Semi-Viable Mecha Idea?

[VF5SS]

Walkers in Star Wars make no sense in a universe where stuff can just fly no matter what the shape. As I had mentioned in another thread, the concept behind "Real Robots" of which Gundam is arguably the first, was to emulate the powered suits from Starship Troopers. As the story goes the toy sponsor Clover wanted the robots to be much bigger and eventually a compromise was reached with 20 meter tall robots. It was totally arbitrary and other shows would choose a robot size based on their own internal logic.

[Oskuro]

Well, a rationalization for the use of the AT-AT's on Hoth was the presence of the theater shield (it's been discussed somewhere on the site). Such in-universe excuses are a good way to use otherwise impractical ideas, like Dune having primarily hand-to-hand infantry due to the use of personal shields.

Say, for example, that long-legged mecha are used to fight on devastated cities where the amount of rubble would block other vehicles, say that airborne units cannot work in the atmosphere where they are fighting, or make some handwavy reason why the humanoid shape is preferable.

[Commander 598]

People have been projecting the end of the tank every since the end of WW1. In fact most armies almost or in some cases completely abandon tanks for several years after 1918 because hey, the tank was only for trench warfare, and surely no war would ever be so gridlocked. They also made the argument that new anti tank guns could defeat tanks armor, thus making them useless.

I was mostly referencing more recent developments, like when Canada almost totally got rid of it's Leos, IIRC.

Recent wars have certainly not supported the idea that militaries need less armor protection, as seen by the armored hummve and now MRAP swarm, as well as even Abrams getting armor upgrades.

The reason the Abrams got upgrades is because it wasn't build for urban warfare thus meaning that it's nigh impenetrable glacis plate is mostly useless when you can shoot it in the roof, going outside to use the the .50 cal in an urban environment is basically asking to get shot, and because slat armor apparently makes everything better. There is the reason they call it the Tank Urban Survival Kit after all. Oh, and the MRAP is basically a vehicle made to be blown up so I would expect it to have a lot of armor and the HMMWV was supposed to be a Jeep replacement that somehow got turned into a makeshift APC because a light and cheap APC is apparently preferable to not having one I guess.

V-22 is wildly considered stupid because it failed to meet any of its performance requirements while spiraling in cost enormously. However in general terms, its just another helicopter with the added feature of being able to stall and crash like a plane too, not a radical departure.

While you and I might see it that way, most of the bitching I hear is basically in the form of "OH GOD IT'S DIFFERENT ARE YOU STUPID KILL IT WITH FIRE".

A mecha would just be a totally new and radical idea, and ideas like that tend to make a lot less progress when they clearly don’t work.

How would you define "don't work" for a non-existent vehicle? Regardless of the fact that it doesn't appear to have any niche to fill, assuming it does possess some effective anti-tank and anti-personnel weaponry and can use them without getting killed ~90% of the time, that would in fact mean that it does "work" wouldn't it? Also, if you want to talk about radical ideas, I hear $2,000,000,000 flying wings are fairly radical.

Some weapons do fade away, but the tank is nowhere near gone or even fading much at this point, in fact just about every nation on earth with a worthwhile military is currently designing new or heavily upgraded tanks.

If by "every nation on Earth" you mean about three who will in turn sell lesser export models of them to every other nation on Earth, yes.

Also, arguing that a single meter of height (while standing) is going to be a potential mechs Achilles heel is quite silly.

Not really, in fact tank designers have fought hard to reduce profiles by even a single foot, and accepted undesirable features like a reclined driver’s position and eliminating commander’s cupolas to do it. In general the bottom 1 meter of a tanks profile is considered to be a non target. This is because no one will aim that low, small irregularities in the terrain plus vegetation are likely to shield it from view in a long range engagement, and part of that is space is below the hull already, so a hit down their is not likely to destroy the tank, though it may disable it. This means controlling height above that first meter is all the more important in reducing hit probability, and an extra meter of overall height is all the more damning. However it is all dependent on the specific design and role of the mecha.

You should also keep in mind that anything actually calling itself a mech would probably not maintain it's full profile 100% of the time and that any vaguely IRL mech would likely not be meant for "open" warfare, unlike a tank.

