ShuRugal

yes, we got that. What everyone has been saying is that when the HUD computer goes out, the backup gunsight cannot be turned on. No one is saying anything about a "backup hud". In fact, his exact words were "nothing can get the backup sight on line"

I have used AirDisplay with varying degrees of success. If you can get it to run stably on your system, then your computer will treat it as a second display, and you may extend your desktop onto it.

Don't use the SST software, it's lousy. Set up a profile with all the shift-states removed (in SST, at the top of shift-state column, click the "x") so that you can assign the pinky switch and rotary mode knob in DCS to be modifier keys. Then do all your programming in DCS.

I just acquired an X-55 this week, and it is almost 100% worth the money. My only complaints are the ministick (sucks, as with all Saitek ministicks) and the software (same programming software as SST, but less functional)

Does anyone know how to do this? In the old SST software it was a simple matter of clicking the "X" at the top of the column, and bam, it was gone. I need to do this with the X55, but i cannot for the world figure out how. I still need to be able to use key-emulation to turn the ministick into slew stick (because heaven forbid saitek install a true analog ministick into anything), but i want to be able to use the mode dial as a shift state in game. If I unload the profile in the X55 software, i get my mode dial back, but then i lose my slewstick bindings (and TS PTT). any ideas?

for any looping maneuver, I always start with at least 300 MPH IAS. The P-51 has a corner-speed of about 280, so 300+ will give you enough overhead that you should be slowing down into your cornering speed as you approach vertical, which will let you pull over the top fast enough to not end up tailsliding. The real trick with a loop is to not pull too much elevator, as you'll end up snap-rolling (or even torque-rolling) out of it. of course, this makes for a very pear-shaped loop. I have no idea how to fly a nice pretty circular loop. Rolling is easy: nose up 5-10 degrees, full left aileron (no need to fight the engine torque), then feed in right rudder, down elevator, left rudder, and up eleavtor as you come around (IE: keep the nose from dropping under the horizon). Barrel roll is similar, but with back elevator throughout, might need a little opposite rudder, definitely will at the start. Split S is crazy easy, any speed, roll inverted, lots of back elevator. Just don't pull so much elevator you end up snapping out of it. expect to lose 500-1000 ft minimum (more if you enter at higher airspeed). Immelman... also easy. 300+ IAS, half loop up, roll out on top with ailerons. again, don't overdo the elevator.

no, the shkval doesn't, but your HUD elements take sideslip into account when producing CCIP cues. strong and gusty crosswinds blow the sideslip vanes around.

Sometimes in high crosswinds, the piper for where to aim the vikhr will be over-compensated, and you end up launching the missile clear out of the guidance cone.. I have had several misfires as a result of this.

wasn't it a mechanical failure on the trim tab? drove the elevator to full-up?

Is taking on water when partially submerged simulated? I belly-landed in a river for shits and giggles, and when i took off again, it took full collective and full-forward cyclic to stay in the air, as if the tail was full of water. is this possible, or did i break something else and not realize it?

They very well may, this is exactly the sort of information I have been asking for this whole time. I'll review it more thoroughly and get back to you later today, but it looks like a good read at a glance. right, but at 2x2x4 meters for just the reactor vessel, you still won't be fitting it inside anything mobile smaller than a ship.

what data? You have yet to produce a single scrap of real information. I, on the other hand, have cited multiple hard-documented sources, and all of my math is shown laid bare, step by step, in accordance with physics principals which everyone who graduated high school should be familiar with. Start citing sources and showing hard data, or stop talking, I'm getting sick of arguing with a human wind tunnel.

I'm sorry, but this directly contradicts everything every biology class I have taken has ever taught me about how biomechanics work. Muscles are not energy storage devices, they are energy-conversion devices, and they work one-way. They convert chemical energy into mechanical energy and heat (at a rather appallingly inefficient rate, I might add). The only "storage" available to muscles is glucose and glycogen. When a muscle contracts, it consumes glucose (which can be stored internally to the muscle cells in the form of glycogen). When a muscle is extended, it does NOT magically regenerate glycogen or glucose. There is no biological regenerative braking that I am aware of. If you are aware of such a system, please cite some references so the rest of us may be so enlightened. Of course a human can accelerate sideways better than something which is not capable of any sideways acceleration. But if you acknowledge that a wheeled/tracked vehicle is more efficient at forward acceleration, then you can't really say that you expect a human's sideways or backwards acceleration to fare any better. Lateral acceleration is something we are significantly worse at than forward and backwards acceleration...

