Cray
07/29/03 11:36 AM
147.160.1.5
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HISTORY
The Brute is a product of Bangalore Heavy Industries, a corporate giant of the former worlds of the Hindu Collective. (Long since a part of the Federated Suns, near the Crucis and Capellan March borders). BHI never directly built combat vehicles, but it frequently supplied components. Jalastar Aerospace of Panpour (a former Hindu Collective world) was an important (if relatively small) customer of BHI advanced aerospace and fusion engine materials. (Like most military/government contracts, the monetary value was small compared to the profits from civilian contracts.)
BHI's civilian status and distance from Terra helped it escape the worst of the Jihad; only its new, cutting edge optronics factory on Basantapur (opened to great interstellar fanfare) was nuked. After the Jihad, BHI reaped fortunes during the reconstruction of the Federated Suns. It made everything from structural steel to fusion engines, all in great demand, and had a huge construction division. There was initial hopes for profiting from a massive military reconstruction, but after initial jockeying by BHI (both in lobbying for contracts and buying out some military component makers), the Great Devlin Stone talked the Houses out of "big" militaries. BHI shrugged and turned its newly acquired divisions to civilian applications.
The Brute was not the first product of this swords-to-plowshares effort. BHI's new myomer company (VatGrow, Inc.) was soon producing myomers for artificial limbs (in great demand after the Jihad) and, later, all manner of consumer goods. HushCurtains (curtains laced with fast-twitch myomers that actively cancelled sound waves passing through them) were (and are) a huge hit; self-straightening bedsheets under various brand names are very popular; various control undergarments cancel undesired sway and jiggle while remaining pleasantly supportive. BHI's newly acquried zero-G metals facility, which had made endosteel for military applications, was incorporated into BHI's huge industrial metals division. It was soon expandied and being improved upon (entire House militaries were happy with a few hundred or thousands of tons of endosteel a year; civilians wanted 10000 tons for a single average-sized office building.) By 3100, BHI was shipping twenty megatons of endosteel alloy variations annually, and this was only a small percentage of the total annual metals production.
In 3095, BHI picked up the failing UltraDyne consortium for a song. The once-mighty holding company had thrived on military contracts. It had had fingers in every military pie, hiding behind front companies like Kallon and Earthwerks. Unfortunately, it didn't have fingers in much else, and its attempted transitions to the private sector were embarrassing failures. The "Exaggeration" Sport Utility Mech was a noted business debacle.
While UltraDyne was mostly liquidated, BHI did keep some of the more interesting pieces. For example, workmechs were quite the rage and did offer some advantages over conventional industrial vehicles. The mothballed remains of UltraDyne's mech factories meshed well with BHI's existing materials divisions and myomer division. After a few fits and starts, BHI released the Brute mining mech in 3103.
CAPABILITIES
The Brute is a large workmech built on a battlemech-grade chassis. Though it may seem ironic to the mechwarriors of the 31st Century for an ICE-powered mech to have an endosteel chassis, the combination provoked comment only briefly after the Brute's release. BHI's marketing campaign did not try to justify the combination at all - it came right out and said the endosteel was there because it freed a considerable amount of tonnage for the Brute's mining equipment. And every industry observer was familiar with BHI's bountiful endosteel production.
The Brute looks like a battlemech of old, too. The legs and torso have a passing resemblance to the old Thunderbolt's, though they are quite different inside. The bunker-like cockpit is centered on the torso and only resembles the TBolt's as a case of convergent evolution. The Brute is a mining mech with a need to protect its operator from rockfalls - the bunker-like cockpit did this well. Depending on whether the Brute is an "arm loader" or "chest shot," its mining/demolition equipment (twin LongBurn large lasers) are either mounted one per arm or one per side torso bay. ("Chest shots" outsell "arm loaders" 2:1. The powerful hand actuators work well in conjunction with the lasers, clearing debris and shoring up ceilings while the lasers continue to drill and ablate. Arm loaders cannot do this parallel work.) Its thick, rounded limbs appear muscular, an effect heightened by the Brute's squat (10m) build.
The Brute's engine and gyroscope are of little note. The GM 195 diesel is a workhorse engine found on many BHI earthmoving and construction machines; adapting it to the Brute was a straightforward task. It fits in a roomy engine compartment in a quick-dismount "power pack" that makes maintenance easy. The gyroscope is borrowed from (of all things) the WSP-1 Wasp battlemech, a machine that is still extremely common and widespread. The gyroscope compartment (above the engine) is also roomy and enables the complicated device to be easily dismounted. While many users of the Brute couldn't begin to repair the gyroscope (most often it's junked or sent back to the factory), it is very easy to replace.
