and whatnot goes.

I'm of two minds on this:

It seems to me that, if it the tech is available, a grav engineering vehicle might be used even if the rest of the force are GEV. After all, a GEV dozer blade just isn't going to work in reality.

On the other hand, there might be some sort of technological breakthrough in between now and then that would allow a GEV-dozer combination to work.

All things considered, I'd go with the later over the former if you want to have a GEV engineering vehicle. After all, it's your army.

An auger-driven system might work in sand or other soft ground, but you should see what happens when you try to feed a snowblower compacted snow that's been rained on.

It's impressive, and expensive. I recommend wearing a helmet, those parts are heavy.

You'd need to use cratering charges to loosen the soil before using the snowblower, and I'd rather see a 'dinosaur' armored D8 or D9 Cat on the back of a wrenchmobile. Though it could be a remotely-operated or autonomous dozer at Hammerverse tech levels.

Since having a GEV as a dozer is not going to work, your GEV could carry a small wheeled/tracked earth moving unit.

like a bobcat? bobcat.com

Some other ideas:

A large pneumatic impact hammer that could lower down in front of the dozer blade, break up some ground, and then retract to allow the blade to move the loosened earth.

A 40mm breaching gun that would fire ground-penetrating HE rounds into the earth to loosen it up.

An auger system that is built more like a tunnel excavator than a snowblower.

Sonic pulse technology that would break up soil to enable easier removal.

Canister-launched nanobots or gel that would loosen the moledular bonds between dirt particles. The GE/CEV would launch or spray the target area, wait a few minutes, then move in to push away the loosened soil.

Some kind of voodoo-magneto-Crash Corrigan machine that would momentarily reverse the magnetic attraction of the soil at an atomic level, generating a brief, explosive upheaval in a localized area.

A pulse-detonation engine on the back of the GE/CEV that would give the vehicle small doses of phenomenal pushing power (far beyond what ducted fans or standard jet engines can achieve).

I converted one (or was it two?) of my Fortress GEVs to having a demo gun (like the Churchill AVRE), line charge launchers, and a small bucket--no bulldozer blade.

Rob