Of powered armor, mechs and feasibility.

[adam_grif]

and while we never got the promised jetpacks or flying cars

Yet.

And we're dealing with speculative future tech, yes? So it's not like this has to be feasible right now for the concept to be valid. We have no real indications yet that powered armor isn't infeasible, and as stated before, human-sized mechs should be more readily workable because it has the extra internal volume for power sources and computers and the like.

[Shroom Man 777]

To make people froth in the mouth some more, you can bolt jetpacks ON your powered armor... and have them deploy out of flying (AVRO)cars!

It would be a pretty stylistic thing. A combination of what we're expecting to be bleeding edge milwank tech tomorrow, and what we expected back in the atomic age, the 1950s era of graphs and charts and deliciously nuclear technology!

[Ghost Rider]

So what magical small power source is one going to use? Something of a reason even power armor is dumb on many levels.

Better call DARPA and tell all the scientists and engineers that they're all wrong and that exoskeletons are stupid and they should stop funding them. DoD seems to think that exoskeletons with 24 hour power supplies are achievable with near-future tech. By all reckonings, Unmanned exoskeletons should work better in power terms because they can replace the squishy human interior with more power.

I do love the the whole diversion because you want to give out that parts of the US government THINK the future will bring said achievement, without addressing the fact you have done nothing except appeal to authority.

Here's a hint, demonstrate in some fashion that this cannot be used in fashion with current uses that make mecha more useful then said weaponry/armory and military. It's the same as the jabber of why mecha versus reality died long ago. Everytime someone brought up this same issue, they consistently acted as if technology was a bubble solely for their pet project.

But whatever we get may easily weigh 1000lb which is going to put a serious limit on how widely it can be used. That might not even be too much for building floors, but it would be hell in the sand or mud, and getting up after a fall would not be easy.

You're very likely to be right for the near future, but as technologies like artificial muscles start to mature, we should be able to build something more akin to a human body in mass, but running on electricity and bullet resistant.

Copy and paste above?

I'll let Shroom have fun because like most of the other times, you are now just reasserting your so called data without dictating why, logically, this would make your idea superior to others.

[adam_grif]

I do love the the whole diversion because you want to give out that parts of the US government THINK the future will bring said achievement, without addressing the fact you have done nothing except appeal to authority.

As opposed to your bare assertions that no power sources are adequate for powered armor? Functioning exoskeletons already exist, and the distinction between this and "powered armor" is strapping some heavier body armor to it. The issues with current armors are, as you say, ones of power. They perform fine (not animewank good of course), but need to be strapped to cables. Ones that are capable of running on independent power are limited to relatively short durations. But there are no real theoretical hurdles here that have to be overcome.

SARCOS is going the fuel route, with some sort of integrated generator. As stated previously, the design goal is 24 hours operational without refueling. Will they meet it? Fuck knows.

Here's a hint, demonstrate in some fashion that this cannot be used in fashions with current technologies that make mecha more useful.

Tiny engines don't really help tanks, although the technology might give them engine boosts. But considering the entire point of the proposed mini-mecha here, it doesn't impede on the tank's role in any way, it's designed to fulfill an infantryman's role. So increases to tank efficiency don't have an impact on intended role in this case.

I'll let Shroom have fun because like most of the other times, you are now just reasserting your so called data without dictating why, logically, this would make your idea superior to others.

Uh, because it's in a niche where it doesn't compete with (superior) armored vehicles? The only remotely comparable vehicle is something like those little UGVs with M249's and a camera attached to the top. Future versions of that thing may be resistent to small arms fire like this would be, the only difference then is that they use tracks or wheels and this uses mechanical legs. The addition of legs actually does make sense if the goal is to traverse buildings and engage in urban warfare, because buildings are designed to accommodate people, and the Mark I human has legs.

I'm open to criticisms here, but this is the only possible utility for a "mecha" I can think of, and it's straining the definition of what mechs even are to get there. Whether it is even useful enough to warrant deployment (i.e. mechanical complexity of legs = costly) is an open question here.

[Setzer]

Its been a long while since I saw the original Gundam, but I thought that one of the major offensives by the Earth forces that led to a decisive Zeon defeat pitted conventional armour against Zeon mechs? Of course, I believe that happened off screen.

Strictly speaking the Federation won the war on Earth through the precise application of thousands and thousands of tanks. They didn't actually have GMs until November in the original series (though later OVAs tended to give them Mobile suits earlier than that). It tends to get easily glossed over because MSG is a show about giant robots.

