Practicality of Mechs

[Admiral Piett]

Power assist would be used to carry heavy weapons. Of course you can use two soldiers but lets say there is a manpower shortage (bit of a stretch)

the ability to carry lots of explosives for sabotage?
infiltrate enemy lines without resupplying?
Suicide missions with a nuke?
Setting up small mortars alone?

Then again all this can be handled with an extra soldier, but let's suppose that the cost problem of making a suit has been eliminated.

Are recoiless rifles obsolete now (I know OT)?

Yeah I'd actually prefer a lightly armored buggy for this purpose. That would'nt work on some terrain though. It could carry more then any powered suit. Going to start a new thread.

Yeah I know I'm making a futile attempt to ressurect dead ideas, but so what?

The problem is that if you increase payload too much your mobility will be limited.If you build a powered armor which carries 20 tons of weapons the floor (in a house) wil break under you...

[SirNitram]

IIRC, a new system against a specific kind of readily-availiable antitank rocket has been made. The British set up an electromagnetic field around an APC, and RPG-7s(I think) were salvo'd into it with no effect.

[Pu-239]

I think that only works against HEAT rounds and warheads. I'm not sure if that works against sabot.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah I think the mavericks lock on to heat. They don't use the TV cam's anymore

Contrast, Laser and infrared imagining guided Mavericks are all still in service with US forces.

Anyway, I'd just drop a GBU-24 on it.

[Sea Skimmer]

IIRC, a new system against a specific kind of readily-availiable antitank rocket has been made. The British set up an electromagnetic field around an APC, and RPG-7s(I think) were salvo'd into it with no effect.

A pulse of electricity vaporizes the molten copper. It has no effect on kinetic weapons.

However the practicality of this tech is unknown, it's only been in live fire testing for a few months. Arena for example, which in theory offers near immunity from subsonic missiles and a high degree of protection from super sonic ones, has still not been bought by anyone because it proved less practical then expected and ended up costing about five times more then a heavy suit of reactive armor, and its been around for more then half a decade in a fully function form.

[Sea Skimmer]

To carry heavy weapons why not just use a modified steadi-cam mount. It's fairly agile and it doesn't require power.

Basically think of the smart gun mount in Aliens, it's a similar thing. No need for mecha.

The recoil will knock you over if you fire more then one shot from anything signficant sized. Heck things like the m82 can only be fired from the hip or lower, if you have very good balance, and accuracy will suck even point blank.

Firing even a short burst from a so mounted 7.62 machine gun would knock you down for sure.

[neoolong]

To carry heavy weapons why not just use a modified steadi-cam mount. It's fairly agile and it doesn't require power.

Basically think of the smart gun mount in Aliens, it's a similar thing. No need for mecha.

The recoil will knock you over if you fire more then one shot from anything signficant sized. Heck things like the m82 can only be fired from the hip or lower, if you have very good balance, and accuracy will suck even point blank.

Firing even a short burst from a so mounted 7.62 machine gun would knock you down for sure.

I was assuming that since we were talking about mecha, that we would have some type of recoil dampening system. You would probably need one for the mecha anyways right?

[Pu-239]

yeah I was thinking something like a recoiless rifle or an oversized RPG or standard RPG with lots of ammo

[Sea Skimmer]

The suit will also carry some reactants for an endothermic reaction in an emergency to avoid heat seeking missiles

Unless the suit is thermally superconductive, this won't work, even if the reaction can generate the sufficient amount of cooling. Besides, an endothermic reaction doesn't tend to go too fast, and you have to carry these chemicals around. Why not use flares?

Flares wont do anything, endothermic is to much too slow for the protection you need.

There are no true heat seeking ant tank missiles. Those, which use thermal, use an infrared imaginer, which uses an array of heat sensors to create a thermal picture of the target. They then lock onto that. Creating another larger heat source won't decoy them. You'd have to create a wall of heat in the missiles path to get it to break lock.

Unfortunately most Imaging missiles fly high and dive on the target so you must engulf your self in heat and hope the missile doesn’t aim for the center.

Anti infrared smoke deployed via grenade might work with warning, but you very unlikely to get enough for them to deploy and engulf you.

[Sea Skimmer]

To carry heavy weapons why not just use a modified steadi-cam mount. It's fairly agile and it doesn't require power.

Basically think of the smart gun mount in Aliens, it's a similar thing. No need for mecha.

The recoil will knock you over if you fire more then one shot from anything signficant sized. Heck things like the m82 can only be fired from the hip or lower, if you have very good balance, and accuracy will suck even point blank.

Firing even a short burst from a so mounted 7.62 machine gun would knock you down for sure.

I was assuming that since we were talking about mecha, that we would have some type of recoil dampening system. You would probably need one for the mecha anyways right?

