How to Make Mecha Work in a realish setting

[orion1836]

Relevant video.

The necessity to right angle your mech out of the path of incoming 20mm fire and pull out non-conventional weapons to be able to beat an airborne fighter highlights the weaknesses of a mech in today's battlefield. Gasaraki was pretty realistic in how they approached near-future technology.

[SaintofM]

Relevant video.

The necessity to right angle your mech out of the path of incoming 20mm fire and pull out non-conventional weapons to be able to beat an airborne fighter highlights the weaknesses of a mech in today's battlefield. Gasaraki was pretty realistic in how they approached near-future technology.

Tanks are pretty weak to to helicopter and airplanes.

Would a ground to air missile system help?

[Voitan]

I think the best you could hope for is not a walking tank but a walking Apache helicopter, but with inferior weapons, durability, and protection for the pilots.

Something like the helo troops in Bubblegum Crisis?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6DNqjCyA20

[anticarrot]

The necessity to right angle your mech out of the path of incoming 20mm fire and pull out non-conventional weapons to be able to beat an airborne fighter highlights the weaknesses of a mech in today's battlefield. Gasaraki was pretty realistic in how they approached near-future technology.

I have to disagree. If you're in a fighter, there is a technical term for a ground target that can point a big gun back at you: It's called an anti aircraft platform. Strafing an anti aircraft platform from the front, as happened repeatedly here, will go against all training and common sense. If you must use your gun, attack from the side or rear. Also not familiar with the plot or exact scenario, but that mech seemed to be missing a lot of avionics you'd expect to be there. Or it's there but failed or turned off, so the pilot can open the hatch and 'use the force' instead.

A while back America did a series of combat tests of helicopters VS fighters.

During the two-week exercise, the helicopters proved devastating to the fixed-wing aircraft. In most cases the fighter pilots had no idea they were being "attacked" until they returned to base for debriefing. This led to a series of claims and counter-claims, so for the second week the helicopter pilots were instructed to follow Air Force procedure and call out "guns-guns-guns" when "firing". The kill ratio in favour of the helicopters climbed even higher during this period. Over the entire two-week period, the outcome was a 5-to-1 ratio in favour of the helicopters.[6]

[Aircraft] with 20 mm cannons were less fortunate, stacking up a 0.7-1 kill ratio. < snip> Due to their maneuverability, helicopters are very dangerous opponents when matched against fixed winged aircraft. To this day, the basic lesson is that fighters should stay away from helicopters, and only attack from high altitudes or at long ranges (beyond visual range with missiles) and only if the situation presents itself.

Frankly I'd expect a future fighter's manual will contain an entry...
Mech.
1) Do not engage with guns
2) Especially not from the front
3) No, not even if you 'just see one of them', because there is never just the one mech
4) No, not from the back either, because your last great revaluation will be that a mech's waist can turn quicker than your fighter can.
5) If you absolutely have to kill a mech, use a missile at range if we're not in a coalition, of strike from high altitude with a smart bomb if we are.
6) Just be quick about it. Because if a Mech can see you, then so can the enemy air forces.

[Incinerator]

At the risk of being pedantic...

< snip> Due to their maneuverability, helicopters are very dangerous opponents when matched against fixed winged aircraft. To this day, the basic lesson is that fighters should stay away from helicopters, and only attack from high altitudes or at long ranges (beyond visual range with missiles) and only if the situation presents itself.

In the Wikipedia article you are quoting, this particular portion you quote has no citations. In fact, nothing in that section "Phase IV and on" has any citations. It is, at best, a conclusion drawn by whomever wrote it. This doesn't make it wrong, but it does make it an unreliable source.

It should be noted that these tests took place in the late 1970s. Relative to modern times, these were (somewhat) early days for aircraft sensors and missile guidance systems. Further, quoting the same unreliable section, it states "Beyond-visual range combat wasn't practiced at this typical exercise." This implies that the fixed-wing aircraft were required to approach to visually identify their targets before firing, which would be suicide for a modern fighter.

That all said, if a fighter is flying low in a CAS role or for some other reason, a helicopter that is hiding behind a hill or some other kind of obstacle may find itself in a good position to ambush that fighter, due to being in a radar shadow. Against a fighter that knows the helicopter is there, though, I think that helicopter is toast.

