I know you guys hate Youtubers but this is honestly something I want to be discussed here seriously.
Mechs are Useless Explain Why
Jonathan Johnson
Austin Harris
Get out of my youtube video recommendations!
Ryan Perez
lolno. Just extremely overrated, the heavy tank will always be the biggest, scariest, and most well-armed and armored vehicle on the battlefield.
piloted, large(bigger than a car, >1 ton) mechs will never see common use on the front lines, at least not in our lifetime. Except maybe by japan. In my opinion, they will most likely replace armored bulldozers in combat. They'll basically look like a treaded vehicle with a dozer blade and one/two logging claws on arms for clearing and moving obstacles. It will open up new options for urban combat, like taking destroyed cars and quickly making an impromptu roadblock, for instance. The arm(s) will be able to make holes in buildings that would otherwise require explosives. They'll be useful in a front line or near front line utility role.
But for actually using mechs to dish out firepower, it's not happening anytime soon. The closest thing we'll see to that might be vid related with an SMG turret.
Don't even post that meme video shit here, any mech you've seen in a movie/game/anime/fanart is not realistic.
The mech fears the tank.
Luke Carter
There was already a Metal Gear thread up, but this is more of a general mech thread than that. We were talking about how a Gekko is actually incredibly useful, but that's a biomech. A conventional mech would be good at base defense and as an artillery unit that can get to locations other artillery pieces can't. You could just drop an artillery piece in a location like that with a chopper, but you're risking getting the chopper shot down. A mech that's actually big and strong enough to beat a tank would be too heavy to use as a frontline assault unit even if it had treads in addition to legs, hence keeping it in the base.
Juan Gonzalez
By definition mechs can't be discussed seriously.
Levi Ross
Treads and wheels will always be more practical than comparatively delicate legs that require gyro-stabilizers, joints, & software. Accepting that mechs can't widely be used for heavy arms, you have to justify the new motor pools, logistical chain expansion, training of mechanics, and general exuberant cost compared to infantry. One or two infantrymen can do anything a similarly sized mech can do a hundred times more efficiently. As said by the TORpedo above, the only justification I can possibly think of is terrain locomotion, which is heavily specialized anyways, for example a mech would do much worse in woodland and jungle terrain than regular armor, undoubtedly have sever maintenance issues in the desert due to all the moving joints and sensors, and basically just end up being regulated to mountains. Then you have to think about how you'd actually fit an artillery piece into a mech's body, and let me remind you, real life is not vidya where half a dozen limbs that can spontaneously grow weapons like some sort of weapon-tree is practical whatsoever. In the far-ish future they might see specialized use as PR anti-riot gimmicks, and that's about it.
Robert Hernandez
The main problem with a mech is that every time it takes a step, it goes up and down slightly. The movement is too slight to notice when looking at the mech from outside, but being inside it would be very different. Doing that at any speed would be like riding a car with no shocks over these for hours. You'd have popped spinal disks after only a few weeks on the frontline. Even wheeled vehicles are already pretty rough platforms for a weapon system, we need tracked vehicles for real stability and max weight.
There are many other problems, but that's the worst for me.
The only way we'll have mechs is as semi independent UGVs and weapons platforms following soldiers around and carrying supplies or heavy weapons. Troops themselves will only have various supports, not even full exoskeletons, just supporting struts which improve the load they can carry. Maybe a faster version of HAL5.
Grayson Turner
Photo dropped sorry.
Hunter Cruz
All her arguments are false.
Bentley Thompson
Mechs are useless because they do not account for that tiny thing called THE LAWS OF PHYSICS.
We can make heavy vehicles because tracks (or lots of wheels) properly even out the pressure exercised by their heavy weight on a very large contact surface.
And modern tanks ALREADY have issues collapsing river banks or streets and falling into sewers/basements despite that. The jap image of the bipedal mech in a city is RETARDED. It instantly ends up in the metro or the gigantic typhoon proof drainage system if it's actually in japan. Cities have just as much empty space bellow than above.
The answer mecha morons have to that is "hurr durr you can make multi-legged mechs"… which will ALWAYS be more complicated than simpler tracked vehicles for the EXACT same mobility result.
The Uran series of UGV that are being deployed in Russia is what the future of mechanized warfare looks like.
