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I like legs.

Frazzled wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Yes, because 'spoofing' and 'ecm' are handwavium.

Never mind that the Wild Weasel variant of the F-4 Phantom was doing it in Vietnam.

Or the B-1 had a variant doing the same...

And planes still get blown out of the sky from 200 miles away. So? Its a convenient excuse to cover a glaring problem.
So we're back to direct fire evidently. If so the tank wins it hands down. The tank can see the mech before the mech can see the tank. An Eldar super heavy er..hovertank yea hovertank will pop up from behind a building and smear your mech thats stuck in the swamp all over the street.

First off:
"Planes still got blown out of the sky from 200 miles away" because many of the anti-aircraft defenses of the NVA were primitive as feth all. They relied on barrage tactics for their missiles, large amounts of flak artillery, and generally filling the sky with crap to hope to hit a few planes. The US drastically overestimated the NVA's technological supply from the USSR.
Second off:
Where's the tank going to hide and still be able to have a clear line of sight to fire from that the mech can't see?
Like Melissia said: tanks work best against mechs in defensive roles, dug-in and emplaced properly.
Mechs excel in being line-breakers against tanks that aren't dug-in or emplaced properly. They also excel in the fact that they can take approaches that might not be covered by tanks or other mechs for that matter.

Add in that the mobility of mechs will exceed that of tanks, they can be deployed with the crew already in place, rearmed and refitted simply by swapping out the weapons load-outs rather than the turrets, ammo feeds, etc--you get one nasty as feth piece of machinery when employed by someone who knows how to use them best.

Kilkrazy wrote:I like legs.

long legs?

As long as offence>defense then the case will always be Tanks > Mecha

Tanks have a lower profile and are more difficult to spot at a long distance. Whoever gets shot 1st dies. The giant tall profile of a Mecha makes the Mecha a huge easy to spot target. Fighting against tanks with mecha would be like infantry on 20 foot carnival stilts trying to regular fight infantry that are closer to the ground. Having the lower profile is a huge advantage in ground warfare.

More than 1 gun is also unnecessary. 3 tanks with a single cannon>1 mecha with 3 cannon. The tanks can loose tanks and still fire, but if the mecha splodes all 3 guns are gone.


The only way for mecha to ever be practicable is if defense>Offence. If Mecha can take multiple shots to the face from the the biggest baddest gun around then the high profile won't matter as much. Then combat will start to resemble WW1 Naval warfare more than any known period of land warfare.

"Giant tall profile" of a mech?

Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

well i think the situation in Libya merits an aggress...

fudge

i went away and this thread went all serious business all of a sudden?

Tanks or Mechs I've already established that theyre nothing against small furry creatures

unleash a few Ewoks or tribbles on them machines and theyre good as scrap

It's arguable to say in modern warfare whether offense is greater than defence or vice versa. Sure, the US Army ran ramshackle over the Iraqis in two wars now, but we've never seen two modern, well equipped armies go at it. We have no idea how land warfare in OUR time would be...

Still, we have to onte that mechs are more agile, and able to cover more terrain than tanks. If need be they could retreat into terrain unsuitable for tanks, and so the tanks couldn't follow them. As far as I can see, the tanks biggest advantages are in defenses, and advances across relatively open ground. Mechs are best at advancing through difficult terrain, and moving quickly.

If I were a general, my front line weapons would be tanks, with specialist units of mechs to help them out. The mech units would fulfill the role tanks had bank in WWI-a specialist unit designed to assist the main combat units advance.

Edit:

Kanluwen wrote:Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

So that cancels out that disadvantage, but only in urban combat. If you're attacking a modernized country, you'll usually either be advancing through agricultural countryside, or suburbs. Now, I don't know about you, but I've rarely seen structures in suburban areas get above 2 or 3 stories, maybe 4 for big office buildings.

Like I said, mechs would be a specialist unit for specialist situations, not the primary vehicle of the army.

After playing 2142, I would take a Tiger over a Mech any day. But mechs also have their place. Urban primarily.

I would see mechs more as anti technical/infantry stuff, with missiles and machine guns; while tanks fill the anti-armour role, able to mount bigger guns more stabily

ChrisWWII wrote:It's arguable to say in modern warfare whether offense is greater than defence or vice versa. Sure, the US Army ran ramshackle over the Iraqis in two wars now, but we've never seen two modern, well equipped armies go at it. We have no idea how land warfare in OUR time would be...

