Would Science Fiction MECH-Walkers make any sense?

[TrangleC]

In many Science Fiction movies, series, books and computer games the armies of the future use some kind of walking MECH-machines instead of conventional vehicles.

Do you think that makes any sense? What advantages could such a design have over a conventional vehicle - besides just looking more cool and futuristic?

Do you think there will ever be such a machine in use?


My personal opinion is "i guess not", because i don't see any real advantages. Even if such a thing wouldn't stumble and fall all the time or at least when somebody shoots at it, still the bad ratio of ground pressure per square centimetre compared to a tracked vehicle would limit the weight and thus the armour drastically. And the legs would be especially vulnerable.

Since modern tank and even ship designs get flater and flater with every generation to make them harder to see and to hit, i guess that trend will continue in the forseeable future.
I would bet the generation of MBTs that will follow the next generation will not even have a real turret and a main gun anymore, but vertical starting tubes for advanced self guiding missles or something like that.

[Waylander]

I think you named the most important problems. And it would be interesting to see how such a beast could be operated by just one person.

But nevertheless I would give some weeks of my life for riding a Marodeur. :D

[Todjaeger]

I think you named the most important problems. And it would be interesting to see how such a beast could be operated by just one person.

But nevertheless I would give some weeks of my life for riding a Marodeur. :D

Nah, I'd go for a Hussar HSR-200... Who wouldn't like running around at 150 km/h in a 30 ton robot?:D

-Cheers

[Waylander]

Yeah but just one large laser and paper armor isn't much fun either. :p:

So I take the middle and go for a Huron Warrior.
:)

BTW, no clan tech allowed!!! :D

[merocaine]

if you used super light alloys and active defencive measures and very big feet....maybe. Not in this lifetime unfotunatey!

[crobato]

Legs can be protected to a point, and if pressure is a concern, use bigger feet.

Why nature would evolve bipedal and multipedal designs is because they have their distinct advantages.

Offroad mobility is superior with legs, which combines both suspension and the propulsion mechanism in one package. A mech can move quite fast with its legs, and yet can provide a far more stable shooting platform than a tank at speed, which has to bounce up and down with the terrain. Legs are also more flexible. For example, if you ever played an FPS game, are you familiar with the technique called strafing? That means you're going sideways while shooting at the target.

Mobility, a mech can wade through deeper water than a tank can. Depending on size, I would think that mechs around the size depicted in the Heavy Gear franchise or in the anime show Votoms can do a better job traveling through tight roads and cities than tanks. They can also travel through areas where no tank can, and one thing they can do is actually climb.

If you want to reduce your frontal visibility, the mech can go into a prone position, like a solder trying to be a sniper. While it is up, its height provides a better vantage point for sensors, which can increase its range.

Mechs can be handy for lets say, building make shift bases on the spot. They are their own engineering and construction equipment.

I don't think Battletech style mechs are feasible but the kind of mechs I think that can be more feasible are smaller, tank sized mecha like in Heavy Gear.

http://www.dp9.com

[stryker NZ]

this page seems to cover the pros and cons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecha_as_Practical_War_Machines

and as to seeing mechs in our life time i think we may but if this is anything to go by i wouldnt keep your hopes up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVwbUljGs3g

also i have seen a site with a working prototype of a 6 legged mech that kind of looks like a scorpian which is being designed for construction and search and rescue ill try and find it

[Todjaeger]

Yeah but just one large laser and paper armor isn't much fun either. :p:

So I take the middle and go for a Huron Warrior.
:)

BTW, no clan tech allowed!!! :D

Now that I think about it, I'll take a Scarabus instead, even faster, and I might even be able to give someone a splitting headache as well! :D

Seriously though, how big would a bi/quad-pedal have to be, to weigh 50-60 tons (reg MBT) and yet maintain comparable vehicle ground pressure? Not to mention what sort of armament could be mounted while retaining comparable armour protection and mobility (if that is even possible)

-Cheers

[Distiller]

Only on a planet w/o atmosphere and an impossible surface like giant broken and torn lava. And probably it would be a Hexaped, no bipedal vehicle. (And provided nobody had invented some kind of anti-grav propulsion till then ...).

[TrangleC]

Legs can be protected to a point, and if pressure is a concern, use bigger feet.
But to get anywhere near the ratio of a conventional tank, the feet would have to be bigger than the rest of the MECH.

