Real-Life Advantages of Mechs in Military Use

[gunform1010]

What advantages do mechs offer in a battle? Mobility, speed, etc.

[ShadowCell]

you can sell cool toys of them.

that's about it.

[gunform1010]

Ah, of course.
What about space? They don't really have hyper-maneuverability, do they?

[AmuroNT1]

Most Real Robot anime have to use some kind of hand-wave justification for the existence of mecha in the first place, while Super Robot anime just operate off of the rule of cool. The reason is, giant robots are an insanely unreasonable and impractical idea in real life. There are way too many issues with things like balance, the surface area of the feet, and even the ability to support their own weight.

It's fun to watch cartoons, TV shows, or movies with giant robots, but I don't think anybody seriously expects that we're going to see anything remotely resembling a mobile suit in this reality.

[azrael]

There would have to be some serious justification to use giant robots in real life. The best we are going to get are powered suits or combat armor, which are being researched. But even that is still a "NO".

In space? Still impractical. Fighter craft and space ships are still more practical than giant robots in space.

[Kuruni]

Well, lets wait until we see actual space combet.

Not that I think giant robot will be more practical, I simply think that even craft isn't "practical" either.

[Raikoh]

If we're going to really pick this apart, I'd say that just saying "nope" is limiting. Many technological advances have been faced with people who say "it's impossible," but visionaries have done things like get man flying in the air or building computers you can fit in your pocket. I'm not saying that this is anything like that, but it's a fun exercise to think about the possibilities. Let's take a step back and examine this from a different perspective.

Long post, probably full of BS and fanboying but whatever.

Spoiler

When someone says "mech," they usually would picture something like Gundam. It's just that the idea of 18 meters has stuck in the heads of our collective subconscious. But why would a humanoid mecha need to be that big? Well, simple answer: it wouldn't. If we really want a hypothetical situation where mecha would be used in the military, the obvious choice would be Armored Troopers. The average AT stands at about 3-5 meters tall tops, the famous Scopedog at 4 meters. Since the average HUMAN is about 1.7 meters, an AT's size isn't really that implausible. In fact, we HAVE 4 meter tall mecha in existence today. There also are more and more advancements in the field of robotics, such as ASIMO and its auto-balancing system. So the first question of "is it possible" gets a big check mark for "yes."

So then, what would the practical use of ATs be in the field? Well, let's look at how they're used in-series. Primarily, they are (as the name suggests) used as big, strong, fast, durable infantry. Think humanoid tanks. ATs are shown to be incredibly maneuverable. They can turn almost literally on a dime in a move I affectionately refer to as the VOTOMS pivot, and despite their bulky frames, -dog type ATs (some of the heavier types like Tortoises not so much) are shown to have the full range of human articulation, and can even pull off a few acrobatic maneuvers. What is this good for, besides looking cool?

Well, first off, let's look at one of the first things we see in the VOTOMS series: Battling. Battling is the official term for "combat by AT" in the city of Woodo, and in many cases it is done without any weapons. ATs are capable of fighting even when completely dry of ammunition, so there's one potential application. In fact, the iron claw is an armament equipped onto a few ATs to specifically add to their melee abilities (said claw could even be IMPROVED, since in-series it was just like a sharp and heavy slasher but it could theoretically be like a weaponized Jaws of Life and slice through vehicles like a hot knife through butter). Speaking of the iron claw...

The next point comes in that ATs are modular. If you can strap it to the unit, it can be used as a weapon. There are many times where Chirico makes a custom unit by just taking a Scopedog and covering it with whatever weapons he can get his hands on, ranging from missile launchers to gatling guns to long rifles to grenade launchers. And that's not even the limit of what you could theoretically do with one of these things. Now, sure, you could make ANY machine modular, but giving it a human hand basically means the sky's the limit in terms of the possibilities.

One more, and this is going back to the humanoid shape, is that one of the most common methods for ATs to move from point to point is through the air, in planes and whatnot. They don't even need to come down softly, they just drop down with a parachute and land, the legs absorbing the shock. Right like that, they're ready for combat. Now, infantry ALREADY can enter battlefields with parachute, but I don't think you could send the equivalent of tanks down like that (well, you CAN, but I'm not sure if you could do it in the middle of a battle).

The AT's small size means it can be used in just about every environment at that. It can be used in urban environments, deserts, marshlands, jungles, mountains, and even space. Going back to what I said earlier, they're basically like really advanced infantry. This is especially useful to note in modern warfare, which isn't really about big battles with a lot of prep time any more. Artillery isn't really something that's used these days, and wiping out entire populations is something most armed forces try to avoid.

Another point that could be brougt up: the name VOTOMS is an acronym which mentions it is a "one-man tank." Hypothetically, this means that they could be more useful than tanks, which require an entire crew. Yes, the individual manning the AT probably would need more training, but that might come out in the wash if you're getting four times the number of fielded units.

One more point would be to look at it from a societal standpoint. I've browsed /m/ here and there and I recall there was a thread fairly recently asking people "if the military had mecha, would you enlist?" and there were more than a few people who would say "hell yes," myself included. Morale is good, and having something really friggin' cool would easily build morale on the homefront at least. It doesn't need to be effective, even, it just needs to have the illusion of effectiveness and look good doing it. If there's one thing that I could praise about Gundam Wing, it was that the [non-Gundam] Mobile Suits took this approach, which was unique among mecha shows. They knew that your giant mecha would instill fear in your enemies and admiration in your allies, regardless of actual performance. Pity they were up against full-fledged Super Robots because Wing could've easily been a show where everything tied into P.R. like a Gundam version of Dai-Guard or something (I know Dai-Guard came after Wing but whatever).

