How would warfare on Mars look like?
I don't know, but they're going to be using M4s
Heavy suits of armor, 20mm minigun, and 10,000 rounds on tap
ma deuce
>>64572251I legit thought this was another MikeeUSA thread.That being said, pretty much >>64572255 with heavier and more high velocity rounds to punch through space suits and work around the lighter gravity.
>>64572251Someone post the commie claim jumping on mars one. I haven't seen that one in years.
>>64572251Dusty. Not as bad as the moon though.
>>64572251Red.
>>64572251Probably just drones fighting other other drones
>>64572251>2066>Stationed on Mars to quell a rebellion>Become side door gunner for atmospheric dropship>No miniguns or gatling cannons, just some metal brick with a pipe on one end.>Get sent in to extract some wounded.>Reach the evac zone and come under attack.>Hoard of rebels charging in with their new plasma guns and compact rocket launchers.>Let loose a stream of bullets.>The sounds of the rebel's screams are nearly drowned out by the heavy "Kachunk chunk chunk chunk" of the machinegun.>The wounded are loaded up and returned to base.>Inspect MG afterwards.>Thing was made in 1942.>Tunisia, Italy and Germany are scratched onto the gun.>Scratch "Mars" on with a knife.
>>64572251RedIt would look red
>>645722511/2By book 2 of this trilogy, a rebellious Mars has attempted to lob an asteroid at Earth.The Martian independence faction equips itself with two main platforms:a "boulder car" and a "boulder missile truck." These are buggies with large fairings, which hide underneath a gigantic array of radiators. The point being to camouflage themselves against satellite observation.Everyone in factional armed struggles on Mars is basically playing with rapiers. They're all trying to poke each other from as far away as possible. Since everyone is on life support all the time, even by Book 2 when some Terraforming is finally taking off, just a single puncture wound is all you really need to take something out of the fight.Since the Martian forces are all well-adapted and intimately familiar with their environment, their leader is epitomized by a kooky, unhinged eco-warrior hippy scientist harpy-woman-- who was one of the initial NASA settlers. She's really more like their spiritual figurehead.Because a lot of them are nerds and libertarian types, even though they have very advanced technical aptitude, their combat tactics and politicking are poor.
>>64573493the air on mars is thinner than my blanket, so the drones need giant rotors spinning at mach speeds to lift up a tiny dronesome goes for winged drones, the drone can only really use the wings when travelling at super speedsthe lack of air and low gravity instead massively increases the range of artillery
>>64573730It's a sniper war.The Earth forces and Earth-aligned forces have a lot of future-Barretts. They don't know the land as well as the Martians, but they at least know how to hide and wait.Defending a major Aerogel Dome city from Martian rocket trucks, the Earth Security Expedition allow the Martians' Boulder Car & Rocket Truck formation to come fully into view. Upon opening fire, none of the Martian vehicles escape the sight line; after ~200 vehicle losses in their culminating push, the Martians are broken.Then they are hunted down in detail for a few years.But ultimately the whole campaign is moot either way because of larger, geopolitical economic trends.Earth forces don't camouflage as such, since they have "the ultimate high ground" the whole time. They want to get out in the field to find everyone camped out in their little mining-holes.
>>64573740oh and btw, if you still read books:DO NOT read "Blue Mars," (book 3 in the trilogy).The author is a Fukuyaman end of history neoliberal; he takes the story in yuuugely faggoty directions, even late in Green Mars (book 2).It's kinda funny when he's still on point with some minor details. He presents plenty of Bezos / Musk personalities involved in Martian development. And this book was from the early 1990's.
>>64573738Gravity is the enemy of flight, and less dense air allows for faster spinny bits given the same input power.No, the issue isn't really the blade's speed.It's that Mars is so damn dusty and perilous, anything for flight you put there is going to slowly grind itself away over time.
>>64572251"How would warfare on mars look"OR"What would warfare on mars look like"Those are your choices, ESL
>>64573738they flew that helicopter thing on mars it's not as impossible as you're implying
>>64572251everything on Mars is 3x lighter. How does that change the role of infantry?
