EMRifleman and Science Fiction!
Posted: Mon Jun 29, 2015 9:59 pm
Call me a bit of an anarchist if you'd like, I am thankfully not the bomb-throwing turn of the 20th century kind.
I am however, up late and have too much energy for any sane person so I thought I'd use it constructively.
In saying such, I'll list some of the science fiction works or themes that are currently on my mind and whether or not I like it.
In this instance, an anime universe I've really been getting into lately is Armored Trooper VOTOMS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_Trooper_Votoms in which the protagonist, a young but certainly not inexperienced soldier and pilot of one of countless possible millions of Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and ManueverS essentially wages a Rambo-style war of his own as the existing order comes crashing down around him.
I won't spoil it, but it comes safe to say that this series comes highly recommended. After watching Crest of the Stars ect, I took to the idea of a series chiefly focused on what amounted to sci-fi ground troops done in flashy 80's anime style like fire to a parched mountain range. I simply love the idea of a practical machine that is both unique from what we have on this earth but all together familiar.
Aside from the obvious flaws of most mecha being too tall, they always tend to make them magically better than if you took the same magically resistant to tanks because mecha armor and then sloped it, put it on treads and gave the gun a more stable mount to pivot upon. Not so with VOTOMS. It's specifically a two ideas hybridized into a singular vehicle.
These two ideas are the tankette; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankette, and the concept of powered armor, an idea that had been around in some fashion since the time of EE "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. What comes of this is a beautifully unique idea of a micro-mecha, slightly bigger than most powered armor but smaller than proper giant robots on the order of only being a few meters taller than an individual.
It's high mechanical and operational flexibility, ground speed and sensor suites make it ideal for mobile warfare like the tank, but it can also hold ground and take cover with the ease of infantry, if not needing only slightly bigger boulders, trees, or embankments to take cover behind.
My main gripe with it is that the concept of the VOTOM(S) seems to have been outpaced by the weapons technology of the time. While interesting, it has the drawback of at least, from what the animation conveys - penetrators going straight through the cockpit and the pilots having to duck their heads side to side to avoid either spalling or worse, the actual shells. What use is the armor if this can happen with any degree of frequency?
Well, my thought is that that is perhaps more of their infantry side, what with the totality of the armor making them far more resistant to say, indirect fire the same way a helmet offers resistance to that rather than being totally sealed from all but the hardest-hitting of penetrators or heaps of high-explosive material. Either that or, possibly, they are faced with a similar situation to the Second World War in that the two warring states, Balarant and Gilgamesh, are building tanks whose own main guns are penetrating their foes' armor with stunning regularity - ala the current marks of Sherman and Panzer IV at the time.
While possible, another very close friend of mine brought up the idea that perhaps they have another similarity - something akin to attack helicopters in that they're mobile weapons platforms that can't take as much as they dish out. While this is certainly true, the autocannon and the high-speed drives in the legs make me think that their maneuverability would have to be so valuable that resistance to fire is far outweighed by their ease and low cost of production and utility in having so many that you can simply combine with other assets to overwhelm entire theaters on planets in massive Kursk-style battles as hinted at in some of the OVAs or outright stated that planetary battles with sufficient numbers can not only ruin things, but also last only a few days.
I would like to think that VOTOMS is perhaps as creative about ground combat in it's meshing of neat ideas as Crest/Banner/What-may-come of the Stars is with their space combat ideas, if not a bit more 80's and willing to go full rock and roll both with their nifty cannons and their wailing 80's guitar OSTs.
I am however, up late and have too much energy for any sane person so I thought I'd use it constructively.
In saying such, I'll list some of the science fiction works or themes that are currently on my mind and whether or not I like it.
In this instance, an anime universe I've really been getting into lately is Armored Trooper VOTOMS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armored_Trooper_Votoms in which the protagonist, a young but certainly not inexperienced soldier and pilot of one of countless possible millions of Vertical One-man Tank for Offense and ManueverS essentially wages a Rambo-style war of his own as the existing order comes crashing down around him.
I won't spoil it, but it comes safe to say that this series comes highly recommended. After watching Crest of the Stars ect, I took to the idea of a series chiefly focused on what amounted to sci-fi ground troops done in flashy 80's anime style like fire to a parched mountain range. I simply love the idea of a practical machine that is both unique from what we have on this earth but all together familiar.
Aside from the obvious flaws of most mecha being too tall, they always tend to make them magically better than if you took the same magically resistant to tanks because mecha armor and then sloped it, put it on treads and gave the gun a more stable mount to pivot upon. Not so with VOTOMS. It's specifically a two ideas hybridized into a singular vehicle.
These two ideas are the tankette; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankette, and the concept of powered armor, an idea that had been around in some fashion since the time of EE "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. What comes of this is a beautifully unique idea of a micro-mecha, slightly bigger than most powered armor but smaller than proper giant robots on the order of only being a few meters taller than an individual.
It's high mechanical and operational flexibility, ground speed and sensor suites make it ideal for mobile warfare like the tank, but it can also hold ground and take cover with the ease of infantry, if not needing only slightly bigger boulders, trees, or embankments to take cover behind.
My main gripe with it is that the concept of the VOTOM(S) seems to have been outpaced by the weapons technology of the time. While interesting, it has the drawback of at least, from what the animation conveys - penetrators going straight through the cockpit and the pilots having to duck their heads side to side to avoid either spalling or worse, the actual shells. What use is the armor if this can happen with any degree of frequency?
Well, my thought is that that is perhaps more of their infantry side, what with the totality of the armor making them far more resistant to say, indirect fire the same way a helmet offers resistance to that rather than being totally sealed from all but the hardest-hitting of penetrators or heaps of high-explosive material. Either that or, possibly, they are faced with a similar situation to the Second World War in that the two warring states, Balarant and Gilgamesh, are building tanks whose own main guns are penetrating their foes' armor with stunning regularity - ala the current marks of Sherman and Panzer IV at the time.
While possible, another very close friend of mine brought up the idea that perhaps they have another similarity - something akin to attack helicopters in that they're mobile weapons platforms that can't take as much as they dish out. While this is certainly true, the autocannon and the high-speed drives in the legs make me think that their maneuverability would have to be so valuable that resistance to fire is far outweighed by their ease and low cost of production and utility in having so many that you can simply combine with other assets to overwhelm entire theaters on planets in massive Kursk-style battles as hinted at in some of the OVAs or outright stated that planetary battles with sufficient numbers can not only ruin things, but also last only a few days.
I would like to think that VOTOMS is perhaps as creative about ground combat in it's meshing of neat ideas as Crest/Banner/What-may-come of the Stars is with their space combat ideas, if not a bit more 80's and willing to go full rock and roll both with their nifty cannons and their wailing 80's guitar OSTs.