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The only mecha that we really need:




And it is camouflaged, thus rendering it nearly invisible!

I always liked the older basic Heavy Gear designs.

garret wrote:
advantage of bipedel tanks over helis
in a dense forets the tanks can not be noticed but a heli can since it will be flying

A bipedal tank small enough to go unnoticed in a forest would not be large enough to have any locomotive advantages over a normal tank.

whatabout a hover tank? It could move sidways and stuff. That's cool right

im going to say what shuma would say about that.
"but to make it light enough to float it would have to sacrfice armor."

What about a tank on a pogo stick?

I'm going to steal, and patent, that idea so that when it actually comes to fruition people will look back on me as a visionary of modern warfare.

Kilkrazy wrote:What about a tank on a pogo stick?

Already done by Cobra in G.I Joe. A bouncing ball with three ( four?) pogo legs and armed with a MG at the bottom.

garret wrote:im going to say what shuma would say about that.
"but to make it light enough to float it would have to sacrfice armor."

What the hell is a hovertank? If something can hover then it can fly. Unless you're talking about hovercraft which we have, but they aren't very good for crossing harsh terrain.


Hovertank!

ShumaGorath wrote:

garret wrote:im going to say what shuma would say about that.
"but to make it light enough to float it would have to sacrfice armor."

What the hell is a hovertank? If something can hover then it can fly. Unless you're talking about hovercraft which we have, but they aren't very good for crossing harsh terrain.


Hovertank!

I think they are thinking more of a hovercraft, which doesn't really fly.

Maybe he meant like:

Hovercrafts are obsolete compared to the mighty Ekranoplan.

That's just a still out of Thunderbirds!

Orkeosaurus wrote:Maybe he meant like:

If you look closely, you'll see that tank is held up by a thin, transparent plastic rod.

Kilkrazy wrote:If you look closely, you'll see that tank is held up by a thin, transparent plastic rod.

There goes my childlike sense of wonder.

Orkeosaurus wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:If you look closely, you'll see that tank is held up by a thin, transparent plastic rod.

There goes my childlike sense of wonder.

I lolled hard.

I'm still a fan of:

ShumaGorath wrote:Those are gundams. They are unoriginal designs of giant airplane men wearing japanese armor doing things that would kill their pilots and break so many physical laws that it's ridiculous.

Those are not realistic.
Those are not original.
They aren't even particularly well designed or rendered, they are pretty damn generic.


Mechs will never exist. They are a non sensical design based off of the human frame, which itself is very poorly designed as a weapon of war. Also, those things couldn't fly. They are not aerodynamic and lack functioning engine systems that make even the slightest bit of sense. Putting a hole on something doesn't mean flames will whoosh out of it. While all of this could be surmounted with "technology!" keep in mind the technology that it would take to make a functioning mech could just be used to make a flying deathorb of lasermissile superpower which would then kill all the gundams because giant robot samurai men are stupid and minimalism and redundancy of design is an inherent attribute of all things designed for combat.

Myself.

Kilkrazy wrote:That's just a still out of Thunderbirds!

Soviets don't play with puppets! These were used to invade the US in 1989

What if I meant all of the above?

I think mecha are a long way off, they would only really be pheasable in space, where you haven't got a restriction of gravity, then aerodynamics wouldn't matter.

On an anime/mech related side note, i grew up watching Gundam Wing and Full Metal Panic, i even based the final year of my degree on the arbalest from Full Metal Panic

- just a snippet of my animation.

Full render

Kilkrazy wrote:If you look closely, you'll see that tank is held up by a thin, transparent plastic rod.

What if it was replaced by a pogo stick?

This is our only defense against giant mechs!!

Although, I think that the thing behind mechs is a shock value. Look at the titans, if you see that and don't run then you are an idiot unless you have a bigger titan on your side.

Can anyone say BattleTech? I think they do a good job of sorting out problems you guys point out.

1. Only some mechs can "fly". These are the "light" ones. Usually 30-40 tons. The heavy ones weight about 50-60 tons.
2. They actually only can jump, and not that far when you think about it. No crazy in-air antics, just *vssh* and then *thump*.
3. Takes along time to replace them.
4. Must constantly be on the lookout for your energy levels, other wise you dead man.
5. big, blocky, and can be kneecapped.
6. Takes years to be trained as one of the pilos, an even then you still have a crapload to learn.

I'm currently writing a story that sets up a larger narrative that, wait fo it, includes,

GIANT F*CKING ROBOTS.

Look for it in stores. BloodOfOrks is providing illustrations. Thanks man

Oops.

Didn't mean to post in this thread.

I dont know when or why did it happen, but why this whole thread about gigantic mechanical robots not being sensible in real life? I mean, cmon - is there anyone beyond age 12 that thinks it COULD really work?
For me mechs and namely battletech mechs had allways been extremely cool. The reason why I really dislike traditional japanese mecha because you dont really get a sense of big warmachines, more like dancing ballerinas that for some unexplained reason like to go hit other dancing ballerinas with a stick, rather than shoot at it with a that huge cannon strapped on its back...
Yes, I do know where battletech originated - its better than the original because it filtered away alot of that japanese nani kawaii nekoneko nonsense! Its still far from realistic, but in a sense its more realistic than mechanical turboninjas in outerspace.
I also get major kicks out of some steampunk stuff - ive seen some ww2 nazi-walking tanks that had chimneys...CHIMNEYS GODDAMMIT. I still enjoyed them very much tough.

When I was a kid my favourite tv series was Transformers and albeit I was a bit anxious about the movie when it came, I was equally afraid of what they would do to my childhood. The movie gave very little joy infact and was on many levels a disapointment. It didnt kill my fond memories about the original cartoons and my small collection of toys back in the day and I intend to go see the forthcoming sequal - this time tough my only expectation is that it will probably be utter crap.
It still is odd how as a kid, it really didnt matter that megatron who was as big as a house would transform into a gun and jump into the hand of one of his lackeys so someone could shoot at something...usually the lackey being a fullblown warmachine like a fighterplane or somesuch, but as a kid you just dont waste your time on trivial things like this - if it was anything, it was super cool.
Nowadays tough, I prefer my fantasies a little more believable - but fantasies still.