72 replies to this topic

[sunprice]

Jigsama, on 14 January 2013 - 07:08 AM, said:

I'd think that a 15m tall Mech would be pretty visible itself. A tank could actually be easier to camouflage.

No , you actually can hide . Tanks are the champions on the plain field .

[Wildhound]

KerenskyClone, on 14 January 2013 - 06:25 AM, said:

Actually no you cant. You can drive a tank anywhere you can drive a tracked vehicle, certain terrain would be impossible to cross even for tanks, especially terrain that is at a large angle/slope. Weight distribution is another matter entirely though, it is disputable whether a 100ton vehicle could 'walk' on anything other than reinforced concrete without getting stuck in the ground.

I don't necessarily think this is correct. An M1 Abrams weighs almost 70 tons, despite being far smaller than a Catapult for example. A Mech the size of a Catapult has a pretty large footprint, probably equivalent in area to the tracks of an M1 Abrams, so it should be able to walk on any surface that can support a large tank.

[KerenskyClone]

Thing is this, even tanks have practically become very obsolete in any conventional combat situation.

If you took two technologically comparable forces with access to tanks and aircraft, tanks would not determine the victor. Strategically air superiority is everything today (and I guess in the future). The force that achieved air superiority would be the victor....Guerrila warfare notwithstanding....Im talking about conventional warfare here...

[Ursh]

From a military perspective, one guy with a radio, laser target designator, and ground attack aircraft on call is superior to a tank battalion.

In the 2003 Iraq War for example, one special forces team with a big supply of anti-tank missiles and strike aircraft took out an entire Iraqi mechanized brigade.

The British Army has phased out their tanks and replaced them with Apache attack helicopters, because they're far more versatile as a mobile attack platform.

If a mech were to be utilized for anything in the military, it would probably be something like a Stalker, with some point defense machine guns, anti-missile systems, and a bunch of long range missiles. I do mean long range as well, not 1000m. More like 100km.

[Dauphni]

Obligatory link whenever a discussion on the feasibility of mech design pops up. Many of you will probably have seen this already, but for those of you who haven't, enjoy: http://nidaram.devia...MECHA-114540355

[Nehkrosis]

i lol'd

[TruePoindexter]

Nehkrosis, on 14 January 2013 - 06:03 AM, said:

so, my friends have been trying to convince me that although its a cool universe, there is little sense in designing GIANT battlemechs that are Bi-pedal, over simply having GIANT tanks.

help me out here guys

Nope - there's no reason to have a mech over a tank. If you want another indicator that there's a fair amount of fantasy going on. Notice that despite being effectively walking tanks they have glass windows. Battletech as a whole tries hard to stay sci-fi but every now and then dabbles in pure fantasy.

If you wanted to be realistic armored suit enhanced infantry and unmanned combat vehicles are the future.

Edited by TruePoindexter, 14 January 2013 - 10:47 AM.

[Lorren Jaffray]

The extra energy required to operate these mechs defeats the argument for mechs by itself. The fusion reactor defeats the idea of these mechs. If we want to talk about terrain covered by a 100 ton mech, an air strike would be more efficient in every way. if we want to boil it down, no mechs are not practical.

[StalaggtIKE]

I think to whole point of battle mech over a tank was to make the war more personal. By adding a human element to a one time a faceless, advance, mechanical warfare. Blowing up a lifeless tank means nothing. The look of a mech is more so psychological than any thing. It creates fear through intimidation and hesitation through the human form. As for mechanics both a tank and battlemech would have pros and cons, so one would not necessarily trump the other.

Edited by StalaggtIKE, 14 January 2013 - 12:39 PM.

[Gigastrike]

Who gives a ****!? They're cool as hell!

[NRP]

Yeah, bipedal mechs aren't at all practical. They would probably have a better "shock and awe" effect on enemy infantry, but that's about all. A 4-legged mech would be a bit more practical as a stable firing platform, but then a tracked/wheeled vehicle is still superior (faster, just as maneuverable, etc).

But who cares about this? Bipedal mechs are vastly more fun and interesting in a video game environment.

[Gen Kumon]

To be fair, within the overall universe of the tabletop, tanks are still very common. They were never replaced by battlemechs, merely supplemented. There are some groups in-universe, such as Clan Hell's Horses, that focus more on combined arms and vehicle use than battlemech combat.

And this isn't even mentioning air support. There's still plenty of VTOL craft of various types, cheap air-breathing fighters, and various sizes of aerospace fighters jetting about.

[TB Azrael]

Nehkrosis, on 14 January 2013 - 06:15 AM, said:

damn your flawless reason!
they also argued that youd barely survive the Gs of falling or jumping off a bridge in a mech.

well any mech that would purposely jump off a bridge would use JJ to cushion the landing. The mech would also flex the knees on landing and the pilot seats are not solid mounts but have shock absorbers built in.

[TB Azrael]

Broceratops, on 14 January 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

i dont think a tank would be able to make it up that comstar tower on forest colony for example.

but anyway as mentioned a lot of the BT technology is paper thin in terms of facts. all the weapons ranges suck more than a modern day rifle for example.