>>64572251
>>64573865Not impossible, but drones would be comparably less effective on mars than on earth while other weapons like artillery would be way more effective So you are unlikely to see them outside a few niche uses where carry weight or range aren't issues
>>64572251I came here to point out that 1/6th gravity (or is it 1/4er?) will drastically affect ballistics, as will the 5% atmosphere, SEE: >>64573738. The comments about dust are overstated given the 5% relative to Earth atmosphere. Yes, it's a factor, but not that much worse than Earth.What resources you gonna use for projectile weapons? Gonna need something that burns for gunpowder & explosives. Mars is a VERY poor environment for most of that shit, meaning the rest requires a robust import economy from Earth &/or things like comets & asteroids. Same for fuel, so your vehicles will be electric/battery and you're going to somehow have to manufacture batteries & magnets from rare earth minerals ... which will require a robust mining economy. Sacrifice some of your rare water resources for hydrogen power.Even wood to build things like trebuchets doesn't exist, so you need some sort of materials for even Medieval siege engines & such. No plastics since there is no petroleum to suck out of the ground. Going to require a robust agriculture economy to grow things like creosote plants for substitute oil (instead of food). Where is all that water going to come from? Also, sunlight at Mars orbit is something like 1/6th or 1/8th as concentrated as Earth orbit, so that will affect your agriculture, too.War is expensive and wasteful, luxuries not available on Mars.No magnetic fields protecting you from the Sun's radiation, BTW. Better plan for that shit.Lasers and compressed air projectile weapons, railgun tech, microwaves & such will probably feature very prominently. Hand-to-hand combat will be a large factor, and weapons for that will also be resource-starved. So, lots of low-G, advanced martial arts to optimize for food scarcity. Food=energy.
>>64572299>punch through space suitsSo, a BB gun. Space suits are very fucking fragile. Like, VERY. A wrist crossbow with broadheads to slice and tear large gaps will probably be effective out to ~150 meters or so, maybe even further. There's a very significant improvement in ballistics after factoring in greatly reduced gravity and air density that rivals the vacuum of space.>>64572255Describe how bullets and other ammo will be manufactured &/or imported.
>>64574235>rare water resourcesthere's fucktons of water within Martian soil, at least in the areas where we have sampled>Gonna need something that burnshydrogen-methane fuel-air explosives>No plastics since there is no petroleummethane is available so you could polymerise that, although I think it would be very expensive, but your main material source ought to be iron because Red Planet, duh>creosote plants for substitute oilfor energy, nofor building material, biopolymer-generating algae farms may be more efficient>so that will affect your agriculture, too>Sun's radiation, BTW. Better plan for that shitgood point>So, lots of low-G, advanced martial arts to optimize for food scarcity. Food=energyonly initially
>>64573868You mean enlisted can carry 3x times more shit around?>Drools in OF4/5 wishlisting crap to put on and around backpacks.
>>64572251Millions of AI robots and human serfs fighting for the now 600 year old God Emperor of Mars Chadlon Musk.
>>64574269I can agree most counterpoints are fair. The larger point I'm making expense vs efficiency.>War is expensive and wastefulMars warfare will have to be much more efficient than what we see on Earth. Casualties to bodies, equipment, and economy will all have much greater impact than the price we pay for conflicts like Ukraine, for example. Including environmental contamination.Harvesting ice & transporting it so it can be used as water is certainly possible, but will still be quite a luxury needed for survival. "Rare" is relative to Earth; it will have very high value on Mars where wasting it on warfare will require intense need & planning.Back to agriculture: radiation from the Sun will affect plants very much like it will affect humans ... and pretty much a wide array of materials. Shielding and genetically modified/selected strains to withstand that will be important. What about the entire ecology of microbes & bugs for healthy crops? All need similar protection & careful selection.To take advantage of the weak sunlight at Mars orbit, there will be a heavy concentration of activity near the equator where the sunlight is strongest. Which happens to be furthest from the poles where ice is much more common. Back to intensely efficient logistics for harvesting & transportation. These factors will help define military goals for occupying premium real estate, disruption of transportation & industry, etc.I'm gonna double down on the premium value for hand-to-hand combat skills. They may decrease in value over time, but will continue to play a much more weighted role than we currently give them on Earth. The value of a meatbot that can fight and self-repair should not be underestimated.There is a lot of tech that will have to be developed and invented that we can barely even imagine right now. Trying to imagine how that will play out in warfare isn't straightforward since numerous problems that need to be solved are gamechangers and showstoppers.
>>64574294more like>hey Morty look at me, I'm Lumbricus Musk!>I've lived so long I hate women and forgot how to fuck but I still fall for that one special woman every century or so but they keep disappointing me so I keep dumping them until eventually one of them will just assassinate me or something I guess
>>64574246different anon but with the reduced gravity having a heavier armored space suit is very practical. I don't really see medieval stuff working very well
>>64572251Dust and unpleasant. The air is just thick enough to be a nuisance without actually being useful. Guns will cool at a slower rate and you can't use the air for combustionWhat wind there is kicks up this ultrafine dust which will get into every nook and cranny that's not basically airtight. You can use lube but that dust will turn it into sludge. The brightside is the gravity is pretty low and there's no liquid water to turn the sand into mud so you can get away with some cool land vehicle designs that would never work on Earth. So...Mad Max/tankpunk?
