It may look like a fixed firing arc that requires the entire head to rotate... but then, so does this. We may assume that the guns have limited traverse independent of the head - anything short would make any aiming impossible.Nonamer wrote:Even so, it still must turn it's entire head in order to shoot. Turret based tanks and armored vehicles are easily superior at anti-infantry combat, especially if they are equiped with auto-cannons or machine guns. A combat group with RPGs will find an AT-ST a much easily target to fight against.
The head of the AT-ST does not traverse at a noticably slower rate than most tank turrets, as a matter of fact. 20 degrees a second is not unusually slow, and 36 degrees a second is something to write home about for a traditional MBT.
RPGs can be guided, sure - and some of the better anti-tank weapons, like the Carl Gustav 84mm I recommended using, have pretty good accuracy - but the simple fact is that a harder target to hit is a harder target to hit.RPGs can be guided though. Perhaps it won't be a piece of cake, but still much easier to take out compared to real-world tanks and armored vehicles.
There are three steps in waxing an armored vehicle:
- Spot it.
- Hit it.
- Penetrate the armor.
Some of this depends on where you put the center of gravity, but generally yes.This is something that comes up very often at SB.com or SDN, whenever there's a discussion between mecha and tanks. The ultimate conclusions are these:
1) Wheeled vehicles are vastly more stable.
In the case of the AT-ST, with a hollow short box perched on top of relatively massive legs, the center of gravity is not as badly placed as with some mecha. Overall, the AT-ST does have some stability issues, but that doesn't come into play in most situations - tripwires, flying bolas, and large massive objects trying to hit you are pretty rare.
That said, stability is mostly a software issue. Bipedal creatures demonstrate quite a bit of practical stability while maneuvering tactically.
We're mostly comparing these with tracked vehicles, incidentally.2) Wheeled vehicles have vastly less stress on the locomotive machinery (more reliable, less expensive, etc.)
Tracked vehicles are notoriously high maintainence, thanks to the large number of moving pieces in the treads. While the ankle, knee, and hip joints must bear up under high stress with a walker, it's safe to assume that the materials are fine if you're actually using them.
Joints are generally fine - it's not a maintainence problem for construction equipment with various kinds of "joints" - they just have to be engineered more. This costs mass, not maintainence parts.
They are more efficient. They also can't handle as rough terrain, and for the case of the AT-ST, energy efficiency for its movement isn't a big problem - most fighting vehicles prioritize power and handling over efficiency.3) Wheels vehicles are vastly more efficient. This can be proven by analyzing the thermodynamic cycles of both forms of locomotion.
This is the big one. Granted - you can build a low-set walker, but that's not what people usually think of4) Wheeled vehicles have much lower profiles.
Not that big an issue.5) Wheeled vehicles are vastly more simple to design and construct.
In some ways. You missed one of the biggest ones: Armoring. In order to efficiently distribute armor, you want a highly compact vehicle. A box is very efficient for volume to surface area, and if most of your attacks come in the same plane, a flat box is most efficient for sloping armor.There may be some other issues that I've forgot, but the conclusion is clear: Given a similar level of technology, a wheeled or track vehicle will always be vastly superior than a walking vehicle, virtually without exception.
There are some advantages to some specific walking vehicles - presumably there have to be, for use to see them in widespread use - which generally includes better terrain-handling capabilities. Feet can carry you where wheels can't.
I mentioned the Bradley's anti-tank missiles. The TOW missiles are the Bradley's chance against the AT-ST - and it is a pretty good weapon. The only problem, tactically speaking, is that the Bradley can't fire them off on the move, or on the spur of the moment; it has to deploy its collapsable missile launcher while stationary.Not even close! A Bradley's anti-tank missiles are good for 3.75km, and are vastly more powerful than any RPG. Source. Another source.
Only against the sides and rear is the 25mm Bushmaster likely to penetrate. The figures I cited for the 30mm Avenger were only examples of how the front plate armor can actually stand up to 30mm rounds - bullets slow a lot in the air. The real derivation of what the AT-ST can stand up to I did using Nathan Okun's programs.Your numbers for the 30mm Avenger are at very long ranges (500m and 1000m). At short ranges (<300m) the 25mm autocannon will be very dangerous.
And yes, the Bushmaster is not useless. But...