I also think the Zeon Commander was relying heavily on a mole in Federation high command who was exposed just before Odessa. So when the attack started, he had spread his troops thin in a key sector because he thought their traitor general wouldn't attack that spot.

[Simon_Jester]

Even this is a questionable proposition, because your superheavy walker is going to be taking fire from massed artillery and everything up to cruise missiles, along with the enemy's heavy direct fire energy weapons. If it isn't practical to up-armor a Titan to the point where it can handle that kind of fire, this won't work.

If you have a 40 meter robot with kilotonne range weapons, that's the kind of things that's going to attract tactical nuclear cruise missiles like moths to the flame. You know, assuming regular ones won't kill it because it's got magitech armor or shields or something.

Yes, that's the point of "if it isn't practical to up-armor" mecha. You need something like a 40k Titan, which can survive hits from kiloton-sized weapons equivalent to the ones that it carries.

Large cruise missiles might not be the best way to go, though, because we'll have point defense lasers long before we have giant Mega-Destructo-Whatever Laserplasma Devastators. Cruise missiles as we know them may not be long for this Earth as it is, depending on how well research into laser weapons pan out.

But there's still a huge issue, from (for instance) massed nuclear artillery shells, which are very much a possibility if you're worried about a threat like a 40k Titan. To be effective you need to build your humongous mecha to withstand that threat. And to today's science, there is no way we'd be able to build something that tough, something that could shrug off fire comparable to its own weapons.

However, in fictional settings where the technology to do that exists, it makes some sense to build extremely tall walking gun platforms. In those same settings it also makes sense to build low-slung hunter-killer platforms carrying comparable weapons (which 40k has)... but you use the tall platforms offensively and the short ones defensively.

To make people froth in the mouth some more, you can bolt jetpacks ON your powered armor... and have them deploy out of flying (AVRO)cars!

It would be a pretty stylistic thing. A combination of what we're expecting to be bleeding edge milwank tech tomorrow, and what we expected back in the atomic age, the 1950s era of graphs and charts and deliciously nuclear technology!

It's called Starship Troopers. The novel, not the movie.

[Shroom Man 777]

And the awesome animated series, mang.

Also, mecha as nuclear launch devices are fucking stupid. Sorry Hideo Kojima.

[The Yosemite Bear]

I still say the last time mechs were feasable was when we used Elephants in war.

And elephants were only really feasable because of their psychological impact. Once everyone had learned to deal with elephants they were basically reduced to a status symbol, and indeed some orders of battle basically deployed the whole army to protect the elephants, rather than effectively engage the enemy.

Exactly my point, Elephants eat a lot, are hard to train/control, use up crazy resources, and are primarily effective only as psychological warfare, and havings something that big. Or you can use them as walking archery platforms. Beyond that any mecha would only exist as a status symbol, and would have to be protected by a small army.

[Simon_Jester]

And the awesome animated series, mang.

Also, mecha as nuclear launch devices are fucking stupid. Sorry Hideo Kojima.

Mecha as platforms for nuclear missiles are stupid. Mecha as platforms for nuclear-grade energy weapons (which we see in some high-tech SF settings like Star Wars and Warhammer 40k)... again, that's a slightly different story. With nuclear missiles you can hit a target you can't see without blasting a hole through any inconvenient mountain ranges in the way. With Megadeath Plasma Destructors or whatever, you can't, so you need a gun platform that can see over obstacles if you don't want those obstacles vaporized (if, say, the obstacle in question is one of your own infantry units).

That means using either a flying gun platform or a really really tall gun platform, and either way you're accepting the high target profile in exchange for the enemy being able to see you a long way away.

[Omeganian]

Making a human-shaped giant machine in order for it to fight is like making a human-shaped giant machine in order for it to dig with a shovel.

[Nephtys]

Also, mecha as nuclear launch devices are fucking stupid. Sorry Hideo Kojima.

To be fair, the fact that Metal Gear can fight is pretty stupid. But I don't see anything really retarded about what basically is a mobile, concealable, off-road ICBM launcher. Something you can't nail in a first strike, which is pretty much the point. Especially if it has a stealthier launch mechanism than the signature of a boosting ICBM, and just launches the RV with a railgun.

Now, the fact that this ICBM Launcher also has miniguns, antitank missiles, a crotch laser, and ability to roar is another story...

