Gundam vs Gunturret

[Kavik Ryx]

Personally, as an advocate for giant robots, Labors more than Mobile Suits, I often attempt to argue criticism regarding their use. It's worked so far for me; however, yesterday, I was in a conversation about this issues and he brought up how an all range gun platform or turret is superior to a Mobile Suit in combat in terms of cost and performance. Granted we were discussing the 22nd century, but his arguments were rather good. I'll offer some of what is input was soon, but first, your opinions.

[Recon 5]

I would go with either small powered armor or aerial gunships (think A-10 or Apache) myself, but a static turret is hardly useful nowadays. I think we left that particular concept behind at the Maginot Line and Normandy because those incidents proved just how limited a stationary emplacement really is.

For adequate survivability, your gun platform needs to be able to move, and that would make it a tank, multipedal (more than two legs) mecha, battleship or aerial gunship (land, sea or air mobility) and not a turret anymore.

Of course, you could present any number of reasons why other types of mobile weapons would be better than mobile suits, but to argue that static weapons are better than mobile suits (or any type of mobile weapon, for that matter) is just plain wrong.

[Kavik Ryx]

Which it does. The turret moves, it can be on a tank, an airplane, a helicopter, or whatever. One of his arguments was the it takes less energy and time to change the angle of a turrets barrel than for a mobile suit to move its arm to lock on to its target. Though it has just occurred to me, that moving a gun barrel would take up considerably more energy if it were longer range.

[Recon 5]

Which it does. The turret moves, it can be on a tank, an airplane, a helicopter, or whatever. One of his arguments was the it takes less energy and time to change the angle of a turrets barrel than for a mobile suit to move its arm to lock on to its target. Though it has just occurred to me, that moving a gun barrel would take up considerably more energy if it were longer range.

You'll have to remember that although turrets have 360 degree horizontal traverse (theoretically- modern tanks have stuff behind that keeps the turret from turning all the way thus creating a blind spot) and a fairly rapid horizontal turn rate, their vertical traverse is limited, and quite slow to boot. No tank nowadays (and none in any mecha series IIRC) has the ability to point its gun 90 degrees up, and mobile suits can do that quite easily- just look at RX- 78 vs. Zeong.

Also, use of beam weaponry requires the gun platform to have a clear line- of- sight because the beams lack ballistic trajectory, therefore, a beam weapon platform would have to be able to adjust its elevation in order to shoot over obstacles instead of having to spend time going around them. A tank or tower would have to raise its whole turret to shoot over stuff taller than itself, and I don't think that has even been conceived as a viable concept for a tank. An MS can do that easily.

One thing to note: Gundams already have 'turrets' in a sense- they have the equivalent of two GAU-8/A Avengers in their heads .

[Den]

hmmm are we talking bout gundam MS an MA or mecha in general? because if it was in the gundam, it seems that the MS are more agile and could use more types of weapon unlike the turret, which could only use the weapon it was built with. so versatility wise, i'd go for the MS.

[HalfDemonInuyasha]

Also, with the improvement of Mobile Suit mobility over the years, turrents are even less reliable to use in terms of an actual defense against Mobile Suits. With so many units able to move pretty quickly if even just running, much less hovering.

It's why there are really no other tank-like MS used (or at least deemed "successful") since the last of the Guntank series. Not too long after, even more support-based MS (like the GM Cannon series and whatnot) aren't used much. Later ones were mostly just more modular, general-purpose units equipped with equipment for such tasks.

[Kavik Ryx]

Personally, I like the idea of mechs more, and this is an all inclusive thread, but just to play devil's advocate, a turret is rather inexpensive, and I am sort of referring to the Zolo terminal or the Tomilat helicopter, the latter capable of defeating a Gun EZ. Also, lets not forget that a gunnery platform can also utilize plasma based weapons and mega particle cannons, which are rather difficult to avoid for the average and even an ace pilot.

[Recon 5]

Personally, I like the idea of mechs more, and this is an all inclusive thread, but just to play devil's advocate, a turret is rather inexpensive, and I am sort of referring to the Zolo terminal or the Tomilat helicopter, the latter capable of defeating a Gun EZ. Also, lets not forget that a gunnery platform can also utilize plasma based weapons and mega particle cannons, which are rather difficult to avoid for the average and even an ace pilot.

A turret can mount anything, even a melee weapon. However, as I said earlier turrets have a difficult time (at least with current technology) adjusting their elevation, whether its raising the gun only to shoot at flying targets or raising the whole turret so that the gun can shoot down at enemies.

A unit with an arm- yes, this includes the crazy idea of mounting a single arm on a tank in place of a turret, a concept which I sometimes think is reliable even despite the associated trade- offs- can overcome this elevation problem easily.

An aerial unit with a turret has a different, but more complicated problem. It can adjust its elevation easily, but since most aerial units have turrets much smaller than their fuselage, they must find a way for their turrets to shoot around the fuselage if necessary, which is currently impossible thus necessitating that units like the B- Series mount multiple turrets (which still hasn't solved the problem).

[Gadget]

A unit with an arm- yes, this includes the crazy idea of mounting a single arm on a tank in place of a turret, a concept which I sometimes think is reliable even despite the associated trade- offs- can overcome this elevation problem easily.

An aerial unit with a turret has a different, but more complicated problem. It can adjust its elevation easily, but since most aerial units have turrets much smaller than their fuselage, they must find a way for their turrets to shoot around the fuselage if necessary, which is currently impossible thus necessitating that units like the B- Series mount multiple turrets (which still hasn't solved the problem).

Arm Turrent. FYI, an episode of the old Transformer cartoon, did that. Megatron manage to get hold of Prime's arm with his lazer rifle. And he mounted on top of a building and it works as a turrent. When Prime gets very near, he was able to overide Megatron's control and regain control of his arm, remotely.

Plane mounted turrent. SV-51, VF-1S and some VF-fighters did have turrents. And they can be fired from fighter mode. Current helicopter gunship alreay have gun turrents. And ground attack plane, like the F15E and F117 have a lazer turrent. Althought they are ment for guiding the LGB. So havinf a turrnt on a plane is not that a big issue. Energy weapon to shoot down missiles are also mountedin a turrent. Cannot remember which plaen. (Modified 707?)

Turrents are best serve as static defense system. Their avantage is their unlimited power supply, and heavier weapons. If the turrents are slave to a good radar and targeting system, it should be good enough. And if the shooter is a NT, it could should down the ace MS pilot. (As in CCA)

In Macross, on top of lots of defensive turrents on the SDF1, they also have what I call 'mobile turrents'. Actually, they are the Destroids. The Valykier lunching like fighters, and the Destroid pops up from some hidden compartment like Eva untis. Howere, I always see them get shoots up. Even way back as early as in Macross Zero days. The problem is that the VF-1 is the stir, not these 'grunts' units.

[Kavik Ryx]

About the issue with range, I take you are saying that because a turret can only fire on on plane. This example is very much so fictitious, but remember the Ion cannon from The Empire Strikes Back? The only direction it could not fire was at itself.