What could be a good reason to use Mechas?

Hello, I'm a comic artist. I've always loved mechas, but never done anything about it, because before I even start thinking about a story or a concept, that question comes up first : Why would people use mechas ? Not especially giant mechas, even armored suits?

I've watched a lot of series involving mechas : Many Gundam series, Eva, Eureka Seven, Muv Luv Alternative TE, Patlabor, Grendizer, Code Geass, Guren Lagan... And played a lot of Video games involving mechas : Front Mission series, Super Robot Wars/Taisen series...

Reasons I've found : -Because they can (Gundam, Code Geass...) -Fighting against giant aliens (Evangelion, Muv Luv...) -Cities are getting bigger and require this kind of robots to achieve oversized constructions (Patlabor) -Because the enemy is using this technology (Front Mission...)

That's it, even though I usually like mechas designs and fights, and would like to write something about it( not necessarly realistic, but a bit logic) I can't find an original reason why people would NEED mechas to fight each others.

I'm not trying to renew the genre but I'd like to know what do you think about it. Any ideas?

First you need to understand the biggest problem with mechs, which is the Square-Cube Law, caused by gravity. So if you put them in either a low-gravity or zero-gravity environment, that's no longer a problem, and suddenly you can take advantage of all the bonuses that come with a humanoid shape and hands. The ability to pick things up, swap equipment easily, all that.

Gundam also used a rigidly-defined particle to make radar useless, justifying having line-of-sight space battles, but that's getting away from the question a bit.

Militarily, Big Tin Samuri suffer from basically shouting 'Look at Me, Look at Me'. You might as well paint concentric rings on the body, and a neon sign saying 'mini-nuke me!' Even if you get past/solve/don't care about the weight problems, there are going to be definate problems with standing 3 times higher than all the vehicles. This is before we try and get past all the problems of walking around 50 feet tall- pot holes to catch your feet in, or other ankle breaking obsticals.

However they are fun, and I like them when I wargame SF.

You could always say the Mechas are built precisely to be used as a show of strength from both armies. Admit it, you'd be way more scared if a giant all-red robot from the soviet union smashed washington to pieces then played the soviet anthem for a solid day as the citizens fled in terror than a boring, standard plane bombing.

You mean the same things that can disable tanks only a lot easier for them and little to no way back out? A six foot deep hole disables an Abrams if it goes in. A 12-20 foot bipedal Mini-Mecha can just climb out if it didn't suffer much if any damage. (The same can't be said of the Abrams even if no damage were suffered.)

Size apparently doesn't mean as much as it used to. By old school tank standards the M1 Abrams is far too tall and far too long of a target yet it has the best kill to loss ratio in combat on the planet. Same thing in the air. The F/A-18 Super Bug and the F-22 are positively huge by 1960s standards yet they can out-run or out-turn damn near anything smaller than they are.

I wish people would stop trying to do this. There are conceivable scenarios in which "walking tanks" of some kind are a feasible proposition, but the classic Humongous Mecha? Not a chance. And trying to come up with one is, I think, rather seriously misjudging why people want to read about mecha in the first place: they're cool.

I mean, seriously, folks. I'm a hard SF guy myself, and I don't personally grok the appeal of mecha, but I really think that people need to stop dismissing the idea that, in some cases, Rule of Cool is enough of a "justification" on its own.

edited 10th Mar '13 10:15:55 PM by nrjxll

The OP mentioned armoured suits and not just Humongous Mecha.

While there are a lot of problems inherent in the gigantic mecha, a smaller, personal-sized, armoured and powered exoskeleton might actually work in some instances.

We're talking not much bigger than human height but with enhanced strength to do damage and to move the weight of the armour.

Not as much armour as an MBT, naturally, but more armour than an unassisted human could carry (or actually move in) - something capable of stopping a 7.62x51mm NATO at point-blank ranges, maybe.

And able to carry a battle computer, heavier weapons, more ammunition.

Sure, it'd be vulnerable to .50 cal, but so are most vehicles. And it'd mean the enemy would have to be armed with something like the .50cal to do much to the soldiers.

Meanwhile it's portable enough for building entries and urban engagements, can climb stairs and rip doors off their hinges.

When I've GM'ed Cyberpunk games, I've never seen the point of the Humongous Mecha nor any practicality but the more light-weight powered armour has always seemed at least partially plausible and the sort of thing you might want to have if you're planning on getting into some place and curb-stomping the opposition without worrying about them owning a decent hunting rifle.

nrjxll is right: you use mecha because they're cool. Though the other posters have given more rational reasons.

