Mechs are bad for real war conflicts

[Лесное хозяйство]

Tall, slow target easy to shoot. Pls discuss)

[RaelM]

Originally posted by Taemien:

Of course given modern technology and restrictive physics. Getting a 75 ton machine to move like that without snapping off legs would be a major challenge. But something I think we can agree is handwaved off by 31st Century technology. If you can make a machine move like that, the question is still there, can they work in a modern battlefield?

Well endo-steel is a lot stronger than any alloy we can currently manufacture and the myomer bundles themselves would provide reinforcement to the structure during movement so if we had the technology for both of those aspects then the joints etc. snapping wouldn't be an issue.

As I stated, the real issue would be the pressure applied to the ground due to the extreme weight of the Mechs and the small surface area it is applied to. They can weigh as much or a hell of a lot more than a modern MBT, now all modern MBT's use caterpillar tracks to distribute the weight to stop them from bogging down in the soil.

A 6t Elephant can leave a footprint as deep as a 2l soda bottle and they have 4 points of contact, imagine what a 100t Mech would do with only two points of contact.

A Locust might be doable since the T-Rex was bipedal and around 10t, that species thrived for over 200 million years and it used to be able to run at around 15-20 mph according to palaeontologists. To put that into context, the Challenger 2's off-road speed is 25 mph.

Anything bigger than a Locust would most likely end up bogged down in the terrain which negates the major advantage Mechs have in Battletech, which is the ability to navigate difficult terrain while bringing an ungodly number of weapon systems to bear down on the enemy.

[Xilo The Odd]

with proper cover usage they would be as effective if not more effective than tanks. in battletech table top vehicles can be pretty scary though. but PGI, making a game focused around mechs, made vehicle WEAPONS scary but if you can stomp on em with a 100 ton mech they just crunch. even a Demolisher tank or Alicorn wouldn't stand a chance.

that said this is also using tech in humanities future 1000 years from now, the armor used, vs. the weapons created to defeat such armor matters. a Tank is amazing till you blow off a tread, then its stuck where its at. most around the world have limited firing arcs and run on gasoline. caught in an open field, either would be demolished easily.

in short, mankind evolves its weapons of war based on the environments war is to be conducted. in the end, a Nuke still wipes all of it out when the sore loser goes MAD on your forces.

[Taemien]

Originally posted by RaelM:

Well endo-steel is a lot stronger than any alloy we can currently manufacture and the myomer bundles themselves would provide reinforcement to the structure during movement so if we had the technology for both of those aspects then the joints etc. snapping wouldn't be an issue.

As I stated, the real issue would be the pressure applied to the ground due to the extreme weight of the Mechs and the small surface area it is applied to. They can weigh as much or a hell of a lot more than a modern MBT, now all modern MBT's use caterpillar tracks to distribute the weight to stop them from bogging down in the soil.

You bring up some good points. Endo-steel isn't the only advanced alloy, but what they commonly call ferro-steel (used in standard internal construction and various other things). I don't know exactly what goes into it (lets use scifi handwaving for this, we can assume stronger metallurgy is possible in a few hundred years). So getting them to get a mech like a Locust moving 360 meters in ten seconds from a dead stop is an impressive feat.

As for mech's feet sinking into the ground, the more mass of the mech the larger the feet's surface area. At least as described in the rules for walking on ice that isn't solid and similar material to show why larger mechs don't have increased penalties for doing so. Admittedly for me that makes sense on the surface (no pun intended), but I don't have the math on hand to check that. I do know that mass is directly in relation to force however so there is some issues.

In either case, if the mech can run over grass and dirt, its going to tear the ever living crap out of it. Like tanks you won't want to march mechs up and down in parades without significant changes to their contact points to avoid road damage.

I do have to say, the conversation on BattleMech plausibility in real life using physics and experience is definitely a fun thought experiment and conversation. Over the years I've found myself advocating for and against them. They propose a very interesting set of circumstances.

[DaS]

Originally posted by RaelM:

Originally posted by DaSkippa:

Also considering the MW universe is inter-planetary/stellar capable civilizations a couple ton titanium rod from orbit would put paid to any fantasy mech. No as a fighting platform it looks cool but would never work in practice on a planetary surface regardless of environment. to complex to upkeep, too much maintenace downtime, poor mission capable rate and big ass target.

Tungsten, Titanium would deform in the atmosphere due to its lower melting point, and is less dense than Tungsten.

still has mass, even if it turned into a plasma it's still gonna be a major ouch coming in at orbital velocities.
EDIT .5 tons of anything surviving re-entry to hit you at several 1k m/s is gonna leave a mark

[RaelM]

Originally posted by DaSkippa:

Originally posted by RaelM:

Tungsten, Titanium would deform in the atmosphere due to its lower melting point, and is less dense than Tungsten.

still has mass, even if it turned into a plasma it's still gonna be a major ouch coming in at orbital velocities.
EDIT .5 tons of anything surviving re-entry to hit you at several 1k m/s is gonna leave a mark

There's a reason why titanium isn't used for reentry, it becomes very brittle when heated up to its melting point. If you're going to use it for reentry purposes, it needs to become an alloy to combat its weaknesses and even then it can't match tungsten. This is why tungsten was used as the theoretical medium for the payload of the "Rods of God" concept, it has the highest melting point of any known metal and would only turn into a plasma on impact, not reentry, which is where you want the energy to get expelled in the first place.