[Oskuro]

Even though it is a robot instead of a piloted mecha, one example in fiction I like is ED from Robocop. It looks sweet as an urban police unit, but the movie showcases its major vulnerabilities when it faces either anti-tank weaponry or stairs.

[Stravo]

Personally the only mecha type weapon I ever thought looked doable in my opinion was the armored combat suit in Avatar. They were what I would imagine you would classify as heavy infantry. You had a whole lot of lightly armored regular infantry supported by half a dozen of these heavily armored powered armor battle suits designed to mimic human motion so the soldier didn't have to learn new skills sets - it's a simple reflection of what you already know. They provided a base of fire from whoch to advance, movable cover to hide behind, and a big honking target to draw fire away from your work horse - the regular infantry.

But then again realistically could something be made cheaply that could do the same job like say a glorified futuristic humvee? Sure. But the concept and implimentation made sense to me when I watched the movie. I'm fairtly certain that in the future (far off) soldiers will start getting some form of endoskeleton or power armored support. We did it once with knights and they will return again to the battlefield some day. At least the romantic in me would like to think so.

Otherwise giant mecha is just fanboy masturbation.

[Rossum]

Regarding powered armor, it could also be used to allow humans to move easily around on inhospitable planets or at least allow for infantry to move on inhospitable planets without being cooped up in vehicles all the time.

On a planet without a breathable atmosphere (or perhaps no atmosphere at all) a human would need equipment to give them breathable air.

Also, a planet without a protective ozone layer would be bombarded with radiation.

Other elements such as altered gravity (either high or low) or extreme temperatures would make things dangerous for a person walking outside of a vehicle.

Powered armor or rather a powered exoskeleton would be very helpful to let a human carry all the life support systems and armor that protects them from the radiation and elements on an alien world. Also, worlds with different gravity would change the weight of all the gear so it would make sense to make the armor self-supporting so that changes in weight wouldn't result in stress on the human occupant.

I mean, a human born and raised on Mars would likely have less muscle mass and less durable bones than one raised on Earth due to the decreased gravity (even if there are ways around this through training, drugs, or vitamins) and similar conditions could result from humans raised on worlds with other conditions or environments. Recruiting people from multiple planets with varying environmental conditions would result in a people with a variety of strengths and environmental medical conditions. A military that has an infantry would likely need powered armor just to make its people capable of stepping outside their vehicles and lifting stuff.

The 'civilian model' for powered armor would likely be a space suit with a powered exoskeleton and some protective coating to keep out radiation or toxins found on alien planets. The power source might not be really necessary, just a long cable that leads to portable power source with some on-board power supply that lets them move around for long enough if they get disconnected.



As for mecha... I think that bipedal legs are rather unfeasible or impractical for a large vehicle. The combat suits in Avatar looked really badly designed to me... or rather their legs. Their hip-joints were horribly thin and looked like they could snap in half any minute considering how much they were running around. If you are in a car and one of the tires bursts then you skid to a stop and replace the tire... or see if you can drive a ways on the rim. If the leg of a bipedal mecha goes out then what are you going to do? I suppose you could have your hi-tech mecha crawl along with its arms but that seems very indignified to me.

A vehicle with a wheeled base and a humanoid upper body might work. One of my favorite mechas in fiction is the Gustaff from the Megaman Legends series and Misadventures of Tron Bonne. It spends alot of its time as the usual bipedal walking mecha... but there is one level in Misadventures where its lower body is replaced with tank treads so that it can lift heavy objects and carry them. Then in Megaman Legends 2 it returns as a boss where its legs were replaced by hover units that let it float above the ground.

In short, a mecha with a humanoid upper body with arms could be useful to allow a wide range of movement for construction or lifting or such. Turning it into a combat vehicle would be as easy as replacing its 'hands' with guns or something... or just replace the whole arm. But have it use wheels or tank treads or hover units or something... maybe four wheeled legs that let it drive around on flat surfaces and walk spider-like if it reaches rough terrain. But keep the center of gravity low enough that it doesn't fall on its face if it breaks down abruptly.

I think the SCVs from Starcraft are a pretty good looking vehicle. They move around on either tank treads or hover units and have two robotic arms precise enough to perform construction or repair work while being strong enough for heavy lifting. They also are the worker units for the Terran faction and just stink at combat... but might be pretty good if they had decent weapons equipped. The Terrans still stick with tanks, powered armor, and other vehicles for their combat forces so its all good.