[Ithekro]

The necessity to right angle your mech out of the path of incoming 20mm fire and pull out non-conventional weapons to be able to beat an airborne fighter highlights the weaknesses of a mech in today's battlefield. Gasaraki was pretty realistic in how they approached near-future technology.

I have to disagree. If you're in a fighter, there is a technical term for a ground target that can point a big gun back at you: It's called an anti aircraft platform. Strafing an anti aircraft platform from the front, as happened repeatedly here, will go against all training and common sense. If you must use your gun, attack from the side or rear. Also not familiar with the plot or exact scenario, but that mech seemed to be missing a lot of avionics you'd expect to be there. Or it's there but failed or turned off, so the pilot can open the hatch and 'use the force' instead.

A while back America did a series of combat tests of helicopters VS fighters.

During the two-week exercise, the helicopters proved devastating to the fixed-wing aircraft. In most cases the fighter pilots had no idea they were being "attacked" until they returned to base for debriefing. This led to a series of claims and counter-claims, so for the second week the helicopter pilots were instructed to follow Air Force procedure and call out "guns-guns-guns" when "firing". The kill ratio in favour of the helicopters climbed even higher during this period. Over the entire two-week period, the outcome was a 5-to-1 ratio in favour of the helicopters.[6]

[Aircraft] with 20 mm cannons were less fortunate, stacking up a 0.7-1 kill ratio. < snip> Due to their maneuverability, helicopters are very dangerous opponents when matched against fixed winged aircraft. To this day, the basic lesson is that fighters should stay away from helicopters, and only attack from high altitudes or at long ranges (beyond visual range with missiles) and only if the situation presents itself.

Frankly I'd expect a future fighter's manual will contain an entry...
Mech.
1) Do not engage with guns
2) Especially not from the front
3) No, not even if you 'just see one of them', because there is never just the one mech
4) No, not from the back either, because your last great revaluation will be that a mech's waist can turn quicker than your fighter can.
5) If you absolutely have to kill a mech, use a missile at range if we're not in a coalition, of strike from high altitude with a smart bomb if we are.
6) Just be quick about it. Because if a Mech can see you, then so can the enemy air forces.

So, the origin of the "Itano Circus"...helicopter/Mecha countermeasures.

[orion1836]

The wikipedia article also states:

To the surprise of many involved in the program, the helicopters proved extremely dangerous to the fighters when they were properly employed, racking up a 5-to-1 kill ratio over the fighters when fighting at close ranges with guns. The lesson was that fixed-wing aircraft should not attack helicopters except at long range and/or high altitudes with long range missiles.

Emphasis mine. Modern air-to-air systems can engage well beyond visual range; unless stealth is involved, that helo is going to get smoked long before it knows the fighter exists.

Odds are, an aircraft would probably not engage at low altitude with guns. With even today's technology, the only thing a mech would ever detect would be multiple missiles inbound at over Mach 2.

Yes, while modern integrated air defense systems are very lethal to fighters, they involve components beyond a single tank-sized unit. You could have a mech SAM launcher, but it would need to be a dedicated asset supported by other dedicated assets, mainly target acquisition and tracking radars. To my knowledge, such systems must be stationary to be effective. If you had a squad of anti-air mechs that could rapidly fix themselves and engage air threats, I could see them being effective, but that brings us back to the question of why mechs when conventional vehicles can do the same job?

[SaintofM]

The wikipedia article also states:

To the surprise of many involved in the program, the helicopters proved extremely dangerous to the fighters when they were properly employed, racking up a 5-to-1 kill ratio over the fighters when fighting at close ranges with guns. The lesson was that fixed-wing aircraft should not attack helicopters except at long range and/or high altitudes with long range missiles.

Emphasis mine. Modern air-to-air systems can engage well beyond visual range; unless stealth is involved, that helo is going to get smoked long before it knows the fighter exists.

Odds are, an aircraft would probably not engage at low altitude with guns. With even today's technology, the only thing a mech would ever detect would be multiple missiles inbound at over Mach 2.

Yes, while modern integrated air defense systems are very lethal to fighters, they involve components beyond a single tank-sized unit. You could have a mech SAM launcher, but it would need to be a dedicated asset supported by other dedicated assets, mainly target acquisition and tracking radars. To my knowledge, such systems must be stationary to be effective. If you had a squad of anti-air mechs that could rapidly fix themselves and engage air threats, I could see them being effective, but that brings us back to the question of why mechs when conventional vehicles can do the same job?

So they would need decoys, and long range ground to air combat capabilities.