Why nature would evolve bipedal and multipedal designs is because they have their distinct advantages.
Sure, but don't forget that nature has to deal with other limitations than technology. No living organism can grow a free rotating wheel on it's body, because that wheel would have to be detached from the rest of the body to be able to turn more than 360°. Just like no fish can ever grow a screw propulsion like we use it for our ships.
So even though legs are the result of billions of years of evolution and wheels are only the result of mere human imagination, that doesn't neccessarily mean that legs have to be that superiour.

What is so special and if you will, genious about a tracked vehicle is that it in some way always carries around it's own road with it. That is an advantage with which even legs cannot compete that easily.

Offroad mobility is superior with legs, which combines both suspension and the propulsion mechanism in one package. A mech can move quite fast with its legs, and yet can provide a far more stable shooting platform than a tank at speed, which has to bounce up and down with the terrain. Legs are also more flexible. For example, if you ever played an FPS game, are you familiar with the technique called strafing? That means you're going sideways while shooting at the target.
Sure, but a tank can just turn by 90° and then drive into another direction while the turret with the gun still aims at the former direction. That is pretty much the same, isn't it?
I guess you will argue that a MECH would strafe much faster than a tank could change the direction. But you have to consider that what the MECHS do in those computer games is not physically accurate. Not even a human can run forward at full speed and then suddenly change the direction by 90° without stopping first. A very flat vehicle with a very low center of gravity can actually do that better than anything that is standing upright. So the fact that a real tank in the real world isn't "strafing" as fast as a MECH in a computer game, doesn't reflect physical laws and isn't a credible comparison.

Mobility, a mech can wade through deeper water than a tank can.
Did you ever see a MBT with a 5m air tube ("snorkel") attached to it? If a tank can wade through 6-7m deep water today, i'm pretty sure tanks in a future in which they have to compete with MECHS will be able to do that too. Especially if they'll be equiped with electrical populsion that doesn't require oxygene to run anymore.
An no matter whether in the open field, or in a swamp or in a soft, spongy river bed, a MECH would always have bigger problems with sinking into the ground than a tank would have, because of that inevitable worse ground pressure ratio.

Depending on size, I would think that mechs around the size depicted in the Heavy Gear franchise or in the anime show Votoms can do a better job traveling through tight roads and cities than tanks.
OK, sure, but that is another league so to say. Such small MECHS would rather compete with infantry and/or small military robots, than with tanks. A MECH of the same weight-, armour- and firepower-class as a tank wouldn't neccessary be any more mobile in an urban area than a tank. Where the MECH might be better in walking over small structures, the tank would be better in driving under bridges and through tunnels.
And a big MECH with the big feet it needs would have problems with stair-like uneven ground and might stumble like that big robot in the movie Robocop, where a tank would simply roll up or down.

To say "The MECHS will be so advanced and secure on their feed that they will not stumble." is very questinable too. Don't forget how many years of evolution were neccessary to create us with our legs. Our biological walking mechanism and the nervous system that is used to controll it are far more advanced than anything that could be build and still be called a machine. And still we stumble quite often, don't we? Even four legged animals stumble.

Another factor is that a future tank with an electrical propulsion might be very quiet and thus more "stealthy" than a MECH could ever be.

They can also travel through areas where no tank can, and one thing they can do is actually climb.
That again depends on the size and weight of the MECH. I doubt that there would be much oportunity to climb up things for a MECH that weights as much as a MBT. Not many buildings or natural walls are stable enough to allow something that weights 30 to 60 tons to climb up on it without tearing at least parts of it down, i guess.

If you want to reduce your frontal visibility, the mech can go into a prone position, like a solder trying to be a sniper. While it is up, its height provides a better vantage point for sensors, which can increase its range.
Maybe, but that would take time and if he has the time to go into a prone position, that wouldn't leave him better off than the tank is all the time. And the tank can actually move at maximum speed while always being in a prone position, if you will.
If the advantage of firing from a higher angle would outweight the disadvantage of being an easier target yourself, then modern tanks wouldn't become flater but higher. That development will surely even increase the more clever self guiding missles become. For a missle that guides itself to the target and performs a top attack on it, it does hardly matter whether it's launched from 2m above the ground or from 8m above the ground.

Mechs can be handy for lets say, building make shift bases on the spot. They are their own engineering and construction equipment.
OK, but it is very speculative to assume that something like that will be neccessary. As it looks today, the airlift-ability and all over mobility of armies will increase in the future, making temporary bases near the frontline less useful. Besides, there are tanks with pioneering equipment....

