Random nerd thread unrelated to orig. topic. Current: Tanks vs Mechs!

[Ratman_tf]

It just smacks of Tarkin's Disease where everything said is the literal truth therefore Grand Moff Tarkin actually smells bad because Leia mentions his "Foul Stench".

Ah well.

[Riggswolfe]

It just smacks of Tarkin's Disease where everything said is the literal truth therefore Grand Moff Tarkin actually smells bad because Leia mentions his "Foul Stench".

Ah well.

I always imagined he smelled like garlic.

*Wonders if anyone will get it.*

[Cadaverine]

It just smacks of Tarkin's Disease where everything said is the literal truth therefore Grand Moff Tarkin actually smells bad because Leia mentions his "Foul Stench".

Ah well.

I always imagined he smelled like garlic.

*Wonders if anyone will get it.*

I don't get it.   

[Venkman]

It just smacks of Tarkin's Disease where everything said is the literal truth therefore Grand Moff Tarkin actually smells bad because Leia mentions his "Foul Stench".

Ah well.

Yea, there's a whole bunch of shit like that in expanded universe stuff. Of course, there's also good stuff like IG-88, Mara Jada, Ysalamiri and the existence of the cityworld too. YMMV.

[WindupAtheist]

I always imagined he smelled like garlic.

*Wonders if anyone will get it.*

Anyone who doesn't get it is a fucking newb, though I'll admit it's weird watching an old Dracula movie and seeing Moff Tarkin interact with Count Dooku.

[rattran]

I found it weird that Baron von Frankenstein was a bigwig in the Empire when I first watched Star Wars.

[Obo]

I found a '77 print of the Star Wars novel today, supposedly written by Lucas. I flicked through it to find the 'parsecs' bit, but it actually say "less than twelve standard timeparts!".

[Ratman_tf]

I found a '77 print of the Star Wars novel today, supposedly written by Lucas. I flicked through it to find the 'parsecs' bit, but it actually say "less than twelve standard timeparts!".

Ghost written by Alan Dean Foster.

[Quinton]

So I've never heard of The Culture.  I think I'll have to read it after I finish the Malazan series.

Start with Excession or Player of Games. The more recent ones are longer and more introspective. Still great but there are a lot of base assumptions that you won't get if you haven't read at least a couple of the earlier ones.

I'm not sure if I'd start with Excession (it's one of my favorites, but might make more sense a bit later on).  I read Consider Phlebas first (randomly stumbled over it in a Seattle bookstore a number of years ago) and it seemed like a good starting point -- maybe a bit rough around the edges, but sets up a lot of the Culture universe.  I also loved Use of Weapons, and it seems pretty self-contained.

[WindupAtheist]

I kinda miss the old nerd debates of "who could beat who" overanalyzed science fiction I used to read and/or participate in. Fun fact: Your average Battletech force would find itself soundly defeated on the battlefields of WW2, and I think you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find anyone the guys from the Starship Troopers movie could beat.

[Samprimary]

I kinda miss the old nerd debates of "who could beat who" overanalyzed science fiction I used to read and/or participate in. Fun fact: Your average Battletech force would find itself soundly defeated on the battlefields of WW2, and I think you'd have to go back to the 19th century to find anyone the guys from the Starship Troopers movie could beat.

I'd sure like to hear the rationale behind the battletech one.

[Merusk]

Probably something to do with too many resources in too few vehicles. 

[Simond]

Plus a twenty metre tall biped is a pretty fucking huge target.

[WindupAtheist]

Somebody crunched the numbers and found that a Long Tom would have made a mediocre artillery piece in WW1, that mechs were getting outranged by panzers, and all sorts of hilarity. Weapon ranges in Battletech are generally laughably short, and with their large size and great visibility, the mechs would supposedly find themselves bombed and artilleried into oblivion.

That and there's a whole litany of reasons why a humanoid form makes for a piss-poor armored vehicle under pretty much any circumstances.