Sure, a small mech, say, 2m tall, even that is going to have to duck through most doors (assuming its narrow enough). Your 4m high platform is still going to have a time of it in trees, though. Oh, and guess what, in addition to being able to climb a 60% grade and negotiate an 850mm obstacle, exist tanks can also cross a 2.8m wide trench! right, walking. Check my post again, I wasn't talking about walking. Malleolus claims that a legged tank at 4m high weighing 20 tons would be able to accelerate as fast as a sprinter in order to dodge bullets at long range. Walking is analogous to rolling on a wheel, it requires slightly more energy because there is vertical displacement with each step, but the difference is fairly small (I won't say negligible, because it isn't). A sprinting start, on the other hand, is all about power through the legs. You don't start a sprint standing up and "Fall forward" into it. You start a sprint low and forward, and you move forwards and up. There is no "inverted pendulum action" at play for this maneuver. Your body must generate 100% of the energy involved in that kind of acceleration. A full-speed run also does not benefit from the "inverted pendulum effect": the stride length is long enough that relying on momentum to carry the body over its leg robs too much forward speed. In running configuration, again, the legs must generate a portion of the force to bear up against gravity (how much depends on stride depth). The wheel has a significant advantage in this regard. Hell, for a direct comparison: bicycle vs runner. In all areas, the bicycle outperforms the walker/runner, but don't take my word for it.

are mechs now perpetual motion machines? Just add a little gravity, and they magically amplify that gravity without expending any energy to move forward???

Mate, I really hate to break it to ya, but "Inverted pendulum" just means that it allows forward movement to continue in part on momentum... just like a wheel does. The biggest difference being that when the foot is planted on the forward step, a portion of that momentum is used to fight gravity and carry the body up on the leg. So, depending on stride depth, it's marginally less efficient than a wheel for maintaining forward motion. If you want to accelerate your 20 ton mech forward at 3.5 m/s, you still need to produce exactly 132.3 kN of force between the mech and the ground. You can't get around this with fancy terminology and handwaving. You certainly can't get around it by saying "I don't like your numbers, modify them by percentages for reasons, so there." Law of Conservation of Momentum. If you want your mech to move away from the ground, you need to produce an acceleration greater than 9.8 m/s^2 vertically. This requires a minimum of 176.4 k/n of force transferred into the ground for your 20-ton example. As a side note: all of my numbers so far have been without specifying a specific power delivery method (geared, hydraulic, chain drive, etc) and factoring in the losses inherent to one of those systems (mostly because I really don't feel like doing that much math just to be able to say "Ha! you're even more wrong!"). So if you really want to break out the technobabble and handwaving, I do still have more things for you to wave away. At the rate this is going, you'll be flying under your own power soon. oh, now there's room for a steam engine inside your mech? We just barely fit a gas turbine, where are you going to put a steam turbine, heat exchanger, coolant supply, and 2x2x4 meter reactor vessel? the reactor itself is the same height as your proposed 14' foot mech!

Yeah, the ILS frequency knob on the A-10 is a rotary knob ringed by a rotary 2-position switch. Honestly, though, I can't see a military design implementing a rotary knob inside a rotary knob: Combat aircraft cockpits are designed to require minimum attention from the pilot, and it's too easy to accidentally jostle the wrong shaft of a dual-knob.