All in all, I'd think that if the existing technology we have (the Kuratas) gets advanced enough, why wouldn't it be at least kept in mind for potential military applications? You never know how effective something might be until you try it. Of course a humanoid mecha wouldn't completely phase out any existing military technology, but it would guarantee more soldiers come home alive and it could probably be more efficient than people make it out to be. It doesn't even need to be used for combat, it could possibly just carry loads from place to place (see also: Big Dog) or safely return wounded troops or something in the most cynical outlook.

I admit that it's a long shot, but I don't believe in a "no win" situation. I will repeat that everything I've said is just me spitting out fan wank that probably is 90% hot air and relies entirely on "if this existed..." Though I'll point out that if you showed half the stuff in an electronics store to an engineer from a hundred years ago, they'd be completely flabbergasted at how much technology has advanced in such a short time. Give it time and SOMETHING will probably eventually happen.

[Kuruni]

My fanboy's side refuse to say "hopeless" either, but the other part say practical combat mech won't be in my lifetime (although I have high hope on construction mech, or smaller drone like armed version of Big Dog).

Lets say that we manage to develope neural-link control method (one of more popular handwave, and pretty good reason why mech has to be humanoid), you still need other technology that allow it to be agile enough to has significant advantage over tank (better join, better motor, better construction, etc), and that line of "mundane" tech develope at much slower rate. Isn't Patlabor touch this issue with the Griffon? It's far ahead of its time that the progression of its hardware can't quite catch up with it, make it suffer badly in prolong battle?

[Outlaw]

Nothing is impossible, only varying degrees of probable!
That said I think when people nay say the idea of mecha they do so with a preconceived notion of what a mecha is (size, dimensions, proportions, etc.). If you ask me there are as many, very serious hurdles to the future of space travel and almost nobody questions us getting there.

Long post, probably full of BS and fanboying but whatever.

For the most part I agree, and your list answers pretty well the original question of the thread.
I'd like to add:
- Versatility: You mentioned modularity, but simpler than that is the fact that mechs have hands essentially allowing them to change their role as quickly as they can pick up a new weapon, or tool (no sense limiting it to combat functions.) I've said it before and I'll keep saying it: legs are overrated, hands are where it's at.

- Agility: Again, you also touched on this one but I'd just like to tack on a couple more points. Outside of being able to pivot rapidly a mech would also be able to move in nearly any direction almost immediately. Tanks may be faster but they can't sidestep, unless you're talking about a hover tank and that's an even sillier idea than a combat mech. Also, correct me if I'm wrong (no, seriously) but I'd think having multiple points of articulation working at once might allow a mech to get its weapon on target faster versus a tank's single point.

Lets say that we manage to develope neural-link control method

Personally I've been drifting away from the idea of a neural control system. Lately I find myself favoring the idea of mechs simply having an advanced motor control AI. In this sense a mech would be less piloted and more ridden like a horse. It also dovetails nicely with other fields like domestic robotics.


For my own contribution I think advanced batteries like nano batteries might be a boon to a hypothetical mech. Not having to carry around an engine, fuel supply, and all the accoutrements that go with it would cut down on weight, complexity, and cost in one move.

Lastly, I don't know about you guys but I plan to live an inordinately long amount of time (hooray for overly optimistic faith in advancing technology) so if we're lucky and a mech really does roll off the assembly line I'm confident I'll be their to see it.

[gunform1010]

I think the "mechs are basically more durable soldiers" sounds solid.

[Sabersonic]

Might as well add in my $0.02 into this.

First off, stating that mecha are "basically more durable soldiers" might not be the best way to describe their best usage upon the battlefield. After all, Powered Armor would fill that niche rather well and potentially more economic to field in terms of finances, resources, and man hours of training.

With Combined Arms in mind, the Mecha would fit best in a niche that is somewhere in between the Infantry Fighting Vehicle and the Helicopter Gunship.

I recall a documentary on the Armored Personnel Carrier on the former Military Channel (Now American Heroes Channel) where one of the "guests" for lack of a better word noted that putting a heavy weapon turret on an APC turns that vehicle into a target for vehicles that were meant to take out such threats at the expense of the poor infantry within. Another commentator also noted that putting a turret on a vehicle, especially one that is used to mount a heavy weapon, takes space that could have otherwise been used for more infantry.

The theoretical mecha, on the other hand, doesn't need to sacrifice internal space for a turret since it not only has Waldo Manipulators that can "theoretically" allow the combat vehicle to fire akin to infantry that can't be easily replicated through more orthodox designs, but it already has a turret in the shape of a head that may or may not be armed with weapon systems for defense. The mecha can take up the role of mechanized infantry direct fire support that the IFV have originally filled and allow the latter to carry more troops to support both the mecha and the IFV from anti-armor infantry. Something that would be of great importance in urban combat or in certain cases search and rescue.

One chief advantage that has been touched earlier that the mecha could inherently have over traditional combat vehicles is that it doesn't need to be a different model to fill a particular combat role. A mecha can carry a heavy machine gun, an auto cannon, a smoothbore gun, rocket launcher or even a missile launcher just by grasping it whereas traditional vehicles would need a good number of vehicle mechanics, a workshop, and a few days of labor just to do the same thing. Rapid ordinance customization would be an advantage a good commander to utilize to the fullest.

In terms of calling the mecha a one-man tank might also be a bit of a misnomer since trying to armor a humanoid machine to a level similar to a tank would be exponentially more tricky than the more traditional box. It could take some lessons from the tank, such as sloped armor and focusing the armor thickness towards the front, but not to the point that it can battle a tank effectively one-on-one, or at least head on. It'll be best described, with proper weapons of course, as a Tank Destroyer in which it's not armored enough to take blows from the tank but has the firepower to take it out or at least mission kill it. The hypothetical mecha could, in theory, attack the vulnerable top of the tank just like a helicopter gunship. Though depending on the weapons and scale it'll barely reach that angle of attack on the same plane as said tank.

