Mecha are cool, no question there, but everyone I talk to about armour and tanks seems to think they are a stupid idea that will never happen. While I'm willing to concede that may be the case, are there any realistic justifications for mecha in the future?

*Oops, meant to put this in the main roleplaying forum if a mod wants to move it.

having been in Armor, I hoped like HELL we'd already be seeing something by now, but alas...no.  DARPA's MULE/"Alpha Dog" (now LS3) seems admittedly neat but deserves at least a mounted .50 cal or M240's for security. Sarcos (now Raytheon) were the ones developing the powered exoskeleton, which again seems cool, but i would imagine the implementation would be less Roy Focker and more Ripley-in-a-power-loader.

the move is to small, light, and unmanned.  in my estimation, any mechs in the future will probably be skittering and not ground-pounding.

In combat, you want the smallest, lowest profile possible.  That's why we see tanks but not mecha.  That, and balance and speed issues...

Most of the arguments I've seen against mecha involve the high profile of bipedal movement, the difficulty and instability of the same, and the fact that by the time we can manage legged movement, it'll be put on something remote controlled or artificially intelligent.

I think the benefits could include jumping, climbing, handling stairs. That sort of thing. But as said above, skittering little drones and not towering giants.

Rule of cool is enough for an RPG, but you could also go the evangellion route and say they're necessary for some other reason entirely.

Thinking about the places tanks have problems: deep water is a good example. As well as cliffs, dense forests, shifting sands, swamps and bogs, large walls, large ditches, buildings, boulders, certain types of fences. Mountainous terrain especially regularly contains grades that tanks and vehicles find far too difficult to maneuver on in any useful way, and both undeveloped wooded areas and unlevelled rocky ground are areas that they cannot cross.

In all of those except wooded areas hovertanks do better, and I'm going on the wild assumption that by the time we can do realistic mecha we will be able to do some sort of hovertanks.

Mecha would probably do worse than standard tanks in boggy terrain. Streets choked with rubble and debrs might stop tanks where mecha might get through (as in Falling Skies), so urban pacification is one possible environment mecha might come up tops. They'd probably max out at WH40k dreadnought size before the benefits vanish.

Keeping a low profile is indeed also important, so you'd need some sort of very solid armour or a very flexible mecha, spider configurations might be better really, skitterlicious.

I'm not really sold on the push to automated drones, those are only useful where you have almost complete air superiority. Against manned enemy fighters, which recent wars haven't been, they'd be useless.

So a mountainous canyon-riddled world with dense jungle, fast flowing deep rivers, and swamps perhaps might be the best bet?

Quote from: The Traveller;554124So a mountainous canyon-riddled world with dense jungle, fast flowing deep rivers, and swamps perhaps might be the best bet?

The best environment for a tech addicted culture to get their ass handed to them by some guys who sleep in the mud and eat a lot of rat meat, maybe. That's what I'd do with mecha- use it as a gimp worse than useless technology, but force the players to work out how much it sucks for themeselves.

Quote from: The Traveller;554097Mecha are cool, no question there, but everyone I talk to about armour and tanks seems to think they are a stupid idea that will never happen. While I'm willing to concede that may be the case, are there any realistic justifications for mecha in the future?

Government stupidity, pork barrel projects and lots and lots of greased palms from the local military contractors.

Oh dear, I'm a frigging veteran of this shit.

QuoteWhile I'm willing to concede that may be the case, are there any realistic justifications for mecha in the future?

Yes: a war that takes place entirely in a world of giant stairs. That's about it; in any other situation either tanks are better or both are completely inapplicable.

EDIT: Also, what Melan said about stupid/corrupt decisionmakers. Also also, The Pentagon War is highly relevant viewing material.

QuoteThinking about the places tanks have problems: deep water is a good example.

Nope. The simple brick-shaped body of a tank is easier to equip with floatation devices and/or some external water propulsion system then a mecha with its highly irregular shape and large moving parts. In the distant and weird future you might be able to build a mecha whose density is lower than that of water so it can float/swim, but then you could just use the same materials to build a similarly floating tank which will still have an advantage in all the other aspects of service.