Exosuits are an easier-to-justify alternative.

Smaller units, something like Heavy Gear's titular Gears or the titular vehicles from VOTOMS, are feasible for combat in built-up areas. But they're kind of one-trick-pony things that way. They'd fall into what the wiki defines as Mini-Mecha. Anything larger than ten to fifteen feet is exiting the bounds of credibility.

Powered armor is a completely different story. The day infantry no longer need fear fragmentation weapons the face of warfare will be utterly changed from the way it's been since about WW 1.

^ From an engineering standpoint you can scale up to 20 feet tall. The big reason why you'd go for 20 as opposed to 12 is a matter of power source (you can fit a bigger power source in the 20 as opposed to likely being underpowered in the 12) and protection. A 12 foot Mini-Mecha built out of aluminum would offer little protection from explosives and shaped charges (kinda like any vehicle made of aluminum) and owing to its size likely has insufficient power to slap on more. A 20 foot Mini-Mecha can carry a larger power source and thus possibly carrying more armor. It also has the advantage of a smaller profile for the pilot. Unless you're shooting bullets at the thing, there's almost no way in hell a hit on a 12 foot mecha will not result in pilot injury or incapacitation. Meanwhile the 20 footer has a lot more likelihood that a hit will be to the legs or somewhere else than the pilot. Not a huge difference against heavy artillery but its better than having your foot blown off by an RPG just because the round hit your mech in the pinky toe.

Maybe as fulfilling a role similar to tanks and IFV's but being more versatile, better with tricky terrain and urban combat, and having a wider range of weapons? That is assuming the whole square/cube law issue is out of the way somehow, they aren't absurdly large, and are fairly well balanced/stabilized.

^ The square cube law apparently doesn't mean as much as it used to what with Alaskan hobbyists building fully functional mecha out of scrapyard materials (for only 25,000 dollars!) or the Japanese building the (quite inexpensive when you consider the advanced technology used in it) Kuratas.

The naysayers are being proven wrong in the real world. It's no longer a matter of if we'll ever see mecha on the battlefield, it's when will it happen.

Twenty feet is simply too large for any kind of stealth except in the most built-up of areas and will impact the mobility in an urbanized area a lot more than fifteen. Agility will decrease in proportion to height as balance becomes a greater issue. You're too big and too obvious and you're going to eat an ATGM very fast, unless you're fighting in downtown New York.

Also the idea that ten or fifteen feet automatically equals pilot injury doesn't really hold water with a competent design. Hell, people have already examined ways to deal with; Heavy Gear certainly did.

edited 11th Mar '13 2:23:19 PM by Night

I think people sometimes forget that the Square-Cube Law doesn't mean you can't have very large aliens or mechs, no exceptions.

It just means that when you increase the size of something, you also need to think about, say, how blood/fuel is pumped around something that large, how it gets food/power, etc. For the truly enormous Neon Genesis variants, the strength of the mech's foundation (i.e. the ground) becomes an issue as well.

If I recall, the number one hurdle to real-life powered armour and mechs is the lack of a power source that can meet their needs. If this is dealt with via some kind of phlebotinum (every hard sci fi writer is entitled to at least one "Whatever Device", IMO—especially on matters of sources of plentiful energy, as it's entirely possible we will come up with one in the future, likely fusion power), Humongous Mechas ARE plausible.

Also, as Major Tom mentioned, size might actually be beneficial if we're talking about a power source that can't be easily miniaturized—for example, a nuclear reactor.

Humongous Mecha AREN'T excluded from harder sci fi works, depending on how big we are talking.

Also, somewhat off-topic, but is anyone else getting a kind of Starship Troopers, self-parody vibe from the Kuratas promos? The (water) guns are fired by smiling, and the voiceover cheerfully warns you not to cause a shooting spree by smiling too much. I was half-expecting the advert to end with "Would you like to know more?"

edited 11th Mar '13 3:05:49 PM by Alma

Unless you're defining "humongous" in relatively small terms, not really. Like I said, there's a scenario in which "walking tanks" of some kind make sense, but the "classic" humongous mecha is a terrible idea from any kind of realism standpoint.

Again, I don't understand why people keep trying to do this. It's actually okay to use something because it's cool.

Ground pressure issues kick in quicker than NGE, to be honest.

Some people like to take their Rule of Cool with a bit of realism. As a fan of hard sci fi works, you should be able to relate to that.

It'd also be nice if you explained WHY Humongous Mechas aren't realistic, instead of just pooh-poohing people who try to somewhat justify the concept.

