The attack of Giant Robots!!!

[Autumn Child]

Ever wonder about if those giant robot we see in movies and carttoon ever be developed for war in the future? can be a practical war machine assuming that they can carry devastating fire power and move with great agility?

[TerraN_EmpirE]

there was a guy trying to build one in Alaska but there are to many issues at this point

[AssassinsMace]

The thing about movies... nearly everything you see is impractical or nearly impossible on the battlefield. Giant robots stick out like a sore thumb. The future is going to be surrounded around steath. So unless your giant robots have cloaking devices, don't expect to see them on the battlefied.

[Autumn Child]

actually i was thinking about new defensive mechanism and armor that allows tanks and robots to survive several hits from missiles and ATG. In this case a malee combat is possible especially in urban environment.

[AssassinsMace]

Could you be more specific? Can you name what movies you're talking about? Gundam? Robotech? Robot Jox? (Yikes! What a bad movie.)

There's a universal balance at work. Any advancement also follows with technology to defeat it. Necessity is the mother of invention. Anything with armor is going to be slow. Any that moves with agility is going to be light in armor. Invent one thing and virtually at the same time something is created to counter it. You can make big robots but why would you when someone's going to come along and invent something to defeat it with one shot because that's the whole goal. The war in Iraq shows that having all the big technological toys doesn't mean victory is assured. It's assymetrical warfare. What's the purpose of a giant robot except to display what you can do. Does it give you an edge on the battlefield? There's always going to be a less expensive way to do the very same job.

Look at space battles in the movies when you see all the big ships broadsiding firing their guns at each other. Realistically that would be an example of a tremendous failure in defense technology. You should have destroyed the enemy vessel long before it comes into visual range. But it's the movies and it's suppose to be visually dramatic so combat starts within visual range.

[Autumn Child]

good point. but what about smaller and more agile power armor which some countries are researching at the moment? they could be used in asymetrical warfare as well as the conventinal ones. Would their protection and mobility advantage be neutralized easily?

By the way all the giant robot show always assume that protection is advanced enough to survive several shots from whatever the enemy is shooting. anyways i agree that those biped giant robots wont show up on the battlefield any time soon. What about the insectoids ones with mutiple legs and low profile? These types of robot might be more meneuverable than modern MBT.

[AssassinsMace]

Well we've seen that light armor in Iraq doesn't work that well against IEDs. The Stryker was suppose to be a great mobile armored vehicle but maybe someone else knows something more about it but I've heard that during "the surge" offensive recently in eastern Iraq had at least 8 Strykers put out of commission. Even the M1s are getting their fair share of damage. Some say it's one of the Russian new man-portable ATGMs.

Anything with legs doesn't seem practical anytime soon on the battlefield when you have human beings that will probably o the same job.

[crobato]

Ever wonder about if those giant robot we see in movies and carttoon ever be developed for war in the future? can be a practical war machine assuming that they can carry devastating fire power and move with great agility?


I cannot remember the link now, but recently someone in Germany managed to develop a myomer like device. If you remember in the game Battletech or Mechwarrior, myomer refers to a linear type of mechanical muscle that will push or pull depending on the current applied to it.

I don't see giant robots on land to be practical. To maximize armor and protection while offering the least possible target area, you need the least surface area for your weight. Tanks provide that (or to be more precise, self propelled guns like the German Stugs in WWII) but mechs doesn't. At least the humanoid bipedal ones.

If you like some realistic mech action, try the game Chromehounds for the Xbox360. The game doesn't really make a distinction between tank or mech. A "Hound" can be both, simply because you have a choice of propulsion to meet your tactical needs---wheeled, hovercraft, tracks, bipedal forward jointed, bipedal reverse knee jointed, and four legged.

Wheeled for scouts for speed.

Hovercraft for scouts, faster than wheeled but carry less weight. Can move also in water.

Tracks for all around use but lacks the sheer mobility and speed of bipedal.

Bipedal (humanoid type legs) for speed and slope climbing ability.

Bipedal (chicken/raptor leg types) for sniper use, due to their ability to absorb recoil. They have higher weight loadings than humanoid type legs.

Quad legs have the highest ability to absorb recoil, has the highest weight capacity and is used for artillery purposes. However, they are also the slowest of the bunch.

Unlike Mechwarrrior, there is no energy weapons here. Everything is primarily ballistic---missiles, rifles, shotguns, machine guns, cannons and so on.