Walkers in Star Wars make no sense in a universe where stuff can just fly no matter what the shape.

I believe there is in fact a variant of the AT-AT with NO legs.

If your going to fly, a tank shape would also have a lot less drag, and could actually be realistically streamlined. For a mecha a bunch of streamlining would interfere with the normal motions of the arms and legs.

The number of mobile suits out of UC Gundam that actually "flew" is rather low.

[Coyote]

The idea is without merit. If you have the technology to make a practical mecha, the same technology can be applied to more conventional tanks or fighters to make them even more uber.

Also, there's the cost-- a flight-capable mecha/tank hybrid operator is both a trained tanker and a fighter pilot. He'd probably be a single operator, so you don't have to make the mecha even bigger by having a crew of 2-3 people (like a tank really would have). So a lot of the vehicle will be maintenance-intensive robotics. Those robotics would either be better applied to conventional designs, or, better applied to a fully-robotic mecha drone that operate by remote piloting.

Remote piloting a mecha drone is about the only acceptable solution if one insists on going through with the idea, since that way if the thing gets wiped out (which it will, since it is a jack of some trades and master of none susceptible to RPGs due to it's low armor factor) then at least your tank/fighter-pilot operator won't get smoked with it.

The money and effort is better spent making a delivery vehicle that drops off a tank and flies away, leaving the tank to its mission. Like in "Attack of the Clones", when the modified LAAT/i gunships land, drop off a fully-laden and functioning AT-TE, and take off, and the AT-TE is able to fight immediately, without need for preparation. That's a much better use of these kinds of resources.

The "disposable glider" ideas brought up here closely mirror that concept, but today's MBT's are so heavy that to make a airframe capable of lifting them, only to dispose of it, would not be cost-effective.

[Shroom Man 777]

As a tank, sure. As SP artillery, it's not so bad. It's certainly a manufactured excuse, as tube artillery wouldn't have that limitation, but it's at least slightly more believeable from an IU point of view than "it looks cool".

As SP artillery, it would suck even harder. The whole point of artillery is to lob killy objects from extreme range, beyond visual range. Giving SP artillery a line-of-sight weapon is just like using airplanes for ground transportation, like that I AM Weasel episode where Weasel and Baboon were an emergency rescue team "flying" around in a Ground Plane.

I was mostly referencing more recent developments, like when Canada almost totally got rid of it's Leos, IIRC.

Well, that was a dumb near-decision for them.

The reason the Abrams got upgrades is because it wasn't build for urban warfare thus meaning that it's nigh impenetrable glacis plate is mostly useless when you can shoot it in the roof, going outside to use the the .50 cal in an urban environment is basically asking to get shot, and because slat armor apparently makes everything better. There is the reason they call it the Tank Urban Survival Kit after all. Oh, and the MRAP is basically a vehicle made to be blown up so I would expect it to have a lot of armor and the HMMWV was supposed to be a Jeep replacement that somehow got turned into a makeshift APC because a light and cheap APC is apparently preferable to not having one I guess.

Battle tanks with thick armor generally fare better in urban warfare than other forms of vehicle.

Sure, other parts of the Abrams - like the engines in the backside - can be damaged to cause incapacitation, but few vehicles can protect its crew from damage as good as a battle tank.

How would you define "don't work" for a non-existent vehicle? Regardless of the fact that it doesn't appear to have any niche to fill, assuming it does possess some effective anti-tank and anti-personnel weaponry and can use them without getting killed ~90% of the time, that would in fact mean that it does "work" wouldn't it? Also, if you want to talk about radical ideas, I hear $2,000,000,000 flying wings are fairly radical.

The Nazis have experimented with flying wings and have made successful prototypes in the 1940s. Besides, one of the reasons why the B-2 bomber is so goddamn expensive was because they massively down-scaled the production run, meaning that the companies had to charge higher for each individual plane or else they'd risk getting bankrupt. Anyway, the same is happening to the F-22 and other weapons systems.

I believe there is in fact a variant of the AT-AT with NO legs.

The variant of the TIE fighter with treads for solar panels would sooo kick its ass.

[Captain Seafort]

As SP artillery, it would suck even harder. The whole point of artillery is to lob killy objects from extreme range, beyond visual range.

