Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

In a society where the technology is sufficiently advanced enough to solve all the pitfalls of piloting a 10+ meter mecha, I believe they would prove far superior to normal tank vehicles based on their versatility. Once tanks gain gravitic propulsion systems, you can put the same type of propulsion system in a mecha and have the same effect. On the ground, mecha would be extremely agile and better capable of taking advantage of terrain and cover due to their ability to vary their profile (lie prone, crouch, stand up with back to a skyscraper, climb etc). The tall profile would allow for better and longer ranged sensing capabilities (turret-mounted sensor arrays in the "head" of the mecha) and bipedal configuration with "limbs" including manipulative "hands" allows the mecha to change its weapons configuration on the fly if necessary. Also, the ability to engage in melee/hand-to-hand combat opens up a whole new vista of combat options in armored combat as mecha wouldn't have to waste ammunition on lesser targets, simply stomp, kick, swat or squash infantry that gets in your way. Mecha can also serve as emergency rescue vehicles, using their arms to rescue victims trapped in the upper floors of buildings on fire, traverse rough terrain to retrieve normally unreachable targets and maneuver heavy equipment (such as some firefighting equipment) to areas normally inaccessible to wheeled vehicles.

 

Personally, I don't see the down side. Once the tech is there to make them perform up to specs, the ability to crouch and lie prone essentially removes the negative aspects of having such a tall profile on the battlefield. Certainly if you hit a mecha by surprise, you'll have the advantage of aiming for such a big target, but once the gun fire begins they won't just stand there....they'll probably maneuver much as actual ground troops do in combat, they just need bigger cover and in urban combat, thats not much of an issue.

[megaplayboy]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

On the low-silhouette walker concept:

[csyphrett]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

Megaplayboy's picture made me think of something. Do the robot vehicles from Star Wars count as practical examples? The Attack of the Clones had some rhino tanks that looked cool.

CES

[brokefang]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

As its one of my personal favorite series, the Ghost in the Shell Tank (not the little blue ones, the large MBT scale one from the episode "Runaway Evidence") uses a bunch of anti-Precision Guided Weapons systems:

Fouling laser painting (works rather well on a laser guided warhead, such as...many in man portable launchers and ground guided air to surface weapons.

Fouling computer guided weapons with active attack hacking software (may be a little harder to manage) but still, this is future tech, and it works on a lot of fire control systems in this case, especially weapons guided through some kind of link software.

 

Just as an example of where careful thought can force technology to evolve. A mecha could be made to work, if attention is paid to details. Kind of goes without saying, but I have done anyway.

[csyphrett]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

I remember that. The designer had downoaded his brain into the tank and was trying to show his folks what he had built. Everyone thought he was going to kill them so they killed him.

 

The hacking was to the satellite hooked to the linking to disrupt the flow of information.

CES

[Ninja-Bear]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

This reminds me of an agrument upmteen years ago. A friend argued that a marine sniper could kill a battlemech pilot in his cockpit. Two points I made, first in a supplement, they explained that there was some sort of armor to protect from such muchkinism, and two "Dude, you're arguing realism, when the mechs have fusion reactors."

 

Another point, now this ws built into the game mechcanics, but battlemechs had a better internal structure, and hence a longer surviabilty. If you went internal and rolled a crit there was a great chance of tank go boom.

[csyphrett]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

You could still shoot the legs if you had a big enough gun.

CES

[Escafarc]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

You could still shoot the legs if you had a big enough gun.

CES

 

This one big enough?

 

[csyphrett]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

good one.

CES

[Vulcan]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

The BEST thing about that particular mecha is that it was little (if any!) bigger than a modern convetional MBT, and it's hull was of a similar design to a MBT, thus gaining it the full benfit from armor technology.

[BobGreenwade]

Re: Giant robots! Another meme too cool for its own good.

 

We see you have boom-boom stick.

 

Bye-bye.