As for the height inquiry, well from an online acquaintance on another forum had calculated with the aid of a professor (don't ask me what his major was, I didn't ask at the time) they had calculated that with modern materials a mecha would have the maximum height of ten meters but for a proper military vehicle it'll be around five to seven meters. I'm assuming the extra meter is for the powerplant if not pilot comfort. Point being that VOTOMS height doesn't necessarily have to be the maximum height a plausible mecha to have, but I assume it'll make it more urban combat friendly.

I wouldn't count out Brain-Computer Interfaces just yet. From what I've read on the Atomic Rockets webpage on the topic at hand, the accuracy of the BMI might instead make it complimentary of whatever control type used to give greater control and reaction (and possibly reduce the training period) than with just manual controls. Though as far as I can figure, until Artificial Intelligence technology advances enough for it to become what Outlaw calls "Advanced Motor Control AI", for a mecha to be able to perform complex Infantry-like maneuvers and agility while on the move it'll at least require a crew of two: A Driver and Operator for lack of a better term...

[MythSearcher]

Sigh, basically none in atmosphere, and controversial in space.

AMBAC is the key word for supportists, which logically speaking, is pretty much the only way you can get mecha-ish things in combat.

Simple points:
1) Our current technological level, the mass of a battery/generator tagged along with any electrical motion systems(that cannot get you to accelerate but can get you to spin and change attitude) is pretty much the same as using chemical rockets as verniers. However, with our science theories, we know that we have a lot more advancements that we can make in electricity storage, but we are pretty much at our peak efficiency in propulsion systems.(more advancements need a serious breakthrough, or your Delta-V is still going to suck)
Meaning that electricity will be much more abundant in space in the future, since we are not even close to maximum efficiency now, but the propulsion system is not likely to have more than like 10 times the current efficiency, since we are pretty close to the ideal efficiency we can get. You can improve your delta-V by using a lot of electricity, but it is going to get pretty ugly since you will still use up all your propellant pretty soon.
Thus being able to turn without using propellant is really an advantage in space combat.

2) But there are already systems doing so.
We call them Reaction wheels, CMG, Momentum Wheels, the basic comcept is the same, you turn a wheel inside your spacecraft, the spacecraft turn the other way because of reaction.(so you need 3 to turn in all directions, at least 2 for limited motion patterns.[1st turn 90 degrees before starting the other wheel])

3) and hey, that's what they call AMBAC in Gundam.
Yes and no. AMBAC move limbs, thus the reaction mass is outside the spacecraft, thus the centre of mass can actually move out of the machine.
This is much more useful in combat, since randomly relocating your spacecraft's mass and moving it beyond its own CoM can make it very hard for the enemies to aim at you.
This is not something a conventional space jet fighter can do.(without limbs)

4) You can do it with 1 limb, or 100, but if you have too much, each limb's movement is not significant, and the combined mass is likely to be very large with a lot of surface area(needed more armour or average armour thickness will be much lower)
If you have too little, there will be a few axis where your CoM cannot move out of your profile, thus having less effect.
you need at least 2 to have at least 2 sides' CoM out of your machine, and actually 4 is the first ideal number where you have a limited selection of pose that can have the CoM out of your machines in all sides.

5) Also, vector thrust like F-22 is not efficient at all in space, and seriously, it does not go through the CoM if changing thrust direction, meaning it introduces angular motion. Having a 3 degree of freedom(DOF) propulsion system can always like up your thrust vector with your CoM, thus will be more efficient. So, if you have 1 engine group, you have 1 limb, if you have 2 engines that can point in different directions, you have 2 limbs.
Adding to the fact that you really don't want your weapon to be a fixed weapon like the machine cannon on jet fighters(since turning to different directions is slow), having 1 or 2 cannons having an robotic arm pointing them to specific directions will give you a 4-limbed spacecraft, so you have something humanoid-ish. Strap all your main sensors to a spot and make it able to turn for scanning 360 degrees and a dozen of degrees up and down, and you get a head.

6) Also, if we get to fight in space, it usually means that our tech level gets up to us having space habitats like colonies, asteroid, moon surface living, etc.
with conventional space fighters, you are pretty much a sitting duck in a space colony, you cannot fly fast due to the limited space inside(especially inside the hanger/docks), yet you don't have the option to land and fight on the walls. AMBAC machines can land and fight on the walls, so they are suited to do combat in space AND inside the colonies, making them much more easy to deploy in strategic missions.

7) notable is the "knee", you do want to limit its movement so you can put on armour in the front(following the armour theory of modern tanks, where you have much more protection in the front panel since most combats take place when you face your enemy), so say good bye to bird limbs(or Macross VFs Gewalk legs), and say hello to propulsion systems that will look more like human legs.

Also, missiles are likely ancient relics once we get serious in electricity storage and space fighter combats, they need too much propellant to change course like their atmospheric cousins to be of much use, and the combat distance will be way too long for missiles, so they will have poor mass-ratios(meaning less effective warhead) and much more simple to intercept.
That is why most weapons will be lasers or particle weapons(though plasma is not likely to get very far) thus you do need to have limbs to point them at your enemy.
Point of note here is when attacking larger and slower objects, using kinetic weapons of large mass like an asteroid will be much more efficient and effective.

But that's about it, it's likely that you get a hi-low mix of 2 and 4 limb spacecrafts as your cheap and expensive fighters, but it's quite unlikely that the 4-limbed version will be as humanoid as any mecha anime. Depending on the tech level, you usually get halflings(difference of mass requirement of electricity storage and propellant are small) or skinny X-shaped space spiders.

