Science Check: Metal Gear Solid March 5, 2012

I have previously done a Science Check article on Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, but even when I was writing it back then, I knew I wanted to talk about the first game in the Metal Gear Solid franchise.  That game was probably the first I had played which featured actual scientific principles behind its technology, and, to me, it was what made its ultimate weapon, Metal Gear Rex just that much more terrifying.  What is Metal Gear Rex you ask?  Well let me show you.

This week on Science Check, we’re going to be talking about Metal Gear Rex, a nuclear equipped walking battle tank.

Sometimes, you’re forced to make some severe leaps of logic as to just how plausible a video game’s grounded reality can be.  Some things we’re willing to take for granted, like enemies will simply just carry health and ammunition supplies with them at all times, and you will be immediately able to make use of them.

But then sometimes there will be moments in gaming which skirt the bounds of reality and you are forced to ask yourself…COULD THAT REALLY HAPPEN?  Fortunately for me, I happen to have a bunch of friends on speed dial with science backgrounds and when I ask them questions, they have no problem filling me in on just what reality would do in these situations.

So this is Science Check, where I take a look at the leaps and bounds of scientific logic that games have made over the years and check if it would indeed work, or if you tried doing it in the real world, you’d be totally screwed.

The dangers behind Metal Gear Rex stemmed more from the design of the tank itself.  It has been promoted in several Metal Gear games (in particular Metal Gear Solid 3) that it makes a lot more sense for weapons of war to use legs to navigate instead of treads.  By using legs, a tank would be able to scale difficult terrain just as a human being does, making it the perfect blend between machine and infantry.  However, that’s not the scariest part of the Metal Gear, the scariest part is in its nuclear weapon delivery system.

As I stated in the Metal Gear Solid 3 Science Check, during the height of the Cold War between the United States and Russia, each side was working to stockpile nuclear weapons with the intention to launch against the other in case the other side launched against them.  With spy satellites, radar, and other tracking systems, it would be glaringly obvious to the other side if their enemy was to launch their missiles against them, giving enough time for the other country and their allies to launch a retaliatory strike, mutually destroying both sides and probably the rest of the world along with it.

Inside Metal Gear Rex was the solution to this problem, a brand new nuclear weapon.  How did it work?  I’ll let Otacon explain it to you.

That’s right, an invisible nuclear warhead.  Would it work?  Well, Otacon’s speech was pretty convincing.  Lets see how it holds up.

A rail gun uses magnets to fire projectiles at extremely high velocities.  The technology was initially developed for the SDI system and later scrapped.  However, within the past few years at least, there have been plenty of scientific minds, both civilian and military, who have been looking deeper into this technology.  The strength of a rail gun is in its ability to fire at extremely high velocities.  The destructive force of a weapon is measured by more than just its mass, it’s also measured by just how fast the projectile is going.

A rail gun is composed of a long barrel with a series of individual electromagnets placed on each side of it of it end to end.  When an electrical field is applied, the magnets become active and accelerate the projectile along the barrel, as the magnetic field pushes the projectile along the array.  Just how fast are we talking here?  The typical maximum velocity of a rocket that uses solid-fuel (like the ones that would be in our missile silos) is pretty consistent.  According to Dr. Travis Taylor, a well designed rail gun would be able to launch a projectile at ten times the speed of a conventional missile.  It is without a doubt the best weapon modern science knows of for projectile velocity, as a projectile fired from it would be limited only by its aerodynamic design and the speed of the electrical current.

The problem with using a rail gun to fire nuclear weapons is that without any kind of propellant, you cannot have any type of missile guidance system.  While it theoretically would be possible to adjust the direction, angle of launch, and launch speed of the projectile, once it’s fired you will not be able to alter its heading.  The weapon would work best on completely stationary targets, like bunkers or bases.  Firing it upon a moving target would be mostly pointless if you were going for pinpoint accuracy.  Of course, since the payload is nuclear and not conventional, a few feet here or there would be meaningless given the blast radius of a nuclear warhead.

Another problem is without any fuel or propellant, there would be a maximum distance the projectile would be able to fire.  A solid-fuel rocket has a maximum distance as well, but that’s limited by its fuel capacity.  While Rex’s nuclear warhead would be able to travel at speeds ten times faster than that of a solid fuel rocket, that velocity would not be sustainable forever, things like drag would start to work against it immediately and it would gradually decrease speed after launch.  You would not be able to encircle the globe with such a projectile.  However, Rex was designed to be eventually mass-produced and deployed across the world.  That mention of it being able to get around international treaties spoke volumes to that.  With Rex’s stationed all over the globe, the maximum deployable distance of its projectile would not need to be able to circumnavigate the globe.  Unlike MGS3’s Shagohod, which had specific orders to be able to fire missiles capable of reaching the US from anywhere in Russia.

Finally I want to talk about the stealth system. While we do have stealth material in existence which can reduce the heat signature and radar cross-section of airplanes, the Metal Gear itself could not be stealthy.  You would need a highly conductive metal to build a rail gun and once fired an enormous amount of heat would be detectable from its barrel.  All the stealth technology would have to be built into the projectile.  A nuclear warhead is relatively small, which alone would make it difficult to detect on radar systems.  Without any propellant or heat signature, if it was picked up by radar, it probably would not be considered a danger.

The game took stealth a bit further and used a type of stealth technology which was able to bend light around its user.  This technology was used by Otacon and the Cyborg Ninja over the course of the game.  Well, we haven’t figured this out yet.  While there are things in development like invisibility cloaks which rely on projecting an image over its wearer, it requires a projection system with cameras and the user to be completely still.  Modern science has not yet been able to bend light around an object to render it invisible to the naked eye.

Officially, a stealth payload has never been deployed as a weapon of war before.  A stealth vehicle designed to deliver weapon payloads will become detectable as soon as its weapon systems are ready to deploy.  To create a completely stealth weapon like the one used by Metal Gear Rex would be a highly sought after accomplishment, but as of now it just has not been done.  However, that’s not to say that the technology to create such a thing is impossible.  The fear induced by the thought of something like Metal Gear Rex being developed comes from just how plausible its design is.  The technology behind Rex’s rail gun is still being figured out, but smaller scale rail guns have certainly been built and tested successfully.  While we haven’t developed the technology to bend light around an object yet, we may not need to.  There are plenty of ways developed in order to minimize the radar cross-section of objects.

Lets just hope it never gets made.