What are the offensive abilities of a Bug the size of a pickup truck? There armaments break down into a few basic types of weapons. They have mandibles, crab like claws, piercing appendages, mantis like raptorial forelimbs and swinging limbs or tails that either have points, edges or a blunt trauma club for use in melee. For missile combat they can shoot small darts, large javelin like spines or solid slugs. The first two use either compressed gas or spring power to propel the missiles. The later uses a binary propellant, like the earthly bombardier beetle, to shoot the projectile.

In all cases the cutting edges or points are a carbide like material, so they are very very hard and can be extremely sharp.  From below it looks like 9400 Newtons for a Major and up and down from there wouldn’t be out of the question.

Looking at animal models the alligator can apply about 2000 psi biting force or about 9400 newtons

http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=164137

From Animal Planet

http://animal.discovery.com/news/briefs/20030915/alligator.html

“The 2,125-pound measured bite came from a 12 1/2 foot alligator weighing 665 pounds, appropriately named Hercules. Since completion of the study, that impressive record was broken.

To put the record measurement into perspective, hyenas, which are bone-crushing mammals, have a bite force of 1,000 pounds, slightly more than the 940 recorded for lions. Dusky sharks manage 330 pounds of force, and a common dog, the Labrador, bites with 125 pounds of force. Humans surprisingly beat out the pet dog, and measured in at 170 pounds of force.”

There is also a really scary extinct fish which could do about as well

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-11/fm-aph112706.php

For arthropods here is some good animation

http://www.biology.ualberta.ca/facilities/multimedia/uploads/zoology/CrabClaw.swf

Here is a quote on Stone Crabs

http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/fishwatch/species/stone_crab.htm

“The ability of adult stone crabs to feed upon mollusks can be attributed to the enormous crushing force of their claws – up to 19,000 pounds per square inch. Their pincer claws are used to cut or tear shell and tissue.”

Lobsters appear to pinch with between 27 pounds for a small animal to nearly 60 for a larger one, with force increasing with claw size. Since the cutting edge of the claw is small the resulting pressure may be as high as 1200 pounds per square inch

Here is some information on mammal biting

http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/reprint/208/17/v.pdf

This is interesting on insect protection

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=museummammalogy

What does all the numbers of bug weaponry mean? If a major can apply 2000 pounds of pressure or a bite or claw force of 9400 newtons will it cut a person in half? Will it get through sheet steel? How about armor plate?

Heck if I know! Do we have someone that can figure out the physics here? I think that the following chart isn’t going to be too far off the mark

Example: A major with a primary weapon of claws and secondary of mandibles will have a force of 3600 lbs for each claw and 3000 pounds for its bite.

Now about the spring powered missile weapons.

Minor   about as a short bow, 100 pull-fires a dart-sized projectile

Media powerful cross bow 500-1000 pounds-fires a bolt-sized projectile

Major as a large ballista 2500 pounds-fires a javelin sized projectile

The super majors use a binary chemical system to produce force to launch the projectile. I have read in Smith’s book Gas, Air and Spring Guns of the World that by adding ether into the normal process of discharging a spring air weapon the velocity can be about doubled. High velocity for this method seems to be about 1200 fps.

This is very low for Armor piercing weapons, more in the range of pack howitzers and such. I have asked on another list for information on the possible penetration of a 1200 fps dart 2 inches in diameter and 6 inches long fin stabilized and made of carbide.

The other three are pretty well established by comparison to human spring powered weapons.

I’m not sure what these critters can do to vehicles but they certainly will raise hob with people!

Sorry it took so long to get back to this. I wanted time to consider the many thoughts here.

Lets look at the Bug’s feeding mechanism first. I think I’ve mentioned part of it before, but not all.

The Hive can eat almost anything organic. Resources are harvested and brought back to the hive. Workers distribute the food to the larva, which consume it. Some is used to build biomass for the individual but much is processed and regurgitated as food for adult hive members. The adults eat some of that directly; another portion is used to feed the fungus gardens. Larval waste products are also used in the gardens, both above and below ground. Adult feces are used above ground, but are also used as a building material.

Adults will be preference feed off the larval secretions. They do this by returning to the Hive and feeding on material stockpiled in a special caste that are basically repletes, (these eat and eat and store the food in their distended abdomens). A slightly more mobile version of these “cows” can move out to the field and supply the warriors and workers with food. In the field the bugs may also feed directly off resources they harvest. However they can only use the liquid portion of the resources. Bugs have complex mouthparts. They usually have a set of mandibles, which are tools or weapons. These are totally analogous to insect mandibles in form and function. They also have a sucking mouthpart like a fly; this is used to get food from larva or cows. Finally they have a pair of hollow fangs like a spider. They are used to suck the liquid out of a resource (plant or animal) in the field. During a battle bugs under control will not feed, although they may feed if all their controlling drones are killed. After a battle the warriors and workers that are not going to return to the Hive with the resources will feed on the liquid portions of the harvest. They basically suck dry everything they can. They can effectively feed off of anything larger than a medium sized dog.

When they are finished the remainder is balled up and rolled back to the hive for distribution to the larva. If anything “tastes funny” it is not consumed in the field but tested by special workers. If it contains any compounds that appear to be dangerous it is discarded. This makes using ingested poisons very ineffective against the Hive, although respiratory ones are still dangerous to them.

The questions about bug armor and movement are somewhat inter-related. Bug armor is related both to size and to caste. The skirmisher bugs are generally more lightly armored and faster than the Crusher or Lancer type bugs. Now big bugs might still be pretty fast. A Rhino can move at 25 mph for some time, although few animals can move at more than a walking pace for any length of time. Larger bugs will be able to “march” faster than smaller ones, just because their stride is longer. Smaller bugs may be able to charger faster than larger bugs. When the bugs get ready to charge they are as interested in getting a lot of O2 in their system as they are in having fuel to burn. Usually a unit of bugs will have to be free from combat for a few minutes before it can charge, as they hyperventilate. They will also have to do the same after they charge and are vulnerable to a counter charge at that time as their combat ability is seriously lowered.

Here is a sort of rule of thumb I was working on:

According to Jack Coggins in Arms and Equipment of the Civil War horse cavalry charged at the gallop 440 yards. The table will also be modified by caste. Lancers charge better than Troopers and so on.  Shooters can’t charge at all.

As for armour the bugs have a basic armor of 1. For sake of argument this is equal to a steel breastplate as worn by a Napoleonic era French cavalryman, which was about 16 gauge or 1.5mm thick

Size

Minor X1

Media X 1.5

Major X2

Super Major X3

Caste

Worker X1

Skirmish or shooter warrior X 1.5

Close combat Warrior X 2

Heavy warrior types (troopers, lancers, trappers) X 2.5

So a super Major crusher would be factor 1 X 3 X 2.5 or 7.5 times the protective value of that basic steel plate. This would be over 11 mm thick, which would be pretty well proof against .303 rounds. This may be too thin though on the high end of things. I may want to look at the larger types and the heavy combat types having even better protection.

I can do individual armor schemes but was hoping to avoid that sort of level of detail. It makes sense that the bugs are constructed in that manner, but depending upon the level of detail in the game it may just wash out if hit locations aren’t being used.

Bugs are masters at using ground and terrain to their advantage. They are all basically programmed with “the Art of War” in their genetics.