Assault Mechs, why are they so small?

[Rolhn]

I have been wondering about this for a while now, I mean if they are called 'Assault' mechs, shouldn't they be at least be twice or half a mech taller than a Medium or even a heavy Mech. Hell I keep thinking the Assault Mechs as nothing more than large siege towers with plenty of armor and weapons that it would take a concentration of mechs to take it out or at the very least immobilize it.

[Zero, Dark Knight]

I think all the mechs were made larger compared to map size to showcase off details, if you look in the mechbays, the size comparisons are more "real".

[󠀡󠀡]

Good point, this was one of my first anoyances of battletech assault mechs look ( during missions too small compared to the medium and heavy ones ), however modding is necessary here :
https://github.com/BattletechModders/MechResizer/releases

not sure if its out of date but its still usefull mod and works with current battletech and battletech/fp versions, and is an excellent addition to stock battletech , basicly its required if you want an more complete battletech game without too much modding...since yes, assault mechs ( some of them at least are too short/small/thin ) at any rate.


also, you can resize the turrets and vehicles with that so its very usefull

[desrtfox071]

Well, I agree the mech sizes are odd, but just to throw some math out here...

Let's assume mechs are spheres - because spheres are easy.

Mass of a mech is proportional to the volume of a mech. Volume goes up proportionally with the radius cubed. Thus, when comparing a 10 ton mech to a 100 ton mech, we can easily calculate that spherical 100 ton mechs should be approximately 2 times larger than 10 ton mechs. So a typical assault mech should be on the order of twice as tall as a light mech.

Obviously mechs aren't really spherical, and they probably aren't all the same density, but this exercise was just to point out that assault mechs probably shouldn't be as much larger than light mechs as most people assume.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Well, I agree the mech sizes are odd, but just to throw some math out here...

Let's assume mechs are spheres - because spheres are easy.

Mass of a mech is proportional to the volume of a mech. Volume goes up proportionally with the radius cubed. Thus, when comparing a 10 ton mech to a 100 ton mech, we can easily calculate that spherical 100 ton mechs should be approximately 2 times larger than 10 ton mechs. So a typical assault mech should be on the order of twice as tall as a light mech.

Obviously mechs aren't really spherical, and they probably aren't all the same density, but this exercise was just to point out that assault mechs probably shouldn't be as much larger than light mechs as most people assume.

A cube is a better example, if a you have a cubic mech and you want it to be twice as tall then you can fit eight smaller cubes in the new bigger one.

Also is ironic that the term "Assault" by itself doesn't imply being bigger and in fact could be the opposite. An assault troop can lightly equipped for allowing high mobility and relatively high firepower (but no near maximum) in a short timespan. So it's not but it could have being a term referred to any mech with JJs, short range weapons with the purpose of burst attacking.

[ScanMan P13]

IMO the tonnage of battlemechs just seems odd. I work with heavy equipment and a 20 ton machine really isnt that big. The image of absolute collosal war machines is kind of absurd especiialy when they cap out at a mere 100 tons. A super dense object like a battlemech full of weapons, ammo, and armor would maybe be 3 floors tall. A 25T commando might not even be as tall as a utility pole.

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by ScanMan P13:

IMO the tonnage of battlemechs just seems odd. I work with heavy equipment and a 20 ton machine really isnt that big. The image of absolute collosal war machines is kind of absurd especiialy when they cap out at a mere 100 tons. A super dense object like a battlemech full of weapons, ammo, and armor would maybe be 3 floors tall. A 25T commando might not even be as tall as a utility pole.

ok when you think a Maus tank from WWII weighed in at 180 tons it was 33 ft 6 in long 12 ft 2 in wide and 11 ft 11 in tall so 33ft tall 12 wide 6 feet deep would be a 90 ton mech with the same materials and density.

[wesnef]

Well, they just made it up for a game originally. 20-100, in 5-ton increments, was likely picked just for simplicities' sake. So, no, it's not "realistic".

(And, as mentioned, the mechs in this game are oversized - in the boardgame, trees and large buildings are taller than mechs - mechs are 2 "height units" tall, so a one story building or a low hill blocks off LOS to the legs, and a tall hill or two story building blocks it entirely. But, again, that's trying to fit everything neatly into a boardgame with hexes and uniform heights.)

Personally, I think the assault mechs look quite massive enough. They're larger & bulkier than the heavies, and much larger than lights & meds. So I don't really get the "why are they so small" question.

But maybe this is because I've been fiddling around with the boardgame miniatures since the late 80's, so the size everything is, is familiar to me. /shrug

edit: looking at various Battletech forums, it seems that mechs have been listed between 9-15m tall at various points. Meanwhile, in the boardgame, all mechs are "two levels high" and each level on the game map is 6m. So the generic "mech" is assumed to be ~12m tall.