The cockpit ensures the pilot does not suffer from the narrow bunker-like vision slits. VR goggles integrated into the standard, lightweight BHI-NeuroSys Neurohelm create a "ghost mech" effect that lets the pilot see right through the cockpit walls. The mech can be entirely eliminated from the view, reduced to a wireframe, or to a ghostly translucency. The pilot and command chair are generally left in the view, edited in by cockpit cameras. Cockpit life support is excellent. Military-grade powerpacks ensure the life support functions even when submerged (unlike the engine, such as when a drunk miner topples his Brute into a river or an underwater tunnel has a blowout), and roomy cockpit allows a likewise large fold-down "relief unit", refrigerator, and equipment lockers. The cockpit computers and controls are optimized for civilian pilots: simulation programs allow half-trained pilots to pick up a lot of valuable pointers without actually taking the Brute out of its garage.
The self-adapting training and help software adjusts to individual pilot personalities. (Some don't mind the constant "pop up" tips from the cutesy, virtual mini help mech, while others actively despise the avatar. The computers become more gruff and stern or subtle as needed to keep the pilot from getting himself killed and the mech wrecked.)
The cockpit is also the center for all the Brute's brains and senses. All sensor processors, all actuator control computers, all radios, all gyroscope control systems, all neurohelmet interface boards, etc. are in rack mounts in the cockpit around, behind, and above the command chair. Repair at a "box monkey" level is simple and quick: pull out the busted black box (IDd quickly by integral and/or handheld diagnostic systems) and put in a new one. Slightly more skilled techs can open the busted black box and replace the malfunctioning circuit board therein. Good techs can even attempt to repair a circuit board though, like most modern computers, little can be done except to pop out the odd fried chip or cooling fan and home a replacement works. The roomy rack mounts (designed for quick access and fumble-fingered techs alike) and flexible operating system enable improvised (or intentional) replacement parts to suit local supply conditions.
This concentration of "brains" in the cockpit has useful implications for techs maintaining the Brute. The body (center torso excluded) and limbs is just filled with bands of powerful myomers, the endosteel chassis frame members, and other "dumb" mechanical equipment. The chassis is easily weld-repairable, though it's a rare accident that requires the Brute's chassis to be repaired. The thick, protective shell of armor grade endosteel (every bit as effective as standard armor, but easier to make than the dual-layer battlemech armor) is ideal for the mining mech, even in cave-in prone areas. The rear armor is particularly thick because it was noted most pilot-error collisions in workmechs were when a workmech was backing up.
Myomer bundles are not repairable per se due to their intricate internal molecular structure. However, they are easily unhooked from their structural, power/data, coolant, and data attachments. BHI's innovative myomer bundles are self-contained systems, unlike many mechs. The coolant lines are pre-built into a bundle and in fact use myomers bands integrated into the tube to pump coolant, rather than a central mechanical pump. Cut-off valves (well, myomer pinch off bands) are at the ends of each bundle to seal damaged coolant lines. Lubricant lines are much the same as coolant lines, and shared with lubricant system for the chassis's joints. In effect, this gives the Brute two circulatory systems with no central heart and distributed reserves of "blood." All necessary power and control wires are pre-laced into a bundle, leaving just a few plugs to connect when a tech adds a new bundle to the mech and sparing lengthy manhours of threading wires into a less "complete" bundle. The power and control wires are one and the same: feedback from myomers is monitored as power fluctuations back along the power wires that would make the myomers contract, giving precise position and tension information to cockpit actuator control computers. Thus, repairing a damaged "motor" on the Brute is much easier than replacing a hydraulic piston or burned-out transmission on a conventional vehicle. The only downside is that most bundles are quite specifically shaped for a particular joint, requiring a large stock of specially-made myomer bundles.
Maintenance, such as lubricant and coolant replacement, is quite easy. The central access point on the center torso lets a tech hook up a coolant or lubricant feedline and pump in fresh coolant. The peristaltic fluid lines throughout the Brute quickly pump the fresh liquid throughout the mech's body, both into myomers and actuator joints alike. This spares techs the trouble of going from actuator to actuator to re-lube the Brute. If the central feed points is damaged, there are local jacks at most major actuators.
The computers of the Brute's cockpit not only include excellent diagnostics, but are capable of prognostic maintenance estimates. They predict in advance when a component is likely to fail based on its current behavior, saving techs the time of regular inspections. The Brute will tell techs when it needs maintenance in advance, rather than leaving the techs guessing or waiting until diagnostics say a part have failed.