The whole point of artillery is to give a formation as much organic firepower as possible. Indirect fire is only one aspect of that. Sure, modern tube artillery is a lot more flexible than line-of-sight stuff, but if the lin-of-sight weapons in question are inherently more powerful than any available indirect fire weapons, then it makes sense to use them to their best effect. Note that I pointed out that it would be a manufactured excuse, but it's a viable excuse nonetheless.

[RedImperator]

Say, for example, that long-legged mecha are used to fight on devastated cities

...where they can be blown away by man-portable anti-tank weapons, fired from the abundant cover provided by such an environment.

where the amount of rubble would block other vehicles, say that airborne units cannot work in the atmosphere where they are fighting, or make some handwavy reason why the humanoid shape is preferable.

You know, there is one lightly-armored, humanoid shaped weapons system that can maneuver in tight spaces and rough terrain, and, as a bonus, can even enter buildings, make decisions autonomously, and carry a variety of different armaments. It's even small enough to take cover virtually anywhere.

It's called the infantry.

[Gil Hamilton]

It's funny, I thought AT-ATs looked the way they do because George Lucas really wanted something that looked like a Futuristic War Elephant and people have been rationalizing why Imperial Walkers aren't a bad idea ever since.


My advice is, to the OP, if you want to do Mecha... DO MECHA. Don't worry about making it practical or viable. Take the Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell: SAC. Sure, they could have made them mini-tanks with treads, but in fact, as a concept they work better as spider mechas. Not because they are practical, but because a major part of the plot of GitS:SAC is that they are became intelligent beings in their own right and them having arms and able to fidget on their spider legs makes them extremely expressive (and adorable). They would not nearly have been effective in the context of the story if they had been shaped like tanks.

They may be a rip roaring bad idea if you are going for realistic military hardware, but there can be compelling visual style and plot reasons you might want mecha in your story.

[Sea Skimmer]

I was mostly referencing more recent developments, like when Canada almost totally got rid of it's Leos, IIRC.

And my point was these ‘recent’ developments are nothing but another example of a long running trend of predicting the imminent death of the tank. People also predict the death of the manned combat aircraft on a regular basis, the imminent triumph of small fast or short fat ships and a lot of other things which just don’t ever happen. Canada almost scrapped its stockpile of totally obsolete Leopard Is, essentially a tank from 1960 that had been upgraded in modest ways a few times. Then it turned right around and bought the most modern model of Leopard II available after combat experience in Afghanistan. Hmm... interesting no?

The reason the Abrams got upgrades is because it wasn't build for urban warfare thus meaning that it's nigh impenetrable glacis plate is mostly useless when you can shoot it in the roof, going outside to use the the .50 cal in an urban environment is basically asking to get shot, and because slat armor apparently makes everything better. There is the reason they call it the Tank Urban Survival Kit after all. Oh, and the MRAP is basically a vehicle made to be blown up so I would expect it to have a lot of armor and the HMMWV was supposed to be a Jeep replacement that somehow got turned into a makeshift APC because a light and cheap APC is apparently preferable to not having one I guess.

Exactly, some armor is just absurdly better then no armor. More armor is better then a little armor ect… nothing can replace armor because you can never reasonably expect to just not get hit. The rear grill armor and side reactive armor on TUSK pretty much does make everything better, the vulnerabilities being addressed were not that enormous to start with, and well, you can’t expect to fight a war without taking hits and losses.

While you and I might see it that way, most of the bitching I hear is basically in the form of "OH GOD IT'S DIFFERENT ARE YOU STUPID KILL IT WITH FIRE".

Well, I think we all know most people are stupid, look around the internet enough and you’ll find people raving about how Iraqi T-72s actually destroyed ‘hundreds’ of Abrams tanks and shit about how one PLA super warrior with a hand grenade can defeat all of NATO. However very valid criticism of the V-22 exists… which is why it was canceled not once but twice, only to be saved each time the USMCs large stockpile of political points.

How would you define "don't work" for a non-existent vehicle?