[Lantyssa]

Really weapon ranges were that short for playability.  Even with the backslide in technology the Inner Sphere suffered, it was still superior to 20th century weaponry within the context of the universe.  Were all ranges and destructive capability scaled accordingly, 'Mechs would make a fearsome ground force.

Their space capabilities were pretty limited though, so they'd still have a rough time pitting Aerospace vehicles against other sci-fi universes' space forces.

[WindupAtheist]

Yeah, the ranges are for playability and the mechs are because... well... they're selling a mech game. Stormtroopers can't hit shit because they're disposable cannon-fodder for the heroes to kill, and Starship Troopers fight like retarded kids because Verhoeven was deliberately making a smirky send-up. The fun lies in stripping away those rationalizations and seeing who blows the shit out of who on a strict "it is what it is" basis.

Mechs/walkers/whatever just always burn my ass just because there's no logical reason to build them, at any technological level. A tank-shaped vehicle is always going to be more stable, handle recoil better, have a lower target profile, and a lower ratio of surface area to mass that needs to be armored, in comparison to an upright humanoid vehicle. Putting aside gameplay conventions intended to keep mechs supreme just because it's a mech game, I have to imagine any Battletech military could mount the biggest autocannon or gauss rifle in the fucking universe on a huge-ass tank chassis and one-shot practically anything.

Or like some thread years ago where us Star Wars nerds were yammering on about the design of AT-AT walkers. I'm like hey, put that thing on treads so assholes can't trip it with tow cables. Then put the head with the guns on top, instead of the front, so it has a better field of fire. Woops, now suddenly it's a tank.

Though I will say, Clan Elementals would probably rape face against 99% of everybody, and need to be attrited to death by artillery and air strikes. Mechs are stupid, but powered armor is the sort of thing the Pentagon is burning money researching right now.

[Surlyboi]

So I've never heard of The Culture.  I think I'll have to read it after I finish the Malazan series.

Start with Excession or Player of Games. The more recent ones are longer and more introspective. Still great but there are a lot of base assumptions that you won't get if you haven't read at least a couple of the earlier ones.

I'm not sure if I'd start with Excession (it's one of my favorites, but might make more sense a bit later on).  I read Consider Phlebas first (randomly stumbled over it in a Seattle bookstore a number of years ago) and it seemed like a good starting point -- maybe a bit rough around the edges, but sets up a lot of the Culture universe.  I also loved Use of Weapons, and it seems pretty self-contained.

That's because Phlebas was the first one. I'd say read Phlebas first, follow it up with Use of Weapons and Excession, then Player of Games, the short story in State of the Art and then Look to Windward.

[TheCastle]

Mechs/walkers/whatever just always burn my ass just because there's no logical reason to build them, at any technological level. A tank-shaped vehicle is always going to be more stable, handle recoil better, have a lower target profile, and a lower ratio of surface area to mass that needs to be armored, in comparison to an upright humanoid vehicle. Putting aside gameplay conventions intended to keep mechs supreme just because it's a mech game, I have to imagine any Battletech military could mount the biggest autocannon or gauss rifle in the fucking universe on a huge-ass tank chassis and one-shot practically anything.

You remember that TV show battlebots awhile back?
The cheese wedge always ruled with an iron fist.

Simple design, small target, heavy payloads.
The only reason I can see power armor being useful is if it allowed for a bunch of marines to basically run into combat fully mobilized with mini guns, rocket launchers and high caliber rifles that normally could not even be carried by a person, while being impervious to small arms, explosives, poison gas ect.

A mech suit would only work if it was basically the same size as a normal person. Get any larger than that and it stops making as much sense.
Mobility would also be key here. If your mech suit is two stories tall it better be able to move like Jackychan on meth or the whole idea falls apart.

[Merusk]

Though I will say, Clan Elementals would probably rape face against 99% of everybody, and need to be attrited to death by artillery and air strikes. Mechs are stupid, but powered armor is the sort of thing the Pentagon is burning money researching right now.

