Splattering Guts for Fun & Profit

by Bruce Bethke

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We sci-fi writers like 'em big, fast, and badass. The mightiest starship that ever sailed the starry skies; the toughest and most indestructible tank that ever chewed up the scenery while spitting death and destruction. The biggest and most powerful gun ever carried in the hands of our intrepid and broad-shouldered hero, and the most impenetrable fortress ever created—which of course, is exactly what our hero must penetrate, all the while schlepping his big, heavy, clanking gun, in order to do whatever it is we want him to do to resolve the plot.

Out here in the real world, superlatives often fail. All weapons of war are the result of a four-way compromise between the contending forces of offensive capability, defensive value, portability, and available capital—or as the tread-heads like to put it, firepower, armor, and speed. (Tread-heads rarely consider how much it costs. That's Somebody Else's Problem.) But you, as an SFF world-builder, must give some passing thought to these things, or at least come up with some suitable hand-waving to chase them away.

It really doesn't matter what kind of warfare your SFF story requires; the four-way compromise still applies. You have a merry band of tree-hugging primitives living in the forest primeval and fighting the evil technocratic empire? Then they'd better have trade with The Tribe That Discovered Metal or else they're going to get slaughtered like monkeys when they go up against guns with rocks and sticks. You have ranks of hoplite foot-soldiers who have discovered the value of shields, long spears, and bronze breastplates? Absent some miraculous technological breakthrough that violates the known laws of physics, armor means weight, so they will not be able to move as quickly as less-armored peltasts, although they will be able to take more and harder blows without suffering serious injury.

You want to keep improving the armor of your fighting men? Then you'd better teach them to fight while sitting, start raising Percherons, and devote your economy to breeding and feeding an otherwise-idle warrior class. And these ideas, taken together, ought to push your world-building exercise in a whole new direction, for as anyone who has ever owned a horse will tell you, that you don't feed them hay, you feed them money. But that is a discussion for another time.

Back to superlatives. Keith Laumer, bless his soul, loved to populate his stories with 200-ton tanks. Towards the end of WWII the Germans actually built a few 100-plus-ton tanks—and quickly gave up the exercise, when they found they lacked the ability to deploy the monstrosities anywhere in time to do any good. Again, absent some fantastic new breakthrough in applied physics, armor equals weight equals the energy required to move the thing, either under its own power or by some other mode of transport, which has a whole 'nother set of implications for lift capacity and logistical support.

The British also built a 100-tonner—the "Flying Elephant," a true land battleship—but gave up in the early stages, as they realized the thing needed four sets of treads: two on the outside, to provide primary motive power, and another pair under the belly, to keep the thing from sinking into the earth and being immobilized by its own weight. The Russians likewise experimented with super-heavies, but given their general political and social philosophy decided that four 25-ton tanks were better than one 100-ton tank. The biggest thing the Americans ever put on treads was the T-28, which was practically a welterweight at a mere 85 tons, but it never went operational and was quickly superseded by the T-29, T-30, and ultimately, the M-103 and then the M1 Abrams.

Here on Earth, on anything other than hard rock or specially prepared roadbeds, 70 tons seems to be about the practical limit for fighting vehicle size, after which speed and firepower consistently beat size and armor.

On water, however, it's another story...

Next week: How Admiral Sir John Fisher apparently was holographically resurrected in the 25th Century and put in charge of Star Fleet ship design!