QuoteAs well as cliffs,

Nope. Too heavy to climb, materials not strong enough to create climbing appendages of a small enough size with sufficient strength, and even if it was buildable, controlling the fine movements for climbing would be way too complicated for a pilot.

Quotedense forests,

Nope. Comparing a tank and a mecha of roughly equal tonnage and technological level, they have a similar width but the mecha is much taller; consequently, it is MORE likely to encounter obstacles among trees. It's also less able to break through undergrowth: with a tank, most of the energy produced by the engine is translated into actual forward movement (and the ability to crush obstacles). With the mecha's numerous multi-directional servos, most of the energy produced by the engines is NOT, at any given moment, being translated into forward motion.

Quoteshifting sands, swamps and bogs,

Nope. You sink into the ground if your vehicle's ground pressure is high enough. Ground pressure is your vehicle's total mass divided by the total area of its contact with the ground. Assuming a tank and a mecha of roughly the same size and tonnage, the tank has a larger area of contact through its threads then the mecha with its feet, therefore it is LESS likely to sink.

Quotelarge walls,

Same thing as cliffs: either you can't build a mecha light and agile enough, or if you do, then it's too light(ly armed and armoured) and will be blown to smithereens when it comes to the shooting. Or if you're thinking "rocket jumping boots" or something for your mecha, than you can just equip your tank with the same rocket technology.

Quotelarge ditches,

Nope. See what I just wrote about rocket jumping boots.

Quotebuildings,

Nope. If you're thinking of climbing them, then take a reality check and reseach the actual dimensions of various random buildings, than calculate what sort of armspan the mecha would need to find a grasp. From the mecha size, calculate mass, and you'll see the building would just crumble when the mecha tried to grasp it.

[/quote]boulders,[/quote]

Nope. Boulders are loose. The long, thin, articulated legs of a mecha are MORE likely to get stuck when the boulders shift than the flat tank.

Quotecertain types of fences.

Fences? Please describe a fence (not a wall or a line of tank traps; a fence) that a tank can't just go through.

QuoteMountainous terrain especially regularly contains grades that tanks and vehicles find far too difficult to maneuver on in any useful way, and both undeveloped wooded areas and unlevelled rocky ground are areas that they cannot cross.

They would also contain cliffs and other terrain that mecha's can't cross either. But suppose they DO cross it, then what? It will take a long enough time that the enemy will marshall their forces on lower ground, and then the mechas will be facing tanks with superiour speed, maneuverability, lower profile, tougher armour, etc. etc..

QuoteStreets choked with rubble and debrs might stop tanks where mecha might get through (as in Falling Skies), so urban pacification is one possible environment mecha might come up tops.

In an urban pacification scenario, however, you need the ability to get inside the buildings, and when you're working on that size scale, it's no longer a mecha but a powered armour suit.

There's a quote from Mekton I've always liked.

"It was said that the giant metal warriors were shaped like men so the aliens would know it was men who had defeated them."

Quote from: Premier;554144Fences? Please describe a fence (not a wall or a line of tank traps; a fence) that a tank can't just go through.

Cointet-elements. If you've ever seen a digger lift itself onto a truck by its arm, or an operator part someone's hair with the bucket, neither strength nor precision would be an issue, and that's today. Unlike tanks, mecha could turn sideways or crouch, or even flex into unusual shapes to get through a forest. And this is in places where tanks couldn't go in the first place, due to a steep gradient. Also I did mention already that mecha would fare worse than tanks in bogs, plus flying tanks were covered.

Boulders are less of an issue for mecha, since like goats they can just lift up the legs vertically. There are a wide range of slopes between "tanks can't use them" and "vertical", all of which could be used to a mech's advantage. These indeed are used to a similar advantage by insurgents today, hiding upslope where they can't be easily reached and launching attacks from there. This would present more of a strategic bonus in terms of positioning rather than haring up a mountain under fire. Just travelling for days across rough terrain after blocking roads would give mechs better mobility than tanks.

I'm not saying mecha could properly work, nor even defending the idea outside of an intellectual exercise, just wondering if there's an environment where they would be more advantageous than tanks. Mountainous jungles look like it, for most other purposes largish power armour would seem to be the useful limit.

