Talk:Mecha/Archive 2

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Strategic value of mecha?

Has anyone considered what the strategic value of mecha would be in a real-world setting? The technical issues aside, how would a mecha fit into general military thought? Would such machines be of any use in a modern tactical situation? Thanks. --Brasswatchman 00:20, August 14, 2005 (UTC)

For an idea of how mecha might really work in a "real world setting" take a look at Gear Krieg a table top rule set, in which they aren't superpowerfull rather their main advantages are their movement and perhaps weapon placement on the arms. While also suffering the expected disadvantages, such as being exposed and vunerablity of the legs etc... For dealing with such an "unrealistic" subject matter Gear Krieg deals with it any a way that is rather realistic should they have really existed during WWII. Mathmo 03:21, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

There are already unmanned aerial weapons available, such as the Predator drone which has been utilized in the last few years to assassinate Al-Qaeda leaders. The US Army has been working on an armored exoskeleton for soldiers for years, with little result. The biggest problem I see in creating an anime-style mecha is how to power the thing. As far as I know, no anime really goes into detail over how these gigantic machines get their juice. That's been one of the problems designing an armored exoskeleton -- how to power the thing without bulky batteries or extension cords plugging them into wall sockets. I don't think a nuclear-powered mecha is feasible, not with today's technology.

The next problem is the shape. Humanoid, bipedal robots are notorious hard to balance properly. I remember seeing tests done with a three-foot-tall bipedal robot that looked rather like a turkey. It had an unfortunate tendancy to fall over. Humans have millions of years of evolution helping us to stand upright, and even then we topple over from time to time. That's why, for instance, forklifts have wheels, it makes them more stable. Also humans are a lot 'bouncier' than machines, if a fifteen-stories-tall mecha falls over, it's going to sustain major damage.

Then you get into the actual structural issues themselves. Anime sometimes has mechas that are hundreds of feet tall (see Full Metal Panic for one example) but I seriously doubt anything that big could hold up it's own weight and move, any more than the Chrysler Building could stand up and do a jig. Also, the larger a machine gets, the weaker it becomes proportionally. I doesn't make sense to build a hydraulics system that's too heavy to move itself around. What do you build it out of? Steel? Composite metals? Most any metal is going to be heavy, and it's going to need to withstand collisions, impacts, and shocks.

But this begs the question... why design a gigantic manned robot when there's unmanned weapons already available, like the Predator drone? You'd have to come up with some use for a mecha before a real one becomes feasible. Missi 22:10, 27 August 2005 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. The only setting I can really see mecha being useful is in space, or in low-gravity environments - places where large, heavy machinery isn't going to require as much energy to move. But you're right that such a system would seem relatively useless on Earth. --Brasswatchman 19:38, August 28, 2005 (UTC)

The mecha design just wouldn't work on Earth. Why make a bipedal robot anyway -- if one leg is destroyed, it's stranded. Besides, wheels are far more efficient anyway in almost every terrain. Current robotics technology has gotten to the point where actuators aren't strong enough to move the robot. There's always hydraulics, but they're incredibly slow.

A tank spreads its weight over as much ground area as possible by having treads and being longer than it is tall. Mechas stand upright, and hence are taller than tanks. Not only does this mean it's highly visible and thus leave it open to attack, it means a mecha would be unstable. Because the trunk would be holding the bulk of the weapons, you need strong legs to hold it up, hence heavy legs. The heavier the mecha becomes, the more likely it is to get stuck or bogged down in terrain. Picture a twenty-ton mecha sinking into the ground with every step it takes.

