What combat role could a mech play on a real battlefield?

[Malleolus]

Reading comprehension. They were NOT useless. A flying machine for example would allow people to travel large distances in a short amount of time. You dont need to have a working prototype to understand that! The technology did not exist at the time to build them, but that doesnt mean that their PROOF OF CONCEPT was ROCK SOLID. Once the technology caught up, inventors (like the Wright Brothers) started building them.

 

Mech's proof of concept is rubbish. Even if we develop the technology to build them, their proof of concept will still be rubbish...

 

History: How much of the scientific community was behind powered flight? How many of Da Vinci's powered flight contraptions worked? How many scientists worked on the Wright Brothers proof of concept?

 

Science fiction tends to become science fact. History, both extremely recent and later, prove this.

[shagrat]

Just read through all pro posts. Nearly all state the obvious argument, including mine. I put it uppercase now.

LEGS CAN WALK OVER OBSTACLES THAT COULD STOP A TANK LIKE A SIMPLE FALLEN TREE. YOU CAN WALK UP STEEP SLOPES NO TANK OR IFV CAN MANAGE.

And wade through thick growth or small rivers, cross over tank ditches, duck behind cover (crouch) and so on...

 

Edit: that was more than one argument. I get tired repeating myself.

Edited June 12, 2014 by shagrat

[Isegrim]

....and one more point on the "efficiency" of tracked/wheeled vehicles vs. Legs: after Darwin worked out how nature runs evolution, and considering you are right, why the #@!$ has no living thing on this planet tracks or wheels?

 

Nature would have to Create ciruclar working muscles for being efficient than.

 

On the other hand... not all Landliving creatures have legs.

 

And Shagrat. The tracks groundpressure of a 60 t Tank is nearly the same as like your own standing on 2 feet.

So a 60t Mech needs quite big feet to get not stuck in many situations.

Edited June 12, 2014 by Isegrim

[Malleolus]

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-real-world-mechs-straight-out-science-fiction/

 

Cybernetic Anthropomorphous Machine, 12 foot tall legs, moves payload across terrain other means of transportation can't, working prototype. Why was it abandoned? Manual controls, that's it. Throw the MULE software suite onto it, plate it, upgrade to modern hydraulic actuation. Not bipedal, but still a good proof of concept save the lack of onboard pc control.

[shagrat]

Erm what? Insects dont have a central nervous systems? Please read up on your biology, you are wrong....They also have bodily fluids that take up the functions of a vascular system...

 

Not central. Distributed nervous system. Fluids of course, but no blood VESSELS... as I said.

[Malleolus]

Nature would have to Create ciruclar working muscles for being efficient than.

 

On the other hand... not all Landliving creatures have legs.

 

And Shagrat. The tracks groundpressure of a 60 t Tank is nearly the same as like your own standing on 2 feet.

So a 60t Mech needs quite big feet to get not stuck in many situations.

 

Wikipedia:

All examples are approximate, and will vary based on conditions

 

Hovercraft: 0.7 kPa (0.1 psi)

 

Human on Snowshoes: 3.5 kPa (0.5 psi)

 

Rubber-tracked ATV: 5.165 kPa (0.75 psi)

 

Diedrich D-50 - T2 Drilling rig: 26.2 kPa (3.8 psi)

 

Human male (1.8 meter tall, medium build): 55 kPa (8 psi)

 

M1 Abrams tank: 103 kPa (15 psi)

 

1993 Toyota 4Runner / Hilux Surf: 170 kPa (25 psi)

 

Adult horse (550 kg, 1250 lb): 170 kPa (25 psi)

 

Passenger car: 205 kPa (30 psi)

 

Wheeled ATV: 240 kPa (35 psi)

 

Mountain bicycle: 245 kPa (40 psi)

 

Racing bicycle: 620 kPa (90 psi)

 

Note: Pressures for Man and Horse are for standing still. A walking human will exert more than double his standing pressure. A galloping horse will exert up to 3.5 MPa (500 psi). The ground pressure for a pneumatic tire is roughly equal to its inflation pressure.

[shagrat]

Gotta knock you here too... One has a comparatively low range endurance (as most helo's do, they're designed to go, deliver payload, and leave... Only on really short sorties do they have "staying" power). The other has extremely limited payload. Also, weather can drastically change the performance of both these pieces, possibly even eliminating their use at all.

 

^This

Have an Apache waiting for 4 hours over a TIC best you can do is relieve in place with a second flight, given the base is near enough to give you enough time on target.

[Flagrum]

Ill try to explain it as simply as possible. Let us imagine we are in the 19th century. A plane makes sense because its faster than a train. It doesnt matter if the technology behind the plane doesnt exist or might NEVER exist. A flying contraption like the plane has inherent advantages over a train or a wagon. It makes sense, this is what is meant by a proof of concept!

When the first planes took off they had neither the reach (a few hundred yards? vs. across the whole continent) nor the speed of a train. And I doubt that these arguments where the driving factor behind the invention - as it was NOT really forseeable where the development would end one day.