I've always rationalized mechs based on this.  That they had this really kick-ass powered armor, but kept putting bigger and bigger weapons on it, that required bigger and bigger exoskeletions.  At no point did anybody stepp back and say "hey, you know it'd be better if we did this as a vehicle right now..."

The thing that always kills me on giant robots isn't when they look like mechs.  It when you get to Gundams/ Robotech and they've got Fingers.. or hold weapons that are separate from the mech.  Wtf. why?

[TheCastle]

The thing that always kills me on giant robots isn't when they look like mechs.  It when you get to Gundams/ Robotech and they've got Fingers.. or hold weapons that are separate from the mech.  Wtf. why?

They want it to be considered a super soldier not a super vehicle.
It goes along with the age old idea of making the ultimate warrior.

[Kail]

Mechs/walkers/whatever just always burn my ass just because there's no logical reason to build them, at any technological level.

I dunno, there's been a few semi-convincing situations I've seen.  

In space, it would theoretically be very helpful to be able to shift your mass around without having to spend thrust, and something with a lot of moving parts (like a humanoid) could do that fairly well.  Could theoretically just throw a bunch of orbiting weights on a fighter or something, but it would be more awkward to control, and you'd have most of the same problems that a humanoid would anyway.

There's a few universes where tech is just so stupidly advanced that a giant humanoid makes as much sense as anything else.  Zone of the Enders, for example.  The robots in there can float around like they weigh nothing, they fly through space and fire homing lasers and take direct tank fire without flinching, so if you can make them humanoid, why not do so?  Let them toss around girders if they feel like it, it's not like they've got any kind of weakness you need to cover up.

Something like Heavy Gear handled it fairly well, in my opinion.  In that game, tanks were way stronger than robots (Gears), and cheaper (easier to maintain), but Gears were more "versatile."  They were only about three or four meters tall in that game, so they can get in to a lot of places that tanks can't, as well as being able to do stuff like pick up or move things.  The "in game" rationale was that they were like the ground forces equivalent to fighter pilots; maybe doing less damage than a bomber, but their gear is state-of-the-art, they are all extremely highly trained, and they're just all around "cooler" even though they aren't, strictly speaking, as effective by themselves.

[Surlyboi]

Also, weapons can be swapped out on the fly. Weapons built in to the frame can't be switched out with ease when/if damaged or when situations call for different ammo types/roles, etc...

[Ratman_tf]

I'm totally geekspent on Star Wars. No way am I getting dragged into a mech discussion. 

[Ard]

Also, weapons can be swapped out on the fly. Weapons built in to the frame can't be switched out with ease when/if damaged or when situations call for different ammo types/roles, etc...

Yeah, well, while we're in pretend land, why did the Battletech Clan mechs have modular mount points when they all have HANDS.

Edit:  Oh god, why do I even know this, much less remember it.  It might be time for me to just end myself...

[WindupAtheist]

I don't care how uber the technology is or what role is being filled, anything a mech might do could be done better by a vehicle not hobbled with arms and legs because of a design fetish. Powered armor is only theoretically viable because it's an infantry thing where the humanoid form isn't up for discussion.

Legs are not a particularly efficient means of locomotion compared to wheels. Else you wouldn't use them to pedal a bicycle.

[Ard]

Legs are not a particularly efficient means of locomotion compared to wheels. Else you wouldn't use them to pedal a bicycle.

Not to mention that joints are generally a single point of failure that kills your locomotion immediately if disabled.  And we're right back to Star Wars again.  Wheee.

[Threash]

The only reason I can see power armor being useful is if it allowed for a bunch of marines to basically run into combat fully mobilized with mini guns, rocket launchers and high caliber rifles that normally could not even be carried by a person, while being impervious to small arms, explosives, poison gas ect.

Thats basically the whole reason for them isnt it?