Still, we have to onte that mechs are more agile, and able to cover more terrain than tanks. If need be they could retreat into terrain unsuitable for tanks, and so the tanks couldn't follow them. As far as I can see, the tanks biggest advantages are in defenses, and advances across relatively open ground. Mechs are best at advancing through difficult terrain, and moving quickly.

If I were a general, my front line weapons would be tanks, with specialist units of mechs to help them out. The mech units would fulfill the role tanks had bank in WWI-a specialist unit designed to assist the main combat units advance.

Edit:

Kanluwen wrote:Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

So that cancels out that disadvantage, but only in urban combat. If you're attacking a modernized country, you'll usually either be advancing through agricultural countryside, or suburbs. Now, I don't know about you, but I've rarely seen structures in suburban areas get above 2 or 3 stories, maybe 4 for big office buildings.

Like I said, mechs would be a specialist unit for specialist situations, not the primary vehicle of the army.

That's kind of the point that Melissia and I have been trying to make, to be honest.

Mechs, while cool, aren't going to be fielded en masse like tanks.

"looks at game collection"

All armored core games
All mechwarrior/commander/assault games
Heavy gear (heavy gear 2 is still one of my all time favourites)
Earth Siege
Starsiege
Terranova
Chrome Hounds
Battle Engine Aquila

I think I got most of them...

Can't wait for the rumored steel battalion for Kinect. Never did get my hands on the old 200 buck controller :(

Kanluwen wrote:"Giant tall profile" of a mech?

Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

Tanks can hide in urban or mountain environments, while mechs can not hide anywhere.

schadenfreude wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:"Giant tall profile" of a mech?

Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

Tanks can hide in urban or mountain environments, while mechs can not hide anywhere.

Mecha can hide in japan amoungst the other mecha

Going to point out something else. In an urban environment Mecha can't see into the 1st story of a building that they are standing right next to. 5-6 story Mecha would have a huge vulnerability to infantry within an urban environment, even more so than tanks.

corpsesarefun wrote:

schadenfreude wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:"Giant tall profile" of a mech?

Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

Tanks can hide in urban or mountain environments, while mechs can not hide anywhere.

Mecha can hide in japan amoungst the other mecha

True, you wouldn't even notice it if I hadn't pointed it out in this picture.

Really?

I thought we invented camera's and infrared...

Frazzled wrote:

Kanluwen wrote:Yes, because 'spoofing' and 'ecm' are handwavium.

Never mind that the Wild Weasel variant of the F-4 Phantom was doing it in Vietnam.

Or the B-1 had a variant doing the same...

And planes still get blown out of the sky from 200 miles away. So? Its a convenient excuse to cover a glaring problem.

There's no problem.

See, battlemechs are cool.

Tanks are also cool.

Round one, FIGHT!

The Dreadnote wrote:Mechs are cool, tanks are cool, artillery and missiles are cool...where's the love for land battleships?

You need to play more Chris Taylor games.

Kanluwen wrote:
In most Western styled 'mech' systems, the pilots of battle-mechs have a background as being tank commanders first. Some were infantrymen who were shifted over into the more 'elite' powered infantry systems like the Elementals/Battlesuits, but most have a background as tanks first then mechs.

Works that way in some Eastern systems, too(at least Gundam). For example, the pilot for the Gundam RX-78-6 Madrock was originally an artillery gunner who got "promoted" to piloting a RX-77 Guncannon and then the Madrock(after emergency piloting it during the assault of Jaburo).

I thought most eastern mecha series had it so that most of the pilots were little kids who stumbled into the right place at the wrong time.

Soldier: Right, does this kid even have a driver's license?
Lloyd: No, no he doesn't.
Soldier: Then why the hell is he in a goddamn prototype Gundam?!
Lloyd: Because we are very, very desperate.

~Code Geass: The Abridged Series

It's usually just the main character that is.

Melissia wrote:I thought most eastern mecha series had it so that most of the pilots were little kids who stumbled into the right place at the wrong time.

That trope also began with the original Gundam, hence why it's in so many of the later series of Gundam.

