How to Make Mecha Work in a realish setting

[dragoongfa]

The Iranians too face a similar problem to the Arabs, though probably to a somewhat lesser degree. The chief issue being the division between their regular forces and the Revolutionary guard which for all intents and purposes is a different and insulated branch of their armed forced and tends to get the cream of the crop of their manpower. The Guard is also very politicized in Iranian matters of state (which is their true purpose, safeguarding the Islamic regime) and doesn't like it when any other branch gets too 'uppity' in terms of capabilities and 'popularity'.
It's one thing to be ready to fight a war with the determination of winning and another to do so without drawing the ire of the organization whose sole purpose is to ensure, by any means necessary, that the regime remains as is.

[MBehave]

Goal post
Making Mecha work in a realistic setting.
I looked at battletech mechs set ~1000 years in the future... and said if they were given extra mass they could work and some could work as they are.

Didn't claim they were a good idea, even said I don't think they are, but they COULD work..
Which is to say they COULD EXIST assuming ENG advances.

He wanted to claim the materials were impossible to make mechs work.
I stated it isn't and showed his reasoning was flawed based on todays material science.

Then he asked the absurd question why ain't we making them now...

I posted videos of mechs today and pointed out they were on the same level as the first Wright bothers aircraft.

He already posted an absurd video of home made battle mechs fighting in a competition on why they are impossible.

So what goal post did I move, why do you feel a video of primitive and not even really mechs but (robots) battling is suitable while posting actual mechs and pointing out they are primitive today is moving the goal posts?

I would love for you to explain, I am at a loss.

I like how you make a insulting statement instead of actually proving anything.
I am sure I get things wrong, happy to have them pointed out, it furthers discussion.
You had a view point, you now got emotional when your viewpoint was challenged, you even made a strawman argument of a mech running on concrete at 86km/h.
The insult and strawman arguments tells me its an emotional not logical belief.

Why don't we make mechs now?
We are making mechs now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ldJswGpkjY
Whats even better is it was believed to be fake.
https://www.livescience.com/57296-giant ... -hoax.html

Mechs today are at the same point as the Wright brothers first successful airplane.
Primative and pathetic.

Engine/Control is the problem
Not the material science for the general frame and forces involved.

MBehave: you are either a person with just enough knowledge about how things work to get it totally wrong with confidence, or a troll, either way I will leave you with a last question.

If it is as doable, effective and simple as you describe, why has it not been done yet?

You are moving the goalpost a bit there. Those are hardly the kind of mechs that the thread title or Discord is referring to unless you wish to take the borderline facetious stance that non combat worthy prototypes somehow count. One of the links is broken at the time that I write this reply, and the other cited example would not hold up against modern infantry weapons or even primitive IED's. A single concussion grenade would be enough to take out the pilot without even needing to breach the cockpit. And it would be far more expensive if not impossible to maintain/field service than a traditional military vehicle of the same size, while still not bringing greater speed or armament to justify it. Also of note that visual inspection of the cockpit makes it apparent that successfully tipping that mech over (which could be accomplished by a pickup truck and a steel cable as it is only 1.6 tons) would cause significant pilot injury if not immediate incapacitation. And it moves slower than infantry and cannot use the same cover that infantry can.

TLDR; the cited example is an expensive deathtrap that would be grossly outperformed by a traditional combined arms squad of the same cost.

[MBehave]

I can think of two seriously big military advantage.
Humanoid Mechs can dig and do construction.
Bipedal walking in humans is more efficient on soft ground then tank tracks.
When you take out BMI moving 70 tons of tank or 70 tons of humans X distance on soft ground requires less energy for the humans.
Going on M1A2c fuel usage and range.

Also jumping like a Kangaroo is the most efficient method of ground transport, if mechs were designed for long distance travel across flatter areas they would be extremely efficient, already brought this up previously.

Assumptions...
Going on a reasonable size mech(that I already put forward) of about the same height as a tank.
Both combatants have equal technology.
Mechs have decent strength so they can use a simple mech sized excavating tool to dig.
Both sides have equal air power and anti air/missile defenses.

Mechs designed for fighting from trenches could have their armour far thicker on top, and have a gun "arm" thats designed to shoot over the top of the Trench while keeping the rest of the mech protected. They can also shoot missiles upwards out of the Trench without breaking cover.
They can use a pop up and down method to fire on tanks.

