Real life mechs

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Real life mechs

Postby Sorceror Setzer » Wed Dec 11, 2002 5:33 pm

This topic has already been done on the forums at Stardestroyer.net, but I thought I'd hear it from a bunch of Otaku first.

If mechs were real, would they replace tanks, or other war machines?
I have my own opinion, but I want to hear others first.
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Postby RichLather » Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:14 pm

Only if they were small powered armor suits, like Appleseed's landmates, Blue Gender's Shrikes, or taken to the extreme Patlabor's labor units. Even then they'd still be best suited for light panzer duty, I'm thinking. A platoon of tanks would probably be a lot easier to service, and would probably hold a speed advantage over walkers (flying is right out--where'd you store the fuel necessary for sustained flight, even ground-skimming?).

Gundam suits are simply too big to work properly in gravity--too much weight placed on too small a ground contact point. Now, space on the other hand...
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Postby Mroni » Wed Dec 11, 2002 6:17 pm

Tanks would defintiley win over mechs think of all the exposed places on something like a gundam. Legged crawler vehicles may replace tracked or wheeled vehicles on certain terrains but I don't think a mech is at all feasible.


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Postby kthulhu » Wed Dec 11, 2002 7:34 pm

Tanks would probably beat out mecha in the battlefield. The only real use mechs might have could be as "snipers", picking off armor from long distance with missiles or something.

The thing that mecha anime don't show, to my knowledge, is that a war is best (and most often) won by capturing or destroying enemy supplies, infrastructure, etcetera, and maybe through destroying the morale of enemy infantry and civilian populations, not by just destroying military hardware.
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Postby ryu amata » Wed Dec 11, 2002 9:44 pm

I believe it would be possible to make a light weight animal like mech that could be used for recon missions. They would have too much armor and would be really expensive, but could take on ground units no problem. They couldn't take on tanks though. So, no they wouldn't replace tanks.
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Postby ryu amata » Wed Dec 11, 2002 9:53 pm

They would have too much armor and would be really expensive, but could take on ground units no problem.


I meant they wouldn't have too much armor.
Madness and genius are seperated only by degrees of success.
I don't think necessity is the mother of invention - invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly from laziness. To save oneself trouble.
[size=10:9c37a4d335]Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something.- Plato[/size:9c37a4d335]
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Postby RichLather » Wed Dec 11, 2002 9:55 pm

The only zooform mecha I could see being used on the battlefield are insectile. Small, autonomous bombs capable of scrambling over rough terrain and rock, designed to home in on either a laser designator painted by a remote human operator or heat signatures (in the cold nighttime desert, that'd be a snap).
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Mission......Chobits

Postby OrbitalRain » Wed Dec 11, 2002 10:35 pm

I don't know about you guys but I think there is a very good chance that we could see models like chobits in the near future. Have anyone ever seen the new robots the came out of M.I.T? only word can describe what I saw there...CHOBITS!!!!
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Postby RichLather » Wed Dec 11, 2002 10:44 pm

Reference, please? Got a photo or a link to an article?
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Postby Mroni » Thu Dec 12, 2002 3:33 am

Yeah chii!!!! But yeah maybe B.a.t.s like cobra used.


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Postby MAS PRODUCTIONS » Thu Dec 12, 2002 11:07 am

I could possibly see the use of smaller suits but nothing to big. I agree that gundams would just be redundant.
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Postby Wykith » Thu Dec 12, 2002 11:39 am

Bipedal war machines are a brainchild of fiction. In an actual combat enviroment they would be grossly inadequate. Robotics is the future of warfare however. Perhaps a hybrid between the tank and Mecha.
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Postby Gaikotsu » Thu Dec 12, 2002 11:55 am

If they, (bipedal mecha), ever were feasible, then they would likely fill the role that they play in Gasaraki. They'd probably see a lot of action in urban warfare, and maybe also serve as support units on the open battlefield.

By the way the "synthetic muscles" used in Gasaraki aren't that far off from reality. I remember seeing a show about robotics on the Discovery channel a few years back, and this is one of the topics they touched upon. They even showed a working, albeit primitive mechanical leg which used this technology. Cool, huh?
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Postby Metro » Thu Dec 12, 2002 11:59 am

Well it depends on how you define mech. the CIA has successfully used drones in combat, and in the future we are probably going to see more and more autonomous drones on the battlefield . For those of you who have seen Minority report, imagine 2-300,000 "Spiders" crawling over the battlefield acting as one unit.

As for traditional mechs, its a little more problamatic. As has been mentioned, Gundam and Eva sized mech are pretty much impossible to build. If u double the size of an object, u quadruple its mass, so a mech the size of an eva would break its own legs.

Another problem with mechs is the fact that walking on two legs is very, very hard. The most advanced walking robots today can climb stares and thats about it. If we are going to see walking mechs in the armies of the future they would have to be able to outperform other forms of transportation, namely tracked and wheeled vehicled. Modern tanks can go 45mph, and many wheeled APCs can go over 70.

Now, in the future we may see small walking mechs that are an extension of ourselves, more of a powersuit, or an exoskeleton. In fact DARPA is working on this project right now :D

DARPA is also working on other cool projects like Brain Machine interface
and morphing aircraft

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Postby Gaikotsu » Thu Dec 12, 2002 12:17 pm

:!: That's some pretty amazing stuff. For some reason I feel like I'm going to be assassinated X-Files style just for looking at it. :shock:

Seriously though, if we as a species can think of it, then chances are that we will be able to do it somewhere down the line. Whether it happens 5, 20, or 100+ years down the line, I wouldn't be surprised if there was anything the human race couldn't eventually accomplish if we truly put all our effort into it.
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