[Tangerine]

MythSearcher's post make me believe limbs-equipped machine will do fantastic in space. This coming from me who like anyone else who enjoyed sci-fi tend to perceive future space combat will be fought between gigantic space vessels alongside with small fighters and bombers. Like babylon 5's star fury, star trek's armed shuttle, or battlestar galactica's vipers.

But this sounds too good to be true, or does science actually told us that limbs-equipped machine on paper performance is better than spacecraft in vacuum environment? where the controversy?

I can see the obvious advantage of faster aiming because unlike built in weapon that the whole craft need to turn and head to the target's direction, guns pointed with agile joints is faster to aim without even needing to turn direction. and if AMBAC really work then no propellant turning is extremely great advantage because it will enables them to operate in a very long duration compared to space fighter equivalent that need propellant to move about.

the ability to kneel and equip a shield would be great advantage too. I mean in atmospheric condition, despite the poor treatment of the show in general about physical shield getting blown or getting holed very easily; logically a similarly graded armor with similar if not thicker should perform fine against similar level tech weaponry. It also meant humanoid machine could put its best point of defense in any direction easily and fast without having to wear thick armor all over like tanks to survive. It can stay relatively lightly armored, fast and survive the largest caliber on the field just by using shield against the direction of the attack, say artillery barrage or what if. and shield like equipment can be discarded, changed or fixed easily without having to overhaul like MBT. slap the best of material there with active armor technology or what if, coupled with agile joints and we have almost 180 degree protection equipped on a bipedal machine than can change direction quickly and kneel to make it even more effective.

or am I generally just dreaming things and no science actually support this?

[Kuruni]

or am I generally just dreaming things and no science actually support this?

Don't worry too much about that. I remember how no science support rail vehicle, actually, science back then said its wheels will spinning in place . And when the train actually move, sceince said the steam is harmful to cattle . And around the same time, science said smoking is good to your health, and any workers that get sick after inhale too much smoke in industrial facility are just wimp .

[MythSearcher]

MythSearcher's post make me believe limbs-equipped machine will do fantastic in space. This coming from me who like anyone else who enjoyed sci-fi tend to perceive future space combat will be fought between gigantic space vessels alongside with small fighters and bombers. Like babylon 5's star fury, star trek's armed shuttle, or battlestar galactica's vipers.

But this sounds too good to be true, or does science actually told us that limbs-equipped machine on paper performance is better than spacecraft in vacuum environment? where the controversy?

I can see the obvious advantage of faster aiming because unlike built in weapon that the whole craft need to turn and head to the target's direction, guns pointed with agile joints is faster to aim without even needing to turn direction. and if AMBAC really work then no propellant turning is extremely great advantage because it will enables them to operate in a very long duration compared to space fighter equivalent that need propellant to move about.

the ability to kneel and equip a shield would be great advantage too. I mean in atmospheric condition, despite the poor treatment of the show in general about physical shield getting blown or getting holed very easily; logically a similarly graded armor with similar if not thicker should perform fine against similar level tech weaponry. It also meant humanoid machine could put its best point of defense in any direction easily and fast without having to wear thick armor all over like tanks to survive. It can stay relatively lightly armored, fast and survive the largest caliber on the field just by using shield against the direction of the attack, say artillery barrage or what if. and shield like equipment can be discarded, changed or fixed easily without having to overhaul like MBT. slap the best of material there with active armor technology or what if, coupled with agile joints and we have almost 180 degree protection equipped on a bipedal machine than can change direction quickly and kneel to make it even more effective.

or am I generally just dreaming things and no science actually support this?

My major is Mechanical Engineering and 2 of my senior electives was Spacecraft design.
I am not an Engineer, but I do have acquired the design skills.
I can tell you what I said up there is scientifically correct and logical.
A bit problem of your deduction in shields though, I will tell you at the end of the first part of my further input which will not make you too happy about this.

Usually at our current Engineering methods in designing things, you don't really get a design with much more advantages and no drawbacks, the AMBAC design gets a bit more advantage from a more revolutionary concept, but it also comes with exchanges in other specs. The general combat ability of the mech is not going to be of much difference if you design the mech with similar tech level and price. The matter on hand is "If the exchange gives you performance you desired and suited the period battle more" and not "If the exchange makes the mech stronger". Unless your exchange only gives you strength in useless stuff(like coolness). Of course, if you get a glass cannon out in a high accuracy and super agile battle field, you are pretty much doomed, but its quite unlikely that AMBAC can give you overwhelming advantages without drawbacks. It does introduce a newer concept, which means it is of a higher tech level(thus you do get a bit of an advantage) but how much is that going to matter will be pretty much impossible to tell until we do have much more advanced space combats than nowadays.

AMBAC mechas gets their mobility from giving up armour; Giving up accuracy for faster aiming; and generally created maintenance hell for mechanics and supplies section.

Yes, you can have the same weight in armour, the main problem will be the increased surface area, which makes the average armour thickness becoming less.
A greater degree of freedom in aiming with robotic arms lasers will be less accurate, more moving parts and longer moment arms cause it to be less stable. However, my second portion below will argue that this is still better than large ships shooting at each other.
You also get much much more moving parts than just vernier rockets. Yes, you will have a lot of parts in rockets as well, but most of them are not moving parts, and moving parts are the devil in maintenance, think of dealing with things that will obstruct each other when accidentally gets out of place.

Well, the maintenance problem is usually ignored if it does give you more desirable performance. The AV-8, F-35 and F-22 are good pointers to this tendency.