Thats an interesting choice of comparison. A nuclear power system is a steam engine. Your steam engineer/operator would understand it perfectly, once you say the words "Instead of coal, we generate heat with a newly-discovered process called "fission" that generates many times more heat than coal can." He would have to be educated on the dangers inherent in nuclear power, and the precise methods used to mitigate them, but he would not have to learn anything new for fully half of the system. Right, but my point here is that while may eventually be possible to brute-force a solution that makes mechs work on the battlefield, it will be possible to apply that same brute-power to a more efficient platform and have it work better. The question asked by the op is "What combat role could a mech play on a real battlefield". The answer is "Several, but existing platforms would outperform it in most critical areas". The only thing a mech can do that a tank can't is step sideways, and to gain that ability it gives up speed, range, and load-carrying capability. As I have rather thoroughly pointed out, a powerplant that could propel a 20-ton 4 meter mech at 25 mph for 45 minutes with no pilot or ammunition can (does) propel a 60-ton tank at 45 mph for 2 hours with a crew of 4 and enough ammo to fight half the day or more. Give me a powerplant that moves a 60-ton mech at 45 mph, and I'll give you a 150-ton tank that can do 80 mph on the same engine. It's simple physics: I don't care what method you come up with to actuate the limbs, be it direct gearing, hydraulic, or sci-fi elasto-muscles, you still need to produce the same amount of torque to move the limbs, and producing that torque costs the same amount of power. a mech with 2m legs has (not accounting the need to hold itself up) the same power requirements for forward movement as a tank with 2m radius drive sprockets, and there's a good reason we don't build 'em like that.

Taking the pilot out is probably the best idea in this thread. It doesn't matter if it's going to get skragged the first AT round it takes, so long as I know one of my battle buddies isn't going to have to die for it. We have this field of science call "engineering". With it, we can make astonishingly accurate predictions about all sorts of things mechanical, even if they've never been built and tested. I'll be doing just that in just a minute, if you care to stick around. Well, now you're talking numbers that make sense, I wonder If we could do that with a wheeled system... and any of these systems can be put on existing armored vehicles. Putting IRON FIST on a legged platform won't increase its performance. Alright, it's time we talk some hard maths on this: A leg transfers energy to the ground by rotating through a portion of an arc. It functions as a lever. Linear force transfer (such as when you stand up from a crouch) is accomplished by having a segmented leg where one end rotates one way, and the other rotates another. In the case of forward walking, where the entire leg operates as a single lever, the power transfer to the ground is mathematically identical to a wheel: we need a torque between the base of the lever and the body, and the leg then transfers that torque into the ground. For a human-proportioned mech of 14' height (4.2m), you're going to have 7' (2.1m) legs (from hip joint to heel, human legs are roughly 50% of total height). To accelerate a 20 ton (18000 kg) object at 3.5m/s^2, we use Force = Mass * Acceleration, and we see that you need to deliver 63,000 newtons (14,000 lbf) to the ground. For a 2.1m leg to deliver that force, we need to produce 132,300 Newton Meters (97,579.5 ft lbs) of torque around the hip joint. The Honeywell AGT1500 out of the Abrams produces 3,754 Nm (2,750 FtLbs) of torque at 3,000 RPM. To provide 132,300 Nm, we need to gear that down 35.25:1, giving us a max rotation at the leg of 85 RPM. With a 2.1 meter leg, this gives us a maximum speed of about 1 km/min, or about 35 mph. In reality, the top speed will probably lose at least 10mph, depending on leg travel, because when the leg is at any angle other than perpendicular to the ground, the engine has to hold a portion of the mech's weight as well as provide motive power. I can do the math on that loss if your really want me to. Alright, we're looking good so far, but we still need to check a couple things... Will it be able to stand up? Going back to what i said a minute ago, when standing, the leg behaves as a pair of levers turning in opposition to produce a linear force away from the hip, so this next part will be doing math on a pair of 1.05m levers. to lift against gravity, these levers will need to accelerate our 18,000 kg at more than 9.8 m/s^2. Let's work with 10 m/s^2, as it's a nice round number (though it would be a rather slow stand speed). 18,000 kg * 10 m/s^2 = 180,000 N (40,000 lbf) Now, since we've got two legs to spread the load over, we can say that each leg only needs to provide 90,000 N of force 90,000 Nm on a 1-meter lever. But, each leg consists of 2 levers which must both produce that torque at the same time, so our total torque per leg... 90,000 * 2 = 180,000 Nm. Right, so to get out AGT1500 to output 180,000 Nm, we need to gear it down 47.95:1. This gives us an output rotation of 62.6 RPM, or 37.5 deg/s. To stand up from a full crouch would take about 2.25 seconds, and you're going to need a second gear to do it. Now, let's look at range... The AGT1500 consumes about 18.2 l/min (4.8 gal/min) of fuel at full power. So at full power, it will need nearly 300 gallons of fuel per hour of operation. So, lets see how much fuel we can fit inside it... Your 14' tall mech will have a torso measuring about 2.1x1.25x1 meters (2.625 M^3 volume). The engine measures 1.63x0.9x0.8 (1.17 M^3) meters. Assuming by some miracle we design a gearbox that is half that size, that leaves us with an internal volume of 0.875 M^3, about 200 gallons. So, it can move at ~25 mph, accelerate a little better than twice as fast as a tank, has enough fuel capacity for 45 minutes of operation, but no room for a pilot or ammunition. Meanwhile, that same engine moves a 60 ton tank at 45 mph for just under 2 hours, and brings a whole lot of hurt along for the ride. sinking in isn't the problem. the problem is asking a tiny patch of dirt to hold 130 kilonewtons of transverse force. Protip: it won't.