And to go back to nature...
When we look at nature we can see that all animals that rely on armour (like the turtle, the sea urchin, the lobster, the centipede and most bugs) have a flat, ducked body shape and a form that improves their ratio of body volume to surface. Because the smaller the surface, the more you can armour it without increasing the weight too much.
Considering that principle, the MECH really looks bad. You'd have to armour not just a relatively small structure but a lot of surface. The ratio of volume to weight would become ridiculous compared to a tank.

Of course they will have better, lighter armour in the future, but the principle remains. A tank using the same new super armour will still be way tougher and maybe even more agile due to the low center of gravity, than the MECH.

But if you reduce the MECHs armour drastically to gain mobility instead of protection, that makes it a competitor to the helicopter gunship. Another competition it cannot win, because it will never be as mobile and fast as the helicopter, just as it will never be as tough as the tank. So the MECH is a idea that is sitting between the chairs, so to say. And it will never make sense because the principles that cause it's inferiority to the two other systems are universal and cannot be changed by technological development, because every new technology that would be invented to make the MECH better, would also make the tank and/or the helicopter (or the antigravity flying saucer that might replace it some day) better.

[Waylander]

Not to talk of the increased area which you have to cover with armor. Legs, arms, etc all add muich larger areas than a compact tank design.

I also don't think a running mech is a more stable firing platform. Just take a gun and run through the field while trying to aim at something.

Maybe we should go away from big mechs.

If we refer to science fiction like Battletech I could imagine that something like the armored infantry could occur in the future.

With the ongoing development of muscle substitutes and small but powerfull servos together with modern batteries I could imagine that some kind of power armor is designed for infantry to provide it with exceptional protection and the ability to carry heavy weapons.

http://eco.khstu.ru/homepage/WildRatt/BattleTech/pict/armor.gif

[gf0012-aust]

how do you deal with a mechwarrior? you shoot it in the equivalent anterior cruciate.

hinged joints are a perpetual weakness. current PGM and sensor technology means that its possible to place rounds on target within a tight group far easier than ever before.

one of the few benefits of a metalstorm derived AP weapon is that you could predictively generate concussion impact within millimetres of a target point. change the round for effect.

[TrangleC]

Not to talk of the increased area which you have to cover with armor. Legs, arms, etc all add muich larger areas than a compact tank design.

I also don't think a running mech is a more stable firing platform. Just take a gun and run through the field while trying to aim at something.
Right.

Another thing i forgot is that a tank will always be easier to repair, maintain, reload and airlift than a hughe MECH.

Maybe we should go away from big mechs.

If we refer to science fiction like Battletech I could imagine that something like the armored infantry could occur in the future.

With the ongoing development of muscle substitutes and small but powerfull servos together with modern batteries I could imagine that some kind of power armor is designed for infantry to provide it with exceptional protection and the ability to carry heavy weapons.

http://eco.khstu.ru/homepage/WildRatt/BattleTech/pict/armor.gif
Yes, but if i would have to bet, i'd put my money on rather light exo-sceleton-like suites than something that would qualify as a small MECH like we know it from japanese cartoons.

I guess that at the time when we would be far enough to build such mini-MECHs, the armour piercing weapons will be too advanced to successfully introduce a new kind of armour suit to the battlefield. I guess that at that time a agile, mobile and most important stealthy infantry with some technological enhancements will suit the requirements of modern warfare better than thick body armour that will hardly protect against advanced weapons anyway.

The most effective weapon of the future will be micro-robots, i guess. Too small and quick to be fired at, but able to destroy even big machines in hughe numbers.
And that might evolve into nano-technology weapons that will render every other kind of weapon useless.

[Waylander]

But you do not always face equal opponents.
So especially during operations like in Iraq such heavy body armor would increase the survivability and effectivness during normal patrols and MOUT operations.

AND IT JUST LOOKS DAMN GOOD!!!! :D :nutkick

[merocaine]

They could be very handy for urban combat though, peeking around corners and in windows and such.
If constucted with super light alloys and using active defence systems I think they could find there niche, sloped terrain, forrests, Urban settings. Finding terrain for your tanks to operate on is one of the shapers of modern combat.
If you had walkers who could move through forrests as easily as your infantry this would be a real advantage.
I wonder what kind of propulsion system a Walker would require? I imagine all those moving parts would suck up an awful lot of power, as well as taking a lot of maintaining.