[Werra]

Emphasis mine. Modern air-to-air systems can engage well beyond visual range; unless stealth is involved, that helo is going to get smoked long before it knows the fighter exists.

Odds are, an aircraft would probably not engage at low altitude with guns. With even today's technology, the only thing a mech would ever detect would be multiple missiles inbound at over Mach 2.

That's not a weakness specific to meks. Obviously they'd be operating within combined arms tactics. Otherwise tanks, ships and anything else would be useless.
Except dudes with shovels, ironically.

ut that brings us back to the question of why mechs when conventional vehicles can do the same job?

Mobility, versatility. If the mechs are around 3m tall and have almost the same movement range as a human, they could go where no tank could. So...for scenarios where conventional vehicles can't do the same job.

[SaintofM]

Emphasis mine. Modern air-to-air systems can engage well beyond visual range; unless stealth is involved, that helo is going to get smoked long before it knows the fighter exists.

Odds are, an aircraft would probably not engage at low altitude with guns. With even today's technology, the only thing a mech would ever detect would be multiple missiles inbound at over Mach 2.

That's not a weakness specific to meks. Obviously they'd be operating within combined arms tactics. Otherwise tanks, ships and anything else would be useless.
Except dudes with shovels, ironically.

ut that brings us back to the question of why mechs when conventional vehicles can do the same job?

Mobility, versatility. If the mechs are around 3m tall and have almost the same movement range as a human, they could go where no tank could. So...for scenarios where conventional vehicles can't do the same job.

If its say 8 or ten feet tall it might go into a mall or shopping center with its armor and armaments. If its the 20 or thirty foot tall ones maybe better handling of debris.

How would one handle a three dimentional battlefeild like outer space? If its fast enough, it might be able to fight well then go into a space station and infiltrate.

[Voitan]

The Mechs in "Obsolete" are basically armored exoskeletons that pilots piggyback on a seat, while grasping the control ring. In terms of scale, they're similar to the tachikomas, just bipedal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzqPSoMXAig

[orion1836]

We are a long way from the tech that would make a tachikoma work, but there is a good example of a role where a mech would shine.

Regarding space, I think any fighter in the near future will be a glorified gun turret with a thruster. Without gravity or atmosphere, the only thing that matters is how fast you can track your weapons.

[Werra]

This might not be quite the correct thread. But I found a very interesting write-up of Chinas developing understanding of modern warfare. While the article does deal with exoskeletons and AI controlled vehicles, it also seems to imply that future battles will be fought in the sphere of information with means of mass psychology.
http://archive.ph/eMARE

Traditional battlefields and battlefronts will “be hard to reproduce.” The current battle domains in warfare (the physical dimensions of land, sea, air, and space and the informational dimensions of electromagnetic and cyber) will be updated to include a new dimension: the cognitive domain, which would fall under the cognitive dimension.

Intelligentized warfare will see the integration of military and non-military domains; and the boundary between peacetime and wartime will get increasingly blurred. The outcome of a war will not be determined by who destroys whom in a kinetic sense, but rather who gains maximum political benefits. Intelligentized warfare will see the integration of human and machine intelligence. It will reshape warfighting in every dimension and within every realm. Human fighters will eventually stop being the first line of fighting and intelligent systems will prevail. “Human-on-human” warfare will be replaced by “machine-on-human” or “machine-on-machine warfare.”
[...]
“The cognitive domain will become another battle domain next to the land, sea, air, space, electromagnetic, and cyber domains of warfare.”
[...]
The boundaries of war will extend into the deep land, deep sea, deep air, deep cyber, and deep brain domains… Intelligentized warfare will be generalized to all military conflicts and rivalries, giving rise to a more striking feature of integration between military and non-military domains. The scope of warfighting will expand to the extremes. The boundary between peacetime and wartime will get increasingly blurred.

Thank god Silicone Valley hasn't spend the last two decades cataloguing virtually every single citizen and developing pinpoint means of AI assisted influencing. Can you imagine what would happen if a country with a Great Firewall were to somehow gain access to that data?

[SaintofM]

@orion1836: In the case of everyone's favorite spider tank with the personality of a hyperactive 6 yearold, I would think the AI as weill as the hardware are still far off.

@Werra: That is some scarry stuff. Just robot on robot action, Machio Mako once said along the lines if that ever happens it will be all the more easy for the powers to be to want to drop a nuke on the area. No need to worry for colateral damage when you have no living fighters in the area.