it doesn't matter if it can do things better or the same. For it to be able to replace two battlefield vehicles, it needs to be able to perform two battlefield tasks simultaneously. It doesn't matter if it can be a tank OR a troop carrier with equal utility: if you need both on the same mission, you still have to send two vehicles. the useful engagement range of the average RPG is 200-300 meters. At 300 meters, your mech pilot will have almost exactly one second from launch to identify the threat, react to the threat, and dodge the mech out of the way. If we assume he gets a magical missile alarm that tells him where the shot came from the instant it is fired, he's still going to loose a third of that second in human reaction time. By the time the mech starts to dodge, it will have about 600ms to get out of the way. At tank engagement ranges, you're going to have exactly the same problem, because you might be an order of magnitude further away, but the incoming fire is also an order of magnitude faster. If you're far enough away for it to take more than 1-2 seconds for the rounds to arrive, you're far enough away that a tank could drive its own body length anyway, so the tank can dodge as effectively as the mech anyway. 88 PSI? that's nearly identical to the pressure of a racing bicycle. Do me a favour, and try to run a racing bicycle on loose soil, tell me how far your get, how fast you do it, and how much your legs hurt after. an Abrams, on the other hand, exerts 14psi ground pressure, which is why it can dump 1500hp into the ground and not just sit there digging a hole.

You also aren't describing any battlefield roles which they could fill better than anything already filling those roles.

yes, but it seems to be inconvenient to point out that the ground under the mech's foot would give out from bearing so much weight on a small footprint long before the fable super acceleration would be achieved. at the fastest point of human acceleration (the first 3 seconds) a hundred meter sprinter can manage about 3.5m/s^2. An M1A2 manages about 1.25 m/s^2. So far you're thinking on the right track. However, as you've just pointed out, a human racer can accelerate faster than a horse, which is also a legged creature... so clearly the variable lies somewhere else... Could it be relative mass? a human sprinter weighs anywhere between 140-180 lbs. that's 45 lbs per m/s^2. An Abrams weighs 60 tons, which gives us 96000 lbs per m/s^2. Measuring acceleration per ton, a tank is 2100 times more effective than a person. Please give me an example of a modern mixed-unit-combat situation where you won't need to use multiple weapons and tactical capabilities simultaneously.

fair enough you're right, the speed of sound is pretty slow. Any mech can dodge that. You keep saying you want it to fill multiple roles, thereby reducing the number of vehicles you have to bring into the field, but you have yet to demonstrate how the ability to pick up a different weapon or tool would remove the need to have another vehicle in the field at the same time. If you need an engineering unit, an anti-tank unit, and an infantry carrier for the same mission, you still need three vehicles. Making your mech able to either be anti-tank, engineer, or infantry-support just means that you have three mechs in the field now. How is this different than having an Abrams, a Bradley, and an M-278? Even if this does somehow provide an advantage, do you really believe that no one could engineer a quick-release mechanism for installing weapons onto tracked platforms? So what? all that means is there is less physical space to put armor on them. A 155 round at close range is more than enough to disable any tank on the field, why would the same armor on a leg suddenly be able to handle that without a problem? Well which is it? are they fast or not? I would call something which can dodge behind a building in under half a second pretty goddamn fast. If the "edge" putting it on legs gives it is not enough to increase it's abilities and/or survivability more than the disadvantages brought into play by legs, then legs are not practical. So far, the only ability that legs add which tracks and wheels can't do is step sideways, and it can't even do that fast enough to be a useful advantage. Now, lets look at the drawbacks: higher profile (legs need more ground clearance to operate than wheels) significantly greater power requirements slower top speed for the same powerplant rating less load-bearing capacity (ground pressure limitations, engineering limitations of cantilevered support structures)

