Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

[takemeout_totheblack]

They have them fight tournaments where there is a giant arena ring encircling the entire world. Each nation is represented by a gundam, like the British gundam which has a monocle and boxing gloves and body proportions similar to a giant mecha Winston Churchill, and a Spaniard gundam that looks like a bullfighter, or something. The Chinese gundam has dragons for arms!

You essentially just described Robot Jox! Except for the whole national stereotype thing the premise of the movie is one man mechas fight in lieu of costly world wars.

[Shroom Man 777]

I think the ridiculous (and maybe offensive, who knows/cares) national stereotype robots is what makes G Gundam very awesome. If other mecha anime had ridiculous national stereotype robots, they'd probably be better that way. Hell, I think everything needs ridiculous national stereotypes - in both robot and non-robot form. Imagine robot Borat or, heavens forbid, Zohan...

Now this is what truly makes mecha a visually exciting medium of stuff.

[Dark Hellion]

TMOttB, if anything Shroomy is understating the brilliance of G Gundam. At the core it is a subversion (or reconstruction) of the generic ronin samurai story (Japanese analogue to The Odyssey) in which our Hero must battle to restore familial honor, along the way making friends of his former rivals and finally winning his true love... yadda yadda you know the story. It is brilliant because it uses nationalistic caricatures to create characters that it then gives deeper emotional weight to and develops complex interpersonal relationships between. While this is happening in the background, the foreground is giant kung-fu robots which punch the shit outta each other and throw fireballs, super martial arts, the Statue of Liberty as a giant laser cannon, the power of love blowing heart shaped holes through 1000km long nanotech superweapons and the mighty German ninja Schwarz Bruder! It combines carefully crafted storytelling and an obnoxious overload of rule of cool into an incredibly entertaining show.

While on the topic of Gundam, I think it has been a bit understated just how out of the way that the UC series had to go with Minovsky physics to make mecha even remotely practical. The important caveat we should not forget is that it still failed but it is telling just how much shit Minovsky physics takes care of.

1) Minovsky particles don't just block radar like the common misconception. They actually disrupt the whole EM spectrum, but at lower densities leave a large gap between somewhere in the UV range and somewhere in the IR range. As the density increases IR and UV become disrupted and the visual spectrum becomes hazy. At really high densities even directed laser communication is rendered nearly impossible which requires the use of landlines, direct physical contact (which is why you see suits holding hands at times) or just plain leaning out the window and shouting. This helps to reduce some of the targeting profile issues of mecha because in combat conditions targeting anything that isn't seriously huge or immobile becomes nearly impossible beyond a certain range.

2) Additionally, the particles have a disrupting effect on electronics that is similar to EMP but isn't shielded by many of the common methods one would shield from the EMP of a nuclear device. This makes all electronics necessarily bulky which helps in a few ways. One, it makes guided missiles very difficult to build as the guidance package becomes very large. Two, it partially reduces the general space efficiency of a tanks since you are wasting a lot of your internal space in any design on shielding against the effect. That being said tanks still make much better use of their internal space and the nature of their design requires less electronics to shield in total.

3) Beam weaponry. The mechanisms by which beam weapons work renders nearly all armour worthless. While it is possible to coat armour in materials that partially diffract beams (IIRC this is the Hyaku Shiki) or ablates away it seems that no great practical armouring exists even by Victory Gundam. There is the I-field generator which deflects beams rather completely but it seems to require large amounts of power to function. With the exception of these we have seen beam weaponry do truly hideous things to armour throughout the media. 08th MS team has a GM sniper rifle burning through well over a meter of steel like a blow-torch through ice, Gundam Unicorn shows beam rifle shots slicing through skycrapers in 5 meter wide, several dozen meter high gouges that completely bisect the building. We see beams punch through space battleships lengthwise which even at very low end means burning through several meters of steel. The beam weaponry is the piece of hand-wavium that probably most effects the balance between tanks and mecha within the setting. The compact design of tanks is actually a disadvantage when facing such a weapon, the superior armouring characteristic of the geometry is meaningless against a weapon that punches through any thickness of material you could stick on the hull and the extra bullshit on a mobile suit means a targeting solution that will hit the unit has a much higher chance of failing to hit a critical system.

Despite all this, the mobile suit is still really impractical. Given the setting one could make a truly atrociously powerful tank that would be far cheaper than an equivalent combat value of mobile suits. With the size of fusion plant one could use because of a tanks engineering you can easily power a minovsky craft system and an I-field generator, and the stability means you could shove a big ass railgun on the bastard. Shove a few of the other techs on and you have a pretty badass grav tank.

Mecha are not realistic as practical weaponry, they are a story telling device used to make singular individuals more powerful within the setting.