Not retarded fantasy about giant robots.
Jayden Bell
Bet I could take them out even with pic related.
Easton Wood
Get on my level.
Joshua Cox
The only type of mechs that I can think that would be in anyway feasible would be basically over-sized power armor, in the realm of like 8'-12' tall. Outside of that it would be a fucking nightmare of proper weight distribution and a bunch of other shit.
Nathaniel Bennett
For setting up mountain artillery it's still probably cheaper and more efficient to have 20 guys and some donkeys haul the equipment up on bicycles than to make a walking tank capable of keeping its balance on treacherous scree. Also when the mech runs out of ammo it's either going to have to walk back down to reload and then trek back up or you're gonna need those 20 grunts anyway to carry that shit up to the mech's position.
Jose Russell
It would probably be cheaper to airlift the artillery and the crew up there like we do now
Cooper Young
Maybe as an anti tank weapons platform. Something that can use the terrain/elevation to its advantage to get into a firing position. Fire and bug out/disappear into the surroundings. But once its in the open it is going to be a fire magnet.
Dylan Sanders
Thing is, that role can be done by regular infantry men, with better survivability and cost effectiveness.
Jackson Turner
Electronics tech who occasionally fixes robots here. Mechs are a horrible idea. You'd end up with that scene from Iron Man where the mech twists the guy's spine 180 degrees.
The only time mechs would be useful as a stand-alone unit is in the case of small arms if you could produce said mech for cheaper than a soldier. We're talking "dark trooper" sized mechs in science fantasy here. In reality it would be a bomb disposal rover or that dog robot armed with a semi-auto or auto rifle, maybe a light machine gun for suppressive fire, and its sole purpose would be being at the front of a group of soldiers to soak up bullets that would otherwise kill people. Such mecha would only be feasible if they were cheaper than training/equipping infantry. Otherwise the only use of a robot in the military is as a utility vehicle, that is such as the bulldozer example listed above, or as a partial exoskeleton to assist troops during extended campaigns. Weight balancing is extremely difficult on rough terrain when not using treads, and moreso when not on a flat surface.
Jayden Scott
Ian Myers
Why wouldn't troops have full exoskeletons if it became cheap enough?
This is pretty close to what I think. If you have an anime mech that's the size of a building, it's going to be about as mobile as a building.
Hudson Sanchez
Because it's a pain in the ass to get in and out of a full exoskeleton. Imagine a skin-tight scuba suit, except on top of an oxygen tank you also have to worry about battery life and shit exploding on you/causing that battery to spray acid. There's too many points of failure introduced by a full exoskeleton for shit to go wrong like a busted servo twisting your arm 360 degrees. Partial exoskeletons typically aren't directly attached to the body, or if they are, it's only as a "holder belt" or brace that doesn't interact with the moving parts. To do the same with a full exoskeleton would involve severely limiting one's range of motion/vision.
Sebastian Barnes
This is the only part of your post that's an inherent problem with power armor. The rest of it can be solved with better technology.
Jason Sanders
in what way is this different from a horse
Carter Johnson
A horse isn't over 60 tons for one, and you can get serious back injuries from riding horses.
Carson Lee
Well one major factor is length of use and speed. Modern combat simply can't have a mech walking around at the speed of a plodding horse, it has to move at least as fast as a car to be competitive with one.
Another factor is that I'm assuming a bipedal mech, which is very very much worse than a horse. If its a quadruped mech, you'd have the same problems, which does cause a lot of problems:
horseandhound.co.uk
Except maybe even larger ranges and more abrupt. I suppose a mech with six legs would be a smoother ride than a horse, but thats a huge investment in legs and I'm not sure how fast it could be.
Carter Gonzalez
If.
We're living in the real world where the army refuses to massively upgrade soldiers rifles because they'll cost $600 instead of $500 each. Due to basic law of complexity full body exoskeletons won't ever cost less than a car, and are likely to cost twice as much. So the suit is going to have to be more mobile, more reliable, and more deadly than a HMMWV, or half dozen guys on bikes.
Right and Jordans can give us the ability to fly with "better technology." You can't wave away every problem with "the future will fix it" attitude.