Since your average mecha is controlled by a human, this brings up the subject of control-response systems. Getting real-time user feedback is a problem; even today, with experiments done on controlling robots, reaction time is just too slow. A mecha pilot would have to concentrate just on walking, much less on fighting or hiding or doing anything else of importance. So what practical superiority do mechas have over tanks and planes? They're heavy, slow, hard to pilot, easy to spot, and prone to falling over. They couldn't do anything a tank can't do, and a tank can go places a mecha couldn't. Missi 23:31, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Wrong, there are lots of places that tanks cannot go. I remember seeing a quote saying that 80% of the Earth's surface (excluding water, obviously) is only accessible on foot. Legged vehicles have much better terrain-crossing capability. A tank is limited to the height at which its front wheel is, because any higher than that, it'll just hit an object instead of driving up onto it. And why must mecha necessarily be big? Why can't they be the size of a tank? Why do they have to be directly controlled by a human, why not have fly-by wire, with the computer controlling most of it? And why do you think there would only be one person controlling it? Have you ever heard of a ground combat vehicle with a one-person crew? No you haven't.

And plus, all of you, ALL OF YOU, are ONLY thinking of bipedal vehicles. Ryan Salisbury 20:56, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Now, our techonology about mecha is like when Wright brothers invent their glider. There are value of using mecha in battlefield, but it might not heppen in our lifetime.L-Zwei 03:49, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Just a quick reminder: these talk pages are meant for communication and collaboration that improve the article in question, not for general discussion related to the topic of the article. If you intend to produce some additions or other changes to the article, please ignore me. Otherwise, I'd like to suggest taking this conversation to some user talk page, blog or related web forum. Thanks :) Aapo Laitinen 16:03, 3 October 2005 (UTC)

Another alternative to the weight and other such problems for mech's working is, build a smaller version. Lets say something like a powered exoskeleton but larger and more powerful. An example, around eleven feetuptall, with a cockpit located in the upper body, weapons on its arms, perhaps a propulsion system located on the feet and back for small jumps, somthing like whats in the battletech series?. Phytos 08:07, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

I think an important point that the article misses discussing possible future strategic value of mecha is the adaptability of an anthropomorphic shape (or at least a shape more complex and adaptable than the fixed profiles of actual military vehicles). A not too huge human-like mecha could duck or lay down to reduce the target size or to hide, or can stand up in order to get a better view of the battlefield, or can shape his posture in many ways to fit and exploit several irregular terrain conformations (grenade's holes, ruins, rocks, trees etc) in few worlds can join the infantry gifts in using terrain conformation with the mechanized troops features of fast motion, high firepower and high protection. With offensive weapons that increases their potentials far away the capabilities of even high tech matherials to give adequate protection and with the shift of short range combat to montainous, forest or urban theatres (since other theaters could more effectively be carpeted by missiles or aviation and since definition of "enemy force" is becoming every day less clear) the capability of use terrain in a smart way may become quickly more important than today. About issues on fast mobility, I think a not too big mecha could use vector jet like propulsion to overcome the issues due to the inefficience of bipedal walking, that, contrarywise, would be more efficient for all terrain short range movements with, very noticeable, low latency and momentum, so awesome mobility that as noticed before become essential to be efficient in urban, mountain or forset theaters. About issues on recoil of heavy weapons, I think the fast and wide adaptability of the posture can be the key to let a mecha to use even more powerful weapons than a tank, because of the recoil will not stress a limited (also if strong) component of the veichle but will affect the wole mecha that can dinamically adapt leg and body posture and body weight distribution to adsorbe progressively and dynamically even an higer recoil.

Thanks, I added your points about recoil to the article. I'll add the rest later. Lengis 07:49, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

I think giant mechs are completely useless. As has been mentioned in the article, they will sink into the ground easily, will be low-powered for their size, certainly not capable of flying, and a logistical nightmare. Smaller, human-sized mechs provide the possibility of usefulness. If you do away with the idea of a cockpit, and make it as autonomous as possible, while using telepresence for those more intricate operations that require human intelligence, you have the possibility of a useful machine. As long as cost isn't an issue, it would be perfectly disposable, making a functional machine of that type excellent for bomb disposal, and mine clearing. I suspect it would only take a few years to get the technology to make it walk autonomously, and with force feedback, bomb clearing could be done exactly as it is today, but without risking human lives. A dead soldier costs the US a hundred thousand dollars in death benefits, so this is a perfectly suited niche for such a machine.