Some interesting notes. Despite the lower height of the track, I find tracked vehicles easy to hit, due to their width. On the other hand, I find two legged mechs skimpering around rather hard to hit.

I actually think that the more legs you have, the slower you become. If you need speed and four legs, the biological model is that of a dog or cat. Multilegged insect designs are probably too complicated and fragile for their speed.

[Autumn Child]

I actually played armored core which is similar to the several leg mechanism that crobato described. I also find that shooting tanks are much easier than shooting another bipeds. The reason, in my opinion, is that the game assumes that the mech are much more heavily armored and mobile compared to the tank. Its like they have at least 200 years of technology between tanks and mechs. This is like using traditional horse cavalry against tanks. Similarly, tanks will be and outmoded form of weapons if humans have achieved the technological level to achieve that.

Another technological advancement would be the cloacking device. The key for battle superiority for mechs are the potential havoc in can cause short range. With cloacking device they can aproach enemy easily and use melee or shortrange combat weapons. Jumping and shooting from elevated position also gives mech advantage at shooting tanks from medium or close range.

I also find that most missiles used in the games are easily intercepted and each warhead only deal minimum damage.

All in all there are alot of assumptions for mech to be practical in battle field. The biggest drawback is in my opinion from watching current trend is that the destructive power of weapons are greater than the defensive armor capability to protect it (even a hand held anti tank missiles can kill a tank with one well placed shot). If the trend continues than even the tank will be useless in future battle field. Tanks can be destroyed by infantry, helicopters, planes, artilerry....vulnerable to just about anything that exist on the battle field today.

[AssassinsMace]

Another aspect that needs to be addressed is power source. Anything that mechanically walks and needs to do all the things that it needs to do in combat in reality is going to costs enormous amounts of energy. The more armor, the more energy it costs to move the thing. The faster it moves, the more energy it takes to move those parts that fast. It's going to have to be a power source beyond what is imagined even today and will it be safe if it gets hit critically. Will it explode like a nuclear bomb everytime one gets damaged. If so why bother when you can just lob cheap nukes to destroy everything. There's going to be a lot of energy needed for something that walks and goes into full combat. Fantasy makes things work so well. But in reality, there are so many factors that have to be considered other than weapons and armor. Advancements in materials science. Walking around in armor is undoubtedly going to cause more stress on the frame. Computer software and hardware that will keep it moving and as nimble just like a biological life form.

[Autumn Child]

I don't think powering a moving arms and legs will require a nuclear powerplant. Advancements in motors, hydrolic systems and myomer-like systems will make for power efficient movements. This advancement won't take as long as the other advance ment we talked in this thread.

The only big problem is the thrusters. In order for those bipeds to fly and leap as high as they do in video games will require one hell of a booster strength, much larger than what we have on jet planes. The initial boost power will have to be intantaneous. What kind of possible power source can fuel such booster in the future? Perhaps a fusion powered ones? i don't know.

Another limitation is what kind of weapons will be suitable and can use energy efficiently. I am assuming gun powder will be obsolete during such time.

[zraver]

Mecha wuould be best suited for securoty duty. A 4 meter tall machine could see over crowds and intimidate them. Armed with a grenade launcer, heavy machine gun (hooked up witha single shot anti-sniper option), paintball machine gun loaded with CS pepper, dazzling lazers and non leathal radio weapons and tear gas grenade launchers. Armor would not need to be overly thick and a platoon of things armed with micro radars and other survelliance equipent could zero in on the location of snipers and ring leaders.

For a pure military aspect, if you could ge tit to move fast enough, a version armed with a multi-function missiel that could act as an ATGM or SAM with fire and forget capabilites could give infanr yin rough terrain or convoy escort forces good fire power.

[Autumn Child]

Interesting....mechs for riot control. Actually there is a anime series called Patlabor that explore the use of Mechs for police work. The view of giant robot is surely intimidating for the average riot mobs.

I have talked to several of my contacts who have actually worked with robots. They claim that a bipeds would certainly be useful as they can climb steeper terain, cross deep waters, cross any type of terrains, fast lateral movements to dodge incoming fire, high vantage points and extremely useful in future urban warfare if properly supported by troops. Bipedals technology advancement are demonstrated in Asimo (thought it does not have a perfect balance as it sometimes falls and have a hard time getting up).

I will have to do my own research to confirm those findings.