Michael Gutierrez
*falls over*
Ryder Myers
Joseph Gonzalez
I never said manned and armed vehicle. I think walking drones like boston dynamic's Spot(not spotmini) carrying a pic related, with the standard compliment of gunner/loader to operate the drone, but from cover. Meaning the MG nest can dish out suppressing fire even when taking suppressing fire.
Its not just about price, its also about cost-effectiveness and safety, do the exoskeletons actually bring a benefit in combat to the average frontline marine, or is it just a gimmick to lighten an overloaded soldier's pack?
Christopher Campbell
Oh you're that guy. Read everything after the spoiler here I was agreeing with you.
Connor Foster
After that incident resulting in the loss of at least 6,000,000 million shekels worth of military hardware in a ddition to numerous human casualties and the bots' removal from active service in Iran Lockheeb presents to Congress an upgrage package containing fully fledged hands in the front legs allowing the robot to manipulate weapons and other things while standing up on its hind legs to intimidate the enemy in urban combat
Tyler Scott
Always impressed by German efficiency.
Lucas Cruz
"Better technology" is so vague and insipid in these sorts of discussions it practically means nothing. With no hard data, proposed specific solution, or even hypothesis to work off it means jack shit. Might as well argue bullets in the future will become useless as every gun will be able to fire miniature black holes because of "better technology".
Andrew Morris
Mechs are cool as fuck, but horribly impractical. Mainly because in engineering, it's better to keep things simple.
Replacing a mech's leg after Jihad John fucks it up with a surplus ATGM costs more time and money to replace than simply getting new wheels or treads.
Also mechs tend to stick out more, so they'll be more likely to be shot at.
Mechs will mainly stay in science fiction and if they do appear in real life like the Japan vs US mech battle from a while ago it'll be more for sport than actual military use.
Charles Davis
They might end up costing twice as much as a one-seater car due to robotic limbs being more complex than wheels. I doubt they'd even approach the price of a full-sized car though.
The biggest benefit is better armor. Assuming the current problems with power armor can't be fixed, you still might see small groups of elite troops using it.
Oliver Ortiz
The only time you'll ever see human shaped, limbed vehicles is in space. Emulating human motion to conserve thruster fuel by using Newton's third law to orient a craft along its multiple axes is great to have in a micro G environment. The only problem is that space is more about long distance missle attacks rather than within visual range attacks so strategic weapons would be used, not space mechas.
Xavier Morris
Mechs will be useful in the future, obviously.
Gas yourself.
Charles Adams
Again, tell me this won't do the job better.
Nrekhta light multipurpose drone (infantry), officially adopted last year.
Jayden Torres
That's asinine.
A single robot arm (used in construction) costs 60k. If its stripped down as much as possible (no tools, no safety features, just metal and hydraulics) the cost can maybe hit 20k. You're going to need four of those to make a real exoskeleton, total 80k. Lets say the part which mates it to the human body is another 20k at the lowest possible end. Added on top of that is fitting it out with sensors, weapons, and control systems, which would be another 100k. In the end a finished very rough exoskeleton would cost 200k, at the base lowest market price. Built at a loss, shittier than the exoskeletons in that tom cruise movie, and it would still cost a couple of hundred billion to outfit an infantry force.
A suit would be several million apiece if it got built by Lockmart, which translates to several trillion dollars to outfit an army.
There's no fucking way a military that refuses to massively improve its combat ability in the present day with a few hundred million dollars would be willing to pay a few hundred billion dollars or a few trillion dollars.
William Davis
The cost will go down over time as the tech matures. People can 3D print robot arm parts at home already.
You could always just not do this.
Camden Green
What about some kind of exotic shocks? Dimagnetic dampening for example.
What about something like this?
Joshua Thomas
This but more dakka, they should fill the role of airborne combat vehicles like BMD or Wiesel.
Austin Johnson
No, they're still in development though.
Luis Clark
It depends on the height, if it's like 7m, yeah, it's still feasible.
Bigger though, a waste of money and a big walking target.
Carson James
Would mgs mechs be the way of the future ?
Connor Nguyen
Why would they? They are literally chicken walkers and these designs are fucking horrible.
You want something good, you should base it on something with a lower center of gravity, like chimpanzee/gorilla.
Ethan Anderson
so just like tanks?