I’d definite it as having clear and inherent drawbacks which are likely to make it non viable on the battlefield, while no clear advantages whatsoever, none of which can be altered by technology. Any technology that makes a mecha more viable can also be used to make tanks, aircraft and artillery even more powerful. The mere ability to build a mecha that doesn’t trip over its own legs is not the creation of a working weapons system. Lots of weapons have been brought to a state in which they can fire off a round of ammo or drive around the test track or some such, but then still got canceled because they clearly were going to have problems that either couldn’t be overcome, or the cost of fixing them just couldn’t be justified.

Regardless of the fact that it doesn't appear to have any niche to fill, assuming it does possess some effective anti-tank and anti-personnel weaponry and can use them without getting killed ~90% of the time, that would in fact mean that it does "work" wouldn't it?

If you want to count simply being able to exist as working, sure, but those are some big ifs.

Also, if you want to talk about radical ideas, I hear $2,000,000,000 flying wings are fairly radical.

Not really, considering that the US built flying wing bombers in the 1940s and the 2 billion dollar price tags is entirely the result of Congressional stupidity capping production. Plus, the B-2 did work, could and was upgraded far beyond its original mission, and had a clear purpose when it was developed. Developing its high cost technology also facilitated creating a whole range of other stealth aircraft.

If by "every nation on Earth" you mean about three who will in turn sell lesser export models of them to every other nation on Earth, yes.

You don’t know jack shit if you think only three nations build tanks. Lets see, France, Germany, Russia, US, UK, China, Iran, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea, India, Israel, North Korea, and Iran are all doing major work on new or heavily modernized tanks of local manufacture. I’d throw in Ukraine too, but they haven’t shown any signs of actually producing the heavily upgraded models they developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s so they can stay off the list.

You should also keep in mind that anything actually calling itself a mech would probably not maintain it's full profile 100% of the time and that any vaguely IRL mech would likely not be meant for "open" warfare, unlike a tank.

Well, that’s already a HUGE limitation now isn’t it? What happens if the enemy is besieging the city and refuses to enter while the mecha crouch behind skyscrapers, and you need to launch a counter attack to break open a corridor so you can supply the population?

The M1 was never meant for urban operations, but adapting it to that role only required a kit which can be installed in the field without any special tools or anything like depot level work. Even before TUSK was around it did quite well in urban settings. Militaries tend not to like weapons which are not capable of handling so called ‘full spectrum’ warfare, a large diversity of terrains and levels of intensity of fighting.

[VF5SS]

It's funny, I thought AT-ATs looked the way they do because George Lucas really wanted something that looked like a Futuristic War Elephant and people have been rationalizing why Imperial Walkers aren't a bad idea ever since.

Didn't you know? AT-STs are perfect for crossing minefields.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I don't see why you need to rationalise something which is totally out there, like laser swords and FTL. Just do it. If you want to be realistic, well you're left with powered armour, or more likely, all terrain/infantry robots. Powered armour still requires a human, which adds to the costs, but robots of far smaller size than any vehicle can navigate any terrain if they have a quadruped design with additional treads or wheels for high-speed work (or allow it to leap whole city blocks if no roads exist). They could pack more firepower than a human without having the ease of a kill that a tank or IFV would have. If you could make a machine that was intelligent enough to rival your average human, could be agile enough to move like a big cat and yet have the firepower to go toe-to-toe with other field combatants of worth, then you've a far better weapon system.

[Stark]

Amusingly Tachicomas are generally not propelled by their legs; as said, they have legs simply to emote. They move by driving on leg-tip wheels or swinging like fucking spiderman on retarded infinite strings, so any nobody's going to say they're 'sensible' but they work fine in the setting (far more so than the larger versions in SAC).

[Commander 598]

And my point was these ‘recent’ developments are nothing but another example of a long running trend of predicting the imminent death of the tank. People also predict the death of the manned combat aircraft on a regular basis, the imminent triumph of small fast or short fat ships and a lot of other things which just don’t ever happen. Canada almost scrapped its stockpile of totally obsolete Leopard Is, essentially a tank from 1960 that had been upgraded in modest ways a few times. Then it turned right around and bought the most modern model of Leopard II available after combat experience in Afghanistan. Hmm... interesting no?

My point is that basically "shit happens", only in this case they came to their senses before it could happen.