[Kail]

I don't care how uber the technology is or what role is being filled, anything a mech might do could be done better by a vehicle not hobbled with arms and legs because of a design fetish. Powered armor is only theoretically viable because it's an infantry thing where the humanoid form isn't up for discussion.

Legs are not a particularly efficient means of locomotion compared to wheels. Else you wouldn't use them to pedal a bicycle.

Legs aren't particularly awesome when it comes to walking around.  But in a lot of giant robot stuff, the robots fly everywhere anyway, and the legs are just there as something to stick the engines to, or to walk in and out of the hangar on.  Or they have wheels or treads on the bottoms of their feet.  Or they're used in a role where feet would be more useful than treads.

Arms/hands are useful for a lot of stuff.  You can carry things around without needing special attachments, clear away rubble, climb steeper inclines, all kinds of stuff.  Having tanks doesn't mean your infantry is now obsolete, there's a lot of stuff you can't really do if you're just a big gun on a pair of treads.  

All of this is assuming that the stuff actually works and so on, of course.  Yes, if you build a robot arm that breaks half the time, you'd be retarded to try to use it as a weapon.

[Teleku]

I don't really consider power armor in the same category as mechs.  One is a giant robot being controlled by something, the other is just mearly a better version of the shit our soldiers already wear.  Our soldiers are already covered from head to to in armor, electronics, and weapons.  The idea being to just fuse them all together into one package that lets them be even more bad ass.  The ability to effectively carry more shit around would be immensely useful by itself (and if the suit is self contained, immunity to any environmental issues like heat/cold/dust as well as chemical weapons).  Unlike the giant walking robot/target which is asking to get shot by everybody in a 2 mile radius.

So I do support research into power armor, because there is a lot of use that could come from that (we are still a loooooong way off from it being viable though).  Its a very different concept in every way from "mechs" of any sort.

[WindupAtheist]

Legs aren't particularly awesome when it comes to walking around.  But in a lot of giant robot stuff, the robots fly everywhere anyway, and the legs are just there as something to stick the engines to, or to walk in and out of the hangar on.

The only thing worse than sticking legs on a ground vehicle is sticking them on an aircraft where aerodynamics and weight are absolutely critical. A flying mech should be target practice for a purpose-built fighter aircraft, given tech levels anywhere even remotely within the same realm.

Arms/hands are useful for a lot of stuff.  You can carry things around without needing special attachments, clear away rubble, climb steeper inclines, all kinds of stuff.  Having tanks doesn't mean your infantry is now obsolete, there's a lot of stuff you can't really do if you're just a big gun on a pair of treads.

Things like moving around rubble are tasks that rightfully should be relegated to the realm of special attachments. You don't compromise the design of a fighting vehicle by giving it integral hardware which is only suited to an infrequently-required task. A task that's usually going to be left in the hands of engineering units anyway. There are bulldozer blades and other things that sometimes come in very handy when attached to the front of a tank, but there's a reason we don't build them into every single tank we make.

And nobody in their right mind would let a mech use it's hands to climb the side of a steep incline, just so it can topple to a grusome crash the first time some rock gives out unexpectedly under it's multi-ton weight. There are lots of things tanks can't do, but that's why we have infantry, artillery, air power, and light vehicles. There's no realistic circumstance where something as vulnerable and bizzare as a mech actually becomes the most viable solution.

EDIT:

As an aside, I'll mention that being able to snap additional weapons onto a vehicle in the field is hardly some sort of new high-tech idea, even if "modular armaments" does sound cool.

[Kail]

There are lots of things tanks can't do, but that's why we have infantry, artillery, air power, and light vehicles. There's no realistic circumstance where something as vulnerable and bizzare as a mech actually becomes the most viable solution.