Obviously, we already have mine clearing machines which are cheaper and probably more effective, so sending these things out into a mine field isn't a very good use for them. Where you would most likely see this kind of machine would be in situations like Columbine. The police at Columbine had to consider the possibility that any backpack left in a hall might have a bomb in it. With this kind of machine, rapid response in a situation like that would be possible. If a bomb goes off, you lose a little money. No big deal. You can thus feel free to run in and handle the situation.

This opens the door for arming the machine. In a situation such as that, there is a chance that armed opposition will expose itself to the machine to keep it from disposing of the bombs, or to harass rescue attempts. If that happens, you will want to be able to take the shots they give you. If you arm the machine, the scenario changes, as well. You no longer need to wait to clear every backpack, you can instead run in and take out the opposition immediately, then clear any possible bombs and then evacuate the victims. The difficulty here is in arming the machine. It should be possible to do this crudely with force-feedback and a shotgun, but accuracy and rate of fire will probably be diminished compared to a human. Semi-autonomous control could potentially imrove the machine's accuracy to be greater than that of a human, as well as rate of fire and reflex time. The operator would designate a target, and the machine could take over and fire at that target. Two infrared cameras held apart could find the location of any warm body relative to the machine, and match up that body with the target which has been designated. Calculating how to shoot the target should be fairly easy, at least compared to walking without falling over.

From here, we get to the military aspect of such a machine. Being nearly entirely disposable, they would make excellent front-line shock troops. Their greatest advantage in this field would be the capacity for scavenging. If a machine like this gets shot in the leg, you can remove the leg and send it off for repairs, then remove all the other components and save them. If another machine loses the other leg, or its head, you can take the spare leg/head from the first machine and switch them, sending off the damaged one for repairs. It might even be possible to automate this process and introduce a few unmanned mechs on the battlefield as "medics". With soldiers, this would involve surgery (hence recovery time) and a great deal of manpower to do so, not to mention that it would be quite unethical to kill off an injured soldier to strip him for his organs. Presently, if a soldier is wounded, he may spend months in the hospital. If a machine is wounded, only the part which was damaged might spend time getting repaired, or possibly just melted down and rebuilt, depending on the damage. So if only 10% of the components of your machines are damaged, then only 10% of your machines are in repair, whereas if 10% of the mass of the organs of your soldiers is damaged, you could easily have 50% of your soldiers in the hospital.

Once this sort of machine gets introduced to the battlefield, whatever nation puts them into place will probably never get rid of them unless it falls under attack. If the US, for example, took this kind of machine into Iraq or whatever the next theatre of war will be, and pulled out all the soldiers, the number of casualties would potentially fall to 0. When the voters get a taste of a bloodless war (for their side) they aren't going to be satisfied with anything less than continued bloodless wars, and they'll get their way unless the machines are fully destroyed and an assault is launched against the US, which would force a bloody war again. Aside from that, mechs would be cemented into place as the new combat infantry unit. Continued development would eventually lead to nearly full autonomy, at which point this kind of machine would be able to take full advantage of its reflexes, accuracy, speed, strength, and coordination which would result in the obsoletion of soldiers. Enemy nations would need this sort of machine, or a specially designed mech-destroyer to compete, and the result would be a whole new battleground of machine vs. machine warfare.

In the grand strategy, such a change to the battlefield would be highly advantageous to the first nation to capitalize upon it. Whoever first has the fully autonomous mech would have a few years of complete and utter domination of those who don't, and would have negligible public outcry due to the absence of troops at risk. For the US, and manifest destiny, this would be a two-pronged attack. Those nations which get invaded are hit with the first prong, those nations which build up their economies and start developing technology like this get hit with the second, in that they would need to free their markets, and free their people to start countering the brain-drain effect, to have a chance of competing with the US. They would need to become appealing to smart and educated people in order for smart and educated people to immigrate into their country rather than emigrate from it, and to that end they would need to become much less oppressive. Free speech, capitalism, freedom of religion and such would thus become much more common in those countries hit with the second prong. Without that, they will have a hard time fighting off the first prong of the fork.