Well, I think we all know most people are stupid, look around the internet enough and you’ll find people raving about how Iraqi T-72s actually destroyed ‘hundreds’ of Abrams tanks and shit about how one PLA super warrior with a hand grenade can defeat all of NATO. However very valid criticism of the V-22 exists… which is why it was canceled not once but twice, only to be saved each time the USMCs large stockpile of political points.

Reminds me of a certain 1st GW documentary where the T72 is played up to be a death spewing god only for US Abrams to steamroll them like a Roman Legion on a mob and take almost no casualties... Keep in mind that these people are not merely limited to "the internet" and can include very important people, to say nothing of politics that will also affect weapon procurement.

Not really, considering that the US built flying wing bombers in the 1940s and the 2 billion dollar price tags is entirely the result of Congressional stupidity capping production. Plus, the B-2 did work, could and was upgraded far beyond its original mission, and had a clear purpose when it was developed. Developing its high cost technology also facilitated creating a whole range of other stealth aircraft.

Can you honestly say it was a "bad" idea to cut back on that order? Even if they would have gotten "cheaper" over time, they still weren't actually needed and probably would have even forced us to retire the B52, which is now slated to still be flying by 2050.

You don’t know jack shit if you think only three nations build tanks. Lets see, France, Germany, Russia, US, UK, China, Iran, Pakistan, Japan, South Korea, India, Israel, North Korea, and Iran are all doing major work on new or heavily modernized tanks of local manufacture. I’d throw in Ukraine too, but they haven’t shown any signs of actually producing the heavily upgraded models they developed in the late 1990s and early 2000s so they can stay off the list.

Shit, I haven't been keeping up then, in addition to the nations I just forgot, though I still feel that it is somewhat accurate in that the ones I "wasn't keeping up" with, also have about 75-95% of their armored force made up of foreign vehicles with India still set to have over a thousand more T90s by 2010.

Well, that’s already a HUGE limitation now isn’t it? What happens if the enemy is besieging the city and refuses to enter while the mecha crouch behind skyscrapers, and you need to launch a counter attack to break open a corridor so you can supply the population?

They build skyscrapers in the >5m range now and who said anything about your entire force being made of mecha?

[Gil Hamilton]

Amusingly Tachicomas are generally not propelled by their legs; as said, they have legs simply to emote. They move by driving on leg-tip wheels or swinging like fucking spiderman on retarded infinite strings, so any nobody's going to say they're 'sensible' but they work fine in the setting (far more so than the larger versions in SAC).

What's even more amusing is that the Tachikoma's are FAR more expressive than the human cast.

[Stark]

oh ... no... a ... terrorist... fall of government... nature of man... *sleep*

OMG BATOU WHAT'S UP WE GOT THIS AND THAT AND HOLY COW A SPACE ALIEN GUYS WE INVENTED PHILOSOPHY IN THE MAINTENANCE BAY WHAT DO YOU THINK

SAC would be much less interesting without the thematic dehumanisation of the 'human' cast and ultra-humanisation of the 'machine' cast. Don't look now, I think it might be a theme!

[Gil Hamilton]

And it would be less interesting if the sole purpose for Togusa to be in many episodes is to repeat back important plot points in the form a question for slow viewers.

Major Kusanagi: "The Laughing Man, being an A-class hacker himself, didn't trust electronic storage. Instead, he's been using books."
Togusa: "The Laughing Man has been using books?!"
Tachikoma: "MISTER BATOU! WE JUST WROTE A MANIFESTO!"
Togusa: "What? A manifesto?"

[Sea Skimmer]

Can you honestly say it was a "bad" idea to cut back on that order? Even if they would have gotten "cheaper" over time, they still weren't actually needed and probably would have even forced us to retire the B52, which is now slated to still be flying by 2050.

Well, if we don’t need them, then we should have just killed the entire order and bought a huge pile of cruise missiles with the additional money saved. 20 B-2s is a potent force already sure, but they’ve suffered from very low mission readiness rates, and very high operating costs. Its not just a lack of economy of scale of production, spare parts and training flight crews and ground crews are all very inefficient and expensive thanks to the small number of aircraft involved. We also have no margin for attrition losses, that recent B-2 crash is almost 5% of the fleet gone in ten seconds. The early 1990s saw big cutbacks in defence spending of all types, buying another 20 B-2s really wouldn’t have been that big a deal. Building the whole planned production run of 132, now that would be very unnecessary.