Though the Brute's body is described as "dumb," that's a relative statement. The interlocking armor sections have minute optical, thermal, pressure, and other sensors linked by optical fibers in their interstices. This is integrated into the armor at the armor mill and not expected to be repaired in the field - it's simply an example of a normal 32nd Century "smart" material. This network, the power feedback monitors in myomers, and local temperature/pressure monitors in actuators give the Brute (and many other mechs) the basic sensors that let them sense the local terrain and walk in response to simple stick-and-pedal commands from the pilot. The Brute is unusual in that it harnesses the armor sensors to support its VR "ghost mech" pilot interface. A larger sensor array for ranged viewing and geological assessment is in the cockpit, of course.
The side torsos house the huge heat pump and radiator arrays of the heat sink system, which fills more than half of the Brute's side bays. The arrays are made out of 8 stacked, independent, and modular cooling systems that show clear origins in Battlemech heat sinks. Some engineers had hoped to mount pairs of heat sinks in the legs, but the bulky thigh and calf "bones" prevented this. An interesting feature in the 3112 (and later) Brutes are the rear torso and rear lower leg connections for external coolant lines. Because Brutes often work in areas with fixed facilities or in tunnels where tunneling progress is measured in meters per day, such external connections are quite feasible. And the mining industry is used to supplying high pressure water and air lines to its mining equipment. For the Brute, this meant it could operate its lasers almost continuously without dumping waste heat back into closed caves - water circulated from hoses into its heat sinks and back carried away heat. This is obviously impractical on a battle field, but quite a relief for any workers sharing a cave with a Brute.
Since BHI built many of the raw materials for fusion engines and supported quite a few fusion engine manufacturers, a fusion-powered Brute was a logical variant for customers interested in a more versatile workmech. This typically involved mounting a 260 Coretek fusion engine (popular with Jalastar 65-ton civilian aerospace shuttles) on the Brute. With more advanced heat sinks (or guaranteed external coolant lines and standard heat sinks), the fusion Brute is capable of using quad large lasers continuously. The doubled price is considered worth the more-than-doubled productivity (no need to pull the Brute out of a mine pit for refueling two or three times a shift). The fusion-powered Brute is also capable of functioning underwater, in unbreathable atmospheres, and in a vacuum, making it the choice among WorkMechs for hostile environment mines.
COMBAT HISTORY
When word of the HPG black out in the Republic of the Sphere reached Brute users...well, few changes to the Brute were necessary to make it an adequate combatant. Most adaptation focused on scripting targeting software for the lasers. The fusion-powered Brute was virtually a ready made battlemech, comparing well with early 31st Century warmachines. BHI Brutes sold far and wide, so mining companies in the RotS often had half a dozen or more Brutes to either protect their facilities or have confiscated by mech-hungry factions. The carnage they've wrought in the factional fighting of the RotS has earned BHI the hatred of some citizens' groups. Fortunately, BHI has relatively few sales outside the Federated Suns, so the potential future loss of income from the RotS is not upsetting BHI's board of directors.
Besides, it can always open a new division with a new name and sell construction machinery to RotS customers through that.
BHI is in the process of testing a battlemech derived from the Brute, supposedly quite similar to the old Thunderbolt. It is intended for sale to the AFFS. Given BHI's Brute factory capacity, if the AFFS decides to re-arm, it can probably do so quickly.
BRUTE (Chest Shot)
65 tons
3.5 tons endosteel
16 tons GM 195 ICE
....Walking: 3
....Running: 5
....Jumping: 0
16 tons 16 SHS
2 tons gyroscope
3 tons cockpit
12.5 tons armor
....Head: 3 9
....CT: 21 31/10
....RT/LT: 15 20/10
....RA/LA: 10 20
....RL/LL: 15 29
10 tons 2x Large Lasers (RT/LT)
1 ton Power Amplifier (CT)
.5 tons cargo (H)
Endosteel: 2 RL/LL, 5 RA/LA
Heat Sinks: 8 RT/LT
Both hand actuators present and ready to crush you like a leetle bug
VARIANTS
The Arm Loader Brute moves the large lasers to the arms.
The fusion-powered Brute has a 260 fusion engine, 4 large lasers (either 2 per torso, or one per torso and one per arm), and 18 DHS (split between side torsos and arms depending on laser arrangement). The cockpit armored beer refrigerator reaches epic size to take advantage of the abundant fusion power (2 tons of cargo in the head), or a center torso active probe for advanced geological assessment is available.