That said G-Gundam doesn't follow this, nor does 08th MS Team(THE best Gundam series PERIOD because it's about your basic grunt Universal Centrury pilots during the One Year War, not the psychic super pilots). You also get great battlefield repairs(like the GM head on a Gundam and a complete redesign when one of the team's RX-79's takes too much damage, both because RX-79 parts aren't produced in enough numbers).

EZ-8, the least Gundam Gundam:

At least he had to look through the manual first and panicked to get the machine gun to work. Not like the others which kill off veterans on their first try.

Edit: Agreed on 08th MS team.

n0t_u wrote:It's usually just the main character that is.

The main character and his love interest and their band of dysfunctional friends.

It's something I hate about anime.

snurl wrote:The day of the tank is over, much as i like them.
They are too easily destroyed by an infantryman with an RPG, by aircraft, or by long range guided missile strikes.

People have been declaring some weapon or an other has spelled the end of tanks for at least 80 years. It's always been wrong.

Simple fact is weapon systems don't disappear from the battlefield because something can kill it. They adapt, either through tactics or technology, to defeat or avoid that weapons system.

Weapons platforms disappear from the battlefield when their job is no longer needed, or better performed by some other weapons platform. Right now nothing can assault a defended position, and stay in the fight, like a tank can.


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Melissia wrote:It's just futuristic enough to be believable to me, and it's possible that we might eventually see something like it. But maybe not.

We won't. Simple reason is that things move faster and more efficiently on wheels or tracks than they do on legs.

If we developed myomer bundles that worked as well as they do in Battletech we'd be better off using them to drive pistons and getting some crazy fast tanks, instead of making a giant robot walk.

I can see a role, maybe, for smaller scale mech suits, that were tasked with moving through urban areas. There legs would be an important part of moving through buildings and the like. But giant robots won't ever happen.


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Frazzled wrote:Don't confuse the two. In the real world anything you can see you can kill, and that from a long range off. Mecha have an inherent disadvantage in that they can literally stand out and are thus targets for everyone. Tanks are better in that regard but, as noted, technology is such that its not circa 1940 but more like 1945. Every trooper can blow the crap out of something or call i fire to kill it from miles away.

The guy with a scope and radio (or the guy looking through a drone camera) is eminently more dangerous than any big walking hunk of metal.

Yeah, it's target profile is a problem, but the bigger issue is speed. Any platform is going to be quicker on wheels than it is on legs.


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Kanluwen wrote:Because tanks can be stopped with a single batch of landmines, can only carry so much ammunition, and are easily stopped by terrain features.

Any mine that can take out a tank will do a horrible number on the inherently fragile machinery of a giant robot leg. Any ammo limits in a tank are only going to be worse in a giant mech, because, given the same overall size and weight, the mech will be losing more internal space to machinery and actuators, and will need to be spreading more armour across the much greater surface area.

Tanks are stopped by more terrain features, but not that many. They do drive the things through buildings, you know. Whether the ability to manouvre across steep terrain like mountains is worth the immense number of failings of mech design is a decision I leave up to the military designers across the globe. Given the total amount currently being spent on giant war robots is $0, I think we know their answer.

Mechs(not mecha) generally have larger ammo capacities(in the case of energy weapons, a secondary generator devoted exclusively to those weapons), extensive ECM suites built throughout the machine itself, and can actually work without having to rely on established routes like roads and plains, etc.

Only because of make believe Battletech rules. They also, ridiculously, have more armour. Because Battletech is a made up game designed around getting mechs into the field. You shouldn't use it to explain why mechs would actually be practical in the real world.


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Kanluwen wrote:Tracked vehicles can't operate in water that would go past a certain depth. A mech, on the other hand, can keep 'wading' and still be able to engage anything their weapons can spot.

Tanks can and have been made amphibious. We don't tend to bother with this because the downsides are immense for the occassional marginal benefits. I could see a platform being developed specifically for this role if a military saw it as being something they'd regularly face, if so it's very unlikely they'd opt for a two legged vehicle wading slowly through the water.

Past a certain set of dimensions: tanks become unwieldy and start to require more fuel, more operators, et all. Look at the German 'supertanks' of WWII.

These same restrictions apply to mecha. You don't get to ignore physics because you're on two legs.

Also: Omnimechs from MechWarrior/Battletech had a pretty unique and operationally effective method in that they could actually have what amounted to 'man-sized mechs' clinging to hardpoints on the Mech proper, operating as a sort of 'skirmish screen' or even a boarding party against other mechs.