Not going to help much. You can spread it out over a greater period of time, assuming you only firing single shots, but the full weight of the recoil energy will still hit you within about one second. With any form of automatic fire, it not going to help at all and will just add weight.

If you already have power armor, I'm not seeing the point of the steady cam mount. The much greater weight should help keep you standing anyway, I still wouldn't recommend anything over 7.62 though.

[neoolong]

Hmm.. I guess you're right. But I still wonder how feasible power armor is in carrying heavy weaponry.

[Utsanomiko]

Honestly, mecha are nothing more than a childish sci-fi fanboy fetish of becoming superman via technology. It's like Iron Man from the Marvel Comics.

Shouldn't that go double for Transformers, Mr. Wong?

(Then again, Megatron wasn't built to replace modern tanks, so it's moot on that point)

[Setzer]

Here's what I would do if we had the capability to produnce 'mechs today:

Two military roles:
1) The ultimate paratrooper. Yes, a 20m tall paratrooper, but still a paratrooper . Can be paradropped much easier than a tank (if you can drop a tank at all) and could drop in a hot LZ better than normal paratroopers.
Specs:
- 20m tall, fast and quick. Reverse-articulated joints for superior maneuvering in rough terrain.
- 2 7.62mm machineguns slung under the cockpit, antipersonnel point-defense.
- 2 .50 M2 machineguns, mounted on "hands". Heavy antivehicle and personnel.
- 2 30mm cannons, mounted on "hands" with HEAT and AP shells.

2) Urban death machine. Would replace tanks as heavy support in urban combat, since tanks just get ripped up in urban warfare anyways. Less susceptable to mines and anti-tank infantry due to difference in profile and vulnerable points in the structure.
Specs:
- 26m tall, slow bruiser. Standard articulation.
- 2 12.7mm MGs under cockpit for anti-personnel.
- 2 MLRSs mounted on shoulders for long-range fire-support.
- 1 120mm cannon mounted on left arm for anti-tank firepower.
- 1 30mm "Chaingun" mounted on right arm for taking out soft vehicles.
- 1 30mm cannon with HEAT and AP shells for multipurpose, mounted on right arm.
- 1 co-axial 5.56mm minigun mounted with the 120mm cannon for additional anti-personnel firepower.

Both ideas seem kind of stupid. A 20 meter tall mech would be even more difficult to airdrop than a tank. The soviets did have airborne IFVs, but they were expecting to use paratroopers in Germany and Western Europe, fairly close to Soviet bases. A mech would be far more difficult to drop. You would probably need a huge transport, probably custom made, like the aircraft they use to fly in EVAs. But that's a different case, the angels are a threat to the entire planet, normally governments would be more thrifty when paying for their weapons. And as for city fighting, how would a 26 meter tall tank be better able to avoid anti-tank missiles?

[SirNitram]

Really, the basic design of the tank is the king of armoured vehicles.

1) Heavy Armour.
2) Small target profile.
3) Large contact area with ground, to spread the weight.
4) 360 degree firing arc.
5) Minimum complexity.

No Mech will ever match them, because they can't have all those.

[Utsanomiko]

Indeed. Essentially, giant mechs are neat, but when you get to the bottom of it, Tanks Are Terrific.

[Knife]

Ah, you gotta look at the whole picture. Even tanks don't work in the battlefield without the proper support. All combat units are designed to work with each other.

Mech would work in some areas, Jpl and Sony both have very interesting concepts that they are working on. Sony has the standard mechanical type robot that walks on two legs with sensors for balence and such. Jpl has a project that incorperates pneumatic coils for mucles to move appendages and such.

To have a military with Mech, one would have to incorperate them in a number of units. On the infantry side an fully enclosed unit would be bennificial for NBC purposes. Using power cell technology(one I hope to purchase in a car soon) to power some sort of power armor would be useful. Maybe not in such a way to lift a couple of tons over your head, but some sort of augmentation would be useful. While computer control would be useful, a negitive feedback control system would be user friendly. Armor would be for small arms only and weapons would be of the 5.56 to 7.62 range.

Next would be the small weapons platform mechs that would be sort of like the two legged walking thing in Robocop. This would be a fire support piece of equipment either operated by remote or a one man crew.

A small mech such as above would be good for self propelled artillery, and could move said artillery through tough terrain but to move them across large area's a flying transport would be needed.

To replace a MBT with a mech may not be a good idea, but a large slightly mobile weapons platform could be useful in today's battlefield. Not the goliths in anime, but a walker 10 or so meters high and just large enough to support missile or CIWS type weapons system for a static or barely mobile defense.

Even in today's warfare an almighty MBT needs infantry to protect it from enemy infantries anti armor weapons. Not to mention attack choppers to defend against enemy choppers and so on.....