Well, it depends on the setting (I'm having a hard time arguing the general case here when the term "mech" applies to everything from Escaflowne to Robot Jox to War of the Worlds) but generally it's based around the idea that a mech has superior versatility to a tank and superior armor/firepower to heavy infantry.  Even if there aren't a lot of scenarios where you'd pick a mech as the ideal candidate, there are a lot of situations where it would make a decent second choice.  If you have a limited amount of people, then keeping around a few units which can kinda sorta double as a crappy tank and a crappy infantry and a crappy transport and a crappy minesweeper or whatever you need it to do that day, I can see it making sense.

And that's assuming that they're used in a military role, which they're often not.  Certainly in most of the RPGs I've seen, mecha are generally used by private individuals or organizations who can't pick up a phone and place an order for a tank brigade.  Being able to use a mecha to tote around whatever gewgaw they've been tasked with retrieving, or being able to force open a door without blasting it with a weapon, this kind of thing is useful in a lot of situations.

[WindupAtheist]

Robot Jox is the only example I can think of where mech combat is merely bizzare and not outright absurd, since in that movie it takes place as a ritual in lieu of actual military conflict. They don't need to be practical or economical when they're basically just tools in a really weird sport.

Because the thing is, mechs really aren't versatile at all. They're impractical and unduly vulnerable. They have a greater surface area relative to their mass compared to a normal vehicle, which means armor is going to be proportionately thinner unless compromises are made elsewhere. Their joints represent vulnerabilties, added components that can cripple the vehicle by being damaged. Even catastrophically so, since a tank with crippled treads can rotate it's turret and defend itself, while a mech with crippled legs is likely toppled over and helpless. That broken tread is infinitely more likely to be field-repairable, too.

They're using an inherently less efficient drive train, they're an easier target, and their high center of gravity makes them less suited to dealing with impacts. That high center of gravity, and the fact that their weapons are typically carried off-center, also means that they're more limited in the weapons they can carry since they're far less able to deal with large recoils. They have an inferior field of fire since they can't typically rotate their torso 360 degrees the way a tank can rotate its turret. Even if it can, it has to deal with staying balanced as it does so while also trying to run.

The huge number of complex moving parts is likely to make them hideously expensive. That combined with the sheer physical wear and tear incurred by a multi-ton machine stomping around on legs is likely to make maintaining them in the field a nightmare relative to conventional vehicles.

They make shitty tanks, worse transports, and aren't remotely appropriate for infantry roles unless they're so small that we're back to talking about powered armor again. Which as Teleku said, is in fact an entirely different beast, superficial resemblances aside. The ability to carry a "gewgaw" amounts to "hey it's got a built-in crane" and I'm not sure how pummeling down a hypothetical door is supposed to be any better than blasting one down.

Mechs are just silly on a conceptual level. Making an armored vehicle that resembles a human being is no more inherently logical than making one that resembles a giraffe.

[Teleku]

[WindupAtheist]

I don't think this ever went past the prototype stage, and the only reason it exists is to tear up the forest less while... helping cut down trees... but it's still the closest thing to a mech you'll find in real life.

[Fordel]

Clan Elemental's would be one of the most terrifying things you could ever see on a battle field, their nigh invincibility compared to normal infantry, coupled with their superior firepower and obscene mobility. Imagine a Star of those bastards hopping onto your tank, ripping the hatches open to fill the cockpit with fire and bombs. 



I think the biggest mechs that would remain 'practical' would be the stuff you see in the Ghost in the Shell series. http://www.theanimehouse.com/6Apr08/gitsarmsuit.jpg or http://www.serenadawn.com/GITS-Armor.htm (thanks google!) Which is just really power armor that you half pilot, half wear.



Probably some of the most realistic 'true' Mechs, would be from the Patlabor movies/shows. The mechs aren't the kings of the battlefield, not even remotely. They are specialized tools that are expensive and only fill specific niches. They haven't replaced anything, tanks and fighter jets still rule the warzones.

The Movies themselves are rather clever and worth watching regardless. 




Really, if you wanted to make a tank with legs (which you probably wouldn't), there would be no reason to stop with just 2. A tank with legs would be better off as a spider then a humanoid.