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yep, seriously

http://kotaku.com/5921304/japanese-politicians-are-thinking-about-building-gundam-like-real-working-gundam

Japanese Politicians Are Thinking about Building Gundam. Like, Real, Working Gundam.
Politicians everywhere are crap—even the ones who are thinking about building a giant, working mecha. In an upcoming broadcast on Japanese video platform Nico Nico Live, members of Japan's Liberal Democratic Party are apparently going to discuss the idea of building a real life Gundam.


The Liberal Democratic Party, which ruled Japan for over fifty years after World War II, is not actually "liberal". Rather, the party is conservative. Well known party members, Tadamori Oshima and Bunmei Ibuki, are slated to discuss biped robots and now the LDP is "seriously considering the development of Gundam."

Back in 2008, it was estimated that a working (not just a full scale mock-up like above), one-to-one scale would cost US$725,000,000 for parts and materials. That figure doesn't include the cost of labor or the cost of insanity required to build such a machine.

These politicians probably do not mean they want to make a 60-foot tall, 43.7 metric ton Gundam replica (at least I hope they don't), but instead, large mecha contraptions that could be used by, presumably, the country's Self Defense Force. In an age of drone attacks, however, mecha don't exactly seem ideal on the battlefield.

Japan's economy and society are both in a bad way. The country is deeply in debt, the population is aging, and Japan has no natural resources. And with a strong yen and a sour world economy, Japan can't export its way to prosperity. It can ship its manufacturing to China and hollow itself out.

These are serious times. They require serious conversations by serious leaders. And the LDP, who hopes to regain power after the current Democratic Party of Japan implodes, appears like its fishing for the nerd vote by appearing on Nico Nico and talking about building Gundam robots as a viable way to promote industry and protect the nation.

No one out robot suits the Japanese!

Awesome. God speed Japan.

IT'S A GUNDAM!

Silly idea, especially tying it to drones which are a whole other kind of technology.

Taking existing air and ground frames and operating them remotely is a different problem than recreating human locomotion in a machine. And not all that useful either.

The problem with Gundam/Battletech/whatever was always they were advanced machines fighting WWII land battles.

In modern war over the horizon smart weapons would turn them into scrap long before they get to use their guns or beam sabres.

Agreed, its a cool idea and would be fun, but in a real world defense/battle scenario, you dont want something that is fun. You want effective, which as stated, is a smart bomb.

*cut scene to some command control center*
Sir, we picked up a robot on the radar
OK Launch missiles
Yessir!

BOOM!


That simple

Powersuits could work, since there are missions where you need a human touch, but tanks and helicopters are better for supporting them.

What?
ARe you serious?
THIS IS AWESOME!

Asherian Command wrote:What?
ARe you serious?
THIS IS AWESOME!

Not particularly...
As other have said even with today's technology we could scrap one without much trouble...

purplefood wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:What?
ARe you serious?
THIS IS AWESOME!

Not particularly...
As other have said even with today's technology we could scrap one without much trouble...

Good luck hitting one. And check out Code Geass to see what happens if we have gundams and tanks. i.e. tanks lose.

Asherian Command wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:What?
ARe you serious?
THIS IS AWESOME!

Not particularly...
As other have said even with today's technology we could scrap one without much trouble...

Good luck hitting one. And check out Code Geass to see what happens if we have gundams and tanks. i.e. tanks lose.

The good thing about cartoons is they rarely involve physical limitations.

Asherian Command wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:What?
ARe you serious?
THIS IS AWESOME!

Not particularly...
As other have said even with today's technology we could scrap one without much trouble...

Good luck hitting one. And check out Code Geass to see what happens if we have gundams and tanks. i.e. tanks lose.

However in Real Life (TM) gundams are targets. If we can see a tank we can kilol a tank. Gundamns are easier to see and lighter armored by their vary nature.
Apache vs. robot suits...BOOM.

Its survivability and turn around time of repair from damage to full mission capability.

Trick is...how to make it work in a tactical situation. Thats the problem. Mention on another thread about bipedal vs tanks.

All it takes is one scared but determined individual to put a antitank round into the target

Jihadin wrote:Its survivability and turn around time of repair from damage to full mission capability.

Trick is...how to make it work in a tactical situation. Thats the problem. Mention on another thread about bipedal vs tanks.