Unfortunately, the B-2 didn’t have any conventional precision guided weapons capability when the decision was made to cap production at 20 (plus 1 development aircraft that was later modified to be combat capable), and some of the smart weapons it would get just a few years later weren’t ready yet so its full potential just wasn’t appreciated. I think if we’d been able to tell Congress hey this thing is going to pack the PGM firepower of eight F-117s they would have been a lot more supportive of a bigger buy. As it was Congress saw it as only a nuclear weapons platform, and a carpet bomber, which wasn’t too impressive.

Its kind of ironic though, that the B-2 was meant specifically to hunt down mobile ICBM launchers, and in the Gulf War we had tremendous and very well publicized problems hunting down mobile SCUD launchers, and yet Congress killed B-2 anyway.
.

Shit, I haven't been keeping up then, in addition to the nations I just forgot, though I still feel that it is somewhat accurate in that the ones I "wasn't keeping up" with, also have about 75-95% of their armored force made up of foreign vehicles with India still set to have over a thousand more T90s by 2010.

India has found it worthwhile to invest in local production of the T-90 though, rather then continuing to import them. They are also producing the domestic design Arjun MBT, abet in very small numbers because its just endlessly been plagued by technical problems. Most likely however it will pave the way to a new Indian design MBT, as even 1000 extra T-90s cannot modernize the entire Indian army.

They build skyscrapers in the >5m range now and who said anything about your entire force being made of mecha?

Skyscrapers, houses, whatever. Any way you cut it having vehicles which can’t fight in open terrain is enormously undesirable. Even in very densely populated nations you still tend to find a lot of relatively open space between cities. The whole point of MBTs BTW is that you can use one tank for all purposes, before the concept evolved militaries had light, medium and heavy tanks. Going to a mix of mecha and tanks is taking a step backward in many ways.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I personally don't see the point of a mecha. Design a proper set of humanoid legs is bloody difficult and very resource intensive to maintain because of the even longer list of moving parts. If you plan to design a flying gunship, stick with a standard airframe, ensure you have VSTOL, and throw in as many armnaments you want.

Considering the AT-AT, it will take a fair bit of suspension of disbelief just to hope that such a vehicle would actually work in theory. The joints are just.. wrong in how they distribute both the weight of the vehicle and the leg itself.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

I personally don't see the point of a mecha. Humanoid legs are bloody difficult to design and very resource intensive to maintain because of the ever longer list of moving parts. If you plan to design a flying gunship, stick with a standard airframe, ensure you have VSTOL, and throw in as many armnaments you want.

Considering the AT-AT, it will take a fair bit of suspension of disbelief just to hope that such a vehicle would actually work in theory. The joints are just.. wrong in how they distribute both the weight of the vehicle and the leg itself.

[Sikon]

Right now, we can do things like image the Moon from an orbiter, with neutron activation analysis detecting info on the elemental composition of the ground everywhere at moderate resolution. With submarine being large metal objects, it's been hypothesized that fancy enough magnetic SQUIDs in orbit could detect submarines throughout the planet's oceans, analogous to a recent MAGSAFE magnetic device mounted on an aircraft for detecting submarines. Ground-penetrating radar can detect metal objects even hidden or buried under some feet of ground. Other methods are a possibility too.

Imagine one is talking about the future with technology way beyond now, with sensor technology up to orders of of magnitude more powerful, along with orders of magnitude more massive hardware spying on the planet in orbit, etc.

Right now, if somebody built a 500-meter super-gigantic tank anywhere in the world, we could detect it from orbit, but the day may come when a 10-meter tank is relatively just as much a detectable obvious target. Given enough advancement, a point would be reached where the right combination of technologies might reliably detect every last large concentration of refined metal on the planet's surface such as a 60-ton tank. In a moderate number of locations per country, there is large industrial equipment with as many tons of metal within a few square meters, but, even if one didn't just want to blow up such too anyway, other imaging could tell whether there was a factory at that spot of tens-of-tons of metal concentration or whether it was a tank.