Troops could also ride on tanks. They have in the past.


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Kanluwen wrote:Why? Because, despite popular thinking, it's not actually that easy to bring down a mech which is armored appropriately(i.e. not a 'scout' mech, but a full 'battle' mech).

What? You're claiming you somehow know better than popular thinking about an entirely made up future tech. We have no idea how stable mechs will be, other than to make the fairly logical presumption that they'll be less stable than a tank.

Claiming you know how stable they will be is kind of weird.


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Melissia wrote:I'm using Battletech as the basis for my ideas on actual realistic 'mechs.

Battleteh is a made up game. It's fiction. And it's fiction that was contrived to give mechs a battlefield role.

It is easy to look past the setting assumptions and realise that the setting is highly contrived and very implausible. That's no criticism of Battletech, because those assumptions serve the greater good of letting us play with giant war robots.

But pretending Battletech in any way could explain how mechs might operate in the real world is ridiculous.

i really find it funny when folks use "can climb mountainsides better" as an argument for using mechs

obviously these people have never actually climbed up a mountain before

some mountains are sheer granite spikes that would have ridiculously steep angle for any vehicle to climb over

and some are mudlumps that would eat your hiking shoes that you spent good money on

and some mountains are both at the same time *rock rock rock, mud mud mud, mud rock mud slip fall die*

but i could see crab mechs doing well with mountains...but terrible on roads

tanks can deal with the challenges better barring the steep incline.

Melissia wrote:But at the same time hvaing less space also makes it have less area to put weapons and turrets on. The typical battlemech, represented by the Timberwolf/Mad Cat (see the first page where I linked to that image) has effectively three turrets, and is certainly most capable of engaging multiple targets because of it, either at once or in rapid succession. It can also lose one or both of its arms, either having them damaged to the point of uselessness or simply cut off entirely, and still remain effective, while if a tank's single turret is damaged, it's no longer effective.

There is nothing inherent in the design of a tank that limits it to one turret, that wouldn't similarly limit a weapons platform with legs. If you wanted tanks with multiple turrets you could do this just as easily.

The fact is that we aren't developing those kinds of weapons because the modern battlefield hasn't produced the need for multiple main weapons.

Start thinking about what a mecha actually is. Stop thinking about how Battletech imagined mecha and tanks were.


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Melissia wrote:Sadly, I don't have the battletech rulebooks in front of me. But tanks in the actual stories are cheap enough that militias almost always have them, whereas if a militia has 'mechs either they're an incredibly important world or they're hand-me-downs from many generations past, and therefor outdated.

Wow this conversation is going fast.

Cost for a top of the line tank was about half that of a mech. Tanks had the option of going real cheap, though, with ICE engines and the like.

But again, that's Battletech. It's made up. It has no reflection on what these weapons platforms would actually cost to put into the field.


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Kanluwen wrote:Not really.

Because those 'equal skilled' tank pilots are almost always shifted into the mechs!

Only if you assume that the mechs are premiere battlefield units, which as this thread has amply demonstrated, they are not.

And really, I'm surprised that the biggest advantage of mechs over tanks hasn't been mentioned.

The psychological factor. While being assaulted by a tank is a terrifying thing, being attacked by what appears to be a literal god of war has to be an absurdly mind-shattering experience.

People, particularly soldiers, are going to be more scared by the likelihood that a thing might kill them, than whether or not it looks scary.

This would probably explain the grand total spent on weapons platforms in the last 50 years that have 'look scary' as a primary component of it's design is exactly $0

If by climb you mean fly with all those thrusters then land without destroying the leg joints somehow, then managing not to fall over like our "good friend" Asimo on a staircase. Yeah mechas can go vertically upwards better than a tank.



Closest we'll ever have a chance of getting to a combat is something like the Macross suits, and then because they can just be a plane for the entire fight. Yet they'd probably be more fragile than a normal fighter jet....

SilverMK2 wrote:I view mech pilots in the same way I do aircraft pilots compared to tank commanders/crew.

Much more selective training and recruitment process, responsible for much more expensive and high tech kit. Both professionals, both well trained, but both in different classes.