[Waylander]

The ususal small fusion reactor. :D

[merocaine]

O come on be serious!:D

[Waylander]

Hey, that's what they use in Battletech. :D

In the end very good batteries to power many small servoengines and muscle substitutes are the future.

Putting a normal engine with its transmission into a mech would be...interesting.

[Todjaeger]

Hey, that's what they use in Battletech. :D

In the end very good batteries to power many small servoengines and muscle substitutes are the future.

Putting a normal engine with its transmission into a mech would be...interesting.

I wonder where the exhaust would be? On cars it's usually in the back, fairly low down... :D

Seriously though, I can't really imagine (with current or even most near-future) battery powered 'Mech/Walker designs. At least, not combat viable armed & armoured ones anyway. One thing that has been happening with batteries, is that the incremental performance increases have been shrinking, relative to the time & energy put into battery design. By way of example, a Zero emission EV (there used to be a few in California) could travel 100 miles (highway) before needing to recharge. It could be recharged overnight (approx. 8 hours +/-) There are of course longlife batteries (Li) but these are usually for special purposes where a very small, consistent amount of energy is required, as opposed to the large amounts needed to power motors and complex electric systems.

-Cheers

[Asstroboy]

I am coming from an anatomical point of view on this. At uni, my anatomny leecture said that human bipedal movement is best described as a series of movements to prevent us from falling over. Bipedal movement, while more efficient than hand/feet crawling from a functional point of view, is extremely taxing from an anatomical point of view.
For us humans to move effectively on our two feet, we need good vision, good balance, good leg muscles, a pre-planned route and a sobre brain to process and coordinate all these senses.
Even with a fusion reactor powering an organic computer it is still darn difficult to move a MBT sized/mass of a mech walker over rough terrain, let alone coordinating senors, radar, ECM etc.
cheers

[Waylander]

So we end up with power armor for infantry or nothing.

And I really wanted to freeze myself with 90 years and wake up when Mechs are common. :( :D

[TrangleC]

I guess we can expect that in 80 years a combination of different robots and space based weapons could have replaced conventional armies as we know them today. Of course only the armies of the nations that can afford the newest technology.
There most likely won't even be any enhanced super soldiers anymore because no matter how much you enhance them, a advanced robot will most likely still do any job better.
OK, maybe 80 years isn't enough time for that, but i think it's clear we are heading towards this direction.

[StephenBierce]

http://cbn.cocolog-nifty.com/news/images/votoms_zenshin.jpg
This is a full-scale mockup of a Brutishdog from VOTOMS. (No, I don't make up the names.) It was constructed a couple years ago by a fan of the show. Note that it is only a little larger than the iWalk functional robot vehicle prototype from about the same time. The "real-thing" would be powered by an internal-combustion engine mounted in the lower central torso under the crew cockpit. Limbs powered by a combination of electric and hydraulic means. Retractable wheels in the feet for movement on paved surfaces. In addition to a variety of carried gunpods, hardpoints on the waist and back for heavier weapons.

[DoC_FouALieR]

If this thing gets even a single shot from a RPG, it will fall on the ground... :(

[Waylander]

Nonsense, it's electromagentical shield is going to protect it! :D

[TrangleC]

But you do not always face equal opponents.
Sure, but i think the definition of what is an equal opponent will become harder and harder to make in the future. Just look at the first Afghanistan war where a bunch of primitive desert warriors used a advanced but small and easy deployable weapon like Stinger AA rockets to successfully counter the Sovjet war machine.
Or look at the recent war of Israel against Hizbollah in Lebanon.

I think the use and poliferation of small, advanced weapons that can be used by virtually everyone will have a hughe impact on the battlefield of the future.

Expensive high tech armour suites will most likely just not be a good deal for the high tech army that is buying and deploying them when the enemy can afford several hundred small weapon systems that can kill such a MECH-suit and can be carried around on the back of a man or hidden in a basement, car or hole in the ground, for the same price.

I think that the much as conventional armies profit from technological development, their potential enemies in an asymetric war profit from it even more. Simply because they are more flexible. They don't need a parliament to approve the funding of a new weapon and a hughe military apparatus to first implement everything that is neccessary to use a new weapon and so on. All they need is some money and somebody who sells them the newest stuff.