Although a threat to tanks and armored vehicles, current airpower doesn't tend to find them all, and such can still sometimes be successfully concealed. However, advancement like the preceding could lead to a situation where an enemy could have 1000 tanks only to have every last one of them detected and targeted from orbit.

In some hypothetical scenarios, it may be that just about any large armored vehicle gets zapped from orbit by the side with domination of space, whether tanks or mecha. Potential beam weapons running on the power from nuclear reactors on a space warship wouldn't run out of ammo, able to kill tanks all day long.

(Of course, aside from advancements in orbital sensor technology, such might also lead to many small cheap spotter drones on ground and in the air, since they don't need to carry large or heavy weapons themselves if they can just transmit the location of an enemy spotted so that location gets destroyed a moment later; such orbital fire support is a similar idea to targeting artillery or missiles but with enough future advancement perhaps leading to a delay of a fraction of a second instead of many seconds to minutes or hours, along with accuracy progressing from highly imperfect towards practical perfection).

In that potential scenario, there may be rarely if ever tank versus tank combat, nor mecha versus tank combat, nor mecha versus mecha combat ... not if the side with control of space prefers to skip risking extra casualties, not sending a tank to fight a tank if they can instead just fry that tank with a giant warship safely hundreds of kilometers above from the ultimate high ground.

In that scenario, there could be some armored vehicles designed not to fight other armored vehicles but rather just to help infantry handle what couldn't be just blown up from orbit, to take cities intact if desired without indiscriminately killing the civilian population.

Mostly, such a scenario leads more towards potential power armor than it does actual true mecha. Somebody in power armor could walk inside, open doors, and secure a building without indiscriminately destroying it, yet a large mecha would be stuck in the street outside as much as a tank.

Still, if the technology existed, there might be some general-purpose uses for a few mecha, if one thinks of them as a little equivalent to having giants among one's troops, whether dealing with rioters non-lethally and easily just by grabbing them with a giant hand and dropping them in a holding container, or picking up and clearing heavy debris quickly, or other misc utility. Although in that case the mecha might be primarily construction and combat engineering equipment rather than focused on the same goals as most current armored vehicles, if one had them along anyway they might mount some weapons. The side with space superiority could deploy tanks as well, but there might be some advantages to having some of those mecha along.

[Covenant]

Mecha are just not effective weapon systems. Tanks are as pure a fighting machine as you can get. Take a high velocity piece of field artillery, make it self propelled, cover it in machineguns, and armor the whole thing up. Viola! The tank is born.

Mecha on the other hand are a complicated machine designed to mimic human movement first and foremost. Once that task is achieved and we are finally able to create man-movement robots, we then scale the thing up, stick a person inside of it for some reason, and... put a gun in it's hands? What? So you do all this work just so you can send an incredibly expensive, poorly armored piece of machinery into the field carrying the same kind of weapon that is considered a backup weapon on a tank?

Mecha, essentially, must be bigger than a tank to be of anywhere near the same usefulness, and have way more problems. For example, Mecha would not be able to fire a large calibur, high velocity weapon on the move without knocking themselves over, the same way a human has a hard time firing a large weapon on the move. Small arms just aren't useful. They wouldn't be able to carry many rounds of ammunition, and their powerplants would probably not be able to carry much fuel relative to their size. They would be very large targets for their weight class and would carry low levels of armor, with many exposed areas that are vulnerable to attacks that Tanks would not be. It's likely that small arms and manpacked weapon systems that would be outdated against a FutureTech Tank would still be effective against a mecha with lighter armor and less favorable faceting and angles.

So you have weaker, shorter-range, less durable, less useful weapon platform. For what benefit? There's simply no logical explination. You can either tell reality to piss off, or you can just admit mecha suck. But this doesn't mean you can't use them, just that there must be rationalizations.

Really want some Mecha? Make them for a non-combat purpose, comandeered by rebels for their glorious battle against the Evil Badmen. Just say that to carry the kind of weaponry required to take out Evil Badmen Battletanks you need a something that can haul around a 10 ton improvised kinetic impellor weapon, or some bullshit. They, like Al'Qaeda Pickup Trucks, can be your improvised weapon system of last resort. You can justify using a shitty weapon system when it's all you've got. A shitty weapon system is is better than none at all.