Robert Rodriguez
The Maus weighed, according to wikipedia, 188 tons. It had tracks, distributing weight across a relatively large surface. It was also known for being a retarded tanker's nightmare that would sink into slightly-soft dirt. The Abrams weighs 60 tons. Now imagine a 60 or 100 ton (because of the legs) mech, with two or four legs, and as such a twentieth of the surface area to distribute weight onto. There's already discussion about tanks becoming comparatively obsolete in the future due to ATGM advances. A mech just compounds the problems of regular armor twenty times over with barely, if any, positives.
Brandon Bennett
Wouldn't legged self-propelled artillery have advantage over wheeled/treaded howitzers in difficult terrain, such as mountains and dense forests?
Jackson Lopez
Or perhaps something smaller, like a ~6 meter tall mech that can operate on urban areas for infantry support, with the combat capability of an LAV so it can work alongside MBTs instead of replacing them?
Brandon Reyes
Smaller mechs or drones of that size do make more sense, but thier roll would still be limited for as far as i can see.
Logan Jackson
youtube.com
screw mechs what about zaku and gundam ?
Justin Thomas
Oliver Nelson
youtube.com
what about space batles cant use tanks their!
Luke Wright
By the way there's this.
Carter Hernandez
Space battles are to be fought with space ships you dolt!
Juan Rogers
Go fight Sammy or Kanbei and get back to me.
Angel Young
Crap, life's turning into some weird sci-fi novel at this point.
Jaxon Morales
There's 239,000 miles between us and the moon. The Apollo program traversed this distance at 24,000 mph. Assuming you're willing to burn enough fuel to take a direct trip, this will take you about 10 hours. During this 10 hour trip, you will be traveling in a gigantic thermal signature, with a known velocity and trajectory. Firing a metal brick strapped to a rocket so that it intercepts you is child's play. Adding an antenna so that they can make course corrections in case you change your velocity is trivial. This kinetic impactor can accelerate many times faster than you can and combined with your own velocity will punch a hole in your vessel like a bullet going through yogurt. A really clever military might even attach an explosive to it. The future of space warfare is a game of interstellar rocket tag. A giant bipedal robot is not going to effectively do anything besides waste resources that would be better used as missiles.
Leo Gutierrez
That fucker can ruin a persons day with just mechs let alone the choppers.
Jacob Nguyen
Jacob Fisher
I meant to say Sensei but I didn't remember his name.
Zig Forums game night when
Julian Clark
Kanbei is pure rape though especially if he gets a choke point. It isn't fair when his Mech can lolrape several medium tanks and stay in good order. One day. I lost a GBA by besting two people with Kanbei.
Ryder Carter
Not really. Artillery does 1 of two things:
1. Shoots and gets the fuck out of the area.
2. Just sits there.
A "mech" would be shit at the first, and laughably expensive at the second. If you need a firebase in the mountains, you just clear out a stable area and airlift a normal "dumb" artillery piece in. Simple, cheap, and effective.
Aaron Davis
But how can it even be countered if it fires from behind a mountain at angles such as pic related? The mountain coves it from artillery and if fast movers fly over it to target the thing, it could have a mech with a AAA platform sitting right next to it for cover.
Noah Kelly
Kindle has an awful personality, worse hair, and a stupid goal, but dear lord is it fun to play with her.
Jacob Butler
As much as I like Gundam, mechs are inherently flawed. They're slow, bulky, and are easy targets. They're also prohibitively heavy when at the scale of the typical anime mech, with the Zaku weighing in at 58 tons. Adding weapons systems or extra armor will only serve to make the thing heavier, thus slower and an even easier target.
Apart from some bullshit radar jamming technology the "Minovsky particles" emitted from fusion reactors do this in Gundam, they're sitting ducks for guided missiles. Even some of the more grounded Gundam stuff references this, the embeded video shows that despite the aforementioned bullshit radar jamming, a platoon of poorly trained artillerymen can take down a mech.
brings up a good point though, as a terrain hugging artillery position mechs could find use, though airstrikes are a concern as they would be even less mobile.
Joshua Hall
Can't jam wireless communication when there isn't any wireless communication, pic related.
I find it funny that if the thing that makes Gundams immune to missiles is wireless communication jamming then the tech to defeat them has existed since 1945. Wire guidance missiles were super common before fire-and-forget became the cool new kid on the block. The American army used the M47 Dragon, a shoulder fired wire guidance missile, extensively from 1975 onward and that thing could seriously fuck up an armored vehicle.