[Sky Captain]

IMHO the combat suits in Avatar were too big to effectively function in urban warfare environment. They were like ~4 m tall which means in city streets they would be more noticeable than tanks while being much more fragile and like tanks limited to streets. Maybe in some jungle warfare scenario (like in Avatar movie) where there is plenty of cover such battle suits could find some use only because terrain is too broken for wheeled or tracked vehicles.
Their only advantage is ability to carry more weaponry than human, but APC can do the same while being more durable and far easier to build. For urban warfare ideal unit to replace or supplement regular infantry would be something human sized that can go anywhere normal human can go and is resistant to small arms fire.

[Night_stalker]

Mechs are good for one thing: being the biggest waste of resources around, not ot mention being a massive target. Their flaws:

1. Power source: How would you give it juice, hook it up to a generator or something? If not that, then a battery that takes up who knows how much space on the mech which will be needed for armor, weapons and motors to run the damn thing.

2. Weapons: What would it be armed with? A oversized gun? One that takes up enough metal to make say 300 regular sized ones with cleaning kits. That's another thing, what do you do if it jams?

3. vulnerbalitity: If you want it fast and agile like the media makes them out to be, that means it either has weak armor, or somehting absudly light and strong, like say titanium, which is way too expensive for a lot of them. Ohh, how about how a air attack? If a Ah-64 shows up, it can just nail it with a Hellfire from over the horizon, and blow it up with one shot, while a mech has to manuver around crazily to avoid being hit. Let's not forget a A-10 or another CAS aircraft is dedicated to destorying vehicles with thicker armor, so a light target like a mech is a easy target.

[Shroom Man 777]

Regarding powered armor, it could also be used to allow humans to move easily around on inhospitable planets or at least allow for infantry to move on inhospitable planets without being cooped up in vehicles all the time.

Like a Super Spacesuit!

[Srelex]

Regarding powered armor, it could also be used to allow humans to move easily around on inhospitable planets or at least allow for infantry to move on inhospitable planets without being cooped up in vehicles all the time.

Like a Super Spacesuit!

Samus Aran, anyone?

[Shroom Man 777]

Samus Aran is only good without her armor, when she becomes one of god's most beautiful creations.


Anyway, it makes sense. Clunky heavy noisy bulky powered armor might have some implementation problems in a normal urban warzone, but in spaaaaace, on some god forsaken inhospitable moon, where a bunch of fringe world yokels are squabbling over some ugly derelict clunking space habitats? Why not! Space warfare then and there won't be an elegant thing like on Earth, those powered space suits will be clumsy and will be fumbling and will be hopping around in low-gravity and struggling to do shit in crappy space habitats, and you can just imagine these bulky ugly infantry spacesuits using their hydraulics to haul around massive ugly weapons to kill each other and to ruin each other's space habitats! Imagine two opposing space habitats, they can send powered spacesuit combat teams to raid each other, blazing in the inhospitable Martian wastelands riding Moon Rovers! They can not only use powered spacesuits to lug ugly jerry-rigged weapons to kill each other with, but they can also use the suits to like haul stolen goods from each other! Oh no! The Cosmonauts have stolen our air-reprocessors! Goddamn it, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Alan Shroompard, don your combat astronaut suits and ruin their shit! Get our reprocessor back and bring this thermal detonator so you can blow up their goddamn Soyuz module! John Glen, stay on your post and watch out for those fucking Taikonauts! You can imagine these ugly spacesuits fighting each other in crammed confines, and you can imagine the warring cosmonauts and astronauts and taikonauts RUNNING OUT OF AIR and becoming fatigued and tired and they can start hallucinating! Then they run out of bullets or laser fuel, and must resort to hand-to-hand combat! Guess what they use? They use hammers! Fucking mallets and ice picks and hatchets! To break each other's space helmets! *SMASH* Neil Armstrong: NOOO! MEIN FUHRER I CAN'T BREATHE! Yuri Gagarin: HA-HA-HA!