>>64572333Found it.
>>64574366>counterpointsactually I was hoping you'd bullshit-check me haha>Mars warfare will have to be much more efficientinitially, obviously yeslater on I think with more infrastructure in place, it might reach similar scales, but which resources are abundant and which scarce will change>hand-to-hand combat skills>will continue to play a much more weighted role than we currently give them on EarthI really doubt it, Herberton the other hand, the need to preserve and capture infrastructure because of its cost, and the need to fight under radiation shielding, should mean that CQB will be more important relatively than on Earth
>>64577652>really doubt it, HerbertHas my name become a Killing Word? shizzlemedat>CQB will be more important relatively than on EarthPretty much the point I was trying to make. What will Mars combat look like? Something like Sardaukar vs. Fremen vs. Fish Speakers. It will require inventions and optimizations that we haven't imagined yet. I wasn't trying to say there would be no weapons, but the value of warm bodies will be greater as it is an expensive resource to cultivate in a Mars environment.Nitpicking (rather than calling bullshit), note that algae farms require a lot of liquid water and sunlight, or expensive artificial light, to produce food &/or plastics. Or whatever agriculture that spits out usable oil for building materials, explosives, food, etc. I mentioned creosote bushes because they are low water use, but maybe highly efficient water recycling and loss prevention tips the scales toward algae.Also nitpick, harvesting methane from bioorganic waste is a solid idea, but converting it into gunpowder/cordite/etc. is probably a bit of a trick. Thus, new inventions needed to support more traditional views of warfare as we have experienced it on Earth. Might make an interesting component for somesort of plastic explosive/gunpowder for projectile weapons. I'd be curious about available phosphates/sulfates/nitrates etc. on Mars.And, still need to invent a mining industry that operates on a micro-fraction of the water we waste on it here on Earth.
>>64572251Brutal as fuck i hope!
>>64573738>>64572251I recall someone on YouTube doing the math and a 88mm German Flak cannon set up on the pole could hit a target almost at the equator.Which means that on Mars super long range fires would become the norm, supported by satellite constellations that would be much cheaper in comparaison.With little to no atmosphere you wouldn't have any aircraft and the only way you could move around would be in small groups during nighttime. Fortifications would be vulnerable and would probably be dug into the ground.Another interesting aspect imo would be that while Mars has lots of Iron, it doesn't have much water or carbon. If carbon was an issue people would need some sort of system to collect the CO2 they're breathing out, and firearms spilling out carbon and water as gas might be a problem. At the same time crossbows have a better trajectory to use as small arms.
>warfare on Marslots of digging
>>64573750I'd say the author is closer to socialism than neoliberalism. It's got a whole lot of wishful thinking in it and assuming that most people will rise above their baser natures but it can still be a fun read.What people shouldn't read is 2312 because the author is a full on /d/eviant. As fun as the book is, it doesn't justify traveling on an asteroid that's both solar system mass transit and a hyper futa sex party with a midget detective.
>>64573865>>64573762Not him, but they flew a 1.8 kg helicopter with 2x 1.2m contra-rotating rotors in hops averaging about 100 seconds before spending the entire day recharging. Now if you were there in person you could use larger batteries, get rid of the solar charger and do battery swaps instead, but it basically had no other payload or apparatus on it, so its still very far from the performance required of military drones. Doesn't make them useless, but does mean you don't get a Ukraine style drone war. Meanwhile tho, the gravity is so light and air is so thin you have OTH concerns from frag.
>>64580264well maybe you will get armored calvary charges and tons of artillery if there's no real air support
>>64578377>midget detectivelet me guess, is that the guy from the end of Blue Mars?The guy at the open air bar who "m'lady" apologizes to the chick he accidentally motorboated, before mocking the Earth Security Drop Trooper that landed on the crowd?I figured that character was just another obnoxious "marginalized character experience," but it figures that Robinson would have important designs for him in later stories, especially as the character was given the position of "final word" in the initial Trilogy.
>>64580343No, it's only a soft sequel not an actual sequel. A lot of similar themes and events though.