Now replying your shield idea.
To be honest and blunt, its unlikely to work really well.
Firstly, AMBAC machines falls into the category which focus more in agility and mobility. They might have the same weight, but saves more propellant for moving and not turning, thus they should be more like fighters than tanks. They also have less armour compared to their fixed-wing fighter counter part(see above elaboration), meaning it you get a shield with decent defense out there, the other parts are really going to be really vulnerable.(modern tanks are arguably like this with a much stronger front armour, so I am not really insisting on this point, but see below)
Secondly, if you want the shield to be movable(taking up a limb of the AMBAC system), you have one seriously slow part in your AMBAC. It does give you more mass thus more reaction, but likely your machine will then be much more oriented on the shield limb and not the main body. You turning speed will likely drop because your moment of inertia gets worse for having more mass located further from the CoM,(it does give you more advantage in accuracy since it gets stabler) so you get back a bit of defense you lost from installing the AMBAC system, but then your mobility and agility falls back down. If its a wise choice depends on the tech level difference in the attack and defense systems, the higher your def tech(stronger for same mass), the more likely this will be of benefitial terms. However, from current science theories, you virtually have no limit in attack power, but you have a pretty low limit on defense methods.(I can get a googolplex YottaJoules in my cannon as long as I have a good enough power source, but the same googolplex YottaJoules is pretty much useless in my defense system since we don't have a science theory or even a workable hypothesis to make use of it, all we can rely on is pretty much just the material strength. Well, I can argue if I get that much power, I do can bend space-time and reflect whatever you are shooting at me, but my ship structure usualy won't be able to withstand that)
Thirdly, if your shield is your major armour weight, and your limb got damaged and you need to jetison it for safety, its a tough call for immediate safety and being technically nude(armourless) in the midst of battle.
Lastly, if you have enough reaction and motion time to move your shield in between the trajetory of the projectile and your mech, usually you have enough time to dodge the shot, ironically. And if it is mainly lasers on the battle field, you really don't have much time to move the shield into position, you also don't really have time to dodge intentionally, your best bet is a randomly dodging motion that moves your machine out of your enemies line of fire, and AMBAC machines does this best, while the shield slows the motion down. Even if your mech's main body(i.e. usually where the pilot is) does not take the hit, its very likely that the shield will become a pretty easy target and always move into the projectile itself.

And lastly to note, the AMBAC arguments are mostly build on Inductive reasoning, so it is NOT full proved.
But most military development and designs use similar methods, along with trial and error, so it is not unlikely that they will try to build something like this(not going to be called AMBAC, of course) quite a few times when tech levels reaches suitable areas.

Finally point to note on Large battleships with large cannons.
I just submitted a lecture series to my local Space musuem "The Design Concepts of Space Warships"(Don't be fooled by the title, its Physics for general public), if approved, will be held in September, and a point I want to make in that lecture is the inherent instability of space battleships. All the random movements of crew and autorepair robots will make a 100-thousand-ton ship shake a little bit, and this little bit means a lot if you are trying to aim a few thousand km away, space fighters will have much greater accuracy since the pilot is the only unknown part to the computer to do autocorrection, and the pilot knows when to hold their breath and further minimize the effect.(the autobots are likely unknowns or at least incontrollables as well since they fix things that are already out of order) You get a CEP of about a few dozen metres in diameter, and usually means your target's profile does not take up most of the CEP area, meaning your accuracy will be pretty poor. Sending out a swam of mechas and let your enemies AA guns random firing into different direction also helps more in deterring their accuracy.(vibrates more uncontrolled) So, either you need to have remote turrets that are detached from your ship, or you can have mechas that can do long range shooting AND, with different equipment, mess up your enemy's aim and not sitting duck turrets from enemy's mechas. I like the mecha idea better than the sitting duck turrets, your call. =)

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

Mecha in space is not going to happen in real life for the simple reason that single-man combat craft of any sort isn't going to happen. The reasons for this get a bit involved, but here's the short version:
1) In space combat, everyone can see everyone else at all times, no exceptions. This is because a) there are no horizons to hide behind, b) space has an average background temp of about 3 degrees Kelvin, and c) anything moving under its own power is going to be significantly hotter than that, making it incredibly easy to pick out against the background.
2) This makes combat ranges immense. If you can see it, you can shoot at it, after all. However, the sheer amount of distance involved means that light-speed delay becomes a factor. When you're dealing with space combat, you're talking about a light speed delay of anywhere from seconds to hours. (eg, the Earth Sphere, from Luna II to the moon, is not quite three light-seconds across, while interplanetary distances can be light-hours; from the sun to Saturn is about 1.3 light-hours.)
3) This makes conventional weapons useless. Standard bullets aren't going to cross those distances in a reasonable time frame, so you pretty much have to use either a) lasers, or b) missiles. Lasers have the advantage of moving at the speed of light, so a target can't see them coming and get out of the way. However, due to light speed delay, you have to lead your target pretty significantly, and there's opportunity for a target to "dodge" during that delay simply by moving in an unexpected direction. Missiles home in on their target as they close the distance, so they can't ever miss, but they're vulnerable to being shot down by active defenses. (You can split the difference by building a missile that flies into reasonable range and then fires a laser warhead, if you want.)
5) You'll notice that this leaves no room for single-man fighter craft. There's pretty much nothing that a space fighter can do that can't be done better by either a full-sized warship or a missile. This includes any kind of space fighter, much less a humanoid mecha-type one specifically.

On Earth, the only real niche I could see for mecha is somewhere between infantry and conventional armored vehicles; better armor and more firepower than infantry, but smaller and more maneuverable than tanks and the like. Given that man-portable anti-tank weapons are already widely available, however, I'm not sure how viable that sort of role is. Anything designed to damage a main battle tank would absolutely shred a mecha, and a mecha attempting to provide fire support for an infantry group would become a magnet for that sort of thing pretty much instantly.