I apologise for making such a long read, but I hope it will be food for thought. NorsemanII 23:34, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Very interesting points you make. But an autonomous mech is probably considered just a robot. A mech is something piloted rather than remote controlled or autonomous. Still, I think it's valid. Add it into the article if you like. Malamockq 06:01, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

A dead soldier costs the US a hundred thousand dollars in death benefits, so this is a perfectly suited niche for such a machine. - US$400,000 as of the time of this writing, if the soldier is enrolled in Soldier's Group Life Insurance and it's ruled to be a death 'in the line of duty'. Even that, though, doesn't put the actual federal government in the hole, because a -lot- of people pay into the insurance without ever taking out. That is, after all, how insurance companies stay in business. teh TK 23:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Okay as for the usefulness, YES a LARGE "gundam" size mecha would be COMPLEATELY useless but a Front mission sized mech would be great. and yes BIG weapons are not that useful on a mech but you don't NEED big weapsons to down a tank. AP 50 cals or even 75 cals can be mounted if you use a "rifle" with a recoiling barrel and using the gas from the shot to reduce recoil. Yes these would be good for blasting tanks and in a firefight inside city streets ( size is appx. 20-30ft. tall, apprx. 8-12ft wide.) The power problem is not an issue either I mean come on the M1 abrams is like MEGA poor on gas milage becuase it has to pour more gas into the powerplant just to run. Four 200HP electric motors would be perfect for the MAIN movement systems of a mecha and if you use a hydrogen fule cell and fill the hollow spots in the limbs with liquid H2 tanks then the power problem is gone. as for the drive itself just mount the 200hp electric motors in say like the shoulder and use a pully system ( preferablly metal chain or wire) and hook it up like a normal muscle would. Even if performance is lowered like one of the guys above me said, over 80% of the landmass on earth can't be accessed by a tank. A mech could find these places quite easily accessible and basically NO mountaintop city would be safe from "heavy" fire. and the cure for that "sinking feeling" again go to front mission and put on a sort of "snow shoes". However, by far one of the most important strategic advantages of mechas would be the fact that if you lose one you only loose one man. but this also means that that one man is in charge a four man tank crew could fill 4 mechas! think back to WWII we had the pathetically weak skinned and undergunned sherman and the germans had the nearly undefeatable Tiger II and Panzer tanks. We overun the Tigers due to the enormous number advantage. See the as the line of shermans were attacked the rear tanks would sneak around back and fire. but in a mecha an armor peircince 75 cal rapid fire chain gun or Gasp rail gun(not too far from actual production and a good way to reduce recoil but up to 50%-80% allowing MUCH bigger weapons to be mounted) would tear apart a tank from even the front position. Oh and another thing is that ONE man controls it, you don't have to worry about if a single man can work well with himself. The last advantage is fear. The humanoid shape can be modified with horns (ok YES i got that from gundam). In the end a mecha would be a form of anti armor, anti-personel, and area denial, not to mention that if rail cannon technology comes of age as it's supposed to in the next decade or so it can provide heavy artilliry to mountainous regions then quickly pull out.

- A small reply. Stated in this artical was the problem about powering mecha, and they stated that no anime really go into depth about how they are powered. This statement is false, the Universal Century (Gundam) goes off a ficnional generator that runs of the element H3, found near valcano's and in the upper atmosphere of Jupitor. This theory is also used in UFO research as well. I know in the series of Gundam, at least in the Universal Century, the powering of the mobile suits is very detailed and a large part of the plots.