Also, "jamming" radar? What the fuck? That's not how that works. Jamming consists of decreasing the signal to noise ratio by deliberately broadcasting a bunch of noise. You know, turning yourself into a radio beacon. Radar guided missiles don't exist as far as I know but they sure as hell would exist if these weapons platforms turned themselves into radar beacons.
Modern fire-and-forget missiles don't even use the microwave or radio waves employed by radar. They use infrared for guidance. And "jamming" infrared just means getting really hot, making it easier on the missile. And if it did the opposite, and absorbed infrared radiation then the missile would just be set to target the big cold spot rather than the big hot spot. Literally just a software update to the missile and lock-on software.
But even if you could somehow effectively make both radar and infrared guidance useless, let's say by absorbing radar and having active infrared camouflage, any military would just use laser guidance or wire guidance. Or can this "jam" visible light too?
Hudson Nguyen
pretty sure "mech" is just short for mechanized infantry seeing that unless you play as Sami you are going to need APCs to get them anywhere within the next week. But they seriously could have done better by simply naming them heavy and light infantry
The feddies regularly used wire guided missiles against mobile suits in close quarters since episode 1. They just aren't very effective when you are out in space and need miles of wire and can lose the target through smoke, wreckage, asteroids, decoy balloon suits ECT. The Minovsky particles are apparently dispersed in such a wide pattern that it saturates everything to the point that its nothing but noise. Again, its just a plot device used as a means to an end which is super robots. Also I don't know what the fuck you are smoking to think that there's no such thing as radar guided missiles as pretty much every long range air to air or surface to air missile is semi-active or active radar homing. Not to mention anti radiation missiles made to destroy radar and SAM systems.
Ayden Moore
Would mecha be better served to assist army engineers?
Just keep them away from combat and use them for building shit quickly.
Jace Edwards
Lucas Russell
Jesus fucking christ
Juan Carter
James Perez
mechs have too many shortcomings compared to tanks to be viable
the only "mech" design i can see actually happening is infantry exosuits
mechs vs tanks disadvantages:
mechs vs tanks advantages:
so as a vehicle combat unit they are basically a slower, weaker and less reliable tank
Anthony Turner
I'm a ZOGbot airman and radar guided missiles do exist. Aside from the ones that mentioned many SAM platforms use radar to detect aircraft before the crew can see them. I had the opportunity to pilot an F-35 simulator a while back and the aircraft's ability to see radar and give the pilot a safe release range for munitions was one of the features used in the simulated SAM neutralization demo.
Connor James
If the mech can fold into a fetal position or the arms and legs can come off, it could be more compact than a tank.
Even today's robots easily compensate for uneven loads. Staying upright is one of the things they're best at.
As opposed to a tank which can drive over walls and obstacles with the full 40-60 tons of mass behind it. This should be a tank advantage not a mech advantage.
Nathaniel Phillips
You can jam a wire-guided missile. If you did your homework you'd know that the commands sent to the missile through the wire are generated by a TV or IR sensor in the launch platform, which looks at a flare on the back of the missile to track the missile's deviation from the center of the crosshair. Systems like the T-90's Shtora use emitters to confuse the sensor and prevent it from correctly identifying the flare on the back of the missile, causing it to miss most of the time.
Every guidance system ever invented can be jammed. The most difficult system to jam today is probably beam-riding guidance as used on the 9K121 Vikhr, but even that isn't totally immune since it ultimately relies on an optical sensor to send command signals.
Cameron Bailey
yeah but the tank has to drive THROUGH the wall, potentially exposing itself to booby traps, being buried under collapsing rubble and exposing itself to whoever is on the other side
well yes i'll give you that one, but then it would require significant assembly at the other side
you certainly couldn't drop it anywhere near a combat zone in that state
you know what else is much better than a pair of legs at staying upright? a tank :^)
also if the legs themselves have suffered heavy combat damage then no amount of gyroscopes and advanced software will keep that thing standing up whereas tanks can keep grinding along on bare bogies even if their tracks have been mauled to shit by landmines
although i admit that would be another mech advantage to add, it being less likely to set off mines (albeit if you do step on one you are in big trouble)
Thomas Bell
If artillery can be countered, then you use the fucking airforce or artillery on wheels that can get the fuck out of there. There are also a variety of guided munitions that have no problem dealing with such a situation.