Weapon range was always listed as it's useful range due to the ancient computers and lostech. A laser was basically infinite in practical range but could only be said to actually hit something and damage it out to its suggested range. Try holding that rifle out to your side in one hand or down by your waist and see how accurate you are with it.

[Wrenchfarm]

hee hee, I always wondered why they went to all the trouble of orbitally dropping 80 ton stompy robots when they could orbitally drop, say NUCLEAR BOMBS.

Big robots just don't make much sense. But **** it, they're fun to imagine.

[James Martigan]

There's a couple things maybe being overlooked as to why they might be used.

There's religious or cultural reasons that may dictate the use of a bipedal, single person mech to be preferable - an advanced form of the rules of single combat or along those lines. I don't have much knowledge of the mechwarrior universe except having played most of the games, and I always got the impression this was partly the case, I got the feeling of focus on single combat, mechs viewed as both armour and weapon of the pilot. Techs being a little like squires getting the horse, armour and arms prepared.

The weapons are limited in range to make it actually playable as a game, if you're going to be firing at something 100km away while compensating for movement of the target and weapon, you ain't going to be hitting very often - it'd all be computerised targeting and not much "fun" (and according to my theory above perhaps dishonourable?)

If they were not cut in distance, direct fire relativistic velocity weaponry that does not or barely follows a ballistic trajectory, like Lasers, Particle Cannons and Gauss Rifles would benefit from a higher mounting position on the vehicle carrying them, as they could hit something as soon as it cleared the curve of the horizon.

Despite this though, unless there was some Honour code, Religion or something keeping it as single combat, or stapling it to bipedal combat, the effect would still be easier from air or a simple raisable arm/gantry on a tank. They'd still not get as much range as something following a ballistic trajectory *around* that horizon, but again, that couldn't be personally aimed.

There's also the possibility that air vehicles were impossible or virtually so, on the planet where Mechs were developed? Regular Volcanic ashfall would pretty effectively rule out or require total redesign of all aircraft.

All just speculation for fun though. They may have done it to make them cool

[Demoned]

also a mech can climb cliffs and such, well those with arms and hands,
hopefully this will be implemented into the game at a latter date,
Tanks are great, but you want to intimidate the enemy a big *** walking mech
brimming with lasers and missiles,
well the mech would **** the troops up more

[Xenoid]

From TT rules (as far as my aging memory allows), all manner of vehicles were in the BT universe, including tanks, hovercraft and motorized infantry. Each type could traverse certain terrain others could not. For example, a tank could not traverse swamp where as a hovercraft could. But mechs trumped them all, and could travel any terrain.

As for orbital bombardment/nuke strike/ etc., the rules covered this by explaining that worlds and resources were to precious to lose to a nuclear winter or complete devastation, so there was what was called the Ares Convention which outlined the rules of warfare, much like the Geneva Convention of real life.

Now, as for mechs in general, I always thought the best mech would be like a centaur. Four legs supporting an upper torso, that way you have the stability of a quad, but with a 360 torso twist with the torso acting much like a turret.

[HTTP Error 400]

An upside down tank stays upside down.

An upside down mech just rolls and stands up.

[Ohgodtherats]

There are plenty of reasons large mechs don't make sense but here's three good ones:

1. Ground pressure. As some tank crews discovered in the past few desert conflicts, despite the fact that a tank weighs many times the weight of a man, it actually exerts less pressure per square inch than a walking man. Crews would jump out of tanks and become mired in soft sand that the tank hardly sank into at all. This is the biggest reason mechs don't make any practical sense. For the guy above who pointed out that a Catapult weighs in at about what an Abrams does but is much larger; while you might conceivably come up with a design that had big enough feet to stand still, once you start walking you are putting all your weight and some of your momentum onto one foot and you come up against the ground pressure thing again. Mechs would have to have ludicrously large feet in order to walk.

2. Modern armored vehicles are all angles to defect rather than stop incoming rounds. It's pretty easy to work out the angles for that when you are dealing with what amounts to 2 boxes on top of each other but when you have something man shaped it become prohibitive. How do you design a torso it doesn't defect rounds into the joints or head? Reverse jointed legs are right out because incoming rounds are defected right into the knee joint. And since these things are so tall, how to you work out incoming rounds from a low angle?

3. Falling over. All and I mean ALL mecha games and anime either don't even address this or if they do they completely gloss it over. Anyone remember that show Battle Bots (or Robot Wars)? Within the first season the majority of successful Bots were wedges that had enough power to overturn their opponents. Armless mechs never get up again, mechs with arms may get up but by the time they do they have been destroyed by regular tanks. All tanks really have to do is drive into a mechs legs at a moderate rate and and then mop up the prone mech. The only reason people can stand up easily is because of their crazy mobile and elastic abdomen. Maybe mechs could stand up if they had a similarly elastic bit but then how would you protect it?

So giant stompy robots are pretty much fantasy. Now, smaller scale things like powered armor where weight and mass are less of a factor might be doable if a power source for it could be found but we are talking way under the size of even smallest mech.

All that said, I am a HUGE fan of Mechs in almost all forms because of the AWESOME factor. But let's not fool ourselves into think such things are practical.