He wasn't making a personal attack, he was pointing out that your debate tactic to this point has done nothing to prove your point, only to try and prove that other people were wrong because other people in the past had been wrong. You, on the other had, have just done exactly what you accused him of. Good job completely discrediting yourself. the thing about a rocket propelled grenade, is that launch is the slowest part of its flight: it keeps accelerating until it runs out of fuel. Peak velocities of 350 m/s are quite common. can your mech crouch low enough to get completely out of the path of an inbound anti-tank projectile, which will most likely have been aimed at its center of mass? Can your mech accelerate sideways fast enough to evade a 350 m/s projectile, fired from a distance of 200-300 meters or less? After you factor detection time and pilot reaction time, you've got half a second or less to evade. Except for when it doesn't. Flying cars? Jetpacks? Over-the-counter Radiology? We have the technology to do all three of these things, but we don't because they are ridiculously impractical, irresponsible, or both. And that's not even getting into things which are actually impossible, like teleportation. Okay, so tracks and wheels have evolved to their peak performance. This makes them now useless? This is probably the most brazen lie I have heard all week. You start name-calling when you get called out for not making any actual arguments in favor of your position, and then claim that you were only a little bothered? What are you going to do when you get a lot bothered? Trace his IP and shoot him? translation: "I'm not right, but neither are you! Also, in the past, someone else was probably also wrong! So there!!" Really? surmount them, then. Design a powertrain that allows a series of long levers to deliver the same portion of an engine's power to the ground as efficiently as a wheel or a track, while still allowing for the same speed. If it's so easily surmounted, surely anyone can do it. This is just silly. Of course a tank has more surface area than a human, a tank is designed to fit humans inside it! Scale a human up big enough to carry a tank's crew, armament, and power plant, crunch some numbers, and tell me which has more surface area. The same is true of, say, a motorcycle. Motorcycles are much, much more maneuverable than cars and tanks. Therefore, if we make it bigger and put guns on it, nothing will be able to touch it on the battlefield, right? ... mixed-unit tactics are nothing unique to mech platforms. The battle force you describe is no different than a modern armored cav with mechanized support and a CAS tasking. Explosively Formed Penetrator. Dirt cheap to make, and the irregulars in the ME theatre absolutely love the things. Devices capable of penetrating tank armor at a stand-off range of several meters are regularly recovered (or found the hard way) by troops in theatre. Your legs still haven't evaded the IED. No, we have one MBT body (M1A2 Abrams), it ships with one primary weapon system (Rheinmetall L44 120mm). Secondary weapon systems (machine guns, grenade launchers) and support-packages (bolt-on ERA packages, smoke launchers, bulldozer blades) are all field-swappable equipment already, and they are already a logistics nightmare. what makes you think that having a modular armor vehicle means we would have less armored vehicles in the field? If the mission calls for taking a position from armor and mechanized infantry, you still need that Rheinmetall to deal with the tanks, you need infantry carriers, which need to be armored, and since you're bringing an APC, you may as well put a Bushmaster on the top so it can provide fire support to the troops it just delivered. The only variable your walking tank introduces here is to replace the Abrams with itself. You still need troop transports, and there's no point to -not- arming them, so we've still got the exact same number of vehicles in the field.

Well then I apologize, It's getting difficult to track all the people making minor variations on the same argument. For my response to hot-swappable weapons, see the text you just quoted. Good, since we're talking about IEDs, I'll remind you that the 'I' stands for 'Improvised'. The Hajjiis are very resourceful, and have quite the knack for redesigning their explosives on the fly to fill their needs. They are particularly fond of taking 155mm HE shells, stacking them under some concealment beside the road, and running a button on wires out in the treeline, so they can set off the explosion after part of the convoy has passed and thereby take out exactly the vehicle they want. Point is, IEDs are tailor-made in the field to blow up specific targets. So you've made it harder to effectively place pressure-triggers to target your mech. In response, your enemy is going to use a remote-detonated device.