Would tanks, infantry, and artillery do well against such a fortification?
Artillery is not effective even against infantry(on a kill basis) and is used to disrupt and demoralize.
Its going to be significantly less effective against actual Mechs with equal or better in terms of overall armour then tanks(bar the tank gun turret armour)
In a insulated cockpit surounded by armour its likely only actual losses will effect moral.(I admit I am making a total assumption)
Thermobaric weapons are going to be far less effective vs the mechs then Infantry.
Tank rounds do penetrate loose sand easily but packed soil degrades penetration power and can cause tumbling due to differing density completely destroying a sabot rounds ability to defeat armour.
Energy weapons(particle/laser) are ineffective against soil.

Infantry will get slaughtered, tanks can't go over without falling in and would have a stand off battle which they would lose. Mechs in Trenches are not going to be using the levels of energy as Tanks either and so have extended endurance times. Using mechs to attack such trenches would be at a serious disadvantage, likely worse then tanks actually.

Outside of bring down massive amounts of firepower, only easy way to deal with it would be to have swarms of suicide robot dogs or a drilling suicide robot that blows up underneath.
Yet that would also mean the defenders also have countermeasure robots.

Having MechWarrior companies that advance with the tanks/infantry and setup forward fortifications for supply and logistics and hold and dig on ground thats taken would make sense even if the mechs cost more then tanks. They would also work for setting up fortifications while under enemy fire, driving off infantry, replace Tracks on tanks that have been disabled. A Combat Engineer core that is equiped with armoured mechs doesn't just seem possible it seems to me like a very good idea.

Way I figure it without some kind of weapon to break the stalemate ww1 style trench warfare but with mechs instead of infantry would end up being the new norm when equal powers engage each other.

Someone brought up mechs would cost more to service, I think thats up for debate.
Track wear is a majority factor in M1 tank operational and service costs, through I did discover that older engines are now accounting for more then the tracks on tanks from around 1995 onwards. Couldn't find any declassified documents that are current.

Mechs today are at the same point as the Wright brothers first successful airplane.
Primative and pathetic.

The shortcoming of this analogy is that the benefits of flight are substantial and rather obvious. The possibly benefits of humanoid-shaped vehicles are much harder to imagine. Hence this thread.

Just because something is new and unorthodox doesn't mean it will ever be useful.

[bunnyboy]

Humanoid Mechs can dig and do construction.

Now I m imagining mecha with shovel trying to compete digging with excavator.

[SaintofM]

Even if most f the takes kept to a more anthropodic design, would there be any benifit to manuverability?

Armor would be another thing. Most modern tanks have their armor composition clasified for good reasons, but what is known is they have a few tried and true methods of defence. Many have multiple interwoven layers to add protection. Several have what look like grills that extend a foot or so from the tank so when an RPG strikes, it hits them instead of the main tank.

I suspect there will be anti mech mines and rockets and missiles designed for them in the same way Panzershreks, Bazookas, Rocket Propelled Grenades, and Javalin Missiles are today.

[MBehave]

"Now i m imagining a excavator trying to complete with a nuclear explosive"

Now I m imagining mecha with shovel trying to compete digging with excavator.

[bunnyboy]

@MBehave. It is on. As you did not define, how to compete, I decide that each of us serve ourselves a beer with our selected weapon.

[MBehave]

Ohh we wernt competing, your comment was so silly I just decided to return it... at which point you thought it was a competition.

@MBehave. It is on. As you did not define, how to compete, I decide that each of us serve ourselves a beer with our selected weapon.

[gaerzi]

I can think of two seriously big military advantage.
Humanoid Mechs can dig and do construction.

So can tanks.

[Werra]

That's a specialized vehicle that loses any offensive capability. A mech would be able to put down its weapon, dig and then rearm.

[Arioch]

That's a specialized vehicle that loses any offensive capability. A mech would be able to put down its weapon, dig and then rearm.

So could a tracked vehicle with arms (or other changeable attachments). I don't think this kind of capability would be practical, but there's nothing about bipedalism that is required for it.

[Sweforce]

So you want mechs that work? Build them because it is cool and use them to slug it out in an arena in essentially boxing matches. Our let them fight in the streets of an abandoned city shooting at each other with non destructive weapons. Yes I am talking about mechs as sport equipment.

[folti]

That's a specialized vehicle that loses any offensive capability. A mech would be able to put down its weapon, dig and then rearm.

Tanks can be fitted with dozer blades for some quick digging/obstacle clearing (post-WW2 Soviet T series for example have the BTU-55) if needed. Which is good enough for making some quick ramparts for cover if needed. The other alternative would be some explosives and shoveling. For anything else, you are already better off using dedicated engineering vehicles anyway.

