The attack of Giant Robots!!!

Autumn Child

Junior Member
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?
 

AssassinsMace

Lieutenant General
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

Junior Member
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

Lieutenant General
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

Junior Member
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

Lieutenant General
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

Colonel
VIP Professional
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

Junior Member
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

Lieutenant General
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.
 
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