All it takes is one scared but determined individual to put a antitank round into the target

This bit confuses me...
What do you mean?

You aere assuming a Gundam is a front field unit designed to do what its fictional counterpart did.

I see it as a fearsome internal security or counter insurgency unit. Or in this case a walking flagship for Japans SDF.

Aren't gundams tank sized though? They don't have any advantages over tanks or helicopters if thats the size you're talking about.

Some sort of 40K marine/terminator? Thats a different matter.

Frazzled wrote:Aren't gundams tank sized though? They don't have any advantages over tanks or helicopters if thats the size you're talking about.

Some sort of 40K marine/terminator? Thats a different matter.

I believe they are somewhat larger than the average house...

What niche will it take in the battlefield role?
If damage whats the turn around time to repair damage to make it full mission capable?
Whats the trade in cost? SO much money in a Gundam unit compare to say 3 armored units?
Survivability?
Durability?
How long can it stay in a engagement?

Huge waste of money and militarily ineffective. Go go Japan.

Jihadin wrote:What niche will it take in the battlefield role?
If damage whats the turn around time to repair damage to make it full mission capable?
Whats the trade in cost? SO much money in a Gundam unit compare to say 3 armored units?
Survivability?
Durability?
How long can it stay in a engagement?

It could probably be beaten in all of those things by tanks or jets...

Asherian Command wrote:

purplefood wrote:

Asherian Command wrote:What?
ARe you serious?
THIS IS AWESOME!

Not particularly...
As other have said even with today's technology we could scrap one without much trouble...

Good luck hitting one. And check out Code Geass to see what happens if we have gundams and tanks. i.e. tanks lose.

...you do realize that even with bleeding edge current technology, the kinds of feats Gundams pull off in the cartoons are physically impossible, right? That a bipedal robot of that size and shape would be unbelievably slow, ungainly, unstable, and impractical on the ground and probably not any better at flying than any standard aircraft? that it would, in fact, not be feasible to arm it with laser weapons (even laser cannons, let alone the phsyics headache that is a laser sword)? And that they can coat the thing in the most high-tech, durable material known to man, but a single anti-armor munition could immediately incapacitate it?


In short, you DO realize that, even if they call it a Gundam, it's not actually going to be anything at all like the Gundams in the cartoon? To alter a phrase from the infamous "David After Dentist" video, this is real life.

Since tone doesn't come across in text, however, I'm going to assume you're not serious in your implication that you honestly believe these Gundams will be just like the ones on TV.

I honestly don't know what the hell Japan is thinking with this one. Like others, I assume this would be more of a small, personal power-armor type suit than an actual Gundam, and even that seems to me to be impractical. If they really DO mean a goddamn Gundam, I assume they mean to start working on prototypes with the hopes of making one a couple hundred years from now, and even then they'll be trumped by jets, battleships, submarines, satellite-guided long range missiles, etc, etc.

Think we be recovering from Zombie/Vampire apocalypse still a 100 yrs from now

There's already one up in Alaska if I remember correctly. Though it's more armour than a mech. Using hydrolics alone to move the limbs would make it pretty slow. Needs to be smaller and a mix using the hydrolics to possibly add strength to it. Can still have something the size of a Dreadnought instead of a titan and have a pretty similar psychological impact on the enemy. Only difference is that it'd be a smaller target, which is nice considering it'd likely draw a fair deal of the tank busting equipment.

In fairness, these days it doesn't really matter how big something is unless it's really damn small.
You can put a smart bomb down a chimney and read a newspaper from space...
We could still probably scrap something like that much in the same way you would scrap a tank...

I can see them having a much greater use in construction to tell the truth. Shoot the right part of a leg and they're falling and going nowhere.

Yeah I can see that...

Unless they have jetpacks.

Can see a 50 cent bullet hitting the jetpack in a certain area and then the gandum is pinball mode

I think something that size is of course never going to be suitable.

But, perhaps some kind of powered armour, or even slightly larger (perhaps the suit from District 9?) - I think is definitely a possibility, and Japan has the robot obsession and economy to be able to try something like it.

hotsauceman1 wrote:Unless they have jetpacks.

If they are big enough to have jetbacks they are big enough to have a hellfire missile homing in from 2,000 yards away.