In case of mecha, while they might be capable to do it, additional wear and tear on their moving parts, and the heightened maintenance costs would discourage these actions unless there are no other options. Plus unless you have a proper sized tool, with it'd added weight and bulk to drag around, you are back at square one, like real world infantry have with their entrenching tools. Some things just don't scale really well.

Even if most f the takes kept to a more anthropodic design, would there be any benifit to manuverability?

more than likely not. Ground pressure is a thing, unless your feet are so big at the base, that it'd make moving like a human impossible. Plus size and weight means inertia and momentum, something you'd have to fight with any movement you make.

Armor would be another thing. Most modern tanks have their armor composition clasified for good reasons, but what is known is they have a few tried and true methods of defence. Many have multiple interwoven layers to add protection. Several have what look like grills that extend a foot or so from the tank so when an RPG strikes, it hits them instead of the main tank.

I suspect there will be anti mech mines and rockets and missiles designed for them in the same way Panzershreks, Bazookas, Rocket Propelled Grenades, and Javalin Missiles are today.

Armor, and anti-armor is a forever going competition, with one side making improvements will be countered by the other side developing countermeasures to it sooner or later.

Sometimes on the field, like the grilles you mention, or their WW2 predecessors of welding or otherwise securing random stuff on the exposed surfaces to pre-detonating cumulative warheads, like on the Panzerfaust and the venerable RPG-7. Though they can be countered with tandem warheads, but they are kinda more expensive and heavy, and the usual insurgents cannot afford them.

On the other side, most modern vehicle designs usually have ample room for for improvements, so new developments can be retrofitted to existing vehicles when needed, if you can afford it. For example, the M1 Abrams started as an 54 metric ton vehicle, while the latest variants are 64-67 tons, due to added extra stuff, mainly armor and added countermeasures.

[MBehave]

Why would mechs cost more then construction vehicles to maintain?
Thats an assumption.

What we do know so far.
Synthetic muscles are cheap, thats across the board based on synthetic muscles that already exist.
HAZEL muscles are expected with the right plastic film capable of 2 million cycles, thats enough to let a 10 ton 3m mech walk 2000km before it needs replacing.(based on human stride)
They match or beat human muscles.
Cost wise 2 tons of hazel muscle(20% is all thats required to match human 39% muscle mass) would cost a few thousand dollars.

A M1A1 tank traveling 2000km would spend around $300k USD(1980 cost+inflation) on its tracks alone.

Synthetic muscles are mostly plastic or organic(fiber) based which has a far lower energy cost then metal parts such as the drive system of a tank.
We currently don't have plastics that can be used to replace the main components of heavy vehicles or tracks due to the extreme wear and forces they suffer.
That alone could make mechs far cheaper then other vehicles in service costs with the wearing parts extremely cheap to replace.

That's a specialized vehicle that loses any offensive capability. A mech would be able to put down its weapon, dig and then rearm.

Tanks can be fitted with dozer blades for some quick digging/obstacle clearing (post-WW2 Soviet T series for example have the BTU-55) if needed. Which is good enough for making some quick ramparts for cover if needed. The other alternative would be some explosives and shoveling. For anything else, you are already better off using dedicated engineering vehicles anyway.

In case of mecha, while they might be capable to do it, additional wear and tear on their moving parts, and the heightened maintenance costs would discourage these actions unless there are no other options. Plus unless you have a proper sized tool, with it'd added weight and bulk to drag around, you are back at square one, like real world infantry have with their entrenching tools. Some things just don't scale really well.

Even if most f the takes kept to a more anthropodic design, would there be any benifit to manuverability?

more than likely not. Ground pressure is a thing, unless your feet are so big at the base, that it'd make moving like a human impossible. Plus size and weight means inertia and momentum, something you'd have to fight with any movement you make.

Armor would be another thing. Most modern tanks have their armor composition clasified for good reasons, but what is known is they have a few tried and true methods of defence. Many have multiple interwoven layers to add protection. Several have what look like grills that extend a foot or so from the tank so when an RPG strikes, it hits them instead of the main tank.

I suspect there will be anti mech mines and rockets and missiles designed for them in the same way Panzershreks, Bazookas, Rocket Propelled Grenades, and Javalin Missiles are today.

Armor, and anti-armor is a forever going competition, with one side making improvements will be countered by the other side developing countermeasures to it sooner or later.

Sometimes on the field, like the grilles you mention, or their WW2 predecessors of welding or otherwise securing random stuff on the exposed surfaces to pre-detonating cumulative warheads, like on the Panzerfaust and the venerable RPG-7. Though they can be countered with tandem warheads, but they are kinda more expensive and heavy, and the usual insurgents cannot afford them.