Also if I'm not mistaken, the chinese did a study on the penetration characteristics of tungsten rods and no matter how much you increase its velocity, it is limited to a penetration depth of 80 times its length, impressive but stops it being used as a strategic bunker buster for example. Most critical military bunkers are built very deep underground, in some cases close to 2000m deep, if you have for example a 6m long tungsten rod, you'd only penetrate up to 480m, that's deep but in a lot of cases just not deep enough.

They would be perfect for levelling the smaller bunkers though that conventional bunker busters are made for... and a small surrounding area along with them.

So lets look at the kinetic energy of a 6m long tungsten rod that has a 15 cm diameter and a composition of 90% Tungsten and 10% Copper.

A tungsten rod of those dimensions that has a 90% tungsten, 10% copper composition would weight in at 1776 kg. At low earth orbit, with a seperation velocity of 0.1 m/s, same as a Soyuz from the ISS, its time to fall would be 201.95 seconds and it would reach a maximum velocity of 1980.6 m/s, at that velocity it would release 3481315200 J of energy, by comparison 1 kiloton is 4.184e+12 J of energy. You would need 1201.84463619 Tungsten rods weighing in at 1776kg to match a 1 kiloton nuclear explosion.

So the tungsten rod itself isn't as destructive as it seems, it's actually slightly less powerful than a MOAB so it would only have a blast radius of around 1 mile.

A titanium rod however would lose most of that energy long before it reached the ground, it would probably end up being more like a meteor shower than a meteor impact. Just evaporating in the atmosphere or turning into shrapnel, the latter could serve a military purpose though.

[cybx]

Originally posted by Лесное хозяйство:

Tall, slow target easy to shoot. Pls discuss)

This is not a real war conflict😅!!!. Maybe on few hundred years will get mechs but not now hehe

[DaS]

As I stated, you could calc how large, and what material you'd need to get .5 Tons past re-entry

EDIT we are talking about civilizations who regularly haul multiple lances/stars of 80+ ton mechs around between planets/systems. They aint hurting for delta V. Doubt such would have a problem hauling a different mass that is much cheaper to fab from a local belt. My point is mechs from a logistics standpoint are kinda dumb lol

[Discount blackbeard]

Originally posted by Лесное хозяйство:

Tall, slow target easy to shoot. Pls discuss)

they had this in like the first big war after the star league fell, it was pretty much tanks are cheaper and we can get more but then they had fast moving mech that would go around and hit them from behind and fast

[Humble]

Originally posted by BoboMaximus:

Originally posted by DaSkippa:

Also considering the MW universe is inter-planetary/stellar capable civilizations a couple ton titanium rod from orbit would put paid to any fantasy mech. No as a fighting platform it looks cool but would never work in practice on a planetary surface regardless of environment. to complex to upkeep, too much maintenace downtime, poor mission capable rate and big ass target.

Big Ass target to what? Though?

guided missile, it's gave greater firepower more than just armor, armor in real life only chance to stop at one, but not more than that or beyond that, sometime armor failed, armor in real life is often one time work, after that it's had to be repair or dump for new one, assumed you get out of danger in first place after armor save you, even battleship armor can be damaged and sinked from few heavy powerful missile/torpedoes, in game and fantasy, it's often missile/torpedoes is weaker than real life and armor is stronger than real life, but in real life missiles/torpedoes is stronger than game/fantasy and armor is much weaker than in game/fantasy. Game do it for balanced gameplay and fun factor, is why armor stronger and firepower is much weaker than real life do.

Oh, firepower is cheaper than armor like mech, it's very reason why we don't had battleship anymore, money and not worth of manpower, armor is not that great vs so many type of deadly firepower to make armor useless or armor is only good at one time stop or buy time, but not beyond that, real life armor do not had invincible or high endurance like fantasy game and it's not cheap like fantasy world, in real life armor is very costly than firepower, firepower is cheaper.

[Reaver]

Depends.

One mech= one pilot.
Very heavy armor.
Elevated so beam and laser weapons can be used immediately vs ground and air.
Can still cover behind buildings and buttes/rock walls.
Very heavy payloads.
Fast movement over broken/rocky terrain.

Sure they couldn't do everything, but they could excel in many places other vehicles would be useless.

Bare in mind the weights in BattleTech/MechWarrior are set up for a PnP game. Real mechs would be much heavier if that large.