Why mecha?

[kzt]

That's actually a retcon. Pre-clan invasion, in the real world (1986-1990?) the stated reason was that weapons had such a short range was because the inner sphere had lost the ability to maintain sophisticated targeting systems. Star League era tech was supposed to shoot for miles. The reason they had to change this was the Clans. The Clans where supposed to be more sophisticated then the Star League, so by the fluff they should be able to fire for miles, but they changed it so that games could still fit on the table top.

A friend of mine was involved with FASA when they owned star trek rights. Someone wanted to have a Trek away team vs modern infantry scenario for some reason. He pointed out that the entire trek team would get slaughtered without ever getting in range of any of the guys using "obsolete" guns because the phaser ranges were absurdly stupid.

[Krusk]

http://suidobashijuko.jp/

just gonna drop this in for reference. Apparently they updated it to english since I last looked, kind of. So you may be able to read some.

[Juton]

http://suidobashijuko.jp/

just gonna drop this in for reference. Apparently they updated it to english since I last looked, kind of. So you may be able to read some.

While this is cool, I'm still waiting for mecha with big stompy feet. I wonder if driving around in this would be cool in Japan, less nerdy or as nerdy as it would be in North America.

[Wrathzog]

http://screencrush.com/syfy-robot-combat-league/

We're so close.

[...You Lost Me]

It takes a stupid amount of energy for a mech to move like a human, because their center of mass moves up and down (I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already). In addition to stability being a pain in the ass, that's why there's basically no reason for making a robot with legs.

The only reason nature didn't give us wheels is because it's hard to evolve.

[Previn]

It takes a stupid amount of energy for a mech to move like a human, because their center of mass moves up and down (I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already). In addition to stability being a pain in the ass, that's why there's basically no reason for making a robot with legs.

Are you sure about that?

[Chamomile]

There's a recommended video to the side that says android brothels might be a reality by 2050. That seems kind of like it's mocking me. "If you're old enough to care, you'll be well into old age before mass produced sex is a reality for you! Ha ha!"

[DSMatticus]

It takes a stupid amount of energy for a mech to move like a human, because their center of mass moves up and down (I'm not sure if this has been mentioned already). In addition to stability being a pain in the ass, that's why there's basically no reason for making a robot with legs.

Are you sure about that?

I want to point out that's quadrupedal and being quadrupedal is a very good sign that you are not "moving like a human." Also, that thing is cheating. It's on a slope. People get down those without using their legs all the time. It's called falling.

That said, one of the theories for why we are bipedal at all is that it is more efficient for travelling long distances than being quadrupedal. Humans are remarkably better endurance runners than horses. The claim that being bipedal wastes energy is pretty much the exact opposite of true. But it is harder on the joints in the limbs you use to move, because there are less limbs distributing the load, so you need stronger materials/more maintenance than you would otherwise.

[Fuchs]

Mechs need to find a niche between tanks and aircraft/helicopters. Tanks beat them at armor and firepower, aircraft/helicopters offer better mobility outside special terrain. Urban combat in power armor would probably be the best niche for mechas, anything bigger and you're facing the same problem with infantry ambushes as tanks do in urban combat, just with less armor (and, if it's only one pilot in the mecha, less eyes to scan for threats).

But outside such terrain? What can a mecha do that a chopper or aircraft or an armored vehicle cannot do better and with less risk?

[Username17]

But outside such terrain? What can a mecha do that a chopper or aircraft or an armored vehicle cannot do better and with less risk?

Pop-up attacks into hull-down positions. I could totally see mechs with really long, even telescoping legs. They would walk around behind ridge lines and buildings, then stand up, take some shots, and pop down again.

Now imagine that, but you had fast acting knees, so that you could switch between hide, hull-down, and back to hide position in less than a second.

We really need vehicles that can shoot over buildings but aren't sitting ducks for missile launchers. Something like the Battletech Locust, but with the main gun on top of the cockpit instead of below.

-Username17

[Vebyast]

That walker is technically bipedal. It looks the way it does because it's walking in two dimensions rather than three - putting the extra feet on it means that it won't go side-to-side, which means the researchers can investigate the important forward-and-backward bits of walking without worrying about the irrelevant turning or side-to-side stuff. Look at it from the side view and it makes more sense. Additionally, note that the current world record for most fuel-efficient walking robot is held by a nearly identical contraption with some motors added.