[Outlaw]

...Anything designed to damage a main battle tank would absolutely shred a mecha...

Slight segue but this got me thinking: in the eternal leapfrog of armor and firepower if/when we reach a point where armor and/or weapon effectiveness plateaus, becoming impossible or impractical to advance, what effect would this have on combat and tactics? Is this even a reasonable question?


I suppose we could tie this back in by speculating how/if a theoretical mecha would function in this firepower endgame scenario.

[MythSearcher]

Mecha in space is not going to happen in real life for the simple reason that single-man combat craft of any sort isn't going to happen. The reasons for this get a bit involved, but here's the short version:
1) In space combat, everyone can see everyone else at all times, no exceptions. This is because a) there are no horizons to hide behind, b) space has an average background temp of about 3 degrees Kelvin, and c) anything moving under its own power is going to be significantly hotter than that, making it incredibly easy to pick out against the background.
2) This makes combat ranges immense. If you can see it, you can shoot at it, after all. However, the sheer amount of distance involved means that light-speed delay becomes a factor. When you're dealing with space combat, you're talking about a light speed delay of anywhere from seconds to hours. (eg, the Earth Sphere, from Luna II to the moon, is not quite three light-seconds across, while interplanetary distances can be light-hours; from the sun to Saturn is about 1.3 light-hours.)
3) This makes conventional weapons useless. Standard bullets aren't going to cross those distances in a reasonable time frame, so you pretty much have to use either a) lasers, or b) missiles. Lasers have the advantage of moving at the speed of light, so a target can't see them coming and get out of the way. However, due to light speed delay, you have to lead your target pretty significantly, and there's opportunity for a target to "dodge" during that delay simply by moving in an unexpected direction. Missiles home in on their target as they close the distance, so they can't ever miss, but they're vulnerable to being shot down by active defenses. (You can split the difference by building a missile that flies into reasonable range and then fires a laser warhead, if you want.)
5) You'll notice that this leaves no room for single-man fighter craft. There's pretty much nothing that a space fighter can do that can't be done better by either a full-sized warship or a missile. This includes any kind of space fighter, much less a humanoid mecha-type one specifically.

On Earth, the only real niche I could see for mecha is somewhere between infantry and conventional armored vehicles; better armor and more firepower than infantry, but smaller and more maneuverable than tanks and the like. Given that man-portable anti-tank weapons are already widely available, however, I'm not sure how viable that sort of role is. Anything designed to damage a main battle tank would absolutely shred a mecha, and a mecha attempting to provide fire support for an infantry group would become a magnet for that sort of thing pretty much instantly.

The 1st point is actually a poor execution of physics.
I've read the atomic rockets site, and can at least think of 2~3 work arounds and faults in their logic.
Yes, by the 2nd law of thermo-dynamics, you cannot stay hidden, the catch word missing after that is "forever".
In real life military missions, one does not need to have an infinitely long mission. Yes, if you install a heating device, it increases the overall heat you created, but you can still always store the heat inside a heat sink for a limited time of a few hours. In fact, if you get the heat in a block of magnetic material, preferably to a plasma state, seal it inside a shell with enough heat shields and a mini fusion reactor that works for a really short period that provides enough power for say, 5 mins, to further cool the surface, and shoot the whole thing out as propellant or ammo, at a speed of say, 2km/s, it is not going to give out a noticable heat signal until 5 mins later, which it should be already some 600km away(given that you are not moving at that direction). This gets rid of most of your trapped heat, at a more complicate and expensive price, but this is pretty good compared to whatever they are talking about. Yes, they can backtrack the projectile and search the area for you, but your heat signal would be pretty low by that time and the area they need to search for will be huge.
Also, stealth is relative in military terms, but in atomic rockets, they only cared for absolute stealth.
In real life, disguising your tank's heat signal and making it look like the heat signal of a civilian car is called stealth. The enmey can SEE you, but they can't REGCONIZE you as a hostile target. Given an advanced tech level to be able to do space combat, I must say that space would be littered with much more civilian spaceships AND tons more of space debris that will make locating an unknown target much harder.
Yes, there's also the Voyager I sample, but the 20W dot on screen is visible only because we already know it is there, if not, it is highly unlikely that you know what dot that is.
The camera usage method listed there is also problematic that it did not try to use any lens to focus the images, and forgot to factor in the humungous database the computer has to search through to do the comparison, and it takes 4 hours. Seriously, 4 hours is way too long in combat, yes, it is likely to improve with tech advancement, but it is not only the processing speed you need to factor, it is usually the device reading speed of the database your computer is using. If you ignored your own stealthiness(that is, think that there's no stealth in space and just don't reduce your own signal at all), your signal reduced enemy is of course going to be able to find you easier, and launch the first attack before you even know it is coming.

Samller crafts can cover a much larger area than big capital ships, and of course is going to be much stealthier(due to their smallness) and ability to be launched to pretty far before they need to engage their own drives and give out a heat signal.
Also, if you use photon drives that points at directions other than the enemy's sensing probes, yes, those are unlikely to be stealthy at all since they need to do communication with their mother ship, you can do fantasitc things. Putting up heat shields on 4 sides of your propulsion system and spraying cold gas in the jet can also fake a stranger pattern. Inefficient but stealthy would be using cold gas for propulsion, which the Hayabusa did when trying to come back to Earth(not for stealth reasons but for malfunctioning ion drives)
The key word here is not "steath", it is "stealthier". Everything is relative, I don't have absolute steath, but I am stealthier than you, and we have the same scanning equipments, I won the electronic warfare, checkmate, period.