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, it's such a waste too. I am sure a tank would have superior volume efficiency to deliver headbutts, and because of its lower vertical profile the tank's headbutt would land in a mecha's groin too. It'd be like, a combination of a headbutt, a ballbusting and a cunt punching. This is why tanks are more efficient than mechanimus! The cannon would also work for sodomy purposes.

Truly the tank is the king of the battlefield!

*posts graph*

[Ford Prefect]

Given the setting one could make a truly atrociously powerful tank that would be far cheaper than an equivalent combat value of mobile suits.

Well, that actually happened; the Hidolfr tank destroyer was pretty much the most powerful ground unit ever deployed in the One Year War. Also it could headbutt shit, thus satisfying the most important of all design considerations.

[adam_grif]

The compact design of tanks is actually a disadvantage when facing such a weapon, the superior armouring characteristic of the geometry is meaningless against a weapon that punches through any thickness of material you could stick on the hull and the extra bullshit on a mobile suit means a targeting solution that will hit the unit has a much higher chance of failing to hit a critical system.

Or you could spin it another way and say that the compact design makes it way better, since long distance targeting is already crippled and it's a smaller target. Hits may be more deadly, but there will be less of them.

[Shroom Man 777]

Man, imagine wire-guided missiles in space! :lol

Except this being animu, you can probably strangulate or garrote or crush enemy mechas with your awesome SUPREME SACLOS OF JUSTICEEE-AAAAHHHH!!!

[Dark Hellion]

You would think that Grif but it actually isn't as apparent as you are making it out. Think about how on a foggy day it is easier to see a postal box than it is to see a pair of people holding hands on the sidewalk next to the box, even though the people have much more surface area it is across numerous surfaces of smaller dimensions that get blurred out while the box is a big dumb square. The other thing is that their targeting systems are actually really damn good when they can see. ZZ gundam has a suit opening fire with reasonable accuracy at 27km distance, the battle of Loum was fought at 150km distance and the beginning of Zeta we see a shot from low end hundreds to high end thousands of km away.

Putting together minovsky interference and beam weaponry really does remove most of the tanks inherent defensive advantages, but it really cannot touch the offensive, logistical and practical advantages.

[PeZook]

Well, since armor is worthless against beam weapons, the tanks would simply do away with most of the proection, retaining enough to deal with lighter weaponry and pumping the freed up engine power into other areas like mobility, ECM and of course the weapons.

[Commander 598]

The thing to keep in mind about Gundam is that in most of the series MS are, first and foremost, spacecraft. Earth deployment was not in their original design requirements, operating in and around orbital habitats was.

Their proliferation in UC is mostly one of circumstance. The Federation entered the OYW thoroughly unprepared with equipment that predated Ultracompact Fusion Reactors. Going by the novel, in the colonies the Zeeks mostly faced electric cars with wire guided ATGMs mounted on them, some ~30 year old vehicles that only half work because Minovsky happened and the Federation didn't feel like paying for upgrades, the BALL, and the Sabrefish fighter. Zeon broke them in space and then went Earthside and basically fought a Vietnam era army with Gulf War 1 era tech. Some sources cite an extensive orbital bombardment campaign from lunar mass drivers to certain sections of the Earth aiding their advance as well as the chaos inflicted by Operation British. The only thing that saved the Federation at all was their extensive ultrahardened factory complex and Zeon being unable to completely remove them from orbit. Fast forward to 0083 and the Lunarians are already constructing state of the art ready made bipedal war machines capable of operating in almost any environment for anyone willing to pay...oh and some Zeeks that were hanging out around Jupiter during the war are coming back.

After the OYW, there was very little ground action to be had anywhere as most confrontation was in orbit, so conventional heavy armor is probably getting the shit end of the stick as mobile suits keep getting more and more advanced tech to work with as the years go on. More powerful and more fuel efficient rockets, mobility enhancements, high powered beam weapons, advanced FCS, individual orbital drop capability, etc. Hell, you can see shrinking Earth based military budget in Zeta, when the AEUG dropped on Jaburo most of the defense was composed of former Zeon machines and a pretty antiquated aerospace fighter.

[VF5SS]

Yeah, but the whole 'luck gene' thing is far more forgivable to me than robo-titties and hair on a war machine, I'll take an asspull over retardation any day.

I suggest you actually watch Votoms: Roots of Ambition so you can tell me with a straight face that Chirico avoiding being shot twice with a pistol at pointblank, then being faced with a machine gun that happens to malfunction, and then being shot through the chest and surviving it is any less silly than Nobel Gundam's sexiness.

Granted, this action is awesome but you're really getting huffy just over aesthetics which is all giant robots are in the end. Just aesthetics and choreography.

[takemeout_totheblack]

Yeah, but the whole 'luck gene' thing is far more forgivable to me than robo-titties and hair on a war machine, I'll take an asspull over retardation any day.

I suggest you actually watch Votoms: Roots of Ambition so you can tell me with a straight face that Chirico avoiding being shot twice with a pistol at pointblank, then being faced with a machine gun that happens to malfunction, and then being shot through the chest and surviving it is any less silly than Nobel Gundam's sexiness.