---

Now, about vertical movement in bipedal locomotion. Surprisingly, this up-and-down motion is actually why bipeds are so much more efficient than quadrupeds. It's all about kinetic energy versus potential energy.

In a walking gait, your kinetic energy (how fast you're moving) and your potential energy (how far off the ground you are) are out of phase - as your center of mass drops, that energy changes into movement, and then movement goes back into raising your center of mass. The problem with this is that it only works if you're oscillating at some natural frequency that's determined by the length of your legs and the position of your center of mass. When you're stepping at exactly the right frequency, you become a big upside-down pendulum that's constantly falling forward and recovering, just like those little passive walkers from earlier. This behavior lets you achieve incredible efficiency because you're really not exerting any energy to keep yourself going forward. The problem with walking is that you can only do it at that one, annoyingly slow, speed.

In a running gait, potential and kinetic energy are in phase rather than out of phase. You attain maximum velocity and maximum height simultaneously. This kind of makes sense; you want to do most of your really fast movement when you're off the ground so you have room to move your foot up to the front. But that's not the real benefit. The real benefit is that, since you're no longer locked to the period of that pendulum, you can run as fast as you want without losing efficiency. Of course, all that energy has to go somewhere, and it turns out that it gets temporarily stored in a couple of really stupidly huge springs - the achilles tendon. As you land and slow down, the achilles tendon stretches out and stores a shitload of energy; when you push back off, the achilles tendon snaps back, throwing you forward like a catapult. It reduces the amount of energy required to run by almost 75%. Four times as efficient as anything else on legs.

And the efficiency doesn't end there. The achilles tendon can soak up as much extra energy as it needs to, which means that none of that energy is being dumped into your joints where it could cause injury. We have some of the best shock absorbers in nature. The springiness also means that the impact is spread out over time, even further reducing the load on your joints. I mean, think about it - it takes sixty or seventy years of hard use before we start getting arthritis.

One of our biggest goals in humanoid robotics is to duplicate the achilles tendon. We're not having much luck, mostly because we don't have any materials that are durable enough and springy enough to do the trick. Carbon fiber comes close, which is why Oscar Pistorius is still competitive, but it's not good enough for larger robots. As with everything else about mecha locomotion, it boils down to materials science.

---

Yes, stability is a titanic pain in the ass. That's one of the reasons that I've been talking about hexapedal mecha here rather than bipedal mecha. But we know that stability is possible, so it's just a matter of time and engineering, unlike the materials problems preventing us from making spindly little Owens.

---

Pop-up attacks into hull-down positions.

Nah, for that you just use smart top-attack munitions. One of these things, for example, or just a pile of guided missiles, artillery shells, or mortar bombs. I can imagine you using telescoping arms to wave fire control radar around, but once you see something to shoot you just chuck a missile at it. No reason to expose yourself to return fire. Rather, the advantage of having legs is that nobody else can do the same thing to you because you're moving around too much. Shoot-and-scoot on a timescale of seconds rather than minutes.

[Fuchs]

But outside such terrain? What can a mecha do that a chopper or aircraft or an armored vehicle cannot do better and with less risk?

Pop-up attacks into hull-down positions. I could totally see mechs with really long, even telescoping legs. They would walk around behind ridge lines and buildings, then stand up, take some shots, and pop down again.

Now imagine that, but you had fast acting knees, so that you could switch between hide, hull-down, and back to hide position in less than a second.

We really need vehicles that can shoot over buildings but aren't sitting ducks for missile launchers. Something like the Battletech Locust, but with the main gun on top of the cockpit instead of below.

-Username17

Vehicles with missile launchers, guided by spotter drones (or telescoping sensors) beat pop-up mechs, and they have lower profiles as well.

[Grek]

Frank's pop-up mech makes sense iff anti-missile weapons have advanced to the point where they can reliably shoot down homing missiles before impact. Then you can't shoot around corners and want to fire lasers at people.

[Fuchs]

Frank's pop-up mech makes sense iff anti-missile weapons have advanced to the point where they can reliably shoot down homing missiles before impact. Then you can't shoot around corners and want to fire lasers at people.

If you can develop working walkers you can also develop working telescoping weapon mounts. Walkers still have the disadvantage that they are far easier to spot and hit when moving - too big profile.