[Arioch]

Except that if there is nothing of collateral value in an area, there's not much reason to be fighting there.

[SaintofM]

Except that if there is nothing of collateral value in an area, there's not much reason to be fighting there.

Depends on who is valueng it, or the risk/reward ratio. A pair of cities might be very valuble, but if they are the main production centers for an enemy then nuking them might be very valuable.

Go into more space opera, and planet devastating weapons are seemingly a go to option. Potential colonization/and or resource producers of food and other reco Even you used them in the background information for this series.

[Arioch]

Except that if there is nothing of collateral value in an area, there's not much reason to be fighting there.

Depends on who is valueng it, or the risk/reward ratio. A pair of cities might be very valuble, but if they are the main production centers for an enemy then nuking them might be very valuable.

Go into more space opera, and planet devastating weapons are seemingly a go to option. Potential colonization/and or resource producers of food and other reco Even you used them in the background information for this series.

If the attacker didn't value the asset, he wouldn't have sent troops to capture it in the first place; he would just have nuked it to begin with. If the defender didn't value it, he wouldn't have sent troops to defend it.

[CrimsonFALKE]

The basic problem that you have to solve is to explain in a plausible manner why a humanoid form for your vehicle is a distinct advantage that would justify the added cost and complexity over a more simple form. Whether the materials science is up to the structural task of holding together such a vehicle can be hand-waved to ultra-tech (which is no more implausible than dozens of other standard science fiction tropes), but what's not so easy to ignore is why you would need vehicles to be shaped like people in the first place. The primary justification for humanoid robots (which is not a very good one) is that they operate in environments designed for the human form, but when you scale things up to the size of an armored vehicle, that's no longer true.

Current tanks do their job very well, so to justify a humanoid tank you'd need to invent some kind of environment in which legs would be a distinct advantage, and the height of a mech wouldn't be a disadvantage. Perhaps some kind of environment with incredibly rough terrain, but in which you can't fly for some reason, and in which visibility range is very low. The problem here is that the optimal legged vehicle would probably have four or six legs; bipedal forms are actually not very good over rough terrain; human bipedalism is optimized for efficient long-distance movement on flat terrain, something which wheeled vehicles are much better at. A four- or six-legged mech would at least be lower to the ground and not quite as easy a target as a standing bipedal mech.

I really can't think of any use cases that would justify a humanoid tank. There are no advantages and tons of disadvantages. Human-sized powered armor might make sense if you could somehow make it work, but I don't see, short of magic-level ultra-tech, how you can engineer a human-sized powered exoskeleton that can move well enough to fight effectively without shredding its human occupant. Especially when with scifi-tech information science you could so much more easily engineer an autonomous or remote-controlled armored robot to fill the same role.

For non-military tasks, again you need to have a use case that justifies the added complexity. Ripley's power loader is a laughable example: there's nothing it can do that a regular wheeled forklift couldn't do just as well (except, of course, fight alien queens); a starship hangar is hardly a rough terrain environment, and even if it were, you can see that the power loader is so clumsy that it couldn't handle rough terrain anyway.

First a battlemech in battletech even at 50tons has more firepower than a platoon of mbts and cover more ground that if they have jumpjets can land inside the line of enemy vehicles. For a time only house Cameron had battlemechs and 5 mackies took out a company sized force of tanks and support units.

[Arioch]

First a battlemech in battletech even at 50tons has more firepower than a platoon of mbts and cover more ground that if they have jumpjets can land inside the line of enemy vehicles.

But there's no logical reason why this would be the case... there's no reason that a tracked vehicle (or whatever) of the same weight shouldn't be able to mount the same weapons and equipment as a humanoid mech.

[discord]

tanks are simply a better design for armor+gun/total weight ratio, combined with low ground pressure, it simply is the better platform for anything 'big'.

which is why so many say that any 'mecha' would be small, power armor, probably not more than 3 meters tall nor over at very maximum 10 tons, more sensibly 2 tons or less, which can still make for a very potent INFANTRY scale unit.

my guess is something flexibly around 10cm beyond height of operator and between 100-1000kg. weight difference mostly being armoring levels, and would probably end up at the lower end of that weight.

and the only plausible reason i have come up with is the neural interface and humans being unable to 'connect' to anything not humanoid, a one man light tank(mech) with very good response times is actually a signfiicant advantage, which is needed for it to be deployed.