[Ogre] It's raining heavies

[David Morse]

John D. Gwinner wrote:
> I'm trying to create a scenario with Ogre's and Heavies on Mars.
> 
> GEV's wouldn't works so well, but I figure a Heavy might be big enough
> you could have some life support (air/portalet) added to it, so the
> crews could operate on Mars.
> 
> The next question: how to get them there?
> 
> Does anyone think even with reduced gravity, that they could be dropped
> from orbit using the air bag method used so well with robots?  Even at
> Mars gravity, that's a lot of weight.
> 
> My scenario also has an orbital elevator, so I was thinking maybe they
> got smuggled to the surfce in sealed cargo containers.  Land the crew,
> shoot up the port, pop the containers, and voila, an invading army.
> 
> My problem with that is that the orbital elevator would be at Pavonis
> Mons, and that's a ways away from anything interesting, so the vehicles
> would have to drive several hundred or thousand miles to attack.  With
> technology in the late 21st, would a tank be capable of several hundred
> or a thousand miles travel without a lot of maintenance?
> 
> I'd drop light / missle tanks, but I don't think they'd be big enough to
> have the room to add some oxygen bottles, but let's face it, with the
> hostile battlefield in the Ogreverse, maybe that's built in.
> 
> Thoughts?

I've been thinking along these lines for a while too (see 
http://www.osaurus.us/~dm/triplanetary/ogre.html for a work in 
progress).  The problem is, the best heavy lift we have now is the Space 
Shuttle - 60 tons, about as much as a Heavy Tank.  If we stopped dicking 
around we could perhaps get 300 tons, but ultimately its never going to 
be economical for anyone, even the pentagon, to burn 1,000,000 tons of 
fuel to get 100 tons of armor to mars.

Thus I think your Ogre is going to have to be fabricated, or at least 
assembled from parts, at a secret government base on or under Mars itself.

But hey, I'm no rocket scientist!  I'm just making these "facts" up as I 
deem convenient.  :)