[Username17]

Also, your enemies are not the Russians. The Russians do all kinds of cool shit, where they have people with laser range finders that input numbers into GPS databases and then have indirect fire missiles torch your vehicles. The Americans will do that too. And you know what? That doesn't fucking matter. All that shit can be done with tank destroyer aircraft and it's very effective at destroying tanks, and if you want to do that you don't want or need a land vehicle at all.

But see, your actual enemy is a bunch of dudes who happen to have some rocket launchers and small arms. And they are mixed in with normal civilians, and don't even look different until they get the weapons out of their truck.

The problem with aircraft is that they either move very fast (and are pretty shit at identifying man-sized ground targets), or they are helicopters (and are terribly vulnerable to man portable rocket launchers). The problem with tanks is that they are slow enough that it's not terribly difficult for people with explosives to get those explosives onto your tank.

What we want is a vehicle that is persistent on the ground like a tank, able to fire from cover like a tank, able to bounce small arms fire like a tank, able to accurately fire weapons into crowds, but able to do pop-up attacks faster than a tank and maneuverable enough to be able to keep jihadists from being able to get their suicide vests onto your vehicle.

In short: we want a long legged mech with a laser turret on the top. We do not need an armored land vehicle for tank destroyer missions. That is what missiles are for. We need a vehicle that can effectively traverse a city or wilderness area that has some human-sized enemies with AKs and rocket launchers in it. Because that is the actual enemy we are actually going to fight.

-Username17

[Daiba]

In short: we want a long legged mech with a laser turret on the top.

You mean like one of these?

[Chamomile]

That raises another question: How do you fight a mech? Assume you don't have air superiority, because you are not the Russians, so just blowing it up from five miles away is not an option. What's the best strategy for blowing one of them up?

[Juton]

That raises another question: How do you fight a mech? Assume you don't have air superiority, because you are not the Russians, so just blowing it up from five miles away is not an option. What's the best strategy for blowing one of them up?

It depends if its a big slow Battletech mech, a big fast Gundam mecha or a small powered armour like Starship Troopers (the book not the movie). Battletech mechs you can just shoot a whole bunch and they will fall down, you might need to break out the high caliber ordinance though. Oddly I don't think a modern tanks AP rounds will scratch a mech, but its HE rounds will do a little damage to it. You'd need to engage a Gundam with fighter jets as they can be very agile, although an AMRAAM could connect as long as the Gunam pilot is not an ace. For powered armour a few shoulder mounted rockets should do the trick.

[Username17]

In short: we want a long legged mech with a laser turret on the top.

You mean like one of these?

Striders are a step in the right direction. They need to be scuttling around closer to the ground and popping up high to take shots at things that are on the other side of obstacles. Also, they need to be moving around faster and spending less time ponderously stomping around while the defense forces shoot heavy weapons at them. Because basically, your enemies are Gordon Freeman and a group of plucky resistance fighters. The thing where Gordon is given time to set up and take shots from multiple vantage points is exactly what a mech that intends to win should not allow.

That raises another question: How do you fight a mech? Assume you don't have air superiority, because you are not the Russians, so just blowing it up from five miles away is not an option. What's the best strategy for blowing one of them up?

I think your best bet is to hide a tank destroyer gun inside a building. Wait for the mech to pass next to your building, and try to time a shot through the wall. I think that a heavy, high velocity round is going to end up being super effective against Mechs because the mech is going to necessarily be lighter and thinner than a tank.

I suspect that mines are going to end up pretty disappointing against mechs. Their feet aren't going to stay on the ground very long and their bellies are going to be fairly high up. It's also easier to armor a foot than a track. Guys with rocket launchers are going to do a lot worse against mechs than they do against helicopters. The mech is just going to be in field of view for much less time.

-Username17

[Grek]

Frank's pop-up mech makes sense iff anti-missile weapons have advanced to the point where they can reliably shoot down homing missiles before impact. Then you can't shoot around corners and want to fire lasers at people.

If you can develop working walkers you can also develop working telescoping weapon mounts. Walkers still have the disadvantage that they are far easier to spot and hit when moving - too big profile.

Anything you can mount on a telescoping weapon mount can be mounted two or three times over on a walker. The telescope, no matter how impressive, cannot lift more weight than the vehicle it's mounted on. So, if it's an option, and if you expect to do all of your shooting from telescoped weapons, it's better to have the entire vehicle telescope itself than have just an arm do it.

