I just bought Mechassault for Xbox and I must say it’s a great game. It got me thinking though,
1.) Could we build one of these things and would it be better than a tanks?
What are the immediate disadvantages of a Mech, in real life? I am guessing there are balance and terrain issues that would be hard to overcome, but all in all it seems that they would be better than tanks in this respect.
What kind of weaponry could one of these things, if we could build one in RL, use? I am thinking rockets and machine guns ala ED209. As far as I know there are no energy weapons in the world right now but if there were they would be perfect because I am guessing that a laser has no recoil to knock it down.
What kind of control scheme would work best? A joystick setup or a body suit type thing. Kind of like Ripley wore in that loader in Aliens.
Could we make one that could jump?
What real life power source would work best? I am thinking that these things would use bursts of power more than steady power.
I am asking this question in GQ because I want to limit it to real possiblities, not anything really wacky. It seems to me that these things would be very doable and I don’t understand why there are none yet. I am thinking along the lines of battle or war mechs more so than construction or whatever but in any case it seems there should be SOME of these things around right now. OR is there and I am just missing it.
I’m no engineer, or any sort of armoured combat specialist, but even I can see a real disadvantage about an extremely tall, extremely unstable target. The taller something is the easier it’s going to be to spot, and also to hit.
But the person I’d really like to see answer this is ExTank.
They seem a terrible idea in real life. How much effort has to be put into making a giant metal thing that will walk? A lot. To make that will walk, run, jump, while being hit by enmy fire? An incredible lot of effort/money/time. And there’s no purpose except to look cool.
Let me put it another way. I give you $4 billion. You can either try and build one of these things, or you can make tanks, train soldiers, send up unmanned drones, get a couple fighter jets… whatever you want. Which would you pick?
I think the Plustech walking forest machine is the closest thing we have now. I think it runs on hydraulics driven by plain old diesel engines. A computer controls the actual leg movement and balance.
Being an unrepentant Battletech Fan this question has come up alot…
Of course its theorectically possible, just impratical. There is no particular advantage to a “Battlemech” over a “Battletank”. Whereas a “Battlemech” has numerous disadvantages, one being its massive profile.
Balance, mostly. Bi-Pedal motion is the most difficult for Robotic Engineers to emulate, it would require gyroscopes and massive computing power. Second is power. You need a massve power-supply to move this much metal around for any extended period. The Fictional battlemechs run on fusion reactors.
There are functional combat lasers in existence. The US has several. They are chemical and extremely powerful, also extremely large and consume massive amounts of “fuel” to fire. A Mech could mount one, if of significant size.
As for control, they’d be much better piloted via remote and using arms and legs and mimicing all other bipedals motions would be very time consuming. Unless you had some bio-feedback mechanisms like… the Battletech neurohelms.
Jump? Not with current technology.
They would need their own powerplant. Can’t just fill something like this up on diesel or jet fuel or whatever.
Mechs are a great fantasy… Battletech, Gundam, what have you… they don’t translate well into the real world.
As they’re presented in Battletech I’ve always thought they were a pretty big advantage over tanks. With myomer (synthetic muscles) to control the legs and a fusion powerplant I think they’d be better than tanks – can mount more weapons, can be faster, can crouch down for a lower profile, etc.
But currently the technology just isn’t there. Duh.
Battlemechs have no significant advantage over tanks, and many disadvantages.
A battlemech will have higher ground loading than a tank - a tank spreads its weight over as much ground area as possible by having treads and being longer and wider than it is tall. A battlemech is mugh taller than it is wide or long, and has to support its entire weight on one foot when walking. This will limit a battlemech to fairly hard surfaces - walk one in sand or mud and it will sing or fall over.
More importantly, a battlemech is much more visible than a tank. A tank can hide behind a building, wall, or in brush and trees. A battlemech can’t hide anywhere. In modern warfare, if you can see it, you can kill it.
They’d also me more difficult to transport - being larger and heavier for the same weapons load carried. The size of practical tanks is limited by the capabilities of the cargo planes used to transport them, and the strength of bridges and other infrastructure the tank
will need to travel over.
Tanks themselves don’t decide modern warfare, anyway. A tank without air support is just a target. Whenever I see one of those Battlemech computer or board games, I always have to wonder where the futuristic equivalent of Apaches and A-10 Warthog tank killers are, picking these things off left and right.
I saw an article about that once in a RPG magazine. As i recall the main stumbling block was “weight against feet area”. A mech would sink into pretty much any surface short of reinforced concrete.
What the hell, it’s a slow day lets try some calculations.
Nb this is back of the envelope stuff. So free feel to challenge assumptions i'm just trying to get a feel for the figures.
John doe is 6’ tall ,weighs 180lbs. A foot is say 11" by 3". That’s 33 inches.
180/33 = gives 5.45 psi (pounds per square inch) for a guy when he’s on 1 foot (i.e he’s walking)
Now we need a humanoid type mech so lets use a mech from the Battlemech game.The biggest mech in that weighs 100 Tons and is about 60’ tall.
It’s 10 times bigger in proportion that means it’s foot area is 100 times the size.100 tons is 224,000lbs.
That gives us 224,000 / (33x100) = 67psi.
Now that’s a lot , i can’t find a site that gives references for how much pressure different surfaces can take. I did however
It would be slower, not faster. Bipedal locomotion works better in varied terrain, but its not as efficient as treads or wheels.
Such Synthetic muscles as are described are pointless in a machine like this. Its better to have less complex bio-machinary, not more, for about 600 different reasons I won’t describe.
You can bloody well put any powerplant in a tank, anyway. Regardle, thats a waste of space and energy.
I have seen Battletech. There is no rational way you could “crouch down” for a lower profile than any modern tank. That may what the “game rules” say, but out in real life its silly.
You could mount more weapons ona tank, its just that it is usually pointless to have 6 main cannons, a PPC, and 3 machine guns. Real life versus bad mecha.
Pointless. You’ve just created a tank with a high profile.
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Honestly, I’m shocked. I hate to be rude, but why are you people getting you ideas about military technology from video games and RPG’s? Battletech is arguably the most insane RPG ever created: the game’s storyline alone, let alone technology, defies all bounds of logic. This is largely because FASA, whether they were good writers or no, has no clue when it comes to science, technology, and even basic math.
Oh i don’t know. The OP just wanted to know whether mech’s are feasible. Were just answering a reasonable question and having a bit of fun while doing so.Surely that’s what the SDMB is for?
Thank you very much for the link! Wonderful stuff! The discovery that geckos cling by Van Der Wall’s forces floored me for a different reason entirely. For decades Marvel comics has used the same explanation for Spider-Man. The mini-claws seen in the film were never used in the comic. Spidey(and his foes Venom and Carnage) have their powers explained through IIRC “An ability to control the the attraction and adhesion of molecule layers near the surface”. The comics never mention VDW force, but the description fits. Makes me wonder if I should check the papers for stories on the use of adamantium to reinforce bones.
As i said that was strictly back of an envelope stuff, using the mech’s from the battlemech universe. If anyone reading this is an actual Enginer be my guest.
Wheels are a huge advancement over legs. Cecil even wrote a column about it.
If you’re organic, legs are easy, wheels impossible. If you’re mechanical its the other way around. But except for the most extreme surfaces wheels are the most efficient means of locomotion.