We can all agree that a large mecha meant to replace a tank is currently unfeasible. But smaller infantry support mecha could be of more use to the modern military. Recoil can be countered by todays missile launchers which have low recoils (which already replaced the need for heavy guns on naval ships). I think that the most significant advantage of legs over tracks or wheels is the ability to step over or jump over obstacles. Tracks or wheels have to roll over obstacles, limited by how long the traction surface is, steepness, traction, etc. Now, I have to ask why not fly over the obstacle? A hovering weapons platform could create less acoustic levels than a mecha stomping all over. The less complex weapons platform could easily be unmanned and the piloting software doesn't need to cope with unweldy mechanical appendages. The most important mass is kept in the relative center, like a helicopter, unlike a mecha's legs. And hello, did everyone forget the tanks' worst nightmare, the attack helicopter? If it is easy for an attack heli to destroy a target well protected from all sides (the tank), what makes you think a mecha with not-so-easily-defendable-very-important appendages would stand a chance? And don't tell me that the height advantage gives it a shot at the heli. The heli can fire a long way, like 3 miles away! Once a leg is lost, no matter how many there are, the whole thing losses its already very little balance, making counter-attacks much more difficult. New camo technology removes the need for a machine that can bend down, go prone, etc. Starting a project to create military spec mecha would take trillion of dollars, and to what purpose that cannot be substistuted by current vehicles. 66.68.43.166 22:55, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Helicopters can't replace infantry. It would be nearly impossible to get a helicopter to work a doorknob, much less have one both small enough to operate indoors, and powerful enough to search an entire building. It would be very difficult to make a helicopter quiet, whereas making a man-sized mech quiet requires rubber, lubricant, and a hydrogen fuel cell. Unlike a humanoid mech, a helicopter would have great difficulty refueling itself from car gas tanks, or re-arming itself by picking up enemy weaponry. A helicopter also couldn't repair other helicopters by scavenging parts from destroyed helicopters. Humanoid mechs present an incredibly robust and durable ground fighting unit, and could entirely replace infantry. It would make it possible to remove all humans from the battlefield, so that the humans conducting a battle could be thousands of miles away from the combat.

One mech has at least the value of three soldiers. It can do everything a soldier can do, but it can work 24/7, without sleeping, eating, or resting. Picking up ammo and fuel, and performing maintenance, could take as little as half an hour a day. If a machine is shot in the leg, it won't need to recover in a hospital for a month. It could be repaired on the battlefield within a matter of minutes, by swapping the bad leg out, and swapping in a good one. If there are no legs available (such as at the beginning of combat), the machine can be seperated into parts and used to repair other machines. Every machine would be capable of acting in any human role, from operating tanks and helicopters, to setting explosives and acting as a forward air controller. Every mech could be proficient in the use of thousands of weapons and vehicles. If an allied mech operating a stolen enemy tank is destroyed, any other mech could replace it instantly, unlike now where if a tank crew member is killed, the tank is crippled.

As the software for the mechs improves, they would become increasingly autonomous, and the overall manpower involved in fighting a war would go down dramatically, while the available manpower would go up (being that prospective volunteers would not be in harm's way). The fighting power of a country using mechs would increase dramatically, especially as wars shift to urban environments. Mechs will not need to waste ammo on civilians to protect themselves. They wouldn't have the same vested interest in self-defence. They could wait and make sure that what they are shooting at is in fact an enemy. In urban warfare, and particularly in guerrilla warfare, this method is much more civilian friendly, and is likely to help earn the people's support. Similarly, if any machine comes across a wounded civilian, it can act as a field medic and even surgeon if needed. Again, very civilian friendly. From the viewpoints of civilians in both countries, the mech army will be preferable to a human one. From the side sending the mechs, no soldiers come back in body bags. From the side getting the mechs, not nearly so many civilians are hurt by them, and far more would be helped by them.

