Nied

Re-winging a plane is prohibitively expensive. I'm surprised it was even half-way seriously considered. Cheaper to make a new plane than re-engineer a wing to fit something else. (And it's not like the -22 has all that wonderful a wing). Probably cheaper and more effective to just do F-18-style RCS reduction. (RAM in the intake is a good place to start with that curved big inlet)

Well I've heard rumors that the F-16 has a pretty low RCS as it is (aparently that's why F-16s were one of the first fighters to get the gold tinted canopies, as a measure to further reduce RCS). I could see LM making a serious effort to put a better performing stealthier wing on the aircraft and try to capitalise on it even more.

It's possible that that's where the Australian Grand Cannon (and it's surrounding military facilities) were being constructed.

Did they ever get that one up and running or did it just get completly blasted?

Well it was attacked and purportedly destroyed by anti-UN forces in 2006, there's no word on weather any efforts were made to re-build. I'm sure that the (assumedly) large military facilites surrounding such a project would look like quite an atractive target from orbit. If the Grand Cannon II were in the area shown in the display I'd doubt there'd be much to re-construct.

I know Firefox's F-16 is fictional and Nied's F-16 was a proposal that Lockheed had proposed for the international market (I believe it was specifically for a Middle Eastern country), but these kind of RCS reductions are a joke.  The 90 degree angle resulting from the single tail and weapons hanging on pylons and at the wingtips would pretty much destroy whatever RCS reduction was achieved.

Well I think that the RCS redustions are just that: reductions . I don't think that they are actually intended to turn an F-16 into a stealth aircraft, but they would reduce the range at which they could be dected, which is an advantage (the same could be said for the measures taken to reduce the RCS of the SUper Hornet). Just because an aircraft isn't stealthy doesn't mean you can't make it less detectable.

Oh yeah and the Block 60 was first proposed for the United Arab Emerites (though many features from the final version have been incorperated into Hellenic (Greek) Air Force Block 52 Falcons).

While we're on the subject of stealthy F-16 variants; has anyone ever seen this pic of an early Block 60 proposal that incorperates the wing from an F-22? Aparently it was abandoned as being too expensive to implement. Mighty cool though.

No LOAN nozzel this time? That would seem to fit with the low observable measures you've put into this one.

What I want to know, is what's up with Australia?  Isn't most of that uninhabited?

*smiles*

Around 70-80% of the Australian population live in and around the 3 east coast state captials, so nuking Western Australia, apart from killing Perth, title holder for city furtherest away from any other city on Earth, doesn't do to harm Australia much as far as that image is concerned

Cyc

It's possible that that's where the Australian Grand Cannon (and it's surrounding military facilities) were being constructed.

there is too much room in the anime. It's a mistake I think. At least, the maximum width of the nose should be the battroid's cockpit's width because the pilot's chair is only rotating. The pilot is not leaving the nose. He stays in place. He doesn't travel into the robot's chest. LOL. He is not a fly worm in a dead body.

The seat doesn't just stay in the nose it actually elevates up into the chest. Ditto with the YF/VF-19 the seat rotates and moves up into the chest of the mecha where there is more room.

Has the new-style vectoring too, I see.

Or at the very least a LOAN nozzel. Very cool.

Is it an animation mistake? Has the Froating Head deemed it so? Maybe its there on purpose just like the missiles on Max's tail and the Orguss/Valk hybrid thingy.

That's why I put it in quotes in my first post there. I seriously doubt given how it shows up in two distinct shots that it really is an animation error. I would say it's a deliberate change just like Max's tail missiles (desinged by Ichiro Itano as Quel-Quallie killer), or the Orgus Valk.

Well in most VFs the the cockpit is actually moved deeper into the mecha (in the Valkyries case it's inside the chest), thus the cocpit is in a larger cavity than it's in while in fighter or GERWALK.

There are several pics of this "animation error" floating around on the net. The easiest to access is on the RObotech.com site in the YF-1R profile.

Maybe it's the landing gear light?

We see those in the last episode of M+. The landing light is mounted on the nose gear. Isamu uses it as a spot light to find Myung.

I had always figured they were some form of "headlights" similar to the high power lights on the shoulders of the VF-1.

True but with enough thrust even bricks can fly and the VF-1 has plenty of thrust.

But the very nature of drag is that the harder you push the harder it pushes back. If an aircraft tries to go faster it will just be hitting more air to slow it down, eventually there's no amount of thrust that could overcome the drag induced. That's why all aerospace research hasn't been just thrown into engine development, because like most things brute force doesn't take you very far.

Well if a 747 can fly with a space shuttle on it's back I think a VF-1 can fly with FAST Packs. It's be like a flying brick but it could do it. And I think they would only be used in the upper upper atmosphere to boost the VF into true space.

Ah but a space shuttle is an aircraft designed to fly at high speeds within an atmosphere. It is shaped reletively aerodynamicaly and thus would imppose only a small amount of drag on the 747. A FAST pack is shaped like a very big box, it is in no way aerodynamic and thus would create an imense amount of drag.

There's also drag to consider. A Valkyrie with FAST packs attached would be about as aerodynamic as a barn door. Sure there would be added thrust from the boosters but as speed increases so does drag, and I doubt it would be long before the drag far outweighed the extra thrust of the FAST packs. I doubt a valk could get much past stall speed with FAST packs attached.