[The Yosemite Bear]

personnally I like the Spider APC concept best.

a small crew of PBI's, some machine guns, some Granade launchers, some light rockets, and a Trageting laser for calling in strikes from AIR or ARTTY. Handles rough terrain well, handles cityies well. Scares the fuck out of the civilians (Tank+Big Fucking Spider). Hmm, mount a flame thrower for clearing out tunnels and bunkers, and you have a nice terror weapon.

[SirNitram]

Mechs as other vehicles:

Again, we hit the same basic things.

Treaded vehicles have the following advantages:

Smaller target profile.

Heavier armour.

Larger surface contact area.

No need for balance sensors.

No need for complicated joints.

[TrailerParkJawa]

Mechs as other vehicles:

Again, we hit the same basic things.

Treaded vehicles have the following advantages:

Smaller target profile.

Heavier armour.

Larger surface contact area.

No need for balance sensors.

No need for complicated joints.
_________________

They are cheaper too, meaning you can field greater numbers. Sometimes quantity is a quality of its own.

[Darth Wong]

Ah, you gotta look at the whole picture. Even tanks don't work in the battlefield without the proper support. All combat units are designed to work with each other.

Right, and the mech is a unit in no man's land between categories, shitty at both jobs and more expensive than either.

Is it infantry? Certainly not. It is far too bulky and expensive to replace infantry. Is it armour? Perhaps, but it's ridiculously expensive, complicated armour with an outsized target profile. So what's it good for?

To have a military with Mech, one would have to incorperate them in a number of units. On the infantry side an fully enclosed unit would be bennificial for NBC purposes.

Stormtrooper armour. Various Future Soldier projects are researching something like this. But that has nothing to do with mechs, which are walking power suits.

Using power cell technology(one I hope to purchase in a car soon) to power some sort of power armor would be useful. Maybe not in such a way to lift a couple of tons over your head, but some sort of augmentation would be useful.

The same fuel cell that drives a mech would drive a wheeled or tracked vehicle much farther before expending its reserves.

While computer control would be useful, a negitive feedback control system would be user friendly. Armor would be for small arms only and weapons would be of the 5.56 to 7.62 range.

In other words, a super-expensive, super-complicated replacement for an IFV.

Next would be the small weapons platform mechs that would be sort of like the two legged walking thing in Robocop. This would be a fire support piece of equipment either operated by remote or a one man crew.

And why would that be better than a wheeled platform with the same weapon, which would be far less complicated and have far greater locomotive efficiency?

Even in today's warfare an almighty MBT needs infantry to protect it from enemy infantries anti armor weapons. Not to mention attack choppers to defend against enemy choppers and so on.....

And these mechs would need infantry to protect them too, only they would be much less effective in their own complementary job than an MBT would be, hence the point: there's no reason to build the things.

The only reason is looks, and while one might imagine that a galactic Empire can afford to squander resources in this manner for pure psychological purposes, it really doesn't make sense from a logical standpoint.

[Knife]

I wasn't saying that they could do away with track or wheeled vehicles altogether. Most of the arguments up to that point were that a large mech type vehicle would not fair well in the modern battlefield. I'm saying that if it did happen they would have to incorperate it in more than one level of military service.

Ofcourse you are all right that the idea of a mech would be more of an novelty than anything else but I still can't help but think that a robot type thing like the thing on Robocop would be a good UAV type weapons platform for recon by fire missions or a static defense weapon.

[data_link]

Right, and the mech is a unit in no man's land between categories, shitty at both jobs and more expensive than either.

On the other hand, a mech might be useful in mobile construction battalions.

[TrailerParkJawa]

On the other hand, a mech might be useful in mobile construction battalions.

Doing what? How is it better than say a forklift and a crane.

[Sea Skimmer]

Stormtrooper armour. Various Future Soldier projects are researching something like this. But that has nothing to do with mechs, which are walking power suits.

Actually the US Army is looking into a sort of partial exoskeleton powered suit. But this would be just a frame, without any armor. It purposes would just be to allow for the user carrying greater weights and to be able to jump from moving helicopters. In combat the guy would need to fight just the same as before as he has no added protection.

However in the end , the only advantage of a significant sized mecha is its somewhat less likely to hit some forms of mine, though suck strikes would be far more devastating, losing a foot and toppling over vs. losing a track and mobility for a few hours.

[data_link]

On the other hand, a mech might be useful in mobile construction battalions.

Doing what? How is it better than say a forklift and a crane.

It would be more flexible, and would require less time to set up than a crane. It could be deployed on highly uneven terrain, which might be a neccesity for building bridges quickly. Also, it would improve efficency because the same unit could simultaneously position a support and weld it into place. Obviously, it wouldn't completely replace other cheaper means of construction, but there are many cases where it would be the best tool for the job.