Mechs could also serve in civilian roles (in a manner far more useful than a helicopter). They could do dangerous things, like rescuing hostages from a booby trapped building. They could do suicidal things, like taking bullets for politicians. They could do dirty things, like cleaning sewer blockages. They could even do regular jobs. If each mech costs $100,000, then they can be leased to a burger company for less than 3 years, and receive the equivalent of, or less than minimum wage, working day and night. After 3 years, the burger company would only pay for maintenance and power. It would be a good deal all-around. The price of everything could be as much as 50 times less than it is now. Very few things are as versatile as humanoid mechs could be. NorsemanII 00:43, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

I think what you are trying to explain are humanoid robots. Indeed these may be the future of warfare a century or so from now. However, mecha are pilotable crafts with so many legs and arms. As combat in the modern world turn to more urban situations as you stated, smaller is better. The key in battles in urban confinements is knowledge of enemy positions and movements. The US is devoloping from its current UAV platforms smaller hovering UAVs that can be piloted by a soldier in the field and can scout buildings, much like a model helicopter. Just arm them and you have a mobile support craft. Mecha, of any size, cannot be smaller than a human and must stand taller than or equal to a tank, considering the armor on the feet and on the head. This allows it to easily be tracked by aerial recon. Considering the major threats to a tank, including but not limited to: RPGs, ATGMs, and air attacks from fixed-wing or rotary aircrafts, the mecha doesn't address these threats, but increases the threats due to its size, unique movement patterns, or both. Of course, as I said, mecha can step over obstacles. But the programming of the up-forward-down movement plus the limitations of the hydraulics equals a unreliable and slow machine, even if it could be done. Robots, on the other hand, are a different story. They can be stronger, faster, and more expendable than humans, as you said. However, it's just a computer with arms and legs, and can have errors just like a computer nowadays. Imagine an army of robots stopped by a computer virus and even turned against its makers. Plus no machine can simulate the human mobility or dexterity, and requires a human choice to kill an enemy and make life saving choices. A computer may experience a situations such as where it must help a wounded civilian while protecting a hostage and giving support to friendly soldiers. That would send it into a infinite loop. In life or death situations choices must be made within fractions of seconds, based on instincts, something a computer must process for a few seconds, and a signal from a human controller thousands of miles away will take even more time. --66.68.43.166 05:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

Mechs will be unfeasible on Earth, but I think some of the Gundam animes got it right, powered by Hydrogen fuel cells in outer space and equipped with the barest boosters, Mechs began as an extension of the astronaut suit, only with armour, boosters and a large air supply, eventually their were equipped with guns for fights on low gravity rugged terrain, (I.E mars, the moon etc, Tanks can't do this.) I would think that if Mechas will ever exist, it will happen in this way. Eventually perhaps will come along the idea to fuse human mind with machine to exploit human judgement and speed and a computer's accuracy (perhaps) sesory perceptions, in this case, if a mind is to completely fuse with a machine, it is perhaps desirable to make the machine as humanlike as possible, so that the conscious is not damaged during the experience. (A lot of this is a pile of crap, I know) Still, can't see any point of a human presence within the machine in the end, except if it has to dramatically respond in situations in which even radio waves take a few minutes to each them. (To communicate from earth to mars would take atleast half an hour for powerful radio frequencies to reach the units, real time communications between earth and the units would be impossible, and so the units will be weak without any AI. How about animal shaped machines, more efficient?

I like the space, low gravity mecha idea, as it does seem more feasable than earth bound mecha. War in space is probably a little far-fetched, probably in the next one or two centuries. However, in space, speed is key. As weapons are not effected by gravity or friction, projectile and energy weapons can travel at speeds that would seem instant. Computer guided and aimmed weapons could stop pretty much any craft in space. Mecha can attach boosters all around and, with all its movement, could dodge enemy fire. Now that fusing brain with machine is something that could be done with any machine. It could be done by copying a brains response and electrical patterns to a computer, but that process would initially take decades to complete. Imagine a complete replica of a person's mind, able to think exactly what the real person would do, even if that person is dead. But nevermind about that, as it is not mecha related. --66.68.43.166 05:47, 17 July 2006 (UTC)

• All of these explanations so far are relying on huge assumptions and require big leaps in logic. Try looking at this in terms of real-world value. Right now the biggest military threat is an improvised explosive. Most casualties in Iraq are being caused by roadside bombs. An explosively formed penetrator's speed is measured in kilometers per second, and is likely to be detonated less than fifty meters from it's target. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can simply "dodge" this and these devices are defeating our best armor.