[akinkhoo]

Giant Robot is a no-no, it will be a big target.

but think about have 1 just large enough to mount an artillery gun. able to dig itself in to stabilize the gun. it could be useful for terrain you normally wouldn't deploy a gun.

it could be useful is urban combat, like making access into the 2nd floor or other hard to reach places; a modern siege engine. you might disable it but it would have form a ladder of a assault team to attack from an undefended point.

or as a combat engineer; able to fix broken tank in the frontline, or to overcome tank traps as it can move around them. robotic are more expensive, so they won't be the "grunt" force, but can be useful in force multiplier role as now the enemy must plan for more kind to attack (even if you don't use them).

[Autumn Child]

Giant Robot on the open battle field is a big no-no so far. and i agree that it won't be the grunt on the battle field in the near future. However, since they have limbs, their ability to fortify or diggin in will be useful, only for themselves but also for nearby tanks in the batalion. Anyways...there are several scenarios that the robot can be useful. I foresee them as not being a true Giant as in Gundam size but slightly smaller than a tank. They would be constructed of some advance machinery as well as biological-like parts.

Currently i don't have hard data that could forsee the construction or usefulness of robots in battle field. All that we do here is speculate. I hope i will have enough time in the next two months or so to come up with something alittle more concrete to post.

Meanwhile....here is an interesting article i found by accident.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?nn20050518f2.htm
(man...those japanese...hardcore mech lova' i tell ya...)

[DarkEminence]

First of all, let's assume that a walker exists. We can almost most certainly rule out melee combat because if I was an enemy, I will not send infantry on something like that unless they were in an urban environment. Most likely, I send a tank cause I would want armor against something like that (and even in they were in an urban environment any form of melee combat would be destructive to the entire city. Imagine a kid trying to kill an ant inside of a toy city)

So, that leaves a walker with a very powerful gun. Short of recoilless weapons, the walker has a good chance of flipping. So, like Crobato says it would have to have raptor-esque legs in order to handle the recoil (or more than 2 legs).

Which leads me to the greatest weakness of walkers: the fact that they walk. When I see a human, I can trip that person. When I see a tank, I would normally think twice before trying to trip it. Imagine Luke Skywalker and the walkers. That would be the most likely scenario of how they would defeat walkers. The high center of balance is it's folly. As a matter of fact, the more armor the walker has, the harder it will fall.

[crobato]

Walkers are assumed to be like T-rex, lumbering things.

However, we are recently discovering that the T-Rex is in fact, a fast and agile creature. You can see it in the way it does not drag its tail along the ground, as none of the raptors do, based on the fossilized footprints. So they raise their tail up and skimper about.

A mechanical two legged walker can in fact, move much faster over land than a tracked vehicle, mainly because it has less contact on the ground. Conversely however, it means it has to put more weight into that limited contact area so this makes weight more an issue. Bipedal mecha cannot weigh more than tanks because of this, or their feet will sink into the ground.

What I'm looking for something between human infantry and a tank. Its not as invulnerable as a giant robot, but the key to it is mobility.

Mecha-infantry or powered infantry has their advantages over tanks and standard infantry. One is that they can carry larger weapons and ordinance, and carry them over sustained longer distances without any strain. By themselves, they can decrease the need for vehicular transport. Another is that they can essentially better protection against chemical weapons.

Another way to look it is that mecha may arise more for peaceful, construction purposes, like particularly for space stations, lunar or asteroid bases, or even deep sea underwater bases. But as war happens, these machines may be drafted into weapons despite their original intent.

[Autumn Child]

for a 10-12 foot walker, mobility is not a problem. As for triping...it is not a problem either. The robot will use its arms and leg to get back up in a short time. Besides triping a 10-12 foot robot is much harder than you think especially if you install advanced sensor on its legs. The only problem that the robot have to deal with is the durability of the leg. How many hits by weapons of various type before damage.

I think crobato raised a good point about the weight issue. This is why I also think a mech with 10-12 foot height is more feasable....or making it a quadrupeds. the size of the foot can also be increased to spread weight...but that would impede on mobility.

Someone on other forum suggest that the mech can have a supporting role in battle field. For example, medical evac on battlefield. robots can withstand more pounding, stronger, more stamina and no fear.

[STINGRAY]

I don't think there will be giant robots like on cartoons or like on the movie Transformers, but there is a possibility that walking tanks (as seen in Popular Science magazine), dwarf spider droids and/or homing spider droids like on Star Wars episodes 2 and 3 will be around in the future battleground.

I think the DSD-1 Dwarf Spider Droids in Star Wars are pretty cool. They can submerge under water!