Someones been playing to much Battletech. I dare you to try and climb on a moving car, even a slow one, and plant a bomb on it. Now give that car mounted guns to shoot you before you get there. Not only that, look what modern infantry weapons can do to modern tanks. Hell, look what modern tanks can do to modern tanks! A T-80 and M-1 could go at it all day and neither would knock the other out. And you'll notice the Tomahawk has both a forward and rear mounted sensor package. Oh, and a LOT of anti infantry weapons. A pair of .50's, pair of 25mm cannons (if you want to be mean), and a pair of flamethrowers (if you want to be evil). Not something you want to go toe to toe with. It looks like the Tomahawk and Spartan where designed to totally overpower human infantry, and I'm pretty sure it's a cold day in hell when human resistence manages to take one down.

Actually modern anti tank weapons are quite effective at taking down even an M-1A2. Hell I fyou want to talk about anti-infantry weapons an M-1A2 has one .50cal machine gun, two 7.62mm machine guns and a pair of grenade launchers, it also has a turreted FLIR capable of looking anywhere the commander does, yet quite a few were still taken down by Iraqi forces using simple things like mortars and RPGs. While both the Tomohawk and the Spartan have a plethora of light weapons (though only the .50cals and the flamethrowers would be of much use the rest apears to be anti-armour weaponry), they have a limited field of fire. One might also wonder why the designers would mount anti-personel weaponry on the mecha in the first place if infantry were so minor a threat.

My whole point with overtechnology is not that it cannot be applied, but the relative gains that you recieve out of applying such technology is minor when you compare that to larger units. Think of it this way, Macro scale weapons are now X5 more powerful when combined with overtechnology (Gunpods missiles, beam weaponry and most importantly armor) Micro scale hand held weapons only increase X2 with overtechnology.

That's all fine theory, but where's your evidence? Obviously overtechnology provided enough of an advantage to warrant making a miniaturized LAW. And it's blatantly obivous that it allowed miniaturization of weapons on a scale unheard of before (micro missiles).

I'd say that infantry weapons in the Macross world can nolonger damage their tanks of the day (VFS)

I disagree with your premise. Destorids are much closer to a modern day tank than a VF (VFs are far too light for heavy assults).

Look at micromissiles, none of the weapons carried by the VF-1 could be micronized to the point where they can be carried by a human (more or less launched by one thinking about the kickback and blowback).

Micromissiles are already small enough to be carried by infantry all that's needed is a proper launcher. Kickback would be no more of an issue than it is with modern LAWs (that why they're open at both ends).

Regardless even in 2010 it takes vast swarms of missiles to hit and take down a VF. And by 2040 we have pinpoint barrier technology which just makes VFs nigh invinicible to infantry weapons.

Actually it only takes one. Most missiles are evaded which is why so many are launched (ups your hit propability). Of course in an urban or other enclosed environment even a VF would lose the maneuverability that allows it to avoid so many missiles.

Line art courtesy of the Robotech reference guide:

And in use:

Here it is again:

Here's my hand held micro missile launcher. Small enough to be carried as an emergency side arm in a VF too.

Actually Overtechnology has led to advances in the miniturization of weaponry. Just look at micro missiles. They pack more of a punch than modern missiles at a fraction of the size (and judging from how many most VFs can carry their wieght as well). Now just consider the type of infantry sized weapon you could create using that same technology (miniturization, an more powerful explosives). Hell it shouldn't be hard to turn the warheads found in any number of overtechnology powered weapons and put them in sachel form.

I say this because in macross Plus they still use H&K MP-5s for guards. I'm guessing that Overtechnology has been unable to provide the regular infantry with significant advances in military technology.

those were not MP-5s

this is an MP-5

This is what they had in Macross Plus

I find it hard to beilieve that you couldn't apply overtechnology to infantry. I'd love to have a rifle made out of hypercarbons (light weight and strong), firing shells powered by an overtech charge (higher muzzle velocity), or even a hand held micro missile launcher (that's how you'd take down a VF).

THe Zentradi fleet was in a very high orbit, most likely geosynchronous. At that altitude even stuff shot directly at earth would just end up accelerating and entering a different orbit, rather than actually making planetfall. The explosions seen in Macross really don't look to be energetic enough to really change the trajectory of the debris enough to send many into the Earth. It would seem the main legacy of Space War one would be a very large cloud of debris, that while making navigation dificult, would probably pose little threat to the inhabitants below.

If you want to talk reasons for an atmospheric cleanup, just think of how much radio active material there is in your average nuclear reactor, and then think of how most of the nuclear reactors in the world would have been turned into vapor by an orbital bombardment.

How many infantry are going to stand up to a 30+ foot tall mecha with more weapons than a tank?? Sure they can do it but a lot of them are going to get killed in the prossess. What you really need the infantry for is keeping and policing the city once the Destroids and Valkyries have taken it.

Ideally you would use combined arms to capture your target. Infantry, Armor, Destroids and Valkyries. That way each of them can support the other.

The same way infantry can take down a tank in modern days. Simply wait in a city with the proper weaponry and ambush ambush ambush. That's been the technique for taking out tanks since they were invented. I don't think putting them on legs would change much.