Only if we assume there could actually be a battlefield role for giant walking war robots that sees them as more effective than tanks. That assumption is not only dubious, it's nearly absurd.


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Frazzled wrote:What keeps them from being targetted by missiles from several miles away?

The fact that it's a fictional universe designed to let us play make believe with giant war robots. Which is cool because I want to play around with giant war robots, but it's a fact that's escaped a few posters in this thread.


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Kanluwen wrote:Speaking in generalities: Tanks, when fielded en masse and crewed with 'average' individuals, are going to be far more useful than a single mech of the same general loadouts piloted by an 'average' bloke would be.

Note you're assuming that it'd be tank crews, and not a single tank pilot. Any sufficiently advanced combat system that allowed a mech to be piloted by one man could just as easily be adapted to a tank.

But that's not how it would work out in most cases. Mech pilots would be, frankly, more like the Sentinel pilots of the Imperial Guard. They're granted a measure of latitude and freedom due to their skill and the mobility/versatility of their vehicle that the armour crews aren't.

Possibly, if a role ever developed for walking scout units, that could be better performed by mechanised infantry or air units.


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Melissia wrote:For battlemechs, using terrain, fast attacks, and ECM suites. For the tanks, camoflage and using their obvious advantage in having a smaller profile.

Which assumes a weapons platform on legs would be inherently faster than wheeled or tracked weapons platforms. Which is plainly, absurd.

It's okay in Battletech because it's a make believe game that lets us play with giant war robots, but don't try to bring that make believe into speculation on the role of future mechs.

And why would ECMs be only deployable on mechs. That isn't even a restriction in Battletech.


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ChrisWWII wrote:In all honesty, artillery is the God of War. It's cheaper than tanks or mecha, nad as long as you keep your enemy far away, you will bombard them into dust sooner or later. With the new homing submunitions underdevelopment, even tanks will be extraordinarily vulnerable to artillery.

Tanks have always been highly vulnerable to artillery, especially when the tank and its support units have been unable to locate and destroy local spotter units.

Funnily enough, infantry have proven to be highly resilient to massed artillery. They can get suppressed, and disrupted and become vulnerable to assault, but you won't actually wipe them off the map.

We realised this in the wake of events like the Battle of the Somme, where the field was turned into a virtual moonscape, but relatively few German troops were actually killed or taken out of the fight. It was one of the big reasons the focus has turned more and more to combined arms operations.


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Kanluwen wrote:Very few mechs are taller than around 5-6 stories. When fighting in an urban or mountainous environment--they're not going to be 'towering' over the terrain where tanks can pick them off from miles away.

Very few mechs... what mechs? It's all made up.


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ChrisWWII wrote:It's arguable to say in modern warfare whether offense is greater than defence or vice versa. Sure, the US Army ran ramshackle over the Iraqis in two wars now, but we've never seen two modern, well equipped armies go at it. We have no idea how land warfare in OUR time would be...

Every army I'm aware of teaches constant operational offensive, aimed at preventing the enemy from being able to mount offensives of their own. In the modern battlefield you're always better off on the offensive.

So if nothing else, we know that any war between major powers will be quick and very, very bloody.

Still, we have to onte that mechs are more agile, and able to cover more terrain than tanks. If need be they could retreat into terrain unsuitable for tanks, and so the tanks couldn't follow them. As far as I can see, the tanks biggest advantages are in defenses, and advances across relatively open ground. Mechs are best at advancing through difficult terrain, and moving quickly.

They're not better at moving quickly. Legs are less efficent than wheels.


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n0t_u wrote:If by climb you mean fly with all those thrusters then land without destroying the leg joints somehow, then managing not to fall over like our "good friend" Asimo on a staircase. Yeah mechas can go vertically upwards better than a tank.

Any sufficient technology that can use jumpjets to launch a mech into the air can also be applied to tanks.

sebster wrote:

SilverMK2 wrote:I view mech pilots in the same way I do aircraft pilots compared to tank commanders/crew.

Much more selective training and recruitment process, responsible for much more expensive and high tech kit. Both professionals, both well trained, but both in different classes.

Only if we assume there could actually be a battlefield role for giant walking war robots that sees them as more effective than tanks. That assumption is not only dubious, it's nearly absurd.

I'm referring to the kinds of settings where mech appear - generally they are viewed as the "top dogs" of warfare.