BHI is testing an actual battlemech Brute quite similar to the old Thunderbolt. The stumbling point seems to be finding software and guidance systems for the two different missile launchers slated for the battlemech (an LRM 20 and SRM 2). The "magnetic trace element separators" BHI uses to, well, separate trace elements out of low concentration ores converted back to PPCs easily for the battlemech Brute. (The separators were part of Magna's effort to turn its PPCs into plowshares; they went back to their original job easily.)
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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Alemnyr
07/29/03 04:05 PM
205.206.184.132
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All I can say is wow. Superb Post.
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Dog
07/30/03 04:07 PM
68.8.235.217
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I dunno, the diesel engine is really borking my impression. I swore mechs operated on extreme electrical power, so a diesel engine seems like the wrong sort of thing to produce that juice.
But i'm not the one making up ICE rules...
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NathanKell
07/30/03 07:30 PM
67.86.63.119
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Wow, fluffalicious as usual.
And anything remotely Thunderbolty gets props from me. 
How many of these different factions do you have running around at once (i.e. GDA, Balearic Isles (sp?), Hindu Collective, etc.)?
-NathanKell, BT Space Wars
Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear.
Thomas Jefferson |
Cray
07/31/03 06:04 AM
68.200.109.244
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In reply to:
I dunno, the diesel engine is really borking my impression. I swore mechs operated on extreme electrical power, so a diesel engine seems like the wrong sort of thing to produce that juice.
POP QUIZ
Question 1: You're standing on the Continental Divide in the Western US. You see a train lumbering by, over the Divide, with a load of 10,000 tons of coal. What is supplying the electricity to the train's 5000 horsepower electrical motors? Is it:
a) Souls of horrified environmentalists in a demonic soul-electricity converter
b) Really athletic hamsters in exercise wheels
c) Diesels
d) Atomic Power Cells
Discussion: The myomer power demands of a mech is measured in terms of hundreds or occasionally thousands of horsepower, too. A 65-ton mech like a Thunderbolt has walking/running power demands comparable to the faster 1500hp, 65-ton Abrams. Its lifting capacity is not a wonder of the world; cranes regularly hoist tons more than the TBolt's arms with a few hundred horsepower.
[1] Pop Quiz Answer
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Edited by Cray (07/31/03 06:06 AM)
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Dog
08/07/03 05:07 PM
68.8.235.217
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but thats not going to be one train engine pulling 10,000 tons, more like 10 engines working together to pull 10,000 tons. Now if you can fit 10 train engines into a mech chassis (this is where you could be right cause I have no clue about the size of train engines or mech engine compartments) and still have room for everything else cool. Diesel still borks what I feel can power a mech, its Diesel.
Dog
I left the timeline when the clans failed to adapt to their battlefield due to fancy writing.
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Cray
08/08/03 04:38 AM
68.200.109.244
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In reply to:
but thats not going to be one train engine pulling 10,000 tons, more like 10 engines working together to pull 10,000 tons. Now if you can fit 10 train engines into a mech chassis
Following the logic in the first sentence (1 engine per 1000 tons), the 65-ton Brute would not need 10 engines, it would need 1/15th of a train engine.
I wouldn't try to fit a train engine into a mech's torso. It has the power, but it has none of the weightsavings possible with a modern, lightweight diesel. Something more compact like the Leopard II's or Challenger II's power packs would be my choice.
Though...Except for their energy weapons, mechs have just a few hundred or thousand horsepower requirements. Why do you think they need so much power?
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
Edited by Cray (08/08/03 04:50 AM)
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Dog
08/08/03 07:39 PM
68.8.235.217
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*shrug* not worth time dragging this out. It is sorta like applying reality to other forms of sci-fi like star wars and star trek. Eventually it all comes down to, cause it works in the *blank* universe.
As a landlord on Neveron, i'd never buy a diesel mech no matter how cheap it is. You can pull any sales pitch in the universe but i'll never believe that diesel is a suitable energy source for a mech, work or battle. Which I beleive was my original statement if not it was my intent. Sorry I even commented on it.
Dog
However, I dig chemical laser's.
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Cray
08/08/03 08:07 PM
24.165.242.1
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Bah, you're no fun. What use are internet forums if not for debating whether fictional vehicles use realistic technology or not? If you just want to make statements of your opinions, send editorials into newspapers. 
Mike Miller, Materials Engineer
Disclaimer: Anything stated in this post is unofficial and non-canon unless directly quoted from a published book. Random internet musings of a BattleTech writer are not canon.
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