[CBG]

I am actually working on my own sci fi setting that happens to feature both mechs and power armor in, i think, fairly realistic setting.
First of all, both mechs and power armor come in various sizes, with their own characteristics and usages.
-Mechs above 30-40 ton mark are extermaly rare in combat roles. Their size makes them huge, slow, and suprisingly vunerable targets.
Medium ones (10-40 ton) are sometimes used in low to medium intensity conflicts, usually against infantry, power armor infantry, low flying support aircraft, and light ground vehicles. Their main use is light armor role in terrain unsuitable for tanks, IFV's and wheeled vehicles.
Some models, especially those designed for combat engineering roles, are also used besides these circumstances.
Light mechs (1-10 tons) are generally more or less oversized power armor with integral weapons, more armor, strength, sensors, and other systems.
Their roles include infantry support (1-2 per squad), 0 G boarding operations, combat engineering, and full infantry role in environments too extreme even for power armor infantry.
Power armor can be divided into light and heavy category with some overlapping.
The heavy ones are big, bulky, heavily armored suits with huge strength, making them ideal for assault roles and using heavy infantry weapons.
The light ones aren't bigger or heavier than an ordinary space suit, lightly armored (shrapnel, pistols, light rifles with additional armor plates), but still give a considerable strength boost. A lot of strength with relatively little mass means that they also give the wearer extremally good agility. They are the most common type of power armor, and is worn by all frontline infantry not using heavy power armor, unless costs or availability restrict it.
It's light weight is a very important advantage over heavy power armor - even when they run out of power or get damaged,
they can still be reasonably used as body armor/space suit, at least on planets with low or normal gravity.

[Iosef Cross]

Powered armor is something altogether different from mechas. Mechas are tanks with human form because it is cooler that way. Powered armor is a type of equipment for infantry. Power armor are probable in the future, mechas aren't.

I think that in 50-60 years, power armor would be common in the armed forces. Maybe sooner. I would guess that a a full suit of power armor would cost a few dozen grand if mass produced and weigh over 100 kg. It would be cheap enough to equip entire armies.

CBG, what kind of environment power armor couldn't be used and mecha could? I cannot see mecha as being something feasible.

[Shinova]

I just saw a Japanese mecha.... with long, flowing hair!!!!

[Terralthra]

Well yeah, that's why I propose a two-meter tall variant. Although I would prefer it to be unmanned & remote piloted. It would have to be able to crouch down to about 1.6-1.8 meter to make sure it can clear the entrances to most buildings, but other than that it should be fine. Functional immunity to 7-8mm rounds is something I feel is achievable, although they will still likely be vulnerable around the joints and things like that.

Implacable, clunking steel supermen are going to be scary enough. They don't have to be all that large to be scary. And the idea that you can't really truly ever kill them, because the pilot will just be redeployed with another robot in short order, so they only get more skilled over time, could be a frightening one for whichever third world hole you're deploying them to.

Although rampaging through a police department won't be a problem, they will still go down fast from something like a .50 cal mounted on a Humvee, so it's not like these can fight all your battles for you. Finally, morale can only improve when soldiers stop getting sent home in body bags. Plus, on-board recording and monitoring of everything that goes on with them, electronic counting of ammunition and so on should increase accountability for when things go screwy (i.e. shooting of civilians). On a similar note, when the "OH GOD MY LIFE IS IN DANGER" instinct gets suppressed (since you're crewing them remotely), I should think that soldiers will evaluate situations more carefully before acting, and err more on the side of caution regarding willy nilly slaughter of people they don't really have a good look at.

You just described Soldierboys from Joe Haldeman's Forever Peace.

[Night_stalker]

Or the powered armor from Starship Troopers, the book.

[Rossum]

Well, if you're going to use remote-controlled drones... maybe stick with a Dalek style tank. Just give it some better wheels on the bottom to let it move up stairs (I recall watching a video where a segway scooter like thing was able to climb up stairs by moving its front and back wheels up and down) and have a robotic arm if you need to move stuff around.

Have a more expensive humanoid drone for the stuff you really need a human body for (like commandeering vehicles or squeezing through tight spaces or whatnot) while the majority of your force is made up of cheap to build dalek bots or small tank robots that can fit inside buildings.

Actually... I think the ideal combat robot would be like a four-wheel off-road motor bikes with some way to turn rightside up if it flips over. Then give it one turret on the back that can be replaced with a machine gun, chain gun, missile launcher or mortar on it. Have it less like a human soldier and more like a robotic wolf with all terrain wheels for feet and a machine gun for teeth. Make it small enough to fit through doors and give it some way to open doors (either by opening them with a robotic arm, having its humanoid robot buddy open the doors, or just shoot the door down with its gun) and you've got something scarier and cheaper than building a bunch of bipedal robot soldiers.

I mean, building an maintaining a humanoid robot soldier should be pretty expensive. You should be able to buy two or more robotic wheeled wolves with guns with the money it would cost to buy one robot humanoid. So which is scarrier, one robot soldier or a small pack of wheeled robotic wolves with machine guns?