On the other side, most modern vehicle designs usually have ample room for for improvements, so new developments can be retrofitted to existing vehicles when needed, if you can afford it. For example, the M1 Abrams started as an 54 metric ton vehicle, while the latest variants are 64-67 tons, due to added extra stuff, mainly armor and added countermeasures.

[Ithekro]

I could see smaller power suit type mech being used, if a four man squad of them can be made cheaper than an M1 Abrams and preform at least some of its tasks on the battlefield. Instead of a single tank with a crew of four, you have four mechs each with a crew of one. But that only works if you can make the mechs cheaper to build than a tank without to much less in capabilities, or that having four of them makes up for the lesser capabilities due to numbers, or higher utility verses as single tank in combat.

My idea of a more realistic mech would be those seen in Full Metal Panic. At least in style and function. The Arm Slave as they call it ("Armored Mobile Master-Slave System") The second generation Arm Slaves (for American this would be the M6 Bushnell) sort of fits the concept of using something like HASEL muscles and is powered by a gas turbine engine. These are however 10 meters tall. If I recall correction, the original Arm Slaves were 2 or 3 meters tall, but had issues with power, and someone decided to just make them big enough to carry engines on them instead of battery power cells.

[MBehave]

14.6kg 20kw petrol engine(just engine not alternator) has working prototypes(google LiquidPiston) and is funded by DARPA. Its 25cm*25cm*25cm in size.
over conventional petrol engines its key advantages are its cheaper to make, cheaper to maintain, cheaper to replace, more fuel efficient, far lighter.
Which is to say its better in effectively every way.
Normal 20kw petrol engine in a car weighs around 200kg.

A 10 ton mech with HAZEL muscles needs a max of 32kw/h electrical supply sustained for sprinting level of output on a human weight to power ratio.
A larger system or dual and with added alternator will weigh more but I can see it remaining small enough to mount of a 3m high mech.
Once Ultralight gas turbines and petrol engines have all the kinks worked out mechs/powerarmour/robots will be realistically attainable unlike now with batteries/capacitors not having the energy storage capacity for real world use.

I could see smaller power suit type mech being used, if a four man squad of them can be made cheaper than an M1 Abrams and preform at least some of its tasks on the battlefield. Instead of a single tank with a crew of four, you have four mechs each with a crew of one. But that only works if you can make the mechs cheaper to build than a tank without to much less in capabilities, or that having four of them makes up for the lesser capabilities due to numbers, or higher utility verses as single tank in combat.

My idea of a more realistic mech would be those seen in Full Metal Panic. At least in style and function. The Arm Slave as they call it ("Armored Mobile Master-Slave System") The second generation Arm Slaves (for American this would be the M6 Bushnell) sort of fits the concept of using something like HASEL muscles and is powered by a gas turbine engine. These are however 10 meters tall. If I recall correction, the original Arm Slaves were 2 or 3 meters tall, but had issues with power, and someone decided to just make them big enough to carry engines on them instead of battery power cells.

[bunnyboy]

Why would mechs cost more then construction vehicles to maintain?
Thats an assumption.

Based on the numbers of joints required. Excavator needs only 3 axles and mobile platform at minimum to work properly. Mecha arm with human range of movement requires 6 axles and that without counting fingers.

Synthetic muscles are cheap, thats across the board based on synthetic muscles that already exist.
...
We currently don't have plastics that can be used to replace the main components of heavy vehicles or tracks due to the extreme wear and forces they suffer.
That alone could make mechs far cheaper then other vehicles in service costs with the wearing parts extremely cheap to replace.

What makes synthetic muscles wear less at mecha than tank? If "wheels are so inefficient and wastefull way to travel" then how you can go faster, longer and less sweat by bicycling than walking?

[MBehave]

This video should give you an appropriate explanation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfr64zo ... Q9&index=5

Why would mechs cost more then construction vehicles to maintain?
Thats an assumption.

Based on the numbers of joints required. Excavator needs only 3 axles and mobile platform at minimum to work properly. Mecha arm with human range of movement requires 6 axles and that without counting fingers.

Synthetic muscles are cheap, thats across the board based on synthetic muscles that already exist.
...
We currently don't have plastics that can be used to replace the main components of heavy vehicles or tracks due to the extreme wear and forces they suffer.
That alone could make mechs far cheaper then other vehicles in service costs with the wearing parts extremely cheap to replace.