And as long as "the west" and the USA in particular don't stop to insult the Russians by treating them like morons and building one military base after the other along the russian border and supporting anti-russian politicians in russia's neighbour countries while claiming to be the Russians' best firends, they will see no reason to stop selling their stuff to everybody. Naturally they like to pour some sand into the gear of the neoconservative US world domination plans by selling those simple but effective small weapons to Iran and other people who might use them against the USA.
Who wouldn't do that if in their position?

[Wooki]

In many Science Fiction movies, series, books and computer games the armies of the future use some kind of walking MECH-machines instead of conventional vehicles.

Do you think that makes any sense? What advantages could such a design have over a conventional vehicle - besides just looking more cool and futuristic?

Do you think there will ever be such a machine in use?


My personal opinion is "i guess not", because i don't see any real advantages. Even if such a thing wouldn't stumble and fall all the time or at least when somebody shoots at it, still the bad ratio of ground pressure per square centimetre compared to a tracked vehicle would limit the weight and thus the armour drastically. And the legs would be especially vulnerable.

Since modern tank and even ship designs get flater and flater with every generation to make them harder to see and to hit, i guess that trend will continue in the forseeable future.
I would bet the generation of MBTs that will follow the next generation will not even have a real turret and a main gun anymore, but vertical starting tubes for advanced self guiding missles or something like that.

I think you scored it in one (without meaning to) with regard to the advantages of bipedal (or more) locomotion over wheel or track.

That is a biped can get nearly everyplace on terra firma where tracked and wheeled vehicles can't.

Its just making a reliable system that is the problem.

So a walking vehicle makes for a better all terrain vehicle. And that is where the application lies.e.g. Robotic exploration of a volcano, industrial facility, rubble, nuclear accident site, etc, etc.

as far as enhancing bipedal motion, you use ICEs with a regenerative shock absorption system to power each leg and voila you have your infantry man running at 40mph, although he would be 1 foot taller than normal.

cheers

w

[Waylander]

But this advantage in rough terrain is negated as soon as it begins to rain or you enter naturally soft ground.

There the high ground pressure of Mechs is going to bite you in the ass.

[Wooki]

But this advantage in rough terrain is negated as soon as it begins to rain or you enter naturally soft ground.

There the high ground pressure of Mechs is going to bite you in the ass.

as a tnak, meh..

but as a recon robot (light) no...especially in the terrain I described here you are going to have pipes and things

[Waylander]

In the mountain forests of Switzerland they have 4 legged harvesters.

They are slow but with future technologie one might be able to make a good scout/weapons carrier for difficult terrain out of it like in your idea. :)

[Todjaeger]

In the mountain forests of Switzerland they have 4 legged harvesters.

They are slow but with future technologie one might be able to make a good scout/weapons carrier for difficult terrain out of it like in your idea. :)

Oh, come on, all LoggerMechs can mount are MGs with tinfoil for armour... :D

Now a Scorpion might be interesting...

-Cheers

[Waylander]

With future technologie you might be able to armor at least the important spots against 12.7mm AP.

Than give it some speed and a recoiless 30mm and you might have a lovely weapons carrior for fire support in difficult terrain.

We use Wiesel with 20mm or TOW (There is also a prototype with a recoiless 30mm) for our airborn troops. This vehicle is also not ver good armoured but it works very good for fire support missions.

It is not as if you have to (Or want to ;) ) go head on against heavy mech forces with such a vehicle.

[Zzims]

Not to talk of the increased area which you have to cover with armor. Legs, arms, etc all add muich larger areas than a compact tank design.

I also don't think a running mech is a more stable firing platform. Just take a gun and run through the field while trying to aim at something.

Maybe we should go away from big mechs.

If we refer to science fiction like Battletech I could imagine that something like the armored infantry could occur in the future.

With the ongoing development of muscle substitutes and small but powerfull servos together with modern batteries I could imagine that some kind of power armor is designed for infantry to provide it with exceptional protection and the ability to carry heavy weapons.

http://eco.khstu.ru/homepage/WildRatt/BattleTech/pict/armor.gif

Sounds like somekind of Infantry Enhancer.

Enhancing present Infantry capabilities mechanicaly. Sounds pretty darn Possible.

[StephenBierce]

The Japanese have already developed power arms for use in the medical profession (for lifting and moving very heavy patients in hospitals). The only "problem" with them so far is that they require external power, and so don't have all that much mobility. A powered infantry armor suit is a real possibility with today's technology...if the power requirement can be met with something hardy enough for battle conditions, and light enough to not force an inflation in overall weight.