NGE-size mechas are pushing it, to say the least, but if there were some hypothetical source of infinite energy, even that is doable, to my knowledge.

edited 11th Mar '13 3:29:41 PM by Alma

I don't really need to - they've been discussed ad nauseam both in this thread and in many such threads before, which is why this one has me a little annoyed.

And while I'm not going to take the time here to fully discuss my philosophy of hard SF (though you can PM me about it if you really want), justifying things that aren't really intended to be realistic in the first place is not a part of that philosophy. I don't waste much time trying to come up with a scientific rationale for Necessary Weasels like FTL travel either. I'll try and make it internally consistent, especially if the mechanics are plot-relevant, but as far as the actual science goes, it's much more sensible to just mumble something about wormholes (or whatever) and be done with it.

I can't really grok the appeal of mecha in a personal sense, so I don't write about them. But if I did, I wouldn't spend more than the minimal effort to try and justify them (again, with the 'plot relevance' caveat), and it's both irritating and puzzling that people don't seem to accept that. It's like trying to have your cake and eat it too.

True, but it can be done... And blithe acceptance of scifi conventions or Necessary Weasels is probably partially responsible for the Sci Fi Ghetto. Not to mention that science is always marching on. If I recall, an expert at NASA recently came out and said that the Star Trek-style warp drive that compresses space in a bubble around the spacecraft (thus enabling FTL travel) might actually be possible.

Edit: Here. To be fair, the paper which originally proposed the warp drive has been around since '94, but if I recall it's some recent recalculations of the projected energy requirements for such a drive that's caused excitement.

edited 11th Mar '13 4:14:53 PM by Alma

@Major Tom: There's a difference between works of technological curiosity and machines of warfare. Humongous Mecha will have a tough time being adopted for combat in reality for the simple fact that their tall, vertical profile makes them an obvious and easy target for enemy fire. Coupled with their small base (and high centre of gravity), they're much easier to tip over than something like a tank. The only time I can imagine where having a large vertical profile and tiny horizontal profile/base would be if the enemy is attacking directly straight down from very high up above (i.e. from space). In which case, you're screwed anyway.

Rather, a more realistic place of use is in construction. Indeed, the arms - specifically, shoulders joints and hands with opposable thumbs - are pretty useful adaptations to have. Human hands are capable of gripping an assortment of shapes where as the shoulder joint offers a wide range of movement.

Alternatively, if you are going hard sci-fi, another reason for humans to start using Humongous Mecha is if they have enemies/allies who are naturally that large and who have useful technology that is beyond our ability to reverse engineer. Aside from providing a means of better interacting with said enemies/allies, the mecha would also serve as a medium for humans to use alien technology.

edited 11th Mar '13 4:56:38 PM by peasant

While I don't think it's related to the existence of the Sci Fi Ghetto, there is a real problem along the lines of what you describe. But I'd say the issue is more blithe acceptance of what aren't actually Necessary Weasels. And it's a moot point anyway, since I doubt anyone is seriously arguing that mecha are essential to the genre.

And the Alcubierre drive (at least as a means of FTL travel) has had some big holes punched through it since then, so yeah.

^^ The Zentraedi already beat you to the punch on that last one.

And define Humongous Mecha here. A 20 foot tall mech is smaller than houses (about the same height as a one story ranch home), Hell it's much smaller than some types of aircraft (C-17s for instance). An M1 Abrams turned turtle onto its ass is taller than a 20 foot mecha and that doesn't count the barrel of the gun.

Sounds like we need a What Measure Is A Humongous Mecha? page.

I personally don't think anything that can't pass though a standard doorway is particularly practical - if it's too large it'd be no good in Urban or forested terrain at all (if it has to slow down because it keeps running into tree branches, it wouldn't be particularly effective).

Powered armour that only adds a few centimetres to the wearer's height (armoured high-traction soles and an armoured head) would turn regular infantry into something terrifying - difficult to stop, immensely strong, fast and can go pretty much anywhere a normal human can go.

No point trying to hide down in the sewers if these things can chase you down there and let rip at you with their computer-enhanced weapons.

Humongous Mecha - even the 20' tall ones - don't have that advantage.

Sure, they might eventually rip/blow a large enough hole to get down there - but they'll find their targets have had plenty of time to get themselves elsewhere while the Mecha is frantically tearing away at the surface dozens of metres above them.

If you are fighting room to room in an area with no civilian presence you're doing it wrong. There's no need for the 20 foot mech to go through the door when it can just pulverize the building and every enemy combatant inside.

The key phrase there is "no civilian presence." That's actually pretty rare. Not to mention there are plenty of other reasons you might want to capture a building intact.