2) The distance problem is actually helpful to Mechs. I had covered that up there. Battleships are more inaccurate unless you have remote turrets, and remote turrets are, well, sitting ducks unless you put drives on them. If you have something that mobile, why not mechs.
Also, with AMBAC, you have the advantage of being harder to aim at, and easier to aim.

3) missiles are inefficient in space, since they need to carry a lot of propellant can are limited in combat functions. unmanned vehicles might be what you want, but those are relatively easy to logically fool than illogical humans. And humans won't be all vulnerable if one guy's function pattern was discovered, computers with the same logic algorithm is likely to be all pretty much useless because if you can fool one, you can fool all. Especially in space, push enough balloon(fake) asteroids towards one, and you likely get to spend all its ammo, propellant, or simply force it to retreat. If it stopped shooting, but does not retreat and view these balloons as non-threat, hide in one and get close enough to disable it. And lasers? well, transparent balloons filled with a smoky cloud of fine ice dust(not gas, thus the dispersion when the balloon breaks is slow) is pretty good defense.

4) that's no 4?

5) Yes, tons of things better. The line of thinking about battleships can do most things better is pretty much just the old pre-WWII line of thought. A single battleship cannot cover a large enough area by itself, not saying it does not have enough propellant or anything, but it simply can't be in 2 or more place at once. Also, economical reasons, you simply will never have infinite fundings for the military, so it is not always the bigger the better, simple because you can't really build an infinite amount of big ships to cover all the places.

In fact, the tvtropes page analysis has quite a lot of points placed out quite logically on both sides:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/A ... acefighter
I have added quite some points in it, and did not delete the countering points, even added some to those, so there's no inherent bias created by me.

The main thing being point A1 is very likely in our current science theories. You are not likely to have really strong armour or defense that can block high power lasers, but putting high power lasers on a small craft is not going to be hard, especially given the advancements these few years where we can use graphene/carbon nanotubes as capacitors for storing an insane amount of electricity, likely enough to build personal light sabres.(backed by theoretical physicist Michio Kaku) Use this along with the battleships can launch quite a lot of ice clouds out for long range defense, its likely that you have to use smaller crafts to get close enough to go around these defenses and shoot at your target with a small but powerful laser.

The atomic rocket site is great, and is very accurate about science, yet it ignores quite a lot of economical issues, and also works really like scientists, dealling with things in an absolute manner, that is, and does not really look into the situation where things are applied in, which small increments of different things DO matter.(like stealth)

[MythSearcher]

...Anything designed to damage a main battle tank would absolutely shred a mecha...

Slight segue but this got me thinking: in the eternal leapfrog of armor and firepower if/when we reach a point where armor and/or weapon effectiveness plateaus, becoming impossible or impractical to advance, what effect would this have on combat and tactics? Is this even a reasonable question?


I suppose we could tie this back in by speculating how/if a theoretical mecha would function in this firepower endgame scenario.

Yes, by current science theories, armour will reach the limit much sooner than weapons.
You can virutally pump an insane amount of power into a laser, but you can't use the power to do much on your armour to make it much stronger than its material strength, which basically are chemical bondings. These bondings can't even hold well in chemical energy level, are useless in nuclear energy levels, and is worse in anti-matter warfare.

Thus adding armour will be totally useless at a certain point of time. A human sized laser will likely be able to destroy main battle tank or maybe even capital ship armour.

Building bigger lasers will only be because of the fundamental reason of diffraction.
A laser is basically an electro-magnetic wave coming out of a slit, and it defracts. A handheld red laser diffracts to about 50~500km at 1 lightsecond distance, but a 1m laser only diffracts to 5~6km. So it the output is the same, the 1m laser will be much more focus at 1 lightsecond than the 5mm laser.
Using lens doesn't help much, especially when you don't know the general distance from you and your target.

[Brave Fencer Kirby]

Yes, by the 2nd law of thermo-dynamics, you cannot stay hidden, the catch word missing after that is "forever".

Our current understanding of physics does not allow for spacecraft at reasonable power levels to stay hidden in space for tactically or strategically useful lengths of time. As soon as a ship is spotted via infrared scan, you can point telescopes at it and actually see it. Then it doesn't matter what sort of shenanigans it tries to pull with heatsinks and the like -- you already know where it is anyway. Given how long travel times are in space (it takes a couple days just to cross the Earth Sphere -- getting between planets takes months even under ideal conditions), you're not going to be able to "hide" long enough for it to matter.

In real life, disguising your tank's heat signal and making it look like the heat signal of a civilian car is called stealth.

A disguised warship is not the same thing as a stealth craft. It might have the same effect in that it allows you to "hide" to a certain extent, but it's not going to fool anyone if a random civilian vessel starts acting like a warship. A warship that's disguised is good for ambushing a target and getting off a free shot; a warship that's stealth is a significant and continuous tactical and strategic advantage.

That's not to mention that disguising your warships as civilian vessels is likely to have serious political consequences that a stealth warship doesn't need to worry about. There's a reason why international law requires all lawful combatants to be readily identifiable as such from a distance. Once you start mixing fighters in with civilians, things get ugly fast.

The camera usage method listed there is also problematic that it did not try to use any lens to focus the images, and forgot to factor in the humungous database the computer has to search through to do the comparison, and it takes 4 hours. Seriously, 4 hours is way too long in combat

Four hours is plenty of time when it takes days to get anywhere. The sort of search you're describing isn't meant for combat operations, it's meant to identify ships before anyone starts shooting. Once you've positively identified a potential hostile, you point a telescope at it and follow it that way. It's not like you only get a position update on a target once every four hours. Also worth pointing out is that that's searching for a passive vessel -- one that's just sitting in orbit or coasting to a destination. Once they actually do anything (like accelerate or fire a weapon), they immediately become much easier to see.