Artillery trying to hug and fire along a mountain is just going to fucking tumble to the bottom when physics once again come and kicks retarded mecha in the dick. Also note that all the equipment in your pictures are going to be secured by cables, because otherwise they will go tumbling down, which goes against your imagined mobility advantage.
You are trying to come up with a very expensive and sup-par tactic that has already been negated.
You should get a job in the defense industry
Christian Russell
I posted in here about how the best role for a classic mech that can solve most of these problems is base defense, but it got deleted for some reason. The best way to build a mech that could actually compete with a tank is to hybridize it with a tank. You can either put wheels or treads at the ends of its legs, like the Ghost in the Shell spider tanks, or you can have it transform from a mech to a tank. The first way is probably better because making it transform will be more complex and cost more, and you'd be better off using a non-humanoid design for most purposes anyway.
Adrian Moore
No it doesn't.
Carter Bell
Ian Bailey
Big mechs are space weapons. AMBAC, yo.
Jeremiah Morgan
We Hildolfr now?
Luke Brown
I wanted to point out how you were wrong about how Gundam does radar jamming to allow mobile suit combat, and how wire-guided missiles do exist in Gundam but their effectiveness is limited because Minovsky particle radiation fucks up unhardened electronics as well, but I think people are pointed out how stupid you were for saying there aren't any radar guided missiles.
Gavin Clark
Again, it isn't the radar being jammed. In the Universal Century Gundam universe Minovsky based fusion reactions put out Minovsky particles as a byproduct. These particles are near massless and when spread out they form a lattice as opposite charged particles repulse each other. This lattice fucks up most electronics (so the launcher of this wire guided missile) and blocks not only radio (and thus radar) but also microwave, some far IR, and ends up actually interfering with some near IR and optical wavelengths. Also I'll agree with the sentiment that the mobile suits in Gundam are an interesting but ultimately flawed concept in the sense that they didn't stay as space-only weapons.
The fucking Hildolfr survived that fight purely on plot armor. Any Zaku would have fucked it up easily if it wasn't protected by it.
Jackson Nelson
Honestly the Minovsky particle is a better justification why star wars is filled with WWII dogfighting than making gundams a viable option. Besides if a minocsky particle existed you're better off using WWII-like tactics than wasting resources on gaint space robots.
Carson Myers
No? The Minvosky particle made BVR combat obsolete (until the whole Newtype thing kicked in). This meant that long range attacks via missiles, guns, etc. were not optimal so A. large warships were basically only used in close fleet vs fleet operations and B. anything smaller than a warship needed to be very manuverable and to manuver on an axis limbs were found to consume less fuel while giving better control over rotating along your axes. Combine this with the ideas of close in combat and swappable handheld weaponry and that's why the mobile suit became the mainstay of combat in UC. Also what do you mean WWII dogfighting? Space is a vacuum, you don't get WWII dogfighting.
Jack Watson
How long is long range here? And why aren't they optimal? Because in space guns a virtually limitless range.
How close is close? Even then I mean you could be using them as defacto arty here by using shells with a timed charge, by using something like like a Flag semaphore system as a means of communication. That's still better than trying attempting 16th century ship warfare.
It doesn't need to be a humanoid shape to do that. your better off having ball turret shaped ship instead where the axis rotate on a rail or gears like a lathe or a mill instead.
>swappable handheld weaponry
Why you ever need that? Locking lugs and screws would be much more sturdy system instead and cheaper to manufacture and maintain, if you needed to swap weapons. Anyway it would be quicker to swap ammo types instead.
The Minovsky just means a fog of war tactics because while there is a fog of war this does not mean it will be fought in melee distances like gundam likes to portray but rather visual contact ranges like WWII or even WWI style combat. Bombers would still be needed since you just can't use a guided missile, the bombers needs fighter escorts, how is this not similar to a WWII bombing run? Now you do have me there with vacuum thing, but star wars writers really want to use a Minvosky particle justification they could just say it cause a small atmosphere effect or some other asspull explanation to justify the maneuvers.
Zachary Jackson
This tread reminds me of this.
Christian Phillips
I never realized how much I need this in my life.