 

So, that point seems not to be viable in my eyes. According to your plane vs. train example, it would be more like "can a mech be done? hrm, yes, but it sucks ... but whatever, let's see what we will be able to make out of it!" :o)

[Malleolus]

I really cant get through to you can I? Please read my post again and try to understand that you arguing a point that has no relevance on the subject matter.

 

Ill try to explain it as simply as possible. Let us imagine we are in the 19th century. A plane makes sense because its faster than a train. It doesnt matter if the technology behind the plane doesnt exist or might NEVER exist. A flying contraption like the plane has inherent advantages over a train or a wagon. It makes sense, this is what is meant by a proof of concept!

 

A mech on the other hand doesnt have a sound proof of concept. It doesnt matter if we ever get the technology to build giant mechs. They still wont make sense. They provide no advantages over other vehicles current or future.

 

Lets name another fictional sci-fi vehicle that DOES make sense. A hover or anti-grav tank. Its easy to see how such a vehicle could perform the role of a heavy assault gunship AND a typical tank role.

 

You want to quote an anti-gravity tank when we don't even know what gravity is?

 

Let me be as simple as I possibly can... Flight was considered to be SLOWER, lower PAYLOAD, EXTREMELY limited ranges, and far more HAZARDOUS than other means of transportation by the VAST MAJORITY of the scientific community, hence only science fiction enthusiasts dreamed about it LIKE DA VINCI. Hindsight is 20/20, something you lack the capacity to understand, at the time it was seen as a fools errand.

 

I'm also not talking a BATTLEMECH style mech. A wolfe running around would be a total waste of time and money.

 

The validity of the argument lies in the fact that a mech can only be postulated as to what roles it can fill, and how well it can perform those roles, until a dedicated proof of concept is made, like the plane.

[Malleolus]

The argument is flawed, as several over here have already noted several times. Even if we disregard the foot pressure vs combined mass argument, or the efficiency of the entire contraption. Making a large and expensive armoured vehicle simply because its more useful than a tank in 1 case out of a 100. is ridiculous....

 

Why was the tank made in the first place? Technologies already existed to combat the task it was assigned, and arguably could do that job better. The first tanks were nothing more than a weapon of morale.

[shagrat]

I really cant get through to you can I?(...) A flying contraption like the plane has inherent advantages over a train or a wagon. It makes sense, this is what is meant by a proof of concept!

(...)

A mech on the other hand doesnt have a sound proof of concept. It doesnt matter if we ever get the technology to build giant mechs.

I agree on the giant point.

 

People were building planes because they wanted to fly. No one was thinking about replacing trains! How could they? Build an armada of thousands of fragile planes with one pilot per passenger each?

 

Now in WW I balloons where used to spot for artillery. Planes were not thought to be of use in combat. Reality has proven there use. It was for some pilots that didn't give a shit about arguments, and others oppinion. They took a revolver a "bomb" and got in the air throwing it on troops and shooting at balloons... had you asked the Generals fighting in planes never would have happened.

If the first working walking platforms are developed, it will just take time to adopt them and use them in a combat role. Whatever you personally think. History proves over and over again that invention doesn't need a bunch of engineers and scientists with a proof of concept to build new things.

[Exorcet]

....and one more point on the "efficiency" of tracked/wheeled vehicles vs. Legs: after Darwin worked out how nature runs evolution, and considering you are right, why the #@!$ has no living thing on this planet tracks or wheels?

Nature decided on the most inefficient way to propel it's animals??? You really believe that?

This is how evolution works. It is blind. It does not know what is best. You get a random mutation. It either helps, hurts, or does nothing. So basically when locomotion evolved, nature did not compare legs and wheels. It randomly came up with legs and just went with it.

 

Nature is full of terrible engineering.

[Flagrum]

I really cant get through here can I. :doh:

 

Do you really believe that the inventors who designed the first planes had NO IDEA about where they were headed? THey did it what for fun??? No they did it because they saw a clear and defining ROLE for the future of their vehicles.

They had a dream: "flying (like a bird)". They tried, they failed. Eventually they succeeded.

 

I genuinely doubt that the Wright brothers had in mind to establish themselfs as business competitor to the i.e. railway companies... They only wanted to proof that it is possible - everything else was secondary in the beginning.

[Malleolus]

This is how evolution works. It is blind. It does not know what is best. You get a random mutation. It either helps, hurts, or does nothing. So basically when locomotion evolved, nature did not compare legs and wheels. It randomly came up with legs and just went with it.

 

Nature is full of terrible engineering.

 

Not entirely true... nature also has a way of killing off it's random mutations that don't work, leaving the stuff that works well.

[Malleolus]

Morale? Really? Morale....can you point me to the history book where you read that?

 

The modern tank was designed during the experiences of World War I. A vehicle was needed that could safely cross the no man's land between trenches.

 

Hence a tracked and armoured vehicle. Tracks, because wheels would get stuck on the muddy and craterous terrain. Armour to counter the machine guns and other small arms fire.

 

It clearly filled a role much needed on the battlefield of the times.