>>64574246>So, a BB gun. Space suits are very fucking fragile. Like, VERY.No they are not. They're designed to be durable and resistant to puncture by micrometeoroid and orbital debris. They wouldn't stop a bullet or a hunting air rifle, but a BB gun or wrist crossbow wouldn't even adequately penetrate the HUT.This is also putting aside the fact that current EVA suits are designed to keep you alive for relatively long time even if there is a puncture, and if you're fighting a war you'd change your suits to adapt. >>64574235You could split CO2 into CO and O2? Its not the best propellant but its easy to produce on Mars
>>64573493With the cost of punching through earths orbit and sustaining life in space, drones is probably a good bet, best bet is just don't fight wars on mars
>>64573868not as much as many thinkthe gravity is less but the mass remains the same so you still need the same force to accelerate things to the same speed horizontally. less gravity also means less normal force and traction for your feet so it is possible things like bare rock would be significantly more slippery and sand would be even harder to push off of.add in the spacesuit and its not a stretch to imagine soldiers carrying even less gear.
>>64580608so everyone is like a 400 lbs fatty. Some of those fatties can really get moving
>>64580674well their weight would be less. if you wore nothing it would be like weighing 50lbs but you have a hard time starting and stopping because you have less friction. like drag racing an empty pickup on ice, its actually better to have a little weight back there even if the mass doesn't change muchit's part of why people had a hard time walking on the moon and kept falling.
>>64573738Lmao no they don't
>>64574366>>64574235>>64573730>rapiers>hand to handNah dedicated melee infantry were obsolete before breechloaders were the new hotness, and bayonets are obsolescent in the modern day. There might be limitations that let some seeming anachronisms happen but technology itself doesn't regress, just like how third world subsistence farmers aren't wearing the clothes of a medieval peasant.A Mars colony won't magically regress to 1800's metallurgy and manufacturing, so even if you accept the premise that firearms aren't feasible, options like air rifles still make melee combat largely irrelevant.
>>64578095>What will Mars combat look like? Something likePrinces Gate and Flight 8969 over and over and over again inside Martian regolith complexes or orbital habitats, I believemore MP5s and flashbangs, fewer kindjals and crysknives>algae farms require a lot of liquid water and sunlight, or expensive artificial lighttruenothing on Mars will be cheap, basically>harvesting methane from bioorganic wastemethanol can be synthesisedthe main purpose in this case however is to obtain polymers which are needed to make plastic explosives and fuel cells>available phosphates/sulfates/nitrates etc. on Marscertain non-organics I think are available or abundantit's the very useful organic types that aren't present
>>64572251>How would warfare on Mars look like?ESL much?But it wouldn't. The environment is far too hostile to consider that shit. You work together or you die.But, to follow your insanity to it's inevitable conclusion...You don't go for the infantry, you take out their habitat. They'll die, It's just time. Ofc, the logical counter is they take out yours - and then everyone just slowly dies...Dickhead.>the air on mars is thinner than my blanket, so the drones need giant rotors spinning at mach speeds to lift up a tiny droneExplaining the drone that ran way past it's mission spec, with tiny blades, spinning slower than the speed of sound.>the lack of air and low gravity instead massively increases the range of artilleryAlmost. It's the lack of atmosphere. But yeah. Kinetic weapons get range++. You blow the fuck out of the habitat, which won't take much of a fuckup to be fatal. Screw the troops, they'll die with nowhere to go.
>>64581568>Explaining the drone that ran way past it's mission spec, with tiny blades, spinning slower than the speed of sound.the mars drone kind of proves that drones are not going to have the same effect they had on earthit had an incredibly light load for its motor size due to the thin air, the reduced gravity did not come close to offsetting the thinner atmospherethey also had significant overheating problems even with such a small motor because it had to work really hard to achieve such a small amount of lift and the vaccuum sealed body meant heat just built up inside and was in danger of cooking the interiorthe drone was an excellent proof of concept showing that we could theoretically use drones on mars, it was also a a proof of concept that any mars-based drone is going to have a ridiculously small payload thats going to struggle lift itself up nevermind a bomb
>>64581573>drones are not going to have the same effect they had on earthWell. Duh. It isn't Earth. The dynamics are different, the output will be different. But it's just a viscosity variable in the math. >hey also had significant overheating problems even with such a small motor because it had to work really hard to achieve such a small amount of lift and the vaccuum sealed body Vacuum sealed body? Hmm. Okay. So why no heatsinks? we're talking some pretty low temperatures, plenty of gasses to convect. I think you'll find the largest impedence wasn't heat, and it it was, it's a solvable problem.>have a ridiculously small payload thats going to struggle lift itself up nevermind a bombBut that's something that was known a long time before this drone was deployed. Kinda suggests 'bomb' isn't ever on the cards. But there again, intentionally fucking up the people you're working with shouldn't be either. There won't be any other options. It's work together or you all die.