Granted, this action is awesome but you're really getting huffy just over aesthetics which is all giant robots are in the end. Just aesthetics and choreography.

You make a good point, and I concede because after doing some research I found out the pic is from G-Gundam (stupid me). I find this more forgivable as G-Gundam isn't really so much a mecha show (MS:Gundam) and is more a Super Robot show (Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann) so things don't necessarily have to make sense, like robo-skirts and techno hair.

Sorry about that, I just saw Sailor Mecha in a thread that was supposed to be about the feasibility (or lack thereof) of mecha and power armor and lost it for a bit.

[Purple]

Just to say that used in a situation where you do actualy use combat robots a "female" mecha like that would posibly be extremely usefull as a propaganda tool.

Just look at this image here:
Large Image from Wikipedia

It tells people: I have a huge fleet of super strong tanks.
It does not tell you that those tanks are slow as hell and that their transmisions break down daily and it certanly does not tell you that those on the image might really be all the tanks you have.

So a cool looking but completely impractical vehicle might still have its place along the King Tiger, the Ferdinand Elephant and the Dora.

[Purple]

Missed the edit mark but have to add:

But these were at least used in the field so from that standpoint the examples might not be the best but counting efficiency vs cost and awesomeness the examples would stand.

[Simon_Jester]

But by that standard, we might as well use decoy tanks hammered together out of 6 mm sheet metal and pretend to have huge menacing tanks, while using our actual industrial resources to build more cost-effective tanks.

Intimidation is a weapon in war, but you can continue to intimidate the enemy after the shooting starts. A powerful-looking weapon that's all bark and no bite will intimidate, but a weapon that really is powerful, even if it doesn't look as deadly, will intimidate much more.

Which looks more terrifying: a fire-breathing dragon or a battery of artillery? If it were just a question of looks, I'd be more scared of the dragon- but even so, I can imagine trying to fight back against a dragon. Whereas if shells started landing anywhere even slightly near me, I'd look for the nearest hole to hide in and stay there until they ran out of ammunition.

Because while the dragon looks scarier, the artillery is much, much deadlier.

[PeZook]

For people complaining about hair:



Man, what an inefficient design!

[Night_stalker]

Well considering the Crusaders died from heat exhaustion, I would have to say that they really screwed up with the armor design.

[Samuel]

Well considering the Crusaders died from heat exhaustion, I would have to say that they really screwed up with the armor design.

That wasn't the fault of the silly head gear! The silly headgear was blameless for their deaths due to overheating- they were caused by the heavy armor. Also being in a desert.

[Night_stalker]

Still bad design problems, still count. Plus when you have guys dropping from heat exhasution in Germany, BEFORE the Crusade that should be telling you something.

[PeZook]

Still bad design problems, still count. Plus when you have guys dropping from heat exhasution in Germany, BEFORE the Crusade that should be telling you something.

These are Teutonic Knights, and they spent two hundred years stomping people's faces into the mud of Eastern Europe and spitting in the face of a giant superpower despite the silly headgear.

Even when they were crusading in Palestine, they were good enough to stave off arab armies for a century or two.

Also, there's these guys:



You're going to say they sucked,too?

[Night_stalker]

No, their armor at least has some thought given to prevenitng heat stroke.

[PeZook]

Well, at least now we know the point can fly way over your head

[Shroom Man 777]

PeZook I will complain about hair on soldiers but you bring up a historic example, I'll digress and talk about heatstroke, and when you post a Roman gladiatocenturiolegionnaire with hair feathers I will concede that the Roman centuriogladiatonnaires don't get heatstroke even if they have feather hairs like Apache American-Indian warriors who kill Nazis and scalp their heads with Brad Pitt speaking in a terribel accent since hair or no hair doesn't really matter much when talking about power armor soldier combat battlefield warfare infantry mechanized vehicular pro/anti-personnel airborne cavalry regimental brigade trooper marine soldier seamen commando fighter warrior aesthetics and functionalities.

[takemeout_totheblack]

I don't know if anyone has ever told you this Shroom but you are a very strange man.

My knowledge of the Roman Legion is somewhat limited, could someone post a list of its attributes and advantages/disadvantages compared to Crusades Era armor? I hear things like the Legion could be anywhere in the Roman Empire within a month or something outrageous like that, so their armor would have to be designed to counter overheating to ensure the Centurions are prim and proper when they have to murder faces after nearly continuous running!

[Shroom Man 777]

The main point is that hair/feathers as decorations aren't unprecedented in warfare, and right now they're still in use in Africa where militia wear wigs and life preservers and tootoos and outrageous afros to war. Now, imagine an African militia with a mecha, the idea of them decorating it with graffiti and bling and rhino tusks and elephant horns is amazing!