[Vebyast]

I suspect that mines are going to end up pretty disappointing against mechs. Their feet aren't going to stay on the ground very long and their bellies are going to be fairly high up.

Actually, my guess is that "mines" are going to be the best option that Gordon Freeman has. Old-style contact mines wouldn't have much success, but modern weapons have a standoff distance around thirty meters and can attack from the side or the top rather than from underneath. Explosively-formed penetrators are exactly the kind of heavy, high-velocity round that you're talking about, except in roadside bomb form rather than gun form. The Iraqi insurgents were transitioning to these because they were much simpler to hide (since you only have to get them near the road rather than under it) and much harder-hitting (enough so to kill Abrams and those special mine-resistant vehicles). The US military is doing the same thing, with the added refinement that the warheads get thrown into the air where they can search for targets before they blow up.

It's also easier to armor a foot than a track.

You'd be surprised. Every extra bit of weight you put on your foot is a bit of weight that you have to swing around on the end of a giant lever. Try strapping a two-pound dumbbell - around 1.5% of your body mass - to your shoe and you'll see what I mean immediately.

---

As for weapons, lasers are good, especially because you can turn them down to blind people instead of killing them and because you can reuse them as part of your anti-missile system. There are two other guns you might want to add. First, mortars, because mortars fire a huge range of useful specialty ammo, things like video cameras on parachutes, anti-tank rounds, smoke and tear gas, little remote-control cars that you can use for scouting, and so on. Second, a light grenade launcher loaded with airburst ammunition, because people like hiding beside windows and this would discourage that quite thoroughly, and because it comes with its own range of specialty munitions like flechettes and beanbags.

[Fuchs]

In short: we want a long legged mech with a laser turret on the top. We do not need an armored land vehicle for tank destroyer missions. That is what missiles are for. We need a vehicle that can effectively traverse a city or wilderness area that has some human-sized enemies with AKs and rocket launchers in it. Because that is the actual enemy we are actually going to fight.

-Username17

No, against low-tech enemies we want a cheap ass flying drone, preferably one that can hover. Not some Mecha that takes far too many people and far too much maintenance to keep running.

[Username17]

No, against low-tech enemies we want a cheap ass flying drone, preferably one that can hover. Not some Mecha that takes far too many people and far too much maintenance to keep running.

Those don't do anything against low tech enemies. Yes, you can fly around and shoot up villages full of low tech wogs and rack up really big kill counts, but so what? The "bad guys" don't really look any different from the civilians, so the ability to fly around with stealthy drones accomplishes very little. Maybe you can identify some targets to shoot missiles at, but maybe you can't. In any case, until you actually have men and machines on the ground, you don't actually control the area.

Power armor and larger mechs are more adapted to taking and holding ground against what we actually face: an insurgency of people who look exactly the same as civilians with various amounts of man-portable military hardware and little training. There is a place for aerial drones. They are great for recon. They can tell you everything aerial recon can tell you and are much much cheaper than manned planes. But if having really good aerial recon made you take and hold territory, we would have conquered Vietnam in 1964. You need to send actual men and vehicles into villages and cities, and aerial drones do not count for shit against that requirement.

-Username17

[Vebyast]

Also, drones have depressingly short range and small batteries and their payload capacity is miserable. The kind of quadcopter you can buy at the store will carry 300 grams of payload for 12 minutes. I think there's a niche - put some UAV pads on top of your jeeps and when someone starts shooting you launch your UAVs and send them to follow the guys with the guns - but it doesn't involve shooting at things.

[kzt]

But see, your actual enemy is a bunch of dudes who happen to have some rocket launchers and small arms. And they are mixed in with normal civilians, and don't even look different until they get the weapons out of their truck.

The problem with aircraft is that they either move very fast (and are pretty shit at identifying man-sized ground targets), or they are helicopters (and are terribly vulnerable to man portable rocket launchers). The problem with tanks is that they are slow enough that it's not terribly difficult for people with explosives to get those explosives onto your tank.

Well, there is an alternative that should be considered. A couple of fairly small, virtually silent UAVs can cruise around out of easy small arms distance and when one sees people pulling rocket launchers out of their truck it blows them up with a PGM with a 4 pound warhead.