Samller crafts can cover a much larger area than big capital ships, and of course is going to be much stealthier(due to their smallness) and ability to be launched to pretty far before they need to engage their own drives and give out a heat signal.

When I'm talking about one-man space fighters, I'm talking about spacecraft that act like modern-day fighters -- they launch only for combat and return to a base or aircraft carrier otherwise. Large numbers of cheap warships with small (possibly even one-man, but that's unlikely -- guy's gotta sleep sometime) crews are entirely viable in space -- as long as they're capable of deploying on extended missions, rather than having the extremely limited endurance of atmospheric fighter craft. The problem isn't with "warships that are small", the problem is with "strike craft that launch, fight, and immediately return to base".

As far as stealth, well... I suppose you're technically correct in that smaller ships are, in theory, more stealthy than larger ships... but being twice as stealthy as not-at-all-stealthy is still being not-at-all-stealthy.

Also, if you use photon drives that points at directions other than the enemy's sensing probes, yes, those are unlikely to be stealthy at all since they need to do communication with their mother ship, you can do fantasitc things.

Photon drives are ludicrously power-intensive. Even if you're concealing your drive trail, how are you going to keep your power plant from giving you away? (For reference, a perfectly-efficient photon drive would require three hundred megawatts of power for one Newton of thrust. Even if you could build one big enough to provide viable performance on a warship, your power plant would be making you glow brightly enough to be seen from the next solar system over.

Putting up heat shields on 4 sides of your propulsion system and spraying cold gas in the jet can also fake a stranger pattern.

Strange is bad. Strange makes military sensor techs say "hey, what the hell is that? Let me take a closer look..." at which point you're caught. Making your heat signature look odd isn't going to help you avoid attention -- quite the opposite, in fact.

Inefficient but stealthy would be using cold gas for propulsion, which the Hayabusa did when trying to come back to Earth(not for stealth reasons but for malfunctioning ion drives)

If you've got a crew compartment on that thing, you've still got a temperature several hundred degrees higher than the cosmic background, just to keep your crew from freezing to death. It's easy to see spaceships even when they're not accelerating -- exotic "stealth drives" aren't going to fix that.

The key word here is not "steath", it is "stealthier". Everything is relative, I don't have absolute steath, but I am stealthier than you, and we have the same scanning equipments, I won the electronic warfare, checkmate, period.

If the stealthier ship is still incredibly easy to see with minimal effort, then no, that doesn't hold true. As an analogy, imagine that I'm standing in the middle of an empty, brightly lit room. Really easy to spot, right? Now imagine that I'm curled in a ball on the floor, occupying the smallest possible space. I've significantly reduced my visual signature! I must be pretty hard to spot now, right? Except that no, I'm still really easy to spot, because there's no way to hide in an empty, brightly-lit room. That's what space is like.

Battleships are more inaccurate unless you have remote turrets, and remote turrets are, well, sitting ducks unless you put drives on them. If you have something that mobile, why not mechs.

This is patently nonsense. It's fairly simple to isolate a turret and stabilize its aim without physically separating it from the rest of the ship.

3) missiles are inefficient in space, since they need to carry a lot of propellant

That's true of everything in space. Missiles are more efficient than the alternative, though, since a) they don't have to worry about returning to base after they fight, like a space fighter would, and b) they don't have squishy people that can't handle hard acceleration riding inside. That means they have better performance than any manned craft, which is why they're preferable.

Especially in space, push enough balloon(fake) asteroids towards one, and you likely get to spend all its ammo, propellant, or simply force it to retreat.

Decoys only work in settings like Gundam that have a "sensors don't work very well" handwave. Any decoy good enough to fool an enemy target would basically be just as expensive as a real ship anyway, which defeats the purpose of a decoy as a cheap sacrificial lamb.

4) that's no 4?

I had one at one point, but it went away in the course of editing the post and I forgot to renumber things. Mea culpa.

5) Yes, tons of things better. The line of thinking about battleships can do most things better is pretty much just the old pre-WWII line of thought. A single battleship cannot cover a large enough area by itself, not saying it does not have enough propellant or anything, but it simply can't be in 2 or more place at once. Also, economical reasons, you simply will never have infinite fundings for the military, so it is not always the bigger the better, simple because you can't really build an infinite amount of big ships to cover all the places.

See what I said earlier about "small warships" (reasonable) vs "space fighters" (not reasonable). You can be a full-sized warship without being a giant behemoth battleship.

The main thing being point A1 is very likely in our current science theories.

(For those not reading the link, "point A1" is that small, cheap space fighters will be able to carry weapons capable of destroying large, expensive warships.) The counterpoint to that is simple: send a missile instead. Missiles have better performance in basically every way -- they don't have to reserve fuel for a return trip, they don't have to worry about injuring or killing a pilot into goo when they accelerate at 50 g, and computer reaction times are simply better than human ones. The only things humans are better at is making judgment calls over things like whether or not to fire in the first place -- which the missile tech back on your warship with his finger on the "fire" button is just as capable of doing as any pilot in a space fighter.

You are not likely to have really strong armour or defense that can block high power lasers [...] battleships can launch quite a lot of ice clouds out for long range defense, its likely that you have to use smaller crafts to get close enough to go around these defenses

You're contradicting yourself here. Either there aren't any defenses against lasers (in which case, I can laser you quite handily from my warship instead of having to send a fighter out to do it), or deployable ice clouds can block long-range lasers (in which case my missile with a laser warhead can get around them faster and cheaper than your fighters can anyway).