Quote from: The Traveller;554203Cointet-elements. If you've ever seen a digger lift itself onto a truck by its arm, or an operator part someone's hair with the bucket, neither strength nor precision would be an issue, and that's today. Unlike tanks, mecha could turn sideways or crouch, or even flex into unusual shapes to get through a forest.

Arguably you COULD build a piloted robot like that, but (read on)...

QuoteBoulders are less of an issue for mecha, since like goats they can just lift up the legs vertically.

The problem is, mountain goats are 45-140 kilos, a mecha comparable to a modern MBT would be dozens of tons, and the surrounding terrain doesn't scale up. The goat and the mecha will be trying to traverse the same boulders, and while the the first will find it stable terrain, the second will cause it to shift, roll or otherwise move.

QuoteI'm not saying mecha could properly work, nor even defending the idea outside of an intellectual exercise, just wondering if there's an environment where they would be more advantageous than tanks

... and this is where I continue the first reply. So far, all you've argued for is that a mecha could conceivably traverse certain types of terrain better than a tank - for argument's sake, let's go with that assumption for a moment. The problem is, once you have a mecha capable of doing that, you still only have a terrain-traversing-robot, and not a combat vehicle. All right, they can get to location X better thank tanks. They still can't beat them when the shooting starts.

At the end of the day, it boils down to this (and some other factors): having a much more complicated propulsion system, the mecha will need to dedicate a vastly larger fraction of its volume and mass to motors and the like than a tank. That means it has a lot less volume and mass for everything else: weapons, crew space, ammo, armour, etc.. So when it comes to a battle, the tank has a major advantage in every aspect, except for the speed of getting there - which is irrelevant, because all this is happening at the point when everyone's already there, anyway.

And we're not talking about "you need 5 mecha to beat 4 tanks". We're talking about WWII Sherman to Königstiger ratio, where IIRC Allied doctrine prescribed something like 7 Shermans to beat 1 King Tiger, and even that with the implicit understanding that 6 of those Shermans will be destroyed/mission killed. Only in this case, the individual mechas cost the same or (likely) more than the tank, as opposed to being much cheaper.

My answer to Premier's concerns, which I believe addresses all practical and aesthetic issues: build all mecha to look like giant naked ladies.

Quote from: Premier;554221The problem is, mountain goats are 45-140 kilos, a mecha comparable to a modern MBT would be dozens of tons, and the surrounding terrain doesn't scale up. The goat and the mecha will be trying to traverse the same boulders, and while the the first will find it stable terrain, the second will cause it to shift, roll or otherwise move.

The original idea was not loose boulders jumbled up but terrain just too rough for tanks, like some karst regions. Clearly a mecha would have to be designed not just to be able to handle the odd fall but to get up afterwards.

Quote from: Premier;554221you still only have a terrain-traversing-robot, and not a combat vehicle. All right, they can get to location X better thank tanks. They still can't beat them when the shooting starts.

Couple of things here, and I'm really playing devil's advocate - anti tank weapons are today man portable. A mech could carry a lot more of them. The other thing is agility. Assuming mecha are even close to as maneuverable and flexible as they are usually portrayed, it could be quite difficult to score a direct hit on them, even with heat seeking ordnance.

What's emerging from my subconscious is a colony on a hugely overgrown jungle world, but the corporate masters are charging too much in taxes  or otherwise being obnoxious. The colonists use the harvesters, like mecha (great excuse for putting gigantic chainsaws and grappling arms on them there!) to rebel, and over time these develop into full blown manufactured mechs, using arms smuggled in by grey traders.

With the colonists having the advantage in the jungle, the corporate types build their own mechs, and so it kicks off.

Why not just firebomb the place? Destruction of valuable crops, and it didn't work too well in Vietnam either.

I'm reminded of an actual quote from Gundam, when Char Aznable is presented with his new spacefighter mecha:

Quote from: Char AznableIt has no legs.

Quote from: Design EngineerIt's a space mobile suit.  The legs are just for show anyway.

Humanoid mecha are pure Rule of Cool.

In the end, the only justification for mecha is *you want them in your game*. You obviously want them in your game, so why not just put them in your game, Traveller? Don't bother making justifications, just do it. Those who love mecha would be happy, and those who don't will just avoid it. No matter how you justify them, that will not change, so just do it.

-clash