I think the issue that most Tank Lovers have with Mecha is that Mecha are made out to be superior weapon systems in every way without any logical reason for it. It's like the fetishistic obsession with swords that people have, or organic weapon systems. But if you just cede the point and admit that a tank would still be better, it frees you from that whole fight. The more specific your instance is, the greater latitude you'll have, and honestly, wouldn't you rather have your mecha face an interesting worthy adversary? Mecha v Mecha fights are just battles between infantry, essentially, and really don't look all that different than Powersuit v Powersuit fights except for the level of wanking involved. Improvised Mecha Armor carrying Gigantic Bazookas versus Super Battle Tanks is a much more dramatic story, if you ask me. Plus, you can make these really scary tanks, with like... city-clearing chainflails and mean robot voices. It'll work.

[weemadando]

Strange, that for all this talk of tanks dying, MBT production in Asia is apparently at it's highest ever level...

[Admiral Valdemar]

That scenario reminds me of ones debated before on here, but with regards to directed energy TMD systems instead killing all artillery and aircraft and even satellites. I had always envisioned a high level, nuclear powered craft with a look down, shoot down beam weapon for disposing of enemy armour and low flying aircraft. It'd be hard to justify a loitering, FEL laser equipped Project Pluto though. Still, Sikon's scenario is analogous.

Which is also why I consider power armour and small, light and agile mechas like the Irving/Gekko from MGS4 to be dominant. They don't replace tanks, but instead offer a more versatile variant of a jeep with far more firepower and terrain adaptability than such a vehicle, while still having advantages a human form has e.g. Limited building infiltration ability.

[harbringer]

First up I am a fan of mecha. Second I'm a tread head. Since that is covered, most of the time the rationale for "realistic" mecha is that they are built for terrain hostile for a tank, in other words where you would like to use a tank but can't. Secondly the bitching about armour only applies if you think like some naval firms and armour everything, you just armour the body / cockpit and let the other stuff get shot off ... if your defense is not to get shot that is . American battleships and tank destroyers were designed along these principles of only armour the stuff you need to. You can even go as far as the whole B25 lets see what comes back shot up and armour the other sections idea if you want, base it round a experimental unit. There is nothing that says the whole mecha needs armour against anything but small arms. This is mainly as if you can't use a tank you only need to beat grunts.

On the whole I can't think of too many places you need heavy firepower and either a tank can't get there or it can't be manpacked/mule transported. Still if your going to try to not bend logic too far thats what your pretty much stuck with.

Hope this helps... to anyone who doesn't like my point of veiw ... too bad yes mecha probably are a bad idea but they still look cool.

[Lord of the Abyss]

Well, a rationalization for the use of the AT-AT's on Hoth was the presence of the theater shield (it's been discussed somewhere on the site).

My favorite explanation is that it's simply an example of the bad design that weapon-fetishistic authoritarian governments sometimes put out, like Nazi Germany and it's impractical "supertanks". And they are, in universe, badly designed enough that a small flier with a cable can take one out; good luck trying that with a tank of the same size. I expect that someone with authority decided that they wanted a giant walking war machine, impractical or not, and the engineers went ahead and designed one to avoid getting a blaster bolt to the face.



As for mecha; as I see it, if you want to rationalize their use, you need to come up with a reason why they'd be using a fundamentally less capable design. A few ideas offhand :

1 : The old lost technology bit. They have an ancient factory that can build what are supposed to be, say, construction machines shaped like a humanoid. They are build of some unobtainium that's much tougher than the present culture can build into it's tanks, so they mount weapons on the things.

2 : Rules imposed from outside. For example, the world's watched over by a defective peacekeeping AI that destroys what it recognizes as military vehicles, but it's safety protocols won't let it attack something human shaped; even a giant mecha.

3 : Or throw reality away, and use the Ork solution. Just postulate that in that world humanity has a collective psychic power that helps things work or work better if people collectively believe it or want it to. A world where the "Rule of Cool" is essentially a physical force, and mecha beat tanks if enough of the local population think mecha are cooler. Completely unrealistic, of course, but potentially a lot of fun, especially if you extrapolate the various effects.