[Werecat101]

A lot of the mis information about size of mechs is due to them being originally designed for anime and things like a Glaug has a 50 foot tall alien sat in the body you would know it as a Marauder(unseen), most of the other Zentradi based mecha were suits or 50 foot tall mechs. so when picture were ripped from the various series and copied into the Battletech materials the scale was always off. I was involved with Fan subbing various anime back in the early 1990's.

[desrtfox071]

Originally posted by danko9696:

Originally posted by desrtfox071:

Well, I agree the mech sizes are odd, but just to throw some math out here...

Let's assume mechs are spheres - because spheres are easy.

Mass of a mech is proportional to the volume of a mech. Volume goes up proportionally with the radius cubed. Thus, when comparing a 10 ton mech to a 100 ton mech, we can easily calculate that spherical 100 ton mechs should be approximately 2 times larger than 10 ton mechs. So a typical assault mech should be on the order of twice as tall as a light mech.

Obviously mechs aren't really spherical, and they probably aren't all the same density, but this exercise was just to point out that assault mechs probably shouldn't be as much larger than light mechs as most people assume.

A cube is a better example, if a you have a cubic mech and you want it to be twice as tall then you can fit eight smaller cubes in the new bigger one.

Also is ironic that the term "Assault" by itself doesn't imply being bigger and in fact could be the opposite. An assault troop can lightly equipped for allowing high mobility and relatively high firepower (but no near maximum) in a short timespan. So it's not but it could have being a term referred to any mech with JJs, short range weapons with the purpose of burst attacking.

Well, I contend that 2 cubed is 8. hehe. 2.15 cubed is ~10. Hence, you have said the exact same thing as me, and used the exact same scaling, i.e mass increases as the cube of radius.

Also, in Battletech lore, "Assault Mech" has a specific meaning. it means a mech that is 80 to 100 tons.

Originally posted by ScanMan P13:

IMO the tonnage of battlemechs just seems odd. I work with heavy equipment and a 20 ton machine really isnt that big. The image of absolute collosal war machines is kind of absurd especiialy when they cap out at a mere 100 tons. A super dense object like a battlemech full of weapons, ammo, and armor would maybe be 3 floors tall. A 25T commando might not even be as tall as a utility pole.

This is certainly true. One of the oddities of mech size, to me at least, is that they are all much too large for what they are, and their mass.

[Lack of Stuff]

Being bigger would mean more things could hit you from further away no? Better to be of a similar size but with more armor and guns I think.

[danko9696]

Originally posted by ScanMan P13:

Well, I contend that 2 cubed is 8. hehe. 2.15 cubed is ~10. Hence, you have said the exact same thing as me, and used the exact same scaling, i.e mass increases as the cube of radius.

Sure, with a sphere the volume increases the same way, just though of a cube because you can physically fit eight cubes of length 1 inside one cube of lenght 2, not the case of an sphere albeit the increased volume is the same, and with cubes you can actually test it in minecraft or lego with zero math knowledge XD.

Originally posted by ScanMan P13:

Also, in Battletech lore, "Assault Mech" has a specific meaning. it means a mech that is 80 to 100 tons.

I agree, but that point was for the OP. If you're going assume a different meaning than that, why that has to be a colossal mech when as he imagined it would be more like a siegue mech?. Being an assault, and without BT lore, I'd think of a kind of setup and not a particular category of weight. A giant mech I don't think would be very good for an assault, very slow and loses the advantages of a supposedly very mobile mech over giant regular tanks, which by the way there were preliminary plans for 1000t tanks in the 2ºWW.

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Being bigger would mean more things could hit you from further away no? Better to be of a similar size but with more armor and guns I think.

Yeah, but on one side you could pack much more armor and on other side you'd likely have a much much greater weapon range with more tonnage to spare, although it would be more vulnerable against very heavy fixed artillery. Then would be the problem of cooling all of that, because it depends on the area exposed, not the volume.

[Twelvefield]

If the mechs aren't that big, say 10-12 meters tall, then the tanks are tiny. So are the buildings.

[Wantoomany]

Originally posted by Twelvefield:

If the mechs aren't that big, say 10-12 meters tall, then the tanks are tiny. So are the buildings.

Yes, it has been said many times the scale of the mechs is off, intentionally. You can actually go into the game files and see that there is a setting for it, and its been defaulted at double.

The assumption is that it was done this way to make the mechs stand out more from other ground clutter.

[cyäegha]

the scale is supposedly a little more consistent in lore than its representation in MWO and HBS' btech; MWO is especially off, one noteworthy example being the size of the AS7's cockpit view

for instance, illustrations of the piranha - and taking in how claustrophobic it is in MWO - carry the impression it isn't really that much larger than a lamppost

the fatlas isn't supposed to be much taller than an MBT would be if you stood it on its nose