 

Tanks were originally designed to transport troops through area's that had infantry slowing obstacles placed. They barely withstood small arms fire at range. Ask any military history expert... the exhaust vented into the crew bay, it had thin sheet metal for plating, and wasn't directly armed... but it was useful for raising allied morale and lowering the enemies. Seeing a hunk of steel role across chicken wire and over trenches was A) a morale boost for it's allies, and B) made it's enemies shit themselves. You could easily walk faster then them, and they were horribly fuel inefficient.

[shagrat]

Evolution builds random ideas and sort out the most efficient ones! That is different. Terrible engineering does not survive... or is highly specialized, where it is doomed to die, when parameters change.

In our economy we lack the will to invest in all possible ideas and sort them out. We even choose crappy ideas for short term profits...

[Flagrum]

If the first working walking platforms are developed, it will just take time to adopt them and use them in a combat role. Whatever you personally think. History proves over and over again that invention doesn't need a bunch of engineers and scientists with a proof of concept to build new things.

Only one thing is absolutely sure - no matter what invention or how it became to life initially - mankind will always find a way to turn those into weapons and find a combat role for it. :o)

[Malleolus]

I really cant get through here can I. :doh:

 

Do you really believe that the inventors who designed the first planes had NO IDEA about where they were headed? THey did it what for fun??? No they did it because they saw a clear and defining ROLE for the future of their vehicles.

 

No, they did it to prove that it could be DONE. They wanted powered flight... that's the long and the short of it. They didn't see it transporting dozens of people across the atlantic, nor dropping literal tons of bombs over Germany, they just wanted it.

[shagrat]

Edit: The post before ^^^ :megalol:

This thread evolves faaaast!

Edited June 12, 2014 by shagrat

[Malleolus]

The most useful word in science is not "Eureka!", most often it's "That's weird..."

 

The plane was, to the scientific community, a "That's weird..." moment. It went entirely against what they believed would happen.

[Exorcet]

Not entirely true... nature also has a way of killing off it's random mutations that don't work, leaving the stuff that works well.

 

Evolution builds random ideas and sort out the most efficient ones! That is different. Terrible engineering does not survive... or is highly specialized, where it is doomed to die, when parameters change.

In our economy we lack the will to invest in all possible ideas and sort them out. We even choose crappy ideas for short term profits...

I'll try to clear this up before it becomes another topic.

 

Yes you kill off what doesn't work, but your initial pool is random. So nature when from non moving to moving animals it did not look at jet engines, legs, treads, propellers, and flagellum and decide what was best. Some thing somewhere evolved a flagellum. The better flagellums were passed on, but no consideration was given to a propeller because one did not evolve randomly.

 

Evolution makes the best of what it has, thus leaving terrible (or at least curious) design in its wake. Things like this:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#In_animals

 

No reason for it to be so long in some animals, but nature went with it anyway.

[shagrat]

So what you are saying then is that they filled a ROLE? You dont say...

 

Even Balloons filled a "role". So do waste disposal services... That is because after things are invented managers need to define a role to put it into context. Next is a service concept, then you can discuss cost reduction and sourcing strategies! :doh:

[Malleolus]

So what you are saying then is that they filled a ROLE? You dont say...

 

Hmmm... mechs having extemely high modularity giving a battle group a much needed piece of heavy equipment that can fulfill both a multitude of combat roles as well as support roles... sounds like, in itself, a role... ground pressure is not a huge undertaking to mitigate. I could also cite, for your convenience, several sources on supercritical rankine cycle prime movers using CO2 as the working medium, and until a ruggedized source of radioisotopic heat capable of producing the necessary BTU needed to phase change pressurized CO2 to it's supercritical saturated state, of which there are several already in testing, any means of efficient combustion can be used in it's place, producing mega watts of power, more than enough to fulfill the power requirements of a very sizable mech while keeping the requisite powerplant down to a manageable level, but seeing as how my previous "technical jargon" was ignored I'll leave you searching wikipedia to keep up.

[shagrat]

I'll try to clear this up before it becomes another topic.

 

Yes you kill off what doesn't work, but your initial pool is random. So nature when from non moving to moving animals it did not look at jet engines, legs, treads, propellers, and flagellum and decide what was best. Some thing somewhere evolved a flagellum. The better flagellums were passed on, but no consideration was given to a propeller because one did not evolve randomly.

 

Evolution makes the best of what it has, thus leaving terrible (or at least curious) design.

 

No reason for it to be so long in some animals, but nature went with it anyway.

 

Still evolution is an ongoing process that is running for billions of years. After Mechs we may invent a teleporter, which will render any Mech or Tank/vehicle useless... until we invent force shields ...and so on.

Let's calm down a bit. I guess most people see the other's arguments and understand them, even respect them (well I do), but we don't necessarily agree with them. It is a highly fictious idea at all. From my experience if it is possible, it will be done and adopted into something useful... maybe over a few evolutionary steps, but science often is about finding out what's possible. The use case sometimes follows much later.

[shagrat]

And again: they can go "where no tank has gone before"