The original question was with regards to strategic value of mecha, not their tactical abilities. In terms of what we call "Big Army" thought, the most important thing in the world is protecting the crewmen and the cost-vs-benefits ratio. Right now our troops are fighting in mostly urban terrain and our Humvees and LMTVs are getting eaten up by IEDs. If your average Durka can set up an IED and ambush a fast-moving convoy, a slower mech would be an easy target for such an attack (especially an EFP or explosively formed projectile).

Therefore, "Big Army" is going so see that in terms of survivability a mech would do no better than any other tank we presently have, and probably a whole lot worse. They would rather spend their money on something like a Cougar or Buffalo which is resilient and easy to repair (rather than a mech, which is hideously complicated and a logistical nightmare).

Also keep in mind that heavy firepower is all but obsolete. The real work in Iraq is being done by door-kickers. All the tankers and artillerymen, meanwhile, are pulling guard duty because there is simply no need for large vehicles and heavy artillery.Jboyler 13:28, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

Every innovation in military design that has survived the test of time is one that has performed a function better, safer, faster or cheaper than was previously being done. No army in the world is going to spend money researching technology that would do the job worse, if at all. Mechs rely on technology that is currently unavailable, and in most cases scientifically implausible (light-weight, super-powerful weaponry, armour, motive systems and power supplies in the main). Which begs the question - if these things exist, why not just apply them to more effective designs than an inherently unstable, inefficient bipedal mechanism? All settings involving mecha seem to assume that only the mecha will take advantage of such technology, and conventional vehicles etc will remain limited to their 20th century equivalent. If a mech can weigh a few dozen tons and mount heavy weaponry and armour, yet still be agile enough to move (and even fly), a tracked vehicle could surely mount twice the weaponry (better weight distribution), more armour (smaller surface area for the same level of protection) and be lighter and even more agile (less overall mass). The only area where mecha concepts are realistically ever going to be useful are in the form of powered infantry armour - and even this requires an as-yet undiscovered power source that is portable, unvolatile (no liquid H!) and long-lasting. Strategically, it would be great advantage to a nation if it could dupe its enemies into wasting colossal amounts af money researching and producing what are essentially easy targets ;-) EyeSerene 13:58, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Ok, i'll give a few thoughts here since i havent any thing better to do at this moment. First the value of a traditional mecha over a tank, it has been shown in Iraq that a standard tank is a big death trap for its crew when it drives over an under ground bomb. You see when a tank drives over an under ground bomb, it blows straight through the plating on the bottom, and most of the force and high speed flying metal ends up inside the tank with the operators, which means they will almost certainly die. Now we look at a mech, it walks on an under ground bomb even in a worst case situation, which would be that its leg(s) get blown of, the pilot will still be fine as long as his position in the machine has been reinforced against shock, which isn't too hard if you build it like the seated position of a racing vehical. For agility, even if the tracked vehical could match or even out run the mech, it still can never turn or move in different directions like one with legs(think about it, no matter how well it turns,Its always easier and faster for some thing tall and bipedal to turn and change direction, than it is for some thing long and tracked). So to review, we COULD invest more time and energy than its really worth tryig to make tanks turn faster, making the bottoms reinforced making them even heavier(and thus harder to transport, and with the rising price of fuel costs, this must be considered), or we could simply take the lesson that nature taught us when it created tall bipedal beings which can out move even the fastest long quadrapedal beings. Oh, and for an alternative to using hydraulics, perhaps one could use pnuematics, Or Electroactive polymers. Just had to add my thoughts ^_^ 67.98.38.90 (talk) 10:46, 13 October 2008 (UTC)