As with against another Bradley, the 25mm Bushmaster can be expected to be insufficient to penetrate the frontal armor. As I mentioned, the frontal armor is probably around 2-3 times as good as the side armor. The likelihood of being able to penetrate the faceplate at any angle, or cause damage to the legs, is roughly on the same order of probability as the chance that I've underestimated the armor enough for the side and rear armor to stand up to the 25mm gun at any range and angle.
And the probability that the Bradley's armor can shed a megajoule-range blaster bolt is pretty much nil. If it comes to a gunfight - if the TOW missiles are shot down by some chance, or miss, the Bradley is in trouble, and the front side is almost certainly what it's going to be facing if it can't get a missile kill.
Now, there are other light vehicles that do mount weapons with the power to one-hit-kill an AT-ST from any angle, which can be fired on the move and have more than two rounds of ammunition. (The much-talked-about BMP-3 comes to mind, for example.)
Incorrect. The rough terrain problem is why we actually see legged logging robots under development - and the fact that an AT-ST is tall and narrow is what lets it slip through the trees. A Bradley has a 3.1x6.9m footprint; an AT-ST is 3.2x3.9m at the most; the bulkiest "part" can be raised or lowered a bit, and the widest axis (the hips) can be shifted somewhat diagonal to squeeze through. The AT-ST also actually has more grip surface than most wheeled vehicles its mass.That's another myth of walking vehicles. They can't reach more types of terrain! Any heavily forested or very rugged areas are just as impassible for a wheeled vehicle as it is for a walking vehicle. Where a wheeled vehicle can get stuck, a walking one can trip or slip. Plus it doesn't let you magically get pass tight spaces where you can't fit in the first place, or climb up a dangerously steep hill since it is your weight that keeps you from climbing it, not the wheels. In fact, since the wheels have so much more grip surfaces, you may be worse off going with legs.
Incidentally, the gripping surface argument does not apply to wheeled vehicles in general or in this case in particular. 10 psi (estimated pressure of a standing AT-ST) is not typical tire surface pressure - that's about as low as you're supposed to let your tire pressure go off-roading in extreme conditions.
A walking vehicle can step over barriers and holes that a tracked vehicle cannot move over with impunity. It's a simple physical fact - a runner can go where a cyclist can't without dismounting and picking up the bike - and the cyclist can't carry the bike everywhere.
This is to say nothing of the problems the cyclist runs into with shocks and ramps. A foot is planted stationary on the ground in a discrete location, while a wheel necessarily goes over everything - a small hump will send you for an uncontrolled bounce into the air if you're on wheels, but doesn't if you're on foot.
And then there are traps. We've seen how walkers can succumb to traps - but if you're counting on a walker hitting a pressure plate to set off a mine, don't.
You haven't even touched the most important advantage... which is logistic. If I'm using AT-STs instead of, say, Bradleys, I don't have to refuel them every 300 miles. Land armies of the modern age are limited by their logistics trains... which ultimately are limited by the access to and transport of fuel.Like I've mentioned, virtually none of these advantages are true. The height advantage is useless since no decent infantry is going to stand wide open just at the edge of your reach just to get shot at. They're be hiding, and likely never engage you without anti-tank weapontry, which are dirtcheap nowadays. It's only meaningful advantage is its range, until it actually runs into a meaningful fight at which point it's fucked.
Or the second most important advantage... which is the raw firepower offered by the AT-ST's megajoule range blasters, which have something like 10-20 times the rate of fire of most MBT guns. That sort of destructive direct-fire potential is impressive to modern eyes.
Now, re: the height: Hiding is much harder if you have to do it against ground level and 8 meter level. Lots of otherwise perfectly good hiding spots are all too visible from two floors up. That's the problem of height - not having a larger global horizon, but being able to see over other things and see things more clearly. If you're hiding belly-down behind light cover, the AT-ST is going to be able to spot your head from three times the range that the Bradley will. Sniper hiding up in a tree, relying on the fact that many people don't think to look up from the ground? Oops, that's eye level.
And think about anti-tank weapons for a minute. Relative to other infantry arms, they're big, heavy, expensive, carry few reloads, etc. They may be small, convenient, and cheap compared to - say - tanks, but they clearly haven't made the armored vehicle obsolete yet, and it would be very unusual to give one to every soldier in lieu of, say, an assault rifle.