What makes synthetic muscles wear less at mecha than tank? If "wheels are so inefficient and wastefull way to travel" then how you can go faster, longer and less sweat by bicycling than walking?

[folti]

Why would mechs cost more then construction vehicles to maintain?
Thats an assumption.

What we do know so far.
Synthetic muscles are cheap, thats across the board based on synthetic muscles that already exist.
HAZEL muscles are expected with the right plastic film capable of 2 million cycles, thats enough to let a 10 ton 3m mech walk 2000km before it needs replacing.(based on human stride)
They match or beat human muscles.
Cost wise 2 tons of hazel muscle(20% is all thats required to match human 39% muscle mass) would cost a few thousand dollars.

A M1A1 tank traveling 2000km would spend around $300k USD(1980 cost+inflation) on its tracks alone.

Synthetic muscles are mostly plastic or organic(fiber) based which has a far lower energy cost then metal parts such as the drive system of a tank.
We currently don't have plastics that can be used to replace the main components of heavy vehicles or tracks due to the extreme wear and forces they suffer.
That alone could make mechs far cheaper then other vehicles in service costs with the wearing parts extremely cheap to replace.

You have a whole lot of assumptions about the real world usefullness and prices of technologies that are still under early research and there is no guarantee, that they can actually scale them up to the sizes required. Or if they can make them scale up, their power requirements wouldn't go up logarithmically too, because physics hates you. At least not without decades of R&D.

And it won't be just the muscles that will wear out, but all the joints, shock absorbers, etc.

And ground pressure will be still an issue, unless you use comically large feets, damaging infrastructure and sometimes even the mech, if the pilot misjudges the ground conditions and fell over one way or another. Oh and infrastructure damage and wear tear is why most tracked vehicles are transported by rail and wheeled transports even today close to their destination as much as possible.

[MBehave]

The synthetic muscles are the shock absorbers at least with hazel as it provides resistance when not under power like tendons and cartilage. and can even generate electrical power for a regenerative system. Things like the soles of the feet and whatever is used for cartilage if its humanoid could cost a lot or not, hard to know, I would be willing to say the soles need to be some high quality tool steel to stop undue wear.

Its hard to guess prices of future tech...
But we can go on what we have now and costs and the fact the Mech can have a large amount of its components made out of cheaper materials then metal and its joints are not under anywhere near the same amount of friction loading as a wheeled/tracked system for heavy vehicles.

When we deal with fiction in engines and cars/tanks we are talking about shafts that have RPM in thousands a minute connected to a transmission etc that are under far greater frictional forces then the joint of say a mech leg that does a full movement say 20 times a minute while running.

That transmission has to step down 10000-30000rpm.
Thats up to 500 revolutions a second.

Mech joints will not suffer anywhere this level of frictional loading such a transmission will experience.

Going on a rough design I worked out previously a 10 ton mech would not need comically large feet at 3m height.
In fact at 3m height and 10 tons it would have less ground pressure then a tank, one of its advantages.

Why would mechs cost more then construction vehicles to maintain?
Thats an assumption.

What we do know so far.
Synthetic muscles are cheap, thats across the board based on synthetic muscles that already exist.
HAZEL muscles are expected with the right plastic film capable of 2 million cycles, thats enough to let a 10 ton 3m mech walk 2000km before it needs replacing.(based on human stride)
They match or beat human muscles.
Cost wise 2 tons of hazel muscle(20% is all thats required to match human 39% muscle mass) would cost a few thousand dollars.

A M1A1 tank traveling 2000km would spend around $300k USD(1980 cost+inflation) on its tracks alone.

Synthetic muscles are mostly plastic or organic(fiber) based which has a far lower energy cost then metal parts such as the drive system of a tank.
We currently don't have plastics that can be used to replace the main components of heavy vehicles or tracks due to the extreme wear and forces they suffer.
That alone could make mechs far cheaper then other vehicles in service costs with the wearing parts extremely cheap to replace.

You have a whole lot of assumptions about the real world usefullness and prices of technologies that are still under early research and there is no guarantee, that they can actually scale them up to the sizes required. Or if they can make them scale up, their power requirements wouldn't go up logarithmically too, because physics hates you. At least not without decades of R&D.

And it won't be just the muscles that will wear out, but all the joints, shock absorbers, etc.

And ground pressure will be still an issue, unless you use comically large feets, damaging infrastructure and sometimes even the mech, if the pilot misjudges the ground conditions and fell over one way or another. Oh and infrastructure damage and wear tear is why most tracked vehicles are transported by rail and wheeled transports even today close to their destination as much as possible.